The New New Year

Well if I had to sum 2008 in one word, it would probably be the same word I used to describe 2006 and 2007: transition. Each of the past three years have been pretty heavy with transition, especially socially, academically, and professionally.

While 2006 was a pretty rough year for me socially, and 2007 was a rough year academically, 2008 has been a great year, especially professionally. Again, it was an even year that rocked. I graduated BGSU in May after a spectacular final semester (got to meet a lot of new people!). I sent a good portion of my summer getting reacquainted with an old friend of mine (World of Warcraft, that is). And of course, I eventually landed a great job in September...

Which brings me to today. In reality, 2008 has been a pretty simple year: graduate and get a job, but these two things represent the culmination of my life up to this point. I went to school to get a good job that will allow me to support myself, and I have accomplished this. With a great job secured, I'm at a pretty good point to make 2009 rock: I intend to pay off my car, get financially healthy and stable, then draw up plans to move out on my own - and that'll be the big event of the year, no doubt.

I'm also making a few lifestyle changes - alterations to my daily routine, the way I schedule my calendar out, and monthly priorities in general - that has already made an impact on how I feel from day to day... certainly a positive turn of events for me.

Anyhow, I'm going into 2009 with high spirits and a hugely positive attitude... and I intend to keep it that way all year long. See you in the new year.

Windows 7 First Thoughts

I've never been big on examining pre-release software, especially operating systems, but for some reason Windows 7 was too tempting... and with the Build 7000 beta finding its way to the usual torrent sites, I decided to take it for a spin. The 2.5 GB-ish file is in the form of an ISO, and for the most part, is pretty solid.

I don't intend to do any real computing with this beta - obviously, I wasn't handed a beta key (that's for those attending CES next week). But I did get to try it out for a couple of hours today, which was all I wanted to do. My initial thoughts based on my time with Windows 7:

• From the moment I hit the desktop after a sloooooow installation (I installed Win7 in a virtual machine via VirtualBox), I instantly reconized what Windows 7 was: a finished version of Vista. As where Vista felt like a rearranged, lethargic version of Windows XP, Win7 is definitely a more complete, unique operating system. The full boot sequence - from power-on to desktop - is fairly quick. More importantly, even on an unoptimized virtual machine, Win7's desktop felt snappy. Speed and responsiveness was everywhere, and it felt great to use.

• The new taskbar doesn't seem as awe-inspiring as I first thought. First off, it's much taller than the XP/Vista taskbar. This is because tasks are now prepresented with an icon, rather than text. I found the lack of text to be disorienting at first, but the taskbar now does some cool things. The icon representations of running programs tell a lot about the status of your desktop without using text, which has a bit of a learning curve (programs of similarity get overlapped icons; for example - Word documents all stack on top of one another). The new window controls (shake to clear desktop, drag to top of screen to maximize, etc.) are immediately useful, and long-overdue. The new desktop features are best used on a hi-resolution monitor with Aero features cranked up.

• The lack of the usual Windows programs - Movie Maker, for example - keep the default Start Menu lean and just how I like it - ready to make it my own - without having to clean up Microsoft's crap.

I know that was a rather quick, superficial look at Windows 7, but I could only form so many impressions in just a few hours. I don't plan to use the beta after this week, but if I do have anything else worth adding, I will update accordingly.

So far, so good, I say. Windows 7 is on track to be what Vista should have been, and I found this beta to be a solid peek at the future of Windows. Come late 2009 I might actually finally give up Windows XP and move to Windows 7. Shocker, I know.

B3 out.

Songbird

Freedom at last.

It's been tough for me to find "the definitive" music player for my personal use. Windows Media Player is a fine choice for playing music that "just works." However, I like having a few more advanced features: library support for organizing my music, instant search, CD ripping and burning, playlist support, and more importantly, an intuitive interface.

The de-facto standard for my media player of choice has been Winamp. First Winamp 2, briefly Winamp 3, and Winamp 5 for years now. It provides all the features I want, deep customizatoin, and most importantly, a user interface that gives me easy access to all of those features.

Since being acquired by AOL, however, Nullsoft hasn't been putting out the same quality Winamp releases that I've been hoping for, and Winamp 5.5 definitely steps away from the Winamp I know and love. Which means that I have been in the market for a new media player that fulfills my needs - obviously, no easy task.

Songbird is beginning to come awfully, close, however.

Songbird is an open source media player, built primarily on technology from Mozilla, including the Gecko rendering engine. What this essentially means is that Songbird shares a lot of technology with Firefox. This is important, as you'll see, because Songbird is built to be tightly integrated with the Internet, much more so than Winamp could ever be in its current form.

Below I highlight what I feel are the strongest and most unique features of Songbird.

• Interface: iTunes' interface tends to be love it or hate it, but from a usability standpoint, Apple really did nail it. iTunes is best at organizing a large collection of music, creating and editing playlists, and playing music, plain and simple. Songbird apes iTunes' interface almost 1:1, and I find this to be a good thing. The default "Gonzo" interface could be mistaken for iTunes by almost anyone, with solid whites and grays defined by sharp lines and curves in all the right places.
  

• Connectivity: As I already said, Songbird is built on some of Mozilla technology's, and actually shares the feature core of Firefox. This makes Songbird one part iTunes, one part awesome browser. This allows me to do my two most common tasks right next to one another: listen to music and browse the web. With the tabbed interface enabled, Songbird feels and acts just like Firefox, but with a permanent tab always available to access your music library. More importantly, Songbird allows the web to integrate with your music: Last.fm support is built right in, and album art for your music can be pulled from the web as you play your songs, among many other possibilities.
  

• Extensions: Another great feature carried over from Firefox, Songbird allows for the same extensibility as the popular browser, and in fact already shares many of the same browser add-ons. The ability to extend features of the core music library is great, though, especially with the ability to add new features that Songbird won't or hasn't supported yet.
  

• Compatibility: Songbird supports iTunes' style syncing with iPods and any MTP device, meaning that it's bloody easy to keep a huge music library synced with a portable device.
  

There are a few downsides to Songbird thus far, so here are those in all fairness:

• CD Ripping/Burning:There are a lot of features that Songbird simply doesn't have, either in the core package or via extensions. CD burning and ripping is something that would be great to have. This is coming in a future release, however, and hopefully it rocks as good as Winamp or iTunes' ripping (auto-tagging, album art, etc.).

• Customized sorting: As it is, you can only sort one column in your library/playlists at a time, which makes sorting by artist/album/track very difficult. This is a feature coming down the line, though.

• Configurable interface: I would like to see some components of the Songbird user interface configurable. If the playback controls don't suit me in a particular location, I would like to drag and drop them somewhere else. This level of interface customization is possible with add-ons (via skins), but I wouldn't mind being able to accomplish the same thing myself. Songbird's iTunes-esque interface is a solid start for a music player, but in order to draw in more users, an easily customizable interface would kick ass.

I highly recommend you try Songbird if you're in the market for a new music player / organizer. If you're on the fence, wait until April of 2009, when Songbird is expected to pick up CD ripping / burning and sorting. By then hundreds, if not thousands, of skins and extensions should be available too, meaning that Songbird can be whatever you make it to be.

It's certainly looking promising thus far. B3 out.

Facebook Connect FTW

Facebook Connect is a big deal, I believe, for the Internet as a whole.  I could blab on for hours about the neat positive points and the scary negative points of the new platform, but instead I'll just cut to the chase and get the brief, important points out of the way.

What It Is:

Facebook at one time (early 2007) had planned to introduce an advertising platform called "Beacon," which would allow advertisers to access your profile information and attempt to directly suggest products, services, etc. to your profile / News Feed in Facebook.  This was met with harsh criticism from many privacy advocates, not to mention the Facebook user base at large.  The project was largely abandoned just weeks from going live.

Now in late 2008, Facebook Connect comes along, and is based on a similar concept but with an important twist: user opt-in.  Connect is a similiar concept to Beacon in that advertisers will be able to post in your News Feed, but in a very intuitive way.

