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Tuesday, June 03, 2003

wewt

hs

sweet, i can easily allow others to post on the website. wish i had this back with the DGS

Quote of the day:
BobCortex (11:30:57 PM): would you feel better if i said i glued hentai belldandy up on that? i didn't, but i want you to stop saying "pink".

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Whempy’s Wireless Project

    The problem:  To fit 4 people and 8 computers (including 3 laptops  ) into 2 cars and arrive at the Whempy's LAN Party in Columbus, OH.
    The solution: Establish a wireless ethernet connection between the two cars and Microsoft NetMeeting for voice communication.

    Situation: Two cars, My (Eclipse's) Car took the point because I had driven there before, although it was last year, so we weren't too sure where we were going.

    Equipment List:
        Eclipse's Car:
            Passengers: Eclipse, Codex
            Computers: Eclipse's Desktop, Eclipse's Laptop, Codex's Desktop, Codex's Laptop, Codex's Server
            Wireless Solution: Codex's Laptop with external antenna placed on top of car for extended range.
        Swiftwulf's Car:
            Passengers: Swiftwulf, Krhainos
            Computers: Swiftwulf's Desktop, Krhaino's MiniDesktop, Krhaino's Laptop, AC Power inverter, Access Point
            Wireless Solution: Krhaino's Laptop next to access point, powered by AC Power inverter.

Figure 1: Access Point.  Obviously the backbone to a wireless network.  We chose to power an access point rather than connect the two wireless cards directly so we could get a larger wireless range.  Even with Swiftwulf's car directly behind, 802.11b doesnt have a whole lot of range.  Because Krhaino's laptop doesn't have a long lasting battery, the power inverter was used in Swiftwulf's car so he could use it to power the access point and laptop.  The access point was placed on the passenger sun visor for optimum range and we didnt trust it to be taped to the outside of the car.

Figure 2: Performance. Performance over the mobile wireless network was marginal.  This picture shows Krhaino's laptop which was right next to the access point.  The strange thing was he got pings of around 45-50 to codex's laptop, while codex got pings of around 2000 to krhainos.  Voice over the network worked after a brief setup period, however.  File transfer between the two cars also worked, as tested by copying the directions back and forth.

Figure 3: Netmeeting. Because there was no DHCP on this relatively simple network, static IPs were used.  The lead car was assigned 10.10.0.1, and the the other was 10.10.0.2.  Netmeeting was chosen as the communication software due to its simplicity, smallest setup time, and the fact that we didn't have much choice.  The problem we ran into was that Codex's laptop runs linux, and doesn't have netmeeting.  To solve this, we downloaded Gnome Meeting for him.  This connected with the windows laptop, but the two could not text chat to each other.  Voice chat worked though, and we ended up using that instead.

Figure 4: Execution Both cars did an excellent job of staying close enough for the LAN to work.  Codex had some problems connecting to the access point at the beginning, but it worked and the two computers could talk.  We found out that sony microphones must suck because we were having some problems hearing krhainos, but overall it was cool.  Even had a radio station going for a few minutes :D.  Next time, some improvements can be made and we hope to have wireless gaming during the 2 hour trip back and forth from Whempy's

Figure 5: Success! We arrived at the LAN Party just in time for Codex to get a winning ticket.  He won two Cold Cathode Lights.  Congrats, Codex.   View the short movie! Click here!

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Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Anime Trading LAN on June 22nd

copyright?  what copyrights? its japanese

Quoting Melchior from the KSU Anime Society Forums:

"... We are having an anime trading LAN at Lorain County Community College on June 22nd though, so if you can make that you might be able to get it there too. Email me and I can get you the details, or you can check out there forums, although you do have to register for them to see any posts."

Time to buy some hard drives, CD-Rs, or DVD-Rs and get a ton of anime for next school year!
Links:
Lorain County Anime Forums
Post in KSU Forums with links to email

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Wednesday, June 04, 2003

Speaking of LAN Parties

Whempy's LAN Party is this weekend, the 7th. Link
LANOhio's LAN Party is next weekend, the 14th.Link

Whempy's: Columbus OH, 2 hour drive, $15
LANOhio: Kirtland OH, 45 min drive, $12 ($9.60 prepay)

Let me know who is interested.

