I couldn’t think of a more nicer title for this post, so basically you know what this is about. Me bashing Windows and praising Ubuntu.

What is my case you may ask?

It all started on Saturday when I was thinking about how I could use Ubuntu to my advantage and I remembered a long time ago (I believe 2 or 3 years ago?) I tried it once but after a few weeks I switched back. I was reading some of my old blog posts and came upon my Linux tips. Then I started thinking you know, Linux is actually amazing. So I got out my Ubuntu 9.04 disk and installed the system onto my computer. Now, I still had my Windows XP installation with the GRUB bootloader when I came across a problem. I put Ubuntu on the Largest Continuous Free Space on my hard drive, which was 2.4 GB…Just enough for an install of Ubuntu. I realized this when I tried to install the updates and it said I had 216 MB of hard disk space left, not enough to update. Then I knew I was in trouble. What could I do? I thought. I got gparted and tried to edit the partition when I came across, heh funny thing, a triangle icon with an exclamation point inside of it. This meant it couldn’t be resized and had to be formatted. Great, so now what? I tried to get it checked with CHKDISK (I believe that’s the program, too bad if I’m wrong!) and when it finished the exclamation point went away in gparted. So I thought yes! I can change it now, right? Wrong. It just gave me an error message and eventually leading me to just deleting the partition.

So now I put Ubuntu on with 80GB, and the other 50GB goes to Windows XP. So now that that was out of the way there was another problem. GRUB disappeared! Huh? I installed Ubuntu first and then Windows XP. So then I thought about trying to be smart. Maybe I can edit the Windows bootloader! So I go in there, set it so that it boots to partition 1, remove the ugly windows stuff, and try it and…..FAIL. So now what….? It failed. I brought out my Ubuntu Live CD, popped it in, and accessed my ext3 filesystem drive with ubuntu. Hooray! I have access to it! I looked up how to get GRUB installed using Linux Live CD. Since it came with the wireless driver, no worries about having to deal with that. So I reinstalled GRUB by itself, I changed the GRUB Bootloader file and tada! I had a working bootloader again that was GRUB and booted into Linux and Windows XP. After that I simply said, Screw Windows! You can’t do anything Linux can do!

And that is so true. Think about it…. Linux can do anything Windows can do, but Windows can’t do everything Linux can do? Eh…Maybe Microsoft should learn something from this. So guess what Microsoft? I’m a Ubuntu freak now! For real though.

So why is this time different? Well you see, I finally realized how much more I can do with Linux than with Windows. I am still able to do my daily things, I am still able to play my games I like, and I get to do all this in lovely Linux. Who cares if I have lost some of the high-awesome graphics games? I don’t play games all my life, sheesh. I like to make practical use of my life. So what did I do once Linux got installed? (Jeeze, lots of questions today, right?)

I started putting stuff on there, I backed up about 3GB of my stuff I needed to keep, installed Diablo 2 and Diablo 2 MedianXL on there, and they work perfectly fine with Wine. Then I tried Game Maker, and boy was that fun to deal with. You see, I’ve been using Game Maker for about 5 years now, and if I didn’t have this, as you know with the Z-Gamers V.3 website, I would be saddened alot because I wouldn’t be able to use Linux all the time now. But guess what? I got it working under Virtualbox Windows XP installation! Awesomeness! There are three catches to it, but they are minor:
1) I have to import a mouse cursor so that I know where the real position is if it is offset.
2) There are no sounds. But that’s not hard to add in because you just play them….And that’s it! I could go on XP for 2 seconds if I needed to verify if it worked or not.
3)Games must not be 3D and must be tested in fullscreen. No 3D may be a big deal, but here’s my plan for FF3D. Most of the stuff I have to develop is through code. I develop all my code, just run it on Linux to make sure no errors occur, and LATER deal with the 3D coding if there are problems. I think I am so fluent in GML coding and trust my abilities with it that I will not need to test every little aspect of it to know it is working. In fact, I found out you can test stuff in 2D mode, and then just activate 3D mode with the models and 3D drawing once you get on Windows XP. And fullscreen? No big deal, just aligns stuff. Again, number 1 with the mouse cursor makes sure it is not off center.

So what else do I love about Ubuntu? I can access my server directly from the OS….awesome.
I can install packages right on the fly and have new programs….Awesome.
Starting to learn Java Object-Oriented Programming….Awesome also.
Improving my Bash programming skills….Awesome.
Learning new things about Ubuntu everyday….Great!
Able to do alot more than with Windows and still do everything I did with Windows…EPIC.

I have to say….I just LOVE Ubuntu now. I just can’t stop now…I haven’t logged on XP since that epic failure described above…I do not wish to go back unless I have a super problem, which is fixable with Linux of course and not Windows . I guess that is about it.

Continue to support us on http://z-gamers.net! Read my previous blog post for more info on donating to our server!

Let me start off this post by saying that Z-Gamers Version 3 is very epic. It has a very nice design, with a very nice layout, and all the pages are consistent and very nice-looking.