Facebook Connect allows third party websites to use your Facebook login information for their site.  In other words, imagine finding an awesome website that you love, but it requires you to sign up for the site - to create a username and password.  While many people already have dozens of login credientials at different websites, Facebook Connect allows this website to use your Facebook information as your login - eliminating the need to sign up for yet another username and password.

So any website that uses Facebook Connect allows you to use your Facebook credientials locally.  In return, that website gets access to your profile information and - this is the kicker - gets to post stories in your News Feed about your activity at that site.  This will allow your friends to see actions you take at other websites, which is the basis for hidden advertising, so to speak: word of mouth.  Your friend buys a shirt from site X after they used their Facebook account to log in; a News Feed item appears on your Facebook homepage showing your friend and a picture of the shirt.  You like the shirt too, so you go buy one from the site.  Advertising built right on top of the user - brilliant, I say.

My Initial Reaction:

So far I've only used Facebook Connect on two websites: Gizmodo and Kotaku.  Instead of signing up for a username to being a registered commenter on those sites, I can use my Facebook profile as my registration, and my name, picture, and profile information are automatically presented on those sites, with links back to my original Facebook profile.

I think Connect is a great idea, very akin to OpenID - the concept of having one username / password / profile that is shared among any site you may visit.  I can certainly see privacy issues; my picture, full name, and any information in my Facebook profile is now available for the world to see on any external site that I choose.  Still, I like the idea of my online identity being available on multiple websites, and I think the New Feed linking/posting is a great way to see and track habits of friends (kind of stalkerish, you say? No, just classic Facebook).

Go here to get a growing list of websites that use Facebook Connect to let you login.  Each website applies it's own privacy policy to your use of their site, even with your Facebook credentials, so read the fine print before diving in to see where your information is going.

It'll be interesting to see how this grows and how big of a privacy concern it will grow to be.  I'll certainly be watching, but not from the sidelines, but as an avid user of Facebook Connect.

B3 out.

QuickLinks

Well I'm expanding Critically Correct a bit.

Recently I've built up a huge list of links and URLs from around the web - YouTube videos, blogs, articles, new stories - pretty much anything that I stumble upon at home, work, or on the road.

To help collect these awesome links and one place, and to share them with my readers, I have created a Google Sites page to post links to. I can't promise that I will update this page often, but I will keep it up to date with the best stuff I find on the internet.

Take a peek at the first build of it right here.

B3 out.

The Geek and The Girl

Here's a short look back a time in my life that was full of transition, and more particularly, embarrassment. When a geek who knows more about nits that tits crosses paths with a beautiful girl, you get something that looks like this:

In my early years at Meijer, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2002, I was focused pretty hardcore on Lacey as "the" girl in my life. We were both juniors at Otsego High School at the time. I wasn't completely ignorant of other beautiful girls around me, but my heart was set and little would change that. Come late 2002, I was firmly entrenched at Meijer and got along with several of my favorite people at the time: Jaime, Ashley, Brittany - all girls, yes, but none a challenge to Lacey in my eyes.

As a teenage guy not yet two years away from graduating high school, I did not even bother to consider myself eligible for all of the college "hotties" at Meijer. I was an uber-geek, after all, chasing after my own beautiful cheerleader, so what chance would I ever have to even talk to the twenty-something poster girls at Meijer?

One of the head cashiers just happened to be one of these incredibly beautiful poster girls. I (the dorky, pudgy, video game-obsessed redhead) found pure beauty while working at dirty old Meijer: long, straight-back midnight black hair, bright green narrow-cut eyes, curves where they counted, and a seductive tan that wasn't obnoxious yet remained irresistibly hot. I even found beauty in her name at the time: Kristen. Stunning all around.

But again, she was a college girl, whatever that entailed at the time of my interpretation: hard-parties, drinking, sex, and generally other more "adult" things than I didn't have much of an interest in during high school. Despite all of Kristen's beauty, it was back to Lacey for me.

Now Kristen and I got along in plenty of fun, relaxing ways while at work. I was a "bagger" at the time - the only position minors were allowed to fill at Meijer at the time - which pretty easily pooled me into a certain stereotype that all the underage workers carried at the time: that of less maturity and experience. Despite this stigma, rumors circulated between a few people at Meijer that Kristen - a twenty-year old college hottie - was going to ask me out on my 18th birthday in the coming weeks - October 4th, to be exact. This was impossible, of course. My mind was made up. Lacey was the center of my life, and even if she wasn't, I was not Kristen material by any means. Any means. Two different worlds - her and I - plain and simple.

I took my birthday off work, of course, so it wasn't until October 5th that I was back to Meijer, and there was immediate awkwardness upon returning. It seemed that everyone in the Service Department drew harsh stares at me as I walked towards the time clock to punch in for the day. I was not sure why this was, but later that night I was told by several people that Kristen was disappointed to not have seen me on my birthday: she had worked the 4th, I had not. Again, I had the overwhelming feeling that this was a collective game that everyone was playing against me, a cruel trick that everyone enjoyed pranking on me, and I wrote it off just as fast as those stares caught me.

Come two days later, I walked into Meijer at my usual 5:00pm, not realizing that I would be making a decision that would be with me to this day, however small in meaning it may now be. Shortly after clocking in, I reported to Kristen (who had head-cashier duties that night) and asked about my first work assignment.

"Why weren't you at work on your birthday?" Kristen snapped at me. "I had a surprise for you."

Was everyone else right? I immediately thought to myself. No. Not possible. I was right. I had priorities in my life, and Kristen wasn't one of them. She was in college, why would she want Dorktastic for a date? I held my breath and pretended not to know about the rumors and jeers.

Kristen kept her eyes locked on me, then smiled. "I was going to ask if you wanted to take me out on a date now that you're eighteen. What do you think?"

I'm not exactly sure what went through my head right at that moment, but I do remember that shock and awe was involved, and my thoughts that probably looked like this: Did she have a crush on me? Did I miss some obvious signs? What about Lacey? Holy hell, what an opportunity! What next?

And of course, like a well-scripted prime time comedy, my uber-geek kicked in and threw all that tension to shit. "Well I don't think I could." I thought about Lacey. "I have a lot to do with school."

Kristen fought for her date. "Well I'm free this weekend. It doesn't have to be long. Just dinner and maybe we could hang out with my roommates."

"Well I don't really have money." I lied to her. I had plenty of money. I think the poorest man in the world would have had money at that point just to say "yes" to Kristen. I said no. I waved my arms in the air a little, cracked an awkward smirk, and laughed under my breath as I walked away from her. I volunteered to push carts on the parking lot. I spent the rest of the night out there thinking about Lacey and Lacey and Lacey some more.

Some years later I was reminded about this incident by a coworker at Meijer. By this time (2006-ish) Kristen was long gone from Meijer, but that incident was well-known to those people who knew her at Meijer. As where I always looked back on that offer for a date as a joke on Kristen's part, even in 2006 I was told that I was an idiot for turning such an offer down. I still couldn't explain myself then.

Now in 2008, graduated from high school and graduated from college, I look back on that incident at one of my many lifetime learning experiences. I wish now that I had gone on that date. To this day I doubt there was a legitimate crush there, I believe Kristen simply found me to be a fun coworker and wanted to extend some of that to a casual dinner maybe once or twice as friends. I took it all the wrong ways as an inexperienced high schooler.

Even if Lacey had not been the complete obsession of my life at the time, I'm not sure how my potential date with Kristen would have turned out. Would I have gone on it and had a good time? Would I have met a bunch of different people and took a completely different path through college? Would something have sparked between Kristen and I after all and lead me somewhere entirely different now if life?

Or did I do the right thing all along? I will never know the truth, and more than anything else, it's the curiosity that drives me further along as I grow older. Sometimes not knowing is the hardest thing to bear. In my case, not knowing is the reason for my reflection on this; fuel for the ever-classic "What if?" question that I stumble upon so often in my life.

Thanks for reading along with my memory trip. B3 out.

