Brain Poo

Prince of Persia: The Fallen King

2009-11-15T20:44:21Z

Opening this game, I really enjoyed it. Last night I finally took some time to finish it up (4 hours to finish the last 3 of 6 levels, oy).

It was a disappointment. The beginning opened with very little storyline - nothing at all like the original Prince of Persia titles, much less the ones I enjoyed on Gamecube. You were simply thrown into a level without much explanation whatsoever.

The gameplay is completely touchscreen, another thing I'm not a big fan of. I like the choice of whether or not to use the touch screen or any of my various buttons. Not only that, but I think having to do part after part of every stage did a number on my touch screen; the game's controls are very buggy, causing me to die a number of times because instead of jumping to a platform and stopping, the game decides that it thinks you want it to jump to a platform and run off (there's a reason for run and jump keys, rather than clicking with a pen).

The graphics are pretty; you get to see shinies around where you touch, which I found very thrilling in my very simple mind. They're cartoony, reminiscent of Zelda: Windwaker or Phantom Hourglass, both of which were games which I enjoyed.

In the end, though, the game became very repetitive; the last boss was a repeat of the bosses from the levels before it, and I had so many lives saved up from not dying to past bosses that I just kept rezzing any time I fudged up. I didn't even do half of the "sidequests" (read: doing levels all over again when Zal gets another magical power in order to do one more part in the level which gave you another extra life for the boss fights or another health dot).

It wasn't a bad game, but it wasn't that great of one. I'd give it 3 stars, but I don't think it's one (unlike Tales of Symphonia) which I'll be playing multiple times.

I'm sick and tired of anonymous malicious messages

2009-07-03T05:09:29Z

Whomever is leaving malicious comments on my LiveJournal and my site, please read:

they're a minor aggravation, basically. I think it's something legitimate, only to be disappointed. If you really want to get at me, you're going about it the wrong way. The truth is, I've become much stronger emotionally, to the point where I generally just delete or screen your attacks. So stop wasting both of our time.

Anyway, I'm off to finish getting ready for my flight to Fresno :) So excited ♥

i fail at cuts

2009-05-29T02:04:40Z

So instead... I ended up just cutting a few communities, and some people who havent updated in a while xP

If you were one of them (or I cut you by accident), let me know! Leaving this entry pub licks.

Impending friends cut

2009-05-28T03:55:57Z

So, I'm breaking back into personal blogging, and LiveJournal, but in the meantime I'm going to do a massive friends cut this weekend.

I've already removed people which did not have me friended mutually as well as a few communities. This weekend, I will be cutting people whose journals I do not read, and people who do not seem to read my own journal, as well as friends whom I do not feel are friends.

No, I've never done a friends cut; I figured if people were interested in reading me they would add me and I would do vice versa. However, I'm at a point in my life right now where I feel like it's time to do a different take on things.

It gets really annoying

2009-05-05T14:15:19Z

when she feels the need to nag CONSTANTLY.

And then call me a child because she nagged in the first place. Sometimes

I wonder if she feels more adult just because she gets an excuse to say I'm "shoveling shit"

I swear to God, Fall cannot come soon enough.

Ugh

2009-05-02T02:32:00Z

So, I'm getting mildly pissed at this point

I'm curbing a huge addiction, one that I was never necessarily told to cut out, but one that I felt would better me as a person, because I want to have something of a social life.

Well, why is it that not but two days after I quit, I try to go out and do something with my friends.... And all of them are busy? It's really kind of disheartening when you really think about it.

Yes, I'd try to go out on my own. The problem? My parents are making excuses again about me driving - essentially, not letting me just because my mom put a hole in one tire, so they put a donut on it and just haven't gotten around to fixing it, and are telling me I can't use the car until they fix it. The problem? After they blew the tire up, they bought a kind of expensive new living room set (and they are complaining about debt when our old one was just fine....)

It's really aggravating to me that my dad would continue to make excuses to not let me drive and basically keep me stranded at the house, and that everyone else is out doing shit but all I can do is sit around trying to keep busy when I've run out of things to keep busy with.

No More Warcrack

2009-05-01T05:45:04Z

I quit WoW yesterday.

It was pretty strange.

I had a tutoring session for Illustrator with someone... While I was doing it, I realized that I really do have some talent with illustration and design - maybe I'm not a modern-day picasso, but I can still do a lot of really cool things that I haven't been doing because I spend all of my time on WoW.

In addition, I was sick of Warcraft drama. I was tired of feeling emotionally drained over a *game*.

