Things to Do Before I Graduate

• Go to a new restaurant at least every month
• Mexican place on the big circle
• Brick Oven pizza place near the Winchester circle
• the vegetarian cafe on Roxbury St
• Suggestions (remembering I'm a vegetarian)?
• See a show at the colonial
• Go to a bar or two
• Attend another event at the starving artist
• See another movie at the Putnam
• Go to more parties with "the family"
• Hang out with certain fabulous dudes and dudettes
• Climb Mount Monadnock again
• Take a walk in the park as far as it'll take me
• Go to the movies with someone I haven't in a while/ever
• Visit Nick Grillo
• Celebrate fun holidays

Leaving the Apple World

4 December, I spent my final working hours at Diversified Computers. I worked as an educator, temp web developer, and occasional salesman at the Apple specialist for nearly 3 years.

It was an exciting and interesting experience that led to my involvement with a diverse range of older people. It was always a trying time getting Apple OS 9 users to understand how modern computers work, and fun to help someone learn how to turn their photos into Christmas cards and calendars. One gentleman, who was always concerned with his website and myriad of passwords, always said Cyberduck in the most amusing old man way.

I've moved away from iPhone development in preference of the Android platform, and hopefully someday, the Meego platform. Clearly more fun and more accessible, the tools being available on the big 3 OS's, rather than one.

I've also been dual booting on my macbook again to make development in several of my college courses easier. Honestly, I keep OSX around for testing my Qt apps' portability to OSX.

Not having the Mac Orientation class to teach anymore, I can focus on both studies and my Kubuntu book. Also, I have a feeling my next laptop is likely to be something I get with my Linux Foundation membership discounts to Dell, HP, etc. or System76.

Farewell Apple World, there were plenty of technical and software-human interaction ideas you taught me. Have fun turning your PCs into iPads.

Living the High Life

So, I bought a nook. That's right. Not a Kindle. :D

It looks a bit like the Hitchhiker's Guide, to me. I've been reading a lot of books since I got it. I've been reading Hitchhiker's Guide 5 & 6, a book about lucid dreaming, lots of manga, and Flatland. Also, I've picked up some dead tree books too! I think the nook is a nice kicker to rekindle my love of books.  Felix got me a really neat looking book in french called, "Tout Ubu". I'm curious to see how well I'm going to read that. That was awesome of Felix to think of. I need to practice my français.

Speaking of which, my birthday party was fantastic. Good friends over, including hoffa, good food, and funny youtube videos. As it should be. Many of the videos we watched were music videos of new music, like Chromeo's "Night by Night". The cookout was good. We had burgers. chips with dip, pretzels with hummus, tricolour pasta salad, and I made cole slaw. We finished off with Evangelion 2.22, which is a lot longer than I remember, but probably because of all the interruptions, and leavings :( . I got a whole set of Sonic the Hedgehog plushies from Lena. Aw, that girl knows what I like. I also got a bunch of neat books. Very awesome birthday.

We got a lot of sun on Saturday. The beach was warm, the water was cold, and I had a new bathing suit. It was actually a suit I'd seen earlier, that Lena thoughtfully surprised me with. An early birthday present. I noticed a lot of francophones walkin' around. There were also a few shops with signs saying "Nous parlons français". I like hearing french spoken in NH.


Work has been really good. Learning a lot about Java, software engineering with a team, CVS, GUI work, and such. This has been the best thing I could have ever done for my career as a programmer.

Life is Good

I'm actually really happy about how life is going right now.

Everything from my school work to my relations with friends and people... it's all so very challenging, but rewarding.

I've got friends aplenty, I've partied it up, I'm working on my relationships, I'm learning many new programming languages, I've got my project program to finish, I'm making sure that my internship goes through, I'm trying to get clients at work.

I am a very busy man, but this is really starting to be the life I've pictured I always wanted, and I love it.

Cities of the Future

Here we are. The obligatory concert blog.

