So my life has been pretty okay since the last time I’ve been on here for real. That was like. Thanksgiving? Christmas was good. Got more new toys. But then after Christmas Verizon screwed up like they always do. We still don’t have FiOS back. Maybe by the end of February. MAYBE. New semester started. I have Japanese 2 [always fun], Visual C++ [a bore], Honors Physics [currently a joke], and Calculus [eep]. Calculus so far is just racking my brain to remember all of my past years of math. It’s tough. And as all of you know, I went to Vietnam for a week. I may be working on a page for that Saturday? I’m not sure. I have to also finish the first issue of the Newspaper *cough*. We just have picture adding and a little layout rearrangement. Ms. Rosenburg is giving Mr. Perry the draft so we can hopefully get it printed next week? I’m feeling it.

Besides that? Nothing really. I got a new backpack from my sister. Parents still in Vietnam. It’s nice not being in a loud environment.

Photo Album of Vietnam [to be updated with pics from my sister’s camera]: Linky

I’ll upload the pics and make pages for them, do not worry.

Wed - I was out the entire day. Brittany’s Dad picked me up at 7-ish and we went to pick Brittany up from Cornell. We’re cool, so the car ride up wasn’t awkward :P I slept, watched Bleach on my Nano and talked to him. We’re cool. And and and. I got to see Briiiitttannnyyyy. I was so hella happy. Like you can’t believe. Ok /cheesy-ness. Brittany got her “new” phone. I finally got to meet her friends Sherry and Dana. They’re cool. Got to see Brittany’s room. Uhm. Walked around the campus. I still say Swarthmore is so much prettier. But it’s still pretty. Walked around the Cornell store. Smoothie place was closed. Wah. Then we went home. Brittany and I watched the unaired pilot of Heros, some Doctor Who, then listened to music for the rest of the ride back. When we got back, we unloaded the car and the rest of her family got to say hi to Brittany. They all talked and got caught up then we all went to Chili’s for dinner. We ate and had a good time. Came home, chilled for a little bit then Amanda called and asked if we wanted to go to Rita’s and called Jesse to see if he wanted to come. Got to Rita’s. it was closed. So we went to Friendly’s and had some ice cream. Amanda tried to hit Jesse with her car. Nice.

Thursday - Leslie was back home for Thanksgiving. My Mom and Dad were asleep when I departed for Brittany’s house to hang out. We watched Aladdin and the Cave of Cheeseburgers. And just chilled. Not gonna lie. I can’t remember if we did anything else :D
I had to leave at around 4:30 to go to my cousin’s. Thanksgiving dinner / Mimi’s birthday was fun. I left when Leslie left because I was getting a bit tired and was hoping to go to Brittany’s house. But alas, that wasn’t allowed. *shrug* So I talked to Brittany on the phone then slept.

Friday - OMG LOOK. A digital camera was sitting on my computer chair :) Why? Black Friday dealz. Plus, as Leslie put it, my Christmas/Birthday/Graduation present. It’s a Sony Cybershot [DSC-S700 if you wanted the specifics]. It’s a nice camera. I just didn’t open it until Sunday. So anyway. Talked to Brittany in the morning. She went shopping with her Mom. I stayed home until my Mom came home so we could go to Borders then to Neshaminy Mall. I got people gifts at the mall and I got myself the Metal Slug Anthology for the Wii and a Wii Points Card. After my Mom left, I found this awesome looking game that’s four way chess. So I bought that too. I stayed there until Brittany and her friends/Josh came to watch Enchanted. Watched it. Had a good time. Amanda, Dani/Josh, and Brittany/I went to Friendly’s afterwards and had dinner. Amanda got picked up after dinner and Josh drove everyone else home. Brittany couldn’t find Froggy that day :( [the plushie frog I got her before she left for college]. Then she went to her sleepover. We talked sometime during that sleepover when I was playing Metal Slug. Then sleep.

Saturday - Brittany still couldn’t find Froggy :( I caught up in Bleach and read Portrait and talked to Brittany. At about 5, I left to go to Brittany’s house. Amanda, Carly, Lauren, Steph, Dani, and Courtney also came. Amanda, Brittany, Steph and I played Egyptian Ratscrew. Then Amanda left. Then Carly, Lauren, Steph, Brittany, and I played Life. Steph won out of nowhere. Carly and I had the same amount of money at the end. Brittany had the least amount of money… and she was the doctor. I was a cop. My starting salary was 10 grand more than Brittany :) All of them left. I chilled with Brittany. We were outside when we were saying our last good byes. Except we got interrupted and she had to come back in and I had to leave. So we couldn’t say good bye properly. I was sad it was going to be the last time I saw her until Winter Break :( Since she still couldn’t find Froggy, I gave her my hat to remember me. [Everyone: Aw.]

