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Finally done with the first course in my long-distance education degree program! Took me longer than expected due to being sick for about a week, and then a serious case of post-sickness ‘I’m a lazy-ass slacker’ syndrome. But I finished the last couple of lessons in the course tonight, and the books for the next course should be shipped and on their way tomorrow, so I can continue! So, how am I celebrating this minor milestone in my studies? Simple: with a gift to all of you. I give you, my dear readers, Weird Al’s new video, White and Nerdy. I just want you all to know that I identify with pretty much every single aspect of this video, and I am not ashamed to admit it.

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My first little video with the new camera, I did some basic editing on it at home with VirtualDub and Windows Movie Maker (yes, I know, I need to get better tools), and, well, here it is. Random moment in my life. And, hey, new beard! Woo!
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So, I just got my greedy little hands on one of these beasties:

A Genius DV610 digicam. Sweet little beastie, too: 6.6 MP camera (3.1 MP native, alas), Records video straight to MPEG4 at 30 fps, at 640×480 or 320×240 resolution, writes straight to SD card, rechargeable battery with about 3 and a half hours of life, about the size of a pack of cigarrettes, lightweight, works as a webcam too.

So, been playing with it a bit, and I like it. A lot. Haven’t actually recorded anything that I’d put up online, mainly ’cause I spent most of last week sick as a dog and my voice was all screwed up. I’m still a bit stuffed up, but feel loads better, so I’ve started playing with it a bit more. What does this mean? It means you can probably expect me to goof around with videos here on the site a bit. Yes, I know you’ve all lusted for the chance to join me during my morning commute, or grocery shopping, or whatever else. Exciting! Well, now, you just might. So, expect videos!

So, I saw this over on BoingBoing the other day, and I knew it was ripe for remixing.. so.. I decided it needed to be used to promote this here humble blog. So, I give you: the first ever TechgnosisWeb ad!

It’s a thing of beauty, isn’t it? So, go, spread the ad around, it’s your duty as readers!

So, I’m currently downloading the 3.6 GB DVD image for Windows Vista RC1, the latest preview of MS’s new operating system, due out sometime in the far flung future. Why? Well, I recently did a major upgrade on my PC. New motherboard, Athlon 64 3.2 Ghz processor, a Gig of DDR400 RAM, 250 GB HDD, 256MB Geforce 6200 video card… and I still know that these components are outdated. Why, the video card is AGP, not PCI-E!

But still, the computer should be able to run Vista well enough, I hope, and you know me, I like living on the bleeding edge. Dunno if I’m just going to install it over the version of Windows I have now (a hacked version of XP called 2FastXP), or, you know, go for some sort of dual-boot dealie. I’ll figure it out once the download is done and burned. So, in a few days, expect a short review of what I think of Microsoft’s latest and greatest. Woot.

Just a quick note: the music selection over on the radio.blog link over to the left there was in desperate need of a makeover.. so I decided it was time to give my favorite singer, Jonathan Coulton, some time in the spotlight. I cleared out all the old stuff, and put in all my favorite songs of his in there. So, if you’ve never heard such classics as ‘First of May’, ‘Skullcrusher Mountain’, or ‘Better’, now’s your chance! And if you like what you hear, go on over and give the man some cash!
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Here at TechgnosisWeb Blog Empire Headquarters, we love Weird Al. He is the patron saint of all that is ridiculous in the world, and we make burnt offerings in his name on a daily basis. Therefore, we are incredibly excited about his new CD, which drops on Sept. 26. And we are even more excited about the latest song he released, Don’t Download This Song. Haven’t heard it yet? Here’s your chance: accompanied by a video made by Bill Plympton, this is surely the greatest single achievement known to man.
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So, among the gifts I got myself for my birthday this past month, were a shiny, pretty, gorgeous, sexy little Nintendo DS Lite. The precious. And, let’s avoid any PSP/DS debates here, okay? My choices were between barely affording a PSP, with no games (plus, no real games that interest me), no extra memory card, no nothing, or buying a DS, plus 3 games (Animal Crossing: Wild World, New Super Mario Brothers, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney), plus screen protectors, extra accesories, and lots of neat other things. Not to mention that if I want to watch movies on the go, or listen to music, I already have Glitch and the iPod.