Mini 9 + Wow Video

Without a doubt, I have had huge traffic to my blog recently thanks to my Inspiron Mini 9 and WoW Performance article that I posted a few weeks ago. There is very little information on the Internet regarding how WoW plays on the Mini 9, and so I hope to fill that gap as best I can. Today I created a short (and rather blurry) video of World of Warcraft performance on the Mini 9.

You can watch it as an embedded video in the original article, or head over to YouTube to watch it.

By the way, if I get access to a higher-quality camera in the near future, I plan on redoing this video.

B3 out.

College 101

After I settled on a major in college, it took me a while to respect the importance of my decision and the impact of the learning process with the computer science curriculum. I began my CS career at BGSU with a certain amount of hesitation.

Prior to BGSU, my programming experience was hobbyist in nature: I learned BASIC on the Commodore 64 (an old hand-me-down) around 1994, and dabbled with BASIC in a couple forms (DarkBASIC, Visual Basic 4,5,6 in high school), but never considered it as a true career choice. After my first year of trying my hand in a couple different areas of study (VCT, creative writing) at BGSU, I gave up on trying to ignore the fact that computers were my primary interest. Midway through my second year at BGSU, I finally settles on computer science as my major. What a day that was: going from office to office around campus, gathering signatures from various advisors, to officially declare how the rest of my life would be shaped.

Anywho, point is, it wasn't until my final year and a half at BGSU that I took programming very, very seriously. For the most part, I was decent with programming, and took a laid-back approach to assisgnments, projects, and programs. I read the necessary textbooks, went over the necessary handouts, and got by from semester to semester for the most part. For a while, I was in college for the sake of finishing college. I think a lot of my friends were (and are) like that. There is a strong mentality, especially after five years, to want college to end - to do whatever it takes to be done. Now that I'm done and working professionally, I have this to say:

I wish I had more time. Taking college super-seriously for just three semesters is not nearly enough. In many ways I envy my sister... she didn't go to college right out of high school, instead opting to work and start a new life (almost literally). Having done that, I think she has had an opportunity to focus on what she would really want out of a college education. She will appreciate the fruits of the experience much better. I've seen plenty of people who "just work" for a living, and they all intend to or are just going back to college. They want to go to college. I didn't want to go to college; I just grew up learning that it was what came next after high school - and I consequently did not fully appreciate the experience until it was pretty damn late in the fourth quarter with my team down by a field goal. Luckily I made that field goal and finished strong.

But not is all lost for me, of course. I can already see the value of a masters degree down the road, and when it's time for me to focus on that education, I will certainly dive in head first, quite willing, able, and excited about the opportunities that further education can present to me.

B3 out.

Half-Life Redux

I can pick out my favorite game on any given gaming platform: Ocarina of Time for the N64, Yoshi's Island for the SNES, Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES, Mario Kart DS for the Nintendo DS...

And Half-Life for the Windows PC. When Half-Life 2 came out in 2004, I immediately wanted a remade version of 1998's Half-Life done in the new Source engine that Valve created. Now I have it, in the form of Black Mesa.

The official trailer for the independent Source mod Black Mesa has finally been released, and I love every minute of it. Half-Life fans owe it to themselves to watch this trailer. I hope (expect, actually) Valve to scoop up these developers and release the game on Steam. Would I pay full price to play a ten-year old game? When it looks like this, absolutely.

YouTube: Black Mesa Trailer

B3 out.

Forcing Change Whether Change Likes It or Not

The last several months have been pretty much stagnant for my blog, with pretty much any of my interests outside of working or WoW consuming all of my time. I have not been able to give a fair amount of time to my other interests, primarily writing. It is hard to blog when it's so easily forgettable. It is also hard to blog when there isn't anything worth really blogging about.

So why not change that? Today marks a refocus for Critically Correct. I've dabbled with the idea of bringing a focused platform of writing to Critically Correct, although I also felt that would limit my eventual creative freedom. With such a low post count in the past few months, I have no choice. I can reinvigorate Critically Correct and work on writing at the same time (seems to go hand and hand, I know).

This is the intended general focus of Critically Correct that I'm leaning towards:

• Tech-focus: Links to my favorite articles around the web, and a short discussion to go along with it, Slashdot-style. Any tech-related news worth commenting on, or programming findings that interest me. This is the primary future of Critically Correct.
  

• Personal tech stories: Tech-related issues in my life, both personal and professional.

• Creative fiction: I still plan to publish my fiction (of any kind) on Critically Correct when the time is right.

• Updates: Rather than aim to write long, drawn out summaries of my life every month, I intend to put out short updates, almost Twitter-style, of what's going on with me from time to time, just to keep those afar informed.

• General purpose portal: I'm active on Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo!, AIM, and I practically live out of Google (email, docs, calendar, Reader, etc.), and with www.brandonbruno.com registered to me, this blog might as well as serve as a central portal to gather the tidbits from all over, so expect plenty of updates, news, etc. from all these other portals to filter to here.

So with all that said, expect a highly tech-focused blog that (I hope) will not alienate my current readership. Some of my most popular posts have been tech related (Vista, 300, DS 2, Dell Mini, just to name a few). I hope this new focus and format lets me write more often, with better focus, and overall improve my responsiveness and presence on the web.

Stay tuned. B3 out :-)

Gobble-Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!

(It's my first Thanksgiving weekend that I don't have to spend at work! It'll be so very nice to spend it with family for a change.)

My Legend With Zelda

Today is a special day. Ten years ago on this day, November 23rd, 1998, the gaming industry in North America saw one of the most influential games released onto the masses. Heralded for bringing so many new features to the world of 3D video games and showcasing perfect controls and gameplay, it's hard to imagine what video gaming would be like today had gaming taken any other path.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the absolute most important game in the The Legend of Zelda series, and a milestone in the industry as a whole. I won't argue if it is the best game in existence - in all honesty, that's a subjective viewpoint best reserved for each gamer's individual taste.

Without a doubt, however, The Legend of Zelda games as a whole are a landmark staple in the gaming industry. As a benchmark of action, role-playing and exploration, masterfully designed dungeons and puzzles, and even involving stories (Twilight Princess, particularly), Zelda means a lot to many gamers.

On this anniversary of the most important Zelda game released, I take a moment to look back on my history with The Legend of Zelda series.

I came to the Zelda party a bit late: it wasn't until 1997 that I even discovered what The Legend of Zelda was. Being dropped into the middle of the Zelda franchise felt a little disorienting at first, but it did allow me to catch up on a quite a bit of Zelda goodness in a short time. I have played all of the Zelda games in some form or another, but have fonder memories of some rather than others. Thus, here is my story - my history - for my experiences with The Legend of Zelda series, in perfect chronological order as I experienced the games.

Link's Awakening

In 1997, in the seventh grade at Otsego Middle School, I lived among a culture of gaming. It wasn't long into the school year that I realized just where I was: growing out of a "kid" phase, but just adult enough to make vulgarity part of my daily vocabulary. One day while enjoying our 11am lunch break, a semi-new friend of mine, Jason, was playing his GameBoy (the original gray brick!), and he had a recently-purchased game in it: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. He was stuck at some point in the game, and was frustrated enough to pass the GameBoy around our circle of friends, hoping someone would figure out how to help him.

After a few pairs of hands touched his GameBoy, my turn came up. I settled into my seat, leaned back, and got a glimpse of a little elfish character in the middle of a grassy field. I moved the character, pressed buttons, and soon my heart took off. I was in a fantasy world with limitless exploration, cool items to use, and a sword in hand. Granted, at the time, I did nothing more than run around with a shovel and dig rupees out of the ground, much to Jason's frustration. But unlike the Mario and Tetris games of my youthful past, this game let me explore to my heart's content, and sure enough, I wanted the game for my own. I bought it a few week's later with money saved up from around the house.

It took me about six months, but I eventually played through the entire game myself, and it became a staple in my GameBoy. Link's adventure was certainly quirky in many respects, but I loved every minute of the game. After the GameBoy Color was released in the late 90's and Nintendo reissued an updated Link's Awakening with color graphics, I did not hesitate to play through the game again - and again and again.