Simon first introduced me to Infected Mushroom on a mix CD that a lot of people got from Simon with Mr. Bungle and Infected on it. A few people remember this specific CD, like the CDs that Nick distributed of our videos.

Simon has been a fan of Infected Mushroom since he was 12. About as long as I've been into Daft Punk. So, needless to say, this trip had some childhood dreams going into it for him. He'd also never been to NYC.

I've been a huge fan of Infected Mushroom, more and more. During my time as a film major, I used their music (mostly the earlier non-vocal stuff) in my videos. BTW, this was my first concert. What an experience to set the standard.

We took the china town bus from Boston to New York City. This was a four hour ordeal. Nice bus for so cheap. China town was fun. We walked our way up Broadway and such streets until we reached times square. It is quite breathtaking to see times square at night. Simon didn't grasp why I wanted to see it so badly until we got there. I wasn't going to miss out on times square my second trip to NYC. I picked up a nice flat cap from one of the street vendors and we had a gyro. Good eats.

***

It's kind of ironic, gyro. The show was the release party for their album, The Legend of the Black Shawarma. a shawarma is a middle eastern dish kind of similar to a gyro.

We got to the club, and the line was already forming. There were so many nice people in black or dressed candy. We met and talked with a nice couple from Connecticut. A lot of these lucky people had seen them before.

I sprung for the VIP tickets, because if you can only do something this awesome once, you better do it right the first time. The VIP area was a second floor surrounding the pit.

For the first two and a half hours there were DJs playing awesome trance and other club tunes. Very cool, but I was getting antsy for the main event.

I noticed something Jonathan Davis was playing some DJ sets. He broke out his Macbook Pro to load up songs from. The best damn thing Apple ever did was make their laptop logo light up.

And then they came.

***

First was Rogério Jardim, the drummer. Then Tom Cunningham came out with his guitar. Erez Eizen then set up the keyboard stuff and everyone screamed. No sign of Duvdev (Amit Duvdevani).

They opened with Converting Vegetarians, an awesome song. Just when the vocals hit, Duvdev came out in a big shark costume. What a nut. The crowd was amazing. He went into I Wish from there.

It was at this point that I noticed how privileged I was to hear these classic psytrance songs redone in Infected's new psyrock style.

From there every other song was one from the new album. They did feel new, as the crowd hadn't yet memorized the lyrics. The one new song that caught my attention was Can't Stop. Cities of the Future was crazy, but bar none could compare to the energy when Becoming Insane led the vibrations in the club. It is definitely the most popular track. Special Place took me completely by surprise. I'd completely forgotten the whole "Bring it up, bring it up, don't take me doooooown" bit of that song.

The show was so fun. Duvdev up on stage fed completely off of the crowd's energy and we definitely gave him plenty to feed off of. He would hop around the stage, moving the microphone closer to Erez's keyboard, head butting the drums, and waving a drumstick like commanding the crowd as a conductor. At one point he even stummed Tom's guitar with his mic. The Shark costume made a comeback at one point.

What was amazing was that after the farewells, the crowd called for "one more song". They gave it to us, but then we asked for another. Y'know what? They gave us the second encore we wanted! They finished with Bust-A-Move.

The show was just more incredible than I ever expected it to be.

***

It was 1:45 am when they left. We grabbed our VIP signed posters and left the club. We had to stay awake until the 6:30 am bus.

Our first destination was food. We knew we needed to eat fourth meal to stay awake. There was a diner we'd grabbed the address of beforehand. Not bad. Eggs and toast were about the only thing I could stomach at that point.

Simon and I couldn't leave NYC without a visit to the Apple Store. It was 24h's we were up at 3am. Why not?

It was cool, just like any other Apple store, but bigger. The real special thing was the staircase and glass elevator that it surrounded. That was neat. You've no doubt seen photos, to the street, the store is just a glass cube with a levitating illuminated apple symbol. You go down the stairs to get to the real store.

At that point we made our way to a 42nd and were nearing dead and frozen. After a little squabble about subway v.s. taxi, we took a cab back to the Fung Wah bus station.

