Below are the 11 most recent journal entries recorded in phaser125's LiveJournal:

Thursday, May 11th, 2006
11:42 am	A-cen -> Better for me than everyone I was with I guess Yeah. I haven't updated in damn near forever. I just got through reading my friends page, including the people that posted their summaries of their trip to A-Cen for those who went. Apparently I have more fun at these conventions than anyone else. I had a blast. I had no problem with the convention whatsoever, but maybe I'm in it for different reasons than other people. I was never there to watch anime, I can do that elsewhere. I'm there to see all the other people who are interested in Anime, their costumes, etc. I'm there to hang out with my friends who happened to be there with me (though I did wander around without them a lot this time around). Each year, things are different. The first year I went to Acen, it was my first convention ever, and the whole reason it was so friggen awesome that year, was because everything about it was new to me, the convention itself, the cosplayers, CHICAGO, big hotels... Everything. This year, of course I've been to a bunch of conventions, including a number of A-cen's, so therefore nothing is especially "new to me", but that just means that my brain is free to have fun enjoying it in other ways. It's something different, something I don't do often. My train of thought was broken in the middle of writing this, so I don't know if the rest is going to be repetitive, incoherent, or whatever. I apologize to Voidmain as it was his first time to this particular convention and he had no idea what was going on where (and their maps and brochures were not helpful), so he missed some things and was a little borred at least at first. I could have helped there, but I didn't know help was needed. I went to the dances/raves, and they were cool. The first one was "ok" on Friday, but the one on Saturday was awesome. The music was insanely loud, the lights are cool, the room was HUGE (they used all of main events for it), and there were enough people to make main events seem VERY FULL of people. There were multiple dj's that switched off throughout the saturday night one, and it went on until well after the 4:30am time that I left (they kept saying they were gonna be going til after the sun came up, and I wouldn't doubt it given the large numbers of people still there after 4:30am). There was a small sound issue with one of the dj's when they first switched to his setup, but that was resolved and everything went smoothly after that. Did I mention that shit was LOUD? And it sounded good too, not just the "ouch, tinny crappy speakers but turned up farther than they can handle" loud. I took some interesting long exposure blurry shots of the lights and stuff while I was there, and they look a little cool. Food was scarce at times, and expensive, but that's expected. Actually this year it was way easier to come by food than any year past (aside from the snacks that were in the con suite during the good con suite years, although those were not "meals" mostly anyways). The real problem with food is when it gets late, and the artists alley/dealers room is closed, and the other places to eat in the hotel are closed too. No biggie this year, it didn't bother me because I ate when I needed to. OK. So there you have it. I had a lot of fun at Anime Central. A lot. To anyone who was "dissapointed" with the convention, well, I'm sorry I can't say I'm in the same boat with you. Next up: DragonCon, Atlanta, September. Bigger, less anime / more american sci-fi, insaner, awesome band playing, etc. ::: Laters (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 3rd, 2005
11:25 am	Wow, what happened to the frequent update concept? It flew out the window months ago. So yeah. As you have all probably heard about, there WAS a Halloween party at my house this past weekend. Some of you may be wondering why you were not informed of the event. This party was NOT MINE. This was an event which is held by my brother and his girl, not by me. The few of my friends who did get brought into the picture were a select few, but I was trying to avoid a few things. The first thing I needed to avoid was people overload. There were already so many people staying over at the house and going to be at the party from Steve's group of friends, that there just wasn't much room left over, nor did we want things to get out of hand. Secondly, there were a couple of people who I was fairly certain would not have enjoyed themselves at this particular party for most of it, based on it being loud music and heavy drinking. This was not your typical Phaser style "DDR, Karaoke, and Flash Animation watching" get together, this was a full fledged, my brother style, party. I do apologize if you're one of those who was not brought in for it, but I needed to keep things under control. I plan on having some other sort of get together in the future, to which all of the normal Phaser clan shall be invited, however it will be difficult work getting people to flow back to Rochester for a weekend, based on everyone moving further and further away from the greatest place on earth (wherever Phaser is at any given moment). So putting the party aside, what else has been going on since I last updated? Well, let's work a little backwards here. Monday, I had like 12 groups of trick-or-treaters come to the house