Agilo's Weblog (text-based version for ancient browsers) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are seeing this page in the technology best suited for your browser. Enjoy your stay here and if at any time you feel the urge to see this page in its full glory I kindly and friendly suggest you to get a better browser. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Life so far! Date added: Saturday, December 15 2012, 08:57AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 274 --- That's right, I haven't updated in over a year so a lot has happened and I'm not going to go into everything in detail. Here's a list of highlights that have happened since the last time I wrote anything, in order: I graduated with a 9 (out of 10)! My work resulted in a thesis entitled "Application-specific Custom Operations For A VLIW Soft-Core". Attaining the 9 was no easy task! Due to new regulations it was near impossible to get a grade higher than an 8 for your graduation work. Getting a 9 or higher involved doing new scientific work. On top of that, it had to be subject to extreme scrutiny by a lector who would also have to defend his decision for giving the higher grade. I am very happy for achieving this! I spent a winter season in Austria (from December 2011 until April 2012) snowboarding and having incredible amounts of fun! The metal plate in my shoulder has been surgically removed. However, due to a fall in Austria, one of the pins that held the plate in place broke off and still remains inside my collar bone to this day. The surgeon was unable to remove it (but ensured me that it wouldn't affect me at all). When I got back from Austria I took 2 months off before applying for any job in order to get into the competitive side of Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. I main Dhalsim and I am training hard for my attending EVO 2013. After my time off, I applied for an R&D position and got the job! I love this job. :D I went to several Street Fighter tournaments, but the most notable of them was DreamHack Winter 2012. At this event I got to play some of the best Street Fighter players on the planet, such as Infiltration, Laugh, Ryan Hart and Zhi! This event was amazing and I'm definitely going to go back next editions. I bought a new gaming laptop (the XMG P722) from Schenker Notebooks for EUR 2300,- which houses the latest graphics card on the mobile market, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M (and even has room for an SLI setup!). Other than that, it has the Intel i7-3740QM (quad core) processor, a 256 GB SSD and a 1 TB hard disk, 16 GB of main memory and a BluRay burner. With this notebook I should be future-proof for the next couple of years. :) I bought a new phone: the Samsung Galaxy S III, which is pretty snazzy. I also bought a Nintendo 3DS in anticipation of Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I met up with GuiltyByDesign (Ashley Frey) and ACJ (Alexander Christiaan Jacob Dekker) in Amsterdam! I've known them via the Mortal Kombat community for around 10 years and never thought we'd ever meet, but since Ashley was here for a trip around Europe this was the perfect opportunity to meet up. :) There must have been other things I forgot to mention, maybe I'll post about them later.. maybe not. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Quit my job, started graduation period Date added: Saturday, February 12 2011, 04:25PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 273 --- Just wanted to write a quick entry to state I've quit my job at Liones. It's been a lot of fun working there over the past three and a half years and I've gained a lot of experience in the process. However, the time has come for me to start my graduation period and I won't have any free time left to work there. I want to thank everyone at Liones (even colleagues I've worked with that have left the company) for their support, advice and kindness over the years. As for my graduation project, I'm working for dr. ir. Stephan Wong under supervision by Fakhar Anjam (PhD student) from the TU Delft on a VLIW microprocessor (built by a MSc student) named "ρ-VEX" (see also: ρ-VEX project at Google Code). More specifically, I'll be working on laying the foundation to a more dynamic approach to custom instructions (currently, architecture for custom instructions is already implemented, but requires too much manual work). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy New Year! Date added: Friday, December 31 2010, 12:54PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 272 --- This year has been a very busy one for me, however I seem to have made it until the end! 2010 has been the year of... ...some serious snowboarding progression, starting from the backflip/frontflip, learning the backside and frontside Rodeo (after seeing Marko Grilc perform them on the Winter X-Games Europe) and some other tricks that I've not landed yet (to be continued!). ...buying the most perfect snowboard that suits me perfectly: the K2 Parkstar (2010/2011 model after having sent the 2009/2010 model back under warranty because of construction errors). ...ending the university bridging program unsuccessfully, only managing to pass two (out of six) courses I attended (namely: Embedded Systems and Calculus 1), yet still having learned a lot. That's all I could think of at the time of writing. I've really been swamped with my education this year to do anything. Thanks to everyone that's been awesome this year: happy new year and best wishes for 2011! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Lots of snow fall, lots of fun! Date added: Monday, December 20 2010, 12:23PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 271 --- Over the weekend there has been a lot of snow fall in The Netherlands leading to lots of aggravation to this country's inhabitants, unsettled by the presence of snow. However, to a snowboarder like myself, this has only resulted in feeding my desire to shred! With my default snowboard wing man Mick doing time in the outskirts of Suriname (where he's doing his internship :P) this left me with only Ed to appeal to. Luckily, Ed found way into his busy schedule to join me! As a result of last year's similar heavy snow fall, during the course of this entire year I've been scoping locations to go to when such heavy snow fall would once again present itself. I found one spot in particular which looked absolutely perfect, the only problem was: I've only seen it from inside the train on my way to university or work, so I didn't know if it would be as perfect up close as it looked. Thankfully, Ed was able to drive us there to have a closer look. [IMG: Picture of the rail I've been scoping] The rail I've been scoping for a year now. [IMG: Alternate view of the rail] Alternate view of the rail. We decided it was worth giving it a go, me being as eager as anyone to try anything (and taking on the associated risks :P), so we built a kicker covering the first few steps to be able to jump onto the rail. [IMG: The kicker we built for the rail (bottom view)] The kicker we built for the rail (bottom view). [IMG: The kicker we built for the rail (top view)] The kicker we built for the rail (top view). [IMG: The kicker we built for the rail (run-in view)] The kicker we built for the rail (top run-in view). The kicker took an hour to build and shape and ended up nicely, it was certainly a good experience (scoping/building wise -- this is the first time either of us had ever done this). There was only one problem though: my experience with rails, or rather the lack thereof. I ended up bailing on almost every try.. oh well. :P After that rail we decided to drive around Rotterdam some more to find other things to do, and boy did we ever! We noticed the Erasmusbrug (most famous bridge in Rotterdam) was covered in snow and we were thinking of how cool it would be (novelty-wise included) to try and ride down on its sidewalk. Ed parked the car near the bridge, we walked up, strapped on, and rode it down! :D [IMG: Me strapped into my snowboard on the Erasmusbrug, Rotterdam] Snowboarding on the Erasmusbrug in downtown Rotterdam? Hell yeah! On the way down we noticed there was a small restaurant with a slanted roof so we climbed up on its roof and rode down, jumping off it, which was kind of fun as well. :P Then, on our way back home, we stopped at an abandoned business park to attempt the cour de gras of great ideas: Ed brought along several ropes which he tied together and attached to the car, I then strapped into my board and Ed started driving while I hung on! :D This is an absolute awesome thing to do if you don't mind the associated risks! :D:D An added bonus was that one building was actually not abandoned (on a Monday morning at 2:30 AM.. go figure). :o A couple of employees took notice of us as we were setting up and kind of stood there in disbelief as Ed started to accelerate whilst I was hanging on riding my board. We saw them laughing and talking about us after we drove by the building again (we did 3 or 4 laps around the block). :D Ah.. I love snow. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Snowboarding montage Date added: Sunday, May 30 2010, 10:43AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 270 --- Last week I went snowboarding again and invited Ed along so he could film and photograph me with his cameras. It turned out to be difficult to photograph me with the given lighting, but the video parts turned out nicely. From the different videos, he then pieced together this montage: It consists mostly of rodeos because that's the trick I'm still perfecting at the moment. Also, for the occasion, I did a rodeo for the first time on the 45ft kicker. :D Thanks again for taking the time to film me and for creating the video, Ed! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Rodeo on film! Date added: Friday, May 14 2010, 07:30AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 269 --- Well, it took a while but I finally have a backside rodeo 540 on film! Last time I was filmed with my phone, the OS (Symbian) ate the files and created a cool 1.8 GB empty file. At any rate, the rodeos I'm doing (like the one on film) still need some work to get them dialed in perfectly but that'll certainly come with time. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Rodeos and Frontflips! Date added: Tuesday, April 13 2010, 04:33PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 268 --- Today, I finally managed to land my first few rodeos and frontflips! No long story this time, just this quick update. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Backflips! Date added: Friday, April 9 2010, 10:02AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 267 --- Just a quick addition to my previous entry: little over a week ago, I've done my first few backflips on an actual "kicker"! It took me 30 straight airs to muster up the courage to throw it and the first time I fell on my back because I didn't commit (I bought a back protector to attempt inverts, so I was fine). After that first fall, I knew what it'd take to make it around so I went right up and did it again without hesitation and stomped it! After that first successful backflip I've done it consecutively for 7 or 8 times without ever falling, so I've pretty much got this one in the bag. :) Also: backflips are easy, I know that, but it's sort of a gateway to other inverted tricks so it feels good to have this down. :) Oh, and thanks to Pepijn for witnessing/filming the event. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Not dead yet! Date added: Friday, March 19 2010, 10:57AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 266 --- The past few months I've been very busy with various things and have neglected my weblog as a result, so I thought I'd make a short entry about passed events. I went snowboarding in Austria twice this season: once in December (spent 2 weeks there with Mick) and once in February (spent a week there with Mick and my younger brother -- his first wintersports vacation!). This season's been a lot of fun paired with a lot of progression for me!: I rode the first two kickers of the pro line in the Vans Penken Park (the two kickers were, respectively: 15 meters/50 feet and 17 meters/56 feet), learned a couple of new tricks and recently learned to do backflips and Backside Rodeo's (landing on an airbag since this was in-doors -- when the larger kicker is built I plan on doing them on there as well).There's actually a funny story here as well: when I was learning to do Rodeo's in Snow World there was a technician working who I didn't really notice, until he came up to me and explained that they were installing a new video system which is going to offered by Snow World to the masses. He explained to me how the system works and gave me a pass to test the system for them (I am the first rider to ever test this system!). The way it works is: you swipe a pass over a sensor which will make the system start recording at various points along the in-door piste (with the airbag directly under the last camera at the bottom). The video's look really good (but I can't publish the videos yet -- I'm not really happy with the recorded runs I made anyway :P). In future, people will be able to buy these passes as day passes, however, I'm able to use the pass they gave me indefinitely! :D Only thing is; the airbag has been torn down and there really isn't anything to do at Snow World at the moment.. :(Anyway, I plan to spend the summer well this year, riding in-doors a lot with my wing-man Mick and my younger brother. :D I just bought a new snowboard: the K2 Parkstar (2010 model, size: 152)! :D:D I started taking classes at the university as part of my education at the Hogeschool but the tests were really hard for me (only managing to pass 1 of the 8 tests I had to take!). Since I've spent a full semester there, I've taken most all the classes I needed to take so instead of waiting for the new tests to become available I decided to go back to the