So, anyway, one of the games I have for the DS is Animal Crossing: Wild World. If you own it already, then you know that you can visit other folks’ towns using the DS’ built-in WiFi. So, this is my open invite to my blog readers: come, visit L33tTown! If you’ve got a DS, the game, and access to a WiFi connection, just leave me a note in the comments below on a good time for me to leave my gates open, and you can drop right in. I’ve got all the fruits already (thanks, Penguin and Absu!), so if you don’t have them all yet, now’s your chance. Here’s the info:

Name: Katsu
Town Name: L33tTown
Friend Code: 4982-9443-3335
Fruits: All of them! Woot!

Hope to see at least a couple of you in there.
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While the Great Migration continues, I figured I’d take the opportunity and blog a little bit. Haven’t really been doing enough of that lately, and, you know, it’s not like nothing’s happening in my life. So, here goes. Got a few things to talk about, including a nice upgrade to the PimpRig, new toys, and other assorted goodies, but the main big event right now is that I am officialy, for reals, now, back in school. Sort of.

After a long wait (made longer by the fact that my school got my address wrong the first time and shipped my books to the wrong place), I am officially taking my first course as part of my Associate Degree in Paralegal Studies in Ashworth College, hopefully the first step towards my future career as a lawyer. The books arrived on Saturday, and I spent some time looking them over, checking out the Student Handbook, and familiarizing myself with the entire ‘distance study’ procedure. Apparently, the way this college works is that you take one course at a time. So, they ship you the books and Learning Guide for that first course, and you take your chapter tests and then your end of course test online. As soon as you take (and, presumably, pass) your end of course test, your next course is shipped out. The books, of course, are yours to keep.

Considering how low the prices for these courses are (~$900-something per semester), I was honestly afraid that I would just be shipped a handful of photocopies rather than real books, but I was pleasantly surprised to see real, honest-to-goodness college-level textbooks in the box I received on Saturday. Color pages, and everything! Wonders never cease. So, once I felt comfortable with everything, I cracked open the books yesterday, and got to studying.

I gotta say, this works for me. I breezed through my first lesson (Chapter 1 in Introduction to Business, which every student has to take, alas), got online, entered with my student ID and password, and took the chapter test online. Aced it, of course. Overall, not too bad. The material, while not exactly gripping, is still high-quality, and the Learning Guide provides both an introduction to the material about to be presented, and a series of questions that ensure that you’ve properly learned the material presented. If you read the material well, and take the time to do the questions, the end of lesson test is a piece of cake (made even easier by the fact that it’s all open-book). I continued studying today, but Lesson 2 is 2 chapters long, so it’s taking me a bit longer. Worked through the first chapter today, and I hope to work through the second one tomorrow, or very soon. If I keep up this pace, I may be done with this entire course by this time next week, and awaiting my next course eagerly.

I have up to 4 years to complete my degree.. but if I play my cards right, I might just make it in 6 months, which is the minimum amount of time from the date of enrollment before they will grant a degree after completing all the courses. Who knows, I just might make it. The sooner I finish this step, the sooner the rest of my life arrives.
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Allright, folks, after spending way too long putting up with Fuitadnet, who were great once upon a time and just kept going downhill more and more, and upping their prices, to boot, I’ve finally switched over to a better host. In this case, DreamHost.com. For less than what I’m paying here, I can host this domain, and the rest of the TechGnosisWeb Blog Empire, and have 4 times as much storage space and 10 times as much bandwith.. so, we’re moving. This means we’ll likely be down for a couple of days while the domains all transfer, so please be patient! Once we’re back, all those service outages and other problems we’ve had should be a thing of the past. Oh, and it will also mark what I hope to be the triumphant return of HotNakedElfChicks.com!

UPDATE: We’re back up! Well, that took only a couple of hours instead of the couple of days I thought it would! I restored the database, and it looks like we’re up and running just fine, and, maybe it’s just me, but we seem to be running faster than ever! Cheers to the DreamHost folks for the excellent service so far!
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