And I thought other semesters had been bad.

Apparantly every one of my classes decided that after Thanksgiving they would give either a test or make a major project due the week we got back. So right now I'm going nuts trying to finish everything, while studying for 2 lab practicals and a major test this Friday. Not to mention I also have to take my permit tests so that I can actually start my job soon.

So I'm going just a little bit crazy. Just a little.

After this Friday I'll thankfully get a breather before finals actually start. From there, it's home free.

Doesn't help either that my roommate got Left 4 Dead 2. AHH!!

...

Were you expecting something really dramatic? Sorry to disappoint, it's just a blog to update on whatever's actually going on here with me. So last week was my birthday, my 21st so you know what that meant. I ended up trying a few things but no full fledged party or anything. That will wait until maybe this weekend, money permitting. I've yet to officially celebrate my birthday, because I've been mostly busy.

Well, busy as in I went home this last weekend, and was treated to a nice present. My parents actually went with me to get me an iPhone (I'll tell you my reasons in a bit) to replace my BlackBerry Pearl that I've had for almost 2 years now. It's actually a surprise to know that I've had that phone that long, but honestly I've been wanting to upgrade for almost a year now. As for what brought me to an iPhone was the stupid data plan that now is mandatory to go on all the nicer AT&T phones. Any BlackBerry, Windows Mobile phone or essentially any smartphone now requires a 30 dollar per month internet data plan, which is bull in my opinion. Requiring to have it is an annoyance, but actually having it is remarkably nice. Together with all those apps and I just gave in to the whole iPhone thing, though I tried my hardest to convince myself to get something else. At 100 dollars, the 3G was just too good to pass up.

So besides that, there's only one more thing to report. Today I just got a job as a university bus driver. Or rather, the university is going to make me a bus driver all assuming I pass several tests and get my Class B license (or CDL). It's going to be an interesting process because you have to remember I drive a sub-compact car. But yeah, probably within a month I'll be able to drive a bus.

Reason I got this job is because I'm running out of money. At the rate I'm going now, I won't have enough money to pay for January's rent and car payment. With this job, I'll probably just barely have enough. I blame this on my usual spending spree at the beginning of the semester. I always have a bad habit of buying lots of things when I first get my money, thinking that I'll be fine at the end of the semester. Nope.

Next semester I'm not buying anything big until the end. By then I should probably be able to afford what I'm really putting my eye on now. A LCD TV and possible a PS3. I've relied on other people for HD gaming and movies for years now, it's about time to get my own set. Mwahaha!! But I've got a long time until I can afford it.

Promise me you'll tell me "NO!!" if I even mention getting an LCD TV before next April.

(It always feels silly announcing this but...)

Today's my birthday!! I turn 21 today so you know what that means

Actually not really, it's Wednesday, though for one day I'm willing to make an exception haha. But I do have a question for you guys who are over 21 or over drinking age in your country. What drinks would you recommend? Keep in mind that I'm a somewhat poor college student that's really only looking to try stuff right now, so suggest away!!

Oh and, you can't trick me by trying to get me wasted by chugging Everclear (or anything remotely as strong as that), so don't even try it.

So my Windows 7 copy came in the mail last week, actually last Thursday to my surprise. They really wasted no time in sending it which made it all the sweeter deal.

Anyways, so far I'm fairly satisfied with it. I don't really have any complaints on it, as most of the new UI changes have been for the better, and the hype surrounding it's better performance is warranted, in some respect though. I probably won't change any minds, but honestly it's a mostly painless transition from Vista to 7.

The whole Aero Snap feature is alright, it does make it slightly easier and little more intuitive to maximize windows and such and change their size, but it's really comes in as a "Oh okay, that's kinda cool" feature. Besides that, the biggest change I noticed at first was the task bar at the bottom, which gets rid of the all the text and the long rows and rows of open programs. They're all now integrated into what used to be the quick launch area.

Most of the changes in 7 seem to be related to window management, and tweaking it to be a little different and perhaps more "advanced." It's alright and all, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Besides that, my favorite new feature is the fact that you can set your desktop background to switch every so often. I love it, because it freshens up my desktop every so often, so that it's not so stagnant because of how lazy I am.