Hogeschool and start taking the classes there again (so that I don't fall back on the required classes there). this is all hard to explain, so I'm leaving it at this description of the situation for now (I haven't given up yet! however, it's beginning to look like university might be a bit too much to take for me..). Pepijn (classmate at the uni) gave me his soldering iron so that I was able to gain some experience. I picked up on doing through-hole soldering really quickly and have since soldered on the GPIO ports for the DSerial Edge I've had lying around here. I've also figured out how a specific seven-segment display I had lying around worked (it's mounted on a weird bridge of some kind to be used as a module) by way of testing for connections (using a multimeter). After doing that, I took a shitload of wires from several computer components and hooked it up to the DSerial Edge to be able to use it. I've uploaded a video of the finished project to YouTube. :) I'm happy with the end result; it's the first thing I've used the DSerial Edge for ever since I bought it. :P Thanks again for the help, Pepijn! That's it for now: I can't really think about anything other than snowboarding. :x ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Hospitalized! Date added: Wednesday, September 30 2009, 03:19PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 265 --- Last week on Tuesday I decided to go snowboarding with a guy from the university I had gotten to know; Tom, who had told me he was a snowboard instructor himself, so I thought that might be fun. We went to SnowWorld, where I've been many times in the past. At around 10:00 PM I was really wearing myself out and getting tired but I didn't plan on going any time soon, which turned out to be something I'd come to regret.. I went up the slope (slope 3 no less, which has no obstacles on it whatsoever, just a plain long slope) and decided to practice some backside 360s on the flats (never did those on the flats before even though I can do them on a jump since a few weeks). The first one went perfectly, which pleased me, but then when I tried to do it again, overconfident as I was, I came down hard on my side with my elbow between me and the surface of the slope, and really hurt my side! At first I just laid there on the slope having difficulty breathing (which I've had experienced in the past, even to the point of nausea) but then the pain set in hard. Tom came up to me talking me through it (breathing patterns and all) but the pain just didn't go away and breathing was still very difficult. I decided it would be best to just move to the side of the slope instead of lying in the middle of it and try to shake it off there (as I didn't want to alarm anyone at the time), so I stood up and snowboarded the last few meters down and to the side. After having been lying down for a good 20 minutes or so, it just didn't seem to get any better and I told Tom I'd want to go outside to sit there, and it would maybe also be a good time for us to leave for home. So I got up and I tried walking toward the exit of the slope but every step I took just hurt a lot! Having walked for only around 10 meters I came to realize that this wasn't just going to disappear and I wasn't physically able to continue on walking, so I told Tom I'd have to stop. I sat down on a bench which was nearby and Tom rushed to get an in-house medic to take a look at me. A guy from SnowWorld itself arrived and analyzed me by asking some generic questions but, him not being a doctor, he told me it would be best to just go to the emergency room at the hospital and gave us directions on how to get there (Tom was able to drive me). Upon arriving at the hospital, I walked up a few painful steps to the counter where it was requested I should urgently be gotten a wheelchair. I tried to calm down the desk employee by saying I'd walked for a while and it would be okay, walking would be fine (it had also seemed that standing hurt the least whereas it hurt a lot whenever I sat or lied down), but she would have none of it and expressly told that it wasn't a request, so I sat down and was driven to an examination room. I explained what happened and how much my side hurt and I was given an intramuscular injection to ease the pain (which I was later told was Morphine -- which really surprised me because I'd sooner associate that with much more severe injuries). After a long time, it was becoming more and more apparent that I wasn't going to be leaving the hospital that night and that was exactly what I was eventually told (after having done an Xray and was told that it wasn't a fracture), so I was driven to an observation room (IV and all) at which point I said goodbye to Tom. By this time, it was around 1:30 AM, and I was told to get some sleep and I'd be under observation for the night and to let them know if anything was off. Sleeping, however, almost seemed impossible! Lying down hurt like hell; I just wasn't able to breathe! Just sitting in my bed hurt (the only way I didn't experience much pain was sitting straight up on the side of my bed). I hyperventilated a few times, gasping for air, but was calmed by a nurse who told me to focus on my breathing and try to calm that down, which helped; about an hour into this tormention, I was able to find some rest (I would be repeatedly awoken that night for blood samples and a blood pressure test). Morning came, and a doctor came to me to tell me that I experienced blunt trauma to my abdomen, spoke of something called "kidney concussion" and said I was going to have an ultrasound and a CT scan to have a better view of my abdomen. The ultrasound revealed internal bleeding and it was not clear where it came from or if it had stopped, which concerned me (causing me to hyperventilate -- this is really annoying when you can't take deep breaths and every gasp for air hurts like hell). After that it was off for the CT scan, which also required quite some effort on my part: lying down (which hurt), moving my arms above my head (which hurt), holding still (which hurt) and taking deep breaths (which hurt even more). Needless to say, that took a lot of time to do. After all that was set and done, I returned to the observation room and I just had to wait for the results to come in. My brother came by to see me during that time (I had, the night before, called my mom to let her know what was up and she had since told my brother who immediately left his work to stop by and see me). At this point, I was hoping to get the results back and be able to go home (as I didn't want to miss classes at the university and work) but when the doctor came in with the results, it was going to become clear to me that this was far from being over. The doctor came to me with the results and told me that I've had impact trauma to my spleen and it was ruptured! He told me in a dead serious tone that I wasn't going to be going home for quite some time! The standard procedure is to keep a patient under close observation to see if the rupture resolves itself; if it does, I won't require surgery but if it doesn't, well, out goes the spleen. :P To conclude an already long story (I didn't plan on writing this much to be honest, heh): I ended up spending a week there bound to strict bed rest, my spleen ended up healing itself shut to stop the bleeding and I am now under way to recovery. A full recovery will take up to 6 weeks, during which time I will be unable to do any physical exertion (which includes bicycling, at least for the first weeks, which sucks) and I will have to be very careful (walk slowly, take my time going up and down stairs, etc). Urgh.. what a week. One final note to end this entry: thanks a lot to my friends and university classmates who came to visit me at the hospital! :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy 23rd birthday to me! Date added: Saturday, September 5 2009, 02:02PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 264 --- Today marks my 23rd birthday! Hurray! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Pokemon Mini Backlight!!! Date added: Saturday, September 5 2009, 02:01PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 263 --- Ever since I saw a Pokemon Mini with a backlight I've really wanted it on mine as well. Lupin^ posted the steps to build it yourself on the forum of the Pokeme website but there was a problem with it: the required parts can no longer be found anywhere (most notably the tiny inverter). I though I was never going to see mine with a backlight until I asked Lupin^ directly if he happened to still have any parts left to build one, to which he replied that he did have one complete set left! After hearing that, I asked him if he could build it into my Pokemon Mini if I sent it to him and, well, long story short: he did! [IMG: A picture of my new backlit Pokemon Mini] A picture of my new backlit Pokemon Mini (next to a normal one for comparison)! I got it back yesterday after spending some time traveling up and down from The Netherlands to Germany and back but it was well worth the wait! Not only did he build in the backlight into the unit at super speed, but he also cleaned the encasing/buttons and replaced the screen cover (because it had some scratches on it)! Thanks a lot, Lupin^! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Summer time Date added: Saturday, September 5 2009, 01:43PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 262 --- This summer, I've devoted practically all my free time on two things: work and snowboarding! SnowWorld (in-doors ski/snowboarding facility) offers various kinds of membership subscriptions, lasting from anywhere between a month to a year. They also offer one specific membership subscription which lasts for the entire months of July and August and costs only 100 Euros (normally it'll cost 25 EUR to snowboard for 4 hours). Needless to say, I bought that option! :P I gained a lot of new skills on the park from all that boarding, I could already do frontside 180s and several grabs (indy, method, mindy, nose/tail grabs, etc) but new things I can now do are: frontside 360, backside 180, backside half-cab (which is a frontside 180 but you pop it riding in switch -- it's backwards due to the fact it's a trick which is normally performed in a half-pipe). Especially the backside 180 took me the longest time to be able to do, because I was scared to throw my board blind-sided (in fact, I was able to do the frontside 360 before I could do the backside 180 :P). Aside from those trick I went to several placed to snowboard, including Snow Planet, which had a seemingly nice park (from pictures) but was actually not all that fantastic. It did, however, have a HUGE jump which is the largest one I've done to date! So far, there hasn't been a single jump I didn't dare to take! :D I've also bought a new snowboard tailored specifically for the park: the K2 WWW, 2009 model. It cost me only 190 Euro's because it was the 2009 model. :P (I was actually considering getting the K2 Parkstar, 2010 model, which comes with the new Jib Rocker technology, but I decided I could always buy it later. :)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Bought a 1 Terabyte hard disk! Date added: Tuesday, July 21 2009, 12:08PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 261 --- It seems like such a long time ago since 1 terabyte hard disks were first announced and I remember being amazed over such an amount of storage space. However, today I've actually bought my own 1 terabyte hard disk! :o I bought the Samsung SpinPoint F1 (HD103UJ), to be exact, and it functions beautifully! The price I bought it for was only EUR 79,95! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Passed admission exam for Delft University of Technology! Date added: Monday, July 20 2009, 11:10AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 260 --- After having invested a lot of time and effort into the admission exam for the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), I finally managed to pass it! The way the Dutch education system works is hard to explain, so I won't do that here now, but it can at least be said that in two years time (after I've finished my education at the Hogeschool) I will be able to start my masters study there. :D Most likely, it will be the study Computer Engineering, which appeals to me the most. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Freecom MusicPal Date added: Monday, July 20 2009, 10:56AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 259 --- Around Christmas, I received a Freecom MusicPal as a gift from my job. Having some fun with it I found an admin panel in the web interface where there was an option to turn on a Telnet daemon, this (after logging in) confirmed my assumption that this thing ran Linux. I found the SDK and Toolchain on the official site and e-mailed all my findings to the rest of my co-workers. At that time, my boss jokingly asked me about when to expect Pong for it, so.. I made him a Pong game for it (I made a movie and uploaded it to YouTube) :P: The game mechanics work well with the knob wheels. :) I also decided to publish the source and binary: see files/mppong/ for all the files. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Wintersport 2009: Backcountry Snowboarding! Date added: Monday, July 20 2009, 10:39AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 258 --- February, I went snowboarding on a backcountry snowboarding trip organized by McNab Snowsports! I've always talked about doing such a dedicated trip as I've always prefered the backcountry (off the slopes through tree lines etc.) over regular snowboarding in resorts. I asked Ed and Mick to go along with me but they felt the price tag was too steep, so I went alone. :o At first I felt that was kind of dissapointing but then it dawned on me that this would be an excellent oppertunity for me to find out if I'm independent enough to manage in a foreign country all by myself, not knowing anyone (having to get familiar with new people etc). The reason for that is that I'm thinking of moving away after having done a full education here in The Netherlands. The trip was a week long and was spent in Chamonix Mont-Blanc. I trained (by way of running) to get in shape for the long hiking trips I would have to endure to get to the tops of the mountains and it was still very tough to cope for me.. but I managed (if just barely). :P [IMG: A picture of my group hiking our way to the top of the mountain] My group, hiking our way to the top of the mountain. Highlight of the week would have to have been the heli drop I joined (together with Neal McNab himself -- the founder of McNab Snowsports): the ride down was absolutely amazing! So much powder everywhere, the awesome sights of the mountains, it was really great! [IMG: A picture of me snowboarding down the mountain] Me, snowboarding down the mountain. Other notable things that happened were: I fell 5 meters (16.5 feet) down a cliff wall! I got off without a scratch albeit shocked to shits. While traversing a mountain side, I suddenly found myself in an avalanche! It was a smaller avalanche (thankfully) but it did break one of the (metal!) hiking poles I had retracted which I used to fence off the boulders of snow coming at me! One of those boulders went over the edge off my board and nearly dragged me down with it! Quite an experience! In all, though, the trip was really awesome and the people I met were really cool. I would love to do a heli trip next time! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Tutoring my peers Date added: Monday, July 20 2009, 09:11AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 257 --- One of the assignments of a class I had in school last semester was spend 28 hours on trivial tasks such as helping out at open houses, being a peer coach (that is: helping first year students out with classes they need some assistance in), etc. I decided to take a slightly different twist in spending those 28 hours on account of two classmates of mine asking me for help with PHP and HTML. I asked the teacher in question if it was alright for me to spend my 28 hours in this fashion and sure enough, I was answered with that it was more than alright. I decided to focus my lessons on a couple of different web related topics, namely (in order): basic tagsoup HTML CSS XHTML Accessibility standards Javascript: basics Javascript: DOM-manipulation PHP: basics (variables, basic i/o, forms) PHP: filesystem i/o, making a guestbook using a flatfile database PHP: using SQL Security: SQL injections, HTML injections/cookie theft, miscellaneous other tidbits (how to circumvent HTML restrictions in websites that filter HTML, injecting HTML/javascript by exploiting UBB code parsers, etc.) Giving these lessons was really a lot of fun, so I found out. I was also given a lot of positive feedback and some constructive criticism regarding the pace of the lessons (some felt it went a bit too fast). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Amiga 500 Date added: Monday, July 20 2009, 08:41AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 256 --- At the Queensday fair (April 30th) of 2008 I bought a fully working Amiga 500! When I bought it I knew little about it, except for its reputation (in relation to the scene) but that quickly changed. Upon returning home I wanted to hook it up and explore it but I quickly came to realize that I didnt have a way of hooking it up to my TV; there wasn't any cable provided for me to do so! After doing some research I quickly found some pinout schemes to convert the DB-23 connector on the Amiga (which is used for video) to SCART and I decided to go with one I found on pinouts.ru (alternatively: hardwarebook.info). It was a quite interesting process as I didn't have a DB-23 connector; I did, however, have a few regular DB-25 cables (which I used in the past on a couple of ZIP drives) and I also had a multi SCART type of plug (which is a total ripoff, by the way, as the inside is just a very cheap board with elongated traces to which a few connectors are attached -- the connector that is used closest to the output gets the TV's attention). Anyway, the reason I mention the multi SCART plug is that the wires that are soldered on to the board are a one-to-one match with the pins at the end of the main cable (so I basically cheated). As for the DB-25 connector, however, this was a much more troublesome affair. I began by taking one of my many DB-25 cables and sawing off the two unnecessary plugs from the female connector. After that I proceded by cutting the cable and have a look at the wiring inside but since there is no set standard in wire coloring to determine what wire goes to which pin/plug (as there is, for instance, in the RJ-45 connector of network cables), I was pretty much left standing on my own. I decided it might be worth having a look at the male connector of the cable (which I was going to discard anyway) in the assumption that the wires matched one-to-one at the female connector's side, so I took a knife and removed the plastic cable insulation from the connector only to find that the entire wiremess that I expected was fixed in a lump of glue! This made everything a lot more irritating for me to find out which colored wire led to which pin in the connector as, now, I had to cut through the lump of glue (and be very cautious in doing since otherwise I would run the risk of cutting a wire and lose my point of reference)! After a very long time I was able to find which wire belonged to which pin and I was subsequently able to attachs the cables and construct the finished cable. [IMG: A picture of the finished connector] The finished DB-23 to SCART connector in an improvised encasing. After the connector was finished, I could finally begin the Amiga experience! ..or so I thought. I came to find out, as I booted up the Amiga, that this was only the first hurdle I'd overcome. As I booted up the Amiga, I was warmly greeted by the Workbench 1.3 startup screen at which it proceeded to do... nothing, which I found a bit odd as I expected to see some sort of GUI. I stared at the screen for a short while wondering if it had crashed or I was expected to push a button or something, before deciding to get some answers from the internet. After some searching and still no real answer, I went to a place I knew I could find some knowledgable people that could help me; IRC (#amiga on EFNet, to be more precise). I explained my perdicements and was explained that I needed something to boot the system off (either a boot disk/game or a hard disk, which I didn't have). What's more, the Amiga doesn't read (by todays standards) conventional floppy disks either, it needed double density floppy disks and could only read off Amiga's own filesystem format.. unless I had a later version of Workbench, which will allow it to read off FAT formatted disks.. I've since bought an Amiga hard disk (the A590) to play around with the system but right now I'm thinking about whether to install a newer version of Workbench or trying to get a hold of an Amiga 1200 (which is kind of the same thing, or so I'm told). Anyway, it's a cool system and the demo's I've seen for it (in videos) are really awesome.. can't wait to really start experiencing them on the system itself. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy New Year! Date added: Thursday, January 1 2009, 08:52AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 255 --- Another year has come to an end and so, just like previous years, it's time for me to reflect on events of the past year. It's no secret that I haven't been writing many weblog entries this years, which has a reason: time (or lack thereof). School in combination with my work are eating up so much time I have little time left to do other things, and if I do get around to doing other things, writing weblog entries isn't on the top of my list. I do feel bad for not writing about it, though, because it doesn't give me a chance to read back on my life when I'm X years older in life, the very reason I started keeping a weblog in the first place. Some may think that writing a weblog entry doesn't take much time and I should just write brief reports on what happened, but I won't do that simply for the fact that some events that have happened deserve their own individual weblog entries because of having a profound influence on my life (or just because of the scale of the event). What happens next is that these events stack up and the task of writing about them becomes so great it's actually becoming demotivating. At any rate, for the sake of my regular new years reflections I will list them here in short headlines (as I have done in previous years) just to have them written down; it'll remain to be seen if they'll ever be written out in large. So without further ado, 2008 has been the year of... ...one of the most important decisions in my life, to change my education to Computer Engineering (i.e. Technische Informatica"). ...getting my "Propedeuse", within my first year! ...Pokemon Mini, for which I've started developing passionately (but not enough due to lack of time, which I hope to better this year). ...me and my younger brother went on vacation to italy (in the summer of 2008). ...starting a class of my own at school, in which I give lessons to my peers in XHTML/CSS/JavaScript/DOM/Accessibility- and Webstandards/PHP/PHP+SQL. ...Wintersports vacation to Val Thorens, for which I've bought my very own snowboard: Nitro's "Pantera". ...booking a backcountry snowboarding course with McNab Snowsports for February of 2009! ...having went on a Company trip to Rome! ...Symphony X, whom I've finally got to see, many times over (together with Dream Theater)! ...finally buying a DSerial EDGE after waiting seemingly endlessly for Natrium42 to start producing and selling DSerial carts again. ...buying a new mobile (smart)phone, the Samsung GT-i8510 INNOV8 with 8 megapixel camera. ...buying an Amiga 500 (more on this very soon, in a separate entry). 2008 (on par with 2007, actually) has also been one of the most busy years of my life (which shows in the amount of weblog entries this year, heh). Anyway, I close this entry wishing everybody a very prosperous 2009! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Propedeuse! Date added: Saturday, October 4 2008, 06:15PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 254 --- Yesterday was the official ceremony in which I was handed my so-called "Propedeuse". I was able to obtain it within my first year and I actually already had enough points to receive it back in June. With this in hand, I'm well on track on getting my Bachelor's degree in three years from now. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy 22nd birthday, me! Date added: Friday, September 5 2008, 12:51PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 253 --- Today I turn 22 years of age and it feels like a nice number. :D I don't really have much else to write about, other than I'm busy with all sorts of things and I keep postponing writing weblog entries.. maybe soon! ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Catching up.. Date added: Sunday, June 22 2008, 10:21AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 252 --- Well, I've not been so active in writing weblog entries the past few months and because of that I missed out on some stuff that happened because I wanted to really take my time in writing about them. However, it's getting seemingly more apparent that I never will get around to doing that so therefore, I'll just write about it in this entry. Last February I went snowboarding in France (Val Thorens) together with Mick and Ed. Leading up to that, we decided to rent snowboards as we've been doing in the past, however by the time we got around to actually rent the snowboards all the snowboards had already been rented out.. so we had the choice: either rent snowboards in France, or buy our own snowboards. I didn't plan on doing that but I had been thinking about it in the past and I did have some money saved up, so I decided it was time to actually go through with it and buy my own snowboard. Because I'm in my element the best off the slopes I sought after a good mountain style snowboard and I eventually landed on Nitro's "Pantera". It's a beautiful board and it handles really well! [IMG: A picture of Nitro's Pantera snowboard which I bought] Nitro's awesome snowboard called: "Pantera". As for the rest of our stay in France: we hated the place (Val Thorens), it really sucked. Snow conditions were bad but in all the terrain was really boring and really not that interesting. It was fun being on our own, though, not having to worry about classmates or people in our group. Not only that, we also experienced what it was like having to provide for ourselves staying in our little appartement and such, which I thought was really cool. Since then I've also seen Symphony X perform at De Lantaarn (a.k.a.: the middle of fucking nowhere) and De Boerderij. The shows were really fucking amazing and Michael Romeo was absolutely fucking awesome! [IMG: A picture of two plectrums I received from Michael Romeo during the show] Two plectrums I recieved from Michael Romeo during the show. I managed to score two plectrums from him (one of which I got through shaking his hand during songs)! Also, equally awesome, I managed to get exclusive footage with my camera in which he performs a piece of the song "Sea of Lies" for my camera! The footage can be seen on YouTube: Symphony X - Sea of Lies (live in Zoetermeer, Netherlands). Did I mention the performance (in Zoetermeer) was mindblowing? No? Well, consider it mentioned because it really was absolutely mindblowing!! :D I also spent some time (however little) on the Pokemon Mini (though not as much as I'd like to). I fixed the Text Engine bug and I also wrote a little random number generator using an algorithm based on an article published by DonTronics (which I modified to work on a byte instead of a word). The random number generator also taught me to work with the PM's timer, however basic it still is. Also, really exciting news is that a long standing member of Team Pokeme, Asterick, is working on a new Pokemon Mini emulator (Minimon version 2) with recently reverse enginered information! Not only that but he's also set up a new Wiki which will replace the old (and somewhat inaccurate) Pokemon Mini Hardware Reference! I'm also thinking of moving onward with programming for the Gameboy Advanced (so as to teach myself to work with the ARM CPU) but that'll come when the time comes. Lastly, I've booked a flight to Sicily for the upcoming vacation to go and see my Father together with my little brother Emanuele; can't wait to be back there again. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Transition of education Date added: Tuesday, March 11 2008, 12:15PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 251 --- About a month ago I changed my education from Computer Science to Computer Engineering (Technische Informatica"). Reason for this is that this type of education is more technically challenging; not just saying "visit this site, download this, copy/paste that there and you have a program" but now more like "the first x bytes are used as a file identifier, then follows xx bytes for ..." (etc.), meaning: deeper into the technical side of things, which I love more than just creating generic applications. This will also give me deeper focus on the thing which I've come to love the past few years: embedded devices (such as, for instance, the Nintendo DS or more recently the Pokemon Mini). In all, I'm happy with the change, even though it means I need to seriously brush up on my maths skills (which is close to none right now since I previously didn't have anything related to maths). :P Anyway, I'm guessing with enough work it will turn out fine. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Pokemon Mini Date added: Tuesday, March 11 2008, 12:02PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 250 --- A few months ago (and I don't remember if this is because of Dark Fader's website or pouet.net) I came across a very cool little device made by Nintendo called the "Pokemon Mini"; the smallest handheld console in the world to be cartridge-based, have a black-and-white LCD display, rumble feature, shock-detection, include an infrared port for multiplayer and have the more common buttons you'd expect from a handheld (namely a D-pad and three input buttons; B, A and C). Aside from that, the system has a 4 MHz proprietary CPU called the "Nintendo Minx". [IMG: A picture of a Pokemon Mini] A picture of a Pokemon Mini Why did I find it so exciting? I mean, it's a Pokemon-related device to begin with.. Well, it has very severely been reverse engineered by the people over at Team Pokeme! The reason I mentioned not being certain how I came across it is because I've been somewhat into the Nintendo DS homebrew scene (as a by-stander), from which I came to know of Dark Fader, but I've also been into the demo scene for about a year now (again, as by-stander so far :P) from which came one of the coolest scene demos, made by Team Pokeme (which won first prize in the wild compo at Breakpoint 2005), called: SHizZLE. That prod really opened my eyes as to how cool a device such as the Pokemon Mini really is and what can be achieved on that architecture; needless to say, I wanted to play with it (i.e. program for it) myself, badly. After reading about how to get started it became clear to me that I needed a flash cart to place a program on to be able to test on actual hardware (like the video of SHizZLE shows at the end), the only problem was, however, that flash carts stopped being made by Team Pokeme at around 2004, so I was shit out of luck (as it seemed at the time). At around this time I decided to get onto IRC to the room where Team Pokeme housed themselves; #pmdev on EFNet. I idled in the room for about a week to see what they were up to themselves (as I usually do when I enter a new scene) at which point I decided it was time to let my interest be known. I talked to a guy called ph0x at the time, telling him (and the room) I wanted to get started sometime soon; invest time into PM development because I thought the device was just awesome. After some time I asked (knowingly) if flash carts were still being made or sold, to which he replied that sadly, they were no longer being made nor sold. I didn't want that to be the end of it, though, because I really wanted to do something with this, so I asked if the schematics for the PCB was available for me to have, so I could potentially build it myself. Ph0x told me to contact a guy called pop or another guy called Lupin^, who happened to be idling in the room. As I continued talking about my intentions Lupin^ rose from his idle state and asked me if I had any experience in soldering anything. I told him I didn't but I was willing to learn it, at which point (after some discussion) he gave me all the information I could hope for; complete schematics of both the Flash Cart and the Linker PCB (as it needed a way to program the actual cart)! Immediately after that I started gathering resources which could help me put the flash cart into realization. Shortly after that, I was told by Lupin^ that he had a fully functioning linker and a flash cart which only needed to be soldered ready for me to buy from him! This, of course, was perfect as it enabled me to get started a lot quicker, so I paid him 30 Euros for them (they used to go for 30 Euros each!) and the only thing left for me to do then was wait, buy the necessary parts and eventually solder the parts to the flash cart so I could get started. During the time spent waiting I asked a teacher (who is a Computer Engineering teacher himself, which is why I approached him) if he would be able to help me with the soldering, as I've never soldered anything before (also expressing my love for embedded devices such as the Nintendo DS). The teacher said he'd love to help me, picking up on my interest for his department, and referred me to another teacher that would be better suited to help on the actual soldering. At this time I was told by Lupin^ that he would be able to solder it for me himself (perhaps out of empathy)! I felt kind of bad for the teacher who was willing to help me (and for myself as I didn't get the chance to learn to do it myself now) but I accepted his offer because, as I mentioned before, it enabled me to start getting into this more quickly (remembering that I could always just make another flash cart based on the board schematics). Before everything arrived I started getting ready myself by setting up a development environment (i.e. getting the assemblers, emulators and documentation needed ready to dive into it when the time came) and when it finally did arrived I was able to jump right into it. So far I've toyed with some of the features of the Pokemon Mini (using Lupin's Pokemon Mini tutorial and the Pokemon Mini Hardware Reference) and already came across some oddities (such as the rumble feature not working unless the LCD is initialized). Nevertheless, it's a very fun and awesome platform to work on, especially since everything is in Assembly. :D To see my creations (thus far), visit: /files/PM Many thanks to the PM dev scene and especially Lupin^ for all his help so far! :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy New Year! Date added: Monday, December 31 2007, 05:00AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 249 --- Another year has come to an end and so, like previous years, it's time for a reflection on past events. This year has offered a lot of big changes in my life and because of that I didn't get around much to writing weblog entries but despite that, I'm going to list a couple of items here. 2007 has been the year of... ...Gwen, my first girlfriend with whom I've had my first kiss. :) ...Hogeschool, for I passed my admission exam (with a lot of strain and effort as far as maths is concerned) and have given it my all ever since (and luckily that also shows in my scores so far). :D ...Liones, where I've started working since the beginning of the summer; a job which suits me perfectly at a company which is absolutely awesome! (Thanks again for introducing me, Michel! :D) ...New Guitar, for I've bought the best guitar I've ever played so far (beating even guitars that are thrice the cost): the ESP LTD M-200FM! ...Concerts, for having seen Dream Theater and Symphony X have blown me away by miles, Spock's Beard on which DVD I'll (hopefully :P) be seen and Beardfish, a fantastic band who I've come to know by attending this year's Symforce festival. ...Portable Development, because I've started doing a lot of programming on not just the Nintendo DS, but soon also... (stay tuned :D) ...Maturity, for I've turned 21 years of age and am now officially an adult. :) That's it so far, I think.. if I've forgotten anything I'm allowing myself to edit the list at least until there's a next weblog entry. :P Anyway, happy new year to everyone and all the best wishes for coming 2008. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Company trip to Milan!! Date added: Saturday, October 20 2007, 05:48PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 248 --- Thursday, last week, there was a company trip Liones hosted that I attended (lasting three full days) that had been announced via countless e-mails and word-of-mouth. The location as to where we'd go, however, had been kept a strict secret and undisclosed until the very last moment of departure. Everyone (21 employees including staff) got together at 5PM sharp on that Thursday, bags packed and everything, and after having been kept in further suspense for about fifteen more minutes, we were given our directions as to where we'd go. The note given revealed the location to be a hefty 200 meters from the building! Dreading the long time on the road, we reluctantly got into the cars and started this treacherous journey into the void, arriving at our destination no less than 3 minutes after departing!! :| It was to everyone's surprise to be at a very ancient place filled with mystiques of the orient: a Chinese restaurant! Of course, this was just the very beginning of the trip. :P It had been tossed around that the actual place we'd head to would be in a 200 kilometer radius surrounding The Netherlands, so we knew it would be a long trip getting there and we speculating all sorts of destinations (for instance: Denmark, London, even Finland and Sweden -- even though those were outside the given radius.. but in saying that, there had been rumors that "200 kilometers" itself was a lie.. so who knew? Let alone the fact every e-mail was signed off in a different greet from a different language, inciting more speculation). Anyway, needless to say, we ate a very nice meal at the restaurant before being given the location of our true destination: a hotel in Belgium (seemingly in the middle of nowhere). After dinner, Michel inputted the destination into his navigation system and we were off (we had sort of a bet as to who'd be to arrive there first). We stopped twice: once in The Netherlands to get some snacks and use the restrooms and once in Belgium to get cigarettes. It took us a couple of hours to get there (I don't recall how many exactly, could have been around three hours) but after arriving at the destination we came to the discovery that we were the first ones to arrive! :P What was also of note was that while nearing the destination, we saw some road signs telling passing vehicles the way to the nearby airport.. this only added to the speculations and thinking about it made sense of a lot of things that had been told to us, like needing to get up the next day at 5 in the morning and only having our bags in one bag (preferably a suitcase). We were certain this would be the reason we headed to Belgium as it makes sense (it's cheaper, thus better affordable, to fly from certain airports). When the others arrived and we were complete, we were told that one of the organizers was baffled that no one had seemingly gotten it because he still heard speculations as to where we'd go (by car, down south in France or Spain perhaps) to which I quietly but noticeably reacted with "airport!" to which he responded with "Exactly.", going on to tell us that we'd need to get sleep now because we had to check in the next day at 5AM (still not revealing our true destination!). Anxiously we headed off to our rooms for the night to get ourselves some shut-eye (I was put in a room with Michel -- they told us that because we were such good friends, they gave us the room with a single bed for two people.. thank God that was just a joke as it was actually two single beds stuck together. :P Needless to say, we quickly separated those two beds). Getting to sleep was a real challenge for me but even more of a challenge was getting up at 4:30AM! We quickly assembled and headed off for the airport and checked in where we were handed our tickets to.. Milan!!!! Never had I thought Milan would be a real option but how excited I was just to get to be in Italy! :D We boarded the plane and landed in Milan just one and a half hour later! With a serious case of jet-lag (I'm kidding :P) we got our baggage and got onto the bus that was going to take us into the city. After arriving in the city we immediately headed for our hotel there to store our baggages so we could go explore the city (we didn't check in, we only placed our baggage there). We were told that they tried to set us up with scooters but were unable to get enough scooters for everyone so they had arranged bicycles for us all; all we had to do was go into the city to pick them up. So on we went, stopping once by a small place for a quick cup of coffee and some breakfast, enabling me to quickly boast with my extensive grasp over the Italian language :P (in all honesty, I don't know many words outside of daily life, enabling me to just get by). After breakfast, we arrived at