I might be using Blogger again!

I don't feel like using my own site for my blog, because it would be a hassle, and I don't want to have my blog closely associated with my gaming community, GetLives.

Then again, I might not use Blogger. I'm not sure yet. I just figured I would say hello after such a long hiatus.

GetLives

If you're wondering where I am, here are a few links:

my home (needs work) - http://www.getlives.com
my work site - http://work.getlives.com
my Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/GetLives
my Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/GetLives

I'd add my MySpace, but I never go there.

Yessir, I play Xbox.

Here's just a small image of my Xbox controller (S type) hooked up to a USB cable. It should be enough to prove I use my Xbox controller to play PC games. I haven't used it much yet, but I have got it working with Portal and Half-Life 2: Episode One.

In other news, I have been studying the Ogre3D graphics API, and I think I may be able to make a decent playground game with it. This will be my long-term goal this year, as I try to move my focus away from Flash-powered games. This shift in focus was inspired by my realization that I won't be able to cough up the cash for the latest Flash and that 3D in Flash still sucks. (Shockwave, why did you have to die!?)

Oh, and yes, this blog is dead. I just used the picture as an excuse to post here again. If you want to keep track of my work, visit my website.

Reminder: Visit my Site

My site is located at http://www.fantasyjam.net
My blog is now located on my site at http://www.fantasyjam.net/blog/1

FantasyJam

Please, if you care at all, visit my website and post in the forum. I really need some activity there. The site has my blog, which is updated frequently, but the really kewl stuff includes a chat room, forum, and video game reviews. There's also a bunch of Flash animations and games available, and you can leave comments on practically everything.

Again, visit my website at http://www.fantasyjam.net

My Blog Is Moving

I'm using my own site to host my personal blog at http://www.fantasyjam.net/blog/1 and I must say it's less of a hassle than Blogger. You could start a blog on my site, too, if you like.

Captain D

I was hired at the new Captain D's near here. I'm supposed to get ready and start sometime in October. The hours will be random but always during the daytime.

This is a second job. My primary job is one I'm not even supposed to reveal to anyone, because I signed the whole NDA thing and am under contract. However, it is a telecommuting job, and it pays very well.

Moving on, though, this Captain D's job is uncertain. I'm hired, yes, but I won't be working much right away, and I have to go through a two-day training class before I can start. I'm not sure if I will even be paid for the training, probably not, and it seems like I will be competing with a lot of people to keep my job.

My ultimate goal with this job is to get a minimum of 6 hours in each week. I will get $6.75 per hour, so multiply that by 6, and yes, I have $40! After two weeks, I'd be paid $81, just enough money to pay for a new cell phone, I think. The cell phone is a must, because I will have to call for a ride whenever I get off work. I may get a cell phone before that time. I just have to wait and see what happens.

I'm Josh, and I'm a sad, sad human. So what?

PurrCrabs, from Syboard, actually said this (look in title) in the shoutbox. I'm sad, yes, mostly because my life sucks, so I won't argue with him. I do manage to stay happy-looking everyday, and I rarely complain about anything, so you can't honestly say I'm a crybaby or even that I'm lazy.

Moving on, I was asked by several people, least of which, Sui, about my daily schedule, because I switch my regular internet habits constantly. Sometimes, I'm on AIM from 3am to 5pm, never idle. Other times, I'm not on AIM at all or idling from 9pm to 12pm, and I frequently log into AIM and back out.

All these frantic habits are causes by my lack of sleep, poor eating habits, bad hygiene, and common work-related problems. I'm out of school, and I tried being a night worker, but that wasn't working out, so I started a daytime job, which is still proving to be difficult (due to lack of work), and I'm definitely not a daytime person.

If I could be active at night, making all the noise I want, working whenever, I would be in bliss.

That is not the case, and I'm sure my schedule isn't even interesting, but you can look at it if you like...

12am - 3am: play games, work on website, do whatever, because I'm bored and absolutely cannot sleep. Never could sleep at these times, not even when I was in school.

