I will also be emailing jeremy this shortly to make sure that he gets this in some form, however since he posted yesterday morning, I feel that he is back in a bandwidth-rich zone.

I have found a 1989 Celica with 133k mi on it. Currently I pay ~1068/6 mo. for car insurance, with the Celica I would pay 946/6 mo. Life is weird like that. So Jeremy, if you are in town and interested, I'm gonna go check this car out tomorrow morning-ish. I could use the help reviewing it. Yeah!

In other news, I went to Harrison today to talk to more people and after spending lots of time having people tell me how great the school is I finally found a person who would tell me all the real shit I should look out for. Things like: careful touching people; don't discuss my personal life, especially religion; always be careful, I don't know who is listening; etc. It fed some of my suburban paranoia, but is better to hear now than not hear until I'm being crucified for mentioning buddhism.

M

whoa! i should have guessed this, but as administrators we can change the look and feel of the blog! i am gonna whoop matt's ass for not having done this earlier.

hey kids!

sorry i've been awol, but the bandwidth situation here remains as flaky as ever. seems i have a lot of catching up to do.

welcome back, mark! now -- if i sned you something via amazon dot com will it arrive at the appropriate houston? this is a problem i hadn't given much thought to until recently when i noticed that i had four addresses listed at amazon -- only one of which coresponded to my domicile. whoops. it sucks that you are back in the hot place. that means no mario party drinking game for you and no getting to see your sorry ass.

i assume that matt is already back in atl/en route to new england. looks like only family types (and jeff) will see him this holiday season.

this is all shit that you could figure out yourselves, so i'm gonna shut up.

this xmas my mom's parents visited. that was cool. i haven't seen them in about 5 years, i'd wager... i was very eager to see them since it'd been so long and i got the impression that they wouldn't be around much longer. well, maybe i don't remember them so well, but they certainly appeared to be faking very good health. mom suggested that they would look very different, but she was wrong on that count too. they're still as weird as ever too, which i think is great, but makes my mom insane. grandpa talked about the war, and both had things to say about growing up in iowa and their families (grandpa's 'step'-father was the head civil engineer for the "south dakota district" and designed and oversaw construction of the road that leads to mt rushmore. grandma was the youngest on 7 children -- 18 years younger than the oldest, of whom she was terrified until she was about 19.

so i've been doing the standard j'ville thing -- hanging out with the mom during the day -- slaving at household chores and watching movies -- and seeing highschool peeps by night. that and building lego for hours on end. i'm gonna see how much of it i can bring back this time. what fun!

really, it has been a great trip, though perhaps not so much to read about. i'll be back on new year's eve eve.

Being sick does suck. Especially when you know that it is going to happen. I agree that the Merc was a good running car and is probablly accurately valued at 2400. I just don't know that that particular car is what Martin needs/wants.

I have just finished reading Bang Devils by Patrick Foss. It was a gift from Martin for Xmas. I enjoyed it. I devowered it in about 18 hrs. with me sleeping for a solid 9 somewhere in there.

My flight was uneventful. As most flights should be. I'm back in HOU and head back to the work grind on Monday.

It was good to see my family over the holidays. My sister brought her boyfriend home and things between them are getting more serious. I can honestly say that I would like him as my brother-in-law. He's a good guy.

Food for thought... What do you think about gay unions?

Being sick blows. The day after christmas I started to come down with something, be it the flu or a cold. Reagardless, my head feels a little lagged time and my throat hurts. Being sick blows.

M

True, Mark is now back on the blog. After meeting with him and handling the car thing and some clothes things I sent him an invite so that he could get back on. Hopefully this is lead to more readership and participation, however I'm weary given Mark's hectic work schedule. So I went and looked at the Merc today with Mark, and it drove fine, but is a bit large for my tastes. I spent more time looking at ajc.com's classified section to see if there is a smaller car (not boat size) that would suit my needs. I found a 1989 Toyota Celica GT with 133k miles and a regular 1989 Celica with 112k miles. Both of these cars run for 2250. So while they will not last as long as the Merc, they actually get better gas mileage than the Merc and go faster (especially the GT). This seems like a no brainer, however the insurance is the issue. Remember the reason that the Merc worked out was because it had basically the same insurance cost as my GTI. If the Celica comes out to the same cost then I'll take it (even if it comes out a bit higher because I'll save on gas). True, it won't last for an extra two hundred thousand miles like the Merc, but that's o.k. hopefully I won't be in this scenario for more than two years.