A Link to the Past

I bought a copy of this game at Walmart for $30 shortly after I began the eighth grade. Little did I know at the time that this was not a sequel to my precious GameBoy Zelda. As it turned out, I was missing a lot of Zelda history. Thanks to some issues of Nintendo Power (of which I was a loyal subscriber at the time), I quickly learned that the Zelda franchise spanned a full decade or so by the fall of 1997 that I was playing through A Link to the Past.

All in all, the color graphics, sweeping soundtrack, and extremely deep (and for me, challenging as hell) gameplay kept me hooked for weeks on end. More than anything, this game was huge - far larger in scope than Link's Awakening, and I spent hours at a time just poking around every corner of the game, exploring what there was to explore. After two months of playing it, I gave up on the game well into the adventure, frustrated by a pain-in-the-ass puzzle. Around December of 1997, I learned that a new Zelda game was in the works for my beloved Nintendo 64 platform. By this time I knew and understood Zelda well: it was one of my favorite games, and I needed to own the upcoming release. By the first couple of months into 1998, I took the time to finish A Link to the Past and prepared myself for the next great Zelda game.

Ocarina of Time

It goes without saying that this game is respected more than any other in the franchise. At 7am on a foggy November morning in 1998, I set out with my mom to Wal-Mart in Bowling Green, where I reserved the limited-edition Gold cartridge edition of Ocarina of Time. Upon hitting the car for the ride home, I shredded the plastic packaging (but kept the shiny cardboard N64 game box, still in mint condition today). Everything about the cartridge reeked of possibility, and I spent seven straight hours glued to my television that day playing Ocarina of Time. I have never spent so long in front of a television in one continuous play session.

Every moment of the game was simply an experience. Although not as overly difficult as A Link to the Past, it took me a bit longer to beat the game, namely because I spent a great portion of my time running about Hyrule, exploring every nook and cranny that the game world presented to me. Most interesting was the fishing minigame, which I spent a ton of time playing. The 100 Gold Skulltulas to collect kept me busy in between dungeons, and any side quest that involved exploring Hyrule usually became my favorite.

As of today, I've played through the entirety of Ocarina of Time several dozen times, I've marveled at its landscapes, swore at its challenges (although always overcame them), and have fallen in love with the game every single time that I boot it up. Simply awesome.

Oracle of Ages & Oracle of Seasons

With my heart set on Link's Awakening as being among my favorite of the Zelda's, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that two new Zelda games were being developed for the GameBoy Color. Although featuring an odd link-compatible feature-set, the oddball characters, unfamiliar story, and heavily-congested overworld steered me away from what were apparently really awesome Zelda games. Given how busy I was with gaming in 1998 (Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye, Turok 2), I found little time to devote to these two Zelda's. I hope that Nintendo re-releases them in some capacity in the near future so I can give them another go around.

Wind Waker

The Wind Waker was a mixed bag of Zelda goodness for me. On one hand, I fell in love with the artistic design of the game immediately upon playing it. The controls were tight as hell, seemingly fine tuned to levels that no other Zelda game had ever achieved. The game's story was overly convoluted and a bit unnecessary: why try to fit into the general Zelda timeline when plenty of other Zelda games have simply disregarded any sense of continuity?

But Wind Waker had something no other Zelda had to such extremes: exploration. Although set over a vast, vast ocean, so much of Wind Waker could be played simply as an adventurer. Sailing from island to island to uncover hidden secrets was fun enough, but then the ocean itself harbored hundreds of underwater secrets too. This was almost "Zelda GTA-style," and although the exploration could slow the main game down a bit, it was rarely necessary to progress the story along (although the Triforce map collection quest was a bitch!).

Twilight Princess

Nintendo hyped Twilight Princess as "Ocarina of Time reborn," and they were almost right. Returning to a mature-themed Zelda world, Twilight Princess brought a classy, dark, mature Zelda world to gamers, and plenty of game play to go along with it. Easily the most feature-filled Zelda game, the overall scope of the game is almost mind boggling. For a Zelda game, it has a surprisingly large Hyrule to explore. Getting around on horseback is necessary, and luckily the game drops this ability early in the game. A deep, involving story that takes a few twists and turn to keep things feeling fresh is the driving force of the game. Past Zelda's have had stories, although never one that is constantly the prime driving force behind continuing the adventure (I could easily say that Link's Awakening or Ocarina of Time sometimes just provided a story as a means to get from one dungeon to the next).

More than anything, Twilight Princess is Ocarina of Time highly refined. While I hold Ocarina of Time closer to my heart thanks to its age and longevity, Twilight Princess is a great play for a gamer with more modern taste in terms of graphics, story, and complexity. This is a close second to Ocarina in my book.

All the Others

I largely missed the NES-era of Zelda games, but I do have experience with them. I first played the original 1987 The Legend of Zelda while borrowing a friend's NES in 1998 or so, although at the time I found the stiff controls, lack of narrative, and completely open world as put-offs. In later play-throughs closer to 2000 (emulation by this point, mostly), I gave it second, third, and forth chances. While I never beat the game nor progressed very far, I did learn to appreciate how groundbreaking this type of game was in 1987.

I played Zelda II: The Adventures of Link for the NES very briefly, almost as a demo, and found - as most people did in 1988 - the 2D combat and disconnected overhead world to be jarring, and that pretty much sums up my experience with the game.

In Closing

If I had to personally rank my favorite five Zelda games, based solely on personal enjoyment, nostalgia, and other personal preferences, the list would look, in order, something like this:

1. Ocarina of Time
2. Link's Awakening
3. Twlight Princess
4. A Link to the Past
5. Wind Waker

It is without a doubt that my favorite Zelda game is also one of the most influencial games he industry has seen in general. In the past ten years, my gaming tastes have matured quite a bit, if not waned a bit with so many other things that have come along (college, jobs, other interests, etc.). But despite ten years - 3,653 days - having passed since that cold November morning in 1998, there is one game that I always will always mean the world to me.

Today I will spend a good chunk of my time replaying the beginning sections of the game, Kokiri Forest, and losing myself in a wonderful game.

What Has Been and What Will Be

A few notes on what has been:

• Been working like crazy (well 8 to 5, anyway), and all is well with me and my "new"job.

• I've been posting some rather awful sounding Facebook status updates lately. To explain in brief: Adjusting in my new job has been great for me, but not great for most everyone around me, so I've had to really pull myself out of my usual routine, consider my priorities, and give myself time to work out the kinks in my immediate and near-term goals. So far, I think things will get better over time, but I'm not leaving anything off the table at this point either.

• I have begun a major redesign of Critically Correct. If all goes to plan, I will soon be free of this rather confining Blogger template theme! Hang tight!

What will be:

• This coming Sunday is something special for me: November 23rd, 2008 is the ten-year anniversary of the release of my all-time favorite video game. It'll be one hell of a day for an update :-)

Sunday will be my next update, but until then I hope things go well for everyone. Looking at my blog, I don't think I will stick with this yellow color theme. Kind of... putrid looking, maybe?

B3 out.

Finding the Butterflies

There's a notion, a feeling, an indisputable feeling of euphoria that comes from craving something, wanting something, fighting for something, and desiring something, even if it does or does not come to you in any amount of time.

At various points in my life I have desired something - a goal to be achieved, if you will - and lately I've been taking a hard look at the distinct lack of a driving force in my life. Looking back, high school was distintly the most important time of my life in terms of driving force: of course it was a girl that I desired, and the desire was strong enough to push me to do new, drastic things sometimes. In other places in my life, it has been video games - the anticipation and build up to a major game release (Ocarina of Time, for example) or a big console release (4am in Toledo at Best Buy for the Gamecube, anyone?).

Ultimately, it's not what the driving force in my life is, but what it does to me that matters. Without a driving force in my life right now, I feel lethargic and stale, as if I'm not going anywhere. With this in mind, the obvious is clear: I need to figure out what brings out the butterflies in my stomach again; what pushes me to do new things; something to be excited about. Right now I'm stuck in routine, and it's still killing me.