Oooh, this site layout is almost complete.

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

merkur.sytes.net version 3 BETA

Ok, most of the coding for the new site is finished. You are looking at it. Might not seem like much, but the front page is pure php and mysql now instead of just html. This makes posting easy! Also, you can respond to entires and stuff. Another main point is that this page is wc3 compliant now. (Except the shoutbox, that only works in IE). Many of you have taken notice to my new hated of microsoft and to stop using frontpage for my site is a big leap for me. Viewing both previous versions of my site in netscape/mozilla/gecko would led to errors or tables that were the wrong color. Most of the site's navigation boxes have been refitted with wc3 java code, but some huge tables (like the anime page) are still in crappy frontpage format. (Need any more convincing that microsoft is forcing people to use its software?)

There is not yet much point to becoming a member of my site, because I allow anonymous commenting to my posts, but if you want to register, go ahead. It works. The member controls are at the bottom of the home page. All you can do at this point, if you are not an admin, is log in and out. Maybe later I will allow other people to post on the site, cause its really easy now :D.

Anyways, this is the third major revision of my site, and its still in beta cause there could be stuff i forgot to update. Thanks go out to PMachine for creating the blogger, Trancender for hosting, and the people who helped me design/test the site. :D If you find any bugs, feel free to leave a comment on this entry.
Goodnight, world.

Thursday, June 05, 2003

woohoo crazy dream

So hmm..blog?  bee log?  I had this dream where I was in a Boeing 737 or something and we landed at a strange airport where the runway was also a highway.  So when we turned around and immediately tried to take off, we had to dodge all these cars and couldn’t make takeoff speed.  So, we just kinda followed the highway for a while smashing cars and stuff and thats when yash woke me up at 11am.  11am!  can you believe it that early.

Thursday, June 05, 2003

Don Hertzfeldt is elite

you are not

Friday, June 06, 2003

Oh I’m such a blogsnob

Now I’m not a fan of the X-Box too much, but Dead Or Alive 3:Extreme Beach Volleyball is probably the only reason I would get one.  I went to James’ House Last night (this morning?) with Jo and Anthony because it had been a while since we were all together for an x-box party.  It was a lot of fun, and like all of our parties, it included a trip to Giant Eagle.  Even though there was much obnoxious-ness, it did not result in us getting arrested, so I consider it a success.  Jo actually let James drive his car which really surprised me.  I got in the car thinking we weren’t really going anywhere, but maybe I should know better by now.  We speeded off down 59 and turned around at the airport when we saw a cop.  The rest of the night was spent playing x-box, talking, and yelling (and spitting) at James’ neighbors.  I don’t share the same flair for getting into “trouble” as he does, but whatever.  It was fun.

Saturday, June 07, 2003

200 miles of disappointment

Had to start the day off with Six Flags training.  I’m trying to get a job as a ride operator there.  I couldn’t go to sleep the night before so I was really tired.  So the only thing that got me through that was knowing I was going to go to the Whempys LAN in Columbus afterwards.  Well, we all drove down in Tim’s car and after the hour long trip there were like 30 people there.  We didn’t want to pay $15 for a 30 person LAN for only 8 hours or so.  We went to Wendys to decide to go or stay.  We left, so the trip consisted basically of driving 200 miles to go to Wendys.  It was some damn good Wendys though.

Sunday, June 08, 2003

It is a mystery

Why Computer Crash?

So at the codex lan my computer would crash non-stop in any game. Its been like this for a while now, off and on. It crashes in every game, and every once and a while in Windows it just reboots. At tim's lan I took out a stick of 256mb ddr RAM from my computer and it was instantly fixed for about a week. I traded my Radeon 8500 for codex's Geforce4 MX 440. These cards are about the same, though i got better frames in Q3 with the Radeon, and better frames in RtCW:ET with the Geforce. So I went home after the LAN and tore my computer completely apart. Every thing I could take apart was taken apart. I even ripped the CPU Heatsink apart and I cleaned it all. I also used a lot of tape and creativity to hide some of the extra wires to improve airflow, though i dont think heat was a problem. This took most of the day, and it was a little boring, but I haven't built a computer in so long it was a little fun. Also, I put my Sound Blaster Audigy back in, no use in having it sitting on the desk anymore. So far, its been much better, all the unusual sounds are gone and its been perfectly stable. If it messes up again, you can bet you'll hear from me again.

