So you thought I was gone…

Hey guys,
Steve here.

Let me compare myself to the Texas weather for a moment. Readers of my blog who don’t actually live here may not understand this, but there’s a pretty good chance you will.

Okay so it’s an El Nino winter here. That tends to mean higher precipitation amounts and cooler than normal temperatures. That’s what we were all expecting anyway. Some took it to mean lots of snow and arctic weather, others thought it would be cool and rainy. But due to the absense of cloud cover, it has been, hot for lack of a better word. And for a reason that I’m not quite sure of, it has hardly precipitated, in any form.

I might be somewhat of a weather geek/enthusiast, but that’s not why I shared that weird bit of Texan climatology. But I’ve noticed something as well. I’ve kept saying, [in my once-a-month blog postings], that I would get back to it, I’d be blogging “next week” or “more routinely”. I haven’t been doing this for too many years but even I know that for whatever reason, I tend to post more at the beginning of the year. On the contrary, I’m posting every 40 days give or take, and sticking to only one subject when I do. Sounds a bit like the dry and hot “El Nino” winter has come to reign over this blog, doesn’t it?

Moving on from that, 2016 has been a success so far, for me at least. Due to complications I may or may not have posted about here, I had to drop my BIM2 class. In its place, I switched to a Web Technology class, where you basically learn to program on the web, at least that’s what I can gather from my experience so far. Despite it being a full year class, (you have to be in there all school year to get credit for taking it), I was somehow able to switch into it for the second semester, and my guess is that I’ll have to finish the class in the first semester of next year.

Despite this not technically being an ideal change, I feel I’ve bennefitted much more from it than the class from which I was pulled. In just 5 weeks of being in that class, I’ve learned HTML, (though I already knew about 75% of it it seems), CSS, though that nearly bored me to tears due to its visually orientedness, PHP, and now I’m working on Java Script, which I find to be the most interesting of them all, due to it’s rather simplistic nature and from what I’ve heard it can do quite a bit.

Aside from school, I’m doing alright. On the coding side, because it’s been so long since my last post, I cannot remember everything, but I did work on S Quad Racing, releasing a semi-major update to my testers on Monday. One amusing bit, however, was the set of bugs that appeared in my crashing code. Firstly, due to a glitch with collision detection, once I crashed into my opponent, the sound played like 50 times. Secondly, when I fixed that and went to go another lap, I apparently spawned at the same spot as an opponent some how, so crashed and burned before driving even commenced.

And to make things even funnier, when crashing finally did work, instead of coming to a stop at the end of the race, for some reason the opponent kept going. I guess I rendered his breaks useless when I smashed into him? No seriously that’s actually never supposed to happen.

I still haven’t fixed the 3rd bug I mentioned, and here’s why. It’s been quite a long time since I played the breakout game I created, and Danny suggested I play it again on Monday night. I did so. And I regretted doing so. The ball movement was all kinds of messed up, so I realized after 3 months of playing other breakout games. So since last Monday, I’ve basically been rewriting the whole entire game. Firstly, it now has missions, and creating new ones is not in the least bit difficult. Secondly, it has paddles and balls which have multiple properties, giving me the opportunity to implement variety when it comes to different balls and paddles sold in the shop. And thirdly, it has forms of currency. Tradepoints, which can be obtained by doing almost anything, and Useless Balls (UB), which can be obtained by completing special bonuses, or with 1000 tradepoints from the shop. And, finally, the ball movement system is fixed. All the above mentioned have already been implemented into the game, and we’re going on 7 days now.

Yes, I know. I’ve gone on ramblings about games before and none have been released thus far. I also know that I have 2 other games in the works. But you’d be surprised how many game projects you can take on when you have no deadlines. Firstly you don’t have to stress about time, and secondly you can stay motivated to work on all three of them because you aren’t working for anyone. (S Quad Racing’s rewrite was a special case, that was mainly due to the entire code base being mangled).

