Yeahhhh…little creepy February 5, 2010
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Nostalgia January 22, 2010
Posted by Nick in : Games, Life , add a commentYes, I spent 17 bucks on a years old game guide.
….and I would do it again.
Todays’ magazines are alright, I mean I have a subscription to Runner’s World and I like it fine enough but, my old love for the 80s/90s Nintendo Power magazine…I’ll never feel that way about a magazine again. I’ll never have that simple joy of finding an issue of Nintendo Power in a bookstore, of sitting in a chair for hours reading and re-reading every page with a song in my heart, enjoying some awesome Zelda illustrations
I’ll never be able to recreate that feeling of chuckling over a Howard & Nestor comic stuck in a car going up to Ohio for winter holidays.
(Maniac Mansion is still AWESOME FYI)
There was something about those early issues I guess, people who read it back then will know what I am talking about. Part of me knows I am being nostalgic about the magazine and that there were some issues that weren’t as awesome as others but, still…for it’s day the old Nintendo Power was really something to be enjoyed. Sure they gave guides and tips to games but there was a feeling of communication between gamers and game developers going on in those early issues that I am not sure is possible to recreate in todays’ hyper-technical society.
Nowadays the information on how to beat Zelda or Super Mario Bros 3 is readily available at the click of a mouse. New releases have walkthroughs an videos come out on them mere days after their release…and while all of this is nice it has robbed the newer generation of gamers of that feeling of community I guess, that experience, that us older grizzled gamers were lucky enough to be a part of.
Ok I am rambling at this point….
For those nostalgic now though, I direct you to the following:
2010 – Sadly there are no cheap flying cars January 11, 2010
Posted by Nick in : Life, New, Resolutions, Running, Site Update, Technology, Writing , add a commentWell 2010 is here and….eh…it seems alright so far. I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch the ball drop or go to any parties, no I spent it trying to finish up Mass Effect….yea I know..but it was cheap and I had loads of fun playing it, and in this economy sometimes that’s the best you can ask for.
2010 New Year’s Resolutions
Short Term Resolutions
Get another certification - I wanna get MCSA, MCSE, or CCNA certfied. Got Network+ certified last year and would like to add another one to my resume. Money is pretty much what decides whether or not I can mark this resolution off the list. Certification tests cost mucho moolah and that’s something I don’t have at the moment, sadly.
Finish writing my novel – I wrote a novel during Nanowrimo but never actually gave it a proper ending. I wanna end the story and then deconstruct the rough draft, see if I can’t get something more cohesive/readable together out of the mess that is that first draft.
Get out of debt completely. – I have 1300 left to pay on the car and another 3000 left to pay off on the credit card. I am doing this, no more of this debt BS. It’s gonna be a rough road though. Canceled GameFly on Friday, didn’t renew Flickr Pro account or Skype account for this year, budgeting only $50 for gas and food every week, etc, etc. Yeah the first two or three months of living sparsely are going to suck.
Attempt to build a web server – I have the hardware and software to build a server, I just need the time and space to do such a thing. I have always wanted to do this, and it’s such a simple small thing to do.
Donate more – Over the last year I have kinda realized I need to donate to causes more. I see all this crap around my place, taking up space, not being used, and I think to myself, what a waste of money. If I can actually get outta debt by the middle of the year, I have a plan to donate a decent amount of money to a cause I am pretty down with. I don’t wanna say anything more about it until I am sure I can pay off all my debt though. I’ll post more on this later, if I can check resolution 3 off.
Do another BGLUG presentation – I really enjoyed the last presentation I gave on WPA Hacking and really wanna do another security-centric presentation. A presentation on WEP hacking looks likely but I am also considering demo’ing a Denial of Service attack and what can be done to toughen up a server from a DoS attack.
Long Term Resolutions
Work on Websites More – Again I make this resolution every year and every year I kinda half ass it. Still…I wanna utilize all the .com’s I have. I have been meaning to start up a site devoted to Mac tech (crankymac.com) for awhile, as well as developing another site devoted to Ubuntu tech/news (orangesplatter.com). I also wanna create a site that is a live novel of sorts. Essentially the site would be updated with a page or chapter a week. In this way I wanna reproduce the feeling people use to have when Dicken’s novels came out in sections, slowly, over time. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a great writer or anything but I think a live web novel is kinda cool, plus I can always insert interactive elements into it if I ever decided to (audio logs/newspaper clippings/etc)
Train for a Marathon – Pretty self-explanatory, I’d like to run a marathon…one day, preferably before I am 30. I can’t say why I wanna do it, it’s just an impulse I have had for awhile.
