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Monday, January 15, 2007 Hey guys. Here I am, at 11:25 PM on the night before my semester exams start, posting a blog entry for the first time in several days. Sorry I haven't posted an entry in a while, it's just been one of those weekends where I'm not paying too much attention to my blog. Just a summary of what's been happening in my life lately, both on- and offline: Semester Exams. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I have three of my most rugged tests tomorrow. I've studied a bunch, but I'm still screwed for Bio . I'm in the middle of constructing some more content blocks to the right, adding Blog Tools and a content block with links to About Me and PM Me. Me and my dad are setting up some shelf cases in the basement that we got from Ikea. Guess what I'm gonna put in them . I'm also learning more and more about .zip archives, such as... well... how to unzip them . Seriously though, I've been fiddling around with Biomaniac's offline MNOLGII file and Crystal Matrix's BS01 archive files. It's been cool. I wish I were taking some sort of computer or web design class. That may have to wait for college, maybe . We got rid of our Christmas tree at last, much to the dismay of my cat, Shadow, as she had made a little habitat in there (good tree water, you know). I finally got Bionicle Legends #6 in the mail on saturday and read it. It's a very well-paced book, although it has an even more dreadful cliffhanger than Bionicle Legends #5 . Just as Greg said, of course, there are no Toa in the book at all, which kinda gives the story a different flavor from the usual Bionicle tale. I'll post a little mini-review sometime or another, just like I did with 4 an 5 . Don't think I've forgotten that reference project o' mine. With the Toa Mata finished, I'm working on the Turaga .Oh, wanna hear something funny? I must've been tired while making flashcards for American Lit. I said that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Dependance. Hoo boy, history may have turned out a little bit different if that were true.
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Saturday, January 6, 2007 Look back at yesterday's entry, which was about my brother's school getting canceled. Well, we have a plot twist, friends. I was in one of my high school classes yesterday when another student said to me, "Someone broke into your school." "What?" I said, at first a little taken by surprise, since my old grade school doesn't come up in conversation much anymore, especially with students who didn't go there with me. Sure enough, he told me that someone had broken into the school and vandalized it. The kid pulled out the paper and showed me the article. What I read was pretty shocking, and evidently the business about the school being closed because of mechanical problems had merely been an unconfirmed rumor. Some vandals had smashed in the glass doors of the preschool/kindergarten wing. They went inside and then got hold of about ten of the fire extinguishers and sprayed their contents everywhere -- on the walls, in the drinking fountains, and other places. They probably would have trashed the place more if the dust from the extinguishers hadn't set the fire alarm off. They must've bolted when that happened, taking the fire extinguishers with them -- there had to have been at least five or so people there if they were able to carry off that many containers. Personally, it sounds like the eigth-graders to me. The police department itself is saying that this typically would have been done by young people, and I think this is kids who just don't want to go back to school that badly. Clearly they went over the top. Most of the time when kids mess with stuff in the school, it's to spite the faculty's ignorance. But this was different. This time, there were no unlocked doors or open lockers. This time, they actually caused damage to cause damage. Too bad. Although my brother isn't complaining, of course.
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Thursday, January 4, 2007 Today was my first day back to school . Felt like a monday . Gotta hate those. So I have to get up at 6:40. I come downstairs after washing my face, getting dressed, etc. I'm eating a bagel when we get a phone call. My dad picks up. "Hello?" ... "This is he." ... "Oh...really?" ... "Alright then... would you happen to know what the reason is for this?" ... "So, you're not really sure, you're just happy to pass along the news ." ... "Right, right. So, this is just one step of the calling tree...do you have the list? Who do I call next?" ... "Alright, thank you, buh-bye." That's my brother's grade school being closed for the next two days due to mechanical problems when he was supposed to go back today like me. They never did that when I was there .
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Wednesday, January 3, 2007 That's right, we got locked out of our house yesterday. My parents just walked right out the door without checking for keys. That's the price you pay for wanting to spend time at the park, I guess . How did we get back in? Well, our neighbor still had a key to our house from the time she looked over our cat while we were gone over Thanksgiving. Yeah, I have some thanksgiving for that right now . Actually, there was one problem -- she was at work and we weren't even exactly sure when she would be back. We left a note for her to call my mom's cell, and then we just went off to kill time. We went ahead to the park for a few hours, then we got in touch with some friends. We went over there for dinner, and it turned out to be a pretty nice evening. They have a Wii . Conclusion: neighbor called us, left key under our mat, we went home.