Sunday - Ok. I lied. I talked to her a little bit on the phone. Got ready for church. As I put on my jacket, OMG I found Froggy in my sleeve. I asked my parents if I could return it to her, and they agreed. So we got to say good bye better and she got Froggy back. And, don’t worry guys, I got my hat back. Church happened. Brunch with the family. Played with my new camera for the first time. Grocery shopping at Reading Terminal Market. Home! Finished my Astronomy Project [not really prepared for the presenting part but oh well], talked to Brittany. Gotta finish Portrait and do Aristotle stuff. But that shouldn’t be difficult.

All in all. I had an awesome weekend. SK is a scrub for playing some lame game. I say we play Ninja again. It’s about cold enough, I’d say hahaha.

*ahem* New internet :)

Psychology has been oh-kay. We finished our last unit of perception and now we’re going starting disorders. We’re currently watching A Beautiful Mind right now.

Astronomy has been fine. Our current presentation is on comets. I picked a theoretical group of comets  theorized by a German astronomer named Heinrich Kreutz. Cool.

English is. a pain. So much work!  We’re applying six literary approaches to silly works. I fought Paul today. No one won because Rosenburg broke it up. I mean she let us fight as long as no one got hurt. So all I could do was counter his “wrestling” with made up grappling. I earned some respect from some other people because Paul is annoying.

Latin has been an experience. Apparently I’m Mr. Burtt’s favorite in the class. Two annoying kids in that class. They were absent yesterday, class was so enjoyable.

Blue/Gray has started for no reason. Lit Mag is…, I’m not gonna lie, boring right now.  Newspaper is going pretty well. It’s quite an experience.

SIX DAYS.

Ok bye.

vtReview 1: 3rd Generation Apple iPod Nano 8GB
The Package - Included in the very simplistic box is the iPod itself along with the newer Apple ear buds, the USB adapter, some neat Apple stickers, a Quick Start guide, and the warranty information.

The Transferring - The transferring of my songs was rather smooth. I initially put my iPod to sync with my Library. But then I realized that a good 25% of my music I don’t want to listen when I’m on the go. So. I cleaned up my iTunes Library and re-synced my iPod. Again, there were still many songs that I didn’t want. So I just manually deleted them and turned the option to Sync off. I then realized that my Videos weren’t being transferred which was odd because they were all in .MOV or .MP4 format. Found out later that there’s a “convert to iPod” option. Besides those little mishaps, the transfer was speedy.

The Design - With the front plate being aluminum and the back being some sort of other metal, it looks of the iPod is pretty. Some may be turned of because it looks fat, but once you play around with it, it’s quite nice. Even with my long fingers, it was quite comfortable going through the menus with one hand. The only flaw that I find in the Nano is the click wheel. It’s just too thin.

The Interface - Half the old interface, a quarter of stupid, and a quarter of “finally”. The half which was the old interface is the obvious very simplistic menu-ing. The quarter of stupid is the cover flow and the random album art preview that’s on the right side. Not only is it completely unnecessary… but it’s completely unnecessary! The thing with Cover Flow is that the album art isn’t cached meaning you have to stop and wait for the album art to load. Maybe if it was cached, I would like it. Meh. The quarter that is Finally is the Album/Artist information underneath the Song Title. Especially useful if you don’t know all of the song titles of a particular artist.

Video Quality - Obviously, one of the main concerns for the new iPod Nanos is the Video playback because… well it’s a new feature! The concern is because the screen is smaller than the Video iPod’s screen. But surely, the quality is still fantastic since the resolution is the same. One can even read subtitles [ie. anime subtitles].

Battery Life - Apple claims the battery life of the Nano is “an impressive 24 hours”. I haven’t quite tested the Nano to that extent, but I have tested it enough to where I’ve seen a sort a range. I listen to my iPod about 2-3 hours a day. 1 Hour set aside just for sleep music and getting up music [yay alarms], about half an hour during lunch, and about half an hour to an hour when I read [if I don’t use the computer]. With that, the Nano didn’t get into the lower region of yellow until about a week.

Final Thoughts - The Nano is a nice little device. Great for someone who doesn’t need a gazillion songs or videos *raises hand*. And for those who like to run *puts down hand*. From me? 4/5

vtReview 2: Apple Wireless Keyboard [Aluminum]
The Package - Again, simplistic for the win. Inside the very thin package was the keyboard, some batteries, quick start guide, and warranty information.

The Design - Sooooo thin. Soooo light. Soooo pretty. Designed very much like the Macbook Pro keyboard, the keys are like little tabs that are elevated just a teeny bit above the frame. There are a plethora of hotkeys built into the Keyboard’s Function keys such as the obligatory Brightness controls, exposé, Volume controls, and the Dashboard. But another fantastic addition is the iTunes/i-other stuff controller. The iTunes controller [as I will call it from now on] is nicely placed right next to the volume controls. This actually might be meh in the beginning when you still have to get used to it being there. When you want to skip to a next track, you might just mute your computer instead.