6:30 took forever to roll around, but we were pretty much set. Anything else that happened from there was padded with black holes from falling asleep. I didn't get back to Keene until about 11pm (we slept at Simon's a bit).

***

All in all, completely amazing trip. NYC and Infected Mushroom. Live. In person. Wow. I'm still in shock. So is my body. Man am I sore from all the nonstop walking, then dancing, then walking. :D

August

An update…
I turned 21. The party was amazing. I had lot's of fun. Thanks to all that went. Thanks especially to Felix who got wicked dressed up with me. Totally badass top hat. We had a good pool party with a boston creme pie that Noah made. Fantastic cook, he is.

***

My internship this summer at Elbit Systems of America went very well. I had so much fun learning and working with such nice people. I learned a lot about the nitty gritty bits of Windows ( XP, it is a business ) and what I.T. actually does. I'll probably upload my presentation.
I noticed that there are a lot of people in the medical devision of Elbit who are starting to require Kubuntu Linux on their computers so they can develop (in Qt) for customers and such. I find this absolutely enthralling that something I’m interested in is actually being used in the corporate world (or at least the medical world).

I walked in the Cigna 5K with the group from Elbit. It was really fun. I think I’ll run next year. It’s just a simple race north down Elm, over to Canal, then south back to Victory Park. Really a good way to start off the 3 day weekend. (9 hour days = every other Friday off)

***

School is so close. I am so damn excited for this year to begin. I've got a great on-campus apartement, the kitchen is going to be wonderful. I've got some of my books already (thank goodness for the programming book. One book, three classes), and I'm going to get to see a lot more of my friends again. I miss chillin out with my anime club buddies. One more of my friends is joining me over at keene this year, and I'm very excited for it, Nicholas Pascoal. I also kinda miss working at Diversified Computers, so I'm very glad I'll be getting back to work there. Oh, and the nicest part of going back to school? I get to spend more time with Lena.

I bought a bunch more of the sipping chocolate I got at that kitchen place in the Mall of NH. It’s very wonderful. A bit of hot milk, and a bunch of the mix, et violà. It’s so delicious. This is what I’m going to be drinking on cold winter/fall nights.

I can’t wait to go rollerblading with Evan, who is my anime club/ PSP gaming / .hack role-playing buddy. He picked up a pair this summer, which is totally sick. I’ve been practicing by rollerblading from my house to Elm St. Going around Derryfeild park has really helped me learn to control my speed.

***

Lots of computer-y stuff going on this fall. Apple's OSX "Snow Leopard" is coming out. With means for $30 my computer will be twice as fast and I'll get 6 GB of my hard drive back from the OS. Windows 7 is going to bore me, like every windows release. Windows gets more complicated everytime I look at it. I'm glad I quit Microsoft. Kubuntu 9.10 is going to rock my socks halfway to the freakin' moon. Kubuntu 9.10, like snow leopard, is going to fix a huge number of quirks, bugs, and just add overall polish.
I was taken aback the other day, because for the first time in my life, I realized that my Kubuntu Linux computer just worked. Not just that it ran, but that video playback was smooth, with the 3D effects not jittering, all the devices I own work flawlessly, and i haven't had to disable anything to do anything else. I'm quite ambivalent about this. On one hand, I can really advertise linux to anyone who isn't locked into windows for a good reason. On the other, what am I to do with my time? There's nothing broken to fix. I guess I'll have to pick up the C++ and Qt books and start making programs.

Life is Exciting

As usual, it's been a long time since I last blogged. What's up with me? Well, my summer is totally awesome. It could be better, but that'd require I get the car fixed.

The 525i BMW is coming along steadily. If it would stop raining long enough for me to feel like working on the thing, it'd be done. The o2 sensor didn't seem to come off for my dad, but i'd like to spend a day doing it myself. I hate watching other people do work, and like even less having my father watch me do something. I don't know why, I just don't experiment or test things. If I'm by myself I try things out and learn more than watching.

