Remilia Scarlet

Maybe I'm getting too excited but...here's the campus I'm going to in August (don't worry, there's English on the pages). The pictures of the Nakamiya Campus are really getting me excited. Be sure to take the link on the left.

http://www.kansaigaidai.ac.jp/

[Insert cries of joy here]

I've noticed two odd things lately. The first came when I first passed "So Deep Perfect Sphere Mix" on maniac/heavy with an A about two months ago. When I play DDR, there comes a time where my skill jumps by leaps and bounds for a bit, and then I can't advance for a while. It's like I go to a next level but then have to master it. This seem normal to everyone?

The next thing I noticed is that as of late (like the past two months), my timing is off by about 1/8th to 1/16th of a second when it comes to beats. It's kind of odd, getting so many "greats" on a song I used to get hardly any on. Like "Holic" on maniac. I used to get only two to three greats on that entire song, max-comboing it a few times, but now it's like 1/4th of the song ends up being greats rather than perfects. I wonder if it's in my head.

http://www.noonelikesyou.net/TFT-robots/index.html

That 0wnz. I might try that someday at my school...

So, given that So Deep is one of my favorite songs (ever), I decided to make a remix of it. I've worked on this one a while (about two months), and so far it is definitely one of my better tracks. I've gotten better from last year, no doubt, and my recording methods have improved for learning all this on my own.

The idea of the remix was to only use the Perfect Sphere melody as a sort of backround track while the focus was on an enhanced Original Mix melody that was larger in sound, as well as a different structruing of the song. No samples were used at all, as this was all done by hand in a midi. There's some twinkling/hiss that I just noticed as I listened to it, but that's apparently the mp3, as I didn't hear it in the wave.

Constructive comments are welcome:
http://www.du.edu/~ahunt/So%20Deep%20-%20Haru%20Remix.mp3

Edit:
Incase you're interested, here's the list of stuff used:
-Roland JV-1010 Synth module
-Boss DR-202 Dr. Groove drum machine
-Beringer Eurorack mixer
-Casio WK-1630 as a control keyboard
-GoldWave 5 for recording the tracks, and Sonic Foundry ACID-4.0 for mixing them
-CakeWalk 9.0 interfaced with a 2x2 MIDI port thingie.
-SB Audigy soundcard

I got an official e-mail from Kansai Gaidai (a college in Japan south of Kyoto and west of Nara) this morning. Looks like I'm now officially accepted into the school and will be studying abroad in Japan in the fall.

Yeah, über happy.

http://www.parascope.com/en/0996/tesla4.htm

Found that while searching for information relating to Serial Experiments Lain and the Schumann Resonance. Kinda scary, in a way, if it's true.

In C/C++ class we have an assignment due (actually due two weeks ago, but I have an extension) where we have to make a very simple client/server program. The client sends data to a server, which writes a very simple database of whatever we want. So I'm making a simple videogame database.

The thing is, we have to use system calls for the files, so open(), close(), read(), and write(). I've got everything working, reading, and writing fine except one thing. The database I made is über simple: first four bytes are an integer saying how many records are in it, the rest are records (structs). When I write a new one, the program's suppose to just overwrite the first four bytes, goto the end, and write there. For some reason, even though write() returns that it wrote four bytes, it still never gets past 1. Code:

code snippit

code:
Array

I've been listening to Juno Reactor's "Samurai" all day today. Great song. I noticed I can understand all the Japanese lyrics in it except one line, which I can't make out. If I could, I can translate it. So far I have:

Anata wa taiyou - You are the sun
Anata wa hikari - You are the light
Anata wa yori-[something]. Sounds like yori o su suru ai or something like that.
Anata wa watashi no sasae - You are my support

That next to the last line I can't hear very well. Anyone know what the line is untranslated?

I Googled, came up with nothing.

I've got to pimp this, as it just came today. Sorry for the slightly blurred pic:

du.edu/~ahunt/music.jpg

And yes, that's a PROMOTIONAL copy of it.