I'll leave you off with the specs of my computer then:

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Show me teh moneys

So a few weeks ago I got a job at 6 flags as a lifeguard. Funny, huh? Well, since they were no longer hiring ride operators, Bob (Akax) and I came up with a complex plan of being hired as a lifeguard (which is in the same category as ride op) and getting transferred before my training was over. Anyways, the hiring part is over, and I was supposed to meet Bob at the Skycoaster in 6 Flags World of Adventure today at 4pm for the next step of getting transferred. Unfortunately, this meeting didn't exactly happen. Apparently some people didnt go in and he had to work through his breaks. I found him an hour later at the go carts and talked with him off and on for the next 4 hours about what I should be doing. Eventually, I got the transfer approved and starting next week or so I am employed again as a ride operator and I can buy some fun stuff like a new computer, lcd monitors, and maybe a dv camera because Jo's is so leet. Anyways, it looks like Bob and my plan worked out pretty well, which is pretty rare.

And on a side note, always remember to register for Quakecon.

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Posted by eclipse on 06/10 at 11:14 PM
In Life • (0) Comments • Permalink

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

It’s the little things that count

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the awesome!  I dont know if anyone knew about a huge flaw in my site where if the browser window was at or below 800x600, all the text of the blog would be underneath the menu.  This was due to a small error I had.  It’s been fixed now, and I understand CSS a little better.  Now when you make the window smaller, the blog text will wrap to the edge of the browser within reason (in IE) or go nowhere (mozilla).  Most of you probably had no idea it was a problem, or even what I am talking about, but don’t worry! It’s fixed!

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Thursday, June 12, 2003

For all of you going to Quakecon

There will be an informational meeting for all of us going to quakecon 2003 in an AIM Chatroom tonight around 11 or 12pm. Dan, whose AIM s/n is "Barkenchicken", or myself (Eclipse278) will be inviting people to the chatroom, so if you want to be involved, contact one of us. If you cannot make it to the meeting, I have created a page on my site where we can keep official information here. The link will also be made available on the "Recent Links" section to the left on the main page, and on the "Features" page. Here you can make sure we know you are coming and other important stuff to keep this organized for everyone. This year we really are going! We are going with or without you, so it's up to you guys to make sure you know what's up, and up to you guys to make sure we don't leave you behind. Talk to you all tonight.

This meeting was cancelled because Dan was sleepy :D

Friday, June 13, 2003

Life is good!  Yaaaay!

BobOmega: ugh its saturday
Eclipse: yay! its Saturday!
Eclipse: thats the attitude
Eclipse: every day is a new day
BobOmega: grumble
Eclipse: whats wrong mr scrooge?
BobOmega: Hate.
Eclipse: the wife beating you again?
BobOmega: i can't think of a witty responce to that so i'll just give you a "Hate!"
Eclipse: owned there, mr scrooge
Eclipse: :D

Saturday, June 14, 2003

sigh

Tomorrow is my first day of work at Six Flags as a ride operator.  I have to go in at 9:30am and get assigned to an area.  I hope to god that I get put in the same area as bob, cause otherwise this whole escalade was not worth it.  Well, I had fun last time I worked there when it was Six Flags Ohio.  As long as I’m not in the Mr. Hyde’s Fall area I can live.  I do need the money after all, for plane ticket and quakecon and computer and so on.  Oh, I don’t want to do the superman or any of the kid’s rides either.  I called the park today to get my schedule and they told me i had to wait until I got there to get it.  Then they asked me if I could go in today.  I was like ‘wtf?’  it was funny.  I got out of it and played some hardcore RtCW:Enemy Territory.  That game is so fun its not even funny.  So good luck to me today, hope i don’t get owned.