ANNNNNNNNNNND that’s it
Maybe I’ll mark some of these resolutions off this year, maybe not, but I sure am gonna have fun trying to see if I can.
Resolutions – Ehh…sorta December 7, 2009
Posted by Nick in : Games, Job, Life, New, Resolutions, Running , add a commentSOOOOOOOOOOOO.
October 31st I ran my second 5k ever, and it went good…better then good it went great. The route was more or less the same and my time went from 54 minutes (05/09/09) to 43 min and 8 seconds. The overall race was a lot of fun, running through the streets of Frankfort at night in the cold air, (if you live in the area I highly suggest you do it next year). After the 5k in Oct. though I pretty much stopped with the training, part of this was due to Nanowrimo but I think part of it was, I had accomplished what I had set out to do. I ran wayyy better then I had the first time and that was all I wanted to do.
Nanowrimo started up in November and it was touch and go there for a bit but I did it. For those not in the know Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal of Nanowrimo is to encourage people to write…a LOT; specifically for the month of Nov. a system is set up which monitors your word count each day. If you are able to write up to or beyond 50, 000 words by the end of November, you WIN! I of course won but, I didn’t finish my story.
My story in a nutshell mixes The Gunslinger/Traditional Zombie Apocalypse/Lovecraft all into one bunch. I’d post some bits of it but the thing is really REALLY rough, plus again…I haven’t finished it yet. I think in the beginning, the whole writing process was painful but, round the last couple of pages a flow began to take shape and form, so much so that I said to myself, “Oh shit, this is gonna be a series, there is just too much here to be able to wrap up in 100 pages”.
That’s been about it these last couple of months. Work has been busy per usual, been racking up a lot of comp time I’ll never use but it’s nice to have just in case I guess. Went ahead and booked my flight and hotel for PAX East up in Boston for March, looking forward to it but MAN flights are expensive. Thanksgiving was nice albeit too short, then again when is it ever long enough.
Bought Left 4 Dead 2, Assassins Creed 2, and Modern Warfare 2, amazingly enough I actually played and beat Modern Warfare 2 before a year had passed. Short review – MW2 is GOOD….but maybe a bit too real at times.
I got no clue what I am gonna do for the rest of this month. I think a lot of my co-workers are taking the last two weeks off but I am staying here to monitor things just in case. I think I might try finishing some books I had half started, maybe finish off another game. Really really tempted to work on my novel more, finish the thing and then edit the crap out of it. Who knows though.
Still in debt. Its my own fault but I accept it, cause I know the reason I am in debt was to help somebody out in more need then myself and I am cool with that. Still sucks though.
I guess that’s it.
Went to check back on the resolutions I made at the beginning of the year. Sorta satisfied, will need to do better for next year though
Walk/Run A Marathon – Eh not so much. I think maybe next year. I enjoyed doing the two 5ks this year but I just had too much stuff going on to really devote the time I wanted to, to training for the 5ks more, and further training for a marathon. I think first I am gonna try doing a 5k in 30 minutes, then from there work my way up to a 10k, and then MAYBE after that point, I’ll consider trying to run a Marathon.
Learn to Play a Musical Instrument – Yeah no. I actually went to see about getting piano lessons at the beginning of the year but never followed up after that. The lessons themselves seems kinda pricey, maybe when I have more money and time to devote to learning the piano fully.
Take a picture every day for a year. – Yet again with Project 365, I could only hold on for soo long till I just gave up. I think a big key to making Project 365 work is traveling to new places a decent amount. Was worth a shot to try it again this year though.
Learn (or re-learn) a language. – Downloaded some Spanish Audiobooks from Audible. Listened to it a little but a lot of it seemed kinda repetitious for me. Again need more time to focus on this.
Learn how to create & edit a podcast. – I sorta do this? Ok, yeah I need to work more at it.
Do more exploring – Went to Seattle again this year and it was a blast, met and talked to some cool people this time, instead of like last year. ALSO I got to visit the Microsoft Campus which was pretty darn nifty. Not exactly going to another country mind you but still an experience
Write a book or participate in NaNoWriMo – Yep, thinking of doing it next year too I enjoyed it so much 
Learn more programming languages like C# and PHP – On and off I have been dipping my toes back into programming, a little smidge of ASP.NET a month ago. I also took a class on SQL one of my co-workers was giving.
Develop and use all my websites more. – Gonna TRY and do that this month but time will tell. I have 11 domain names burning a hole in my pocket though, and they gotta be used at least some.
Another day another dollar September 30, 2009
Posted by Nick in : Uncategorized , add a commentBeen working WAY too damn much lately.
Per usual, the cliff-notes version of what I’ve been up to.
-Did a security presentation for the BGLUG group, demoing how to hack a WPA or WPA2 protected wifi access point secured with a simple password.