About performance, I've noticed maybe a 8% difference in memory usage, and I have 2 GB of RAM. 7 seems to run constantly at about 32% memory, while Vista stayed at around 40%. So it's not a HUGE difference, but it's something nonetheless. Even now with Firefox open, I'm at 38% so it seems it does run lighter, but I do say that overall I don't really notice a difference. I'm just going off what my memory/CPU monitor says.

Overall, I say I'm happy with Windows 7. I would honestly say, if you can get a good discount on it, get it. It'll be well worth it, I'm just not too sure I can justify paying the full 200+ dollar upgrade on it now. In that case, if I were you I'd just get a new computer with it pre-installed.

I just freaking LOVE college discounts.

I quite literally just got a Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade for...

Guess how much?

Not $219.99. Not even $30.00.

I just ordered it for 15 dollars through my university. Now that is a ****ing awesome deal!!

You can imagine how excited I am considering that the nationwide student discount left me out in the cold because I have Vista Ultimate, and the only options left for me included a dual boot or a clean install using 7 Home Premium. Now not only do I get Windows 7 Ultimate, but I also got it at a literal steal of a price.

So, whoever is reading this and goes to college, I order you to check if you can get it anywhere near this cheap. Even 30 dollars is not a bad deal. Check both on the nationwide Windows 7 student discount and through your university itself. I honestly can't believe I almost passed this up.

Now to wait for the disc to come in the mail. Yay!!

(Isn't it sad that I'm this happy over an OS upgrade? lol )

Yeah the title is right, years and years after the fact I've finally decided to join online gaming.

I kind of hesitated for the last couple of months getting Xbox live, but since my younger brother got an 360 Arcade for his birthday last month, I decided "What the hell" and winged it. I will have to recover my gamertag on my brother's 360 now once I don't have access to my roommate's 360 (which has been a godsend lol).

Anyways, here's my gamertag for those interested:

MTheEnd88

I realize now that I'm utterly cursed in the creative name department. But it works, at least it's not some l33t name or some god-awful, mispelled corruption of regular words. I've see way too many of those on Xbox live, and I just joined last night. >_>

But yeah, there we go. Time to make those 50 bucks count.

So yesterday I finally discovered that my roommate has had Gears of War 2 this entire time I've lived with him (which is now getting close to 2 months). Yeah I felt pretty sheepish knowing that there have been countless hours where I've been bored and without anything to do, and I could've been playing GoW2. Definitely is half my fault though for not scanning the games he had though.

So I started playing that yesterday, and today I decided to pick up Dead Space. Apparantly this game is ridiculously elusive right now because it just got a price drop to 20 dollars. However, 2 of my local GameStops were sold out, Best Buy was sold out, and the local Walmart was trying to sell it to me at 30 bucks. Aww hell no. So I went a little farther to another GameStop and they had no new copies. >_>

I asked the guy at the desk if they had any new copies, only to be told "They stopped making this game." O_o I probably gave him a weird look without meaning to (I mean what he said made no sense), but either way I just decided to get the used copy they had. So I've been playing it ever since... and it's awesome.

Definitely a good reward because I've been really busy lately with my midterm exams. I had 4 in the last 6 school days, which is no fun. Now I've got some extra time, time that I'm going to spend wisely. *jumps back to roommate's 360 for some more Dead Space and eventually some GoW2*

Aggravation is me. So for the past few days I've had no internet at my apartment for no explainable reason. So of course, the first thing I do is march down to my apartment office and figure out why. They simply say "call the internet company, we can't really do anything about it, sorry." So that's what I do.

1 hour later I'm still on the phone with some pseudo-machine customer service representative (I say pseudo machine because they talk like an answering machine yet have a thick undertone accent...) that cannot seem to comprehend that the problem is NOT with my computer. Good lord, I mean it's out in my entire apartment, hell my apartment office even alluded to the fact that many apartment buildings were having problems.

But no... customer service refused to send someone to my apartment to do something until I switched out my ethernet cable. Anyone with half a brain would realize that it's a problem either on the internet company's end or a hardware problem outside of the apartment. Problem is, I don't have another cable, so I lied. Yes I lied so they would get off their butts and do something.

That was 2 days ago. I'm still without internet.

It's the weekend. The cover-all excuse for not fixing ****.

