I LOVE THIS GAME!! I was just recently thinking about digging it up again… hm. SimCity Classic was fun too. I never got around to trying out SC3000 (I think it might have had something to do with my PC at the time just barely meeting minimum requirements), and when 4000 came out I had a better PC but it was still kind of a clunker. I’ve always intended to go back and try them but have never gotten around to it.

I owned SC2000 for both Windows and Mac, too. Our old Macintosh IIsi was the machine I first played SimCity, Warcraft II, and Doom on. Its funny. As much as I loathe Macs today, it really was the platform that gave life to my love of PC gaming today.

Oh, and the SCURK was fun for making really stupid building sprites. I remember being a dumb 5th grader making crappy drawings of the kids from South Park as those “Wonders of the World” buildings.

I have some more words to say on this subject, but its past my bed time and I need to get some sleep! I’ll try to write more, later.

And then I was like “Lol!”

=D

Chicago is pretty cool. You guys should check it out some time.

I just realized the other day that I’ve learned quite a bit more tips & tricks of my craft since working here. Skill++.

New phone. 4G. Oh man.

Thats it for now. Until next time.

I’m moving to Chicago.

Wait, what?

I got a job in Chicago!

Whuuuuuuuuuuuuut

YES!!!

I’m actually at the end of my third week at my new job in downtown Chicago!  I’ll skip just the big long story, because if I started, I’d probably never finish it, and I am so bad at updating this thing as it is.  But anyway, here are the details!  Patrick is doing an internship at this company called Channel Clarity, and he asked if they needed any more developers.   They said yes, always.  I sent in my resume and got called in for an interview.  On the spot I was offered the job!

A great job.  A grown-up job. Doing something that I love, programming.  More specifically, web programming.  PHP / MySQL / CSS.

I’m almost 24, I don’t have a degree, and I turned my hobby into a high-paying salaried job.  What kind of voodoo witchcraft hebrew magic is going on here?!

So, enough gushing.  I’ll talk more about that later (if I can ever get off my lazy ass and post more).  ON TO OTHER STUFF!

These first few weeks at my job I’ve been staying with Patrick in his deluxe 18th floor studio apartment.  I think that, coupled with my new job being in a field that I actually enjoy, I’ve started getting back into the Linuxes and the Gentoo’s and the “gah fuck I hate computers” and “why won’t you work?!”  And… I like it!  After like 4 days, and 2 do-overs, I finally have a Gentoo system on my laptop with the fresh-off-the-shelf still fairly experimental and not guaranteed stable GNOME3 window manager compiled!  It actually JUST finished compiling a moment ago, so I’m eager to finish this post up and go tinker with that!

Oh, and I know I’m behind on my comics, but I’m slowly catching back up… I’ll get there some day!

<3

Edit: The damn Gnome3 didn’t work! Everything compiled and installed fine but there’s a bug with it and the stupid RADEON DRIVERS! gah fuck I hate computers

Last Friday I went into Chicago to interview for a new job–And I got it!

I’m moving to Chicago.

Week 3: April 4 – 10

What I read: Ultimate Spider-Man #1-7, Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #1-3

Thoughts: On Spider-Man… I’ve read this before, long long ago. I loved it then, and I love it now! Reading this made me remember how much I love the ol’ wall crawler.

On Team-up… Honestly? Take it or leave it. One issue introduced Wolverine, and the other two was The Hulk. Both featuring Spider-Man. The Hulk story was mildly interesting, with Spidey trying to ward off The Hulk’s attack on New York City. Seemed like throw-away stories, though. I could see all sorts of continuity issues in them, too.

Week 4: April 11 – 17

What I read: Ultimate Spider-Man #8-13, Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #6-8

Thoughts: Spider-Man, again, great! With the origin out of the way, we can finally get to the good stuff. And it doesn’t disappoint, either! Big story with him and Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin!

Team-Up: What I read, I really liked. To tell the truth, I skipped over issues #4 and 5. Main reason: They were having to do with Iron Man… but it wasn’t Ultimate Iron Man. Everything seemed to be pulled straight from the regular (“616″) Marvel Universe. It probably was written before the Ultimate Iron Man stories, but seeing as how its not really accurate, I don’t feel I need to read it. Plus the art was just awful.

