Dangit!

I believe I was on either the last or second last mission in Halo 4 when I was told to turn it off and get ready for bed. You have no idea how infuriating that is! Not to mention that I won't be able to play it for most of the weekend due to an overnight brony party at my friend's place, where we watch our favourite episodes from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, then on Saturday at 10:00 am watch the Season 3 premiere. Following that is the new show Littlest Pet Shop, which actually looks decent.
Well, time for bed now. Ciao!

Whoops

Forgot I have to do two more blog posts for tomorrow, when the blogs are marked for the last time. I don't know if I'll continue to update this, maybe I will, maybe I'll move it to a different site and use Wordpress, or use Tumblr, since not many people comment anyway (I am aware you can comment on Tumblr blogs but the system's a little strange IMO).
So. Listening to the album The Pony Way by All Levels at Once. It's free, and available in almost any format you could ever need (besides uncompressed WAV, though that'd probably be over 1 GB, seeing as how the lossless formats already available are almost that). I highly recommend it, some great electronica for your listening pleasure. My favourite songs are "Fluttershy's Lament" and "Changeling". (You can also preview each song if you don't feel like downloading the whole album.)
Now I am off to change the liner in my cat's litterbox, because she likes to rip giant holes in them, and then: Halo 4 Co-op Campaign! :-D

Hooray!

Provided I have no Religion homework (I type this during 4th period and Religion is 5th), I will be free tonight. What do I plan to do with my time? Play Halo 4. And play. And play.
I only got to play it between two or three hours on launch day (Tuesday) and I played one game of Regicide (http://ca.ign.com/wikis/halo-4/Regicide) yesterday between skating and youth group.
The little of Infinity (multiplayer), or more specifically, War Games, I have played gives me a great first impression. The UI first of all throughout the game is excellent and easily navigable (not to mention pretty), and the gameplay is amazing. The concerns that Halo is becoming Call of Duty are unwarranted. True it has customizable loadouts, but it takes the best elements of COD and scraps all the rest while still staying Halo.

Halo 4

Got Halo 4 yesterday, the day it launched. Had little time to play it, unfortunately, and likely I'll have no time at all tonight. :'(
The Campaign is all I've played so far, and Co-op, so I don't get the full-screen experience (or even half the screen... the game engine squishes the two players into what almost looks like 4:3 boxes). It really is a gorgeous game, and the sound design is amazing (unfortunately, no surround sound, but the sound positioning even with just a 2.1 system is superb). All the weapons seem pretty balanced, except the Beam Rifle and Binary Rifle. Mind you, they're snipers, so it makes sense that they can take out enemies with just one or two shots.

Beam Rifle

Binary Rifle

Freaking old comment

I was in the Overview for Blogger and just noticed that someone had commented on a post. I went to check it out and it was some random person saying they added me on MSN and needed to talk to me right away. They also gave their email address.
Now, I don't normally talk to random people on the Internet unless I have an inkling of who they are or where they came from. I knew neither about this person. Seeing the comment date, October 20th, I replied back, saying first of all that I haven't used MSN in over four years, so that was a little suspicious, and that I needed to know who they were first before I started communicating with them.
Then I took a closer look at the date the comment was posted. It was October 20th, 2011. 
Yeah, that's how long it takes me to notice these things. XD
Don't bother searching for that comment, by the way. I deleted it and my two (yes, two) replies.

FINALLY! Homework-free and baptism

Today marks the first day (besides yesterday, but I had my Youth group so that doesn't count) that I do not have any homework for any of my subjects!
Hooray! :D
However, I am not completely devoid of "homework" per se. I have to write out a testimony for my upcoming baptism on November 11, or Remembrance Day for us Canadian/Commonwealth folks. Since I am Protestant, I was never sprinkled with water or had water poured on me at birth, since we do not believe that really does anything. Baptism does not save; it is supposed to be a public testament of your faith. In the New Testament, back when Jesus walked the Earth, people were only baptized after they had come to faith in Jesus. There are no recordings in the Bible of baptisms at birth or of any other method of baptism other than immersion. In fact, the Greek word used for baptism, baptizo, when translated, means "to immerse."