So I'm currently hopping between Wi-Fi hotspots around my town so I'm not "that guy who sits there all day." Oh well. Needless to say I probably won't be around much until they fix it - should hopefully only be a few days. I'm already getting tired of driving places just to check on the bare essentials (school email and such).

But yeah, if I didn't say it enough, my internet provider sucks. It shall remain unnamed for the time being (because as soon as it's fixed I won't care how bad they were in fixing it, just as long as its finally fixed )

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_topics.php?board_id=909187272

The All Time Greatest Hero forum.

Apparantly some voter fraud was discovered in the Bub and Bob vs Samus match up and the admins are recounting. Meanwhile, it's just pure chaos in there... I've been watching the forum for the past half hour...

Good lord. Makes me lose faith in humanity just seeing so many users having a tantrum over numbers that don't really actually mean anything. It's a contest for god's sake, and these people are acting like they're getting their entire lives ****ed over.

Right now virtually all the topics on the first page are locked, and there have been some really nasty ones that I've seen (which thankfully are being handled quite quickly, by whoever's watching the forum, which btw, hat's off to you for being a trooper). It's really quite sad.

Truth is, the numbers aren't even final until an admin says they are. These people are freaking out just because in the process of recounting that the numbers change. Of course numbers are going to change in a recount. -_-

Chances are it'll be sorted out by the time you read this and go to the forum, but right now I wouldn't even bother trying to say anything - it's only going to get buried amongst the screams.

So not too long ago I broke my gaming hiatus (the last game I bought was back in January or so) and decided to buy Resident Evil 5, which I've been dying to play since it came out earlier this year. I haven't mentioned it yet, but one of my new roommates this year has a 360, so I decided to take advantage of it. Problem is that after about another year, my copy of Resident Evil 5 will probably be worthless unless I live with him again.

Anyways, I'll probably post a review of it sometime in the next week or so (once again breaking another hiatus!!). But having this game honestly makes me want to buy an Xbox Live subscription, not to mention that my roommate has Halo 3 as well. But for the time being I'll wait, because I seriously should not be spending that much money on a whim. So the other day I also bought a memory expansion for my PC, and I realize now after putting it in how badly I needed it.

My PC has 2 GB of memory now, which is lower than most if not at all brand new PCs, but it's made all the difference. Makes me really realize how much of a resource hog Vista is... especially when compared to my brand new netbook!! Yeah, I bought an Acer Aspire One D250, and it's a speedy little thing running on Windows XP. I bought it mostly for college, since for the last two years I've been wanting a laptop or something to take notes on during class.

But yeah I'm sure you now begin to understand why I'm starting to get stingy about my money. I've just about run through all the money I earned during the summer, and I ran into my school budget a little. But I'll be alright, if worse comes to worse I'll get myself a job while I'm here at school.

First of all, I must apologize to those who I ignored in any way shape or form, or who did not get fair warning of my leave a few months ago. It was a decision I came to swiftly, as my intent was to actually, simply cut off unnecessary "fluff" in my life. This was due to a breaking point in my college studies, where I had to either hold on tighter or simply let go, and fail... and also some personal issues.

I suppose my reason for even coming back here in the first place are loose ends that I left untied - but more than anything is that even though it was a short 3 some odd months, I did do some growing up. A lot happened, good and bad but no worries - I'm doing fine and I'm back in college.

I guess first things first - I did manage to get a new car back in May, and I also managed to get a job over the summer in order to pay for my car. I got a 2007 Chevrolet Aveo, a subcompact car, nothing extraordinarily special, but still a very nice car and a killer deal for less than a 8000 dollar sticker price. Believe me, I was freaking happy when I got it - it meant I wouldn't have to worry about that piece of crap car I had before leaving me stranded somewhere in the heart of Texas.

Another thing I'm pretty excited about is that I have my own apartment now - even if I'm sharing it with 2 people. Oh there's an interesting story with this too - it was originally going to be 4 people in total. But the 4th person moved in his stuff on the official move in day (a full week before I moved in) and left to go back home. Meanwhile, me and the other 2 roommates sat around for a week wondering when he was going to come back. Essentially, he came back Sunday afternoon (the day before classes start), said "kthxbye" and moved out. Apparantly there was a vacancy in one of his friend's apartment, and what luck, he lived in the same complex we did. So me and my new roommates were starkly disappointed. (At least we get more fridge space )

I suppose I could go on and on about other things, but that's enough for now. I'm sure you guys don't miss my rambles THAT much.

