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Friday, 7 December 2007
Time again.
  Posted by mace at 3:57 PM // 2 comments
Wow. That's two sessions of Uni gone already. Of course, I'm looking forward to the 3 month break we have, but it's struck me - where have all the other months of the year gone?

Ask yourself; what have you achieved?

For me it's been - scraping through my uni courses, I haven't picked up guitar in agges so now I'm basically starting from scratch again, sometimes it seems like friends have changed.. other times its almost as though everything is just the way it was a year ago.

Sure there have been the good times and the bad; the sleepless nights of apparent mild insomnia, the fun times out with old friends and all that.. but perhaps most importantly, the year that has gone be has been about new experiences and new situations. It's only through those, and how we deal with them, such as uni life, issues with friends, making new friends, etc, that we actually learn and grow.

Looking back, it seems like an age ago when we studied the Gwen Harwood poem, At Mornington for HSC English, but perhaps this was the meaning I was supposed to understand from it:

Life is like a wave, it has its ups and downs, so all we can really do is just go with the flow? Like waves, the cycle is repetitious - so all you can really do is just live it out, from one crest to the next *1

*1 Don't get me started on Quantum Physics and Wave/Particle Dualities.. I don't have to do Uni Physics ever again!




So anyway, I was getting to Uni results. I'm pretty happy with how I've done this session, it's been much more consistent than last session, even with a lower WAM. Pity I won't be doing Physics anymore, as I did much better in that than Maths. All my grades are at the lower boundary, which is a little worrying, but then again, it's much better than last session where I missed out on the next grade by one or two marks; so I'm content now =) I guess the important thing is - if you've passed your courses - be happy! As above, things don't always work out the way you want, so just run with it (I seriously can't get the QOTSA song, 'Go with the Flow' out of my head)

Last week: Went for lunch at Pizza Hut all-you-can eat (no, I didn't get any fatter) with my group, then we headed over to Burwood City Hunter for a 'short' lanning session (heh, 3+ Hours). Then met up with other friends at Parra to go see the Advance Screening of Bee Movie! I thought it was alright, though it didn't seem like our law student friends didn't like it =P

This week has been a bit more eventful, went to parra/city to do some shopping, and met up with others again to go find presents for the many many birthdays this week. We spent a fair bit of time looking at games and deciding between which one to get.. and suffice to say, now I seriously want a Wii, and Guitar Hero 3. We watched Beowulf after that... I don't really know what to think of the movie. I kept thinking of 300 scenes whenever Beowulf spoke. =\

Afterwards - more bumming around the city, then Kirstie points me in right direction to the buses to Towers; and turned the ~1hr trip into a fun and entertaining one - so ty, always good to have company =)

Why am I at the Towers? To get to Aza's house for his Birthday. Long story short, seeing a Full HD FIFTY-TWO-inch LCD screen nearly made me cry. It was just.. soo big, and everything looked soooo good on it when we had the X360 hooked up to it. just.. omg. I swear I haven't seen anything like it at work, though I guess the larger space at Dick Smith makes the screens look smaller than they actually are. Anyhow that was an awesome night full of the usual pizza and gaming (FULL HD of course). So now I'll add Xbox 360 and a huge Full HD LCD to the list of stuff I want.

The next day - I rock up at Parramatta in the early morning to complete the shopping for birthday presents with Leane and Albert. We eventually get to Miu's house for his party, and as they say, the rest is history. Glad to see everyone who turned up =) Just more gaming and pizza, it's all good! Wii is sooo violent with so many injuries in our games haha. but so so fun.




So where am I now? I guess, late nights reminiscing too much about the past is where I'm at. Thinking wayy too much late at night =\

Watched all the current episodes of The Big Bang Theory though - that was just awesome. Thanks Kirstie! I <3 my geeks. It's going to be a while until more of The IT Crowd and Battlestar Galactica come out, so I guess I'll be watching How I Met Your Mother, Heroes, and Prison Break.

Things I'm supposed to be doing:
- Learning Guitar - I mean I have my electric out all the time, but I only play it briefly a few times each day.
- Learn Languages - I haven't progressed at all with Chinese/Japanese/German =\
- Finish building my gaming stuff and get painting. So slow...
- Driving - I've only done an hour so far... Anyone know any good instructors?

As for immediate plans.. Beach on Wednesday! msn for details.

That's about it from me, I've probably forgotten so much since I haven't blogged in ages. Have fun everyone!

.mace

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Thursday, 15 November 2007
I can has more battlestar?
  Posted by mace at 10:52 PM // 0 comments
BSG: Razor

Battlestar Galactica: Razor is great. Satisfied my BSG cravings for the next hour or so, but it's going to be ages till Season 4 is out (sometime early next year? =\).

