Tomorrow morning I get to wake up at around 5:30 to get ready for the car that will take us to DFW. Our flight to Puerto Rico is a little before 8:00, and it’s somewhere around a 4 or 5 hour flight to get there (not sure on the time zone change, but I think they’re Eastern). We then get to hang around there for a while (read: stand in long line) until we get to board the ship and then depart at 10:00 that night.
I’ve been trying to make sure that I have all my electrical devices and corresponding chargers that I’ll want/need for the trip since I don’t want to pull an Andrew — that would be quite bad. I have enough books and games to definitely keep me occupied 24/7, but the problem is that I’ll likely get bored of them before their potential is used up. I’ll do my best to post pictures here as well as give updates, but I’m really not sure how the internet connection on the ship is going to be. If for some reason I don’t post anything here, I’ll be back the evening of the 3rd, so look for a post then or sometime on the 4th.
Uncategorized
Had the second day of orientation today, and while it wasn’t nearly as boring as yesterday was, I was up there about 2 hours longer than I expected to be. This was mainly due to the fact that registering for my classes took much longer than necessary since I had to first find out how I was going to get all the hours I need into a schedule without any overlapping and then had to go talk to two different advisors in order to get registered for all of the chosen classes. This evening I noticed something on my schedule printout which surprised me since I would have thought one of the two advisors would have caught it. The issue is that my “Problem” class for Calculus doesn’t correspond to the correct section ID for the Calculus class I’m enrolled in. It should be an easy swap (the Problem will stay at the same time, just a matter of changing into a different section), but the fact that there’s a message out to the side instead of saying “Enrolled” like on all the others does have me slightly concerned about the review process of the advisors. That said, I have many more things to rant about regarding what happened today, so the short version is that I’m slightly angry at UTD right now. I know everything will eventually work out, but I really wish that Highland Park had their own college…
I also finished up my first DS game early this morning, Feel the Magic: XY/XX. Tomorrow is when I’ll let everything get charged and pack my bags because we have to get up relatively early Sunday morning to catch out flight out of DFW.
Completed Games:
- Halo 2 (XBX) – 5/29
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GCN) – 5/31
- Psychonauts (XBX) (Start: 5/29) – 6/5
- Brute Force (XBX) – 6/12
- God of War (PS2) – 6/17
- Feel the Magic: XY/XX (DS) – 6/25
Games in Progress:
- Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
Games Abandoned:
- Advent Rising (XBX) (Start: 6/17)
Uncategorized
Well, I was semi-right. Today was most definitely boring, but is wasn’t the kind where I wanted to hurt someone (except for when I had my pounding headache at the end of the day and wanted to leave). What I took away from UTD today was about 25% new information (the other 75% was stuff I has proactively read or learned from my visit last year) and a whole lot of free stuff and flyers/packets in a bag. Now I actually need to read through all that and see what is applicable.
Tomorrow I should only have to be up there around 3-4 hours (from about 9-12). I get my NetID (school login) and PEA (email address) at 9:15 and then meet with my advisor during the 10:15 session. Unfortunately we can’t register online, so when all my AP grades come in from this past year, I might have to call them or go back up there to change around my classes. And yes, if that happens this will be the fifth year in a row I will have gotten a schedule change. Some things never change…
Uncategorized
Tomorrow is my first day of orientation, and I only hope that I woun’t be too bored out of my mind. All that’s happening is we get talked to a whole bunch, get to eat lunch, and then get talked to even more. Sam gave me some “pointers” on what to do tomorrow — anyone willing to bet if I’ll actually do any of them?? :)
Andrew got me into playing WoW again, but with our cruise and CPL both in the next 2 weeks, that cuts out a bunch of potential playing time for the billing cycle. It’s nice to be playing it again though, and I might start alternating months between it and FFXI just to stay involved with both games.
I also decided to quit my first game this summer. Advent Rising just hasn’t been able to grab my attention enough and there’s enough things about the game that I don’t particularly like that it doesn’t make sense to spend my time playing a game I don’t enjoy when I have so many games that I actually want to play.