Saving Me One Word At a Time

As mother nature churned an arctic blast of winter at northwest Ohio today, I finally settled on a plan to keep me sane as I continue to sink into a routine that is taking a heavy toll on me. With the usual routine of "work, girlfriend, sleep, repeat" chewing away at me (although don't get me wrong, each of these things on their own has plenty of positives), I turn to my past once again to find relief.

My first major priority is fiction. Although I haven't had time to keep up on reading like I wanted to during the summer, I am definitely making a huge push to get my creative writing back off the ground. I'm making sure that computers are not central to my writing career, so I'm making a serious effort to carry pen and paper with me at all times, making sure that every little creative thought or moment of inspiration gets written down and compiled for future possibilities. I hope this will help me focus my thoughts a little better.

My goal is to someday soon be able to write short-form fiction that allows me to crank out a story a week and get frequent feedback on my writing process. Despite the constant work that went into my creative writing workshop classes, I do miss the community, atmosphere, and consistent feedback that my workshops provided. Maybe I should find public workshops? Man, that would be scary and awesome all at the same time.

Hopefully this positive feeling about my writing sticks, because as things stand right now, my weekly routine feels narrow and confining, and my future potential limiting. I would like to make writing one of my forefront interests again, consuming more of my time than it has recently. But with a full-time job, a girlfriend to see, programming to keep up with, Guitar Hero 4 to get through (if my mom doesn't beat me to it), an exercise regiment that I'm trying to fire up, and a path towards spirituality that I'm beginning to seek, how the hell do I find time for writing?

It'll be an interesting couple of weeks going towards the holidays, that's for sure. B3 out.

Walking on a First Line

Outside of the tedious routine of work, sleep, rinse and repeat, I'm trying to rediscover some of the things that I enjoyed in college, especially writing and (occasionally) working out. Today I'm making some efforts to push myself towards these things, starting with the cozy outdoors. I spent an hour outside today staying well-more than moderately active, and intend to do the same tomorrow and Wednesday. An hour a day, four days a week of increased physical activity? I figure that's not too much to ask.

Secondly, I'm trying to get multiple story ideas written down. I haven't written anything significant since I graduated (sounding sort of cliche, I know), but I have been having too many solid story ideas lately to ignore. Still, whenever I sit down in front of my computer to hammer something out, nothing happens.

The best way to overcome an obstacle based in routine is to break routine. In my case, the Inspiron Mini is one method of breaking free from routine: rather than being bound to my house, I can effectively type away on fiction where ever I go. Even when this doesn't work, I'm considering toting around pen and paper for though times when I can't even wait the 45 seconds it takes to boot my laptop to get a good idea written down.

Sometimes I find it wise to follow the advice of my teachers from school; in other words, use what I was taught (how about that, school works!). One of my favorite exercises in my creative writing classes was routinely called "The first line." With this exercise, the writer is tasked with writing a number of potential first lines that might be featured in a larger work. While the first line of a short story is considerably more important than the first line of a novel, there is still utmost importance in nailing down that first bit of text that a reader will latch onto - maybe even remember.

With that said, and with so many ideas for new short stories floating about my head, I'm posting several first lines that come to mind - as an exercise.

Without further ado, some potential first lines:

The sun streamed into the car, painting horizontal rays of orange and yellow light across Mitch's face, and although the light bothered his eyes, his heart cut through the petty annoyance as he contemplated his moral undoing.

Christov rolled over in his cot, his skin tingling from the cold, unrelenting harsh winter winds and tried to move his body closer to the fire as it sputtered towards total darkness.

Like a dream that should not have ended, Lillith tore at the sheets of her bed as her lover gasped in the heat of an orgasm, his arms embracing her closer and closer - although she was still not satisfied, and her revenge would be swift and clean.

B3 out.

The Inspiron Mini 9 (and World of Warcraft performance)

UPDATED 12/31/2008: I have confirmed that it it possible to simply drag-and-drop a fully-qualified WoW installation folder onto a storage device of your choosing and run the game on the Mini 9 without a native install, which pretty much nullifies a lot of my points below :-) Enjoy.

UPDATED 12/6/2008: YouTube video demonstrating WoW performance on the Mini 9 is now included below this article.

Just short of a year ago, I jumped on the new bandwagon of "netbook" PCs -- laptop computers that offer just enough horsepower to do 90% of the things the average consumer would need to do with a computer on the road. A tiny form-factor and low price round out what makes for a very desirable portable computing package for on-the-go users. I loved the Eee PC that I bought last year, but I bought it knowing that this market would just be taking off, and that it would not be long until this category offered more.

Lo and behold, just barely a year later, "netbook" has become an ubiquitous category of PCs right next to desktops and laptops. With many more options available to me in recent memory, I made a point to save up for a new netbook... with my eyes set on the Inspiron Mini 910 from Dell.

My overall impressions of the mini are good so far. The display is extremely crisp, and leaps and bounds better than the 800 x 480 display on my Eee PC in terms of crispness and resolution. The keyboard is smaller than I expected, but still greatly usable. Weight, size, ports - all comparable to the original Eee PC 701 that I toted around for the last year. So far, a good move I think.

One thing that I never even considered with my Eee PC was gaming, at least, 3D gaming. Netbooks are not designed to be portable power house gaming platforms, but I thought I would give my Inspiron Mini a few tests to see what it can reasonably handle, and I'll start with something rather interesting: "World of Warcraft."

The Mini has been out for about a month as of this writing, and I have not been able to find any reliable information regarding the performance of WoW on this netbook. I took it upon myself to install WoW on this machine (sort of) and give it a whirl... and my results are below!

World of Warcraft performance on the Dell Inspiron Mini 9

My Mini 9 is configured as below (some of these specs are standard across the line -- I opted to buy the highest-end model):

• Intel Atom 1.6 GHz CPU
• 1 GB Memory
• 16 GB SSD
• 1024 x 600 pixel display
• Intel GMA 950 Integrated Graphics
• Windows XP (SP3)
  

This netbook meets or exceeds the WoW system requirements in all but one area: the graphics card. Integrated graphics were never meant to power serious 3D games, but luckily WoW is not a terribly demanding 3D game anyway. Anywho, my setup process:

• I installed Virtual Clone Drive 5 in order to have a mountable virtual DVD-ROM drive. This is a huge benefit for netbooks, which generally don't have optical drives.

• I used an external 20 GB 5400 RPM 2.5-inch hard drive that I have lying around to install the game on. It's actually the hard disk drive from an older ARCHOS MP3 player that I mounted in a slimline case with a USB 2.0 controller chip.

• Using a flash drive with the World of Warcraft CD ISOs and Virtual Clone Drive to mount them, I installed the game to the 20 GB external drive. I *could* have installed the game to the 16 GB internal SSD just fine, but WoW is a game that grows substantially every so often, and the 16 GB drive would fill up rather fast. It's also worth nothing that after formatting and installing Windows, the internal SSD is down to around 10.4 GB free -- sort of pushing it for WoW as it is, pre-Lich King.

• The initial install to the external HDD took about an hour, after which I loaded all the WoW update files and patches from my desktop PC into the WoW directory on the external HDD. After reconnecting it to my Mini, I started up WoW and let the patches do their thing. This saved a LOT of download time on my part, and kept the rather large patch files off the internal SSD.

• After two hours of patching (give or take), WoW was up to date and ready to be played.

Upon starting up WoW, it was a pleasant surprise to see the 600 vertical pixels of the Mini's screen filled with bright, crisp, fairly-smooth colors. The title screen isn't too demanding, however, so I wasn't really impressed yet.

After I jumped into my realm, Bladefist, I was greeted with a much different view...

