Just Another Blog

I haven’t written a blog post in a while. I see this blog in my favorites every day, and I consider writing in it, but I never have much to say. I guess I just don’t feel like writing as much as I did when I started this blog.

I’m not saying that I’m ending the blog or anything (not that you care), I’m just providing a reason why I don’t update very often.

Anywho, I’ve been a bit busy since last Sunday with building and getting this new computer up and running. I almost have everything on it that I want (aside from all my games). It’s running on a Intel Duo Quad Core clocked at 2.4 GHz. 2 GB of RAM, a GeForce 8600 GT, and well, other standard computer parts like a motherboard, PSU, disc and floppy drive. One thing I do like is the 500 GB HDD. Now I finally have room for everything. I have about 100 GB of files that I transfered over from my old computer, which I can finally expand upon.

I had the worst time building this PC. The only parts we kept from the old one was the floppy drive and the case, everything else was replaced. When I finally got all the parts, put the Motherboard and CPU in, I realized I needed a bigger power supply for my GeForce 8600, so I sent my dad out to get a new one, which he did. I finished building it. A couple flaws with it is that it’s missing some of the posts that you screw the motherboard on with. Not a big deal, but I’d personally like my motherboard firmly attached to the case, which it kind of is right now, but it could be better. Funny thing is, after I got all the parts installed my dad found all the screws and stuff we were missing, but we didn’t bother taking the computer apart to put them in.

When I did get it running, I did all the windows updates and stuff, but it turns out I accidentally installed an unstable driver which caused my computer to blue screen before it could finish booting. When I tried to replace this driver the computer blue screened again, screwing up my download, and so now it was missing a driver, and wouldn’t boot at all. All of that took up a couple days of attempting to fix the computer. I had to reformat and install windows again. God PC’s can be frustrating sometimes.

I finally have it working now, and it runs like a beauty. Team Fortress 2 looks fantastic and it runs so smoothly. I’m almost done putting all my files on (just finishing off my 17 GB of music now), so I guess I’m off to go fix my iTunes library.

I heard on the radio this morning that the Canadian government, along with the music industry, are working together to make a new law of some sort. The basic idea behind it is to get people to pay for downloading music, because the music industry claims they are losing huge amounts of money due to copyright infringement. I’m not going to lie, I’ve downloaded my fair share of music off the internet. Most of the time it’s either because I couldn’t find it in a store and didn’t want to bother purchasing it off the internet, I am too busy to go out to buy the CD, or there is only 1 or 2 good songs on the CD. I think this is fair. I buy a lot of music because I support growing artists as well as the music industry, but this new law is kind of, well, weird. Here’s how it goes; when you sign up for internet, there will be an additional charge applied to it of approximately $5 CAD every month. Then, from what I understand, it legitimizes downloading music off the internet. But I have a few beefs about this idea:

1. Not everybody downloads music off the internet, there are still huge amounts of people who have the internet that still buy all their CD’s legally. Why are we charging these people $5 per month if they aren’t part of the problem. I think that these people are the main reason why this idea won’t work. They will object that they are law-abiding citizens and they shouldn’t have to pay if they aren’t part of the problem. I fully agree with these people, they shouldn’t have to pay for something that they don’t do.
2. The music industry is treating us like we’re criminals, and admittedly, many of us are, but that does NOT give them the right to believe we are all downloading $5 worth of music every month and then charging us for a crime we many not have commit.
3. $5 does not cover the music industry’s “losses”. If the music industry was so concerned about every penny they lost, then they would be cracking down on individuals who upload the music or more avid downloader’s of it. This is just a ridiculous scheme to make more money off people and boost their profits. If they want to charge us for every song we own, then come up with a better way then charging $5, because that definitely doesn’t cover their “losses.”

Now you know why this will never happen, but I do offer some alternatives, which I wouldn’t mind doing if the music industry wants their money so bad.

1. Set up a package for downloaders with the IP. If I had a contract with my internet provider where I paid them $20 a month and I can download as much music as I want, then I’d definitely go for that (especially because my parents foot the bill). I know there are different groups that distribute music for a monthly fee, but there needs to be a universal one (not iTunes, god no) that I can sign up to very easily that has almost all publicly distributed music.
2. Get something to count my downloads, and then charge me at the end of the month. I could roll with that if I paid for my music fees along side my internet bill. Again, there’s iTunes, but I’d rather not use it.

Personally, I like having a little bit of free music, and those alternatives are just different ideas that don’t punish those who don’t download music.

I had something I wanted to blog about this morning, but I totally forgot what I wanted to say, so I guess I’ll ramble for a bit.