But there is an even more important task at hand than that. Michael Raines, the owner of the server has given me a task to attempt to raise $500 for a new server box. $500 is ALOT of money! I mean seriously, I don’t even think I can do it, but I need people to start donating! Even $5 or even $1 from various people will help contribute! And it’s not for a scam either, we really need a new server box before the hard drive fails and things start breaking down. The server will also run faster than it is currently running and thus will make pages come up faster and make my visitors and I very happy. Where can I donate and help? Go to http://z-gamers.net or http://www.chipin.com/contribute/id/72ec841e5b2f9b4c for direct pay to me. Just type in the value, fill out card/Bank info (Don’t worry, paypal is secure) and the money will not be used for anything other than what I told you above. Michael Raines will make sure of that. In addition, I hope somebody out there is nice enough to help out because frankly, we are small and don’t get much help but we are trying to go on with what we can.

Seriously, please think about donating for Z-Gamers, we really need help with the server and this is the only way…

(9:04:31 PM) sigonasr2: If I ever get money, I’ll be sure to donate it to the cause also lol
(9:04:40 PM) mikeyr71730: Yeah. I hate asking for money, but I have to do it this time before the system goes down.
(Later on in life…)
(6:00:26 PM) mikeyr71730: I’d hate for the server to go offline for good.

So After you donate or at least think about donating, click the more button to find out what I have been up to, because it’s a lot.

So Z-Gamers V.3….If you still haven’t visited the site, go to http://z-gamers.net NOW! Just kidding, no pressure, no worries. Just check it out, it’s really well laid out and planned. So what’s all the hype?

The site layout is now totally awesome looking!
All pages have a consistent look and feel and we don’t have any weird colors on the site anymore!
All games pages include game-related features you’d come to expect from an online games page including ratings, comments, and download counters. They also come with huge download buttons so you’re even closer to clicking that button and you’ll never miss the word “Download”.

So check it out, enjoy the epicness, join the forums if you want they are neat and will be very active for the next years to come. Which brings me to my next point! Future games!

So this year and next year, we planned out ALL our games that we will be making including what we will do until the end of this year and next year. So here’s the huge list, and yes we are planning to make a lot of games!

(Quoted from the forum posts)

My Planned Games:

2009

1 – Virus Attack. Almost complete, just need to make the story levels. (Planning 12 missions with 2 uber missions) – 1~2 Weeks

2 – Fighter’s Field 3D. Where the real work starts. Planning to spend 2~4 weeks at the most on this.

3 – Super Z-Fantasy. Definitely will be an interesting game, but hard work involved – 4~8 weeks on this.

[If Time Permits]4 – MegaLoManium. A platformer game that will be a classic with interesting storylines, goals, and achievements. Will be completed in 2010 if not completed in 2009 – 4~6 weeks

2010
1 – Z-Tower Defense. Have some features to create. (Custom towers, Sandbox Mode, Unlockable Difficulties). Create World 4 Towers and World 4 Levels (Extra Long) – 1~3 weeks.

2 – The Elementalists. A game that will mostly be an RPG fighter game with 3D graphics in third person view – 6~10 weeks

3 – The Weirdest RPG Ever 3D. Will Include Massive Storylines with 50~60 hours of gameplay, expected to be really large – 12~20 weeks

4 – Super Faceball 2010. An attempt to bring back an old classic game from the SNES. Goal is to create 80 levels of gameplay with online multiplayer battles and co-op mode – 6~12 weeks

[If Time Permits]5 – MegaLoManium. A platformer game that will be a classic with interesting storylines, goals, and achievements. – 4~6 weeks

———————————
Of course, there could be side minigames and other such things that come into play sometimes, but this is my main schedule for 2009~2010.

Robert Harper’s Planned Games:

2009

Tank Warriors – Hopefully my first release due by December 8th

2010

Crimson Star- February 8th

Code-X – (My Star game. The remake of my first game on Z-Gamers) My Birthday – March 15th

GMC(Game Maker Creatures) – May 8th (Read About in forums on Oct 19 or 20 for info)

Symbolers – July 8th

Z_Gamer Bash- (Look in forum soon for details) Oct 2nd(Look Familiar)

Switch’es – August 8th

The Last Letter – November 8th (Probably sooner, it’s a small game)

Hacker-X – December 31 Happy New Year

James Johnston’s Planned Games

Buttonhero 3? – I haven’t even started an engine on it, don’t be so sure i will get it done. If i do start it, i will be finished by 2011. Since there will be an music matching system towards it. (8 weeks~1 year)

Mutant – Based off PERK ENGINE, you will be able to morph into creatures and destroy the cities. This game will be Just for fun and maybe some missions will be added. It should be a free-roam game with unlockables. (8 weeks~1 year)

Perk playground: unlimited – Hang out with friends, kill zombies, build cities, build weapons, duel, co-op duel, and more online. Designed using perk engine (6 weeks~18 weeks)

Shotghun – A basic zombie Apocalypse game where, you can upgrade your shotgun and grenade. Basic game. With some cool features. (4 weeks~12 weeks)

Zombie Joe – Another zombie game. You have a jetpack and 10 fantastic weapons with hundred levels, and bosses. Can you handle it? (2 weeks~6 weeks)

Bawl maze 2 – With a new level editor and new levels. This new bawl maze takes you too adventures unknown, explore and get correct time your you’ll fall flat! Plus there will be multiple platforms for you too jump upon! (6 weeks~18 weeks)

No-fear FPS creator – Create an FPS game of your dreams, with your own levels and our own weapons. (Includes weapon creator and level designer) You are able to take an fps game to heights unknown. (10 weeks~16weeks)

And that is all the game releases for 2009~2010. Pretty large I suppose, we will be having fun with some of these large projects.