This is coming from a shaman who was in one of the top US guilds... Other than a small handful at the very tippy-top, I probably could have gotten into any guild that I wanted. I could have even switched to just playing PvP.

But instead, I saw the light. I saw what I wanted and where I was heading, and they weren't quite colliding.

So, I threw in the towel once again, this time of my own free will, and shut off the payments to my account.

This time, probably for good.

Sigh

2009-04-08T20:37:20Z

We tried to take the cat, Axl, to the vet this morning; it seemed like he was having heart problems.

He died on the way.

maidenus @ 2009-04-04T18:57:00

2009-04-05T01:57:26Z

I love you.

<3

I self published today

2009-03-24T03:43:35Z

I went ahead and self-published on Lulu here: http://www.lulu.com/content/hardcover-book/song-of-destiny/6537006

I thought I might like to share it with some friends, so you guys can share that link. Otherwise, this is a private publication; I don't want to have it a public publication because I feel that once the economy begins to pick up, I should like to pursue an agent and a better publication method.

Cover art was done by me, all writing is © me under Creative Commons.

maidenus @ 2009-03-22T13:42:00

2009-03-22T20:43:50Z

Well, my parents are noticing my small week of mellowness.

I say mellowness, because I'm not really depressed - just feeling ughz because there's no paying work coming in, and I'm watching all of my friends come back with another year of college done, when I wasn't able to get any done at all this year. Sure I took a few classes, but they were really a waste of time since my school wouldn't let me take the ones I needed to take in order to transfer.

It's really impacting me to not have some money coming in, though. I have $2500 in the bank that I have to live on for a year; that's going to be fun. And I haven't even paid my bills yet. At this point I'm probably going to look into getting some retail work, or becoming a tutor, or something, because I'll admit that I feel pretty worthless when I'm not doing something. That's how I've felt this week, to be honest; stuck. I don't want to be here in Vegas my entire life. And everyone's busy with their own friends and their own lives, and I find myself stuck in the house quite a bit; the one time someone asked me to go out somewhere, I had a stomach flu.

So I'm probably going to start applying at retail jobs; I need to get out of the house and doing things. I feel horrible just sitting around day in and day out; it's not my personality.

Meh... time to update my resume.

We're part of a story, part of a journey~

2009-03-19T21:06:59Z

I've given up on pursuing Shu legally. I was angry, yes; Rika still very much wants me to break his kneecaps, but I don't want to get anyone in trouble legally.

My Wordpress experiments are coming along nicely; I think I've got some of it working, just need to style it up a bit.

Probably not going to get much done today though; thsi weekend my family was over, and Monday was a cookout, then the day after everyone, including myself, came down with stomach flus xP

Fun =_=

Otherwise feeling pretty good.

Oh hi Mr. Llama

2009-03-12T17:12:53Z

So Friday, I stop by BDI on my way doing errands, with some things of Shu's I found while unpacking. I give them back to him without a word, offer a smile (because I was in a terribly good mood), and go about my merry way.

I figure things are okay. He's out of my life, out of my mind, and certainly out of my heart.

Then Monday comes along. I check my bank statements, and realize with shock...5

He took out all of the money that had been placed in the savings account we had used to transfer money. I was the only one who put money in there when we used it as not only a savings fund but a way for me to pay my bills. I message him over Myspace, since he's blocked me on GTalk for no damn reason while I was out of town visiting my brother and hanging out with Arnold.

The date on the transfer was Friday, the day he saw me very happy and content with life. Suspicious? Yes.

He blocks me on Myspace. Defriends me rather and sets it so that non-friends can't send him messages, or something like that. Probably hit the blocked button thinking that there's no way I can get back at him or whatever. All in response to me telling him I want my money back, he had no right to take it, and that if he needed it that badly he should really get his finances together. So I message him on Facebook telling him he can expect a visit from me and my friends, because I'm not going to let him trample all over me.

So then in response he sends me angry text messages, saying I just wanted an excuse to talk to him and how he's so much happier without me (does he realize I'm already interested in someone else? Obviously not!) and how he'll pay me back $80 once I give him the month's rent for the week or two in July that I spent living with him.

Hmm.. I owe him money? Let's look at these expenses.

He withdrew $50 when we initially broke up; he had only deposited $25 in total into savings. I didn't push for the other $25 because I didn't see the point.

When we initially got together, he had no bank account. I took him to get one, and we discovered he had one with roughly $125 in it I think it was. This brings up the total he 'owes' me to $150, not including the $80 he took.