Sunday, July 06, 2003

>.>

ooh
merkur.sytes.net/ipod

soon/Be Afraid

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

The Italian Job

Went to go see the Italian job today with bob and yash. It was pretty good except for the fact that they were driving minis. Those are the dumbest little cars ever. You can even see spiderman standing in the crowd for a split second right before the armored truck falls through the street (think fight club). It was so hilarious I couldn't stop laughing in the theater. The best parts of the night were definately after the movie though. Bob and I were in the arcade trying to find a game we could play for only a quarter (we failed) when there was this kid playing one of those racing games where you sit on the motorcycle to go. He was a dumbass and broke the game so the motorcycle wouldn't turn anymore and he got really mad and started to yell at the infernal machine. So I'm watching him scream at the game while the motorcycle dude in the game is flying off the track through trees and bushes in a straight line and I start laughing. He immediately snaps and starts yelling at me in a very serious punk-ish tone like he's going to beat me up, which makes me laugh some more. As Bob and I walk out as he's still sitting on the motorcycle yelling at us but can't bring himself to abandon the 75 cents he used on the game. People are way too emotional these things. Why is it such a big deal I laughed a little. It's not like I'm "insulting his honor" or something like that. All it takes is 75 cents to make some young stupidass lose all rationality. Pathetic.

Yet entertaining.

Friday, July 11, 2003

On another note…

I will not be going to Quakecon 2003 this year. I am sorry to all the people I promised I would go. At the beginning of summer, it looked like I had a pretty good chance at being able to go. However, as the time for QC comes nearer, it is more apparent that the middle of August is going to be pretty stressful with work at Six Flags, work at ResNet, entering school again, and trying to get my pilot's license all around that time. There was still a small possibility of me going, but it would be a longshot and very expensive even if i ended up not going, so I have decided to stop planning for it now, so I am not disappointed later.
Once again, sorry.

I would have owned :D

Monday, July 14, 2003

For the love of god

and all that is holy!

Last Friday, I think it was, it rained so hard that the Merrie Oldies ride at 6 Flags was closed. During this time, I was asked the task of draining the large puddle/small lake with a bucket. What it boils down to is, I was asked to stand in a puddle for 4 hours. Well, thanks to that, my foot has become infected under my toenail and it fucking HURTS. Oh my god it hurts! I can barely limp around. It hurts probably worse than foot chile. Don't ever agree to move water using buckets. Thats good advice. So I'll probably be calling off work today, which I don't want to do because I'm one of the few on my crew that actually works, and they won't remember to put trashbags in the thiller.

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Six Flags Worlds of Pain

Yesterday it rained so bad that Six Flags closed early. This is a once-a-year event, so it was a pretty cool thing. Too bad it cuts into my pay though. I had to work the oldies during the second rain storm. That ride almost never shuts down. So I started to think as I worked, wishing I were dead instead of getting a crappy 6.50/hr to get SARS from the rain. I was thinking about how much I despise that awful, terrible ride. Most of the rides at the park are not awesomely fun to operate, but the Oldies have to be the worst. Either You are getting really really sunburned because there is no roof or shade, or else you are getting rained on. There's not much else. I'm going to be very straight-forward with the rest of this rant.

Why I hate my rides:

Case 1: Merry Oldies

This ride sucks because all the parents have some sentimental value attached to it. They remember riding it as kids because all the rides back then sucked ass. These dumbasses bring their 2 month-old, barely concious infants onto my ride. These kids can't even open their eyes yet, so they aren't going to be able to have fun. Still, the parents think they are doing the right thing as responsible adults to bring them onto the smelly overgrown lawnmowers I drive all day long. About 1 in every 20 people can actually figure out how to drive the cars, too. There is the obvious gas pedal inside the car, and the brake we use to stop the cars when the guests are being dumb. The brake is all the way outside of the car. yet still half of the idiots, i mean guests, try to stretch their legs as far as they can and push the pedal down, not realizing that they are just making it stopped harder. In the morning, when I'm still in a good mood I'll be nice, but later on I'll tell it like it is "The gas pedal is inside the car, genius". They still don't get it. The first thing you learn at a job like this is that the guests don't actually listen to you. I usually resort to using simple hand motions to indicate stop, go that way, and get smacked. They love it though. Making my job harder is why they paid $40 per person to get in. There are so many of them at the oldies. It draws more people than the Serial Thriller. I can't keep up with them most of the time. The thing about people is that, when they are in a large group, they are only as smart as the dumbest person. To let them onto the ride, we send out five groups at a time to wait behind the gates for the cars to be parked. Once they are parked, you let them in, it's pretty simple. So I'll let the 5 groups out, and I'll say "wait here" to the group of people who didn't make it to the gates yet. I'll watch them as I walk to one of the cars, and they won't move. But the second I start moving the car up, they all run out into the gate platform. They fucking wait for me to stop watching! Then they realize that there's nowhere to go, but the next 20 people have already come behind them, and they are all realizing this too. I come running up yelling for them to go back to the turnstile to wait, and they don't want to get yelled at, so they try and hide. They are so dumb! Because I can see them. I'm not an idiot, but still. In a group like this you have to control certain individuals because once again, no one listens to you, but they will follow certain types of their own kind. Usually, these people you must control are in the front of the line, they usually set the example for all the other noobs to follow, but not always. The danger lies in groups that are split up into multiple cars. They will wait for everyone in their group to get a car, then they will decide that they don't have to wait behind gates and they will be in the car and driving off before you can run over there. You can yell all you want, but they don't care. They think you're complimenting them or something. Like I said, people are idiots. They are idiots. Idiots. When I'm separating the groups, I ask them "how many?" and they look at me like I'm speaking Martian or something, so I say "how many people are riding in your car". They usually can figure out that I'm speaking some sort of dialect of ghetto called "English", but they can't get it, so they usually say something like "Three".

"Okay, can you all go to the third gate by the blue car?"
"Oh, we're all going in our own cars"
"Well, there's a minimum of two people per car"
"Ok, well me and [second person] then"
"Well, who's [third person] going to go with?"
"She can go with [second person]"
"So, three people, right?"
"No, I'm by myself"
And at this point the conversation repeats until I want to kill myself, which doesn;t take long.

The Oldies Spiel, if I wrote it:
"Ok, idiots, Push the fucking gas pedal down to the fucking floor. It's the circle pedal right next to your fucking foot. Don't fucking bitch at me when the car doesn't move because you need to fucking push it harder. It's not a real car, it takes some fucking effort, you wimp. I do it all day, so you can fucking do it for 2 minutes, and don;t come back complaining because every single car is like this and I don't fucking care. It's ok if I bump the oldies because there's no one inside the cars to get hurt. It's not the fucking bumper cars, so if I see you do it, I'm going to cuss you out. No getting out of the car, because the bags of chips you see aren't real. It's just a bag of air. Now hurry up and go.

Case 2: Ice Mountain Splash (Log Ride)
Wear your god damn shirt. No one wants to see that shit. You came to the park on a hot, bright day and now your skin is crusty red and peeling away. You have to wear your shirt on every single ride outside of the water park. It says so out front, in the map, and...and..no one wants to see that shit! Seriously, you'd think you'd see more hot chicks riding the rides, but mostly you see old, fat, disgusting old women with layers upon layers of fat coming out. It's hard enough to look in their general direction, much less help them out of the boat. When there is a hot girl, she's always with some stupid guy (who is never with a shirt, and probably doesn't know what a shirt is). The last option you get is the 14-15 year old girls who are smartmouths and pretend you are their best friend because they can read your nametag. They are all pricks and you just want to shove a rocket launcher down their throats. Once again, all the people in line want to run onto the platform, which is strictly forbidden. They think they are so much closer to getting to ride if they are on the platform. Well, there's still the same number of people in front of you no matter where you are, dumbass. Luckily, in this ride we have a chain to keep people off the platform. It's pretty cool, because I've seen people walk full speed into the chain and almost fall over. God damn, they are so dumb! The best part is that the chain is right at crotch level for all the damn 15 year olds. That's some funny shit. The little kids usually just go right under the chain. I had this one kid that did that and fucking ran full speed towards the water, completely suicidal. I had to fucking catch him in mid air. I should have let him go. People lose all sorts of shit in the water. I think it's funny. Usually it's their hat when they go down the hill. The hats will float on by later and we grab them. If they are nice, we take them :D People lose sunglasses a lot because they are clipped to their shirt's neckhole. They bend over to get in and bloop! There they go. Still, the best is when people lose their shoes. Mostly sandals, they get so mad, and it's understandable, but I can never stop laughing. They bitch and bitch and eventually go away. This one 5 year old didn't want to go on the ride on morning and started screaming and kicking, and when his dad picked him up and carried him to the boat, he kicked so hard his shoe went flying into the water and I couldn't let him ride. That was the smartest kid I've ever seen. People beat their kids in the park all the time. It's pretty scary. I've seen one lady take off her belt and start whipping the poor kid senseless. It was scary as hell, but, granted, the kid was being a dumbass. I wanted to do something, but what could I do?

