You ever feel like there's too much to do, and not only is there too much to do, but a lot of it is simply pointless.  What if you could allocate all the free time you would have if you didn't have to do all that meaningless stuff to doing things that you would do had you had the time and energy to do them?  You follow?  I didn't think so, so I'll just move on...  Yes, there's a point to this... and no, I'm not just sitting here in the middle of an empty night with work in the morning, just sitting and typing random words that together form strange structures otherwise known as sentences, which if used correctly, can accurately convey the mood of their writer.  Nah, the bright laptop screen isn't the only light source in the room currently illuminating my handsome self.

Does school ever seem repetitive and useless?  Does it seem as if the learning process itself, once mastered, is enough to lead somebody through any situation without the need to pay somebody else thousands of dollars to stand in front of you preaching the material as if you're incapable of learning it on your own, to supervise you.  But you have to, else how will anybody else truly believe that you're capable of what you say you are.  You need that degree, don't you?  Don't I?  Sometimes you have to do things cuz that's just the way things have come to be, and in order for you to move forward with your life, you have to go ahead and gut it out....

More, but not now, maybe tomorrow? Does that work with you? Don't be surprised if tomorrow turns to days, and eventually weeks.  But I hope not, but who knows.

Our basketball team made it to the final game in a league we played in.... and the final game was this past wednesday.  Coming in, we knew it was gonna be a physical game, but even with this knowledge we thought we were capable of beating our opponent.  I mean, we were riding a hot streak, we had won four in a row, although one was by forfeit, and the most recent was a playoff match-up against the best team in the league, which was undefeated until we knocked them out of the playoffs to make it to the final game.  Anyway, on to the game.  We started out strong, hitting a number of shots, and jumping out to a double digit lead.  At this point, you could tell we were getting tired.  At the end of the first half, probably in the last five minutes, they had a little run where they caught up to us and possibly took the lead, I can't recall exactly.  I had been on the bench resting, and I came in with a little bit of time left.

That turned out to be a bad decision, as I ended up getting injured in the eye.  This one guy on the other team came down court protecting the ball with both hands and went up for the layup.  Unfortunately for me, I happened to be right in front of him, and as he swung his arms around, one of his elbows caught me straight in the eye... successfully drilling my eye back into my eye socket.  So I fall to the ground, because it's hurting like no other.  I'm laying there for like two minutes... before I finally get up.  I could tell by people's reactions that it wasn't something I could just shrug off.  As I walk up the bleachers I realize the guy is shooting his free throws... so they called me with the foul even though he deliberately swung his elbows at my face.... yeah that's cool, thanks ref.

So I walk outside the building with an ice pack on my eye... realizing by this point that there was no way I could make it back into the game, no matter how much I wanted to.  I had been a defensive stopper and more of a fast break scored for my team, and I knew they could've used my intensity, so I was well... extremely bummed that I couldn't play.  We ended up losing the game by about ten points, unfortunately.  Take a look at the eye below hehe, it only opens half way right now.  I had it looked at... and for 95 bucks, they told me everything was okay.  Better to check, though.

In a Flash: So I made this little interface thing in Flash that the user can play around with that'll keep 'em occupied for all of two minutes.  It's got little buttons and small animations in it with sound effects and everything.  I had to use a little ActionScript for it, which ended up not being so bad; the programming concepts are like any other language... syntax, key words and that kinda junk is what I had to get used to... but I'm sure I haven't even touched the surface of what ActionScript can do yet.



After Effects: Also made a movie in After Effects that's broken up into 5 sections.  Screen shots don't do the movie justice, so I won't bother (actually the five different sections are so completely different that you wouldn't believe they're part of the same animation), but here's a short explanation: A timer counts down to zero... the title appears... the main movie plays (search Where Amazing Happens on YouTube to get an idea of what I tried to do)... next the ending logo and slogan appears... and finally the credits.

At the Buzzer: The other night, our team came back from double digits and won the game at the buzzer with a three point shot (refs ruled their was still 1.5 seconds on the clock when it went through the hoop... but we still got the win).  IT WAS AMAZING.... we're 3-3 now, hoping to continue the win streak next week... which sucks cuz the game night conflicts with my new class schedule.

Failure: I took this one class online, was a general ed class (economics.. which I passed in high school anyways!) and ended up failing it... I got a 75% on my final and I barely did any of the work.... so it's not like I failed cuz I'm stupid... I failed cuz I didn't try... wait, does that make me stupid for not trying!?

Recently, I did some sketches for a friend of mine..

He's putting together a book of poems and selling them.. here's a collage of the art... the originals are in plain black ink, using a ball point pen.



All art done by me, but credit goes to some google images I used as reference for drawing the rose for example (cuz I dont draw flowers often lol) I also used quite a few images as reference for the soldier (some from the movie Gladiator)

PEACE

It's been a while (again) since I've updated this =) so i think ill take it for a spin again..

Been busy lately.. I got upgraded at work (make sense?) so now the big bucks are rolling in (not really) but I've gotta work a lot more too, close to 40 hours, but i can't complain right now (expect I'm really exhausted all the time).

This past week there were some massive fires rolling through SoCal and San Diego was pretty much up in flames... but the wind stopped blowing.... the rain started pouring and the heat died down and now everything's cool (not really).  It was a cool little semi-adventure as everything was pretty much put on hold for a whole week, unless you lost your house in the infernos.. im sure that wouldve sucked.

As far as games go, I'm still touching up Home Base when I have time, or when there's homework to be done haha.. mainly adding an in-game stats screen and just little things here and there that kinda brings the game all together...  By the way, it looks like the game's gonna end up being free.. not that Oberon Media wasn't willing to publish it.. but because the game is incompatible with the protection/encryption software they use, and the workaround for that seems to have been delayed.  I'll be just as happy having the game finished and out there for free... but hey the extra money for the time spent wouldve been great... =( Doesn't it look more arcade-like when its a full on camera shot... instead of the usual screenshot?



Still ballin too.. havent had as much time to play as I used to, but I play whenever I can...actually playing in a league now and our team's doing horrible hahaha... but whatever its still good to play... NBA season starting up again soon... rooting for the Lakers to go all the way (but how likely is that anyway)...