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Thursday, December 27, 2006 Or rather, in my hand.
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006 As I type, dozens and dozens of Quicktime movie files are being converted to iPod-acceptable .mpeg files through iTunes. For them, this is near the end of a long journey, a voyage from their original urls to my video iPod. The only problem is, however, that this near-final step will most likely take a few more hours to complete. Ah, everyone loves the old quicktime movies that LEGO employs the European animation company Ghost A/S to produce every year. The movies add a unique richness to the BIONICLE experience by giving life to the brand's colorful toys. Wouldn't it be great if one could simply pull them out of his pocket to watch them whenever he wanted? Achieving this goal, as I have painstakingly found out, has turned out to be a very long and frustrating pursuit. Reasons for this may be the fact that I absolutely hate the iTunes software (and, truthfully, anything with a trademark small "i" in front of it); or it may also be the fact that finding all of these movie files and gathering them from various places on the internet has been very difficult as well. Whatever factors are responsible, I can tell you that this seemingly wild goose chase has been one heck of a voya nui ("great journey," for those of you less atuned to the storyline). I am here to tell you that I have almost come to the end. The first step was finding all of the movies in the first place. There were some very decent places to visit when looking for the video files: Bionicle.com itself; the Ghost A/S gallery; the Ghost A/S LEGO BIONICLE Archive; Bioniclub.cz; some advertizing company's site that I forgot the name of and doesn't have the movie files anymore anyway; and, before it went down, Bionicle Sector 01. Ever since I discovered the "right-click, save file as..." method of downloading movie files from the web back in 2005, I have been collecting files from the web -- Uhh... ... ... What's this? Okay, no joke, while I type this, a window has just opened up, reading: "iTunes has encountered an error and needs to close. We apologize for any inconvenience." *smacks head* ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!?!?!? It's taken forever to convert those files! Okay, I'm not too worried, just annoyed. I just gotta open up iTunes again to continue converting the files, and it will be just fine. I'm sure that this interruption hasn't affected the files that have already been converted so far. *goes off to check* Yes, I was right. No crisis. I just need to start the process up again to finish off the other files. *goes off to do that* Alright, I've done that. It's working again. Now, where was I? *scrolls up* Oh, right, the files. So yeah, I made this special folder on my desktop which held another special folder that held my collection of Bionicle movies that I had been gathering from the web ever since 2005. Here's even an example of what I discovered while tinkering with Quicktime. Anyway, I organized the special folder to my liking, but throughout the better part of 2006, my computer had this bug that made it unable to play the audio to the majority of my movie files. The picture worked fine, but I could not fix the darn sound. The funny thing is that this whole thing started not long after I bought my video iPod and downloaded the iTunes software and a more recent version of Quicktime onto my computer. Well, a month or so ago, the thing somehow fixed itself and just went away, much to my relief. Now I was once again in top-notch shape to get those videos into my pocket. Just a wee problem, though. Actually, a HUGE one. iTunes is the most finnicky software I have ever encountered IN MY LIFE. It's a nightmare -- it takes a long time to do anything; it absolutely must sort EVERYTHING alphabetically, which I don't want it to do all the time; the iPod MUST be ejected before disconnecting the USB cable, or else all of the songs on it get deleted (which I know from experience); and the iPod only accepts its fancy mp3 files -- what a wuss. Well, the iTunes software wouldn't allow me to import my Bionicle movie files becuase it couldn't recognize the file types (which are classified as "any file"). So, I spent a few minutes just this morning converting them into Quicktime .mov files. If it gets me that much closer to achieving my goal, I'll take the time to do it. Double-click, File, Save As..., Save in folder..., OK. Double-click, File, Save As..., OK. Double-click, File, Save As..., OK. That goes on several dozen times, and I have a folder full of .mov files just waiting to be imported into iTunes. Import them, I was able to. I even sorted them into playlists by year. I could actually play them in iTunes! I was very impressed by how the software automatically makes thumbnails for the videos. That was cool, although that does have a downside in that I can't change the darn thumbnails when it picks a bad frame. Then I hooked up my iPod and tried to make a simple download of the files onto it. Then I get this funny little message saying something along the lines of "Some of the files, inluding [all of them], were unable to be dowloaded because the iPod software does not recognize the file type. *smacks the already swollen bump on my forehead* Well, that's what this conversion process is all about. All of my Bionicle .mov files are being converted into .mpeg-4 files, which I will soon be able to finally download onto my iPod. I just have to see how this whole thing turns out. ...! What's this? It's done! All of the files are done! Well, BZPower, I'll tell you how it ends later, when I have at last ended it . See you again soon.