What else has been going on with me? Still lots of driving. Fun indeed.

Band has been interesting this year. Buena has been doing Themes from Scheherazade (Yeah that is hard to spell correctly) and they are real interesting. I guess the best part of our arrangements are that every 15 seconds, something new is going on, and everything stays exciting and interesting. Our first competition was at the University of Arizona which we got an “Excellent” in. I think we did really well for our first competition this year. The Freshman got to experience that excitement and amazing-ness of a competition and I was ready. We went up to the last day to practice and perform this darn thing, we were rushing but we ended pulling through, good job Marching Colts! In addition, we performed at CDO last weekend , Canyon Del Oro High School I believe, and we got an Excellent which I believe was the highest rating there. So awesome. We thought we didn’t get superior again when there wasn’t a superior! Go Buena Marching Colts! We’re doing awesome this year, and the music and marching is so difficult compared to my marching as a Freshman, so great job to everyone.

Still playing Diablo 2 MedianXL with a Lv64 Sorceress and a Lv40 Amazon now. Some other minor characters that are low leveled also. It is still fun, but now I’m busy since I’m on a Game Maker Schedule, so not much time for that. Plus the schoolwork.

So that is about it. I am reposting the top part again to really emphasize how serious this is. Seriously, please think about donating for Z-Gamers, we really need help with the server and this is the only way…

(9:04:31 PM) sigonasr2: If I ever get money, I’ll be sure to donate it to the cause also lol
(9:04:40 PM) mikeyr71730: Yeah. I hate asking for money, but I have to do it this time before the system goes down.
(Later on in life…)
(6:00:26 PM) mikeyr71730: I’d hate for the server to go offline for good.

We could really use it. Anyways, thanks for reading.

Let me start off this post with something amazing I have never mentioned about me with Spore. Maybe you have wondered what was the awesomest thing I ever made on spore was? It was a building. Huh? A building? Buildings are boring usually, yes? Just normal buildings? Check this out:

Awesome? It’s a Toaster! Cool huh? Yeah, built that like 3 months ago, but it’s a building, you might be wondering how my species got into the building….Well, if you were a smart enough species like mine were, you could figure out how to enter without getting burnt. You can even see part of the little plug I made which was very tough to make, but I ended up doing it. So there you have it, Toaster!

Onto some other things I haven’t discussed on my blog yet. My brother brought home his homework (2nd grader) and he was doing it when he got to the last problem of his homework:

You can see the answer we chose which I’ll explain in a second. The problem is:
Circle the shape that goes in the shaded part.
You then have one of three choices: A letter “R”, A “?”, or a flower shape.

So, if you look at the diagram, you can see that there’s three of them, take awhile and think about how it would work out. It took me 25 minutes to figure this out for my 2nd grader’s homework, but once I realized that I was thinking too hard, it came right to me and we circled the “?”.

Alright, so I am in my school’s Robotics Team. We are Team 1726 and I was very glad that I decided to join the Robotics Team this year. Man did I wish I joined earlier because this club is FUN! I mean seriously, I like everyone in there and we all are smart and think alike and we all love technology and robots. I think it is really interesting. The largest reason I wanted to do it was to contribute to the team in many ways as possible since I had lots of technical knowledge. So I am already heading into the team by helping to design the 2009-2010 website, so pretty cool. We are also doing an Inner-Club Mini Vex Competition which seems really cool. I think Robotics is just awesome and I love to be a part of it and I’ve met some awesome people in the club.

What have I been doing lately? Playing Diablo II MedianXL. Hmm, a twist to Diablo 2? No, way more than that. Created by Brother Laz as he refers to himself as, he created this mod and it has gained lots of community support for something new and completely different than the original Diablo 2. What starts off as the normal game turns into tons more. Each class has completely new skill trees and types of skills. Tons of different and new weapons, armor, special, magic, and other kinds of items that just changes the gameplay so much, you’ll feel like you’re not playing the normal Diablo 2 anymore! And on top of all that, you can also play online with other friends not using Battle.net, but by LAN play. But most people have problems with that, so they need to get Hamachi and join networks to play. So I created my own called Median-nubz (And now a Median-nubz2 also) in which newbie players can join up with me and start on their own “newb” adventures. Hey, you have to start somewhere, right? (If you’re interested in joining this network, then head to the Diablo 2 MedianXL forums which you have to google for, and then find my topic by sigonasr2 [my username] in the Pandemonium Category which is for just Multiplayer topics).

