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

Labels: life, thoughts

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I can has more battlestar?
  Posted by mace at 10:52 PM // 0 comments


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):


I can't get no relief.

Labels: Battlestar Galactica, life

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Apocalypse Please
  Posted by mace at 12:36 AM // 0 comments
I'm capped at the moment, so I'll be going light on the internet usage and have more photos of my new stuff later in the week. For the time being..:



=)

Labels: 40k, Apocalypse, Imperial Guard, life

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How things have changed... #1 - Life.
  Posted by mace at 11:51 PM // 0 comments
Well everyone, it's certainly been a while since I last blogged. But upon seeing Kevin's new blog, I too questioned why people create and post to weblog. "To what point and purpose? ^*1" I feel as though, somewhere along the way, I've lost my focus, or perhaps never had any in the first place when I started blogging.

So, to what purpose do I dedicate my blog to? this particular blog is a bit of a duality, I have my column for thoughts and opinions on anything that comes to mind, and a column to follow the life of mace in both meatspace and cyberspace. Someday I can look back at this and recall all the memories embedded in each post, or empathise with my past-self and the state-of-mind I was in whenever I wrote a particular post. Because, as unfortunate as the truth may be, there will be a time when things will have changed and I have forgotten (or don't want to remember) the events of the past...

^*1 who can pick the reference? =P miffy probably knows it off by heart ;)

---

So much has happened in the past three months; where to begin?

House

I've moved house, finally! Quite seriously just down the road from where I used to live. So here's a shot of my *messy* room. But I cleaned it up today, no joke! Whilst i'm at it, my guitar:



From what I can remember, only select few have actually been to the unit where I used to live, and I'm sure you can all remember how small it is! Packing my group in here + extra's after our Year 12 Formal was very fun though =)

Now our rumpus room is just as big, if not bigger than the unit's lounge room + bedroom area combined. So eventually we'll get a pool table and table tennis table to go in there!

Life

Life is good. Uni is.. meh. I'm making my way through the session. Been having fun, haven't really caught up with some old friends lately.. which is rather unfortunate. I'm glad I have my hobbies though...

It's back to uni this week, although I have engineering week, so I have a few more days of break =) I better start work and catch up on everything I've missed out on.

Working itself, at Dick Smith, well I've been doing ok in sales, but been dropping down lately, and haven't been selling warranties. Sometimes it's pretty stressful, but now I'm a lot more relaxed about it all. Next week I'm getting bumped off into music, so bye bye sales targets (and commissions) =)


More about life in the parallel post (when I get around to writing it...)

Tech

I've since upgraded my computer, and bought a new laptop from HP. It's allll good.
The specs, off the top of my head:

      Desktop     Laptop (HP DV6519TX)
CPU   P4 2.53Ghz  C2D T7100 1.8Ghz
RAM   2GB SDRAM   2GB DDRRAM
GFX   GF 6600GT   GF 8400M GS
OS    WinXP       Vista Premium
HDD   80/160      160
Mon   19" Wide    15.4" Wide
Res   1440x900    1280x800

Laptop has all this cool extra stuff, webcam, altec lensing speakers, fingerprint reader, hdmi out.. but it basically trumps my PC. Surprisingly good specs for a laptop, turned out to be a beasty entertainment pc.



I've been gaming a fair bit lately, especially with the mid-session break (sorry theresa!) - although I haven't dropped as far as to play WoW. Instead, been playing Quake Wars demo, could potentially get recruited into a clan to play in competitions.. but I don't think I'll be getting the full game anytime soon. So much for being a pro-gamer.

Meanwhile, Halo 3 was released a week ago; played through nearly half the game at tom's house, and played a bit during my lunch break at work. It's just awesome.

After looking at Ikea catalogues, and searching the net for LED tables... if I had a chance to design my own house/room.. it would be as techy as I could possibly make it of course! I'm talking about LCD's everywhere, funky lighting and interactivity, the works!

Warhammer 40k

Well I've gone and given this a bit more attention lately. A few days ago I decided to pull out everything I had, and chuck it down on the table. That's not even including the Battle for Macragge stuff my brother has nor his space marines. The scale of my collection surprised even me =\



So, for starters, for anyone who isn't aware of it by now, yes I play warhammer 40k, as you can expect a typical 'true' geek to do. For those who are game-savvy - well there's a new expansion coming up, called Apocalypse. Yes I'm caught up in the hype, but it's just going to be massive. Huge 3000+ point battles, where the FOC restrictions are removed and you can basically put down and use anything you want, in arbitrary quantities (I've been hearing things from 6 Baneblades to an army of assassins!).

I'm getting closer to my aim of a 2000 point pure mech list, but once I have the models for that, I'll have 3000ish points in models anyway that I can put down and use. 1/4 of it largely useless IMO but anyhow.

