3:59pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 13 Mar. 2002 [Wednesday]; Post #143:
Today's MP3: Shakira - Whenever, Wherever. Just got it off Morpheus (I've been meaning to switch to LimeWire, but Morpheus is simpler and works). The LAN Party is definite a 'go' now. I even made this page, with a neat little flash animation, for it. My Amazon order of Roujin Z and Appleseed finally shipped. Also, I ordered 200' of CAT5 from a guy in Hawaii (it's on its way) and a 16-port switch and 80 mm fan kit from Directron (also being shipped... they're in Denver right now). I sent an invitation/info for the LAN party to Drew (Woolly), Hanwool, Justin, Alex (Job), Phillip, CrazyJew, and JD (Scott). Drew, I've mentioned on this site before, Alex I know from Pasco High (we went to Science Bowl together), and JD was at Phillip's last LAN party (I think he lives on the same road as me... but he might've moved). My Flash learning is coming along... I've got sound down now and I can do anything so long as I deal with a single symbol and layer. Adding more symbols and layers tends to complicate things; I'm still figuring that out. Check out my lan_adF.swf [67.1 kB] to see my latest try. I have a lot of Investments homework/studying to do tonight. My final is tomorrow.

1:08am [PST; GMT -08:00], 12 Mar. 2002 [Tuesday]; Post #142:
Okay, I'm starting to get the hang of this whole Flash 5 thing. I actually made a SWF that works. Here it is (you need the Flash 5 plug-in or shockwave or something...). It's only 1.46 kB. This is just a simple animation... I haven't even gotten to sound yet and there's still a ton of stuff I don't understand. IMO, it's not very user friendly.

5:13pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 11 Mar. 2002 [Monday]; Post #141:
Burned a DVD yesterday of Family Guy/The Critic episodes (took up lots of space). I'm trying to plan a LAN party for March 22/23 (Fri - Sat). Stocks are doing better and better (see snapshot [I reduced it to 32 colors for the best size/clarity]). I'm only down 2.7% total on Ameritrade (compare to a 20% loss just a week and a half ago) and my sample investments are up 8.2% since Jan. 22. I have to liquidate the sample portfolio before Thursday this week. Test in computer hardware class went well today. Good L&O: Criminal Intent last night. Trying to learn Flash 5 on the 1700. Oh, I found this really nice page w/ lots of Flash games... it was buried in a small article off the Wired site: Orisinal.

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4:30pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 10 Mar. 2002 [Sunday]; Post #140:
Downloaded a lot of Invader Zim episodes last night. Good stuff. There was a problem, however: The AVIs used a DivX video codec and a standard MS audio codec, but when played in WMP8, only showed the video -- no audio. Well, after some searching, I found a message board on the subject and someone there suggested installing the audio codecs from the Nimo Codec Pack. I tried it and it worked. Oh yeah, and apparently DivX 5.0 came out sometime when I wasn't looking [released 3/04]. D/Led it too. WinXP is pretty flaky... the 'System' process sucks up 95% of the CPU at seemingly random intervals. I'm half-considering installing Win98 on the Vaio so I can use it for normal stuff (e.g. LAN games), but it would mean formatting both my partitions (they're both NTFS... I'd have to go to FAT32) which means I'd have to back everything up and re-install everything and... ugh, it's just too much of a hassle. Oh well.

10:19pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 9 Mar. 2002 [Saturday]; Post #139:
Phillip, CrazyJew, CrazyJew's Girlfriend Debra, and I went and saw the 7:30pm showing of The Time Machine last night. Great movie. Much better than I thought it would be; the visual effects are really something. Then we dropped CrazyJew's Girlfriend Debra off and got Wendy's and went to my house and Justin came over and we played Munchkin. Phillip won. Been talking to Hanwool -- he's coming down here on March 21st. Oh, and I ordered Roujin Z and Appleseed DVDs from Amazon a few days ago. Both are good anime movies. Speaking of animation, have you seen this Invader Zim [fan site] on Nickelodeon? I saw it mentioned on Slashdot, so when I saw it listed in the Dish Network menu, I watched a couple episodes. It's really good. Apparently, it's getting cancelled, which is too bad. My goggles arrived from Studio Foglio this week. Nice, but I need to adjust the nose-bridge piece. Well, later.

2:55pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 8 Mar. 2002 [Friday]; Post #138:
Investments are doing better today (real and fake). The snapshot below explains it all. The 1887 PBeM game is going well too... I've been archiving the messages for it, so when the game's been on for a while, I'll post them here on the website (they're fun to read). Saw The Road to Wellville today. Good movie; it has Matthew Broderick, John Cusack, and Dana Carvey in it. Hopefully, I'll go see The Time Machine today at the Carmike (it's playing at 4:45). Today's MP3: Bobby Day - Rockin' Robin.

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4:55pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 7 Mar. 2002 [Thursday]; Post #137:
We're going to dinner at Hayden's tonight. Sean's (from Vashon) grandfather died today, and Justin's died on Sunday. Incidentally, Justin's birthday was on Monday. If you want to send him any late presents, his address is: Justin D. Osborn, 910 S. Johnson, Kennewick, WA, 99336. Of course, I guess some sociopath out there could also use this information to find Justin when he's sleeping and brutally eviscerate him with a rusty chainsaw. Hmm... I'm willing to take that risk. Heh. Speaking of horrible murders in the night, Justin's room is on the second floor with a window facing the drive-way. Um, anyway. Gonna go play some AvP 2 and CS 1.3.

9:40pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 6 Mar. 2002 [Wednesday]; Post #136:
Okay, I updated my 1887 PBeM character [3.94 kB TXT] and its description/background [1.81 kB TXT] yet again. Been playing AvP 2 lately; I'm almost done with the Alien Single Player game. Finished my Computer Hardware and Criminal Law homework. Waiting for Law & Order to come on.

2:31pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 6 Mar. 2002 [Wednesday]; Post #135:
It snowed today! I updated my Jignesh Shankar character [3.83 kB TXT] to comply with Greg's instructions. The character is the son of the Indian Maharaja who has travelled to London to investigate/join a society involved in the occult (the hook of the game). There are some house rules for Greg's 1887 game which are responsible for the Fatigue based on HT, HP based on ST, +2 to IQ for skills, etc. I have a test in Computer Hardware tomorrow; my Criminal Law teacher lost one of my assignments from Monday. My sample portfolio is now up 6.84% from Jan. 22! Good thing I decided not to cash out today. Snapshot of current state is below. My Ameritrade order for Amazon went thru at $14.83/share -- very good price. AMZN closed at $16.33... that's a 10.11% gain for me! Heh. Looks like everything is coming up Millhouse.

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3:31pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 5 Mar. 2002 [Tuesday]; Post #134:
Archived the old entries a half-hour ago, then I reformatted the Old News Archive page. As classes are coming to an end (I think the last day is March 18th or there-abouts), I'm beginning to liquidate my sample portfolio for Investments. Overall, I'm up 5.19% from Jan. 22 (about 10 wks. ago) -- that works out to a profit of about 27.9% annually. Not too shabby, IMHO. Below is a snapshot of my portfolio today (I'll prolly sell everything before class tomorrow). Speaking of stocks, I just put in an order to Ameritrade to purchase 10 shares of Amazon (AMZN). Also, we'll be sending them $500 to buy up some Bank of America (BAC) which nearly everyone is saying is a good buy (though their RSI is pretty high... around 55 or so). Well, I've got things to do.

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