In other news my high school christmas reunion was tonight. Originally I wasn't going to go, but then the possiblity of running into Erin McDonald (the one that I shouldn't have let go) was too tempting. Of course she wasn't there, but I had a great time hanging out with a few people from my class, having a few drinks and chatting it up. I wasn't going to go because I wasn't feeling well, but I took Jeremy's method of Nyquil and sleep and felt better. I took another hit of the 'quil so I'll be off to be shortly.

M

Woot. I'm on and ... Thats about it. Write or Die!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Well the day is here, and like a little kid I woke up at 7:30 eager to unwrap all 2 of my presents "under the tree." Granted I got them the night before from the Heacox family Xmas dinner, but it was a good time all the same. There aren't as many presents under the tree as there have in the past (there also hasn't been a tree since my Mom died). Not only did I lose my number one present giver, but more importantly this year things are a bit different. I won't see my Dad or Vernita today. V is in Florida, and I'll see my Dad tomorrow. Fortunately Jason is free today as him Mom also went to Florida for the holiday. So we're going to the final Lord of the Rings movie today, and then more might happen.

In other news, now that we have admin rights I was wondering about changing the message associated with the blog. It reads that it is about the life of Georgia Tech students living in a loft in downtown Atlanta. Well, we aren't living there anymore, so it might be time to change the description. Just a thought.

Again, Merry Xmas, only one more week 'til aught 4.

M

Ah, Texas . . . speaking of which, has anyone heard from Mark?? Do we know when he is returning to the ATL. I assume that he is going to be back for Xmas through aught 4, but I guess he could mis the whole shebang. Shame, 'cause I got him his present.

Now that Dimplomacy is back in my hands, I'm going to try to get my online dimplomacy game going. Here's the concepts behind it. Board visualization will be through the webcam that Rich isn't using (the rest of tonight will be spent getting it to work. I will also have to find a machine to run it and a place to put the board. I guess the basement is ideal, but I'm worried that we can't find the room near a computer. We'll see. Anyway, so I'll need 4 other people to play. I'm pretty sure that I got one in Ewald (froom here on a.k.a. Goat or Goatboy). Dan might be interested but is notoriously flakely. I assume Jeremy is in. Mark is also a question(bad pun). Matt, are you interested? Have you ever played Diplomacy before?? mikex0r would probably be in. LPS, maybe. Brad? Bruckner?? Jeez, there are a lot of people who might be interested. Regardless unless I get the webcam up and working it won't matter. I think Rich has a page I can upload the picture to if not I might need to find another place, and since phatmatt.com doesn't seem to be working that isn't an option. Orders are dues once a week by midnight on a sunday, although that might hurt the ultimate players a bit. Life can be hard. So we'll see if that gets working. I really should stop picking up side projects since I will be employed soon and won't have as much free time. Later.

M

On wonderwindow.com, click on the picture. To make each window a different color, we'll either use LED color washes or floodlight based color washes where we dim three separate RGB floodlights with color gels on them. This is the part we're still trying to figure out (what works and is least expensive). LEDs would be the coolest by far, but most expensive.

time to take off for Texas...

wow, great to see the readership jump up two a whopping three people. No really, I"m not being sarcastic I am very glad. The wonderwindow things looks pretty cool matt. All the website had was a picute, but that looked sweet. How do you get the rooms to be different colors??

In other news, I ot to go to a hockey game last night as part of Lauren Stewart's (a.k.a. LPS) birthday. We had a party for here last week before school let out and everyone left, so this was the tail end as her Fliers from Philly got shelacked by what is apparently a very good thrashers team. It was fun. Honestly part of the fun of the event was watching the interaction between Ewald and Lauren (the people in the event were me, Dan Heacox, Ewald, LPS, Adam [from fitten fame], Evil and Kat). LPS is a whopping 22 now, and I am failrly sure that Ewald is a few months over me (25). Ewald has this thing for LPS, but doesn't seem very good at the whole flirting game. So it is funny to see him throw little flirting actions at her and see them fall on deaf ears. I'm not sure if LPS is aware of Ewald's affection, or if she just thinks he's creepy. Either way she hangs out with him a bunch, but mostly with others, and I think I have more fun than most since I am privvy to the crush so I catch all the small thing.