That wraps up tonight’s post. I can’t tell you what to look forward to on next week’s post because I simply don’t know.

Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

updates and some devastating news

Hey guys,
Steve here.

For the first time in… well I don’t know how long, I have some bad news. This isn’t just bad news that will affect me; it will affect a lot of you guys, and bring some great disappointment.
For some reason, my computer has broken. It’s not the average virus or blue screen; nope, my hard drive stopped spinning. It turns on, makes some weird noises, and then just stops all together. I’m thinking that the hard drive is stuck… and if that’s the case, and my dad has the time, knowledge, tools, and is willing to, he might be able to open up the computer and adjust the drive if that’s the issue. If not, I will have to use the netbook, another smaller and slower computer but one that I can use. Fortunately, that problem will be easy to fix for me.
You might not think this affects you, but it does. For one, I will definitely not be doing the podcast episode on Saturday. I am using my school computer, and this does not have the game I was going to do, and nor does it have administrative privileges for my account. In addition, I can’t download dropbox, so the file would not be uploaded. Fortunately, due to dropbox uploading everything you put in the folder, if my computer’s hard drive were to be beyond repair, the site files would still be safe and uploaded.
Also, due to my computer being broken, you and I can forget stranded for now anyway. It will definitely not be released in seven days, unless a miracle just so happened to occur. If my hard drive can’t be restored, the release of stranded will be pushed back way further because I’ll have to restart.
As for me, I cannot play swamp any longer… so that is also disappointing.

On a better note, today was the last full day of school before winter break. I’m not sure why, and definitely not complaining, but we have two early release days (tomorrow and Friday). In addition, I won’t have to go to all my classes each day either. Tomorrow I have to go to choir, math, social studies, and English, while on Friday I go to Spanish, orchestra, science, and then back to English. I don’t think we’ll be doing much work, so I guess I’d better charge up my book reader and download some nice interesting thrillers.
Even though the schedules are flipped around tomorrow and Friday, I really don’t care. I just want those two days of school to be done and out of the way–because once school is over with, the wait until Christmas will be a lot less agonizing.
On other news, my parents have started Christmas shopping. It’s not bad now… but once there are gifts under the tree that I bump into, it will be very tempting, I’m sure of it. On the bright side, that will only last a few days.
As a final note, I hope you all liked my Monday’s Musings post. I know that quite a few of you liked the part about the “messed up fur advisories.” That was something I added just to put some humor in that post.

Thanks for reading,
Type you later,
Steve.
P.S.
I’m glad I got the broken computer news out on this blog post, because even though it was important, it also helped with some of the frustration and anger that I had because the computer broke. And now don’t you see why I love writing so much?

Latest news concerning Steven D: Winter storm causes extreme excitement, a strange thing or 2 about school, and out with the sister… temporarily anyway

Hey guys,
Steve here.

As I’m sure you know by reading my blog post about a week and a half ago, the winter storm that was expected to hit our area turned out to be a complete rip-off. The most recent one, which is supposed to begin shortly, has actually turned out to be worse than I last said in my Tuesday entry. Now, my weather radio (see the weather radio forecasts page for Update 2 which will be posted around 10:00 this evening), has told people “do not travel unless it is an emergency.” Not only that, but 1/2 inches of sleet, and 1/2 inches of ice accumulation are expected over night. Also, if it doesn’t sound obvious to you by now, there is also a winter storm warning in affect. Although the warning only extends through 6:00 tomorrow evening, temperatures will remain below freezing through mid day Sunday, and another round of wintery precipitation is expected Saturday through Sunday morning.
Besides weather, my sister has gone to Austin for the weekend. She is going down for an O&M (orientation & mobility) thing with our O&M teacher (I’ve been wrapped up in my life to know anything more about the trip). All this means for me, however, is that Libby will be gone for 3 days; piece and quiet at last :))).