So that’s that. I guess I am starting to get pretty darn good at web design and game coding that I think those are my two biggest highlights so far. Not sure how much more I’ll do, but we’ll see what happens eventually. Guess that’s all to this month’s post. Oh yeah, it’s Z-Gamers 3rd birthday! And I forgot to create the new V.3 website! Oops, did I just say that? Um…bye!

(Started writing on September 1st, so this first part when I mention “today” is for September 1st. Beyond the more line is written in present tense as in today.)

I would consider today to be one of the best days of my life. I finally got a dang driver’s license I have been waiting SO long for! Well I got it, already drove the PT Cruiser once just by myself. My mother got a new car today also so I probably will be driving the PT Cruiser for awhile. It’s a nice little car, works for me. The driving test wasn’t too hard. In general, I’ve driven so much and waited so long since I got my permit that it was all casual and nothing was surprising. I even parked perfectly which was a first. I was so scared when I did the 3-point turn as if you can’t stay in the lines and cones you failed and it’s quite tight, but luckily I didn’t fail (I practiced it like 20 times beforehand).

So now I just need car insurance. When my father told me the price of it, my jaw almost dropped (Which it almost never does), that’s a LOT of money, I feel sorry he has to pay that much to insure me, myself. It was quite fun driving by myself, I loved it. I said to myself, “I’m finally free!” finally part of the real world in a sense. I guess the next big thing I can look forward in my steps through life is college. Until then, probably the feeling and intensity of today won’t come by very often.

(Read more for everything else that happened to me since my last post)

S0, first off starting as far back as I could remember since my last post, I released Z-Tower Defense V 0.92 which changed some things in the game itself. The release notes are:
-Fixed Sprite Graphic Glitches
-Added World 4 start room. Able to save and continue next time.
-Fixed World 3 Tower & Enemy Balancing Issues.
-Hard Level Extremely Elevated
-Fixed Click Overlapping Problems
-Fixed Music Problems
-Fixed Bullet Creation Problems
You can play it and find out more at http://z-gamers.net

After that in terms of Game Maker, I’ve been working on Virus Attack. I haven’t worked on that in forever, but it’s almost ready for first beta release! It’s actual release will be in a month. Why so soon? Well I think this is my best work yet in terms of simplicity. I made lots of parents, used lots of shared scripts, and made everything work efficiently, and that’s part of making a successful game quickly on Game Maker.

Started taking Korean Classes as all of the Korean Church members come together and create actual “classes” (They had to go to California to get certificates and become certified) and our first and second classes were last and the one before Saturday. It was fun, and I finally memorized all the consonants and vowels and the double consonants and most of the double vowels. It’s really fun, and I can read lots of korean letters with some ease now. This is going to be fun!

Joined the robotics club this year, looks like it’s going to be a blast. So much fun and great times to look forward to. 1726 is awesome.

Let’s see, my website designing skills have been enhancing quite a bit, learned some PHP over time and made a little fighting by attacking game for testing around variables. It is currently at http://sigonasr2.servegame.org/phpfun if you want to see what I’ve done in that field. Have done a few nice sites recently that aren’t updated anymore I don’t think… http://tinyurl.com/megalom , http://sigonasr2.servegame.org/twilight and I think that is pretty much it.

BZFlag people looking into hosting a party time jumping skillz map please download the following file: http://www.box.net/shared/2s7j5fszsl. Why am I giving this away? Because it’s cool. It’s fun to play these on occasions and maybe you can host tournaments. Fun. I would suggest you mention my name in a help file or on the server as a public message if you do not want to get in deep trouble. I MADE these! And spent hours testing and fixing these and I don’t want to see any stealing…please. Trust me, I like coding and giving people what I make as long as everyone is ok with that and mentioning me I am fine with giving out my stuff I make.

Hmm…What else…Got a V8 Nova on Drift City, pretty cool. I know most of you Drift City folks will not think the Nova is very good, and it isn’t unless you are very skilled, but I like using cars no one else uses and being the individual. Individual people are fun.

We talked about the concept of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, and it’s pretty intense. The goal is to create the “perfect ideal man” and it is very hard to digest and understand the concept because it is almost close to impossible. We are reading The Fountainhead, pretty interesting so far, some of these concepts are popping up in the characters…Interesting. I am not an Objectivist, and our teacher explained this to all of us, the point is not to get us to convert to it, it is to make us understand what the concept is, NOT to believe or convert to it. So no flame war….flame war bad. Besides, I’m sure most people wouldn’t do that anyway. :P

What else to talk about…….Oh yeah, made a Bingo Card Creator using Game Maker. I will release it eventually, not yet though. Have to generalize it for the public. Also making a Graphing Calculator utility mostly for me. You know, I think graphing stuff and seeing what it looks like is very interesting in my opinion.

hmm, AI Chatbot from http://a-i.com is an interactive AI chatbot that you can talk to. You can download it for instant messenger (AOL or Windows Live Messenger), or you can get it on Facebook as an app, or just talk to it online. Very cool, and you can see chatlogs of what we talked about at http://sigonasr2.servegame.org/chatbot. I haven’t talked to him in awhile, but I’ll look into talking to him again soon to get more logs…Pretty cool, get your own!

