Seems like a bunch of projects and other things in my life are hitting critical points. Time to rant away…

• A+ and Network+ Certification programs coming to an end in a little more than a week. I get to take tests afterwards. >_>
• The BL Game Project (semi-renamed, unofficially, to Project Nekohime) is hitting a point where things the battle code might be put into production. Hopefully, I can get Raf, Noodle, and JSeabolt to join in, and CB if he’s still around. >_>
• Planning on joining a role-playing game. Though I really don’t have too much time to be doing stuff like this. >_>
• The Tsukihime Translation Project has been in normal playtesting phase, which takes a lot of time to go through, and the deadline is fast approaching. >_>
• Classes start up in the beginning of September. I need to get my Japanese up to speed again. >_>
• I made a slight promise to have Project Neco-Arc would be up within a month. Well, that month has now transformed into a little more than a week. >_>
• Project W has been trying to be restarted for a while. Sort of waiting on me. >_>

I have waaaaay too many projects already… why the hell did I take up even more? Recent additions include…

• Project World Egg. Something big.
• Project Matou. Something daring.
• Project Neco-Arc. Something frivolous.
• Project Akasha. Something absolute.

I’m currently taking classes for my A+ certification, and one of the characters in this class is a man who reminds me a lot of the guy in those stupid ditech.com commercials. “Lost another one to Ditech!!!”

Normally, I wouldn’t care so much, since people here are learning to use computers (Holy crap, is A+ cert supposed to be this easy?!), and they come from all different backgrounds and with little or no familiarity with computers. But, seeing as this is a class with an instructor (who happens to be more than qualified to teach), I feel there is a difference between asking questions to clarify a subject and asking questions to dispute a concept you know very little about.

The instructor talks about the Recycle Bin, and how it’s a temporary holdover whenever you “delete” something. I respectfully pay attention even though 99% of what’s being taught is stuff I already know. Anyways, this guy, who I shall call Mr. Ditech, suddenly says, “But isn’t it not really true that it’s not deleted? Isn’t it true that it’s still there?” He then goes on about the FBI coming to your house when you’re away, taking away your hard drive, and extracting all the data that you thought was safely deleted, hoping to find something illegal so they can haul you off to jail.

Now, the instructor knows this type of person, so after giving him a few terse answers to his barrage of “isn’t it” questions, he quickly ends it by saying, “You know what? You’re absolutely right. There it is. Absolutely right.” Mr. Ditech is at a loss of words to say immediately, so the instructor uses that to his advantage and pushes forth with the lesson.

Hmm… I understand what he was getting to, and Mr. Ditech is right, but 1.) it’s not at all in the scope of the class, 2.) if the FBI is after you, you’re pretty much screwed no matter what, 3.) he’s emphasizing less about the computer concept and more about his bone to pick with “the government.”

Other things he’s tried to make arguments about.

• The move away from floppy drives in favor of disc burners and flash memory, saying that it’s all the computer makers forcing people to stop using floppy disks.
• Microsoft and Bill Gates in general, saying that Microsoft has a monopoly on 100% of all computers in the world, which isn’t true. (Windows is on roughly 95% of all home user’s computers, but only 50% in commercial environments, with fierce competition from UNIX.)
• The fan of a power supply sucking air into the computer, which he thought wasn’t efficient even though he knows nothing about physics.
• The use of fiber optics and burying lines in the ground.
• The computer industry’s change from analog to digital, particularly the “copier industry,” as glamorous as a “copier technician” sounds like.
• The need to learn a new operating system every few years, even though the Windows interface is almost EXACTLY the same from version to version.
• The archaic nature of the Command Console and DOS commands, even though he was told it’s archaic and confusing.
• The “confusing nature” of doing basic tasks in Windows, like opening a folder. (Is double-click that hard?)
• The “confusing nature” of complex, multilayered problems, which are inherently supposed to be confusing. (Why else would they be complex, multilayered problems?)

What’s worse than a know-it-all braggart that doesn’t shut up? A know-nothing braggart that doesn’t shut up.

It’s been a few days now since one of my online friends has gone away for an extended period of time. He doesn’t know exactly when he’d be able to get online again, though he estimated maybe October at the earliest.

When I first came to the Beast’s Lair forums, sssssz stood out as one of the “old-timers” with a bit of a curious streak. He was known as #17, short for “Security Bulletin #17″, short for “The Emergency Security Bulletin Number Seventeen Concerning User Safety.” Yeah… sssssz was that type of person who’d come up with a nonsensical name like that. But, then again, I respected all of the old-timers in their own right, anyway.

sssssz was one of the first people to greet me when I first visited the #beastslair IRC channel. In the channel’s infant stages, there were very few people to talk to, so I ended up talking to him quite a bit. Somehow, I got recruited into helping him with his Lexicon idea for the BL boards. (That somehow also spawned my own interest in using the PBWiki system for my semi-defunct Beast’s Index.) I also offered him any help I could whenever he ran into some weird computer problem, since I’m evidentally pretty decent at desktop support.

But, I found that I was helping him less as a person helping an “old-timer” and more as a friend rather quickly. He was very easy to talk to, quite sociable, eccentric enough to hold interest, serious enough to be regarded as trustworthy, and intellectual enough to be regarded with some respect. He knew what his capabilities and limits were, but also had wild ideas and dreams about stuff he could create or things he could do. So, despite all the chaos, randomness, and general craziness he tried to exude, he was really a good, middle-of-the-road person you could depend on.

Of course, it could just be me. But that is, and still is, my opinion of him.

So, when he privately messages me one day about his sudden leave, I was somewhat crushed by the news. I did know that he would eventually have to leave for some time, but I didn’t expect it so soon, and apparently neither did he. And no, I’m not gay for him or anything.

My first ever PhotoShop of anything was a birthday picture of Sacchin. I suck so bad that the picture took me at least an hour to insert those words, since most of the time was trying to figure out how the heck the program worked. I was much surprised, pleased, and even a little embarrased when he called attention to the pic on BL. I thought it was only fitting that I attempt something again for his departure. That’s where I came up with this:

Yeah, I know I suck. This took me like… 6 hours or so. Considering that I have all these pictures on-hand, and had gained a buttload of beginner’s experience when I edited a doujin once, I feel that it took me way too floogin’ long to do. Worse, I screwed up and didn’t save different PSD versions and irreversibly clumped most of my layers together. I’m not a great artist like the guy over at From the Wind, who can actually draw something. ::sighs:: I wish I could have done better, but there’s nothing I could do about it at the time.

To cap it all off, I stay up all night to send him one final farewell, but I decide to be productive and do some beta work. The dumb mIRC channel window didn’t scroll down when new messages were coming, and I completely missed his sendoff.

I hate my rotten luck.

So, here’s to sssssz, the Master of Entropy and Chaos. May he have a safe trip and do well in his endeavors.