Prepare Yourselves; Halo 4 Fast Approaches

I am a big Halo nut. Not even fan. A nut. Why? Well, starting from Halo 3 on, I have always gotten at least the Limited Edition of every game (until now there have always been Standard, Limited and Legendary Editions) and pre-ordered everything. That includes Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST (there wasn't a Limited Edition of that but the pre-order came with a stylized controller), Halo Wars (the only Halo game to not be an FPS, but an RTS), and Halo: Reach. So, it saddens me that, with Halo 4, I will not be able to afford the Limited Edition. I need Xbox LIVE Gold, as does my sister, so we'll probably get the Standard Edition, which is $59.99, and two 3-month Gold cards, which are $19.99 each. So, that makes the total the same as Limited Edition alone, $99.99 (not including tax). However, I will be pre-ordering the game, so I will still receive an armour skin and the Arctic weapon skin for the Battle Rifle (which is finally coming back after being replaced by the DMR in Halo: Reach, which is also coming back).

Ow my neck

I have no idea why but my neck, and by extension, my head, is killing me. Massaging the especially sore spots on my neck set off sharp pain in the back of my head. Also my jaw is sore. Seems it's about time to go back to the chiropractor!
I am also quite tired and am having trouble staying awake or alert. Why? My sister brought home a mutual friend after skating yesterday, who stayed until about 10 pm. Of course entertaining guests is more important than homework, so it wasn't until 12:00 that I could finally be done with mine. So, by the time I crawled into bed, it was so late I only got about five hours of sleep (I typically get up around 6:20 or so).
Blarg.

Pageview Spike

This is odd... a while ago, I shared the link to my blog on Facebook, because I wanted more than just myself and my teacher to read it. However, it seemed like nobody noticed, as the pageviews remained around 170 or so, while my long-abandoned blog, Random - Reviews, currently has over 800. Which is weird. Though I suppose if I changed the title of this blog, I might get more views... because I definitely post about more than programming. Maybe I should switch to Tumblr or Wordpress.
Anyway, when I checked the pageviews again, they're suddenly over 200. Apparently, some random folks decided to check out my blog (or they just hit "Next Blog>>" on whatever one they were on, which randomly displays one). Neat.
Also, obligatory Spike because his name's in the title:

Firefox Portable - now with Flash Player!

"Handed" in - "sent" in is more accurate - my Methods Assignment for Programming. I added a button with the Enabled property set to false so you couldn't click it. Why? Because that particular question was crossed off on the sheet, and I didn't want to rename the button to something else or just continue the numbering after that question.

In other news, having Firefox Portable on my USB stick came in handy for something other than Programming. During the presentations for Art today, a classmate was having difficulty with Internet Explorer loading a Flash presentation site called http://www.prezi.com/. And no wonder - these computers are far too old and are still using Windows XP with IE8! They also don't have the latest Flash Player installed, and because of Faronic's Deep Freeze,  which provides "a fresh start with every reboot!", even if you install it on the current computer it is wiped out the next time you reboot. However, I found a way to put the Adobe Flash Player plugins in my Firefox's Data folder without installing the actual program itself. So, now my Firefox Portable installation has Flash Player 11.4.something.something. Hooray!

Art: Convinced to stay

Today I approached my visual arts teacher with the intention of switching from the 11M course to the 11O course. I do not like the class and traditional art does not interest me. I would much rather be using a drawing tablet than paints on canvas. However, when I mentioned my preference for digital arts over traditional media, my teacher stopped me and said that in the Grade 12 class, which I have next semester, you can choose how you want to complete an assignment, be that via photography, painting, drawing or working on the computer. This piqued my interest, and I'm willing to push through the dull and difficult portions of the class if that means I can work on my digital art skills for school. But now that means I have to really work hard, because you can only take the Grade 12 class if you take the 11M course. Tonight as a result I have to put together a group presentation for tomorrow (couldn't work on it over the long weekend because I couldn't get a hold of my partner) and work on my "Figure in Motion" anatomy drawing. Much of the class has already started on the good copy of that, while I still have barely started the anatomy portion (we had to do a representational or "realistic" rendering first). It was due tomorrow, but thankfully the presentations have pushed that back till Friday.
Gah. Why do I do these things to myself? How am I supposed to get some part time work if homework for these classes takes up all my free time after school?

Wordpress

A friend on Facebook the other day suggested using Wordpress instead of Blogger for this. I may check it out, as I've had some experience with using Wordpress and Wordpress-based sites (usually webcomics themed with Comicpress) and already have an account. Apparently Wordpress allows for far more customization than Blogger, but as I'm just doing this for my Programming class, not sure if it's worth it.
Speaking of programming, we just had our test today for Selection-Repetition (utilizing for... while... loops). The multiple choice part was easy for the most part, and the pseudo-code, what we call writing out the code on paper as if we were actually programming, was simple as it was open-book and I was able to look at the code for other programs I've done. The only thing I know I forgot was to check for negative values in a km-miles conversion, though I don't think it matters.