4am - 6am: sleep

6 - 7am: wake up, drink something (usually just tap water) and go back to sleep

7 - 9am: sleep

9 - noon: breakfast (rarely), feed dog, shower (every other day), look for work, and if I have work, do it.

noon - 3pm: watch my little brother, study whatever I feel like reading (story or coding or even just a picture or song), write notes for small story ideas, lose most of the notes accidentally, feed the dog... all at random times.

3pm - 5pm: waste time, usually watching my little brother... yell at brother for making messes, be relieved when Dad gets here to take over, watch the clock.

5pm - 7pm: read stuff, take out trash, do laundry, eat dinner, discuss maybe watching a movie but never actually watch anything, snack on leftovers while cleaning the kitchen.

7pm - midnight: I call this my true free time. I'm never really bothers at this period of the day, and most chores are done. I usually feed the dog again at this point and sometimes take the trash to the curb. During this time, I post on my blogs and journals, play a few video games, and usually find creative projects to work on. Sometimes, however, I just play around with the computer and post on forums.

Shadow: the Cat

Hey, loyal readers!

I thought I would take a picture of him while I was in Windows. My LifeCam doesn't work in Ubuntu. Shame on Microsoft for giving me a free webcam that requires Windows! Hehee....

I'm making a few new friends via CraigsList, too. I met a cross-dresser, a Microsoft executive (or so he says), and even a Christian version of myself, minus the nice typing skills. I'm keeping them on my GMail contacts as casual chit-chatters or pen-pals.

I'll be posting a few personal images on SheezyArt as well. I have neglected my artistic talents a bit recently, and I really need to let loose a mighty rawr every once and again. I've already done that once about two weeks ago with the Nanaki fan art. If you don't know who Nanaki is, he's the red lion with the flaming tail and the insane amounts of jewelry.

Part-Time Tele-Commuting Job

I have been crazily replying to CraigsList entries for a while, and an actual opportunity actually presented itself. I'm now a member of the support staff at a service for Flash-based work. Basically, I help people with their Flash problems, be it coding or basic technical problems. I can't divulge any more than that, because I would be in violation of the NDA.

I'm not counting on this job to last a very long time, and I don't expect much of a workload, so I'm still actively searching for a job.

New motivation: Ubuntu.

I'm slowly moving all my development into the Ubuntu community. From now on, all the games I create will work in Ubuntu and Windows, possibly Mac. Currently, the only games I made which work in Ubuntu or on a Mac are my old Flash games.

Anyway, I'm still looking for good animation software. Here's the alternatives I found for Ubuntu and what I'm still missing:

Avast: available for Ubuntu as well but not necessary and doesn't monitor the system. I could also use Clam, which is a native Linux app, but, if you're serious about safety, Clam doesn't monitor your system. Nothing monitors the system in Linux. It just isn't necessary, because you have complete control of what runs and what doesn't. Basically, Linux monitors itself.
Blender: It actually works better in Ubuntu. The game engine is still a little confusing, and shadowing is not supported in stand-alone runtimes, so you need to use textures for everything in your game projects.
DirectX: I can use OpenGL instead. There are plenty of open source OpenGL-powered 3D engines to pick from, and I have my eyes on Ogre, using Blender as my modeler. Any recommendations are welcome.
Flash: no good alternative yet. You have PyGame for programming games, but that's not helpful for animations. I tried Flash4Linux and all the apps based on it, but those require some sort of compiler, and I don't really know how to get them working.
Photoshop: GIMP works well, but I'm open to change. If I can get Photoshop CS3 to work in Wine, I'll go that route. Otherwise, I think GIMP could grow on me. I'm also considering Inkscape for vector art.
Runescape: works in Ubuntu. I don't play it, though. If I ever get bored, though, I know I can start a character on there and hack away at trees.
Sony Vegas: no good alternative yet. I need a good video sequencer for music videos and simple editing. I'm hoping for some transition effects and color filters.
ToonBoom: Synfig Studio is pretty good, but it's still in early stages of development.

Flash isn't available in Ubuntu (just the browser plug-in), but I can use Wine to run a very old version. I need to find an alternative to Flash CS3 for animation, but I can code 2D games in Python/PyGame.