I usually don't post any poetry or things I write (outside of some music) since people never did understand any of it to the point I wish some would. Nor is it the best stuff out there, lol. But, I don't try to make it be.

Anyways, this is an interesting one I made tonight. I'm thinking of putting this as a sample (probably split in two) in a song I've written. Funny thing is, I forgot I even had the song, which is actually a remake or updated version of the original one.

Anyways, here it is:

http://www.du.edu/~ahunt/poems/power_source.htm

Last year I played alot of UT2k3 on Instagib servers (my favorite was an Instagib with low gravity server called SNPLZ). They were quite fun, fast, and I played on them somewhat regularly. Then I got into StarCraft and stopped playing UT2k3 for a while. Now that I go back, there's hardly any servers running Instagib. The ones that are have pings over 200 (I prefer not to play with a ping over 150). I'm wondering if they all went to UT2k4.

Same with Quake3 it seems. There are less Instagib and InstaUnlagged games than there were a year ago. If I could I'd get a dedicated server to run one, but no $$$ and no way of getting a fast enough connection to host it like I'd want it. And while there are a few good ones that keep popping up, I just don't like Quake3's instagib as well as UT2k3's.

Last night I went to the arcade to get some DDR play in for the last 40 minutes it was open. As usual, I went to the one in the Westminster Mall. And as usual, I immediately started stomping away on the Max 2 (7th mix) machine. At five songs for a dollar and a good machine, the mall has become my favorite location.

Then the arcade operator comes up to me and asks if I had tried the other machine yet. Now, there's two machines in the mall, one is the 7th mix one I always play while the other is a 4th Mix+ machine that has a horribly dark screen. Well he tells me that not quite an hour before I had come in he had put a brand new screen in it. I figure "Great!" since there's a few songs on 4th+ that aren't on 7th that I really like to play. So I go over and discover something new: It's not 4th+ anymore but a brand new DDR Extreme machine (8th Mix, newest version in the arcades).

After I got done with the late-night-workout, I left and started to wonder why I actually play the game. It's a deceptivly simple game. There's no doubt in my mind that I like music and rhythm, so that's certainly part of it. But there's something more to it that I feel when I play. Some sort of combination of the lights, the sound, and the fact that people stand around me and applaud afterwards. Or maybe it's the fact that it simply came from Japan and I can read some of the screens. I'm just not sure. But it's starting to be more addictive to me than both Doom and StarCraft combined.

I think it has something to do with both the rhythm side of it and the fact that it's a physical activity I'm actually capable of doing and doing well. I never was good at sports as I never could get my orientation in them straight (still can't catch a ball or throw one far). But DDR (which is an official sport in Norway now) is something I CAN do. So it also makes me feel good that I can.

No doubt I've gotten better since a year ago (I started in late February early March last year, somewhere around there). I started off on two and three foot songs on Basic. I could kind of do Era on basic, liked to play Dam Dariam, and loved .59 after I could do it. Then a few months later I passed my first maniac song (.59) and my 2nd maniac song (Era). Now I'm sitting here passing So Deep on maniac with Bs (once with an A), working on the Max's on maniac, and warming up on either Nonstop Mode or Matsuri Japan on maniac.

I'm excited to see the health problems I'll have with my legs and feet later on in life.

3/4 venting, 1/4 asking for advice.

Since November 3rd I've been "in love" with a girl. We clicked since we first met in the sense that we had alot in common, got along well, made one another laugh and feel good, etc. But I've never been totally able to figure out how she feels about me.

We've had our ups and downs, of course. For a while back in December we didn't talk all that much due to a mistake on my part, but we patched things up. Then came a thing around Valentine's Day, but once again we came out on good terms.

Recently we got into a small argument over a school project, if you want to even call it an argument. To me it was more like just a disagreement and realizing that we shouldn't work together on everything, heh. Anyways, it was noted in a conversation that I was still "in love" with her and never really lost that. Now, for V. Day I had said something I didn't mean, which was that I didn't have my crush on her anymore. So basically I tried to explain that I didn't mean that.

