not very interesting.....

Revolution

soatari — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 06:44:46 +0000

Poem… sort of.

soatari — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 20:19:06 +0000

I wrote this… umm… poem I guess, about two years ago. I submitted it to Poetry.com (I think it was that site… whatever) and I actually won honors to be in a book of poetry. I accepted, and later I received another notice that my poem was going to be included on a spoken word CD (only if I allowed it). I never thought it would get so far. I originally wrote it when my friend was in a deep depression about how his life was going. It was never meant to be a poem, but whatever. Here it is in its unedited-for-poetry format:

Even if you have no control over your life, if it is just a vessel and you are along for the ride, don’t you want to see where it ultimately leads you? Don’t you want to see the sights along the way?

Some of it may be pretty, some of it ugly, some of it dull, some of it exciting. Some of it may even be more horrifying than you could ever have imagined, and then some of it could be most beautiful thing you will ever see.

If the point of life is to go where it leads you… then I don’t know about you, but I am perfectly content with that.

The joys of Nintendo

soatari — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 17:09:47 +0000

I recently bought a Nintendo DS and, at approximately the same time, a copy of Jump Super Stars for the DS. The DS itself is fantastic; it is a great shade of “electric blue” and isn’t as ungainly as I previously thought. Because importing a game takes time, I picked up a copy of Mario Kart DS at the time of purchase in order to have something other than GBA games to play with until Jump Super Stars came.

Mario Kart DS is a fantastic game. Take the gameplay style of the N64 version, mix it with the graphics of the new version, add a whole bunch of courses from all the games in the series, then add an online multiplayer mode. The game is easily the best of the Mario Kart series, and easily one of the best handheld games ever. The game in single player is good enough to shine, and the ONLINE multiplayer mode is just genius. Play against anyone in the world who also has the game, at any time, with very little lag!

Jump Super Stars arrived quite a bit later than I had expected it to. It seems that the USPS shipped it to my old address (the address I hadn’t lived in for about four months now), and left it there for a couple of days before picking it up and shipping it correctly. They did all this, even when the address on it was correct. Anyways, on to the game; the game at first is daunting not only because it is in Japanese, but because there is a bit of a learning curve. It is not a traditional fighting game experience like you would get out of Street Fighter or something, but is more like a mix of Super Smash Bros, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and a strategy game. The way it works is you have cards that you earn by completing missions. You can use these cards to set up a deck on the lower touch screen that allows you to switch between characters, call in support characters to do a little damage, and to use powerups.

The game itself is based of a series of popular anime titles in Japan. Probably the most notable are Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Bleech, and One Piece. The other series I really have no idea about.

Money + Me = Disaster.

soatari — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 09:15:18 +0000

Let’s hope I can change that fact. One of my New Years resolutions was to start putting aside money for a new car sometime next year. Long story short, I bought a car last year and it was a crappy car. Now I am saving for a new car, all the while hoping that my current car lasts until I can afford to buy a new car.

Anyways, on to the main dish. I have been shopping around and one car in general has caught my eye. A Mazda 3 s hatchback in Strato Blue. It is a very attractive car (as you can see below), and is quite a sporty car.

It also has what Mazda calls a Sports A/T (if you choose the 5-speed Auto Trans) that features not only a powerful engine and transmission, but the ability to shift manually if you wanted to, a feature I have loved since my mom got her Volvo last year.

Well, here’s to the future, and hopefully, to me owning one of these cars.

Independence is harder than I thought

soatari — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 09:03:18 +0000

Recently (being about 4 months ago) my friend and I decided we needed to be a little more independent from our families (aka move out of parents house). We went apartment hunting, searching for something in the $1200 to $1300 per month range for a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment. Now anyone who lives in the Ventura County area, particularly Thousand Oaks, CA, knows that that is a very hard prospect. Well it took MONTHS of searching (and by searching, I mean procrastinating) but we found a pretty nice place for $1265 a month for a 860 sq ft apartment, with kithen and living room, complete with stove and dishwasher. What is great is that the only bill we pay is electricity, and any other bill that might come up from what we need (cable, internet, etc.).

Now that this is all coming to fruition, I am getting a little nervous. I don’t want to make this step, and find out that I can’t actually make this step, then fuck over myself AND my friend in the process. I know I make enough, but I have never been able to spend or save money wisely. Let us hope that I can make that transition into more responsibility.

Sprite art revolution

soatari — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 08:42:13 +0000

Recently my fascination with art has just floated on over into the sprite art category; mostly because I am a fighting game fanatic, but I must that it’s also because I find that it is a fun style of art to dabble in. I’ve managed to complete a few sprites of my own in the last couple of days. Nothing fancy, but I like it none-the-less.

This particular sprite happens to be my favorite so far. It has the most details out of all the sprites I have done, and I have spent the most time on it. It is a sprited version of a drawing by one of my friends of one of my other friends character he created. (It’s complicated, I know)

He’s a ninja inspired by the Naruto series, that specializes in magnetics.

This originally started as a basic black and white drawing, which was recuced in size and painstakingly traced with a one pixel size pencil in Photoshop (or whatever program you want to use). Afterwards I removed the original image and was left with a black line drawing of the character. I proceeded to color it in and then shade it. It was easier than I thought, but also took longer than I thought. After I colored it all in and added shading, I decided that I didn’t like having black lines all over him, so I replaced all those with slightly darker shades of the area it was touching. It looked cleaner, and here it is.

Hey look, I actually found something to blog about!

Newest thing to do

soatari — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 08:12:27 +0000

I am not really much of a blogger. I just started this up because, hey, everyone’s doing it!