I hope you consider moving to Ubuntu. It's free, and it's more secure than Windows. Plus, almost every good piece of software is either on the installation DVD or add/remove menu!

Yahoo!Lottery?

Days ago, my cousin told me he won $200,000 from the Yahoo!Lottery program. I told him it had to be a scam, but he refused to believe that fact, and I gave him the best advice I could: Ask Yahoo! itself.

Here's a fairly old (but accurate) Yahoo!Mail help topic: CLICK!
In that topic, the question was about Yahoo!Lottery. There is no Yahoo! lottery, meaning they don't give anyone money, but there is a lottery site run by Yahoo!, and it's located here: http://lottery.yahoo.com

Again, Yahoo! does not give you money, and they wouldn't ask for money to do so, either. Sorry, cousin, but you've been scammed. I hope you didn't send that $200!

Broken Antenna

All this time, well, for the past week (or longer), I have been pulling hairs because of the constant disconnections from the home network. I thought it was a virus, even though I wiped my PC clean just weeks ago. My antenna is apparently cracked open on one side, which makes my connection less constant. I'm just getting a little jumpy sense my virus attack. It pushed me to install a secondary operating system, Ubuntu.

It's funny. In WinXP, I have constant errors and program crashes. In Ubuntu, almost everything works as I want it to. That includes my Windows drivers! Yep, my WinXP drivers work better in Ubuntu than their native habitat. As I type this, I wonder how (and when) my antenna broke and how long these Windows updates are going to take to download.

Just out of shear boredom (as I wait for downloads to complete), I guess I can add a new Video Game Bash. I'll start one now.

Connecting to Xbox

Long story short, I had to reinstall drivers for all my devices and forgot to install the driver for my Ethernet port. I was so ashamed of myself when I finally realized the driver was missing, but here's the real kicker: My Ethernet cable is broken!

After digging through my box of wires, I found my backup cable, so I'm using that to retrieve my videos right now. I'm trying to collect my DBZ videos to make a kick-ass AMV or anime music video. It should be available on YouTube once I finish it. *wink, wink, nudge, nudge* I'm only missing one episode (as far as I know), so I'm off to find a download. Cheers!

utorrentapp

The title of this blog post is not referencing utorrent or the bittorrent community, but there's a new virus going around, and the name it usually seems to go by is "utorrentapp.exe," but why am I announcing this?

Just a few days ago, I contracted the very same virus, and I'm honestly not sure what causes the infection, but there are many possible culprits, including a slight visit to porntube, even if it was involuntary.

Anyway, at first, I thought I could just clean the system with my anti-virus options. I eventually tried AVG8 again, and it found the virus but wouldn't do anything about it. I hate AVG. Moving on, though, I tried reinstalling Windows without repartitioning, just because WinXP was pretty screwed up thanks to the infection. As expected, the virus was still on there, so it was jumping around wildly. I didn't want to lose everything, because I didn't have much backed up at all, but everything had that nasty virus in it, so I just decided to start fresh.

I completely wiped my system, repartitioned the C drive for Windows XP Pro, and repartitioned the D drive for Ubuntu 8.04, and this is pretty much where I am now. WinXP is back to normal but has almost nothing on it, while Ubuntu has a lot of useful apps but no way of getting online (yet), so I'm salvaging what I can from the internet to rebuild my Windows collective, and, at the same time, I'm trying to figure out how to install my Windows drivers on Ubuntu.

The anti-virus app I'm currently relying on to keep me safe is Avast, and I strongly suggest you use it as well. I'm also looking for some nice games to play on Ubuntu, but I'll post my findings in my other blog, Search for Video Games.

Wireless blues? Router blues.

I finally determined a quick fix solution to my speed problem. Turning off my router and letting it sit for a bit before turning it back on actually makes it work better! I've gone up to 75kbps now! Wahoo!

If you have problems with your broadband internet speed being at a rate similar to dial-up, do what I did, unplug your router and wait a while. It works. In another day or so, I'll let it rest for maybe ten or twenty minutes and hopefully get my top speed again, which is about 500-700kbps.