The Log Ride Spiel, if I wrote it:
You there, put your fucking shirt on. Don't fucking bitch when you get wet because you know its a god damn water ride. I said put your shirt on. Stay seated until we tell you to get up, because you always get up all at once, on one side, and tip the boat over, dumbasses. Sit two people up front, and don't move. We can see you. The ride may freeze cause it's fucking 30 years old, but don't get up cause it'll tip over. Keep your hands inside the boat, and don't fucking say "my butt's wet" when you get out because everyone says that and its fucking ANNOYING!

Case 3: Serial Thriller
This is the only ride I could work all day. Still, we get some pretty big dumbasses here too. My favorite are the ones who take forever to sit down, and when they try, the seat has already been locked down and they cant get in. Not wanting to cause any trouble, they of course hide from me until I get to the back row where they explain the mystery of the locking chair and I have to unlock every single seat on the train and recheck all the bars again. Once you unlock them, even if you announce it over the intercom, everyone freaks out when the bars unlock. They scream...in bloody terror. It's funny at first, but when they all ask you separately what happened you just want to choke them. Listen to the damn intercom! Because their feet are suspended in air on this coaster, they always swing their legs and I get kicked 500 times a day. Sometimes I get kicked hard. The next time I see them at their job, I'm going to walk up and kick them in the shins. Yeah, you like that idiot. You know you're too fucking fat when you can't sit in a roller coaster seat. I've put some fatass people in there, but sometimes it just won't work. I never know what to say to these people. So I say very little. If you can't fit here, you should buy some diet pills, not a Six flags ticket. I've seen some people too fat fo the oldies. That's scary. When I'm driving the coaster, it's bad too. People never listen to what you say, so you can take advantage of that. But it's hard when you are yelling at them to go through the exit or get off the railings. Tinisha resorts to screaming through the microphone, which is funny, but would get her in trouble if she was caught. I do more of a casual demeaning like "If you are carrying a giant pair of red dice, and are leaning against the enterance gates, please look straight down at your toes. If you see that you are leaning on the gate, please take two steps back". Then I usually tell the guest next to me "Don't lean on the gates, pass it down". Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The thriller has broken down so many times with me at the controls, I don't know why. It's bad luck, but I think they won;t let me do it anymore. I'm hardly ever at the Thriller.

The Serial Thriller Spiel, if I wrote it:
Hurry up and get on the damn ride. When the person comes by to check your safety harness, don't fucking kick him. Don't ask him if the ride is safe. Don't ask him to hold your damn cell phone either. If you get stuck, you have to pull back on the restraint, like we told you to, a million times. Don't scream before the ride leaves the station and try not to puke, because its fucking nasty.

About 60% of the money I make at the Park goes to 1)Taxes and 2)Food. Its amazing how much we get ripped off and taken advantage of. I work for 15 hours a day and get payed for 12, if I'm lucky. After expenses, I get payed for about 8. The working world is fun, ain't it?

Can't wait for school to start, I've got so much to do. Leave a comment with a work story like this to cheer me up or something. :D