More Axis and Allies is being played. I'm back in full swing as a decent to good player. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to hold up against the great players, but the game IS somewhat formulaic so maybe that would help me. I've got the European expasion and am looking forward to playing that some day. I think that is all for me. It is time to get back to Halo or GTA3 or something. Gotta get my games in before school starts making me busy. Later.

M

man, my audio blog turned out to be lame as hell. don't listen to it. i think it cut me off early because the volume wasn't loud enough.

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martin, your audio blog is the coolest shit on the fucking planet!! i agree that it would have been sweeter had the content been provided in text in addition to audio but man i still think it's sweet. i think i'll sign up for this month and post during the trip to boston. troo!!

in a step towards bettering the foc blog, i gave all members admin access. i regret not doing this before. i had no power trip from being the sole admin. i just dropped out of the blog scene. so enjoy the freedom and add people galore. i think the blog rules.

martin, biggie congrats on accepting the noble profession of high school physics professor! i'll never forget my (and jeremy's) high school physics prof. his name was mr. hoffman. he looked like a member of zz-top, appeared really skinny from behind, fat as hell from the front, and every test involved the annoying matt smith's falling zillions of feet with varying initial velocities and horizontal components. matt would had the habit of yelling "sex" and "cheese" all the time. i did close to nothing but play hp48 games in the back of that class. and watch mr. hoffman eat pizza remains from his 4 foot beard.

where is harrison high school? man, 31k seems like fat stacks to me.

jeremy, as for the post-graduation binge - you are sorta correct. following graduation, i forgot to start the period of slack that i had hoped for and instead threw myself immediatley into the wonderwindow project (wonderwindow.com). i was asked to do the lighting design and budget in preparation for a crucial meeting with the main atlantic station developers last thursday. greg had not received any "in kind" donations or art grant money as originally hoped leaving us in the tough situation of asking atlantic station to fund the project. so, i spent all of last week frantically learning about theatre lighting and its huge industry of dimmer racks, connector converters, power requirements, lighting fixtures, and DMX protocol shite. after a couple days of web binging, i realized i still knew nothing and was completely incapable of preparing a proper and accurate (within a few thousand dollars) budget for such a massive project. so, i started calling atlanta's finest theatre lighting rental houses and played dumb college student with zillions of questions. meanwhile, greg and his whole family came down with the flu which i am currently trying to beat down at home in jacksonville before starting the grand journey to texas and then boston and back. at any rate, greg and i lucked out when the developers postponed the meeting from thursday to friday, leaving the entire thursday for visiting and info-sucking these lighting houses. so that's what we did. we managed to wow and psyche these guys with our pretty animations and blinkenlights videos enough to get them to prepare proposals / cost estimates that afternoon. around midnight on thursday, they started rolling in with the first at .75 million bucks - FUCK! how on earth was greg going to show up at 9am and ask for that kinda throwdown!? well, greg worked his magic and was able to capture the enthusiasm of the developers enough to get them to arrange some meetings with big shots in new york who will hopefully throw some money at us. so that's the state of the world in that department. we're no longer planning to launch on valentine's day (and certainly not new year's eve as originally intended) but are now focusing on may 26, memorial day. anyhow, i guess you could say i binged in a sense and, as a result, caught the flu and have been bed-ridden since friday night.

jeremy, your tried and true method of sleeeeeeeeeeepppp sleeeeeeeepppp sleeeeeeeep and drinking a lot seems to be working. i think i'm licking this damn flu as my fever broke a few hours ago and i'm feeling righteous.

so, on to the great eastern seaboard trip of 2003! the plan is to leave with my folks on tuesday from jax to san antonio, spending christmas with aunt pat, uncle khan, and their bsd / hacker savvy children, flying friday morning to atlanta, leaving with roxanne around 1 for a 3 day drive to boston, attending ty and gayle's wedding on the 28th, and then heading to nyc until new year's, then heading back to atlanta. i'm really excited as i've always wanted to be in times square when the ball drops. plus, there will be snow all up in the boston area and i can't wait to slip and slide around on the icy new hampshire country roads without health insurance or cash money. actually, hopefully i'll have some health insurance. and, also, i'll promise to make y'all swoon as you read my words of this expedition. ;)

jeremy, please give me directions to your mom's house so i can deliver the porsche boxster that i jacked last night.

