Benign Thoughts

The other day I was reading very old blog entries and I realized, if I don't post regularly, Future Louis won't be able to do the same to what I'm writing now. Because nothing will be written for him to read. Doesn't that suck? Yeah. I've already put writing this post off several days. I mean, I had this thought on friday, when my sister wrote on my Facebook wall to tell me how pathetic my old "content" was. I would literally post about the weather. I also wrote... decent short stories (I won't call them bad, I was like 15, okay?). I also used to get really off topic, really easily. It happens. At least I wrote more often than I do now. I mean, this is my first post of the new year, and it's in February, for fuck's sake.

So yeah, I'm kind of on the debate team here at Binghamton now. True story. I joined this semester, and the very first weekend, my partner and I had to go to a tournament. I was literally not prepared for anything, but I managed to get my shit together and do fairly decently for a beginner. There's another tournament this coming weekend, plus this time of the year it apparently gets crazy because people go to tournaments every weekend (thankfully I only have this one and maybe one more left). But yeah, I've been working hard on that stuff.

As of last night, I've had this urge to watch Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, and rewatch the movie but I can't find them anywhere! A while back the movie was on one of my on demand stations. Not HBO, but one of the other ones. I love it: even though it's not really a good movie, it's still really funny and a good time in general. The cartoons were also on Google Video for a while, but not anymore. They're on hulu now, but hulu doesn't work well on my college connection. Go figure. You'd think that a state school would have good internet, but it's not nearly as good as I have at home. Ah well, I can kind of watch the 20 episodes that are available on Hulu, but I still want to see the movie again :(

Speaking of movies, HBO is fucking awesome. Now if you have HBO on Verizon Fios, you get access to HBO Go, which is like HBO On Demand, except on the internet. That being said, it sucks on my campus connection. Yeah.

Alright, so before I go, Kat wanted to tell Future Louis something. She says "If you didn't suck so much, you wouldn't be sucky." She's doing it wrong. Really, it should be "If you set aside how much you suck, you're not actually that sucky." But yeah, she fails."

Yep, another entry within 7 days. I know, it's rare, but it happens occasionally. I'm usually the type to post about random celebrity affairs, but I feel that this is appropriate:

Sorry, I just had to do it. Anyway, yeah. With all the madness between Kanye West and Patrick Swayze, it's been a little strange this weekend. Especially between Twitter and Facebook. I can't turn on my computer or blackberry without finding something about either Kanye, Lady Gaga (still haven't seen her performance), or Patrick Swayze (btw, for those who haven't gotten it yet, he died, and he will be missed).

So my Tuesdays kind of own. I didn't do it on purpose, but I have no class until 1:15 (pm). It's pretty rad, actually. And even then, all I have is a physics discussion, then English (which is interesting), and then a break until 6pm when I have a 3 hour Debate class, in which currently we are just going over the various regulations and such. Once that's over, we'll migrate to meeting on wednesdays at 5:50, and actually debate. I really enjoy my Tuesdays. Most importantly, though, I can sleep later :D

Wait, so I am actually enjoying an English class? Yes, yes I am. It's all about analyzing how different people perceive literature scientifically. For the last few classes we've just been talking about whether or not it's possible to study literature from a scientific point of view, and how everybody has a different "lens" through which they read literature. Our class on Thursday ended with a rather enthusiastic discussion about whether or not art is dying out because all possible ideas have already happened, and people have to look for new, crazier ways to be "artistic" (read: lady gaga). I, of course disagreed. There are always people that tend to have crazy ideas about what "art" is, exactly, but it doesn't mean that everything's already happened. We're constantly discovering new technologies, and with that comes new ways to use the technology, hence new art. What the synthesizer did to music is just one example. Computer animated movies, for instance, are becoming more popular with Pixar creating such masterpieces as Wall-e and UP. Not to mention 3D movies. And who knows what'll happen in the next 10 years. One argument was that music today is using samples from older music, and we don't have a distinct style for the 2000's, which is bullshit. In about 2015, the style for the 2000's will have become apparent, just like the style of the 90s has become apparent. It doesn't matter that music is using samples from older music. Music has always been inspired by past music, and in the days of classical music, plenty of themes would be reused across all sorts of works. Not to mention the whole concept of "remixes" that has been around for a long time now.