Completed Games:
- Halo 2 (XBX) – 5/29
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GCN) – 5/31
- Psychonauts (XBX) (Start: 5/29) – 6/5
- Brute Force (XBX) – 6/12
- God of War (PS2) – 6/17
Games in Progress:
- Feel the Magic: XY/XX (DS)
- Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
Games Abandoned:
- Advent Rising (XBX) (Start: 6/17)
Uncategorized
I got my new camera yesterday (Canon Powershot SD200), but I’m waiting for my 1 GB card to arrive (ordered it online since it was $30 cheaper than in the store) before I really start to use it. It comes with a 16 MB card, but what’s the fun in only being able to have 10 pictures before it gets filled up?
My mom and I also got my dad a silver Zen Micro for Father’s Day since he had mentioned wanting an MP3 player. The better part of tonight I spent teaching him how to use it and showing him how to download songs (legally, of course). I’m perfectly happy with my iPod, but I figured for him having access to a much broader range of music that “just works” would be better.
Uncategorized
My list of games completed has reached the incredible number of 5 today with God of War being added to the list. This is one of the few games that I would happily go back and play through again, but for obvious reasons I won’t be any time in the near future. Instead of working on some of the other unfinished games I mentioned in a previous post, I went ahead and started Advent Rising today. So far I’m not really impressed by the game, but I’ll give it some more time before I pass final judgement on it.
Completed Games:
- Halo 2 (XBX) – 5/29
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GCN) – 5/31
- Psychonauts (XBX) (Start: 5/29) – 6/5
- Brute Force (XBX) – 6/12
- God of War (PS2) – 6/17
Games in Progress:
- Advent Rising (XBX) (Start: 6/17)
- Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
Uncategorized
That was the phrase I used to describe the way my new computer that I assembled yesterday was acting. I tried to cheat my just using an old HD with a bootable copy of XP on it instead of reformatting — that was a bad idea…. All is better now as I have a working copy of XP and now just have to install a whole bunch of security updates and get software to help protect my new system.
UTD orientation is a week from today, and that means I’ll get my Facebook account then! No clue why I’m this excited about finally being able to get one other than the fact that I’m the last person out of my close friends who doesn’t have it. Link will be in my AIM profile if you want to add me (if you’re lucky enough to be on my buddy list); otherwise just search for me and I should come up.
Uncategorized
I went to go see The Producers tonight at Fair Park as a part of DSM. Not one that’s going to make my top 10 list, but it was still entertaining (and quite…crude?). We’re going to exchange our tickets for our next musical to this next week (since we’ll be on our cruise the current date we have tickets for), but my parents aren’t sure if we’ll end up going or not. It’s the musical with all the Disney songs, so even though I think it will be entertaining, it’s probably the one I’d be most willing to miss.
Two pieces of my computer order arrived today (the case and monitor) but are still in their boxes since all the parts won’t get here until tomorrow. Great part about still having my teeth is that I can assemble it and spend the next week getting it set up for CPL (updating all the security stuff, getting games installed and trying to get CD images to work, etc.).
Uncategorized
Well, I still have all my teeth. The power decided to go out today right around the time I was scheduled to have my appointment, so it’s now been postponed until the day after CPL is finished. My schedule should be slightly less full then, and it will probably work out better to have it then anyway since my mom will be home all day instead of being off at work.
Now I’m off to go play some God of War — at least, that’s my plan. Who knows how many ways I could get sidetracked between my computer and my bedroom…
Uncategorized
Tomorrow is the day of truth for me, so I won’t be making any more posts until I feel good enough to be able to sit at my computer for extended periods of time. This could be as early as sometime in the middle of this week, or it could be next weekend. I finished up the last level of Brute Force today, but because I don’t really know how long it will be until I can play games again, I’m going to hold off on starting Advent Rising for a while. That leaves me with God of War to finish up on PS2. But the fun of unfinished games doesn’t stop there. I still have Blinx, Kindgom Hearts, and Metroid Prime all in progress which I’d like to finish up before our cruise. For now, though, I’ll put all my efforts into a single game to hopefully finish it up as fast as possible.
Completed Games:
- Halo 2 (XBX) – 5/29
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (GCN) – 5/31
- Psychonauts (XBX) (Start: 5/29) – 6/5
- Brute Force (XBX) – 6/12
Games in Progress:
- God of War (PS2)
- Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
Uncategorized