Typing - Typing is surprisingly comfortable. I usually don’t like typing on laptop style keyboards, but this is much more comfortable. They keys themselves are slightly larger than normal keyboards, but it’s not enough to cripple one’s typing. However. what is annoying is that while the keys are large, the actually button thingy is in the very center. Meaning if you stretch and click [if you type from Home Row] there’s a slight possibility it won’t register. Speaking of that, I must bring up the keyboard. The keyboard’s small-ness means long-fingered people [like myself] can’t properly hit the spacebar. My thumbs usually hover over a normal keyboard, but here, the keyboard hovers over the very edge of the keyboard. Not only that, but the spacebar suffers the same flaw as the keys, if the very edge is hit, there’s a possibility it won’t be registered.

Wireless Range - I actually tested this. Don’t ask why. From where the computer is in my house [family room] I could use the keyboard from almost the exact opposite side of the house. I haven’t tried upstairs because there’s no real point in doing that.

Final Thought - The keyboard is beautiful. But with beauty, comes flaws. 4.5/5

Guest Review!
Reviewer: Brittany
Thing Being Reviewed: Season Four of House
Review:
So, speaking as someone who, going into the season, was all “OMG NO DUCKLINGS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?!?” I was more than pleasantly surprised by the season four premiere. I never really realized how much the show was completely not dependent on any one character (other than House to an extent). Obviously, the more Wilson and Chase and the less Cameron and Foreman, the happier *I* am, but that’s just me. I did not once throughout the whole episode think “Oh my goodness, where are the ducklings, this is getting so boring!” Hugh, Robert Sean Leonard, and Lisa Edelstein (who play house, wilson, and cuddy respectively) pulled off the episode spectacularly. While previous season’s episodes have been SLoW (severely lacking of Wilson is the fandom term), this episode showed how truly brilliant RSL is, and how much he and Hugh have a great enough chemistry to pull off the show just with the two of them. RSL is just hysterical. Speaking as someone who had never watched House with that many people before (watching with around 12 or so girls in our TV Lounge) I was happily surprised by the amount of people who were as amused with Wilson as I was. Speaking as someone who was very skeptical, I give the first episode of the new season a solid A (and totally cannot wait until tonight’s new episode).

All right. So ends my very first review bloggy. I’ll try and do reviews whenever I have stuff to review. If you want to be a guest reviewer, just send a review over to my E-mail.

Lifehacker Top 10 Back to School Tools for the Organized Student
Great list that’s at least worth a look through.

Software for Starving Students
Absolutely fantastic list of free/open source software for any person. Definitely worth the input on my *amazing* site. [Note: It’s not just a list of programs. The file that you download will be a close to 600 MB file that’s either an .iso or .dmg file [Windows or Mac respectivel] Click on this link for instructions on how to burn it onto a CD or if you know me personally, contact me so I can burn the disc for you]

The 10 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating
For all those “zomg I must eat healthy!” people. Here’s a list of foods you might not have heard of to add to your collection.

Napkin Folding Instructions
You know those times when you’re at a fancy restaurant and always marvel the folded napkins? Well here are visual instructions on how some of the more popular/common ones are folded.

How to Crack a “Master Lock” Combination Lock
This is one of those skills that’s useful if you tend to forget your lock combination at work or at the gym. or if you like showing off. Otherwise, it’s pretty complicated.

10 Tips for Saving Money in College
Some of the tips are tips that are always told, some are things that you may have overlooked. Worth at least a glance over.

HOWTO: Jump Start Your Credit History While You’re Young in Five Easy Steps
Totally worth a read. Written in the Mint blog. Mint is a financial organization web app that I might find very useful when I get a credit card.

Man in China Dies After a Three Day Internet Session
Ok. WTF. is all I have to say.

Take a Walk That Will Reboot Your Brain
Just another article stating how taking a walk [even if it’s just a short walk] can be beneficial. But it’s a nice article nonetheless.

iLEVL
For the first time, I’m highlighting an actual “thing” that is on the web for purchase. This is the iLEVL. It’s a simple concept that turns out to be extremely useful. Using the magnet on the side of the iMac, iLEVL will hold up documents for easy viewing for duplicating, revising [comments on a hard copy that would be transfered for the final draft], or simply for viewing right next to your iMac. Interesting concept, product currently not for sale yet?

How to Procrastinate More Productively
Featuring a new site that I will start to frequent to check for new entries, LifeClever. Article name is self-explanatory and it’s a good read.

Psych: This class is slowly getting more interesting [it helps that I’m getting less sleepy in this class]. Yesterday we finally got One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest and started reading it. It’s an interesting read. Today we went into the Psych textbooks and started learning about the nervous system.