Lena is wonderful. She's trying again to give up biting her nails. Her nails look so pretty all done up, I'm not used to it. We never seem to get very sick of each other. The summer gives us more than enough space, I could stand seeing her a little more often. In any case, I'm sure I could spend the rest of my life with her.

My birthday is nearing. 21. Woot, I can drink without anyone getting all weird on me! I'm not into getting drunk or partying, but a little drink now and then will be nice. I already re-upped on my driver's license. I needed a new card. I can't wait. I'm gonna have a little steampunk themed birthday soiree. Probably get some pizza, go in the pool, and watch steamboy. I've got a playlist all ready for it.

I've been listening to a lot of my Chromeo, Michael Jackson, and clubbing music compilatons. Bouncy summer music. Oh, and I liked MJ before he died. I'm not a wannabe fan. On the top of the list of music I've been into is the Air Gear anime soundtrack.

I've gotten re-obcessed with Air Gear. Kinda like how I got back into .hack, only better. I picked up the DVD set of the anime, mostly so I could have the english dub and the japanese sub. The english translation is really good, it's such a funny show with such good music. I rollerbladed over to barnes and noble's from my house yesterday. 4 1/2 miles each way.

I now know what second wind is like.

I picked up 4 of the Air Gear manga. Evan turned me to the manga via online scans. The story apparently is still going, and in japan is twice as long as where the anime stops. It is so much cooler, in depth, and the story is more beleivable. In general, the books are, again, better than the show, as with all things. I'm hooked.

Life is good. It's good to be working; playing; loving. Good to be alive.

The Future

Spring has taunted us.
March does this to us every year.
We are always surprised by it to.

We'll have 60 degree weather, birds singing, sky blue, for a whole week. The following week brings a cold front and snow. It is so annoying. It's like candy corn near Halloween: You think "ooooo I love these things!" and the instant you eat one you're disgusted by that horrible amnesia you had. Those things are gross.

It's bound to warm up sometime though. I've had a feeling all along that this winter is not going to extend into April. It's gonna be shorter this year. (Not just because of climate change)

I've been thinking about what I'm gonna wear and do this summer (New England spring is too short lived to considered a real season).

First thing is first, Emma is getting a new computer downstairs. No ifs ands or buts about it. Once Kubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) is released, I'm loading it on the computer I picked up, and I'm bringing it home. She needs something to replace her hunk of junk.

Wheels. Unfortunately, not a car. I wont have the money for a vehicle for a while. The moment I get money I'll have to spend it on a housing deposit and school books. BUT! I'll get to break out my rollerblades. This is one wonderful thing I look forward to each year. I'm thinking of trying out something new this year too.


Action skates! This sounds dumber than it is.
I really wanna try it. If they work well, they'll be a small, optional, and detachable solution to rushing off to class or getting around quickly.

I'd only need one pair of footwear instead of two. That means less carrying shoes in a bag.

I should be picking up a new pair of brown converse sometime before the snow melts (unless I can find my beat up ones).

I'm gonna get a new hat and a pocket watch too.

I've gotta work work work to get money in my bank account AND have fun this summer. Oh boy do I need to work work work.

Weekend of awesome, Trilogy

So nearing the end of the week, I got my computer back up and running, installed kde 4.1 rc1. Whoa-boy, amazing. Neat stuff, seriously, I love the new login theme.

Anywho, on Saturday, I went to my first (and apparently the 3rd ever) ubuntu loco meeting. There seemed to be some issue with the disablement of mailing lists and use of IRC instead as a main means of communication. Well, duh, mailing lists are highly useful and IRC is something you need to be invited to at a certain time. Still, very cool people. Brian and I went and met Ark, Nikki, and Matt (not matt craig). Matt Craig seems interested in my promotion in Keene, that should be fun. I need to get that LUG started.

Sunday, I got to spend time with Lena. It's so wonderful when I get to see her. Next year, we are definetly getting an apartment in Keene. I could continue working at Diversified Computers in the summer, and we could be together all the time. We practically live with each other at school anyways, It would just mean having a bed bigger that twin to sleep in.