WoW defaulted to running at 800 x 600 (stretched) with most detail sliders at their lowest setting. Upon walking around Winterspring a bit, I noticed an average frame rate of about 15 to 20 fps... not great, but on a tiny machine like this, certainly usable. I also made the following changes to improve performance:

• While you can play the game widescreen at the native 1024 x 600 resolution, you will save about 5 fps by keeping it at 800 x 600. If the 800x600 stretched display annoys you, go to the Intel Graphics Properties dialog box, choose the 'Display Settings' tab, and click on 'Aspect Ratio Options.' Select 'Maintain Aspect Ratio' (the top of the three options). This will keep any non-native resolution locked to its normal aspect ratio.

• Turn down ALL the detail sliders in WoW. The Mini 9 isn't a power house PC, and it wasn't meant to play games for long periods of time, so I hope the lack of detail will be forgivable in this situation.

• Disable Full-Screen Glow Effect and Death Effect.

• Turn off V-Sync. This is another performance hog that will save a few frames.

By this point, WoW should be running in an 800 x 600, cropped left-and-right fullscreen display that gets between 10 to 30 fps, depending on the population of the local area. Open fields, such as Mulgore or Arathi Highlands will easily see the 30 fps mark, while trudging through Stormwind on a busy weekend will turn the game into a slideshow. But realistically, you can expect an average of 15 to 20 fps overall, which certainly makes short quests, quick travel, and Auction House checks more than worth the effort.

As a side note, I doubt you would see much of a performance boost from installing WoW internally. A large SD card might up performance slightly, but hard disk read speed isn't the limiting factor in getting WoW to run reasonably well on the Mini 9. I'm more than happy with a USB 2.0 external drive, and if you have a spare one lying around, getting WoW to run shouldn't be trouble at all.

If nothing else, it's pretty damn neat to see a game like WoW functioning and playable on a computer so small.

B3 out.

Update: Video that follows demonstrates a quick play session on the Mini 9.

Something More...

On this beautifully sunny-yet-chilly autumn day, as I walked my dog down the leaf-filled paths of Farnsworth Park, as I chopped wood for our family's fire pit tomorrow night, and as I take my first jog down Route 64 in an attempt to stay healthy, one thought continually crossed my mind:

"I want something more."

B3 out.

The Once and Again Rare Update

Can you see?
My eyes are shining bright,
'Cause I'm out here, on the other side,
Of a jet black hotel mirror,
And I'm so weak.
Is it hard understanding?
I'm incomplete.
A love that's so demanding,
I get weak.

I figured my life would pick up a bit once I started a "real" job post-college. So far, CRI is draining me, running to and from BG is draining me, and I've come to realize this morning that I'm wholly unhappy in many aspects of my life. I predominately list "creative writing" and "biking" among my top personal interests, yet I rarely end up doing either of those things in my free time.

But how do I define "free time?" Perhaps that is my problem: I only see free time as the time I get to myself, which isn't a whole lot every week. Twelve to thirteen hours of my day, Monday through Friday, are dedicated to work: From the time I wake up at 5:30am until when I get home at 6:00pm, more than half of my day is wrapped up just in a nine hour work day. By the time I get home, unwind, and eat dinner, it's already 6:30 or 7:00pm... which leaves me with a scant two hours to enjoy myself before I'm rolling into bed.

With a weekday schedule like that, my weekends are suddenly incredibly valuable to me. I hope that every weekend isn't like this one has been. I've been stuck on my computer all day, either configuring my laptop, cleaning my desktop, or playing World of Warcraft. Granted, I do enjoy all these things, but something is missing...

B3 Out.

A Feeling Deep Down Inside

It's been more than a week since I've posted, and with very good reason: holy crap am I busy with my new job.

CRI has turned out to be a fantastic job so far. Sure, the work is kind of boring, the pay isn't super awesome, and the drive is looooong, but I do feel very much so integrated into the business world now. Working at CRI isn't a super-uptight affair, either, so I'm able to relax when I need it, which is a nice change of pace from Meijer. I'm trying not to overeat myself into a fat blob, either, because I sit all day at CRI.

I've been going into this job wanting to become an 8-to-5 business man in many regards. I want the padfolio, the downtown lunch with coworkers, a briefcase, the blend of work and home every night that keeps me on track.

But then again, all of these things contrast with a theme common to Critically Correct: my desire to stay stuck in my childhood, to stay young. College took away a lot of the freedoms of "being young" that I had in high school, and Critically Correct was halfway founded on the concept of reflection on my past. The older I get, the deeper I reflect back into my younger days, and I sometimes find myself totally frozen in the middle of my day, lost in a memory so real and so vivid that my friends double-check me, as if I just lost all concentration for a moment.

I try to purposely pull myself back at more appropriate times. I instigate these with physical sensories: I have hundreds of songs that I loved from back in the day, dozens of smells that trigger younger times, many video games that I can sit down and play to recall a carefree childhood.

Most of the time, these diliberate attempts at nostalgia fail to satisfy me. I still end up feeling old, feeling worn, and longing for younger times. And then the flashbacks hit smack dab in the middle of my day.

But for all this babbling, this all comes down to one thing: I'm getting truly older (24 as of this past Saturday), and no longer do I have "a future to look forward to" -- I'm more or less living that "grown up" period now. Crap.

Despite the changing seasons, I'm still going to attempt to stay active outdoors, which takes a huge burden off my mind. Staying active really helps me focus more than anything else, and helps me to stay on track instead of falling into comfortable memories -- something I want to do all so much.

Transition: A New Beginning

Transitions are sometimes scary, usually disruptive, and always exciting for me. First and foremost, my final day at Meijer went as smoothly as I expected it to. Saying goodbye to a lot of friendly faces was rather tough, but I will certainly be back to visit them from time to time, so not all is lost.

With Meijer behind me, I set out to enjoy this weekend. I spent most of yesterday at the Roche de Boeuf Festival in downtown Waterville. I have not attended this festival in ten years, and with all the fond memories of it that I have as a kid, it was quite a shock to see the festival today. It's much smaller and more pared down from what I remember. Still, with very decent weather and a rather well-behaved pooch (!?), I had a decent way to spend a Saturday morning.

Today is all about the relaxation: I cleaned and organized my room for the week, gathered my work supplies for tomorrow, and I'm spending the remainder of the day playing video games, walking Elli, and perhaps getting some ice cream in BG later on.

And tomorrow, of course, I start at CRI. Simply awesome.

What A Month!

I haven't had much to look forward to this past summer - Meijer, WoW, and job hunting was about it for me. But now come October, I have a ton of things to look forward to. Let me start from the beginning.

First week: Obviously, I'll be going into October with my new job, which is both scary and fantastic at the same time. I start September 29th, and my first week at CRI ends with my birthday. Simply awesome. I can't wait to get started. Also, my favorite movie of the year, "Iron Man," comes out on DVD this week, but I will have to wait to see it until...

October 4th: My birthday weekend should be something fun, if not relieving. Any stress that I accumulate at CRI in my first week will be set aside this day for a small gathering of family and hopefully friends, although nothing particularly fancy. I intend to take the day off to relax and enjoy our chilly fall weather.

October 17th: I'm a huge fan of the Max Payne games on PC, and the movie adaptation looks to be incredibly faithful to the games in both story, style, and atmosphere. No other game franchise could make the leap to film as easily as Max Payne could. I'll be first in line on this Friday night.

October 26th: October ends with a bang. Literally. Guitar Hero: World Tour (aka, Guitar Hero 4) comes out, and despite being a $200 package, I'm diving right in, namely for one reason: drums. I have, more than any other rhythm-based game, wanted to bang away on drums like nothing else, and I am pouring a good chunk of my time and money into getting set up with Guitar Hero: WT by the end of the month. I've always been a big fan of the Guitar Hero games, and I was terribly jealous of the Rock Band series when it launched last year - all because of that drumming part. Now it looks as if though Guitar Hero will have a superior percussion setup, and not to mention the deal breaker for me: "Hotel California" by the Eagles will be featured in the game. Bloody good bliss!

B3 out.

I am

Random Thoughts and Other Tidbits

I haven't had the time nor the interest to sit down and ramble, but I have a few minutes between running about to do just that.