Anything else I forgot……Well….I guess that is it. That is a summation of everything that’s happened from the beginning of August until now. Expect another post in a month or so! (Unless I go post crazy sometimes hehe)

So, this morning I promised to myself I would make a post. Yes, I’m still alive, living fairly well, and doing things on a daily basis, but haven’t gotten much chance (Or have been too lazy) to post on here. It’s usually easier for me to work from the most recent things to the furthest back events that are in my head, so it’s time to start.

First off, I have rejoined Fiesta for a third time. Sheesh, when am I gonna stop? But that’s beside the point, explained further below, Warinthestar has convinced me to start playing and doing things that I was doing 2 years ago. Man has it really been that long? Ah yeah, it has. So just yesterday, my cleric on Teva has reached Level 67, and I’m telling you, it doesn’t get easier. Joined guild SoulReaver, Warinthestar’s current guild, looks pretty fun, I’ll tell you that. So I guess I’m back to Fiesta.

Next up, as you may know, Warinthestar originally was an admin on the Twilight Server for the game BZFlag. Well guess what? I’m back to playing that too! (Now a third time also) So let’s see, Twilight has changed its global groups to TWILIGHT.SRADMIN, TWILIGHT.ADMIN, and TWILIGHT.COP, as in we’re in TWILIGHT.SRADMIN, and TWILIGHT.ADMIN is now for the original Jr. Admins. We’re trying to recruit old members from our past times playing Twilight, found Saber and boresnake who still get on every once in awhile. Twilight now runs 5 servers, 4 of them public including: Twilight Main Server, Party Time Server, Jumping Skillz Server, and BZSports Server. The private one is the Twilight Test Server. Also, we have started a new site on my http://sigonasr2.servegame.org server with my newfound web-designing skills I gained over the summer, we created a nice looking site and forum fairly easily. Check it out at http://twilight.servegame.org, and please join if you’re interested.

(Read onward for stuff that happened further back.)

Let’s see, going backwards before this “spark”. I played Diablo 2 quite often on Battle.net and by myself often. In late July, I visit Michael’s house and we played Diablo 2 together. So now we have a Barbarian and Assassin duo as we accomplish the various quests. We are now on Act 4 at level 23 (I Think….). So yeah, that was as of last night. Usually I play in the evenings since we do Fiesta and BZflag during the afternoons and mornings. I also have a level 70 sorceress (U.S. West) who’s stuck now because I can’t defeat cold-enchanted and I am single-elemental sorceress (Which I admit is not all that powerful in Hell Mode xD). I have a level 24 paladin (U.S. East) who’s at Arcane Sanctuary (I know, still Act 2? But I spent FOREVER getting the Horadric staff, it was ridiculous.), and a few lower level characters which don’t need much mentioning. That’s about it for that.

I have also been playing Animal Crossing: Wild World. You may be thinking, WHAT?!? Well, first off, I don’t even have a Wii, so I can’t even think about getting Animal Crossing: City Folk. But, I still wanna play, and it’s been about 3 years since I’ve really cared about that game. So I started up again. And, as mentioned earlier, using my newly-found web designing skills, developed a website for that game for our town! It’s at http://azww.tk if you want to take a look. You see, our town’s called Arizona, because we live in that state of course, so AZWW seemed to fit pretty well.

Even BEFORE THAT, I was doing Game Maker stuff and developed yet another website… for my game project I was working on (And still will when I get bored with the aforementioned stuff) and the site is at http://mega.z-gamers.net. I haven’t worked on it since the Saving/Loading system, but whenever I get the chance someday, I’ll continue. Until then, it’s pretty dead.

lalala, going back farther….Been playing Final Fantasy 7, now you may be thinking “WHAT?” again, but I have to admit, awesome game. I’ve beaten it once before when I was like 10 and didn’t care at all for the story, but now I do and I understand how the game comes together. I’m near the end of Disk 2 now and haven’t played in awhile due to the stuff mentioned further above. But yeah, it’s a fun game, and I don’t have any Playstation 2/3 games, so I can’t use my Playstation 2 for anything but our old Playstation 1 games.