Also, Kendra Shaw (Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen) has got to be my favourite Pegasus XO so far. (I say Pegasus because Colonel Tigh takes the cake for Galactica, and for the Season 3 Finale scene):
Kendra Shaw Kendra Shaw

I can't get no relief.

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Sunday, 11 November 2007
40k: Apocalypse Now!!! See what I did there?
  Posted by mace at 5:12 PM // 0 comments


Ok, it just occured to me that it's nearly been a month since my last post, and I've definitely been uncapped for a while, infact on my way to being capped again.

Stating the obvious: Yes, It's stuvac now. My exams start on the Tuesday 13th with MATH1231, followed by ELEC1111 (Wed 14th), PHYS1231 (Mon 19th) and finally COMP1921 (Wed 21st). Yes, it kinda feels like the HSC. Am I studying as much? HAH, sif. So I've looked through an ELEC past paper and going to look at a Maths one soon.. and realise how screwed I am.



Before I do that though, I didn't get around to finishing what I was saying about Apocalypse!

So, the new 40k Expansion was released on October 13th, whereby I went to the store expecting to find a whole bunch of gamers (I won't use geek stereotypes here, but probably apply) huddled around a table eagerly constructing their Baneblades.. but even arriving a few hours later than I had intended (slept in and all, yeah I know it's Apocalypse and all but still) - I was evidently the first to sit down and look through my stuff.

I bought the Apocalypse bundle that had the big rulebook, a Line-Breaker Squadron (3 new Vindicators), a Baneblade, and templates. My wallet was empty by then. Spent most of the day assembling the Baneblade, and long story short, as I had pre-ordered a Baneblade, I went into the draw to win another, and surprise surprise, I won! So now I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it all. Probably start IG or Armoured Company. I gave a Vindicator to my brother, but still, now I have a hell of a lot of tanks.

See?

Got Dakka?


Keeping in mind each Baneblade covers an area about the size of an A4 sheet of paper.. that puts things into scale for ya. Now I've heard of news of a 'Steel Fury' datasheet that consists of 3+ Baneblades.. I may just need to invest in a 3rd, just to make things nice (3 is a good number!).


Two weeks later, they called me in for a big game, so I came along, given that GW Parra were aiming for 30 Baneblades.. and we had around 15 superheavies.

I had to eat my words with that 'Got Dakka?' statement above. We were playing against a massive armoured company that consisted of 8 Baneblades, ~20 Leman Russ tanks, including Vanquisher variants, a Hellhound Tank Company (10) and a few Hydra AA tanks. Got pwnt. We still won game though =) My Baneblade held the line and contested an objective whilst what was left of his army fired everything they had at me. That was a little nerve racking. Probably less so than carrying $500 worth of plastic around Parra.

Just a portion of the Armoured company that we were facing:

Got Pwnt?


Some of his other stuff in their plastic transport crates.

Reserves.


More Pics - I haven't looked through them or anything, there are some repeats where I changed the exposure and re-shot them..
[40k] Battle of the Bulge


Keeping this short, so I better run back to study.

Good Luck everyone!
- .mace

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40k Project: Motorized Land Raider
  Posted by mace at 4:58 PM // 1 comments
Well I'll keep this short, over the course of the past week or so I decided I'd kick off an old project I had in mind, rather spontaneously. I know, the timing is a little iffy given that it's stuvac... but nonetheless, here's a much needed intro/progress update.

Preface/Intro

Ok. Ok. Let's not try word this like an Engineering report or a Science experiment. See this thread for more in-depth detail.

The Plan:
1) To build a motorized 40k-scale tank.
2) Preferably make it RC controlled, with realistic tank drive and working tracks.
3) Add lighting to it, like headlights
4) Add special effects, like gun lights and sound effects

Videos/Tests


Well, long story short, I've bought some components, I have an RC car that I'll pull apart after exams are done, and I have a tank base with twin motors/gearbox just so I can test out the voltages and eventually the electronics. I also have a Land Raider Terminus Ultra on its way, it should arrive hopefully AFTER I finish exams.

So, videos ahoy.

Motorized Tank - Test #1


Motorized Tank - Test #2


Motorized Tank - Shout-out to Mr. Spinnytank.


Sometime soon I'll get the electronics together, have to design and build a power module and a amplifier/control module. That'll be fun. More updates on the fly, that forum thread linked earlier will have my latest progress. I cbb doing a direct copy/paste of what I've posted there into here...

Comments, anyone?

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