the store to get the bicycles but there was a bit of trouble acquiring them, where I was put in the position of being the interpreter. The problem was that we didn't finalize the deal resulting in the owner of the store to not have our bikes ready. In order to get the bikes ready he needed 30 minutes, so we waited in the bar next door where we got some coffee. When we finally got our bikes we headed off to the park called Parco Sempione" in which lay a castle called Castello Sforzesco". Getting there proved to be challenging to say the least. As a colleague so aptly stated in his weblog entry: the rules of traffic didn't seem to apply when Liones traveled through Milan. :P We didn't get there undamaged, however, as one of the employees was hit with a stroke of bad luck: a flat tire, resulting in the need for a repair shop or tools to fix it. After asking some people, we came to find out that there was a store nearby, so we fixed the problem without taking too much time. The castle itself was really something: very impressively put together and a real cool sight. We took a company photo in front of a big fountain which I may link to later, if allowed to do so (I'll modify this entry for that -- something I normally don't do -- so keep this entry in check :P). We then headed off through the city in search of a cathedral, or I should say: the cathedral; the Duomo". The Duomo is such a magnificent building.. absolutely stunning, to say the least! I took many pictures with my phone in hopes of capturing anything of its excellence but the results didn't capture anything worth showing here. After having seen the cathedral, it was time to head back to the hotel. The Hotel was a three-stars hotel and it was a very nice hotel to stay in. The best part was that some of us (including me) got their own individual rooms! :D After taking a shower and freshening up we assembled for dinner. We headed off to the nearby subway to take us into the city, stopping at an apperativo" bar before going to the restaurant where we had reservations. The restaurant we went to was a very nice place, we had a four-course meal which was absolutely delicious! There were a lot of laughs, a lot of drinking (wine, obviously :P) and we all had a nice time. :) The night was young and after dinner some of us (group of about 10) decided we'd want to go out clubbing. Before that, though, some felt it necessary to go to a bar first to get some drinks and possibly just remain there. As time passed, I made it clear that I wanted to go clubbing (I don't like bars much) so I told Michel and we mentioned it to the group (we were all getting to be a bit drunk too, including myself). It was then decided to search for a nice club to go to and our boss (who shall remain nameless due to privacy reasons.. bla, you know how it is :P) went up to some girls asking for directions. I accompanied him (thinking I might be needed if they didn't speak English -- which they did, as we were to find out) and we discovered there were a lot of places to go to within a small area not too far from where we were. The Boss arranged some taxi's to come pick us up (some felt ill or didn't want to come with us so they went back to the hotel) and just a few of us, I believe we were a six or seven man group by now, ventured on to the clubs! We got there at about 2 AM (I knew this because at 2 AM, bars across Italy are forbidden to serve alcohol.. and we were thirsty :P) and after managing to get a single alcoholic drink, we went into a seemingly very interesting club: Discoteca Hollywood. I won't describe everything that went on in there but we danced a lot, had fun, etc. :P We left the place at 5 AM and needless to say, I slept like a rock. :P The next day we had breakfast at a bar somewhere in the city and we split up in two groups. One group wanted to go to the burial grounds (which was noted for having nice sculptures and decorative tombs, etc.) and the other (including me) went into the city again, just to check the stores and maybe buy some clothes, etc (I ended up not buying anything :P). In all, we didn't really do much noteworthy: I got to eat Granita and we ate a pizza for dinner (couldn't resist :P). We went back to the hotel later in the day to check out (two of our bikes got stolen in front of it --not mine :P-- which needed to be resolved: we needed to pay for them) and after going by a local supermarket to buy my favourite of all cheeses (Galbanino) we left off for the airport again. We landed back in Belgium at 10:50PM and left for home. I eventually got back home at around midnight. The story has been cut short near the end because it grew to be a huge weblog entry but make no mistake about it: this has been the best company trip I've witnessed and been part of and I don't think it'll get beaten by future trips easily (although I have some hopes :P)! I want to thank the managers for such a cool destination and I want to thank the Boss for paying for it all: I never thought it'd be so elaborate as it turned out and I sure had the best time! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Symphony X/Dream Theater concert (part 2)! Date added: Tuesday, October 9 2007, 05:39PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 247 --- I just came back from seeing Symphony X and Dream Theater yet again and what an absolutely fucking amazing, mind-blowing show this has been!!!! I'm still very enthusiastic about the show (writing this at 2:30AM while the show stopped at around 11:30PM should give at least some hint as to the extent of my excitement)! I'll tell the story from the beginning: once there was a young mother who gave birth to a very talent-- well, maybe I'll skip a bit. :P We (Michel, Mick and I) arrived at the venue (Ahoy, in the city I live in, which is Rotterdam) at around 5:15PM (45 minutes later than planned due to the small fact of dinner which I didn't take into account :P) at which point it was already very crowded. Luckily my friend Ralph and a friend of his (also named Mick) kept us some warm spots in the front of the line (:D) so we could still be likely to have good positions in front of the stage. We'd also already planned to stand on the left side of the stage because we were standing on the right side of the stage last time we saw them so we would be able to see it from another perspective (also being perfectly aligned with Michael Romeo). As we were getting in when the doors opened at 6:30PM (after having waited almost one-and-a-half hours in T-shirts in the cold for so long) we were frisked by security for weapons and also home-brought foods/drinks (which were not allowed); I knew this was going to happen but I still took two cans of Coca-Cola with me because I knew I'd be getting thirsty once inside. When I was frisked, however, I took one can out of my pocket and held it in my hand (holding my hands in the air so he could frisk me) and as I had thought, he found the can I was holding in my pocket and threw it away but as stupid as it may seem he neglected anything I was carrying in my hands, so I was able to bring in with me (in open air in everyone's sight) a can of Coca-Cola. :D Once inside, I ran to the stage (as previous experience taught me) straight to the spot where we were supposed to meet (left side of the stage) but once there.. I saw no one.. it had seemed the others were just behind me, so I waited and Michel and Mick showed up but Ralph and his friend Mick were nowhere to be seen! As we waited I got anxious and looked around and sure enough.. the fuckhead was standing right in front of Petrucci again (right side of the stage). :P After calling (I wasn't about to leave my perfect spot) he explained that Dream Theater (meaning Petrucci in this context) was more his kind of thing so I was just going to stand there. Anyway, didn't matter much I guess (aside the fact it was considerably more boring). The show finally started after having waited another hour at 7:40PM (twenty minutes sooner than planned -- which made expectations rise even higher) by the Intro to Paradise Lost (just like last time) after which they came out on stage playing the subsequent track of the album (like last time) called "Set The World On Fire", after that they played "Domination" and "Serpent's Kiss" (like last time) but that's when it happened... Russel informed the crowd they'd play the theme song off their last album and without even processing what he'd said I immediately screamed "The Odyssey!!! FUCK!! YEAH!!!!!" after saying that (being the only one that really understood what he meant? -- no one else reacted to it) I started doubting myself, thinking "wait a minute.. they played Paradise Lost last time, shouldn't they mean from the current album?" but no! they started playing The Odyssey in its entirety!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D It fucking BLEW ME AWAY; that I would have the honor of witnessing them play The Odyssey! Needless to say, I reacted very enthusiastically to the performance, jotting down (in thought) some of the chords he played and some of the riffs I was struggling with and to my absolute amazement I came to realize that one certain part of The Odyssey which I learned to play in the past (called "Journey To Ithaca" starting at 3:40 into the song until 6:10) matched up EXACTLY with how I figured out how to play it!! Reason for excitement is that when learning it I was seeking tabs and most tabs were so horribly wrong and unreasonable in their thoughts for outlining a certain part of that piece, I got frustrated and started figuring it out myself! After that they went off stage and I mourned about it for the remaining minutes leading up to Dream Theater's intro. Their Intro is very cheesy but effective to say the least (if you've seen 2001: A Space Odyssey you'll probably know what I'm talking about if I mention apes and sticks? Well, that part anyway, but more dramatically.. :P). Not saying it's bad but a song from one of their albums would have better suited, in my opinion. :P Anyway, Dream Theater played a lot of songs from Systematic Chaos (as expected and to my slight dismay) but it was still very good to say the least! They really had fun in performing (which I felt was missing last time) and it really showed! Dream Theater's highlight (for me) was their performance of "Blind Faith" (Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence remains my all-time favourite album :P). :D In all, Dream Theater's setlist was a lot better this time, I feel. It was also very cool to see Jordan again with his Zen Riffer "Keytar"; I deeply respect Jordan for his love (and expressing) of real Prog and instruments. :P John Petrucci really played outstanding and what was also awesome was that he acknowledged Ralph and Mick for their effort in trying to score a guitar pick (they were bowing down to him -- like I was last time, together with them -- and showing him a piece of paper with "Please give guitar pick" written on it or something in that sense). He actually liked it so much (and probably also recognized them from last time) he kept throwing guitar picks at them (something he normally never/rarely does!) until they both had one!! :| I envy them immensely for that but it's okay, I'll get my chance next time. :P It's just a guitar pick... right? :D (Right? :() :P Also, speaking of acknowledgments: I was acknowledged myself on a couple of occasions by Michael Romeo and Jordan Rudess. :D (Had to mention that briefly; it's nice to be acknowledged by such respectful musicians. :D) In closing; this concert has been everything I hoped for and more!! I can't wait to see them again in the future (especially Symphony X -- hopefully separated from Dream Theater so there's more of them to go around :D)! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Symphony X/Dream Theater concert! Date added: Friday, October 5 2007, 04:07PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 246 --- Yesterday I went to Antwerp (Belgium, just 'cross the border) to see Symphony X and Dream Theater! I bought my ticket in the beginning of February, I think it was, and it has been a long wait since then! :P I went there together with Michel, Ralph and a friend of Ralph called Mick. We decided to head there early in the day so that we'd have perfect positions right up against the stage when they'd start playing at 8PM. So we got together at about 9:15AM and set out at around 10AM with a lot of food and beverages. At around 11AM we made a quick stop at a McDonald's to have a bite to eat and afterwards we drove straight to the venue at which they'd play; the Lotto Arena. Arriving at the Lotto Arena we expected to see at least a few dedicated fans already waiting, instead we found there to be none! :| Maybe I was a bit too optimistic in my thinking but that didn't matter much, we brought plenty of food and drinks and also brought along our Nintendo DS' (and a PSP) so we'd have something to do while waiting. At around 4:30PM the first fan (besides us :P) arrived at the venue! It was a guy named John who was also from The Netherlands, been tracking Dream Theater for a long time and been to many a concert. Anyway, since his arrival it started getting more and more crowded until finally, at 6:30PM the doors finally opened! Upon opening we immediately ran to the stage among around 70 other fans (rough estimate) and secured our well-earned place right at the stage where John Petrucci would be playing (he always plays on the audience's right side)! :D The place was packing up and at 8PM sharp, the lights dimmed and Symphony X opened with the first track off their latest album Paradise Lost (which is a song that they can't really play live since there are a lot of classic instruments in the song itself so the stage was still empty for the two-minute-thirty-seconds lasting opening song) after which they came on the stage with a bang! Their performance was mindblowingly awesome!! They played a lot of songs from Paradise Lost and (among others) also also played Sea of Lies which was really fucking awesome to see live! I really let myself go with their performance; singing along with the lyrics, jumping and head-banging enthusiastically to the music and really letting my presence be known to the band (both Michael LePond and Russell Allen acknowledged me on several occasions which was fucking awesome! :D). It's too bad Symphony X only got to play for 45 minutes, I would have wanted them to play on a lot longer than that. What also irked me was that the mixing was set-up pretty badly: the bass was overly present and both the guitar and keyboard(s) were way too soft; other than that the show was fantastic! So after Symphony X, Dream Theater came up on stage opening with a song from their latest album Systematic Chaos (an album which I -- contrary to my previous comments about it -- don't really like that much). They played a lot of songs from Systematic Chaos and also played a lot of songs from other albums spanning their career (most notably to me, the song called "Misunderstood" from the album Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, my most favourite album of all! :D:D:D). I enjoyed both performances a lot and loved seeing two of my idols (namely John Petrucci and Michael Romeo) live! After the concert, I bought two T-shirts of Symphony X depicting the album cover of their latest album: Paradise Lost. In all, it was an amazing experience and I'm really looking forward to seeing them again next Tuesday right here in Rotterdam (Ahoy)! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy 21st Birthday, Agilo! Date added: Wednesday, September 5 2007, 10:48AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 245 --- Yes, yes it's true! I'm 21 years of age as of today and it feels great! :D I have to say, I'm really happy with my current state: I'm attending the school I've waited on for five long years which is turning out to be even more awesome than I though and on top of it all, I work as a developer at a very cool company with awesome colleagues! Not much to else to say in this entry other than a "thank you" to all that congratulated me today. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Passed admission exam for Hogeschool Rotterdam! Date added: Saturday, August 18 2007, 06:10AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 244 --- The past weeks/months I've been so busy with my studies/work, I barely had time to make entries in my weblog. :x I'll now explain why the best I can, for it's practically impossible for me to bring it across well enough so American/English people can relate well enough due to huge differences in schooling systems. First, a definition according to Wikipedia (this explains it better than I ever would): Hogeschool Another type of institution of tertiary education in the Netherlands is the hogeschool. While the literal translation is "high school," it is more accurately described as university of applied sciences or university of applied arts. Such institutions can award Associate's, Bachelor's and for some of them Master's degrees. College In the Netherlands the term college is used for institutes of secondary education. The term college is also used for classes or lectures at university. During the end of my present school (college) I was working on getting myself a job and applying for a Computer Science study at the Rotterdamse Hogeschool (or: "Rotterdam University; a university of Applied Sciences" ― www.hro.nl). I wasn't acceptable a the Rotterdamse Hogeschool by default, I had to take an admission exam in "Maths For Higher Education", English and Dutch. Of course, English and Dutch were a given and I expected them to be relatively easy but Maths.. now that would present a huge problem for me, as I've not had any maths at school for over four years! Luckily there was a course I could take at the Rotterdamse Hogeschool, for a mere two hundred and fifty dollars (excluding the hundred dollars I had to spend on purchasing the maths books themselves)! The prices were outrageous, in my mind, but I paid it anyway for my own benefit. So I took the two weeks-course during school and my internship, only my school was against me doing it during school/internship. In fact, I had countless talks with the head master in order not to get sent off school (they said if I'd attend they'd throw me out of school). I don't want to go in detail explaining this entire affair, it'd take too long: in the end, I worked things out and I was allowed to attend. The course itself was really tough on me; I've never, ever studied as hard as I did for that maths course, ever. A typical day would be; me attending the maths course, writing down and taking in as much as humanly possible, go to school/internship for the remainder of that day and as soon as I got home study like a mad man until 11/12 PM, then going to bed to be able to get up relatively fit the next day at 7 AM. The weekends consisted of nothing more than maths, maths, maths.. nothing else; I didn't even turn on my computer! After the two weeks course there was the long-awaited admission exam which I took, and passed!!!! :D (I want to thank my neighbour and a girl called Paulien for helping me; you've both been a HUGE help to me!) A few weeks later my internship ended: at the end of my internship for my present school I had to hand in a report for what I've been doing on my internship. My teachers knew it was well above the standards the school laid upon me but I still needed to "officially" get it over with in the form of a report detailing what I've learned and how I've improved myself during my time there. So at the end of it all, I thought I had it all rounded up and presented it but it was disapproved! Instead of failing me they decided to push the submission date forward a bit, to upcoming September so as to give me time to get my things sorted out. After that ordeal, I started working full-time in my summers vacation for a web developing company Michel introduced me to (a company he works for himself); Liones. They make websites based on their own Content Management System (CMS): Lynkx, comprised of C# and XML. I like the company a lot, it's a very professional and fun company. :) During my time there, the time came to take the other two admission exams at the Rotterdamse Hogeschool: Dutch and English. The exams themselves were not very difficult at all, though: The Dutch exam consisted of reading a large text, answering a few questions about the text and writing a letter (in correct form and within 500 words). The English exam consisted of much the same except there were only seven questions (which I could answer in Dutch!) and no letter to write! I was still uncertain of the outcome as I've been skeptical of the English exam for being that easy. I also didn't meet the 500 words requirement in the letter I wrote for the Dutch exam. All my uncertainty was in vein though, as today, in the mail, I received the outcome of the exams and learned that I've passed them both, now being officially accepted for a study at the Rotterdamse Hogeschool!!! :D:D Of course, I'll still finish my unfinished college education (which is still a lot of work) but I'm happy to know that I've finally reached the goal I've set. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Extremely busy times. Date added: Wednesday, June 27 2007, 09:05AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 243 --- Okay, so, I've been busy like hell recently. I'll make some entries in coming weeks, hopefully. I'm at the end of my internship (almost), rounding off school and also starting a full-time job next week (for two months, maybe longer depending on several factors..). On top of that is my acceptance at the school I want to go to next. All these things will be written about in detail soon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New Guitar! Date added: Monday, May 28 2007, 04:42PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 242 --- Well, as I've mentioned in the past I was looking to buy a new guitar. In search for this guitar I visited many guitar stores in various cities in The Netherlands (sometimes joined by Carl, Ralph, Ed, Michel and/or Mick). I didn't just want any guitar, I set out to find a guitar according to certain specifications/demands. It had to... ...have 24 frets. I want to be able to play everything I want to play without a shortage of frets (I want to play things by John Petrucci and Michael Romeo which have licks/riffs/songs which go that far up the neck). ...have a floyd rose tremolo (double locking, of course). I felt it is needed for the guitar I want so I can utilize it. ...have a thin U-neck. I hate very thick necks, I feel limited playing on one because I feel I can perform faster on a very thin one (Ed lent me his Ibanez a while back which has a very thin wizard neck which I really liked). I also don't want a V-neck or a flat back because they feel awkward to me. ...have a smooth neck (not a woody/slow feel). I love polished necks, they make me play faster and smoother as I go up/down the neck. ...have a good/soft inlay (i.e. unlike a Les Paul model). This is an important demand; I play better when my hand is rested properly which I cannot achieve that on a sharp edge. ...be within a 300-700 EUR price range. Everything below 300 is a waste of money, in my opinion (I've had a cheap Ibanez before and it sucked), and I don't have the patience to save up beyond the 700 EUR price range. :P Of all the stores I've been to, and of all the guitars I've tested (and they are countless), I found myself with only two choices which adhered to the required specifications: The Ibanez RG1570 Prestige. The ESP LTD M-200FM. The only difference being that the Ibanez is a little more expensive (780 EUR) and that it also has a very woody unpolished (and cheap feeling) neck. After giving both guitars some serious thought (I'm talking weeks of continuous weighing of the two choices and visiting stores to play them) I eventually decided that the Ibanez' (though be it a wizard neck) woody and unpolished feel was just not doing it for me. My specifications were clear and I didn't base them on nothing; a polished neck just plays a lot better! Let alone the fact it's 200 EUR more expensive than the ESP. So I finally decided on the ESP LTD M-200FM (in red -- STBC)! :D An added feature to this guitar is that due to the push/pull Coil Split on Tone Control I can even play with (albeit simulated) single coils. :D After that, I placed the order for the ESP (which is 500 EUR) and the matching case (which is 120 EUR) a few weeks ago at laenenmusic.nl where the guitar is 70 EUR cheaper than other stores I've seen it. I was told it would take some time for it to arrive and a week ago he let me know (via e-mail) that the guitar had arrived! Saturday I went to the store with Michel and picked up my brand new guitar, which is really fucking beautiful! Not only that but Michel bought a Musicman (SUB) bass guitar for only 800 EUR (price on the paper said "999 EUR" but he cut him a deal because it was 800 EUR at another store elsewhere)! I really love my new guitar, it plays like a dream and I really feel improvement in my play already (I can do things which I previously couldn't because I was prevented by certain things like the neck). The things I notice most are that pinch harmonics are done so easily and harmonics come through so clean and well and on placed I couldn't even dream of doing them on previous guitars (on the second fret or on the third fret on 3.3, 3.7)! There are two things which irk me, though: The Floyd Rose needs lots of force to pull up (increase pitch). The metals of the frets are really high (which may result, at times, in unclean notes as I press down too hard). The Flody Rose can be fixed in a guitar shop for some 30 EUR (which I plan on doing if I can't do it myself) and as far as the metals in the frets are concerned I'll just need to adjust my play accordingly (use less force pushing down). :P Anyway, that's about it for now. Need to get back to playing, I've been typing this entry for far too long. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Spock's Beard concert! Date added: Monday, May 28 2007, 09:11AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 241 --- Last friday I attended a long-awaited concert by Spock's Beard! :D I bought tickets to see them when I first heard about their tour (back in January) and waited very anxiously for friday to come 'round. When I read they were also going to be shooting for a DVD I knew this concert was going to be absolutely awesome. I went there together with Ed, Lenna, Michel and Ralph and what a concert it was!! When we arrived there there were some initial problems: when we parked the car it landed in kind of a ditch and we had to be towed out (at the time of this happening we were unsure if we'd even get to attend the concert) luckily things turned out okay in time as we managed to get towed out by a friendly bystanderd (who had a car and the tools requires to pull us out). After that ordeal we entered the venue just after the opening act by Steve Thorne had started and after buying three Spock's Beard T-Shirts, we went into the room and we slowly drove our way forward through the crowd and eventually had reasonably good positions in the crowd; we stood in the center behind just 4/5 rows of people. :D I have to say, Steve Thorne really sucked, I really didn't like the music he was playing (except for one song called "The Last Line" which was kind of okay but still very lacking..). After he got of the stage (he played for thirty minutes or so) Spock's Beard finally got on the stage and I (together with the crowd) yelled my heart out to greet them. What an incredible concert this has been, with loads and loads of highlights which will all be on the DVD (hopefully also including a small hilarious dialogue I had with the keyboardist Ryo which killed the crowd and myself laughing: the bandmembers were asking eachother how they were doing, and I yelled "Ogenki desu ka?!" -- meaning "How are you?!" in Japanese -- at Ryo and was promptly answered with "Fuck you!" :D). :D They played the roof of in their 3 hours worth of music ranging for lots of albums (including Alan's "4 O'clock And Hysteria")! Too bad nothing from Snow was played but Thoughts Part 2 more than made up for that. :D Anyway, in all it was one of the best concerts I attended so far and I'm looking forward to seeing myself on the DVD (and re-watching the concert over and over and ov- you get the point :D). :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New albums!! Date added: Friday, May 11 2007, 10:13AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 240 --- I just downloaded the new recently leaked albums by Dream Theater; Systematic Chaos, and by Symphony X; Paradise Lost. :D I listened through the album by Dream Theater; Systematic Chaos, and thought the album was really awesome! It's heavier then I'm used to from Dream Theater but some tracks really grasped me. After the album finished I noticed that the new album by Symphony X had also been leaked! :| I immediately downloaded it and listened through it when it finished (still listening as I'm writing this -- I'm at the 8th song now called "Seven"). The moment I started playing this album I was shocked to hell and back again.. this album is SO FUCKING GOOD. :|:|:| The first 3 minutes into the album (at the start of track 2) I already realized this is way better than the new Dream Theater album (no disrespect intended, the new DT CD rules but this just so much better!)