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Saturday, December 16, 2006 Boo-yah! Who will dare to topple me from second place!? What a GREAT GAME. I'm addicted to it. Well, I slept for fifteen hours last night, from 5:30 PM yesterday until 8:30 this morning. That's what going to bed at 3:30 the night before will do to ya. That's also definitely what I call "pulling a Mata Nui."
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Wednesday, December 20, 2006 Ah, school's finally over for the break! Me so happy . Yeah, I saw the Blue Man Group tonight. The show is very...creative. Very good. The toilet paper thing at the end is quite an experience. I invite others to comment on the show for those who have seen it. Especially if you were a...victim . I've been to the show a couple times before myself. Last time, my little brother caught the jelly cork thing that launches from the table in the middle of the show. It was really cool. And squishy. We tried to preserve it as long as we could until it like...disintegrated. Meh. Squishy things are short-lived. I finally got my two-year Avohkii last night! Thanks, BZP, for a great two years!
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Friday, Decmber 15, 2006 I totally just shattered -- and I mean SHATTERED -- this old record. It's 3:22. AM. :annoyed:z z Z
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Thursday, December 14, 2006 As of last Tuesday, I own the Piraka Stronghold, Thulox, Dekar, Defilak, and Thulox. For some reason -- we definitely didn't order it -- they were extra nice and threw in a couple of base plates in the package at no charge. Mistake? I'm not complaining. It kinda makes up for the lousy shipping service all year . Defilak Boxes for the small sets are clearly getting bigger year by year. What's inside the box: What comes right out of the box: Pieces you'll only find in this set: Whoah, that image creates kind of an optical illusion, right? Yes, that silver Bohrok tooth has appeared before in the Roodaka set, but it's a pretty scarce piece otherwise. How to build a Matoran of Mahri Nui: Dekar: What's inside the box: What comes right out of the box: Pieces you'll only find in this set: Again, the silver Bohrok tooth is simply an uncommon piece. I'll comment now that I really like the new dagger tools. All da pieces: Anyway, you build this thing and it ends up looking like this: Thulox: What's inside the box: What comes right out of the box: All da pieces: Pieces you'll only find in this set: A red Zamor and one of Kalmah's armor plates! Seeing as I don't think I've encountered a red one-of-those pieces before, I assumed it was uncommon as well. ...And that's when my camera died. Yeah, you probably wanted to see the Piraka Stronghold. Later, later...
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Wednesday, December 13, 2006 Woo-hoo! Up at 1 AM because of my homework XD! Way to be nocturnal! :annoyed:z z Z
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Friday, December 8, 2006 Typping is very hard right now. I've totally lost my left arm. See, at the end of scghool, I had to carry my celloo through the halls and through the brutally cold outdoors to our car in order to bring it home for a concert tomorrow. I had to carry this huge instrument in its case in pone arm while carrying my music folder and in the other, ALL the while csrrying my heaqvy backlpack on my shoulders. Well, that weight of my cello and the freezing temperastures iof the outdoors...did something to that muscdle in my left arm and is involuntarily contracting. You may remember this entry, so this is kinda freakin' me out right nowe. Well, I'm gonna try to sleep this thing off now. (I'm also too much of a slacker tp go back and fix the tyoping erors I made withy one hand. Sorry.)