to take some candy. A couple of the groups were quite large, like 10 people or something, so there were a decent number of people in total. I ran out of candy just in time, as the last person that rang the doorbell, got the last bit of candy. A couple of weeks ago, I obtained a new sound system to go along with the projector which was purchased back in September. Finally there's sound as big as the screen (or bigger). Comparing the "size" of sound to the size of a screen doesn't make any sense, but you know what I mean. I also got an equipment rack that looks cool to put all of the things on like the receiver, dvd player, cable box, ps2, computer, etc. The sound is now an Onkyo 7.1 system, which sounds friggen' great with music and movies. The projector is an Optoma, which is a wierd brand, but the damn thing cranks out 3000 lumens of projected DLP goodness. It has all the inputs you could need, being that it has Component, Composite, S-video, DVI, and VGA. It also has an RS-232 port to uplink to a computer and accept commands straight from the serial port. We haven't programmed anything to take advantage of that yet, but I do have the cable and it is hooked up and working. The screen is a 106" widescreen (16:9) with 1.8x gain. If that makes any sense to you. It's a sweet setup, and it's even useable during the day, just with a little less contrast. All of this equipment adds up to an assload of cabling that has to run every which way, cable tv, ethernet, 7 speakers, a subwoofer, dvi, vga, component, serial, power, etc. It's INSANE. It's all hooked up, and it's all good, but guiding the cables and making it look good was a bit of a challenge. It's all neat and tidy now, thanks to the brothers help. IT'S NOVEMBER!? How did this happen? Time flies. The good part about that is that now my favorite picture from my School Rumble calendar is showing (the November December image). Awesome. That also means that Episode III came out on Tuesday, and it was awesome on the new audio/visual system, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire comes out in Theatres halfway through the month, and FFVIIAC comes out on DVD in America near the end of the month. This is a good month for media. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Michael Bublé - Home (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005
1:28 pm	Weekend a blast Oh my. Friday: Working the morning, decide afternoon working would not be cool, so I asked for it off, took a half vacation day, and left. Ryan was home, so he and I went to the mall, and I bought some "decent" cloths to go out to dinner at Tempest's bachelors party in. After finding some cloths that I was content with, I insisted we go to Friendly's and pick up peanut butter cup sundae's. They're awesome. Once home, I finished the last little bit of preparing, loaded up the car, let Kainsin know I was on the way a little early, and left toward the great beyond. Picked up Kainsin at his apartment location, and continued on down the path to the New Jersey state, down to Tempest's. Uneventful trip, arrived at Tempest's before 11 I'd say (that's one of the reasons I decided to get an early leave from work). Off to the WaWa's, picked up some night provisions like soda and donuts, went back, chilled for a while, and slept. Saturday: Woke up, got my lazy ass out of... bed? no, floor. Got in car. Drove to Tempest's parents' place. Hung out with the parents and the sister, did some sweet sweet barbecue, and swam in the pool. Not bad. Had to leave there around 4:30 or so and get going back toward Tempest's place, but that's ok we had our fun there. Back down there, ordered up pizza, had a pizza and chill night. Sunday: Up and at 'em. Got up, went to the grocery store to pick up the remaining items from Adam's necessity list for the party. Took off, and headed down the Atlantic City Expressway. Jees, I wonder where we were headed?? We got there, circled the Tropicana and ended up having the best man instruct us how to get into the parking garage. Parked the car, went in, found the gang, and that was the beginning of the bachelors party. This is where the story ends. All that can be said is the casino's ended up with less money because of the guys, although I gave them 5 bucks. Not too bad. Monday: An awesome brunch, at least IMHO, then hang out at the casino's a little while, then take off to end the journey, and deposit Tempest and Kainsin back in their respective apartments. I then continued the long drive back to my place. A great weekend indeed, both before and during the bachelors party. The best man is quite the planner, and a great guy to hang around, especially if you want a good table at the casino, hahaha. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 4th, 2005