Yes I'm alive and well in case you're wondering. And if you weren't, it's alright too. I've been mostly minding my own business for a while now, just taking things on as they come. If you may recall, a little more than a year ago I was making a frantic, yet patient search for my first car - I ended up getting a car for free from one of my dad's coworkers. It was involved in a fairly mild accident (which had rendered the car unusable), but through many months of slow, at-home repair the car was by most practical means fixed.

And up until now it had served me well, but now it's hit the first, and possibly last bump. Last Friday I was meaning to go home for the weekend, and my usual routine has me filling up my tank and then heading out. Only thing is, after filling up, I tried to drive off only to find that the car would not go above 5-10 miles an hour. Uh oh. After several hours of messing around with tow trucks and insurance hotlines, I got my car to a transmission shop.

I get a call today from the shop saying that almost the worst possible thing happened to it - instead of being an easy fix, it requires overhauling the entire transmission. Yikes. Long story short, it'll probably cost more than the pieced together car is even worth. Pretty disheartening to hear that right now, when my money is in the shortest supply.

So I'm not sure what's going to happen to the thing. I can't afford (and won't be able to afford for very many months) to repair it right now, and my only other method of paying for it (my parents) say that right now it would be dumb to fork over that much money on a car that may end up breaking down outright soon.

--

So I have a few options, which all come down to how feasible it is to pay for.

1) Fix my current car. Be aware that this car is a true feat of luck, in that it hasn't already given out on me.

2) Buy another car (used).

3) Finance or lease a new car.

Option 1 is what I would do if I had the money on hand, but I don't. Plus it has a huge risk in that there's no guarantee that a week after the transmission is fixed that the whole freaking engine won't explode on me or something. So I can't really do it, there's simply no cash on hand to do it.

Option 2 seems like a smart one, except that I would inherit a risk factor associated with all used cars. The main drawback is that of course I don't have cash to buy anything more than a clunker in even worse condition than my current car.

Option 3 would be ideal (yes new car!!) but it means quite an extended financial weight. I would no doubt have to get a job (or land that internship I'm vying for!) in order to pay for it, and have to really pull some strings on my parents (it would be dumb not to honestly) to help me with it too.

So for now, unless an immediate, cheap way to fix my car is found, option 2 (through a dealership) or option 3 is what I'm going for. That leaves me alone and clueless in the new car market, which is definitely unstable because of the darn economy here in the US. Just saying, if I get a new car, it's going to have to be a relatively inexpensive one.

Ideally I'd get something like a Nissan Altima, but that's way out of my reach. It's going to have to be either a compact or subcompact sedan or some subcompact 5 door hatchback or something. But I will see...

As for now, it's pretty much RIP to my current car.

Since you know it's coming, here are the obligatory shoutouts regarding this abomination of a movie that gets closer and closer to its release date. This normally would be a well typed out rant but I can't stand it anymore.

OH GAWD!! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! What in the name of... No wait, this can't be Dragon Ball... no... what happened to Krillin? No... no way... OH GOD!! High school? Gods from the sky? 7 mystics? Holy mother of- who thought of this? Wait are they talking about an eclipse? GAH!! Is Master Roshi seriously NOT bald? And is Goku that scrawny dude? AND WHY THE **** is Grandpa Gohan ALIVE?

*bangs head on desk over 9000 times*

Okay, I know that probably made absolutely no sense but in other words, this movie and everything affiliated with it is nothing short of ridiculing what Dragon Ball actually is. The original anime is definitely not the greatest thing ever, but this movie holds only a light resemblence seen only in name and a few basic concepts, and clearly had no respect for the main storyline. Oh and it doesn't end there.

There's a tag-along game to along with it. Sad thing is... it's probably going to be better than the movie it's based off of. Yay for Dimps, I applaud you. I know I must sound like I'm jumping the gun on everything, and that I'm overreacting but I'm not really trying to be "fair" to this whole thing. It just makes me want to bury my head and pretend it's not happening.