When things went wrong with BoA, I paid roughly $115 to bail him out of having an accumulating debt from overdraft fees that he didn't have the money to pay because he'd decided to get a new graphics card for his computer. I think this brings me to.. I want to say $240? Once again, not including the $80.

Then there's when I paid $150 for groceries and things around the house that I never even used because I wasn't there long enough. I left things like paper towels, a huge jug of soap, a bunch of chicken (mmm chicken). I ate a little, so I'll be forgiving and say it's $75. This brings me to.. Oh, wow, $315!

I paid $225 in rent.

That means that he owes me a grand total of $90 for all the ways I've covered his ass and not said anything.

With the other $80, this amounts to $170.

So, which should I charge? $170 or should I be nice and just try to collect the $80 he took on Friday when I was being nice?

Oh, and, I'll also be getting my guitar. It was so very nice of him to be so COURTEOUS and return my things to me, even after the breakup was finalized. I know I'll never be doing it again!

Calling all flash developers!

2009-03-09T09:21:10Z

Hey guys;

I know a lot of you develop graphics, and I'm trying to add a Flash developer to my team. I'm going to probably have a site coming in that requires a small amount of Flash; you would receive a portion of the total cost, as well as a very attractive addition to your portfolio (plus you'd get to work with me!)

The client wants something similar to this site: http://premierespeakers.com/ I'm trying to talk them into a more accessible setup which will require no Flash whatsoever, but I'd still like to have a Flash specialist on my team for when a project comes in, and one on standby if the client does not change their mind.

I already work with a content writer and a developer, and I do all of the other graphics and design work myself (as well as some of the development) as well as work with several other designers/graphics artists, so I would expect you to spend no more than a few hours on this site. A price hasn't been settled, but you can expect to receive at least 10% comission (which, usually is quite a lot (upon average you would receive $150-$500 for one job - just for doing a few hours of Flash!), but I offered this particular client a 50% discount).

For more details, please IM me!:

MSN: silentdelerium08@gmail.com
YIM: scintillaofeternity
AIM: ImW8ngForGodot
GTalk/Jabber: brandnewaquarium@gmail.com or maidenus@livejournal.com

I'd also like to see samples of your work so that I can gauge your level of skill and expertise. I don't care if you're home taught or formally taught, all I care to see is a level of skill that I can work with, someone I can give pointers to, and someone who can take criticism from me. I do know some Flash, but admittedly my knowlede of it is currently limited - I like to focus more on the implementation, the PHP, and the Photoshop/Illustrator (as well as being the customer relations person haha).

You can view my freelance portfolio at http://belinkddesign.com . In addition, some other sites I've worked on in the past include http://confava.com as well as a few templates that can be found at http://projects.belinkddesign.com/templates/practicedesign.pdf and http://projects.belinkddesign.com/templates/layout.png

Hope to hear from some of you! :)

Death City?

2009-03-02T21:45:15Z

in my state?

It's more likely than you think.

What a whirlwind it's been

2009-03-01T05:40:45Z

Well, I'm glad to say I'm over what happened mid-January.

I've moved on with life, and I'm much happier now. It's funny; soon as I split up with Shu, I find myself being asked out by other people and whatnot. Admittedly there's one I wouldn't mind being with, but for the time being I'm working hard at revaming BeLink'd, and getting a new Wordpress theme on it - not necessarily too much time to stop and think about the other gender, or even relationships in general.

Though there's one thing that bothers me.

My credit score was delivered to Shu.

And I need it. And he blocked me from GTalk. Why do I need it? Well, not only am I looking to finance a new car, as well as am looking at hefty loans (thanks to getting into Sacramento State), I also have heard from my bank that apparently, someone took out a mortgage in my name in 2004.

The problem with this?

I was 14 in 2004. There is no way that this should have been approved, let alone have happened with me at such an early age.

In any case, the site redesign is going well. I've asked exor674 to install Wordpress on the server, as I hope to actually host the blog there, rather than have it on Blogspot, with hopes of drawing in more traffic this way. I've been working on it almost nonstop all week, and today I finally converted most of the files to PHP, as well as finished the jQuery programming for the portfolio, and finished coding out the rest of the pages.

Meanwhile, this weekend!

This past weekend was, to say the least, very amazing. Saturday morning, we leave early for Fresno to visit my brother, Reno, and we arrive around noon.

Well, a friend of mine that I had previously only met online decides to come over.. bringing with him a cheesecake! This friend, by the way, goes by the name of Arnold.