I come bringing news of Fisch . . . who is NOT in england as originally assumed. He DID fallin love with this girl when he was in new york, and he is CERTAIN that she is the one for him. He DID got to england to see her for a bit (I believe) and they came back to DRIVE across the country. She FLew back to the UK from San Fran and then he drove across the US to get back to Florida. When he FLEW back to the UK, where she is a pharmacy student, actfer a huge order he was NOT ADMITTED into the country. At this point he RETURNED to florida where he has been spending his time trying to figure out how he will be REUNITED with this love of his life. He'll be in town in JANUARY so I'll talk to him more then.

In other news, I took care of a shit ton of paper work at Harrison today. Then I went to the school to talk to some people, and was there until 3pm. There is all this shit they gave me to read before I teach, to make me a better prof and all. Good stuff I guess. I'm looking for a ~$2500 Mercedes-Bezn 300D from 1980 or so. I might try to get my Dad to got in on it with me. The only problem is that I have looked around to try to find the mpg for this car, and I haven't found anything all that great. I know that the gas engines got in the mid twenties, so I'm assuming the turbo diesel will get the high stwenties and low thirties, but I want to see it. Plus I'm looking for a tank size. Neither of these things I have found on das internet, meaning . . . I haven't looked hard enough yet, because it has to be out there. Talk to you later, time fr bed.

M

well. all i have to say is that matt better be on some fabulous fucking post-graduation binge on something. or a vacation. or something. and he's gonna come back from his stint away and be a fucking posting maniac. he's gonna tell us of his fabulous adventures and brushes with death, and we'll all swoon as we read his words, wishing that we could have accompanied him on such an expedition.

but we all know he's not. he just forgot (again) that this blog exists. silly forgetful matt.

oh well. it's not like i've had a whole lot to say recently. work is going. although, i should mention -- since i apparently haven't made this quite clear -- that they are paying me at techbridge, and always have been. despite my offer, heather decided that i didn't have to do any pro bono work, and i've been making 15 for the past 3 months. unfortunately, i only work 15-20 hours a week, but it's still enough to pay bills.

actually, that situation is pretty ideal. i work just enough to get by and the rest of the time i fuck around and play video games and such. the real world just sucks. i'm glad i still live in this fantasy land where everything is fun and easy.

also, the people are really cool. the work is nothing special, but what do you want? i work at a consulting firm.

The trip to the doctor went "well" . . . I guess. He told me that the MRI came back normal, and that my left ACL is in tact. The down side of that is he doesn't know why the back of my knee hurts (low, around the top of the calf on the outside). I told him that it aches just about everyday, and that I think it is affecting my sleep, and he told me to deal with it. Everyday discomfort is not an option for me, and would need to be fixed. In the end I don't like this guy as a doctor, however he is a good person. He's a good odctor I guess, but it tentative to do testing, i.e. he is not aggressive. He does have this really cute nurse, however, who answered some of my questions after the doctor left. So in the end it is good news because I don't require surgeery and my job shouldn't be affected. Bad news because the solution is to hope it goes away. If it doesn't get better after a while I'm going to get a second opinion. Wish me luck.

M

well, I'm hugely disappointed that it comes in as an audio file. It is cool and all, but I really like the text nature of the blog. Especially after hearing myself and noting how I mumble every now and again. 3$/mo is kind of expensive, unless you want to post often. Plus there is the two minute limit on each post, which for one who rambles can be quite the drag. If things go as they seem like they will then this might be a good feature for road travels. Oh, that reminds me . . . jeremy, you need to start looking into this Rally America thingy you were talking about. Gimme some details or a site to look at or something.