This is my last week at Meijer, which I'm approaching with mixed feelings. Let me get the obvious out of the way: the good times at Meijer have outweighed the really crappy times, so despite some rough weeks and months, I've had a very good six-year ride at Meijer. Thus, I'm sad to leave behind some really cool people, plenty of quirky daily customers, and one hell of a workout (walking around that place for eight hours adds up!).

But overall, I'm more thrilled for my potential future than I am sad about leaving Meijer.

I was usually scared in high school and college about "the real world." For all the learning that I did in school, I've never, ever felt prepared to get a "real" job outside of Meijer. Now that it is happening, I'm finding myself thrilled on a daily basis. I've been told up front that the work at my new job will be fairly tedious (a programmer's kind of tedious), but I'm still thrilled. For one, I'm working during the day shift like any other businessman; I'm commuting up and down I-75 every day; I'm organizing myself to stay tasked every week, blending my work responsibilities with my home responsibilities -- I just feel all "professional-like" and it's quite a feeling.

I've spent so long "growing up" and being told of life in the professional business world that when I graduated, I stopped myself in disbelief for a while, hoping that I wouldn't get a "real" job, to help me stay young.

Of course, the desire to move on from Meijer for financial reasons, to put my degree to work, and to do what I genuinely do love - working with computers and programming - have pushed me into the world of IT. Now that I'm just a week away from starting, I'm beginning to suddenly feel very, very grown-up. And it's about time.

Out.

Chandlering My Way to the Future

Every couple of hours I noticed a huge change in my feelings towards my new job... sometimes I'm nervous ("am I good enough of a programmer?") and other times I'm thrilled ("I get my own desk, my own workspace, and my own computer!"). One common bridge that both feelings share is the goal of organization. Going into a new, high-demand job means that staying organized is more important than even before.

With Microsoft Outlook quickly becoming an afterthought for me, especially in terms of structural organization, I've looked to a new product that I discovered in a rather odd manner: I read Dreaming In Code recently, which is a non-fiction novel chronicling the creation of Chandler, a new type of personal information manager.

Chandler 1.0 recently hit, and despite being software that feels somewhat incomplete still, I will say this: Chandler does a lot right. A lot.

First and foremost, Chandler attempts to bridge the gap between the rigid structures of computers and the free-flowing thought of the human mind. To do this, Chandler treats all the information that you enter into it as a "thought" - in this case, the form of a note. Have a quick, spontaneous thought that you need to jot down for later? Type up a few words to describe it and press Enter. Later, when the time is convenient for you, Chandler allows you to add details to these notes, and allows for organization by triage status (how important this note is), as well as conversion to to-do tasks, calendar events, and emails. In other words, information that you enter into Chandler all starts as the same generic, one-line note, but expand and evolve based on your specific needs of that thought or note. Brilliant.

Chandler has thus far replaced Outlook in about 3/4 of my organization tasks. The final piece of the puzzle, e-mail, is a bit trickier: Chandler thus far allows you to recieve and send basic emails, and extend the previously-mentioned mutations to them, but does not allow for advanced editing or organization. Still, in a couple of more version numbers, I think Chandler will blow Outlook out of the water.

Give it a shot, if you get the time.

Deep Breath, Everyone...

Remember how I said that Critically Correct would fall by the wayside as my rather boring summer slogged onward? Remember how I said if there is nothing worth blogging about, then why blog? Remember how I said if my life isn't worth blogging, then why bother?

Well guess what... Things are starting to happen.

First off, the big news: I have a proper job outside of Meijer. I will be turning in my two-weeks' notice to Meijer ASAP tomorrow, which will be both nerve racking and exciting at the same time. I will genuinely miss Meijer, mainly for the people, as I have met hundreds of fantastic people over the years there. Six and a half years ago I set out to repay a friend for a loan he gave me to buy a Nintendo Gamecube - and stuck around quite a bit longer than expected. Now I depend on Meijer no more.

So Corporate Research International (CRI) in Findlay, OH is it. I won't go into many details abouto the company, because quite frankly, I don't know what I can and cannot say about them. They look like a fantastic company to work for, however, and I'm excited about the prospect of being able to keep learning and developing my CS skills well past college.

So with that, the change that I have been waiting for has happened: I've been educated, I've been through college, and I have my first "real" job. I think things will be rather interesting in the coming weeks! Defintely stay tuned...

B3 out.

Laboring To Be Human

I've always lumped Labor Day into a generic group of holidays that are anything but to me. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the point of Labor Day, Columbus Day, MLK Day, President's Day, etc. etc. But truth be told, my family has almost zero tradition of doing anything for these holidays. Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are generally the only holidays that see real celebration, namely because they are "the big three" - holidays that seemingly all of America celebrates.

So for this Labor Day weekend, I'm doing nothing more than my usual: working, working, and working.

I'm also trying my hardest to plan ahead for some things that I would like to roll into my daily routine. First and foremost, I'm spending a couple hours outside everyday, mainly to enjoy the tail-end of summer, but more so to prepare myself for a daily, schedule exercise routine. I'm not talking about lifting weights or running five miles. I'm looking to take 30 minutes to an hour out of my day to be active - either lightly or extremely. Fall will be a great time to do this, as I will have a variety of things to do. Come winter, I will have to be a little more diligent about it (probably spending time at the Community Center).

Also, I'm ramping up my job search after being rather dormant for the past month. With everyone back to school, I'm hoping to get more time poured into my job search, and I'm trying different avenues of seeking openings (newspapers are a wonder!). Still, I'm not terribly excited about moving up in the world, especially since my skillset is apparently not up to anyone's standards. Thanks, BGSU.

I'm also experimenting with some new toys. I will elaborate later, but the short list looks like this: Chandler for organization, Google Sites for quick and dirty information sharing, and Apache on Ubuntu for finally hosting my own web server! Fun times!

Now I'm off to bed for a long Labor Day at Meijer!

Late Yet Again

I've always been a late bloomer with a lot of things in my life, but lately I've been amazed at the number of things that I have accepted as "normal" for me. Chief among the things that I "like" now includes reading. Yes, reading. I've never, ever liked reading in my life, outside of all the times that I was forced to like it for the sake of school. Granted, I've only read two books since my new addiction has begun, but I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. For as much as I have loved writing creatively in the last decade, I never have enjoyed a good fiction read. Now my favorite book thus far is "Dreaming In Code" by Scott Rosenburg - a non-fiction piece!

It's weird and new for me still, but I'm finding that I am more organized, sharper to wit, and happier to kill my free time with a book. I'm not sure if my reading style is traditional or unique. I still don't like sitting down with a book for hours on end - I have too many other things to do - but I do enjoy killing ten or fifteen minutes every so often throughout my day with a book. I look forward to my breaks and lunches at Meijer for the sake of reading.

Most interestingly, I'm a fast reader. I always have been quick with reading, but when I really enjoy a book, I cruise through it (albeit, in those little tiny chunks I just mentioned). I'm oddly interested in all sorts of books too: fiction, non-fiction... and I'm rereading one of my old textbooks right now (of course, this is for learning purposes too -- that in a near-future post!).

So all told, I'm kicking myself: why now do I enjoy reading? Why couldn't I have loved it this much back in college, when it mattered a lot more?!? Why couldn't I have enjoyed something that I needed to do pretty much every night for five years?

Well, I suppose there are some drawbacks to being a late bloomer.

Out.

Updates, Updates, and... Not So Much

Until something utterly world-changing happens in my life, I'm pretty sure that Critically Correct is on a bi-monthly update kind of schedule. Luckily for me (and my loyal fan base - all three of you!), some rather neat things are worth blogging about.

First, a general update on the summer. The last couple of weeks have been mostly the usual: WoW, Colleen, and work. As it has been since graduation, I don't mind this routine at all, especially since I'm so ingrained and comfortable. I do find that I'm a rather money-saving whore, however. I have never in my life been this thrifty over a summer. Three years ago I can remember blowing every last penny I earned every week on friends, food, and games. This summer I'm barely pushing past $60 a week in expenses, which has helped to beef my savings account up fairly substantially. Colleen might argue with this practice (I am rather stingy with spending on her and I when we are out), but I'm simply making sure that I'm totally prepared for the coming near-future with bills and loan repayments.