Saturday, we spend the day walking around Riverpark, not necessarily going into shops but not necessarily going anywhere either. Just walked and talked.. and talked.. and talked! I had See's Candy for the first time - it was delicious! (I do not believe there was any See's Candy on the east coast.) We then go to dinner at PF Chang's, where we sit very close.. everything just felt so very right, and I know in those moments that there is something here - something that I hadn't felt in a very long time.

Now, mind you, Arnold knows the kinds of things I went through with Shu. He knows about the battles over trying to just go out, and the last two months which I spent with Shu in which well... I basically did all of the house work, and how he laughed at me, and how he showed more care for his video games than he did for me. So, yes, Arnold is very respectful of the difficulty which I went through with Shu, and trying to get back together with Shu, only for Shu to block me from GTalk and laugh in my face. Thus, he knew to give me distance this past weekend in order to recover completely.

That said, Sunday finally came around. My friend, averagerook, drove over from Fremont to hang out; we waited at my brother's house first, and then sat and talked, before heading out to the nearby mall. We walked up and down the mall again, not really shopping for anything, until averagerook had to go home. We then had dinner with my family at a nearby pizzaria, which was definitely very fun! (I personally love this brother.) Then, off to the mall again - only this time, it was closed! But it was a wonderful night - not terribly cold, and though it was wet from having several days of rain, I don't think we really noticed as we once again.. walked and talked.. and talked.. and talked.. and talked! We suddenly found ourselves on a bench, just sitting and chatting - it was certainly amazing how quickly time simply flew (not to mention disappointing!)

Well, Arnold drops me off around 8:30 again (he promised my parents both nights that he would), and the next morning...

Shows up for breakfast! We bid farewell to my brother and his wife, and well.. I honestly don't remember where we eat, but it was certainly very good. We then say goodbye to Arnold as we leave, and drive for an hour to Bakersfield, where we spend an hour - in nice, beautiful weather at my cousin's. Then, on home!

Then yesterday, was hiking.

Rika and AJ and I went.

I overslept a smidge more than I meant to, and wound up waking up late - just like Rika did the last time we tried to go hiking. Only, the difference was that I didn't have her waiting until 4 PM while I tried to get ready; I was ready to go by 1. Then she gets angry at me because for once I was the person who was late, so I offer to get lunch.

Well, we go to Smith's. I buy donuts for everyone (lunch!), and water. We head on out to Red Rock, and generally have a good time taking pictures, until around 2, which is when Arnold was getting out of class, and I just wanted to text him to let him know I was still hiking (Rika texts around me quite a lot.) She snaps at us quite a lot, but neither of us say anything.. I really don't want to start drama, because I've only just started getting over the drama that started mid-January - I don't need an argument with one of my best mates to get in the way.

Well.. then we go to dinner. I get a little miffed, because Rika basically wants to spend $40 on food, when honestly, we could have probably all gotten our stomachs full on less than half of that. So, I essentially can't really afford the tip, given that I'm trying to get a new car, and haven't had very much in the way of steady work for the last two weeks.

All that aside though.. it was a blast! ^_^

All in all, definitely an interesting week! How interesting.. to go from being completely mopey and depressed, to finding someone that I realize I can tell anything to.. and who just seems to GET me. It's pretty nice really =)

Woo!

2009-02-24T21:51:48Z

I got into my safety school, Sacramento State!

=)

Feeling pretty good after this weekend.

Anyone got any tips concerning Agile Carousel jQuery plugin? I'm playing around with it today, and am interested in learning how to make it work. But when I try to upload its stuff, it gives me:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function filter_var() in /mnt/data/com.belinkddesign.projects/htdocs/carousel/make_slides.php on line 17

Meme from a friend

2009-02-18T08:22:22Z

I feel loved when...

The Five Love Languages

My Primary Love Languages are probably Acts of Service and Quality Time

My Detailed Results:

Acts of Service:	10
Quality Time:	10
Physical Touch:	6
Words of Affirmation:	3
Receiving Gifts:	1

About this quiz

Unhappiness in relationships is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. It can be helpful to know what language you speak and what language those around you speak.

Tag 3 people so they can find out what their love language is.

Take the Quiz!
Check out the Book

Bah

2009-02-15T20:20:27Z

I really wish txtLJ worked with Verizon right about now >

About that

2009-02-06T16:45:00Z

I guess it comes as a surprise to some people, but not to others, and that this probably seems like a very abrupt thing to do.

It's been snowballing for several months now.

