Bonsai Blog

Let’s take a break from political rantings and overreactions (I’m not quite as serious as I seem) to look at the newest tech pieces in my life!

PLAYSTATION 3 ::  It’s amazing.  I bought this awhile ago, back in the beginning of June, but I never really updated on it.  I had a huge thing about PS3 vs 360 ecetera.  In the end I decided to go with the newer console, a lot to do with the fact I had been waiting since January for the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle pack to come out.  I never wanted the 40GB model because of no backwards compatibility.  I have no PS2 so I wanted to access to (most) of that library.  Plus the pack came with a DualShock 3 vs SIXAXIS (lacking rumble support for games).  I could’ve cared less about Metal Gear Solid 4, but just the hardware that came in the deal… it was $500 though.  I got it at Target though so that saved me $100, after employee discount and opening a credit card.  Hey, gotta get my credit score up as well, so mindaswell.  Only a $200 limit because it was my first and such, but not to bad considering I got approved.  Already payed that off, I had all the money just wanted the extra discount.

After playing the included game, Metal Gear Solid 4, I fell in love with it.  That game is pure genius.  Yes, it is more like an interactive CGI movie than a game, but WOW.  The storyline (I went in knowing nothing about the previous 3 games) was so enthralling.  I actually cared about what happened to the people.  Deep storytelling lead to emotional involvement from the player.  So anyways, that was amazing.

The PS3 is also amazing in my opinion.  The main selling points for me were the wireless (pay an extra $100 on the 360?! No thanks!) and the Blu Ray support.  Now that Blu is the standard for the next gen disc based media I don’t need to wonder if I’d have a useless pile of junk on my hands.  Plus obviously the games can be huge and only need 1 disc.  Final Fantasy XIII may be coming out on the 360, but who wants to switch discs?  =p

In short I consider it one of my best purchases.  Online support is great too.

New laptop! With my graduation gifts I put it together with my parents to buy a new laptop for college this fall.  My last one was nice but was a bit bulky and getting slow.  I needed an upgrade.  So I got a wonderful new HP which has an amazin bit of art coveringm well, all of it.  Outside…inside…it’s really snazzy and themed after Asian art, so it looks fantastic.  Plus it has bluetooth, wireless n support, webcam, etc.  The new 14.1 size is SO MUCH BETTER for portability too!  I don’t actually feel like using it for a desktop anymore because it’s so nice and light to carry around.

Oh, and it has Vista.  Honestly…don’t believe all the crap people give it.  I knew it wasn’t bad, hasn’t treated me badly, and really just takes some getting used to (as do all new things).  It is a step in the right direction for Microsoft’s OS.  Whether or not that’s what goes down in the history books is another matter, but mainstream media rarely has anything positive to report on.  That’s not what sells.

E3 - Electronics Entertainment Expo What can I say?  Wholly underwhelming.  Microsoft by far did the best job, but even that wasn’t like OH MY GOODNESS AWESOME.  Nintendo gave a lackluster showing focusing mainly on casual games appealing to the ‘whole family’.  Frankly, Ninty needs to hold back a bit and make some new games for people who actually bought the Wii to play things that DON’T involve personal avatars you created.  Wait, buying a Wii for actual gaming?  Yeah…that is silly.

Sony really didn’t reveal anything amazing either.  It was mostly just trailers, nothing too new.  HOME still needs to be released, as does LittleBigPlanet.  On the horizon we’ve got Resident Evil 5 to look forward to, as well as the Final Fantasy XIII game(s).

Yep.  That’s it on the tech horizon right now.  Waiting to upgrade my phone until Google’s Android software makes its official debut.  Yes…I still save money too after all these gadgets.  My boyfriend thinks I work too much.  I probably do.  Target does expect a lot out of you for really very unimpressive pay.  I’m constantly looking for new jobs, probably going to go into Web design soon which is much more profitable because of the specialized skills needed.