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Saturday, December 2, 2006 Hey, guys. I'm feeling much better than I did when I posted my last entry (and I did get a snow day ). Okay, here's the point of this entry. I just saw this Barraki pic: At first, I wondered why the heck LEGO Marketing would make the canisters in such a funny shape. They can no longer be stacked, which is something that every store that sells Bionicle canister sets has done before. Then I immediately realized something pretty smart on LEGO's part. The canisters are shaped in such a way that they must all be facing the same way when on display in a store, unlike the previously shaped canisters that get turned around by shoppers and get faced the other way so other shoppers can't even see the picture of what's inside the can. But the Barraki canisters are different now, so that when shoppers pass by an array of Barraki canisters, they get to see all of the front canister art of each of the six Barraki. I do think that LEGO engineered this to try to improve sales in some way, however small. From what GregF has told members, LEGO Marketing has been leaving no detail unchecked in order to increase purchases. Oh, there's another thing, too! Brickmaster comes all in one package now! The last couple years have been very annoying, getting the magazine and then waiting for the package to come, or getting package and waiting for the magazine to come. It made everything arrive later than it needed to, I think. Now, it looks like LEGO ships everything off in just one bundle, cutting the number of Brickmaster shipments in half. That means that there are a lot less shipments to sort out, which means I might start getting my stuff earlier in the month (or at least in the month)! It probably costs some amount less in shipping, anyway. Keep up the good work, LEGO! Here's some pics of the Brickmaster bundle: Package|Disk|Magazine (which came folded around the disk. It comes with a Batman comic as well as a Bionicle comic now) Well, I'm going to watch the Two Towers DVD now. Be back in four hours.
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Thursday, November 30, 2006 I haven't blogged in a while, have I? It's a miserablely cold, dreary, dark day outside. Man, I just felt like crud today. I was alright early in the morning, so I went to my classes, but I began to feel weak and achey in school around eleven. That stank. Never try carrying a 1300-page lit book or a Bible in your backpack while walking through the halls when you're in that condition. It still hasn't gone away, either. I just feel...tired. And it's not just getting worse, it's accelerating. I want to go to sleep and not go to school tomorrow. Forget homework and waking up early. That would be great. That might become a reality anyway, if the weather that is supposed to come tonight is bad enough to evoke a snow day. I am doubtful, though, as I hear that my school hasn't called a snow day in six years. Yeah, doubtful. But I am hopeful nonetheless. A snow day tomorrow means I have no tests or classes to make up if I stay home from school. Wish I could have posted an entry with more holiday cheer, but I guess I'm really not in that kind of mood. Well, I just got up from my bed now, just like I did yesterday and the day before that. You see, my schedule has been pretty simple: school ends at three, I get home at four-fifteen, then I sleep. And I figure out my homework on the day it's due somehow. I guess I better get to that last part right now, just...in case.
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Tuesday, November 21, 2006 Take a look at Dekar. Notice his color scheme: yellow and black. We know he's a Po-Matoran following Toa Hewkii's color scheme, but it wasn't really necessary to make an exceptional Po-Matoran color, don't you think? He easily could have been a Ta-Matoran; since 2001, we saw from MNOLG that Ta-Matoran colors included red, orange, yellow, and black. Why is this? My explanation is that the ones who determined Dekar a Po-Matoran simply didn't have that in mind. Oh well. If it makes you feel better, it's a different shade of yellow -- one that might be considered exclusive to Po-Matoran -- from the lighter yellow back from '01. Whatever. Not like it RUINS THE WHOLE STORYLINE for me .
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Sunday, November 19, 2006 Yay, minor victory ! I just had a (kinda) major breakthrough with BBCode ! I've stumbled upon a way to make the images in my Blog Navigator content block link to pages so that they don't open a new browser when you click on them. This is great because it's really annoying to click on one of my links and have to go back and close the old browser that you don't need (or if you don't close the browser, all of the extra windows really clutter things up). Now that problem has been fixed forever. Go ahead -- try it out! Click here, prove me right While you're at it, click here to view my (unfinished but no longer unpublished) take on the Bionicle storyline.
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Thursday, November 16, 2006 Muscles some in antagonistic pairs -- one muscle contracts to move a joint one way, and another serves to move it the other way. Your muscles are so strong that if both muscles in one of your antagonistic pairs contracted at the same time, they would break the bone they were connected to. Thank goodness for nerve impulses that make this impossible to happen. But should your electrical signals fail you...as they might during electrocution... Just a little anatomy trivia.