After December, I simply gave up. I saw that no matter how much I begged for his attention, no matter how much I tried to make things work, he was still going to sit in front of that game and drown the rest of his life out. We hardly said two words to one another; housework began to fall on me to do, and he began to refer to Ragnarok Online as his "second job" (excuse me? I'm doing freelance, working a day job, and going to school - if ANY of us have anything CLOSE to a second job, it's ME).

Frankly, I've been so tired having to take care of all three of us (the third being the burd), that I simply gave up. I was doing all of this on six or less hours of sleep - with hardly as much as a thank you (though I did finally get one this morning when I made his breakfast, like I do every morning). Technically, we've been broken up since mid-January, and just in this weird state of living together as room mates. It's a long story, but basically that was his last chance at actually talking to me and making things all right again.

Valentine's Day shouldn't be miserable though... I'm going out to Fresno to see my brother, and while I'm there I'm hoping to hang out with Arnold for a little while. That'll keep me busy for a while so I don't have to think about it.

So

2009-02-06T07:32:04Z

I'm moving out tomorrow.

maidenus @ 2009-02-05T19:33:00

2009-02-06T03:33:17Z

Get your own valentinr

I'm still here

2009-01-30T16:25:08Z

Lately life has been full of laughter, anger, and exhaustion.

There's been a bit of a mental shift lately; I think many of you have heard about it thus far. Mostly my aggravation, being tired of having to be the only person to carry this relationship, being tired of having my personal information revealed to people whom I've never met and have only briefly spoken to over the internet.

The good news is, I GOT OCARINA OF TIME! I ordered it off of Amazon the other day, and it came in yesterday. It's like visiting childhood again; I got the Gamecube version, but other than the controls being slightly different, it's just like I remember it. Only more confusing.

What touched me was that the person whom I ordered it from sent me a hand-written note and proof of purchase. On the bottom, they apologized, explaining that they couldn't afford the ink to put in their printer at the moment.... Thus why they were selling their games. I felt terrible for them. At the same time, though, I really hope that I helped them out a little bit with my $40 for Master Quest and Ocarina of Time; in these troubled times, I hope that every little bit goes to help.

If anything, it makes me feel better about spending my money. I'm a real penny pincher; I rarely spend more than $20 on luxury items like games, much less $40. Especially with how things are right now in my life, when I'm about to make yet another transition - getting a car, finding a short-term lease, etcetera.

I hope that all of you are well; I haven't been able to check my friends page in a while, so if there's anything you want me to see, please link it here in your comments :)

maidenus @ 2009-01-23T11:54:00

2009-01-23T19:54:55Z

maidenus @ 2009-01-18T21:43:00

2009-01-19T05:44:01Z

My personal life tends to be an embarrassing state of affairs. I'm usually more worried about work and school than I am relationships or even friendships (a bad flaw of mine).

A long time ago, someone told me that in order to be happy in a relationship and make it work, two people have to meet at a certain level on three scales: intellectually, emotionally/spiritually, and sexually. You can meet on two of these levels and be friends or meet on two and just be general fuckbuddies... But without emotional support, relationships flounder, and without an intellectual or sexual meeting point, one or the other can start looking for something more.

Now, mind you, this is just the result of my past few months of intense introspection; none of this necessarily currently relates to my personal life.

However, I find that I need certain things. I want a person who is inspiring, which I can respect. Someone who has aspirations and hopes and dreams, not someone who wants to stay at status quo. Wanting to have a family is great, but wouldn't a person what to do great things?

And I need someone who is understanding of me. Thanks to my difficult childhood, I'll admit that I come with a lack of self esteem and occasional instability. Someone who is willing to do something sweet for me... To make me not dwell on what's happening now or what happened in the past, and did I say the right thing here or what was I thinking right there.

But the three levels are still there. I need someone I can have an intelligent, intense conversation with, and then turn around and discuss something totally asymmetrical and asinine with, only to go back to something serious. Someone who can make me laugh and argue (in a good way). But with this, I want someone who wants to be someone, not for me or necessarily for their family, but for themselves.

As far as the more carnal things in life go, I'm even unstable with that. Because of my past, I've never been especially.. leaning toward that way. I mean, I'm not a perfect angel haha, but at the same time, I'm not as "easy" as the girls I went to high school with, and I fluctuate. Sometimes my own dirty thoughts make me unsure of myself, just because of how I was raised.... I guess I need someone who isn't worried about "getting something."

But all in all, I'm tired of things becoming complicated.