9:10 am	Bah Ok ok, so I haven't updated recently. It's not my fault! Wait a minute, yes it is. It's not like I've really had "less time" recently to write or anything, I just keep putting things off, and this ended up in that list of things to put off this time. I'm not sure why I do that, I have a bad habit of just putting things off for no real reason. Last weekend was the birthday party for Bitnine. That was cool, just a few people over for some random video watching, some DDR playing, and whatever else. The biggest thing that happened for this particular party that is a first, for any party ever: Phaser baked a cake from scratch, he made the frosting from scratch, and it was good. A white cake with strawberries (real strawberries) filling it and placed on top, two layer round cake. Yes. There was a bit of help provided by Blueshirt as well. But that's not all. I got the preparations, and on Saturday, I fired up the grill, and cooked everyone hotdogs hamburgs and a couple chicken kabob things for someone who didn't want burgers or dogs. Success. The last of my original crop of Ignition 2 pads was so badly torn up that people were getting their toes stuck under the arrows, and sometimes it didn't register properly, so Spectral and I went up to Gamestop in the mall and I picked up another new one. They've changed the style again, now teh colors are different somewhat. The xbox connector is still the detachable kind, and it comes with a USB cable / connector you can put in it's place! Nice. Not that I'll really use it, but it's great that it's available to use instead of having to use a PSX->USB adapter. (Comment on this)
Monday, July 11th, 2005
8:39 am	Sorta Weekly Update Well, another week has gone by. Nothing out of the ordinary for the most part, not without the weekend anyways. Friday was just pizza and wings from a place we've never ordered from before (DiRosato's pizza). That was good stuff, and will definately be had by us again in the future. Saturday Ryan and I watched 8 10 minute episodes of an anime I'd previously not heard of, called Cromartie High School. This is an anime about a bunch of high school delinquents, or at least thats what they claim to be. Their activities and mannerisms would convince you otherwise. Idiotic activities and a robot are involved, as well as a shirtless man named Freddie who looks entirely too old to be a high schooler, and never speaks a single word (thus the other guy assigning him the name Freddie). Anyways, it's quite amusing, and since the episodes are 10 minutes long, it's good for someone with a short attention span (me). Sunday I was invited by my friend Fanguad to attend the Corn Hill Festival with him and a couple of his friends. What? Corn Hill? What's that? So I looked it up. Apparently theres an area not far from downtown Rochester called Corn Hill, and they have one of the biggest art festivals in the country there. Who knew? It was pretty cool (well, quite hot out actually though) to walk around and see the various photos and creations that the people made and were showing off and selling. There were a few live bands playing at various places, and a food court. After that we managed to ride 6 people in a 5 seat altima (not mine, one of Fanguad's friends') to get back to Fanguad's apartment where we met back up with my own car. We then headed out to the house of one of the guys, and had some barbecue action in his backyard. That was quite fun. There was a swimming pool and swimming was involved too. I'm glad I went with them. Anyways, laters. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 5th, 2005
9:04 am	Typical Monday... err, atypical Tuesday. Hmm, it may be Tuesday, but who can tell the difference between today and your average Monday? I sure can't. Yesterday was a holiday, so today is the first day of the work week, and therefore it's Monday to me (the day which I didn't get enough sleep for because I was still on my late sleep schedule brought on by staying up too late on non worknights). The 3 day weekend didn't prove to have anything too out of the ordinary. I did hang out with a couple friends that I don't see often anymore, and that was cool. I got to see the office they work at, which may normally not seem like a cool thing to do, but since it was after hours and they were just chilling there, and because the place seemed more like a lounge with a few cubicles on one end and a kitchen, it was all good. We went out to dinner first, which was equally as cool. Saturday it was hang with Voidmain and Fanguad day, during which we went to Abbot's for some ice cream err I mean "frozen custard" and then went to a new anime store which opened up in jefferson plaza, Hammer Girl Anime, which is a great little store. I believe it was opened by some former members / leaders of the RIT anime club and such, and its a really cool place. It was reminiscent of walking into a miniature dealers room from a convention. Of course you know what that means... I picked up an Ah My Goddess! wall scroll, an Azumanga poster, some Lain playing cards, an Azumanga pencil board, a Galaxy Angel clear poster, and it seems like there's something else that I'm not thinking of right now. Anyways, if you're in the area and like anime, check the place out and give them your support, I hope to see it succeed. After going there, we went to watch Kung Fu Hussle at the dollar (well, $1.50) theatre. That was awesome, as it was the second time for me and the first for Voidmain and Fanguad. Sunday? Not too much to talk about for Sunday, it was a chill-out day for me mostly. Monday I didn't have any specific plans either (despite it being the 4th of July). So of course, being that neither of us had any specific plans, Fanguad and I hung out again. We played some ps2 games and such, watched some videos, your typical hang-out session. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 27th, 2005