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Saturday, November 11, 2006 I figured it out. Someone else probably has already, but I assure you that I didn't get this from anywhere else. Take a look at Tilius's scan of Pridak. Notice how the squid in the launcher is slightly shorter than the one clipped to his armor. This observation has led me to this conlusion: See? To fit the polyp into the launcher, the tail has to scrunch up. When you press the knobs on the sides of the launcher, the clip holding the polyp from springing out opens and releases it, much like the Lego blunt shooters.
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Thursday, November 9, 2006 I got Bionicle Legends #5 yesterday and read it. I was hoping it would top #4. It did. Excellent for a BIONICLE book. You know that supposed opening scene where two Great Beings place the Ignika underneath Mount Valmai? The book couldn't have started in a better way. I loved how that introduced me as the reader into the present-day scene right where Bionicle Legends #4 left off. Right afterwards, the plot launched into the Piraka's and Toa Inika's journey to the Chamber of Life, which got pretty intense at times and really drew me in. In the midst of all this was the showdown between Axonn and Brutaka that started back in Bionicle Legends #3, as well as the Matoran Resistance's search for the Toa Nuva. I seriously couldn't put this book down until I was finished, and that does not happen with many BIONICLE books (mainly the older ones). I'm really glad that the books just seem to get better and better...and GregF knows how to release which spoilers and which not to on BZP in order to make the book more enjoyable. Anyway, here are a few things in the book that I'd like to comment on (some spoilers of sorts, but I'm not giving away the plot straight up ): The two Great Beings have immense power, yet even they respect the power of the Ignika.How the Toa Nuva were imprisoned -- it's a good one. » Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «"You think you know horror, Irnakk? Horror is looking into the eyes of the Shadowed One, knowing you are about to die...and then being forced to live. Horror is waking each day to see every part of your body moving on its own, a shifting mass of protodites where once was solid metal and living tissue. Horror is what is in the eyes of your partners when they look at you...and in the cries of your enemies when your swarm engulfs them. Don't talk to me about fear, creature -- I am fear!" "Toa don't kill" -- played against the Toa Inika! Axonn and Brutaka face off...and Axonn utilizes a hidden power...The Toa Nuva meet the Toa Inika...apparently, the Toa Nuva need to "go somewhere."A terrible cliffhanger that only 2007 will resolve.
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Sunday, November 5, 2006 Come to think of it, wouldn't it make more sense if the names of the three BIONICLE books series were switched around? The current BIONICLE Adventures definitely should have been named BIONICLE Chronicles, as the whole series is for the most part the Turaga relating "chronicled" accounts of their experiences as the Toa Metru. The current BIONICLE Legends should be named BIONICLE Adventures, as it is the first time in the storyline that the Toa really get up and go on some sort of adventure to a whole new island. And the current BIONICLE Chronicles should be aptly named BIONICLE Legends, as the Toa and the Toa Nuva throughout the storyline are constantly relying on the legends of the Turaga for guidance, such as during the quest for the masks, their struggle against the Bohrok and Bohrok-Kal, and the legend of the Seventh Toa. Wouldn't you agree?
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Tuesday, November 7, 2006 Notice how I'm posting this entry at 2:41 AM. It's a late night . I'm up this late because I had to study for a bio test tomorrow. I only started my homework at around 10:45 PM, and that's because I had a three hour nap. And I had to lie down because when I first tried doing my literature homeowrk around 7:30 PM, it put me to sleep. Man, this school year is brutal .
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Friday, November 3, 2006 I got my quarter grades the other day. I'm doing way better than I was last year at this time! School has been really, really hard this year and has consumed most of my time (clearly the reason why I don't post as much as I did a couple months ago). But it looks like all of that time that I've spent has paid off. Look: English -- 98 Science -- 92 Greek -- 99 Orchestra -- 100 Religion -- 98 Math -- 92 Go me!