Back to what I read. Spider-Man, Daredevil, and The Punisher… YES. This story was just awesome. Did a lot to introduce Frank Castle, although not too different from what he’s been before, but it was still a great way that they gave his back story. This was also the first time we see Daredevil in his full getup. Spider-Man’s part was really sort of non-existant… mostly seemed like he was just there to attract Spider-fans… Oh well. It was still a great story with a great ending.

Up Next: Ultimate X-Men #1-6

What I read: Ultimate Daredevil / Elektra (4 issues), Ultimate Elektra (5 issues)

Thoughts: I must admit, I came into this not really knowing anything other than basic knowlege of Daredevil and Elektra.  I had never had any interest in them, either.  Because of this, I cannot compare it to their “regular” Marvel Universe counterparts.

What I can say is… I liked these stories.  They did a good job setting the two characters up and the relationship they share, as well as set up a few major villains, too. +Like

Up Next: Ultimate Spider-Man #1-7

Week 1: March 21 – 27

What I read: Ultimate Iron Man I (5 issues), Ultimate Iron Man II (5 issues)

Thoughts: Iron Man! Yeah! Good way to start out the Ultimate universe, and a PRIME example of what they are attempting with the Ultimate brand.

Without really getting into it, Tony Stark’s origin and powers are completely different.  Plus, I love the new costume.

Iron Man I was fabulous.  Dealing mostly in the story of how Tony was born and the Iron Man suit came to be.  Iron Man II… not so much.  More action, less story.  Kind of dragged out.  Still good though!

Up Next: Ultimate Daredevil / Elektra, Ultimate Elektra, and Ultimate Spider-Man!

The Project:

In an effort to get myself caught up on my comics once and for all I’ve started a new personal project of reading (at least!) one comic per day!  I actually tried this a few months back but quickly fell behind when starting my new job.  Well, this time I have a few safe-guards in place to keep me on track.

My work schedule is typically Sunday to Wednesday overnights, with Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off.  During the day before my shift I usually have very little free time. Because of this I will most likely be reading all my weekly comics at once over the weekend.

The Goal:

The two series I was trying to get caught up with was Marvel’s Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate Spider-Man. Its been a good few years since I last read an issue of either series.  So long, in fact, that I feel compelled to simply start over on both series’.  And on that thought, I can’t help but think go big or go home.

So the ultimate goal of this project is to read the entire Ultimate Marvel universe, up to date, in chronological order.

The Means:

To make things easy on myself (as well as more efficient), I will be reading my comics on my Nook Color with the Droid Comic Viewer app.  I’ve found a text document laying out the chronology of the Ultimate universe before the “Ultimate Comics” brand reboot, and I’ve already begun reading!

Tonight I’ve read all five issues of Ultimate Iron-Man I!  That means my quota for this past week is already almost met!  Next up: Iron-Man II, Daredevil & Elektra, and then Elektra.

This is exciting.

I’ve been meaning to come back to this for quite a while now, but either I forget or have something else to do, or my dumb brain will come up with an excuse to do something else… well, no more! I have some juicy content in the pipeline right now!

You might have noticed the new link at the top of the page labeled My Portfolio. That’s, well, my portfolio! I’ve been meaning to get one put together for some time now, but my biggest roadblock was having content to populate it with. I’ve been going through my old horribly disorganized code folder lately and have actually found content I want to share! Well, content I’m not too embarassed to share, I should say. Some of it is running out-of-the-box, and others I need to clean up to be back to functional again.

I’ve also decided to use it to share some of my past artwork and other non-computer based projects as well. I’m pretty excited to be finally working on this, and hope that I can keep myself focused and get it finished in a timely manner.

What else have I got in the works? Well, all sorts of stuff! Currently I’m pretty focused on starting to utilize this web space way more than I have in the past. In addition to that, I’m sort of re-evaluating what I want to do with h4xful.net and ways I can breathe new life into that domain. I also have all sorts of ideas for projects that I’ve been stashing into Evernote (Oh, how I love Evernote. ) ranging from hardware projects to compruder codes! I just picked up a Nook Color and have transformed that into a full Android tablet (which I plan on writing about in the future). I’m hoping that will encourage me to crack open my Android Application Development book soon since I have two physical devices of my own to work with now.

There are also a few possible life opportunities that may be coming my way in the future. Excitement, fear, hopeful optimism… I’ve got it all. Will they present? Will they take me anywhere? I guess we’ll just have to see, won’t we?