This week will likely be a good news/bad news week. After turning down a job while being unemployed last week I have now accepted a teaching position at Harrison High School teachnig physics. It still isn't set in stone for two reasons. One, I have to show that I have taken more than 20 hours of physics material in college (which I think should be no problem however OSCAR is down). Second, and this is the real problem is I see my doctor again tomorrow regarding my left knee. It has been bothering me for about 2 months. I played on it at nationals with no problem, but but it hasn't gotten much better. I got an MRI and there is a chance that I must have surgery of some type. I find myself in a slightly different situation than I was last time with this. My knee hurts, so I want to get the surgery to stop the pain, but at the same time I don't want to have to go through surgery again. I've come to realize that my days as an ultimate player might be coming to an end (with an emphasis on might) and my focus might need to turn to coaching more. One thing that I have learned through all of my problems is that I tend to react quickly, develop plans and schemes for things before I know definetely. There is always the possibility that my knee is fine and was just really sprained and takes time to heal. So, to wrap up the theme of this paragraph, it is good that I am now employed (at 31166 a year, which isn't great but I will take it), but my knee might require surgery, and that might jeapordize my job. So I am going to my interview with Seimens this afternoon anyway, just in case. After tomorrow I will know more and can react accordingly.

M

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I know Matt is apparently back on the band wagon for fixing the blog, which is great. I'm kind of interested in increasing it's capacity somewhat. I'm not sure how, but a bigger readership would be nice. Whether or not that includes more contributing members I don't know. I still think one of the best features about this is the ability for people from around the country to stay in touch. This makes me sad that Mark isn't contributing anymore, so we'll have to get on his case about it when he comes home for the holidays. Same for Brad, didn't he move to SC?

In other news my called me at 8:30 sunday morning after I had been out until 4:30 saturday night. My Dad had that tone in his voice that I've come to dread from late night conversations with him. I was really tired so I asked him to cut to the case and tell me why he called. The reason was because we caught Saddam. I thought this was silly, not the catching but having to call me so early to tell me. Later on that day I told Ewald my story and he said that he understood why my dad called and feels that the capture of Saddam is a "do you remember where you were when..." moment. I really don't feel like it is one of those, like the challenger or 9/11. but Eric was so emphatic that it made me wonder if I was wrong. So tell me people, is the capture of Saddam one of those great moments in history. My opinion is that it isn't like we captured Hitler. Saddam caused lot of problems and has done so for a long time, but I never saw him as the evil empire. At worst he was directly linked with some bad activities, performed by other people. Most of the stuff that he did himself was to his own people (except for Kuwait I guess). This kind of "where were you when" grandure is reserved for events that change the way that day to day living is in America. Maybe everyone has woken up with a new sense of purpose and meaning, and a feeling that all is right in the world and they don't have to worry about pipe bombs and more, but somehow I doubt it. The effect of 9/11 was such that afterwards everyone was left shaking their heads for a month or so. After WWII there was a boost in American spirits because the evil empire (not the Yankees) had fallen. I just dont get this feeling with Saddam, but I do think he looks good with the beard, very crazyperson. So there's my opinion . . . discuss.

the last assignment has been handed in. Now it is just wait for a grade and then fill out paper work next semester and I get my masters . . . yea! No, really, I'm very excited. Most of my day was spent in Marietta interviewing for a teaching position in Physics, but I am very happy to have completed my school work . . . at Georgia Tech. See, if I end up then I will be taking classes starting in the summer for the next year. But they are pansy classes, taught by teddy bears or some shit. Regardless, I'm here at home, with no work to do . . . so it is time to play more video games. I wonder where jeremy is?

M

o.k. I have just completed then deleted XIII from my machine, now that it is over I feel that I can talk about it more.

XIII is the best PC game that I have played in the past few years. Sure, I don't play PC games ofter, but it includes Axis and Allies, Half-Life, and Halo (there are others but I can't remember them). Halo was fucking great, but XIII wins . . . here's why.

While Halo was very pretty, the JetSetRadio-cell-shading graphics were great, and I could run them to completion despite my less than stellar graphics card and memory situation. In Halo I had to drop down the number of pretty things (shadows, flashes, etc.) I also suffered from small lag issue when there was a large battle because of all the rendering that had to be done. So XIII had a complete gaming experience.