4:01 pm	Captain's log, stardate: I don't have a clue So not all that much happened throughout the last week. Warm weather and sun were abundant, especially toward the later half and on through today. One thing that happened yesterday, is I received a message that said "It Lives" from my mother. Apparently, after fixing a few fuel lines and cleaning somethings out (still lots more to clean and care for), the DeLorean is now able to start and run on its own. It doesn't run WELL, but it runs, and will idle. They drove it over onto the lawn, of its own power, to give it a bath. This is exciting news, as it means it is that much closer to becoming a reality and a driveable vehicle for me. Awesome. Now if only that new NYS title would show up in the mail, though its only been 4 weeks or so, and the morons think it will take 10. Oh well. Based on the fact that if I already had had it running, I would have been able to register AND title it on the same application, I would think that theres some way to get it registered even before the physical title arrives in the mail. We shall see, I may not even be ready to put it on the road before the 10 weeks is up anyways... The condition its in, the insurance costs, etc, have an impact on when I can get it on the road. Anyways, like I said, the DeLorean progress is definately good news. I got a picture of it all clean sitting in my parents yard. I went to print it and one of the colors was empty in my printer and I had to replace it... I decided since they were all low, there was no garauntee which color did it, so I replaced all 5 (I had replaced the black cartridge not long ago, so that one didn't need replacement). Now I have a beautiful print of it, heh. It's in the photo book next to the rest of the photos of it that I'd printed before. I got the motorcycle inspected on Saturday. I had the guy accuse me of being from the state inspection department, because he said by the looks of the bike there HAD to be something wrong / not inspectable, but he wasn't seeing it so he passed me. He was, of course, joking around with me, since the bike looks like ass right now (we're going to paint it soon, make it all nice and cool). I actually insulted it first, so that indicated to him that it was ok to do so as well, and it was, and it was funny. Now to get my car inspected, past all those emmisions and computer test bullshits, on Wednesday, since that also expires this month. I know its cutting it close, but it'll be all good, you'll see. Seems I've run out of things to say. Oh, I discovered the song that I listed in the "MUSIC" entry for today, through an Anime Music Video to His and Her Circumstances... the video was titled INSOMNIA, and is quite extemely excellent, for those who enjoy AMV's. I thank Tempest for finding this one for me. Current Mood: working Current Music: Conjure One - Sleep (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005
10:16 am	So yeah. Delay. Yep. There goes the plan of updating every monday. This is Wednesday. Close enough. I refuse to go on and on about how I intended to do it Monday, but got hung up doing other things, or had writers block, or just didn't have anything to say. I won't tell you that I'll "try to be more consistent" or anything of the sort. Quite frankly, I didn't post monday because I didn't get around to it, and didn't care. Now I'm getting around to it, so here you go. We had a good time at Six Flags - Great Adventure on Saturday. Well, I did at least, but I think some fun was had by all who were in attendance. The Kingda Ka was out of commission... That's the tallest fastest roller coaster to ever stand still in an amusement park in the world. Great record that's setting :) Oh well, there are plenty of coasters at Great Adventure to wait in line for. And yeah, that's what you spend a lot of time doing. That's ok though, one of the biggest things about going down there and going to a place like that with friends is to be with friends. The coasters and rides are a bonus on top of that. It's the overall experience of the place that counts. The rest of the weekend down there was spent hanging out and eating and hanging out. It was a good time , and worth the drive. It's not like I drive that far that often. I slept out on the balcony. Warm inside, cool outside. Sleeping on the floor inside, sleeping on concrete outside. Well, not directly, I have a thick comfortor that I keep in my car, which was plenty of padding for 2 nights of away from home sleep. It was pretty cool sleeping out there, I am glad the weather was good enoguh for it. The balcony there is full covered, but open to the elements from the sides and front, so any kind of rain would have blown right in on me, luckily that didn't happen or I would have had to go inside. The drive back was long. It felt longer than the drive down, but mostly because it was AFTER the get together, so nothing to look forward to. Also, it was later, so I ended up driving until 2:30 in the morning, at which time I had to go to bed because I had to get up for work at 5:30. Dunkin Donuts coffee coolata helped keep that night/drive going :) Plus a half dozen donuts, MmMmm. Current Mood: relaxed Current Music: Cake - Love You Madly (I don't know why, just stuck in head) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 13th, 2005