OH!  Almost forgot.  Bought a book on game programming for XNA Studio, which is sweet.  Got one for beginners because I know very very little about C++ and nothing really about C#.  That’s my career of choice though, so I really want to begin learning on my own.  Little steps.

Next blog: religion.

They are so fickle.  First they are rabid Obama fans, and now that FISA crap hits they’re all denouncing him as just another dirty politician.

Get an opinion and keep it folks.  This is why I find commenting there useless, the people have no brains.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm

For any of you who are willing to valiantly try out new software, there it is, the download page is finally up!  I’m going to try it out.

Right now it appears they don’t have an option for those of us on XP SP3, but I will get to the bottom of that and report on it.  If it does work, I’ll post screenshots on this post.

So I got this envelope today with no return address and my name && address written in a male high school-esque script.  And I opened it.  And there was nothing in it.

Clues:
- Male writing (high school?)
- Post marked Feb 20, 2008 / Denver, Co
- Envelope type that is opaque (blue lining inside)
- No mistakes on my address, the person was looking at my address while they wrote it or had it memorized

Anyways, yeah, just pondering for kicks and giggles.  I don’t know where or who was writing to me, but I’m going to count it as fan mail.  The first physical fan mail I’ve gotten.  Unless it was hate male.  Oh well.

Second order of business is geeky.  Does anyone here want me to run through the beta versions of Digsby (instant messaging program), A.viary (free online image editing suite), Microsoft’s Download Center beta, and Wordpress 1.4 beta?  If no one tech-y actually reads my blog it wouldn’t do much good.  So I have to ask.  Comment or email me if you want me to…

Third order of business is TAKASHI SENSEI’S EMAIL.  If you still read my blog (doubtful, but hey?) I want your  携帯電話のメール.  It’d be really cool.  Yay.

It seems that Google sneakily updated GMail without informing many people at all. In fact, many people I have spoken with don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ll elaborate since it seems this isn’t a huge phenomenon yet, and the larger tech blogs haven’t started buzzing about it yet. They might not though, it’s pretty minor changes and nothing that you’ll even notice immediately. The GMail blog has also remained oddly silent about the change too. So how do I know I’m using a ‘new’ version? Because it said so! My GMail inbox now has a link to use the ‘Older Version’, which is right next to settings. Here, although you may not notice much, are the screenshots (new first, old second):

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So on Saturday I took my ACTs.  That is huge for me, because I have fairly big dreams and college is an important step.  Overall the test was long and fairly difficult.  Not because of the work involved exactly, but more because of the time limits.  They.  Were.  Hell.  I may be gifted academically, but I like to work things out and not just do speed runs.  This, regrettably, is what the ACT wants though.  The only part I felt very confident on was the essay we had to write at the very end.  It probably doesn’t show on my casual blog, but I can bring my diction up pretty high.  Especially in AP COMP.  With MR FOGARTY.

Today, Sunday, I worked on my CAR.  I thought if I put it in capitals it would be better since it’s the ACTs and not the acts.  So now it is my CAR and not car.  But I digress.  It took an hour to get out of the shed, but that was actually ahead of schedule.  Then my dad put in new airbags while I did a lot of cleaning out of the interior.  It cleaned up surprisingly (a) well and (b) fast. My dad offered me this other car that he just got that needed a lot less cleaning up and stuff, but…I chose my Pontiac Sunfire ‘97 over whatever it was.  Saturn ‘95.  I’m not a big fan of Saturns in general I guess.  My car is fairly blue-ish with a little green, but not as greenish-blue as I remembered.  I also like the color more than I remembered, which I suppose is LUCKY.

Yep.  Tomorrow starts the last week of the quarter, and the last week before I leave for MEXICO.  I need to still get some sick work in for classes.  It’s so annoying to be out for so long, but I haven’t been missing days since like early October.  Seems I’m much better now.  And if I were athletically inclined, I could be joining sports again!  But I’m not going to!  Yay for the freedom to say “no”.  I am, however, in Debate, which in my opinion is much more useful.  And fun.