Nick Grugin – Backtrack Demo from Jordan Keyes on Vimeo.
-Went to Seattle, WA for PAX ‘09, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Panels, games demo’ed, music, etc, everything was groovy. Best part of the trip was getting to go to a pre-PAX Microsoft Community Event.
I got to tour the MS Redmond campus, play upcoming video games, get a free meal, and got some nice FREE SWAG (see XB Live code for full version of Shadow Complex!).
-Started going to an SQL night class on the 21st. So far it’s going decent but I need some free time to memorize the stuff taught in class better.
-Writing bug has hit me yet again, have a pretty good idea for a story, already developing the world it’s set in, just have to put pen to paper.
-Starting back in my 5k training regimen. Stopped for a bit after starting some new medication but, I’m determined to get out there today. I registered for the Black Cat Chase at the end of Oct and need to get ready.
-Finally caved to family and started taking cholesterol meds. Only stipulation I made was they not harass me ever again about my health. Side effects have not been horrible….but they have not been great either.
-Got Halo 3: ODST, played Halo 3: ODST, finished Halo 3: ODST. Verdict = A pretty decent game.
…and that’s mostly it.
Slowly moving forward July 17, 2009
Posted by Nick in : Books, Film, Life, Running, Technology , add a commentWell lotta random stuff has been going on lately.
ADD is rearing it’s head though, so the short non/ranty version.
- Took Network+ Certification Test and passed WOOO.
- MCSA Certification looks like the next certification on the list for me, now to pass all four tests.
- Friends came down and visited me for 2 weeks. Love them but THREE PEOPLE+1 Bedroom Apt + 2 WEEKS = NOOOOOOO
- Been on a reading kick lately; Ex-Machina isn’t half bad, Angel: After the Fall is meh, Dead She Said was alright. Gonna try to finish up Fool Moon but heh I have been promising myself to do that for awhile.
- Started slowly training after June for 5ks. It’s one of those “couch potato to 5k in 2 months” training regimens but I am taking it REALLY slow and doing each week for a month instead. My body has way more weight then normal people, and I know if I push myself too hard, too quickly I’ll end up paying for it.
Seriously considering Wardriving sometime this weekend, likely when I go to Lexington for an Ubuntu-esque meetup.
Oh if you haven’t seen it already check out Fanboys. Especially if your the kinda geek that loved the original Star Wars movies but thought these last three were utter shite.
….also if you wanna see Kristen Bell in the Leia gold bikini…yeah….that’s pretty sweet too.
Till next time.
Hurdy Gur.
5K May 11, 2009
Posted by Nick in : Books, Life, Music, Resolutions, Running , add a commentWell Saturday I ran my first 5k.
Ok….ran is probably overstating it….briskly walked, that’s probably putting it more accurately.
The race started at 9am, so I got there a little early, still only half awake.
About 5 or so minutes before 9am, they asked us to line up and get ready for the race to start. I was kinda surprised at the turnout for the 5k.
When 9am hit, everybody flew off. I almost did the same…almost got swept up in it all but..I wanted to finish the race, not blaze through the first mile only to be able to barely move by the second. I had been walking day and night before the race but, even from all that walking beforehand I knew enough to know I was in no shape to run full tilt here at this race.
Around 2.85 miles I was getting frustrated. 46 minutes had passed and I hadn’t even gotten 3 miles outta the way.
As I rounded the last bit of the race, I saw the race clock read 54 minutes as I passed the finish line. My race time was horrid BUT, I wasn’t last, and I actually finished the thing within an hour, so I was happy.
I think after all this I learned a lot of things.
-I need to start walking in the morning as much as I do at night. My body was not use to walking/jogging that much that early
-I need to get use to walking on completely hard/flat ground. I have gotten too spoiled walking on sidewalks, which feel WAY smoother then you might think.
-I need to start walking faster during my two to three mile walks. 54 minutes to finish 3.12 miles was crap.
-Next race, I am eating and drinking something beforehand. I had little to no energy thru most of the race till I picked up a cup of water at the midway point of the race.
5k Route: www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/ky/frankfort/1130811416
Night Walking & Brain Chompin April 27, 2009
Posted by Nick in : Books, Film, Games, Life, Resolutions, Running , add a commentSo I started walking at night right after my last post, kept it up for a couple nights.
I really enjoy walking at night apparently, heh. Things are a lot more quiet, traffic is cut way WAY down. Plus I actually feel like I am doing something productive after 10pm, instead of aimlessly surfing the web and watching tv on Hulu. I walk a couple miles for an hour or more, don’t set any pace or any goals, I just walk till I am tired or until it gets too late. With the weather having warmed up lately, tonight looks great for another night walk. If I think to I’ll try posting some pictures or audio during one of my walks.