Astronomy: Still boring as ever. I tried to answer a few questions today, meh. Still slept for a few minutes too.

English: Wrath of Rosenburg! Sucks I can’t get a letter of recommendation from her… time to get one from Sukaly then. OaFK is a good read, I like it.

Latin: Blaaahhh what a bore. If I could, I would totally go to sleep [in Astronomy too, but that was obvious]. We’re learning nooooothing. We had to do a word search today… wow.

Activities meeting today wasn’t that bad. There was a billion people there :O  We worked on some Homecoming hallway stuff. Gave my information to Mrs. Young for a letter of recommendation. Mr. Sukaly came in and insulted me :P

Got home, did some homework, got more into the band girugamesh [gilgamesh] by downloading their album off of iTunes.  Talked to Brittany for a bit before she had to go. Afterwards I ate dinner, played piano [I’m 99% done Suteki Da Ne. Just have to clean up the ending a tiny bit and I’m done], and talked to SK.

Blah. so freakin’ tired.

Aight. Let’s get right into it.

1st Period: So first period is Psychology with Schram. It’s a fun class. I’m there with Rob C., Jing Y., and their friends and Razie just transfered to our class just the other day. We got a project to do. We’re not done. Now they’re relying on ME to do it. Great. Me.

2nd Period: Second period is Astronomy and Ok. by far this is the most boring and uncool class. Jackie and Michelle are in the class, but they don’t help in entertainment. I’m half asleep in that class anyway so meh.

3rd Period: English is next and it’s sooo meh. I mean, it’s Rosenburg AGAIN. Plus 2nd lunch. First lunch pl0x. We read an abridged version of Beowulf [awesome read] and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I totally want to read the full version now.

4th Period: Finally we have Latin. At first I was quite meh with the choice, but I think it’s all right now. Sure, we had a sub all the way until now and learned nothing. but still.

Activities: So far I’ve attended zero meetings [I hope I didn’t miss any…] I think there’s an SGA meeting next week [or last week x-x] and I don’t know when the Sr. Activities meeting is. We are currently Newspaper Advisor-less so I’m sad :( There goes my Editor-in-chief status!!! *cry cry cry* That was going to be my only deal of faaaame in this school. *cry* Maybe I’ll challenge Josh for Editor-in-Chief for Lit Mag haha. Can’t go to the car wash tomorrow ’cause of work D:

Social Life: N/A Er. I mean. On Wednesday, SB/SK/VT I mean, and I decided to hang out. SB and I went to Best Buy for a little bit so check some stuff out.  I went and fiiiiiiinally got the new iPod Nano. Niiiice. 8GB Silver? Yes? It’s quite pretty. It’s already been outfitted with Flea Market Montgomery [video] and Chocolate Rain [Music + 8Bit remix] as well as many flavors of freezepop. We went to SK’s and played some Dynasty Warriors: Gundam and Internet’d.

Yesterday, Josh and SK came over to film more of Raw Disorder. We managed to film two scenes and waited for Royce to NOT come… It was then that the three of us decided to form a rokk band, er I mean. Perform a song. It took a while to find what song and much singing to decide to perform Weird Al’s You’re Pitiful. We got food and watched Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Today, was quite a bore [at least so far]. Woke up, felt horrrrible [except not really]. Ate, Internetted, read a little bit, slept for 2 hours, talked to Brittany, went college searching, had dinner, showered, played a lot of piano today, sort of learned how to play tabs on the guitar, and. had ice cream :)

All right. Time for me to stay up forever before waking up at 8 something to go to work :D

Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible
Comcast decides “hey, no BitTorrent [even legal torrenting] for you!”

Eat a Lunch That Keeps You Productive All Afternoon
Self explanatory.

Sleepy? Cut out late-night Internet and TV
The Japanese conducts an experiment on the relation of late night Internet/TV and sleepiness. Silly Japanese people. Where would they be without late night Internet and TV :D [HAAARDU GEI DESUUU!]

18 Overlooked Things Everyone Should Bring to College
For all you college people going to. Oh wait, a bit late. But think about this list and see if you might need anything.

25 Tips to Becoming More Productive and Being Happy at Work
Self-explanatory.

SkreemR
This site has already been featured in Lifehacker and Downloadsquad.com so I decided to put it on here since it’s new. A search tool to find MP3s on the web. Put in the artist or the song title and up pops a list [if there are any] of links that link right to the MP3.

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Ok real post time. So school is really coming up soon. We’re gonna be seniors. It doesn’t feel like it. And I only read like half of the Canterbury Tales. Ghey. … That’s all I really gotta say until school starts :)

1st Semester

Psychology
Intro to Astronomy
GT English 12
Latin 1

2nd Semester

Japanese 2
Visual C++
Hon Physics
Calculus 1