Slow school computers

I'm starting to get really frustrated with the school's computers. All I have open is Dropbox and Firefox and all of a sudden it locks up. I was even trying out the lightweight browsers Slimboat and Avant but it STILL was slow! Right-clicking the taskbar and opening Task Manager, Performance tab, I can see that, even immediately after starting up, the computer is already using the page file. Page files are what the computer uses in place of physical memory (aka RAM) when it is used up. If just sitting on the desktop it's using the page file, either they have less than 512 MB of RAM (which is just sad) or someone who thought they were smart somehow disabled access to the physical memory. Likely they have 256 or less MB of RAM.
*sigh* This is what happens when your school thinks video announcements, which interrupt the curriculum for my Commtech class BTW, are better than trying to update 8 year old technology.

Ugh... (art) homework.

The bane of every student's existence, homework. Something that thus far I've either not had or had little of, or had but there was no due date (ergo, I didn't do it). Now, however, and this is ironic - now, I have a big assignment that I missed yesterday because of the retreat, and guess what subject it is?
Art. More specifically, Visual Arts.
I hate art history. I could care less about so and so's contributions to art, or that they had to steal the bodies of dead criminals in order to perform a dissection to study anatomy.
"Wait, what?" Yes, one small part of the assignment I'm doing is researching Andreas Vesalius, whose apparently was a big influence on our understanding of anatomy. Before him, it was believed that the human jaw was made up of two bones, not one, and there were about 200 different theories this guy proved wrong.
See, I am learning stuff. I'd just really rather not. This does not excite me in any way, though I know it does for some people, particularly this one girl in my art class, who brought her own anatomy book to class to use as a reference for a supposedly big project we're working on that will likely take half a semester at the rate it's going. Which is fine by me. I dun wanna work on it.

Songs in Mah HEAD

I often have songs that go through my head throughout the day. For example, I currently have Demon Hunter - Tomorrow Never Comes

(Powered by mp3skull.com) playing in my skull.
But yesterday after I came back from the Grade 12 Religion retreat I had a song that wouldn't go away. What made it worse was that I didn't even know what the title of the song was. Nor the artist.
I asked for help in a Facebook group that I'm a part of that has many members, but apparently no one knew of any song with the specific lyrics I was thinking of off the top of their heads. Eh, I'm sure one day I'll be playing my music and it'll come on, and I'll be like, "hey, waitaminute..."

Speaking of the retreat, it was alright, but as I'm Protestant I didn't know what to make of the extremely heavy emphasis on the Saints. Didn't help that it was the Feast Day for the Canadian Martyrs. Oi.

Facebook at School?

Today at lunch I connected to the school's Wi-Fi network. That in and of itself is not unusual. What was unusual is that I received messages from Facebook. This normally shouldn't happen, as it is blocked by the HWCDSB. If you try and type in "http://www.facebook.com/" the message "Access to the Desired Web Page is Restricted!" appears. Adding an "s" in there (for https, which is more secure than regular http) doesn't help, it just loads and loads and loads ad infinitum.

Unfortunately, my wonderment was short-lived, as my outgoing messages wouldn't send.

Windows (Phone) 8

Windows 8 marks the first time I am actually excited about anything Microsoft that is not directly related to the Xbox gaming platform. True, it only works well on touchscreen devices - e.g. Microsoft's own Surface device, Samsung's ATIV smartPC, all-in-one PCs - but I'm looking forward to getting it. However, I need money to do that, but I think I am just too lazy to go out there and really try to find a job. There are other ways of getting money, like selling items on eBay, but again, I'm too lazy.

Another thing that I'm looking forward to is the release of WP8, or Windows Phone 8, in October, three days (I think) after the release of Windows 8. Ever since my friend Dewey showed me his Windows Phone 7, the LG Optimus Quantum, I've slowly grown to like the platform. Now that the Nokia Lumia 920 and the HTC 8X have been announced (others have also been announced but these are the high-end devices), I am really excited. The Nokia Lumia 920's coolest feature, for me at least, is its Qi wireless charging system. Qi (pronounced "Chi") is actually a standard used in a few other devices, and hopefully will grow in popularity. It is similar to the Powermat systems that you can buy in Future Shop, Best Buy and other electronics stores, but instead of having to purchase a separate battery pack/case that plugs into the phone, you merely need a charging plate. You just plop the phone onto the plate and it charges. There are also other neat features, like the PureView camera that has OIS (optical image stabilizing) but that's the biggest one for me. The HTC 8X is also really cool, with a beautiful display and Beats audio, but as it lacks a microSD card slot (ironically the lower-end 8S has one) I don't think I'll be getting it. After all, I recently bought a 32 GB card for my budget-oriented (read: low-end) Samsung Galaxy Gio. There is another phone I might end up getting, the Samsung ATIV S, but I don't know as much about it as I do the others.