On the certification route….things are progressing….slowly…. but they’re progressing.
The Ubuntu project is slowly coming together as well. Met Jordan Friday to test out the newest ver. of Ubuntu on my netbook and whilest doing that talked about the videocast a little. I think we are leaning towards Ustream more and more for broadcasting the show, the other guy involved in this, “etank”, Jordan has to talk to a bit. I am mainly gonna be the logistics guy as I am still a newb to Ubuntu, an etank & Jordan are the Ubuntu guru’s so to speak. Overall I am excited though, to learn a new OS and to teach people about it, as I learn about it.
Friday I also hung out with some friends from Massachusetts for a bit. Apparently they all had come down for the Rolex event going on at the KY Horse Park in Lexington. Much Left4Dead was played Friday and Saturday, and fun was indeed had .
Left4Dead manages to combine all those moments from zombie movies into a cohesive game, ultimately making you feel like your part of the action, fighting off zombie hordes wave after wave. I know that sounds like a line but, it’s true. If your into zombie stuff and have some like minded friends, play Left4Dead with them and you’ll see what I mean. Following along that same topic, if you have the time, listen to 118 Migration. 118 Migration is a podcast which combines a zombie-esque apocalypse with Lovecraftian overtones. It’s like if you combined The Walking Dead with Cell and added a little HP Lovecraft creepiness….I guess that’s the best way I can describe it. The audio quality on the podcast is great and in the right setting, this podcast will give you chills. Check it out
Ok, nuff pimping, rant/ramble is done
Nothing worth doing…. April 20, 2009
Posted by Nick in : Job, Life, Running, Technology , add a commentWell finally got a kick in the butt about certain things.
From this point on I got a lot of things planned.
1 – Gonna keep walking but be a little more hardcore about it. Lately I have been doing around 40 minutes everyday, and that has been fine but, I am not seeing any real big results from it. Starting tonight I am going to go walking during the night time as well. Most of my nights are spent watching stuff on Hulu or fartin around on the internet anyway, and I lately have just felt the need to be more active.
2 – Will finally get my A+ certification (among others). Almost a decade ago I studied my tail off for the A+ certification and missed passing by ONE point. I knew the hardware portion, and A’ced the crap out of it but, the software portion got me. It’s one of those things that has always bothered me and kinda been left out there unfinished. Tired of that. Along with the A+ certification I am gonna likely take a week off work to go to some classes and the like to get my Network + certification and then down the road maybe try for CCNA certification. Either way I am getting these certifications, no more procrastinating. No more. “Well it costs too much” or “Well the most recent books haven’t come out for it yet”.
3 – No more debt. By next month I should have most all my minor debt paid off but, if I scrimp a little for the next two months, I’ll have even my car paid off. I wanna start saving moolah for either a house, or my eventual move out of KY.
4 -Learn everything about Ubuntu/SQL/C#/Ruby on Rails/Wireless tech. I could put more on here but five topics seem plenty, more would be overdoing it. If there is one thing I have noticed in the last month or so 95 percent of my problems have been due to lack of focus, laziness, and unrealistic expectations, putting that crap to a stop now.
5-Look into the tech for getting a video/audio Ubuntu podcast set up. Jordan I am looking at you amigo for help with this. I wanna put something out there for people just learning about Ubuntu and all that jazz, something that’s not dry, something that people wanna watch cause it’s fun and cause they’ll always learn something fun when they tune in. Part of the reason I went into the tech field was because I wanted to help people with problems, somewhere along the line I forgot that and became cynical about everything involved in tech. I wanna do this to sorta revitalize my love for all things tech. Ubuntu is reasonably new and on the cusp of great new innovations, seems like the perfect topic
6 – Slowly make the change from meat to vegetables. I love hamburgers, chicken, turkey, etc but bottom line, I keep going the way I am going, I am gonna die. I don’t eat badly but I don’t eat healthy either. With me things are either entirely one way or the other. Vegetarian diet seems to be the route for me. Won’t be easy but I need to do it. Will still eat some stuff like fish and eggs…I mean I am not totally insane about it but, if I wanna start living better I gotta do this now rather then later.
and…I guess that’s it for now. I am not gonna make any promises about any of the above stuff, promises are for people who put stuff off or never plan to do them. I am gonna do these things, hell or high water, as the saying goes.
Nothing worth doing is easy and I am starting to believe in that firmly.
Here’s hoping I don’t crash an burn .
April 19, 2009
Posted by Nick in : Uncategorized , add a commentMobile post sent by NickG using Utterli. Replies. mp3