The story was fantastic, with voice actors: Adam West, David Duchovney and Eve. The game requires you to be stealthy often, and interact with the surroundings well. Strategy is very important, unlike Halo where you can pretty much kill non-stop and be ok. It was small things like that which made the difference. I had to hide my corpses so that guards wouldn't find them. Wow, just a great fucking game. There is room for a sequal, which I will probably play.

So this made me thing of something. Games like Jet Set, Zelda and XIII have the benefit of being stylized such that graphics (or should I say realistic graphics) aren't the most important element of the game. Will these odd-graphics game continue, or will they eventually fade out because they are in essence a novelty taht will lose it's shine. I think they have one huge advantage which is even as graphics get better, the graphics in these games will almost always be the same quality. What I mean is this. Three years ago we look at half-life and say that the graphics are great, but they pale in comparison to the graphics of top notce FPS game of today. Hardly half-life's fault, they did the best the could with the technology at hand to be AS REALISTIC AS POSSIBLE. But if you don't try to be that realistic and instead are stylistic, then time doesn't catch you as much. Just a thought.

In other news, still no word from my prof, so I emailed him again. I'm getting pressure from the Newnan job to make a decision, and they have upped their offer to 14/hr. I told them that I would try to make a decision by tomorrow, we'll see what happens.

Games on the Docket Right now (the full docket is the list for Vegas, which includes Rich, Mikex0r and myself as well as others who show up):
To finsih:
Rogue Squadron 3 (Martin)
Zelda: Ocarina of Time (I think this one is mostly Jeremy's)
Freedom Fighters (Rich)
Prince of Persia (Rich)
Knights of the Old Republic (Rich)

100%:
Yoshi's Island GBA (Martin/Rich)
Mario Kart Circuit GBA (Martin/Jeremy)
GT3 (Martin/Jeremy)
Simpsons: Hit and Run (Rich)
F-Zero GX (Rich, but he gave up so I think this is up to Jeremy and myslef, the driving guru's)
Mario Kart: Double Dash (Martin/Mikex0r)

so as you can see we are in healthy stock. Rich and I were discussion how there really aren't that many games out there now that interest us. Maybe the quality is low, or maybe we're getting old and can't recognize quality when we see it. It seems that there are a lot of Metal Gear style games coming out.

M

Well, I've been "struggling" with my final project for what will hopefully be my last class . . . at Tech. More might follow but I'll get to that later. The difficulty with the project, which involves some coding with MATLAB. I've done all of the paper/writing work there is to be done for the entire project (due Fri). There are two coding sections, each requires a bit of paperwork to get into a MATLAB friendly format. I've tried this one problem since last friday and I can't get anything to work out so that I could code it. I would take something that looked really ugly and was a poor solution at this point because at least it would be something. On the brighter side, I tackled the paperwork and coding for the other coding section over the past 48 hours. I sat down at 9:30 am to code the section and was done, with a fully working program by 11:30. There was some debugging to do, but it was nitpicking more than anything else.

Because of that great performance I have taken the day off from school work. Actually the fact that I have finished all of the project except for that one section, which I emailed the professor about yesterday and am awaiting a response, is the real reason that I was o.k. with taking the day off.

The day wasn't completely off. I went and bought Jason's Christmas present today, and I got another call about a job. Things have been turning around with this job thing. I had that first interview (and my only one, really) last tursday or friday, can't remember. The job is in Newnan (~45 min south), and only is offering 13.00 and hour for 30 hours a week (with the obligitory chance of being full time later on). The work is making drafting drawing of other companies casters so that this company can make them and sell them to the government. It's all AutoCAD and not too exciting. I might take the job, but they will have to up the salary to 14 an hour.