Hmm, next up, a little about my religious life. So I guess my post from about half a year ago??? I think, about questioning death is now obsolete…Basically because the tides have turned for me. I completely believe in the bible and God now. Due to personal reasons, and due to pastors and preachers talking about God alot. And as more proof, God has even answered my prayers in some way, shape, or form, and he is definitely there to protect me, you (the reader), and the world. Although I am not necessarily a “Good” Christian, who can be? So we repent and live on. I’m not super religious or a freak about it (Though we should be according to the bible.), but I wish to know God even more and get to be even more closer to him everyday…

Up next, my driving. Haven’t talked about that in awhile either, I have become pretty adept at driving (It’s pretty easy though, so it’s not too surprising), and all I need to do is practicing parking and tuning up my backwards driving skills, and I should be good to go on the road. I do stay fully alert on the road, probably more than I should even. But just today when there was a left turn green arrow and I headed up to the crossroad to turn, two trucks from the side to the right of us zoomed straight forward across the intersection when it was a red light, so that could’ve been a fatal crash (for the other people that already started turning), but luckily there wasn’t one, and I made it safely through the turn. Just a little bit more drama than usual during driving.

And as a final note, Back in early July (As in, the 1st~2nd week of it), we went on a camping trip to the Grand Canyon. We? I mean the youth group church kids of our town. It was really fun. I got to meet some cool kids (All Asian hah [Sorry, racial statement xD]) and we talked and chatted every once in awhile. It was fun, and we visited more than the Grand Canyon, which it was the 2nd time visiting. But it was fun. I got even more details I’m planning to include in some future posts, so stay tuned!

Ok, for real, as a REAL Final note, I have recently made my desktop GREEN. Yes, Green. Why? My fav. color, also because it’s not too hurtful on the eyes, but still gives that sort of “strong” color feeling if you get what I’m saying (If you don’t well, too bad). But anyways, if you’ve been watching my desktop at http://mydesktop.tk, you can see it in daily use, or check out http://sigonasr2.servegame.org/mydesktop.html for a few screenshots of what it looks like now. I may include a future post also for how to get your desktop pimped out yourself later on!

WAIT! I just thought of something else that was very recent! I went to band camp for school (Which is in 2 days by the way….blah…), so anyways, band camp seemed really fun this year. Leadership looks great too, and our band teacher let them conduct band camp this year. Way cool, good job everyone great work, we acknowledge you! An inspirational teacher, Mr. Humbert came in and like every year, he gave us wacky jokes, made us laugh, and told us how weird band kids are. Well we are, and we love it, so deal with it. So yeah, incoming band kids (Freshman and Sophomores) were also very cool, glad to see new faces and the future of Buena Bands. Ah…Only two more years to celebrate.

Alright! I’m done! All in a nicely wrapped up 1400 word count post! (Including all the words I’m speaking right now will make it exactly 1400 ). So yeah, this might or might now be my July post. I may post more frequently in the future! (Just maybe hehehe.)

Oh man, last time I posted on here seems to be forever ago. So this summer has been quite fun but at the same time most wasteful. I’ve been wasting my time playing games this summer, but I’ve done some studying and a little game-making. So, let’s get started with what’s been happening.

After I got out of school, first there was not much to do. Fiesta’s Cypion Server Release was coming, and I was in action to get ready to play. Me and Dan were going to try to level fast, but we can’t possibly get the 1 million sparkcash, at least we can just grind as fast as possible. Whatever that happens, we were going to get to 105 eventually and not start an alt. However, things have changed recently (which I’ll explain below) and I’ve quit Fiesta again. (I also quitted Drift City not too far back.)

First off, Fiesta is pretty boring. I think eventually it gets old, you just kill monster after monster and nothing really happens after that. You have to grind now 105 levels and it is insanely hard to do. In fact, I don’t think it was meant to be done in less than a month and some people are killing themselves over trying to reach that 1 million, but I’m just giving up in general.

Now, an argument between my friend and I [and previously before] was that why do I always quit games and never stay “committed” to one. Well, here’s my case-and-point:
Games are meant to keep us entertained, right? So when we end up getting bored by them, the game has no purpose anymore. We need a new game that’ll keep you entertained again. So why should you be committed to a game if the whole point of them is to keep you entertained and you’re not being entertained? Yeah, you don’t and you pay more money to get a new game. xD

So then I obviously was bored and needed a new game. I tried to entertain myself with Game Maker, but you know…I really think I need to learn C++ or C and I’m gonna try using OpenGL eventually.

And now I bring myself into the present and past week. My sister and I always get along and sometimes we do stuff together. Well recently, we’ve been playing The Sims: Life Stories together, and even though you may think what the, this isn’t the kind of games Josh would normally play (Or you would) but I swear, it’s very fun. Maybe part of it is because we used to play The Sims on the Gamecube quite often. So I guess now I play The Sims: Life Stories. And we don’t just play it, we have a huge family tree thing we created awhile ago and we’re going to re-enact all the stories in the game. We’ve both almost completed the first family with their kids, and it is very fun. What makes it so fun? I think it’s the depth and complexity of the game yet how simple it is all implemented. I have fun building the houses, gaining relationships, and raising the kids from young babies to teenagers. If you like simulation games and haven’t tried it, The Sims: Life Stories is fun. And not just that, I heard The Sims 3 is going to be real good too.

So, that catches you up on what I’ve been up to. Sorry to my Fiesta people in the Cryptic_Fate guild on Cypion, I decided to give up…Again. So that is all, I am off now.