This weekend we went out and had a total blast. DDR, House of The Dead 2, lunch at Big Bowl, game shopping, mall shopping, StarCraft...we seem to be on good terms again, and seem to have a better understanding of one another.

But the thing is, I still don't know how she feels about me. I put "in love" in quotes above because while I'm just about sure that I really am in love, I'm not taking it lightly this time and really trying to determin if I'm truely in love or not with her. I've come to the realization that love has to move two ways, so if it's only I who am in love, then we aren't really "in love" so to speak. This is one of the major things holding me back right now.

In Novermber I had asked her out, but she said "no" because she wasn't ready (she had just broken up out of another serious relationship, so I can completely understand this from experience myself). But I'm afraid to ask her again. I think we've grown a bit closer myself.

Anyone have anything to share on this? heh

But, it's not on Lain (my Alienware). Instead I upgraded Sakura again (she's my other desktop computer. My laptop's named Misato). Now she is no longer a Pentium running at 120mHz. No....instead she's a Pentium running at 233mHz with MMX technology! Blazin' fast, I tell ya. It's nice not to see the mouse lag a bit, Windows to operate smoothly, and I'm sure the games that I run on it will run nicely now. So now I no longer have a case-modded 120, but rather a case-modded P5 233 with four fans, heh.

My next upgrade is either going to be with some X10 equipment (automate my lights!), a new HD (external again), another gig of RAM for Lain (she already has 1 gig DDR400), a new graphics card for my mom's comp (GeForce 2 MX maybe since they're cheap, or a GeForce 4), wireless access point (doubtful), 2nd small internal HD for Linux on Lain, or a Cray supercomputer.

Ok, who here remembers a Shaw Brothers movie called Inframan?

I ordered a DVD of it tonight ^_^

I'm supposed to be studying for the big kanji test we have in my Japanese class tomorrow. I started, but studying kanji's not my favorite thing in the world, so I figured I'd do a bit of procrastination. So I'm procrastinating by taking screenshots and complaining. Here's what I have to memorize for tomorrow:

http://www.du.edu/~ahunt/kanji.JPG

The underlined ones are the kanji in each sentence. The third line from the bottom is probably the toughest due to the number of strokes the kanji in it has (one in there has 14 and is half the word, "zasshi" (magazine)).

What's kind of interesting about them all is how some of these are made. In the 2nd sentence from the bottom, at the beginning (where there's that box with four lines on top of it followed by a complex one), the 2nd kanji there means "leaf". The one before it (box with four lines on top of it) means "language". Well, the two put together means "word" ("kotoba"). In a sense, words are the leaves of language. (Edit...I fixed this).

The first two on the last sentence means "yesterday" ("kinou"). The 2nd kanji there that looks like a simple box with a line through it means "Day" or "Sun". The one before it means "last", and part of that kanji (the part that doesn't look like "sun") is also used in the kanji that is used in the verb "to make" ("tsuku"). So it's like the day that was made on the last day, or the day that was already finished, hence yesterday.

Yeah, better stop procrastinating now. Just interesting stuff.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/index.pl?Contents=/2004/20040405/badger.shtml

We just started our 3rd (and last) quarter for the year at my school. In this new programming class I'm in, we're supposed to have a project that we work on for the entire quarter (which is 10 weeks long), involves a fair degree of complexity to what we normally do, and should push us to learn a new thing here or there.

Well, we're allowed to work in groups. So my group consists of me and my two friends, Annie and Mercedes. Neither of them have much experience programming. I have no problem doing most of the programming as long as they attempt some of it (which I will make them do).

Anyways, we've decided to make a game. But, we have absolutely no ideas as to what to make. The only good suggestion we've had is a text-adventure similar to the old Hitchiker's Guide to The Galaxy one. None of us know how to do graphics (although I'm slowly learning SVGAlib, and we can ask the teacher to cover it in class this quarter). Also, we'd like to not use DirectX or Windows.