So despite not having as much fun as I would like, I am looking forward to new work. I have my foot in the door at several quality places right now, and both potential jobs excite me quite a bit... either one requires me to learn new skills rather quickly, although I'm most importantly working on ASP.NET, which brings me to...

This week begins school for some of my friends at BGSU. Interestingly, I'm sort of going back to school myself this week. Ever since graduation I have been wanting to get into a stable, weekly routine of honing my skills and expanding my computer science knowledge. I've choosen to remain fairly social, however. With school beginning, I'm adding several events to my calendar that see me working on further learning on a scheduled, weekly basis - just like classes. First up, I'm beginning this week by starting an ASP.NET project that will take two or so weeks to complete, and I'm committing at least 5 to 6 hours a week to it, pushing aside WoW and my social life if need be. I have to keep learning, and I have to take the time out of my life to do it.

Despite the desire to continue learning, I still have lots to look forward to in my free time. Tomorrow *might* see the release of Super Mario RPG on the Wii Virtual Console - a game that I hold so dearly close to my heart that it might as well be a child of mine. I have 800 Wii Points reserved for such an occasion. That will certainly keep me busy for a few more weeks, which is perfect, because on September 7th, Spore is released for the PC, and despite minimal initial interest in the game, I'm now fully behind the hype machine and ready to drop the $50+ on it. I think it'll be a unique experience.

With that, I'm anxiously awaiting word on my potential jobs. If one pans out (like I think it will), then I'm going to be working in a cozy little city just down I-75 from BG, which will allow me to see all sorts of disposable income find its way into my wallet. If my other job pans out, I will see a significant pay increase, along with a move into central Michigan (although this would be really sad for my social life, not to mention Colleen). But still, I went to college primarily to prepare for a decent job outside of retail, and I am making that my first priority above all else right now.

Oh, plus I can use the money to fund my WoW addiction. Figures.

B3 out.

Stress: Terminated

Something unbelievably amazing happened in the last 24 hours, and it has entirely changed my outlook on the future.

My parent's - whom I couldn't possibly love enough right now - paid half of my student loan back all at once. This cuts my responsibility in half come November 2nd of this year. In fact, they are still going to pay half of that payment, which leaves me with a minimum dedication of just $100 a month for my student loans. Unbelievable. I'll be thanking them for months to come, although I already started by promising at least $200 a month beginning November, reducing their load.

Suddenly I'm not fearful of being "jobless" come November. Meijer is an excellent job, for sure, but it would not suffice once my loans start pouring in. In fact, Meijer would not cover a damn thing for me after considerations are made for insurances (health, dental, vision, car), bills (cell phone, car payment, student loan, however small it is now), and the eventual desire to leave home (rent/mortage, daily expenses, etc.).

So despite the fact that I still need a far better job than Meijer to get by on my own, I'm not nearly as stressed about what the next year will look like - no matter what happens, I should still be able to get by just fine until I can eventually get myself into a comfortable position to get a solid job.

Whew.

B3 out.

A Few Comments About Religion

I am an atheist, of course, and most of my friends make light of this fact. Atheists tend to get a generally bad rap in society, thanks no doubt to some past history. It's sometimes readily apparent that our nation of hypocritical politics extends to religion: the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, yet having no religious beliefs at all seems to be a problem for a lot of groups. For one, I've been told more than once by those of Christianity that because I'm atheist, I'm going to go to hell after I die. Really? I'm going to end up in a place that I don't even believe in? That takes guts to say to my face.

I think a lot of atheists are frowned upon because there is an image that portrays atheists as wishing to abolish and speak out against organized religion. To me, those atheists are idiots. I could care less what any one person believes in. I just want to believe what I want to, and without being told that I'm wrong. I don't hassle people for their religion, and I respect the views of all others --- and I expect the same in return. Sadly, this isn't the case... and because I feel as though I'm in a minority, I tend to keep my atheism quiet; unless of course, I'm asked about it!

I overheard a couple at Meijer arguing about their religions earlier today, and this short write-up has been on my mind since then.

Out.

Updates From The Summer Front

I'm obviously not a big blogger this summer... hell, looking at me total posts for all of 2008, I'm not even near a quarter of all the posts that I published in 2007. I blame this mostly on school: my final semester at BGSU was every bit the hellish, busy, monster that I thought it would be, and my writing (both fiction and blogging) was the first thing to go.

Now with summer here, I've made it my goal to just relax to the max. I've poured five years of hard work into BGSU, and before I go sniffing for a job all over the country (in search of the American Dream, no doubt), I'm taking this whole summer off to relax. I originally planned to write a few Windows applications, learn some new technologies (well, I am doing that, actually), and write like my life depended on it.

Instead, Wii, WoW, and nature are sucking up all my time.

So I'm working on getting BACK into the groove that I should have been all along. It's not a matter of if, but when... I'll eventually be back to my old, productive self... eventually. Without further ado, some updates:

• I'll start off with a success: I am learning a few new technologies this summer, and I'm enjoying the experience quite a bit! Seeing how many jobs out there actually use Microsoft technology, I'm working to learn ASP.NET, and in order to bring my web skills up to date, CSS as well. Both technologies are very easy to learn, kind of fun to use, and CSS outright rocks. I'm never going to use full-blown tables for webpage layouts again. CSS is a fundamental shift for me in designing webpages, and I'm glad I learned it. I also recently took up Javascript as well, and I'm well on my way to integrating that into my growing list of skills.

• I'm contemplating writing a series of short stories - something quick, that will allow me to push through a short piece without losing interest, while still allowing for a longer narrative to be told. I'm really stuck, because half of me wants to draw on past experiences, and the other half wants to unleash inner ghosts that have hundreds of things to say. I'm just not sure which way to go yet.

• I've done some really crazy things lately. First, a geek thing: As many people know, I'm not a big fan of Windows Vista... In fact, I've sworn to upgrade my parents to Ubuntu before they see Vista installed on their computer. But in fact, my favorite operating system is good old XP - why fix that ain't broke? So I finally got around to doing something wonderful: I've created a custom version of Windows XP that does not require a CD, nor activation, while still maintaining all the latest updates from Microsoft (Service Pack 3, IE 7, Media Player 11, etc.). Essentially, a version of Windows that I can use privately ad-nauseum without worrying about those damn product activations all the time. I also tweaked it a bit to cut some crap out (extra software, drivers, languages), and put some bonus stuff in (decent themes, commonly used software - Firefox, OpenOffice.org, etc.).

• Also, I signed up for a deviantART account. I've been skipping around the web for years, always noticing tiny bits of the web served up from or pointing to deviantART... and I said "what the hell? Why not try it?" So I did. I'm not the insanely artistic person that I once was, but I still have some interesting bits that I would like to put out there (including some that might make your jaw hit the floor twice over).

• I'm horribly content with Meijer as a job right now... which is halfway scary. With big payments coming up in November (it's been three months already!? Halfway there!), and a growing sense of urgency to move out of my parent's house, I'm really wanting a good job. And yet, since Meijer pays the bills and then some so well, it's hard to really be stressed about a job right now. To be honest, I want to do some more learning before I dive into the workplace: namely, I want to learn the technologies that I'm working on, and perhaps get a Microsoft Certification or two. I *am* plugging away on these goals, however, unlike some others that I've had (*cough*fiction*cough*).
  

But all in all, I'm enjoying my summer quite well, although to be honest, I think the upcoming school semester will be good for me. No, no, I'm not going back to BGSU, but a lot of my friends are, and I plan to take more time for myself for both personal reasons and professional reasons. Of course, I will be helping my remaining friends at BGSU get through their last year as smoothly as possible. Graduating feels good... trust me on that!

With that, B3 out.