Oh well... now comes the choice of whether I want to watch the movie out of pity (or for the lulz), or completely ignore it. I just don't know.

It's been a while since I've written a blog but mainly it's been because I just haven't really needed to - I'll just say I've been busy concentrating on the happy things in life rather than mellow around in what's really bothering me. So you ask what's going on with me?

Firstly, Spring Break for me starts this next week, or actually technically this Friday. Foremost, the main thing I'm REALLY happy about is that I actually get to spend my break with my girlfriend, as our universities were gracious enough to make our breaks the same week this year. Freaking awesome if you ask me, since I get to go home, relax, AND be with my love. What else could I ask for?

Anyways, this last weekend I bought myself a graphics card/TV tuner for my computer. Ignoring all the goofy and fancy titles given to it, it's basically an ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics card together with an HDTV tuner that allows me to watch TV on my computer through Windows Media Center. Up until recently I didn't know what that darn program was supposed to do on my computer, but now I know. It's awesome because for about 110 bucks, I now have an entry level graphics card and I eliminated the need to get a TV when I can use my LCD monitor.

Now if only I could get rid of stinky midterm exams then my life would be perfect.

So recently I've actually been apartment hunting for this fall - half out of spite for the evil critter (haha... hmm >_>) that lives in my room, and half out of actually wanting an apartment for next year. I started early, doing my research as early as last December, in which I looked through all kinds of apartments in the general area. I sifted through countless broken websites, apparently very negative reviews of places (Yikes!!), and suggestions from my friends.

It wasn't until this month that I was finally able to get some leverage on my parents, as they were at first completely against me living in an apartment, until I set them straight with basic facts and letting them know it's as wild and ridiculous as they thought it was. So over the last few weeks I narrowed my preliminary list and decided on visiting a few apartment complexes which seemed nice and were decent in price.

Earlier today I signed a 12 month lease for my first choice apartments, a newly constructed complex not far from the campus but isolated and yet accessible. I must admit it's pretty exciting that in about 6 months I'll truly be free, instead of having to stand pseudo-independence with on campus housing and a somewhat horrific roommate (AKA the evil critter). So it's a very exciting time despite the fact I still have to live on campus for another 2 and a half months.

Fine by me though, in August I'm moving into a very nice and modern apartment. Though I am going potluck with my roommates in the other 3 bedrooms of the apartment, but as you can expect it's quite different than a dorm experience. So as long as they don't consistently trash the shared living room and kitchen, and aren't wild animals on a regular basis, I'll be fine with them.

Yeah I'm finding myself at the bad end of a few common sense mistakes - firstly, I'm currently studying for an exam I have tomorrow morning and I'm taking a quick break right now to write a blog.

Common sense mistake #1 - Doesn't it make sense to stay away from here and irrelevant internet sites on the eve of an exam? Of course it does, but here I am.

Common sense mistake #2 - I just got finished drinking some coffee, to get some caffeine into my system in order to be productive in my studies. It's already 10 PM and my exam starts in approximately 10 hours - that includes whatever time I need to sleep. Except said caffeine is going to take a while to flow out of my system, and it's going to impede my sleeping in a few hours, whether I notice it or not. And sleep is pretty darn important in a class that starts at 8 AM.

Common sense mistake #3 - When I went to get said coffee, wouldn't the coffee be best used tomorrow morning when I'm going to be groggy and probably unsatisfied with the quality of my sleep? A dose of caffeine then when waking up would get me awake quicker, while screwing up chances of coming back and taking a nap anytime in the next few hours. Of course it would make sense, but I didn't think of buying some random little bottle of coffee/milk-esque stuff (aka Frappuccino). Oh well.

Common sense mistake #4 - After the exam that I should be studying for right now is finished, what do I plan on doing? Going back to sleep. Except that by doing that, I begin to neglect the exam I have the next day - both by taking a nap and then going back to mistake #1, and goofing off during my study time.

Common sense mistake #5 - Not realizing that caffeine, studying, exams, and early morning classes create a vicious cycle of misery until it's too late.

---

Oh well, at least I had a good Valentine's Day. But now, I need to get off of here before I make this list any longer.

(Oh and don't worry - my exam tomorrow is an easy one anyway. )

No, not me silly!! (I'm 4 times older than that) The account just turned 5 today.