I am so happy. School is finally out and summer starts once again! And to think I started this blog only a year and a month ago, I never thought it’s been so long and I’ve gotten so far! But yeah, another 3 months to chill out and work on stuff I’ve been dying to work on!

Summer 2009 Goals:
Finish Fighter’s Field 3D Version 1.0 (An official release!)
Finish Z-Tower Defense
Become more adept at Alto Sax.
Get to Lv80 at least on Drift City
Play through World of Warcraft
Beat Spore on Hard Mode

Well, there might be some more, but I cannot think of anything else. Anyways, so we got out on March 20th, so it’s been a week. Things have been going pretty smoothly. Each day I got to relax and have fun with my brothers and sister. Our family has gone out swimming, we’ve talked about plans to go to places with our Church, and I have been working on games and playing some Final Fantasy 7. So it’s been a pretty good summer so far. Last year, I remembered being into BZFlag and starting Fiesta, but this year, it seems I almost have no game I’m caught on. I mean, I have been playing some Drift City, but…It’s been getting hard to level now but it’s still fun. I’m waiting for more G-Coins to get my Nova V6 to Nova V9, or waiting for a Duel. Either one.

Recently, I’ve had a flash drive go dead. It was because of bad sectors which probably happened while I was transferring files and after pulling it out and plugging it in, I lost all my flash drive data. It wasn’t too major, but it was definitely a disappointment. The biggest file I lost, was my Fighter’s Field 3D file. So, what was I to do? Well, me and my 5-year-old bro Jonathan are always playing/working on the game, and I remembered that I gave him an “alpha” testing executable just 2 days ago. And I thought, I needed it. Using my backup flash drive (with only 128 MB instead of my original 2GB), I got it on my computer and downloaded the Game Maker EXE Decompiler. Now, I know what you may be thinking if you know what I mean. I’m a bad person now. No, not really. Because I am using it for first off, a very legitimate purpose. I needed to decompile my Fighter’s Field 3D exe file so I could get all my months of typed codes and all my objects and sprites back! And I promise you. Once I have decompiled the game, I have permanantly removed the decompiler from my computer. If some legal dude or anybody wanted to inspect my hard drive for any signs of the decompiler (or my flash drives/CDs/any media storage device) I assure you there is no trace of it anymore! Therefore, I have no possibility of decompiling any of your games, got it? So don’t go commenting on here “You suck, you loser decompiling others’ games.” or anything of that sort. Also, it is my game, and if you don’t believe me, you can read previous posts that go months back about the development of it, you can read about it at http://z-gamers.net, find it on GMC, and you can ask one of the members on Z-Gamers about it, they’ll tell you, so there’s plenty of proof it’s mine along with my full name being in the executables of the Fighter’s Field 3D games.

Sorry about going on and on about that, it’s just I don’t want anybody thinking I’m doing anything bad in particular, and I have plenty of proof to make sure nothing bad can be thought of me. (Sorry, keeping rep is a thing for me xD.)

Fighter’s Field 3D development if going well. Mining system is complete, PvE system is completed, and I’m now working on the new skills. There are 8 skills per class, making it 32 skills, but you can only get a new skill once every 10 levels. You get your first one after the Class Upgrade 3 at lv60, and you get one every 10 levels. This patch goes up to lv100, so you get 5 total. So you can get 5/8 skills from the skill shop for your new class, and each one does different things. If you are interested in seeing what they are, I will be posting up a Word file with a list of them in a later post.

That’s all I got for now. Stay tuned.

So on the 11th of May, Monday, I got 12 pieces of posterboard that were of 4 different colors and I started creating what is called an Icosikaiterahedron, also known as a 24-sided tessalated figure. (At least I’m pretty sure, I could use some clarity on it.)

But yeah, it took about 3 hours to build, and now that it is complete and I’ve turned it in for extra credit, I brought it home to take pics. So you can click the images below to view them!

Yeah, it’s really large. I could’ve used regular white paper and made it normal sized, but I decided to go large. It is about 16″x16″ from end to end so it is very large, about up to your knees if you stand. It is also heavier than it looks too. About 3~5 pounds which is quite alot for paper.

That is pretty much it for now, I’m so close to lv51 on Drift City, and I’m getting better at the game now. I might start playing World of Warcraft soon along with my usual set of games, and I may get close to finishing the Lv60~100 patch for Fighter’s Field 3D. Until then, ciao.

So I’m finally back to good old Windows XP. I know you might be thinking that Windows XP is outdated with Windows 7 coming in and Vista being sold in stores everywhere, but I plan to stick with XP for a few more years. I couldn’t believe that I went from 800 MB of free RAM from boot up on Vista, to 1.5~1.6 GB of free RAM everytime I started up on Windows XP. Pretty neat.

I noticed the big difference in speed and I am quite happy with the results. I ran into one little snag earlier which is explained below.