On Friday I decided I was tired of TF2 crashing because it ran out of RAM, so I went to a computer store near my house and bought 1 GB of “ValueRAM” for about $25 Canadian. Good deal eh? I thought so too. So I take it home, drop it in my computer, and gamed on TF2 for a while. It was good times. The next morning I try to turn on my computer, and it goes “BEEP, BEEP, BEEP MOTHER FUCKER!” So, by this point I’m freaking out because this isn’t even my computer, it’s my mom’s computer, and if I fuck it up, she’d flip shit at me. So, I go downstairs and try to look up beep codes for my motherboard, and find nothing (I eventually found them, but by that point it was useless). So, I go back upstairs, turn it on, and it works. Weird huh? I go on for a while, write a forum post on Techspot telling them about my troubles. I got a couple replies, and eventually I got it all worked out… I think. I really hope so actually, because if my mom boots up her computer and it beeps at her, she will freak out at me. Turns out all it was that I should have replaced the slot 1 RAM with my new RAM, because it’s bigger, also the RAM needed to be re-seated.

So, exciting story huh? Don’t you wish I remembered what I wanted to talk about earlier?

It appears as if Mythos has helped me greatly in my internal conflict of why nobody wants to read my blog, whether he knows it or not. Mythos told me in steam chat yesterday that if I want to have a more popular blog, I should chose a topic, like what he did for his blog. Personally, I don’t really want a topic for my blog, this is more or less just an outlet for me to talk about anything I feel like. If I had something interesting to write about, it’d come up, but I don’t think that I’ll specifically write a blog about anything until I have some big project or something like that.  Mythos writes about Gmod as well as Lost, which gets him popularity, but I’m not interesting in writing for popularity (not saying Mythos is, I’m referring to other blogs that do), I just want to write for the sake of writing.

I’d just like to let anyone who reads this know, I hate this theme as well as the title of my blog, and when I find a better them and come up with a better title, it’ll change.

It appears as if my blog is being read by nobody. Not a problem, this is mostly just an outlet for my thoughts. I assume that nobody is reading because I only have two posts, so I shouldn’t be too disappointed (which I’m not). I kind of expected GrowingDelerium, Nemi or Mythos to say something. I guess I’ve been having second thoughts about a blog, because when I’m awake (not tired) it seems kind of like a ridiculous idea, and I think that I’ll never write in it, but well, here I am, writing again. I guess when I’m more awake my thought process works better, and when I’m tired my artistic side starts to kick in, and I have thoughts about what would make great blog posts, I usually come up with my ideas in the shower in the morning, just when I’m waking up, or right before I fall asleep, and neither time is a good time to get on the computer.

Now I’m just ranting, now I see why I have no comments on this blog.

So, here’s something a little more deep. I’m seeing this girl right now, but I’m not really digging it as much as I should be. In theory she’s a great girl, smart, good looking, all of that, but when I’m around her, I find her a little, almost, annoying. Not to say I don’t want to be with her, I love being in a relationship, but I don’t think she’s right for me. The problem? I think she’s thinking this is a lot more then I think it is, and I think I just screwed myself by spending $45 on chocolate and presents for valentines day for her. I guess once I get to know somebody, I pick out all their flaws and use it to destroy my relationship. My last girlfriend for example, even just about a month in, I was questioning the relationship, wondering if these little things would one day infuriate me. Eventually, 6 months later, I did dump her, for those small reasons. So now I’m thinking, should I just dump my current “girlfriend” or just deal with it, enjoy this relationship until it ends. Another problem here. I’m a grade above her, and I’ll be going off to university in August, so I don’t expect this to last, and I don’t expect anything out of this. She isn’t the kind of girl to put out, so really, what do I get out of this? A few months of relationship, hugging, watching movies, possibly kissing (god damn she’s holding out a long time), and then get nothing out of it? Well, it seems like a shitty deal to me, so now I’m left wondering, get it over with now, move onto something that could actually mean something with somebody I’d enjoy more (that’ll take a couple months, which I don’t really want to spend), or just deal with the small details and be happy for myself.

Well, my mom decided that she wants her computer back, so I may as well let her have it before she flips shit at me. God, I can’t wait until I get a new laptop. March baby, not much longer.

Here’s a little theme for the Black Mesa (Half Life 2 mod), that I made. I was hoping it’d catch me a little popularity. Turns out it didn’t, I think it’s cool anywho.

Intro

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days making this, so I hope you appreciate it. It’s made for the 5G/5.5G ipod, meaning, an ipod video (not the newer classic model). If you don’t have an ipod video, I’m afraid this isn’t for you. If you know anything about the iPod modding community, you’ll understand when I say that this is based off the Hybrid 3 Resource Hack made by TheIslander so, I’d like to thank him for this. The majority of the pictures I either used directly from the Hybrid 3 hack, the rest I either took from the original iPod firmware, and the rest I either created myself or edited from the media section of the Black Mesa website. I have nothing else to say, so here is the iPod theme.