Anyway, I'm done. I said I would stop doing these sort of closing paragraphs, but whatever. This is one of those useless closing paragraphs. And Scott, if you're reading this, you need to blog too, man.

So today I decided I wanted to try to revive this blog for my longer postings. LouisC.com will still be used for all sorts of random bullshit I find on the internet, but here I plan on posting, like I always have, about day-to-day stuff that I do, as well as some useless shit I find on the internet, but more in depth.

One thing you've probably noticed, is the new design. It's a default Movable Type theme. I'm way too lazy right now to redo the CSS to make it my own quite yet, but I'll get around to it sometime soon. This is all because I've made the switch from Wordpress to Movable Type. Basically, it all comes down to speed and security. Wordpress requires updates all the time because of new, crazy bugs that tend to be utterly ridiculous. I used Wordpress in the past because MT required a fee and WP was a brand new thing that looked amazing. However, I can barely recognize the code anymore. It's a completely different beast, and Movable Type is just so much more feature rich, even before you get into the plugins (which, admittedly, WP has more of). Because MT's pages are mostly static (and designed to be mostly static, unlike the silly WP-SuperCache plugin), they should load at least a little faster.

The trickiest part of the switch was getting the database over intact. MT and WordPress are very different behind the scenes, and MT doesn't really offer a database import. Basically, you export everything from WP to a file, and then upload the file (it's Enhanced RSS or whatever, not mysql) to MT, which then makes sense out of everything. There were a few entries that were misplaced, but I grabbed the original times from WP and fixed them. Also, I needed to delete a few comments. They were very insignificant, otherwise I would have put more effort into fixing the timestamp (which MT wouldn't let me do for some reason).

So that about wraps it up. To comment here now, I believe you need to log in. Movable Type supports logging in via Wordpress.com, Facebook, AIM, Yahoo, Google, whatever. It's a nice deterrence against spam, so yeah. I should be able to post again soonish. My twitter updates are in the tab on the left side of the screen. If I don't update in like a week, feel free to poke me there, or by leaving a comment here.

I got a new tumblr account. It's much more active than here, but I plan on keeping this blog for longer, more formal blog posts. My tumblr is LouisC.com. Be sure to check it out. Whatever I post here will also be updated over there, so I'm really only keeping this site because I've had it for so long.

A more formal post will come soonish, but be sure to read LouisC.com for all sorts of random updates.

So I figured I'd post before going to bed real quick. I haven't been posting as often as I'd like to, but it's at least more often than before. I'm sure if you actually read this site, (which you probably don't given the complete lack of readers I have since my huge hiatus) you'll have noticed some changes. First of all, instead of using images as my post titles, I'm now using text. If you're using a browser that supports CSS fonts, your browser will automatically download Gentium Book Basic, and use it to display my post titles. It won't install it on your system or anything sketchy like that, just download it like it'd download an image. Also, I got the google ads working finally. It was some stupidity with how my pages were being sent as XML+HTML instead of HTML. They're still all XHTML, completely valid, like always, but now the google ads work.

Also, you should be able to see my twitter status in my sidebar. Just a tiny feature that I've been wanting for a while. I got Wordpress working properly finally by basically deleting it and reuploading it. It had some issues with constantly being upgraded, and no fancy javascript was working in the admin area, including managing widgets. Sucks, but now it works. :D

I've been watching a lot of Dexter recently. All 3 seasons are on Showtime on Demand, so I couldn't resist. Plus, it's HD, which is great! Verizon consistently impresses me. In case you didn't know, I use Fios, which is Verizon's TV/Internet/Phone over Fiber service. On Demand stuff uses the internet on TV, so you'd think that it might adversely affect my internet service. It doesn't. Somehow they count the bandwidth for On Demand differently than the bandwidth for my internet. So I can watch Dexter in HD whenever I want, while uploading all my photos from the past year to my "new" flickr account (not really using it yet, so I'm not posting it), while downloading the latest version of Arch Linux for my desktop which isn't handling the latest Ubuntu quite well. For the record, it took less than a minute. I'll set it up tomorrow.