We saw The Dark Knight. Wow. One of the best written pieces of cinema I've seen in ages. Extremely well done. None of the usual superhero movie mistakes that Spiderman films exemplify. R.I.P. Heath Ledger, the Joker was one of the best bits of acting I've seen in my life. Worth the hype.

My brother, Noah's, reaction to the film confused me, though. I seem to understand it now. He said it was okay, but not worth the hype. He is a huge martial arts/fighting enthousiast. Now it makes sense. The fight scenes were typical modern hollywood fights. They realize the fighting sucks, so they mask it with blurry, moving, quick cuts. You never actually see the fighting with all the editing and shadow everywhere. Fight-wise, the movie did suck.

However, I focus on how much sense the story made sense and how beleivable the actors were. I write and act primarily. The story was DAMN beleivable, and that's what made the scary parts propperly scary. No one is a God, and no one is simply a plot-cog.

You might assume the "Trilogy" part of the title refers to batman. Actually, no. It refers to the weekends. This weekend rocked, next weekend is work and Lena's father's barbeque party.

We should all know what the 3rd of August is. I turn 20. I'm inviting my buds over for food, film, and fun.

Life is good, I just need to get another summer job, and financial aid.

New Video, Stuff, Lena

To Have Or Have Not


So, Wow. I finally got around to editing that sucker. It's much nicer with tunes to back it up.

Lots of stuff came in. My VGA switcher box came in. I need some VGA cables now. I'll Probably go to ESS (Electronics Surplus Store) tomorrow morning. My Converse Chucks came in. So happy about that, and on top of all that, my ipod battery came in. It's like christmas in June!

Yesterday I spent the day with Lena. It was such a nice day out. That girl is wonderful. She's so smart, and easy to talk to, and I can really be myself when we're together instead of loosing myself to an "us" like I did with a lot of past relationships. I happens when you're obsessive. She looked so gorgeous when we were walking in the woods after a swim in the lake, the light shimmering in her hair. *Melt* I love that girl. She cooked me turkey burgers. She apologizes for dumping oregano in it by accident, but I think that made them even tastier. Wonderful.

Seriously folks, Life couldn't get much nicer. I feel awesome, I am awesome, my buds are awesome (Graham with a new girl, Simon with a new car to play with), my job is awesome (one is a computer store where I teach, and the other is a gas station that's really laid back), and my girlfriend is awesome!

Awesomeness. Total Awesomeness.

Portland Fun and Creative Boredom

I went to see Jeff Hoffman a couple weeks ago now. It was an amazing trip.
Simon picked me up around noon and we went back to his house. It was so good to blast Infected Mushroom in a car and be comfortable again. I'm still slightly uncomfortable with all of my friends here. It's probably because I don't have too many guy friends here and everyone is obsessed with whiny emo bands.
Anywho, so at his house we played some Halo 3 and listened to some music. Halo 3 is a very well made, theatrical game. I was impressed, good story and game play. So, we did that all night. In the morning, his mom made us eggs. I love eggs: real, honest-to-goodness eggs.
We took Mac (his little brother) over to his grandmothers. Mac walks now! He's an awesome little kid. When we finished that, his mom drove us up to Exeter to the Amtrak terminal.

We picked up our tickets at this machine in a small convenience store/diner. I love diners, theres something so cultural and human to them.
The train was neat. I'd never been on a train before. I enjoyed looking down the train seeing the cars sway... it looked like a camera/monitor loop.
Simon and I talked when we weren't listening to music. He made a neat point. The cities were built upon the train tracks. Now, we're all told this and understand it, but to visually pass all these towns and noticing how much more developed they are from the towns I've been to that aren't near the tracks. Thinking about stuff like that is cool.