Apocalypse on October 13th. Funny to casually put a date on such a phrase. Anyway, I have one of the bundles on pre-order, that includes a Baneblade, Linebreaker Squadron (3 Vindicators), the book, and the Apocalyptic templates. Meanwhile I've just won some stuff off Ebay for my Tau, which should hopefully arrive soon.

With all this attention back on 40k, I'm now tossing up even more ideas of projects to run in parallel. So here goes:

• Tau: Reach my ideal 2000 point mech list. Move onwards to 3000 points for Apocalypse.
• Marines: Figure out what to do with my marine army. Thinking of going for Blood Angels, but Dark Angels and leaving it as Black Templars and just expanding is tempting.
• Daemonhunters - well I have that 2000 Point list to work towards. I can always add in a Baneblade just for fun, and more units of Terminators.
• Imperial Guard - I'm getting a Baneblade. What do I do with it!? Thinking of getting more IG.
• Movie Marines: I want to convert up some models for this. And build a remote-control and/or LED-lit rhino for the squad.
• Deathwatch: I just want a squad because they're awesome. I've been reading too many sci-fi novels.
• I should build a gaming table. I mean I have the space now, even to put one in my room. Cities of Death/Apocalypse themes are the way to go.

I've also been to GW a few times in the past week, been working on some models that have been sitting here for over a year... So, from my WIP bench, I have a techpriest and a piranha that I'm working on at the moment. The techpriest was kind-of subject to a 15-minute speed-painting session.. just so I have a general idea of what it will look like. I will of course go back and fix it up with a lot more detail... As for the piranha, I'm still on the first colour, the blue-lining still has a long way to go, but you can see the general gist of it =) Still heaps of detailing left to do on the cockpit and pilots, as well as the drones and engine blocks. The highlighting is really dodgy in the second pic...



More on my Tau army progress and Apocalypse as it comes.

.mace out

Labels: 40k, Apocalypse, gaming, life, Tau

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this made my day.
  Posted by mace at 9:49 PM // 0 comments
over the weekend...

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
GIMMEH VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10?
   YARLY
      BTW this is true
      VISIBLE "BIG NUMBER!"
   NOWAI
      BTW this is false
      VISIBLE "LITTLE NUMBER!"
   KTHX
KTHXBYE

seen LOLCATS? This is LOLCODE. =D

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

Labels: life, lolcode

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Moonlit night...
  Posted by mace at 3:41 PM // 6 comments
I thought I'd keep this post to one column, just so it's less confusing for those who were overcome by the leetness of the last three posts =P

I guess I can say I've settled in to the holidays now, no more urges to do something constructive everyday - I'm happily content with just relaxing, msn'ing and gaming now =) But the food cravings are ensuring I get my weekly dose of the outside world [ you know who you are ;) ].

House Update

For those who didn't know already, a while back we purchased a new house, merely 100m down the road, that is many, many times bigger than this unit (for those who have been here). We've been cleaning it up and doing renovations and such, and it should be done soon!

There have however been many delays, kitchen sink problems, annoying salespeople, things going wrong (Re: Murphy's Law - "If anything can go wrong, it will") - but for the most part, looking forward to moving in, in a few weeks time. As for the house party I had in mind, no sign of a pool table on the horizon, at least not until we sell our other two houses =\

So on Friday, we went to pick up a new kitchen sink, made our way to Beverly Hills.. and on our way back.. I saw a peacock crossing the road! Totally random, just on one of the streets off the main road on our way back from Hurstville! So if you know anyone who owns a pet peacock that has gone missing...

I gave in! - Sansa e250 Review/Comparison

For me to think that iPod was the mp3 player of choice on the market was a little misguided. True, that 70% of the people I know (who own mp3 Players) seem to have one, but that's not to say there aren't alternatives. So I found this little baby, Sandisk Sansa e250, jam-packed with (useful!) features that the equivalent Nano's seem to lack. That and it's priced competitively, coming in much cheaper than a 2GB Nano (I got it for $168; an iPod Nano would cost $199).

As I've been looking for an upgrade of my current mp3 for a while, I finally gave in yesterday and bought it at work, and I must say, so far so good!


It came with a lanyard, headphones, usb cable, and a neat black felt-like case. The Sansa e250 (2GB version) feels so much more.. durable than an iPod, it's not like a wafer as such.

