a pleasant week

Hey guys,
Steve here.
I know I know. I’m definitely not the creative sort when it comes to blog post titles… but to my defense, that’s really what most of them have been about–weeks of my life, right? Anyhow, it is true, I’ve had quite a pleasant week. First of all, I got away with yet another semi-stress free week of school, with one big exception–I found out that I made a 35 on my most recent math checkpoint, so as you can probably infer I wasn’t really happy about that. Thankfully, however, I went to tutoring and got the problem solved, and as progress reports are coming out very soon, I’m hoping that test grade won’t cause me to fail. Another not so good thing that happened is that I was feeling pretty bad for a few days last week, a cold or something, but I am, and have been, feeling better since Sunday.
Moving on to more pleasant things, I’m really enjoying reading about Ender Wiggin; it’s fascinating. It is the most Sci-Fi book series I’ve ever read. For one thing, the first and second books were set 3000 years apart, and Ender Wiggin, the main character, is still around. It is something to do with relativity or something; he travels by star ship to different worlds, and he’s able to travel at the speed of light, so I guess time passes differently for him. I’m not really sure how such a thing is possible, or how science could possibly support that theory, but it’s an interesting concept, all the more reason I’ve come to like these books so much. While 22 years can pass for us, it can only feel like a week or so for Ender while he’s traveling at the speed of light.
Aside from books and school and the like, I’ve done more gaming, though not very much of it. Since this week’s podcast episode is over Shades of Doom, I had to download and play it, and of course it’s another good one. This game is pretty old, but some one suggested it for me, so I went ahead and demonstrated it. Apparently, for those of you who are familiar with such things, Shades of Doom is the first Audio FPS, contrary to my thought that it was Audioquake, a game I really don’t know about.
As for letting you hear me play Minuet, the pretty easy first song I’ve ever learned on piano, I haven’t forgotten. that is to be on this week’s podcast.
OK. I’ll quit stalling and just admit it. I haven’t yet done the episode. Just as I was getting ready to do it last night, I had to do a chore, then take some medicine that would help me sleep better, since I’m still a bit congested, so I couldn’t really do the podcast. I know, that’s not really a valid excuse since I could’ve done it earlier, but still. That’s what prevented me from doing at the usual time I record, around 9 when the house is quieter and I’m less likely to have disruptions.
Anyway, to end this post, I found out about Windows 10, the new release Microsoft will be coming out with. I’ve never in my time of using computers thought that I’d hear Microsoft say that they would be making a new web browser, rather than the old internet explorer we’re all so accustomed to. IE will still be shipped with Windows, though. Also I heard they’ll be implementing some sort of holographic technology? Man, sometimes, I wish I could see. Anyways, the link to the article I read is:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/21/technology/windows-10/index.html
Well, I hope you enjoyed this post. Please be on the look out for the musically doomed podcast episode…
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

a good but slightly tiring week

Hey Guys,
Steve here.
For the most part, it’s been a good week, the exception to that being school, of course. Though it’s not been too stressful, I could gladly take another break. I was pretty tired last week, though I can’t really complain because that’s mostly my fault. Despite the three day weekend we had, I’ve been tired all day, and my head’s been hurrting a little.
With the exception of those minor obstacles, my last week went by fast, and was quite enjoyable. To start off, I’ve read some pretty awesome books. As I said I would in my last post, I read Cress, the 3rd book in the Lunor Chronicals by Marisa Meyer. Since it was so long, and I’m a bit of a slow reader, I just finished it yesterday, and have now began the Ender Wiggin series. For some reason, this is the 3rd consecutive science fiction book I’ve read, and they’ve all had the same theme–outer space. I’m not speciffically looking for this type of book to read, though the ones I’ve so happened to stumble upon have immediately got my attention. When I finish this one, I’ll check out the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, because Danny has been quoting it, and told me that I would love it. And from some of the quotes he’s shared with me, I think I will. I don’t think this one’s a book, but an audio drama and/or a movie. Either way, I’ll subject myself to that story, whatever form of media it’s in.
Moving on, my friend from church came over this weekend, which is precisely the reason why I was unable to record my podcast, for those of you who follow that.
On a sort of related note, I’ve been learning Bach’s Minuet in G Major, and for the most part have the song memorised. There are still a few parts I need to work out, but I think that I might be able to let you hear me play it in Sunday’s podcast.
As for weather, it’s not really been too harsh on us lately. Tuesday and Wednesday of last week were cold and rainy, but after the sun came out on Thursday, it improved. Today, in fact, it got up to 70, something it hasn’t done since… well I can’t remember. But tomorrow it will be 10 degrees cooler, and another 10 degrees cooler on Thursday with rain. So much for pleasant weather…
On the technical side of things, I haven’t done much in the way of programming, except a small text to speech application. This application has actually enspired me to create some audio productions with the all to famous microsoft Sam, that good old low quality text to speech voice that came with the long discontinued windows XP. Perhaps I’ll air a few of them in future podcast episodes.
Speaking of the podcast, I know it’s been 2 days since Sunday, when I was supposed to record, but I wasn’t about to podcast while I had a friend over. Though he went home late yesterday afternoon, I hadn’t yet downloaded the game I was going to demonstrate, so I had to download and familiarise myself with it. I’ll record the episode and have it up tonight, though.
That concludes tonight post. I’ll blog you later.
Thanks for reading,
Type you later,
Steve.