I’m planning on making a movie this week around my town.  How exciting.  I bet you all are like “OH MY GOODNESS I CAN’T WAIT”.  But SORRY, you’re going to have to.  I’ll post it before I leave on Saturday though.  Promise (kinda)!

I am currently looking for: A talented graphic artist or artists to help me with my various web projects.  I can do the coding if someone else wants to work as a team to get layouts, buttons, or other misc stuff ready.  I want to do a few free sites (ie: this is not a paying job, it’s volunteer work for ad-free sites) so if you don’t have love in your heart for a free internet, don’t apply.  Any coders who know their salt in PHP/MySQL and XHTML are also invited!  You can use the ‘Email’ link on the side there.  Hope to hear from some people!  Thanks!

PS- Hmm, I had something to add here… now I can’t recall what it was.  I must think.  OH YES.  I want a new hairstyle.  You can also email me with suggestions.  Bonus points for suggestions that accent their idea with a picture.

Ok, so I’ve got a new vid up now on Youtube.  It’s pretty lame, so I titled it ‘LAME VIDEO - vBlog 12′.  Why?  Because I did a really rough 1 shot vid and the lighting is horrible.  I should’ve made it better, I know.  LUCKILY though, this is the first video with an actual camcorder!  and I’d say the actual film quality is looks better.  I want to go on to doing short skits and such, because I like writing and performing.  So it’s kind of exciting to have the ability to post better stuff on the internet.  If you want to see it, you can click here.

In other news, well, I honestly don’t know.  I’ve been pretty mellow this MEA weekend, doing homework and other necessary yet dull things.  Enriching your mind always helps though.  I’ve been reading Stork Naked by Piers Anthony, and it is amazing, as are all his other Xanth books.  Most under appreciated series ever.

Tomorrow I am going to VALLEY FAIR with my family.  Yes, it is exciting, because I haven’t been there in forever and I’m actually excited to go.  But that also signals the end of my four day break, and I really don’t feel like going to school.  I’d rather just be apathetic and rest in bed.  All day.  And stay in my house.  I might possibly grow up to be a hermit because I enjoy the solitude of my own company, and of course my keyboard.

I would also like to start working on a novel.  I usually get about a page or two into them before I get bored and stop.  I can finish short stories though.  So let’s try to push my limits.  Encourage me!

Oh and yes, for all the times I mention traipsing around with friends and such, I’m also looking ahead to my future and working on things that need to be done.  I don’t feel like pushing myself too fast and too much about my future.  Wherever I go will be fine, whatever college I attend will do, and no matter what, I will succeed.  That is all.

G’night folks!  (Oh, and expect a huge photo album update very soon.  With lots of photo-delicious-ness)

PS- I’m still loving Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer.  WordPress now supports tagging through it!  AMAZING! (I’m a total geek, forever)

…the new Zune 2 Microsoft is releasing.  I’ve been looking for a huge-capacity storage MP3/PMP (that’s Portable Media Player, not pimp) and this exactly fits the ticket.  Whether it’s the new design, DRM-free store, slick interface, or the amazing Zune pad…I just love it.  So I’ll be buying the 80GB edition when it launches on November 13th.  Unfortunately, it only comes in black.  That’s just about the only thing I’m going to fault it with.

Sorry I haven’t been updating.  Been really busy with school stuff, homework, etc.  I’m feeling much better and didn’t stay home at all this week, so that bodes very well.  Now I can finish my makeup work and get back in to the NORMAL school schedule!  Tomorrow is also homecoming.  It may be fun, depending on which friends I hang out with.

And uh, yeah, that’s about it.  I had to just put my feedback on the Zune 2 out there, just so Microsoft knows there’s a fairly positive buzz on it.  Some kids were talking about it at school today, so it’s bigger news than I thought.

Oh yeah, and two important dates: October 8th: Driver’s license test!!  I’m so scared!!  October 9th: Birthday!!