So, any good ideas for what game we could make or recreate? Or even ideas for something other than a game?

I'm wanting to find more music like this song I have. It's called "Blueberry Stream" by dj TAKA. It's kinda like a house song with a semi-jazzish piano part in the background that isn't the traditional house piano-loop, but an actual piano part. It reminds me of something that I would find in the game NiGHTs, actually.

The mp3 I have of it, to use as a sample so you know what I'm talking about, was freely avaiable 'till the website I got it from redid their site (the mp3 section isn't up again yet), but I'm not sure if I should post it or not. If I can, could a mod let me know?

Anyway, I'd like some suggestions for more music like this.

This is just sick (yes, this is C):

http://www0.us.ioccc.org/1995/dodsond1.c

Main site here:

http://www.ioccc.org/

Now, to go do this myself...

http://www.9news.com/storyfull.aspx?storyid=24502

So today I went over to the study abroad office to talk to someone about, obviously, studying abroad. Looks like I get to go to Kansai Gaidai, a school near Kyoto, Osaka, and one other city (it's kinda in the middle of the three). I'll be leaving, I believe, late August and will return late December, unless something tragic happens. But in any case, I'm extremely happy about this while also very nervous. I've decided to live in the campus dorms while I'm there (which will be my first time living in dorms) since I'm usually not that sociable of a guy, and on top of that, I'm afraid of getting a host family that I won't get along with. So that's part of what's making me nervous. And of course, while I can listen and comprehend the language fairly well, reading Japanese still isn't my best point, nor is remembering vocab, so I'm a little worried about that, too. As long as I can say, "Anou, sumimasen. Koko no chikoku, aruke-do ga arimasuka? Sono aruke-do de wa ddr ga arimasuka?", or something to that degree, I think I'll live.

The good thing is that, from the looks of it, I only have to pay for personal expenses (food, shampoo, soap, DDR, hentai, the necessities of life essentially) and housing. My school's paying the rest for the cost of my normal tuition (27,000 or 28,000 a year).

So yeah...looks like I'll get to see Kyoto at last, in person.

I just got my ass handed to me in a 7 comps vs 1 melee game in StarCraft BW on Fastest Map Green, something I normally win with ease. One mistake when I was building, and my whole base goes down. Don't you just hate it when you do this? If only I had a few more cannons and some Zealots.

Last night I went to Flatirons mall and scored five games for $21. The games?

-Serious Sam Gold (has both 1st and 2nd Encounter, so it's kinda two games)
-Red Faction, which I love so far
-Dino Crisis
-Dino Crisis 2
-MegaMan X5

The only thing so far is that Dino Crisis ends up looking slightly funky with my videocard since it's an older game, but I may be able to find a work around with this.

Growing up, I never really did sports. Nor have I ever really understood many of the phrases or people associated with them. A good example is the phrase "No pain, no gain." I would always think that if it hurt, you should stop. When it didn't hurt, you were doing good.

Tonight, it suddenly occured to me what it truely means. I can't really describe it, only the situation I'm in right now (my heart rate's too high, so I have to take a break). Behind me is my TV, PS2, and my DDR pad (modded and placed on a piece of plywood for a close-to-arcade feel). On the screen the words "Max 300" with the Omega symbol below it glow. To the right, the Maniac difficulty level mocks my latest attempt. Each time I play it, I get a little further to top-speed and my goal, a "B".

555 steps at 300bpm in a minute and a half, averaging out to 6.166... steps per second. If I set the speed to 3 out of 5, I can get an A. With it on 4 out of 5, usually an E, but occasionally a B if I pay attention. Step Chart.

Oh yes, I hurt. The fact that I have a bad head-cold, asthema, sore eyes, a scratchy throat, and a big kanji test tomorrow isn't keeping me down.

But damn it, I know what they mean by "no pain, no gain" now.

Edit: I know it even moreso now. I just did Healing Vision Angelic Mix, for the first time ever, on Maniac and passed.