In the title of this post, I recall saying something about a “strange thing or 2 about school.” What I meant by this was my progress report. As of right now, my grade in math exceeds that of orchestra. The math grade, 100, strangely tops the orchestra grade of 89. Although both grades are good, I still can’t believe that I’m making a better grade in one of the hardest core subjects than I am in some easy (just because it’s easy, doesn’t mean it’s not fun) alective class like orchestra.
While I’m still on the subject of school, I am proud to say that I’ve started my National History Day Project. I’m doing it over the underground railroad (the theme is rights and responsibilities). I will definately finish it by the due date (December 13, I think), and after that is out of the way I will do Stranded.

In the podcasting part of my life, I only have one more make-up episode to complete–Episode 15. Of course, I have episode 17 to do on Saturday, but that is a scheduled episode, and not one I have to make up. Also, as episode 14 was recorded, expect me to use my sony ICD-PX720 recorder to record most of the podcast, except of course the game of the day section.
By the way, while still on the topic of the podcast, I have all but one of the remaining episodes of 2013 completely planned out. Do not, however, think I’m going to spoil anything.

On another note, I recorded and submitted that review for main menu (the radio show that reviews products for blind people). And although this review was submitted Wednesday night, I still have yet to receive confirmation that the review is going to be included in this week’s edition of main menu.

Finally, I am still editing the website. The navigation menu is all kinds of messed up; links to certain pages such as blog test 2012 appearing twice in the menu. Fortunately for you however, I am working diligently to fix this issue. I hope you enjoy the new page names and site revisions! For more information about what I’m doing, see the site news page (I don’t know the exact url, so you’ll have to use my navigation menu (that page is in there).

Thank you for reading this post, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

P.s. I got my 100th follower! Thank you so much Nate $mith for being follower 100, and all you other wonder people for being follower 1 through 99!

update#2

Update id=#2
update issued at: 7:30 A.M cdt Sunday, December 23, 2012
update regarding the white Christmas event.

Here is my update number 2 on the white Christmas situation.

Does anybody want severe thunderstorms for Christmas?
Well, too bad–we are getting them :(.

Now, what kind of winter weather is that?

Well, after we get bombarded, there will be a rain that will start early in the morning. This rain will gradually change over to snow as the day wears on. As it looks now, the people here in north Texas will receive only 1 or less inches, while totals are likely to be greater the further north you travel. Got plans for traveling to the red river? Well, you are in for a wintery surprise! So, in that case, I will now wrap up this update. Just to sumarise this up, we are going to get huge thunderstorms, followed by snow and wintery weather. It is just like changing from spring to winter all in a matter of hours.

I will keep you posted, and tell you every time the forecast changes.

a chance of a little snow coming soon, don’t get your hopes up

There appears to be a chance of snow early on the morning of December 19th. Here is how it will play out:

December 16th, a rain is expected to move in. This rain will last for 3 days and 3 nights, before possibly mixing into snow on December 19th. DON’T GET YOUR HOPES UP!, because the forecast could change.
I will keep you informed every time I check the forecast. Let’s all cross our fingers and prey that it does snow!

intresting situation developing according to accuweather.com

Hello you guys, I just wanted to tell you about an intresting weather event that could occur on the date of December 11, 2012. As you might want to know, a cold front is expect to move on the day before (december 10), and precipitation is expected to fall on the 11th. The high for the 10th is 47, followed by a low of 28. The 11th has a high of 47 and the low is 28 again. This results in a chance of a possible wintery mix occuring on the 11th, with snow and rain. I will update you on this day as the next couple weeks roll by.

how my day went

Today, I got up and went to school like normal. When I got home, I listened to my book and lounged outside. Then, I came inside and went in my room and listened to my book whyle I wated for dinner. After a whyle, I went downstaires and ate dinner. After dinner, I took a 2-hour long bath and listened to my book. After that, I layed on my bed and snuggled my cat and listened to my book until I got on the computer. Then, I got on the blog. That is all I did today.