Well, in the past two days I have gotten calls for other jobs. One, which is the low totem pole right now, is a "field engineer" for a flooring manufacturer. Bascially it is a sales engineer in training job that would have me travelling all over the southeast. The lone benefit, it is salary and will pay better than anything part time. Today I got work of a job with Seimen's (tee hee). They are looking for someone to do AutoCAD and IDEAS for their Alpharetta plant. It is also part time (obligitory can be full time later on), however they already told me that it is worth 20 an hour, but only 20 hours a week. Big improvement over 13. In fact, I make more money, and have two and a half days left over to get another job. Third on the docket is a potential teaching position (the reason that there might be more classes in the forseeable future) at Harrison High School in Marietta. The benefits, I like teaching (personal interaction), it is a salary job with good hours and summers off (road trip), and it can help me get more into coaching which is what I want to be doing with my life more and more. That job isn't going too well. I'm not really certified, but that can be gotten around. I know someone who knows people, but my attempts to get in touch with the Principal (as instructed by my friend who knows people) have failed. Even if I could potentially get the position, getting certified, or even a provisional certification might be another feat unto itself. The final item on the list is ofcourse the position back in colorado. Doesn't pay well. Has good people, but so does Atlanta. Really the only bonus is that it removes me from Georgia, which I feel needs to happen at some point in my life, even if I come back. Oh, and then there is the fact that it is what I would love to be doing with my life. I've been in touch with the people there, but it's government work and the gov moves slow. The position will be available because the person is leaving for Lake Placid, but they don't even know if the position will continue. They might lose it. Hopefully these "do we really need that position" talks will yield a "yes, we need a full time position" response and then I think I will take it. I can still work on becoming a certified teacher (they have programs in colorado) and I'll be doing what I want to do. Whew!

So here's the list in order of desire (most to least):
Colorado
High School
Siemens
Newnan
Flooring

There's more possibilities out there. Honestly, half of the people that have called me I don't even remember applying to. C'est la vie.

This is a long post, but then again I think of myself as the Tycho of this Penny Arcade and he makes the long post. Hopefully they will return to being more about video games, let's start now:

Games on the docket: Mario Kart Double Dash, Rouge Squadron 3: Rebel Strike, and XIII

Mario Kart is nearing 100%. I'm down to having to unlock and beat the ghost from Dino's course and then that part is done. Mikex0r is working on getting first in every race in the Gran Prix mode. I'm fairly certain that I could do it if I tried. The tough one will be the . . . jeez, so there went about 2 hours of my life playing Double Dash online. That is by far the coolest thing about the game. Sites are popping up about the game and things are working reasonably well. Soon a large network will be established, just like the Dreamcast . . . and we saw how that story ended. Maybe this will be different. Maybe Mario has enough hutzpah to overcome the juggernaut that is Sony and Microsoft. Regardless I'm in for the long run like I've been since the TG16.

Quick synopsis before I go back to games.

Rouge Squadron, not really that great. Factor 5 needs to realize that they have a great space sim and only use that. The platform shit that they bring into the new games is absolutely terrible, as is the walker systems. Keep it to the ?-wings and Landspeeders and life would be fine.

XIII is fucking awesome. I'm going to try to finish it right now. I'll tell you about it later.

M

i plan to take drastic measures to fix the blog. www.1and1.com has a sweet deal where they give free web hosting for 3 years. i'm gonna start hosting phatmatt.com through them so that: a) i can actually connect to it reliably to update content... namely the blog and b) people can view photos at an enjoyable rate as opposed to to 100 kbits/second, which bites hard.

i remember you told me people were posting to the FoC blog, but i honestly forgot about it. you guys are fuckin rockin on here! reading it makes me want to stop taking on so many goddamn projects and start goofin off and playin video games.

so that's my plan for the next 8 months...

hmm. why is the blog broken?

so.

yesterday martin and i ventured out to game stop and got a broadband adapter for martin's gamecube. then we came back home and went to warppipe.com to get some over-the-internet inter-gamecube multiplayer mariokart schwerving.

one - it rules. the gameplay is incredible. the lag is continuous -- instead of a slow connection making everything choppy and unplayable, the play clock drops by some factor and everything is still as smooth as silk. it makes the game a little different, but immenently playable.

two - noone seems to be using this service. it's still in the early release phases, and mariokart is still new-ish. but the community is just not very big. hopefully that will change and be facilitated by future releases of warppipe which include player-finding utilities of some kind. as it stands, there are supposedly chatrooms where these kiddies are hanging out, but they're impossible to find, there's a forum to post that you want to play, which is the most inefficient way to start a real-time interaction that ever has been, and a bunch of empty irc channels. whoops. where is everyone?

anyway, we overcame those obstacles once yesterday and got the joker up and running and played mariokart with kids from fl. it ruled. thank god for open standards.

none of you motherfuckers were at thanksgiving part 2. what gives?