School Hard Drives

Last year the hard drive space for students was minuscule - only 300 MB. This year, it's a lot larger... but I have no idea how much larger. My Computer reports all the drives as being the same size, 781 GB. That is definitely not accurate, as it said that there was still over 500 GB free. But then I couldn't save in Visual C#, which only usually happens if either the folder you're saving to is read-only or you've run out of space. I knew my Dropbox folder, where I usually save my stuff to, wasn't read-only, so I tried deleting a large folder (Camera Uploads within the DB folder) that was just over 1 GB. Sure enough, that did it.
Selecting everything on my drive, I can see that I have just over 200 MB of files. So, while the drive is bigger than before... it's not much bigger.
Perhaps I should just plug in my 32 GB USB thumb drive and save everything to there instead.

Every single post will involve ponies in some way shape or form.

Be afraid.

In other news, I deleted everything to do with ICS 2O1 because I 1) didn't think about the possibility of me taking it again and 2) at the time we only had 300 MB for our hard drives. Checking My Computer, it now says all the network drives are over 500 GB. I have no idea if that is accurate. Maybe I should try installing WUBI and find out... actually, no, that wouldn't work, because WUBI installs Linux as a Windows program, and I'm pretty sure Deep Freeze cleans out the registry of any new entries. Or maybe it just restores the C: drive at every boot. Hmm.
If only these computers had the capability to boot from USB. Then I wouldn't have this issue...

Game Play

I finally have an OC (Original Character) with which to roleplay. His name is Game Play, and this is currently the only artwork of him, and his description:

"It's-a-me, Game Play! I'm not Italian like the famous plumber, but I *can* shoot fireballs... provided I just played a Mario game. Actually, there's no guarantee I'll get that specific ability. See, my magic lets me sporadically gain abilities from whatever game I last played, be it Wii Sports or Halo 4 (as seen in the image). So... don't get me a game where you fire off nukes one after the other. That is, unless you want your next winter to be a nuclear one."

Back from the dead

I never expected to ever use this blog again, but because I'm taking Grade 11 Programming I'm reviving it.
So.
Yeah.
Also, thanks to my good friends Alex Rastelli and Kevin Guzman, I have discovered ponies.
Expect at least one post a week involving them.

Been a while

Hello to anyone reading this:

A few things. First off, I've been invited/chosen to take part in a programming contest, Programmania, through my school (specifically Mr. Chiarelli, my former Programming teacher).
Despite the fact that I haven't done any programming since last semester, I think I'll do it. Only problem is what I'll do regarding the pizza that's likely to be consumed, as I gave up lunch for Lent. :/
Ah, well, I suppose I can extend my Lenten observation by one day.

Next up: I have recently delved deep into the world of Android. I have rooted, flashed, recovered, and messed up my phone, an underpowered Samsung Galaxy Gio (GT-S5660M, the M meaning a deviation from the regular version, specifically for Bell/Virgin Mobile/Solo Mobile customers). If you have an Android phone, or any smartphone for that matter, I strongly suggest checking out the XDA Developers' forum, where you can learn all about rooting (gaining full control over your device) and flashing a custom ROM. My current ROM is a modified port of CM9 ICS, or CyanogenMod 9 Ice Cream Sandwich, called GalaxyICS, which is for the Gio, Ace, and (I believe) Mini. A little slow sometimes, but with only 800MHz and 300MB of RAM or so, that's not a lot to work with.

So, yeah. Chose my courses for next year, but it's complicated because I need a Senior Visual Arts credit, but I'm currently taking Grade 9. I'm in Grade 11 right now. You can't take three Visual Arts courses in the same year. I talked to my teacher, and she said that I should try to get into the Grade 11 Mixed- or Open-level course, then the Grade 12 one, even though the M course requires Grade 10 as a prerequisite.

Stay tuned to my blog for more info about my personal life!
(Stalkers.)
(:P)