We arrived at the station (yes a proper train station) and headed to find the bus. We did not know where we were going at all, just MECA (MainE College of Art). The bus pulled up in five minutes, and our train ticket stubs let us ride free, VERY APPRECIATED. He told us about the bridge that stands in place of a bridge called the "million dollar bridge" due to it's maintenance costs. He showed us things and places. We thanked him as we left.
Simon and I walked the streets for a few minutes, when he decided to call Jeff. It was one of those times when you call to find out where someone is, only to find them right in front of you. Big awesome man-hugs.

Jeff looked like he was doing really well for himself. We ate and conversed before he took us to his room. We swapped lots of music, played some Soul Caliber, went to the bathroom. We took a lot of silly photobooth pictures on Jeff's Macbook. Theres just something so silly about making pompadours.

Portland has so much beautiful graffiti. In the elevator of his dorm there was a little face that would peek out of the sliding door when it closed inside. There was one building whose entire face was covered with urban art. There were red buildings on a black sky, an explosion, V for Vendetta inspired Guy Fawkes masks and lots of words (which i didnt take the time to try and read). Too bad I don't have better pictures.

Jeff showed us around town. I gave us some groovy walking music with the huge headphones Simon made for me. Jeff missed my music taste I'm sure. We went to art galleries, coffee shops, record stores, even this amazing vintage clothing store.
There were so many neat hats there, but sadly they were all too small for my head. Hoffa picked up this great corduroy jacket that fit him perfectly. I saw a brown leather jacket that looked a million dollars on me, but it was too short. The sleeves were tight. Too bad, I thought it looked amazing, but you don't spend money on something that doesn't fit.
We ate twice during the trip at this place called Portland Pie Co. It was really good pizza, quality pie. We had pepperoni with 3 cheese, sweet barbeque chicked with bacon, and Spicy buffalo chicken (not all at once). I will never forget such food. *chuckle*
I got to wish Emma a happy birthday. She seemed ecstatic.
Heading home, I took us down to catch the 7:10 bus because I knew we'd miss it. Waiting for the 7:30 bus, we got a little worried, and my keen eye spotted a cab with the cab phone number on the side. We were calling for the taxi, just as the bus pulled up. We made it to Exeter safe and sound. Simon's uncle drove us back to Simon's and it was way too late to drive me home so we hit the hay.
In the morning, I went home to see my little sister. My dad offered to drive me back to school, which wasn't a bad idea seeing how tired Simon looked.

We basically just had a guy's weekend, which is something we had far and few between, but something we needed real badly.

***

So lately I've been really tired, in the morning I find it hard to get out of bed. My dreams are like comfy blankets. This is a real annoyance, because I like to get up early and get my day going.
Also, I've been getting that creative bug. I've been writing or feeling like I need to film/write and I haven't. That changes now.
I've decided to cut back on TV shows, Video Games, Music, and a couple other things. I need to think when I'm bored. I have to stop blotting out my thoughts with escapism. Sensory overload. Al these things aren't bad, but too much is too much. Especially my music. Its on when I'm at my computer, its on when I'm walking with my iPod, in class I get songs stuck in my head. Boredom is important. Up until high school, my most creative things were made when I was bored.
I feel very unaccomplished when it comes to making movies. I plan and plan and plan. I get the camera, I write and revise the script, but I hardly ever go and film it.

I made tons of Lego films. I am proud of what I could do back then, but it's a little painful to watch now, as with all childhood film clips.
I worked on things with Nick Pascoal. I am extremely proud of what I made with him. Such creativity, comedic improvisation, and vision. This man is a visionary genious that brings out the creative best in me.
I did one scene of Theta, and didn't have the script with me... so it's not so much mysterious as confusing.
I filmed a scene of Rose Colored Blue, but I haven't edited it yet, and I'm not sure how it will compare to what was in my head.
I did lots of silly things with Noah. those I am proud of.
I've made and edited countless school projects, I am very proud of that work.
Now is the time I need to go out and find my film. Something I can do now, with everyday events, and believable characters.

I need to relax. I need to stop being so melodramatic. I need to allow myself to be bored. Boredom is more valuable than I ever anticipated.