So I first tried to install XP next to Vista, but I couldn’t because the drive was protected with SATA ACPI I think it was? (Not sure since my memory isn’t serving me well right now so, sorry if I’m wrong) So of course, my first source of reference was the internet. I read a few articles and found one where I have to switch the SATA/RAID setting (I forgot which one it was so I list both) to ATA. Then I was able to visibly see my drive, but by that time I forgot about the putting XP with Vista and just moving stuff from Vista and decided to wipe about 110 GB of my 140 GB hard drive. Took awhile for it to go through the NTFS file system setup process, but after that it was pretty simple.

Watched the Windows XP install screens, let it run through for about half an hour, then we go into the Windows XP screen with surprise surprise no drivers (as usual). So I pull out my Dell drivers disk I got and put it in. Used Inspiron 1525 model drivers with Windows XP drivers (Kind of glad they had those) and got my wireless card, graphics enhancement, webcam, touchpad, and a few other drivers placed on. It wouldn’t install my Sigmatel sound card driver for some reason which is where I got kind of frustrated. Everytime I ran the installer, it’d start up, scan my audio hardware configuration, then just mysteriously disappear.

So I reboot my computer, then when I start up, Sigmatel installation window pops up. I’m like, interesting…When it finishes I’m happy because it successfully installs my sound card in and I am done. I immediately get the SP3 update from XP (By now they have fixed all the bugs compared to my last test if you read about 4 or 5 months back with me testing SP3 in its early stages. I get avast! antivirus again, and start reinstalling items. SCWebcam3, Pidgin, WinSCP, Spore, Drift City, Diablo 2, Microsoft Office 2007, Firefox, and a few other programs that I often used. So I’m happy now, my computer’s officially Windows XP. I save RAM, I still have all my programs, and I get to do stuff super fast now.

That’s about it for today, we’ll see what happens later.

So it’s been about a month since I have made another new post on here, but now I am making one. What I have been up to I’ll explain in a second. I named today’s post “Back to Activity” because I have been doing lots of things lately and I plan to share them below.

First off, I am planning to go back to Windows XP pretty soon. Why? Mostly because I want a fast computer. I admit that Vista is great, and has things we all love, but I think Vista is getting a little annoying as I boot up each day, wait 30 seconds, type in a password, then wait 30 more seconds before I can finally begin working. It adds up and I just want it to be more responsive and active. So, today I officially make the switch. I have backed up Documents and Pictures, and am starting it as soon as I finish this blog post. I know it’ll take a few hours, but it’ll be worth it. So how am I doing it? I’m using PC Magazine’s May 2008 “Return to Windows XP” as a guide, and am using the first tip they provide which is installing XP over Vista without wiping the hard drive. Then from there, I just transfer my old files, reinstall applications, and delete the Vista junk left behind. I was thinking about a reformat, but it’s not really much of something in my head to do right now. Actually, now that I think about it, it may just be easier to reformat…Hmm, either way I want to get it done. I have burned a few disks containing all of my document files in .rar format and have them separated by 700 MB archives.

So, now my second topic is basically about my gaming life. First off, I want to say that I am Lv49 on Drift City. Pretty neat. I’ve quit Fiesta so I won’t be talking about that anymore by the way. I have chosen some nice cars now, sold off my older version cars. I have pics of each one on the next page. Just click More to go through them. The post continues on the More link after the images and I included some older images while driving so you can see what cars I used earlier along with some nice scenery and such. (I chose to stick with OMD.)

So now that you have seen my gallery of cars in Drift City, let’s head onto Game Maker. Z-Gamers is becoming active a little again. I am working on a few various games (4 to be exact), along with Robert Harper and XSkulls working hard with releases as well. XSkulls’ recent release was a game called RED! where you control a mouse (a computer mouse) and you guide it through a maze of red and avoid the red trying to score as many points as you can. There are 16 levels (last 6 thanks to me) and I can get to level 13, after that I just fail. So yeah, pretty fun game. You can check it out at http://sigonasr2.servegame.org/zgamers/v2/index.php?Red!.

In terms of video games, I have recently been getting out my old Playstation games and playing them, including one of my favs, Parasite Eve. Parasite Eve is a fun game that originated in Japan and has been translated to English when shipped here. It was made in 1998 I’m pretty sure and as far as the game goes for that time period (and for the Playstation I), it does a very nice job in terms of graphics and gameplay. Parasite Eve is basically a Cinematic Action RPG, where Cinematic comes in from movie scenes during vital parts of the game, action because of the active battle system, and RPG because you level up, gain experience and get new powers and items. You play as Aya, a police officer from the NYPD. She’s new (I think been in it for half a year according to the story in-game???) and is the only one who’s mitochondria (Which tells most of the scientific part of the story) has evolved to protect herself against EVE, someone (or thing) that has mutated mitochondria so that it does not need to rely on the balance and control of a nucleus and all the mitochondria’s energy can be freed. The storyline may seem confusing to younger players, but then again, this game is rated “M” so be noted that. Anyways, that’s a great game and if you like older classic games and haven’t tried PE, this is for you. (It also has a close resemblence to FFVII.)

That is all for now for this month’s post. I may post sooner/later but this is it for now.