The specs off the top of my head,

Sansa e250

• 2GB Memory
• MicroSD Expansion Slot
• MP3/WMA playback
• 1.8" TFT Colour Screen
• Photo Playback
• Video Support
• Digital FM Radio
• Voice/FM Recording with Built-in Microphone
• Preset/Custom EQ
• User-replacable battery, should last 20 hours on one charge

I guess the two things that sold it for me was the MicroSD Slot (expansion is soo easy, you can get a 2GB MicroSD from Strathfield for like, $39) and that it's considerably cheaper than the equivalent iPod Nano. Add to that you don't have to go through any special software, you can connect it just as a USB Drive or manage it through WMP10 rather than iTunes (iTunes keeps doubling up on my music as it converts everything to AAC, especially WMAs...) AND the leet blue glow (ok and it can be submitted to uber-hackery as per online forums). And anyway, everyone has iPods these days, but those who know me know I don't care about mainstream.

So anyhow, I filled it up with music, I shall need some MicroSD cards to put on the rest of the music I want =\ I filled it up a bit too much yesterday so deleted one of the preloaded videos off it to make space for the music database. The earphones look rather thin, not too solid... I don't know if they'll last with my type of usage. Otherwise, no issues here, I'm happy =)

Vs. My old mp3 player

My old mp3 player was a cheap $40 SD Card Player from Jaycar (they now sell a newer version for $30) - that doesn't have internal memory but uses standard SD cards - again you can get these for really cheap these days.



The Sansa is considerably more expensive, but then that's what I pay for something that isn't a random chinese brand that I've never heard of. Sansa knocks this one out straight off. The monochrome LCD, eating-of-4-AAA-batteries on a weekly basis, and glitches with another SD card I had means this one doesn't compare really. But it did it's job well of playing mp3/wma's.

Vs. iPod Nano

In the end... the Sansa wins out for me.

• Sansa has a bigger screen.
• Sansa can play Videos and has built-in Radio
• MicroSD Slot for easy memory expansion
• Built-in Microphone for voice/FM recording
• You can change the battery yourself with the Sansa, not go through Apple's ridiculous process of servicing your iPod to get it fixed...
• The sansa doesn't feel like a wafer.
• The iPod however, has a much better scroll mechanism. It's mechanical on the Sansa, which gets a little tiring. But hey, it means it can have the blue glow. Neat.
• (@ Asians)Sansa is cheaper! =P
• iPod has games. Does anyone play these? I mean soliatare is neat and all, but it's a mp3 player!

More of a fan-rant than a proper review from me... see the pro ones which have more pretty pics =)
- SanDisk Sansa e250 - JusTech'n.com
- Anything But Ipod - Sansa e200 Series Review

Life.. from mace's workbench

Somedays I wonder what I'm going to do with my life... for a start I want to learn 3 languages now. I have 3 "Let's Learn..." disks here now: Japanese, German, and Chinese. Someday I'll work my way through them and be able to say more than "Nein, Das ist mein hamburger!" and "What's the time?" in Japanese...

On my desk...


The first photo: I have 3 phones on my desk. The right two are mine, the left one belongs to a very lucky friend, who's phone we found on the bus just after our physics exam! Nokia 6280 is a pretty awesome phone btw, so don't diss it. =)

The other two photos - These are all the cd's I've purchased during Session 1. I really don't recall how much I've actually spent on cds :s But judging by that stack I'd estimate somewhere around $200. Ever so slowly I'll work out where all my money has gone..

Anyway, still more shopping in the week ahead.. there goes my bank balance =(

I'll see some people around, as for everyone else, have fun!

- mace

Labels: life, music, reviews

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Guess who's back!?!
  Posted by mace at 7:25 PM // 3 comments
Mace here, back online; up and running! Quite seriously this blog has been a long time in the making... alright so I designed and coded it in one day (did the shadows earlier); pretty good if you ask me =D (apologies to anyone on 56k, this new design is a bit fat and pic heavy already).

So anyway, it's been one long and hectic session of uni, it's stolen me away from the internets and stuck me out IRL^*1. To my friends especially, my computer, and my site (and to a lesser extent my uni work); I apologise for the lack of attention I've been giving you all!

^*1 IRL -> In Real Life

Now that exams are done, I feel like I've got all the time in the world... well ok less than a month.

So begins my epic quest to knock over everything on my to-do list(s), within reasonable limits of my wallet...

To save me boring everyone I know over msn, I've designed this blog to be split into three major sections;

• General Posts - which span the full width
• "Life" Posts - more for just the daily grind and such
• "Thoughts" Posts - for anything that comes to mind or philosophical in nature etc.

Add to that everything *should* be labelled so you only have to read whatever is of interest to you.

A few things I'll be doing here is tracking my 40k progress as I get back into the game, and the progress of our new house!

So it's looking good =)

Blog Specs:

• Blogger Powered
• XHTML and CSS based design
• Fluid-width design (Designed for 1024x768, minimum 900px width)
• Uses a combination of leet hackery and php to sort certain posts into left and right columns =P
• Designed and coded by mace!

So yeah, a warm welcome to you all =D

Labels: life

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