10:08 am	Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays! Oh yeah, Office Space references to the MAX! Anyways. So it's Monday. It's been a week since my first venture onto Livejournal, at least from what I remember. Nevermind going back to check the dates to make sure. I feel like entering once a week would be reaching some kind of milestone for me... Before this I've never done anything like writing things on a regular basis. Maybe setting a weekly writeup goal and attempting to at least write something each week would be a good thing. We'll see how it goes. Last week was nothing special. Had a tube put in the front tire of my bike, that way I can actually take it places without worrying about how long I spend there before returning home (before the tire gets soft again). Also cleaned the gas tank inside and put in some sealant. Hopefully that stuff is dry and ready to put the gas tank back on the bike and fill it back up again. These were the remaining "quirks" with the bike, it should be good to go. How about this heat? Hah. Just had to say that. It's been upper 80's, just about 90 on occasion, for the past few days. Today its cloudy out, but it was still in the 80s when I got up. Playing DDR may not have been the greatest idea in the world, but hey, who cares. Saturday and Sunday both, played DDR for quite a while, working up a sweat. Good excercise really. I've been messing around with the sound system that's hooked up to the ps2 for playing DDR. It sounds pretty good now. The TV still sucks there, but it's good enough to see the arrows. Someday it'll be upgraded probably, but that's pretty low on the "to buy" list. I don't know what I'd want to buy anyways. (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 6th, 2005
9:54 pm	Apple's to Apples. or was it Apples to Intel's ? So it seems, unless theres some conspiracy involving Steve Jobs to confuse and destroy the world, that Apple is planning to make the biggest switch (in my opinion) that they've ever made before. Topping the 68k to PowerPC, topping the Motorola to IBM, and most of all, even topping the move to OSX over the traditional OS9 and below. Yes, that's right. They say they are moving to an Intel based platform, setting up a partnership or whatever to use Intel based x86 architecture in their new offerings by next year. What? Yeah. I said it. This was an announcement by Jobs himself. Aparently they've compiled each version of OS X that we've had our hands on, in an x86 compatible form, as they've been working toward this goal for years. Only now, however, will this x86 version become available for the public. (well, not NOW now, but you know... starting now, these plans are becoming public knowledge). The summary of their reasoning, translated into cool speak: PowerPC's capabilities suck, and Intel's more powerful. Interesting words. I think this could have a tremendous impact... no, I know... that it will have a tremendous impact. What I don't know, is will it be a positive or a negative impact on Apple as a company. Will their product line suffer, or prevail, through the great change? Personally I see some great good that can come of this, if Apple plays its cards right. Faster macs for less $ $ bills. Well, at least faster macs. I'm all for cranking up the speeds that we can see OSX running at, since its a sweet ass OS. What I don't know is what kind of restrictions or limitations it will have regarding apple vs. non apple branded x86 equipment. A concern that was raised with me by Spectral54 was, what if they make it so that OSX only runs on MAC based x86 hardware, but then someone cracks it so it runs on any x86 hardware? Macs will stop selling... Their hardware sales will go down the shitter. Well, maybe, but what if Apple builds a superior hardware product, for a reasonable price... It is possible to win the hardware market without having the only hardware to run something. Anyways, we'll see as time goes by, how well this goes. (Comment on this)
3:57 pm	And so this is livejournal... So this is LiveJournal. I've never actually had an account here up until this day. I have read a journal entry or two on occasion, but today, I created an account. Why? I don't know. It's one of those things I guess. I figure, it would be great if one day I actually started to write things. Thoughts, feelings, plans, just cool stuff. Usually I keep it all inside and never speak a word of that kind of thing, never type it to anyone, anything. I myself don't know whether I truly don't think much about anything, or do I just not know how to put things into words? Another part of it is really that I never know WHAT to write about. Life has so many aspects about it, so what of it should I write about? What in my life is something I should write about, even think about? I don't know. I've come to realize that I'm not open, about basically anything. I realize that if I were to suddenly burst out and start speaking everything about everything related to me, online in a public place, that would be the extreme and I won't be doing that. But this is still something I need to work on, opening up. As soon as I start to type anything like this, I start to think like "what will he/she think" and "what will anyone think" about what I'm saying. Maybe I need to care a tiny bit less about other people's view of myself. --- The reason I am posting that I am "amused", is all about the whole Apple <-> Intel thing. If you're enough of a geek, or if this would amuse you too, then you probably already know about what's going down. It amuses me to no end. Current Mood: amused (14 Comments |Comment on this)