Since I posted that I was going to fix up the site a bit after finals, I've been getting an unbelievable amount of spam. I'm talking well over 100 spam comments per day. It's completely retarded. Defensio wasn't really doing its job well, so I switched over to Akismet and so far so good. I actually have reworked the site a bit, though it shouldn't really look any different. However, I did recently upgrade to Wordpress 2.8 and I must say, it's pretty nice :)

Speaking of upgrades, Linkinus 2.0 is out over at Conceited Software. For those Mac users who are wondering whether it's worth the 10 euro upgrade, it is. It's a lot less buggy than 1.3 was, which is fantastic, though they really should release a free bugfix release for 1.3. I only have a couple complaints: The "Identities" functionality is a bit strange for IRC. Basically, each nickname you use is an identity. If you use the same nickname with the same password across multiple networks, you're golden. If not, you need to set up an identity for each nickname, which includes your User Name, Real Name, Nickname(s) (in priority order), and Passwords. If you use the same nickname across different servers with different passwords, then things can get confusing but you'll manage. Also, when upgrading from 1.3, Linkinus does not know what kind of nickname authentication service any manually added networks use, so you have to set them up in order for Linkinus to identify for you. Also, the current themes available are a little buggy, and some are ugly, though user-created themes should be on their way. I personally have no complaints on the appearance of the default theme, Whisper, except how actions look, which is really just a minor annoyance. So basically, Linkinus 2.0 is worth the upgrade. If you don't feel like spending 20 euro for an IRC client, however, LimeChat is also worth taking a look at, Adium added IRC support in the latest beta, and there is always Colloquy. Linkinus is my favorite though.

Quitting WoW quite frankly isn’t an option.

Remember when I said that? Well, I quit WoW. Figured there are better places to put my time, and frankly, World of Warcraft is a waste of it. However, I did not leave my guild. I'm still fairly active in talking to friends I made in the guild and posting on the forum. I'm still not going to play WoW again anytime soon, though.

Instead, I'm playing The Sims 3! I am, of course, kidding. I'm not playing it as a substitution for WoW. I've always been a big fan of The Sims franchise, and I've owned every release since the original version. In fact, I recently found my Prima's Official Strategy Guide for The Sims. I forgot I even had it. Anyhow, with the Sims 3, Mac support is through Cider (smooth enough on my mac, but a lot of people are complaining), and it's missing Sims classic items like hot tubs, diving boards, instruments besides the guitar, and some other things. But even though there are a few things I don't like, I really do like the improved Sim customization, traits, moodlets, and the new neighborhood. In fact, I might go out on a limb and say that it's possibly the best Sims game ever. It is at least better than The Sims 2, and I can't wait to see what the expansion packs bring.

That's all for now. Feel free to follow me on twitter at Twitter.com/LouisC.

Yeaahhh so I haven't been updating the site. This is understandable since, you know, I haven't really updated the site regularly in years. However, I want to be more active. It's just with my poor time management skills and lack of the ability to overcome my habit of procrastinating things, well, I procrastinate. However, this semester has, quite honestly, sucked. Previously I was worried about my performance in Calc II. Now I'm worrying about failing CS140 because of spending too much time on Calc II and putting shit off. Plus, I enjoy playing World of Warcraft, which takes up a massive amount of time. However, I try not to make that time conflict with time spent studying, with friends, etc. Quitting WoW quite frankly isn't an option. And I'm not leaving my guild either. My current raiding times are fine. I just need to get past procrastinating, and do work when I get back from class instead of putting it off until the last minute and I run out of time. And I also want to get this site updated more regularly.