To be honest, it has felt just as long as it sounds - 5 years of having an account here and regularly using it is both a sad and amazing achievement. I know there are many more users who have been here longer than me (the number of users still around from 2002 and 2003 is quite surprising!!) so props to you all who fit in that category!

And gosh, having the username dbz345 is a cursed blessing I tell you. It's easy to remember and type out, and it's stuck to me so much that even given the chance on other sites - I still use the username dbz345. Yet, I type this out reminding myself that it's a headache of a username that I'd honestly want to part with, but won't for the sake of nostalgia. Truth is, it's a constant reminder that I really used to be one of those crazy, rabid Dragon Ball Z fans. (Now I'm just crazy, I got rid of the rabies. )

So here's to another year of GameSpot!!

So I've decided (more as simply to add more spice to life) that I'm going to be less lurker-ish and for once post more. To be honest, I miss the days where I could post around in many places and actually find something good and true to talk about it. The way I've been posting for the past couple of years doesn't reflect the 18k posts I have.

I'm thinking of writing some reviews, which I haven't done in a while. I did manage to finish Ocarina of Time over the break, so I'll review that and Twilight Princess. I'll probably also put in reviews for Smash Bros Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy. Honestly it's just out of giving me something to do, since now I'm infinitely more bored. (My girlfriend is once again sadly 4 hours away =[)

Anyways on other things, I may drop by my local Circuit City to see what sales they have. To be honest, I'm saddened that it's going under - in its better days, I used to find some pretty good deals there, and for a while I preferred it to its rival, Best Buy. Now it's reduced to liquidating all its stuff, and hopefully among the jacked up MSRPs, I might find something worth buying.

Maybe a Nunchuck for my Wii, a game or something - I'm not sure. As much as I'd love to get something really nice (like say a TV!!) I'm not going to spend my money like that. At least not until I have some steady income or money set apart solely for that purpose. I mean yesterday I dropped 350 dollars on books for college - just like that, it was gone. And that's not all of them either.

We will see though - I may end up leaving the place empty handed.

I'm guessing about half of you are gonna hit me on the head saying "Holidays? They've been over you nutcase!!". In that case, I'll start by saying I'm sorry your holiday/vacation has already ended. Mine is going to end soon, though, so I'm not particularly happy. -_-

In a week I have to pack up my things again and head back to college. In the meanwhile though, my girlfriend let me borrow 2 Legend of Zelda games. First I played Twilight Princess, and I beat it about a week ago, and now I'm playing the legendary Ocarina of Time. Playing OoT now makes me really wonder how I overlooked and completely bypassed the entire Legend of Zelda series up until now. (Okay, minus my DS Lite purchase and getting Phantom Hourglass with it)

Since I'm borrowing Ocarina of Time from my girlfriend, I thought about buying it through my Wii's Virtual Console thing (I've yet to buy anything from it) but I don't want to spend money. I keep having to remind myself that I overspent money last semester and that I need to watch my expenses.

And so I will attempt to beat it in the next week!! Wish me luck.

It's not quite New Years Eve yet, but chances are this'll be the only time I'll get to simply shoutout about how my holidays have gone so far, which are luckily less than half over. After I came home, some really crazy Christmas shopping was in store. I was able to miraculously pull some money out of nowhere and bought everything with REAL money (not chunking more onto my credit card).

Only thing now, I'm literally living on the skin of my teeth. I may be financially dead, but with another year comes another chunk of school spending money, thank goodness. I know it sounds bad, but truth of the matter is that I sometimes think it would be better that I got less money per semester to spend. That way I'd be forced to manage it, instead of spend it like crazy for the first 2 months, spend it normally for a month, and then panic for last months.

I will say that for now I'm in the green when it comes to my grades - I recovered from a bad semester. Unfortunately, I still have more to go to completely get back into the shape I want to, and need to be in. I might have an opportunity for an internship soon... but with my GPA recovering, I'm afraid of being seen as only a number by possible employers.

But I'll definitely try - I need something to get going.

Anyways, I'm not worrying about all that right now - I'm enjoying myself this season. Hope you all are too - so late Merry Christmas, and Happy New Years (give or take 48 hours XD)