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Tuesday, October 31, 2006 Of course, so do I now. And all of them vant to suck my blood. Having fleas in the house is the worst. I have about fifteen bites on my right ankle alone. It looks like I have some sort of horrible outbreak of acne down there, but all of those red bumps are actually these horribly itchy flea bites that can sometimes swell up to the size of a pea. I have bites all over my body -- shoulder blades, hip, ankles, feet, wrists, arms, fingers even. They itch during school; they itch when I'm trying to sleep; and I can scratch all I want, but they just don't stop itching. Although I have an innumerable amount of bites, I've only cought two in the act. Two. Two out of dozens and dozens and dozens. We found out about the flea problem when we took our cat Shadow to the vet. They found flea bites all over her (that would explain why she scratches herself so much) and put a flea killing chemical on her in the hopes that once she returned to our house, the fleas would all gather back on her and die. When that clearly didn't work, we sprayed a few places with some flea killing agent. After a few days, the fleas only seemed to keep on coming, so we got our exterminator (very nice man) to gas the house. The fumes weren't deadly to us, just annoying. It still stinks a little now. Even then, the fleas just WOULD NOT DIE :angry: . And that's where we are right now. In a desparate struggle against fleas over our house. What to do...
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Monday, October 23, 2006 At least I think I broke a world record. I'm talking about lateness in receiving the Lego mag. That's right -- it is the 23rd of the next month, and I have have just now finally, finally received my Brickmaster magazine. I've always gotten my Lego magazine on the late side, and I've tolerated that. But this is totally ridiculous! What's happening over there at Lego!? Come on, the new comic made it on Bionicle.com over a week before I received my own in print! And you know how slow the comics section over there updates. Okay, a week before last Friday (I think Friday -- it's been so long, I can't really remember), which was the thirteenth, I called Lego customer service asking what the heck was going on. It turned out that they had never even bothered to ship it! And it's not like it's kind of okay because it's a totally free magazine -- I'm actually paying for Brickmaster. That ticked me off, but they made sure my magazine got shipped right away. At that point, all I had to was wait for it to come. So wait is what I did. About three days after the call, I got a shipment notification e-mail. Pretty late shipment, but at least I knew it was on its way. I waited more. Usually, the time it takes for something to get from Enfield, CT is no more than six days. This time, I waited about twelve days. Today I was planning to give LCS another ring when I finally got a certain yellow envelope from Enfield, CT on the mail table. I opened it. Yes, all there: magazine, comic, brand new set... Brand new set...hmmm...Mini Jedi Starfighter. Again. Brand new set, eh? *slaps forehead*
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Friday, October 13, 2006 For a Friday the thirteenth, my day wasn't so bad. This morning, I didn't have to do carpool because something came up with the other guys. That's a very good thing because I REALLY HATE CARPOOL (I'm sure I'm not alone on that). So my dad drove me to school. Interestingly, I saw some unfortunate that I know from my old grade school get pulled over on the ride to school. So it seems some people were not blessed with a fairly good day today like I was. Well, I was almost late for school, but by skipping my morning trip to my locker, I was able to get to class. Lit class was the usual. Boring, yes, but therefore uneventful in any bad way. Science class had a pop quiz. Evil. Bombed it. But in the end it wasn't graded. Good. Extra free period for me on every Friday. Sweet. We had to start a translation/passive voice assignment in Greek class. I was thinking, This is gonna be a drag on Sunday night. But my teacher didn't give it to us for homework. So the only homework I have now is studying for a vocab quiz on Monday, and I literally get like 105% on all of those. Lunch. Uh oh. Something bad did happen here. No money in my wallet. I forgot I had given the cash to my mom yesterday. Had to live off of cheap candy bars today. Mmm...Twix. Orchestra was easy. No problems there, although some other people were between a rock and a hard place today because they were supposed to hand in a rather major excerpt assignment. Scripture. Test. Aced it -- I just know it. Free period again! Had fun shooting staples around the library. During this I noticed some people studying fervently for the "really hard" math test next period. Test in geometry. Only seven questions! If I messed one up, I'm screwed...but I finished early, and I knew what I was doing on all the questions. After checking with someone else after the test, I found that we had gotten the same answers on the difficult questions. So I think I did well. At the end of my school day, I had gotten no homework. A Lucky Friday the Thirteenth?