Images
Main Menu
Other Menus

Now Playing

Please note that the album art, if you have it, covers the Black Mesa logo

Download
Main Download - 5G (White Menus) (25 mb)
Main Download - 5/5.5G (Black Menus) (25 mb) (Updated Feb 3, 200
(Recommended for anyone who doesn’t have any custom themes)

Theme Only (5G Only) (500 kb)
(Recommended for anyone who has the “Hybrid 3 by Theislander white menus” hack already)

Installation
If you have a custom theme, skip to step 5

1. Extract all the files to a location that you won’t lose them.
2. Plug in your iPod to your computer, update it if you wish, but when you want to add the theme, ensure iTunes is closed.
3. Press Ctrl + Alt + Del, and scroll down until you find iPodService.exe, under the username “SYSTEM”. End that process, don’t worry, doing so won’t cause any damage, nothing can be accessing the iPod, and if this program is left open the theme cannot be installed.
4. Navigate to the folder “Wizard”, which you should have extracted from the folder.
5. Open iPod wizard, you may wish to back up your current firmware, that way you can restore it if you have a problem with any of your themes. You can backup by clicking on the updater tab and clicking “Extract firmware binary from your ipod” near the bottom. Let it do it’s work, and then continue.
6. At the top of the screen there is a selector list, click on it and select “Firmware file”, then click on “Open Firmware” button, and navigate to the file named “Black Mesa Sauce - White Base”. Open it. (If you have the Hybrid 3 firmware already, use that instead.)
7. In the “firmware editor” tab, select “pictures” and then “Load all” on the right side.
8. In the new window, navigate to the folder “BMS - White”, and open it. Let the pictures load.
9. Now you’re ready to put it on the iPod, click on “Write to iPod”. Follow the instructions provided, and it’ll be on your iPod in no time. Remember, you’ll have to eject your iPod twice (at least I have to), before you can remove it from the system.
10. Enjoy!

NOTE: iTunes will probably ask you to update your iPod firmware. Unless you want to remove the theme, then you should decline the installation. Don’t worry about being behind on updates, they don’t do anything significant anyways.

UninstallationThere are a few ways to restore your iPod back to normal, either you can update it to version 1.2.3 through iTunes. You can also do an iPod restore through iTunes, but that will erase your iPod, so I don’t reccomend it. You can also do it through iPod wizard, described below:

1. Follow step 5 and 6 from the installation instructions, except of loading the Black Mesa firmware, load the iPod firmware you should have backed up previously.
2. Follow step 9 in the installation instructions. It will put the original firmware back onto your iPod, and you can now update your iPod if you wish to do so.

If you have any modifications you’d like to make, feel free to do so, I’d love to see any improvements that can be made. There are a few bugs in this that I cannot fix, such as Audio Podcast alignment in the Now Playing window. When the hacked firmware is updated, I’ll update this.Please note that this is perfectly safe and will not cause damage to your iPod, but it will void your warranty if it is still valid (although, if you put your normal firmware back onto it before sending it in, Apple can’t tell the difference).

Update Feb 9, 2008: A new download has been added, and it should work for any 5.5G iPods now. I’ve tested this, but there might be some bugs still with the pictures, point them out to me if you find any. The difference between this one and the old one are that this them has black menu background as opposed to a white one, which causes a small amount of lag in the menu transitions.

So, here it is. My blog.

I’ve had a couple of blogs, but no real homepage or anything, just some freewebs crap and a nexopia blog that never got updated. I’m hoping this one will make it a bit further then either of those. I have to say I’ve never been much of a person to let my feelings out and that kind of thing, but I do have the occasional moment where I wish I had a journal or something to write on. I don’t particularly know why I’m writing this to be honest, I’m just a regular 17 year old, and I assume that most of my updates will have two views, one by me, and another by a friend who heard the blog post right before I posted it. I’m going to talk a little about myself here for this first post, that way this one doesn’t go unread.

If you’ve found this, you’ve probably followed a link from one of my signatures on a forum or something, so you probably already know me as piklemeup, and if you looked at my location, it’s most likely “Canada”. That’s probably all you know about me though. If you Google my username, you’ll find me on the Black Mesa, iPod Wizard, Red vs Blue, Lit Fuse Films, Explosm, Edgeworks Entertainment. I’m most active on PHW Online, but it doesn’t show up under Google, probably since Michael fucked it up… but don’t ask about that, you had to be there. Anyone can read this, so I won’t divulge any more details about myself. I’m pretty paranoid about those kinds of things, well, ever since Nemi (PHW) posted my cell phone in a chat room.

So, here I am. I have a few little projects on the go right now, but I think I’ve written enough for one blog post. So, maybe I’ll update this with a bit more stuff later on so you can see what kind of person I am.