In other news, I have a couple games I'm working on. One's an arcade game, the other is a role-playing game. I may update my list of commercials in just a moment, so check that out as well. It's right below this topic.

Reverting

The title of this post is for three reasons: I have to master Tony Hawk again, I'm going home, and I'm switching from GIMP back to Photoshop. I'm just sick of GIMP. Photoshop was simply easier to use.

Also, yesterday, I installed Perfect World, a free-to-play MMORPG. I'm getting my character set up as I type this. The biggest problem I've had so far is with the installation, but that's mostly because of how big the game is, two gigs. I'll play Perfect World casually for a few days and post what I think of it soon.

On a more personal note, I got into a kind of a fight with my cousin, Charlie a few days ago. He instigated the fight, but I don't think he was in a good mood. Seriously, I think he has PMS or something. One minute, he's all happy-go-lucky; next minute, he's
throwing television remotes and cursing. In all honesty, though, I didn't act very mature, either, because I got too angry with him to keep myself under control. Now, Charlie seems to be holding a small grudge but won't admit to it. I apologized for what I did (threw a pizza and knocked over some junk outside) and plan to go home in a few days to finally see my Dad and get some much needed sleep.

Modding Oblivion

When typing the title of this post, I kept wanting to type Morrowind, but really, Oblivion is what I play now, and I never want to go back to Morrowind. Well... I *am* adding old Morrowind lands to Oblivion as mods, but you can't blame me, modding Oblivion is more fun than actually playing it.

Don't misunderstand my statement. I love playing Oblivion, and I still do, with minor cheats and advantages (like my sword, seen in the screenshots). I'm trying to stay away from cheat mods, but there are some neat things to be done, including add Cloud's sword from Advent Children and even my own sword design from Blender.

My sword, again, shown in the screenshots, was my first textured model ever, outside of Poser. In the process of modding Oblivion, I'm learning a lot about Blender, so I'm actually gaining skills for use in the real world. In many ways, Oblivion is just a 3D canvas or playground for me, but, while praising Oblivion is a well deserved practice, I want to quickly say a few things about my sword. It was modeled in Blender v2.46 as a single object (to work properly in Oblivion), and I called it Suiseiseki, based off my talking sword in Syboard Adventures. It has a gray blade, much like Cloud's Buster Sword, and the hilt is a weird, black substance, but it resembles something made of wood. The reason it glows red is it has an enchantment. I honestly think it looks pretty neat for a first mod.

Two chairs broken in just two days!

Just a day or two ago, my beloved red folding lawn chair broke on one corner and nearly stabbed me in the arm. Just minutes ago, my replacement, a green folding lawn chair, which felt much sturdier, broke on the entire front half! Due to the sudden give-way, I wondered why I didn't fall to the ground, and I discovered it was breaking as soon as possible, so I must have got up just in time not to hurt myself.

Anyway, that's $20 down the drain. My Dad bought that chair thinking it would last longer than the red one, yet it ended up lasting only a few hours (opposed to a year), and it broke even more than my weak red chair. Now, I need to find something else to sit on, and I don't want any more lawn chairs.

Finally got to play TES4.

I thought I'd show some screenshots of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on its highest setting. The game looks gorgeous in my opinion. It looks like crap on the Xbox 360, and it loads very slowly as well, but the PC version, which I started playing yesterday, is always so pretty.

Yesterday, I installed a video card, and that allowed me to play all sorts of neat stuff, including TES4: Oblivion and the Orange Box Games. I started with Oblivion to test the card out, and it worked flawlessly, but I was really more interested in Portal, so I quickly moved on to that. Portal has some odd loading issues, and it actually likes to crash at random times (only done it once so far), but I love the game to death. It's just so addictive.

Before I got my card, I was already playing a very watered-down Half-Life 2: Episode 1, so I will probably get started on that game again in a few days, that's if I can put Portal down for a while. I may also try the Halo trial (again), but I don't think I care much for Halo any more. I played it too much in the Xbox glory days.

All these screenshots are of Oblivion... obviously.