So, in an attempt to get back into the swing of things on this site that is, starting once finals are over (tomorrow night), I'm going to look into possibly redesigning the site, but definitely revamping the site. There's still a lot of old-wordpress stuff back from when I started using wordpress (pre-1.0), and a lot of stuff that breaks because of it. I just got around to deleting the contact me form on the contact page. Why? Because it uses a captcha system that has been broken for about a year. The images it generated were practically impossible to decipher. I've known this, but have just never gotten around to fixing it or removing it. That's how bad I am. Anyway yeah. Tomorrow night after Calculus I'll get started. Probably.

So I'm posting again in less than a month. It's crazy, isn't it? Granted, my previous post wasn't really a full post, but meh. It was still more than 3 sentences. Anyway, in the past almost-month, I've been playing WoW, like always. You know the deal, Naxx, H. Naxx, Malygos, Sarth, etc... Well, we couldn't get enough people to do H. Naxx and decided to server transfer. People chickened out, others decided to go to other servers since they were transferring anyway, and everything was a mess. So, since basically the guild is defunct, I'm leveling an Alliance mage on Lightning's Blade named Tassels. I'm at level 23 I think now. I've been distracted from leveling.... by what you ask?

By Monk, of course! It's such a good show, and I wish I had started watching it sooner, but I had always just ... excuse me a second. I need to talk about something that just came up.

Apparently it's basketball season. so my roommate, Austin, has been watching Basketball whenever possible. I got dragged into a fantasy basketball league, but yeah. I'm not entirely thrilled about it. Actually it's been brought to my attention that he's just playing a game at the moment, but the point still stands. My suite is loud when they're watching sports. I thought it was bad during football, but Austin yells and talks to himself while he's watching a game or playing the video games. It's very irritating and while I was typing about Monk, he went into a yelling spree with another suitemate (Ryan). Anyway, back to Monk.

It's a good show.I had just written it off as silly, but I'm actually enjoying it as a good detective show. The cases in it are less far-fetched than they are in Detective Conan at the moment, and it's quite refreshing to watch a good show again. Also, I've been watching Dollhouse. The first episode aired last friday, and I'm really looking forward to this friday's next episode. Hopefully it won't get cancelled any time soon.

I think I'm done here now... I don't have much else to talk about, just wanted to post a quick update. I'm gonna continue leveling Tassels again right now.. Hopefully I can reach 25 or 26 tonight, since I have no class (again) tomorrow. (:

So while I didn't post for the last few months, I basically did my finals, played World of Warcraft, went on break, worked at panera again, then came back to school. I'm good at not keeping promises to post again.

My world of warcraft guild split. My half created <Sanity> and the other half remains as <From the Internet>. We're still friends but the west coast section is now its own guild. Our website is at SanityDentarg.com. It's badass.

Really not much else to say. Seriously, that's why I haven't been posting. Fail, I know, but whatever.

So I now have the best raiding schedule ever. I am in my guild's West Coast raid, which means we start raids at roughly 1am, and finish at about 4am. THIS IS FANTASTIC for a few reasons. Firstly, while this semester I have to deal with waking up at 9 (which isn't even a big deal going to bed at about 5), next semester I do not have class until noon at the earliest. Plus, the time conflicts with nothing I am doing in real life: By 1am I am finished with my schoolwork and I will be finished at Panera for sure; I have meetings for hall council and college council at 8 and 9pm, which will be finished by 10-ish; and, well, yeah. 1am guarantees I will be able to make it to any raid, which was an issue with my last guild (7pm raids suck). A video of us killing Patchwerk is below. We're currently up to Sapphiron (who owned our asses this morning). If you click the video, you can watch a higher quality version over on youtube. If not, you have to deal with the crappy quality.

Oh yeah, I'm still alive. Forgot to mention that. Will post tomorrow after studying for music. Toodles.