A great week

Hey guys,
Steve here.
So far, that is for the last 12 days, 2015 has been quite a good year. I’ve been pretty good about sticking to my goals for this year–consistent podcast schedule, a good blogging routine, piano practice ETC.
There have also been several other factors that made the last week and a half such a good time for me. Firstly, I received a report card last week, where I learned that my lowest grade (that includes 3rd six weeks, semester averages, and semester exams that I wasn’t exempt from) was a, 90. Not that I was really worried; I try to be responsible with my school work most of the time, but I still wasn’t expecting that.
Also, last week wasn’t very stressful. Contrary to what I previously thought, the first week back at school did not come as a harsh slap in the face; waking up bright and early once again wasn’t all that difficult, though I was pretty tired the first few days I had to do so. The work wasn’t too hard, though I suspect it’s because it was the first week of a new semester. And between practicing my piano, doing some here-and-there programming, talking to my friends, reading, and recording pod cast episodes, I haven’t had much time for boredom.
Speaking of reading, I’ve started a new book. Recently I’ve been reading later installments of book series, because either the service I use to get audiobooks doesn’t have the title I want to read in their listing, or I procrastinate too much to read it when it comes out. But anyways, after finishing the final installment to the heroes of Olympus series, I read Day 21, the sequel to the 100 by Kass Morgan. Now, I’m reading Cress, the third installment in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. As good as these books are, I kind of wish I’d read them sooner, because even now I’m still remembering details from previous books in the series.
Moving on, as you might have noticed, I never again mentioned the winter weather event that was possible for New Years Eve and New Years Day. For one, I forgot to mention that, and secondly it wasn’t worth talking about, because it all ended up being just rain. Even on New Years Eve, there was still a 70% chance of winter precipitation in the forecast, and a winter weather advisory had been issued. However, by midnight, the forecast had changed, and only a slight chance of freezing rain remained, and even that never came to pass, making the whole event just a couple days of cold rain. So as you can see, definitely nothing to get excited about.
On the technical side of things, I’ve done quite a bit in the way of coding and gaming over the past 10 days. To start off, Paladin of the sky (found at http://www.vgstorm.com), was the center of my gaming world for 3 days, before I finally reached the end of the demo. Whether or not I will buy the game is still under heavy consideration–as much as I like the game, and the story, there are some parts (namely the combat system and room sizes) that I don’t like. But I really, really like the story, so who knows; that actually might inspire me to purchase it.
Also, park boss has been another recent favorite of mine, though after playing that a lot for a week or so, I kind of lost interest in it. I haven’t even opened the game in a week now.
Speaking of games, Danny has released another installment to the death match series. it’s called Death Match: a new beginning. I’m not sure of all the features it has thus far, though I know that the last time I played it, you could fly ships, and explore planets. Danny told me of another feature he’d added, but I cannot remember what it was.
Also, if you haven’t played death match: project alpha yet, you definitely should. great story, awesome style of game play. Both of these games can be found at his website: http://realitygaming.usa.cc
or the audio games.net forum.
And Finally, I’ve been dabbling a bit in pure basic again, as was briefly mentioned earlier in this post. Though I haven’t produced anything useful, resourceful, or even enjoyable, I’ve been messing around with things such as text to speech support and the basics of game creation. Just today, in fact, I learned that for some reason, the Pure Text to Speech library does not like the idea of compiling Unicode executable files; every time I’d try to run an Unicode executable that used text to speech, I was greeted by an application crash and invalid memory access error. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry, because I don’t know what that error means either). Luckily, with the configuration of some compiler options, I was able to finally resolve the issue. This means I can actually move forward and begin to bring a game idea I have into reality. We’ll just have to see though.
Well, I guess that about wraps up tonight’s post. I hope you all enjoyed it. I’ll blog you all later.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

2015, A New and Better Year

Hey guys,
Steve here.
It’s 2015 already, something I find hard to believe. Though another year has come and gone, I don’t feel the necessity to write up a stats report, mainly due to the fact that writing such a report is quite tedious, and not really worth my time. However, one thing I will say, is that I only published 50 posts on this blog in 2014. That’s not only 65 less than the amount of posts published in 2013, but it also meant that 315 days of last year came and went without one single word from me.
With the new year, I plan to change that though. If I can help it, there will be no 46 day long gaps between posts, no more of those 3 and a half week late pod casts. Though I’ve always been a bit unreliable as far as podcast scheduling goes, it got way out of hand recently. Also, when reading through my posts from 2013 and early last year, I realized how much of a total slacker I’ve been recently. Posting once a month has had a profound affect on my connection with you guys, my readers, and it’s ended up resulting in my posts being vague summaries of a vast time period that, by the time I’d finally sit down to write, I’d forgotten nearly 75% of.
So starting now, I’ll once again focus on a 4 to 10 day blogging routine, such as the one I had in place around this time last year. I’m looking forward to this upcoming year, and the interesting things I’ll be able to blog about.
Anyways, that aside, I’ve had a great last week of Christmas vacation. I attended a couple of family functions, played games, stuffed my face full of candy, and shoved all thoughts of school out of my mind. In fact, the only learning I’ve done this week has been strictly piano related, and the only book I’ve read this week is the Blood of Olympus, the fifth book in the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan. As for my new year celebration, it wasn’t too exciting, but it wasn’t at all bad. I went to church for a while, but ended up watching the new years countdown on TV.
These two short weeks sure went by way too fast, and next week will come to me as a slap in the face, as there is no staying up until 1 in the morning and getting up around 10 during the school week. I’m Kind of ready to get back into the normal routine, but at the same time not looking forward to the work.
That about wraps up this post. I hope you all had a great new year.
thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
PS. I enjoyed doing the 26th episode of the pod cast on Sunday. In fact, I’m still addicted to the game I demonstrated therein. More details on that in a later post.