! I'm going to be playing these albums long after I'm done writing this entry, I just wanted to make a weblog entry about it. :) Oh, and I'm also going to see Dream Theater AND Symphony X (together in one concert!) on their promotional tours in Antwerp on 4 October (going to buy tickets tomorrow)! :D And also; Spock's Beard's concert is just two weeks ahead!!! :D In totally unrelated news: next week I'll have my final exams. :) I also ordered my new guitar which I'll own within two months. I decided on the before mentioned ESP LTD M-200FM. :D More about it when I get it. :) That's it for now! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Guitar Chords and other stuff. Date added: Sunday, April 8 2007, 12:05PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 239 --- A few days ago I had a couple of hours to kill at my internship so instead of doing nothing I decided to pass time by building up a fretboard of a guitar in a text file for fun and profit. As I was doing it, I wondered if I could make it in HTML so I could have a better visual on it (i.e. using CSS). As I built up a basic HTML layout I stopped and thought about a couple of aspects (amount of frets/strings) and pondered about making it in JavaScript instead (so I could change these aspects dynamically). I then started writing it all up and after some time I got it the way I wanted to; basic fretboard that's easily adjustable. After I had the ground layers built up, I then thought of adding chords to it if it would be easy to implement, so I started experimenting and worked it out and managed to get it working very smooth and easily. The only thing I had left to do then was fill up the page with some guitar chords. I initially wrote just the basic chords (classic C, D, E, F, G, A and B) but as I was doing that, I thought about something I've been thinking about for a while now: I could write some shell scripts to "rip" and use the chord database of a site I use often as reference; jguitar.com. I've thought about it often because I've always wanted a "random chord" feature from some site but never ran across it (granted; I never really looked). So I started contemplating and working out the site's structure and found a way to get their entire chord database (I won't say how exactly but I do want to thank them for making it so damn easy for me). After putting in the chords into the script I started writing the long-wanted "random chord" feature (which was a bit of messing around) and finished that not-too-long after that. The end result can be found here: files/projects/guitar.php ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Continuation of previous entry. Date added: Saturday, April 7 2007, 06:37AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 238 --- A bit more time passed by than I thought there would, heh. I hate it when I can't get around to doing what I want to do. A few new "features" to this weblog (as you may or may not have noticed); "support" for Internet Explorer (omgwtfLAWLgetoutahurr!?!?) a shiney logo and an OpenSearch function. The logo had been created by me about two years ago and I've since added it (in ASCII-form) in the source of my weblog never having brought up the topic or anouncing it. I wanted to do something with it but time passed and it kinda got pushed back and left behind. Now I thought it'd be nice to actually implement it visibly into my weblog hence the header and the favicon (the logo in the location bar of your browser). :) (Thanks to Michel for creating the logo on my specifications. :D) As a more technical feature, just when you thought the Search function itself wasn't available fast enough; I've added an OpenSearch function to my weblog! You can now (in Firefox 2) select the search bar (click the icon of the selected search engine) and choose "Add "Agilo's Weblog"" to add my weblog and search on-the-fly using this feature in Firefox! :D For the reasons as to why only Firefox: take a look at the source of the opensearch feature and read my comments (this is the first time I actually dislike Firefox as it actually breaks a standard that's perfectly fine in itself!). Then for some other shorts: I saw the movie 300 when it hit the theaters (March 22nd) and I thought it was really awesome!I may get kicked out of school due to poor results (not related to my internship -- I don't want to go into this further; I know what I'm doing and where I'm going and trust me, I won't be an all-bad thing if it does happen).I got a 100 Watts guitar amplifier which is really awesome and I'm saving up for a guitar to go with it. I've gone to many music stores across the country so far and the guitar best suited according to my specifications/demands is the ESP LTD M200 FM (in red :P). :DI went snowboarding again with the same anonymous person I went snowboarding with in the past (it was very cool, been a while since I last went snowboarding :P). :) I guess that's about it. :P More on the guitar as I get nearer to buying it (won't be for another two months) and more on my education when I feel like writing about it (it will keep me very busy the next couple of months due to getting into the school, so writing weblog entries will be affected by it!). As for other things to come (some small hints): Spock's Beard concert (!!!!!), Dream Theater concert (maybe; if I can fork over the 120 bucks), new Symphony X and Dream Theater CD's and.. well, more on the rest when it happens. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Doing better but am very busy. Date added: Wednesday, March 28 2007, 09:19AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 237 --- Posting a quick weblog entry just to state that I'm still alive. :P I'm feeling a lot better than I did when I wrote my last weblog entry; lots of things happened of which I'll soon write about in a new weblog entry. Most importantly (for this entry alone); Gwen read my last weblog entry which led us to talk about stuff that was going on and we worked things out so that neither of us would be left with a grudge (thank you for that, Gwen, it helped me a lot :)). That's about it for now, (a lot) more soon! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: My state of being. Date added: Friday, February 23 2007, 05:05PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 236 --- Lately I've been rethinking a lot of things in my life; I wouldn't call it mid-life crisis exactly but I have been thinking about what exactly it is I want out of life and my prospects as a being (don't worry, I'm not going to invoke faith or fantasized beings or whatnot). The gist of it is that the more I near my desired goal, since childhood, (which is the level of education I may or may not start at the end of this year) the more I ask myself "Is this really what I want? Is this really who and what I want to become? Shut away behind a computer doing what I do as a living? Will I be able to actually do this for a living (as opposed to keeping it as a hobby)?" and the more I wonder about other possibilities in life and the more I think of it, the easier it gets to just disregard it entirely. But maybe I do have a point.. maybe I could just make a complete change while I still can, now, while it's still possible.. but then again, what the hell would I do? Teachers aren't helping me much at school, either. My mentor, a certain teacher and the dean all have absolutely no faith in me as a student whatsoever. They only know me on the surface and base their assumptions on that what they see. For instance, me using a word such as "implement" in one of the assignments and my mentor (note that this is an IT teacher) says I didn't write it myself and took it directly from the internet because (and I quote to show his stupidity): "normal people do not use words like that". Not only that, but they repeatedly tell me I'm not going to make it, I should stop school and get a job. This all probably won't affect me much, though; I will keep going on track as I always have and go to the school I strove for all this time, I'm just curious as to what my life would be like doing something completely different. :P Then there are recent happenings concerning love. I used to think that love would be easy: you tell someone you love that person and tell her what she means to you, are prepared to do literally anything physically possible without limitation or hesitation and that if the love was replied everything would be alright. I strove to keep that mentality the last couple of years as I became more active, socially, but more and more do I realize that I've been living in a fantasy world where everything is bright and colorful and nothing can go wrong. No matter the kind of relationship I sought, I was always prepared to give it my full and time and time again I was let down. I tried not to let it get to me too much and live on and a year ago I met the girl that would change my life, not only because it was the first girl in my life that I felt connected to but also because she was everything I always dreamed of; the perfect girl for me. Not that I had plans of marriage or anything (:P) but I did really love this girl with all my heart, even though she had a boyfriend at the time, I felt there was room for something to exist between her and me. Then when her relationship ended with him, I noticed a brief existence of freedom within her, ready to do whatever the hell she wanted. I never did try to exploit that, I just experienced it the way it happened and hoped it would lead into something to come into existence. She always said that she didn't feel the same way and maybe I was blind to her truth but I still had high hopes as I experienced being with her. That all ended when she announced she met someone, shattering me like nothing before. Time past and wounds healed, I guess; to quickly continue the story without going into further detail. I do always think it funny the way she (after it was over with that guy she met) eventually ended up with one of my closest friends, though; I can only say I'm truly sorry for standing in the way at the beginning. It would be a lie to say I have no mixed feelings about this, though. I don't mind it, I just noticed it feels odd when I'm around them, seeing them be together, and I start to do stupid things to distract myself from what's really going on. Again: I don't mind it much, I don't want to put a stop to this or anything (really), I just always thought that it wouldn't affect me that much. Anyway, to continue.. I then met Gwen and slowly began to let my past feelings go, passing it on to Gwen. She told me she loved me and wanted to see me via webcam often, always telling me she wanted to be with me. Then the day finally came when we met on December 29th (It wasn't just us two, it was a meeting with online friends she had organized) and it was really wonderful. We kept being close together and eventually (discretely) held hands often, sitting together, that sort of thing. Never in my life was I happier than from that day on. Never did anyone say such lovely things to me and I will never forget what she said on Christmas and new years' eve; the sweetest things I had ever hear someone say to me. Then we met on January 2nd and, well, we all know how that turned out. After that, things took a turn for the worst (I won't go into this, but it really wasn't to do with me or what happened on January 2nd). We patched things up and left it behind us, but things weren't altogether good anymore. When it finally seemed to be going into the right direction, she gave me the loneliest feeling I had ever experienced in my life and it shattered me completely, it tore a hole in my heart so deep I couldn't act or say anything to her anymore, I couldn't bare the sight of her. My weblog missed this event, but this all happened during an official JM2 meeting we both attended where (very shortly put) she acted as if I was just some friend that was there, getting no real attention of any kind, instead her turning every attention to her best friend (who was also there -- and he really is just her best friend, not boyfriend, that is to say that she isn't physically attracted to him, for the record) and acting very juvenile (drinking and being touchy-feely with eachother), and I was just standing there watching it all happen. I tried making the best of it, thinking I was just not used to friends being together and alcohol being tossed around so heavily, but things went progressively worse up to the point where I couldn't stand the sight of her (it was at this point she made this picture of me). Even though she was there and I was with her, I never felt so alone in all of my life. It hurt me so much I couldn't think anymore, I couldn't do much of anything. We left the meeting by bus and I never knew it was possible for two people who love each other to be so damaged it brought tears to our eyes laying eyes on each other. We didn't say a single word for the entire trip which lasted about an hour and 15 minutes! When she left, she did take the initiative when saying goodbye to give me a hug, but I was so torn I literally couldn't move my hands to return the hug and I was unable to say anything. It was then, I think, she realized the seriousness of what I went through. We talked and talked and talked and eventually (after a few weeks) got over it but it left us both scarred and, well, we know how that turned out. As I'm writing this, I'm in no way trying to get Gwen back; it's over for both of us and I don't think I'd want her back after what she's done. I won't hate her for what happened (I will forever remember her for the good times I experienced) but I do resent her for never giving more input trying to work on our relationship (God knows I have). Getting back to my views on love; I've talked to a guy I've known for the longest time now, who has never had any problems with the ladies (so to speak) who told me that by telling her I love her and letting her know exactly what I felt it was exactly that which made her lose interest. That it's always best to let the girl work for it more; doing the dance of love, as they say. As he was telling me this, I took solace in what he said as he said it but in the back of my mind I was thinking "Why the hell does it have to be so goddamn complicated? Why can't people just say what they really feel and make things so much easier!?". :S Maybe he's right, though, and maybe other people are right as well; to treat girls like shit so as to make them come at you in flocks, and why not? It seems to work for the people doing it like this.. Maybe I'm just not ready for a relationship.. but I just can't shake the feeling of loneliness (even though you wouldn't see it by looking at me in daily life). Anyway, if you've made it through this far into this (rather messy, in my opinion) weblog entry (and I should thank you for caring): don't worry, I won't do anything stupid I'll regret and no, I won't turn emo and start cutting myself like some attention whore and no, this weblog entry isn't meant to arouse pity or guilt or much of anything. I just wanted to put my current situation and feelings on to paper (so to speak). :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Spock's Beard! Date added: Thursday, February 15 2007, 10:23AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 235 --- The band Spock's Beard is coming to The Netherlands again! They will be performing on the 25th of May in the venue in which I attended my very first concert, namely: De Boerderij. I've already bought tickets, together with Ed, and Ralf and Mick are also coming with us. :D Maybe another classmate of mine will also come (with a friend of his), but that remains to be seen. :P I really cannot wait to seeing them on-stage again! "Spock's Beard", their latest album, is really good (a step into the right direction after their last two not-all-too-great albums) and I hope they play at least "All That's Left". :P Other than that, I'm hoping for lots of snowy goodness (get it? Snowy? Snow? :D). :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Gwen and Status Update. Date added: Wednesday, February 14 2007, 12:51PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 234 --- The lack of weblog posts since my last are not without reason; it has everything to do with Gwen and me. As much as I hate writing about it (and I will refrain from going into much detail); it's all over between me and her. I guess I'm glad she ended what we had: despite what we went through in the end, I couldn't do it myself; I wanted it too badly (even through misery). I fucking loved her with all my heart and soul and she threw it down the drain without doing so much as to try and stop it (we both tried to make it work but besides talking there was little effort made from her part). Never will I forget the immense hapiness I enjoyed with her and I will remember my first kiss with her until the day I die. I'm just sad it had to end like this and so soon.. Anyway, as for other stuff I did, I went Go-Karting with Michel and Mick (we only later found out it was Mick's birthday :P). I also went to a concert by Spinvis which was really cool. Other than that I'm really busy with my internship and school and getting accepted on the next school I want to go to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Gwen; my first kiss, my first love. Date added: Wednesday, January 3 2007, 06:09PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 233 --- Yesterday (January 2nd, 2007 -- for the record), I met Gwen again at her house, only this time there was no one around; just us two. :) The day started for me getting up at 9 AM so I was up early enough to catch the train to Utrecht Central Station at 10:11 AM (which I managed to catch -- I listened to Time And A Word, an album by Yes, for the entire trip to her house). I arrived in Utrecht at around 10:45 AM where I caught a bus to Gwen's house, finally arriving there at around 11:20 AM. I was let in by Gwen who came to answer the door looking as pretty as ever. :) We then went to her room and spent time talking to eachother, chatting with people from JM2, doing some of the things we did last Friday and just basically having fun until finally, it got to a point when we both sat on her bed. She was looking so incredibly beautiful, I just couldn't resist myself anymore so I leaned over and gave her a gentle kiss on her cheek. I told her there was something I had been meaning to say to her for a long time (which I've rehearsed so many times in my dreams and have wanted to say for such a long time). It took me a while to say it but I was determined to finally say to her to let her know just how strong my feelings for her are, so I started to caressed her face around her cheek and I finally said to her the words: Ik hou van je, Gwen" ("I love you, Gwen"). After that, we hugged (with a pillow in the way :P) for a while and I continued to give her soft kisses on her cheeks and on her forehead. After a long while she got up because she said she was about to fall asleep. :P She then went to check up on her computer for a while where lots of people were continuously talking to her. :P Then, when things calmed down again, I asked her to come to me again to hug and lie next to me. She said she thought she was going to fall asleep again but I said it didn't really matter much so she then got in my arms and we hugged so nice and firmly and I continued to kiss (again on cheeks and forehead) and hold her. She even fell asleep in my arms, so I took off my glasses and I rubbed my head softly against hers, touching her with my lips and nose and kissing her on her forehead. I also kept saying things to her, of which I'm not sure she could even still hear. :P After a very long while, she woke up again and it was around that point we were called by her grandmother for lunch. I ate peanut butter for the first time in a very long time. :P Anyway, after lunch we went back to her room again and (for a while) just continued what we had been doing before all the hugging and kissing (note: up to this point it was all only on her cheeks and forehead). I also took over for a second to talk to Ed, so I sat in her chair and she was sitting on her bed. Of course, I wasn't that actively chatting with Ed; I kept looking at Gwen wanting what we've been doing before lunch. After a while I got up and walked up to her bed and as she lied down on her back I was overcome with emotions and I crawled up on top of her (on one side) and kissed her forehead again. She then covered her face, playfully, so I started to move away her hands from her face and as I was doing so, I asked her if it would be alright if I kissed her on her lips, to which she replied that it was alright; I then kissed her on her sweet, soft and delicious lips with all the love I had to give, again and again and again and again in a variety of ways (long, short, on various sides of her lips, trying to hold her lips, tilting my head to the right, licking her lip while holding it with mine, etc.), I never wanted to stop. I then got so loaded up with emotions I kissed the side of her mouth, then her cheek and then I just dropped my head on her chest, holding her and I even gave a kiss on her chest. I held her for a while and went back to her face to kiss her again and then we just hugged again. After a while, she got up again to check what people were saying on her computer, she gave a sort-of reaction so I asked her what it was?; she told me to check for myself, so I did, and by a stroke of sheer (and certainly humorous) coincidence it was Ed saying that we should stop kissing. XD We also made a couple of pictures with her camera but I won't publish them all. [IMG: Picture of me kissing Gwen on the cheek.] This is a picture of me giving Gwen a kiss on her soft cheek. We hugged and kissed a lot more that evening and I also stayed for dinner (had a pretty good meal). :D In the night we shot some more pictures of ourselves and eachother and also had a lot of fun. :) Right before I left I asked her to come lie with me again, pulling her away from her computer (:P), so she came to me as Iay on her bed, dropped herself on me and we then hugged eachother and I got to kiss her on her sweet lips again. At that point it was time to leave (had to catch a bus), so and I left her house (with two kisses to remind me of her) at 10:50 PM. I finally got back home at 12:30 PM (had to wait 15 minutes for the bus, 20 minutes for the train and 5 minutes for the subway :S) but it didn't matter, I will remember this day and its happenings for the rest of my entire life. :) I probably didn't tell everything and I'm sure I messed up on some of the timing (I'm not too certain anymore, I was too caught up in certain moments) but all the important things are described pretty well now. That, and if I were too write everything and in such detail, it would take me too long and this would become immensely large in size, so I'm just going to cut it off here. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy New Year! Date added: Wednesday, January 3 2007, 06:08PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 232 --- Another year has come to an end, and just like last year I'd just like to reflect on the past year. Note: I've purposely delayed posting this due to personal reasons. I've come to know Lenna and have had a lot of fun with her, including my very first gig, ever! It's too bad things didn't work out between her and me but it doesn't matter anymore; I've learned a lot from her which I'll always cherish. :) Thank you Lenna, I hope we'll stay good friends forever. :D In the last two months of the year, I've met Gwen, the absolute (high)light of my life! I've never before met anyone like her; she's so incredibly sweet and nice, loves and accepts me for who I am and is a lot of fun to be with. You are the nicest girl I have ever met and I love you, Gwen! :) This year I've also bought the M3 Adapter for my Nintendo DS which prolonged the usage of my DS considerably. I now use it for everything, ranging from just (NDS/GBA/GBC/SNES/NES/homebrew) games to homebrew projects (like DSLinux, Moonshell, etc.) to even movies/music/images (using Moonshell). It's the most perfect handheld I can imagine and I love messing with and programming for it. I love the Nintendo DS. :D After much consideration, I've also bought a Flute this year and learned to play it (I would also like to recognize Mr. Schroder here). At the start of this year I went snowboarding with Ed and Mick which was totally amazing and made me realise that the thing I like doing most is off-piste snowboarding. 2006 was also the year I shook off Linux in favour of (eventually) FreeBSD (mostly due to a failed harddisk, but I always knew it was coming while using Linux). 2006 was also the year I (finally) registered my domain: agilo.nl! Also a big thing this year was the launch of the Nintendo Wii! I've been counting the days until launch for quite some time and I finally got to play it for the very first time at this year's Gameplay which I attended with Ralph, Nick and Patrick. It is also never mentioned in my weblog that my little brother purchased the Wii, so I guess this is a good a time as any: my little brother bought the Nintendo Wii at launch day together with Zelda and Wii Play. :D What also happened this year is the change of my hair from nothing(/dull) to something, thanks to Lenna. :) I hope I didn't forget anything, heh. Anyway, all the best to everyone and a happy new year! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Gwen's Meeting! Date added: Saturday, December 30 2006, 05:33PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 231 --- Since I've been a (not-so-active) member (on Ralph's suggestion, who is a long-time member) of the profile site JM2 (I will refrain from linking and naming it in full because of conflicts with the site's staff) I've come to know some people (some better than others). One of them who I talked to most was Gwen. I got to know Gwen pretty well and thought she was very interesting and above all; very sweet, so I added her on MSN to continue talking to her without the need of JM2. She turned out to have a very great taste and appreciation in good music (her parents both having a very extensive collection of CD's -- around 1800 of them; almost, if not all legally bought) and also knowing how to play a variety of instruments (guitar, drums and some sax). I had gotten to know her pretty well, so well that it had gotten to the point where I really started to like her very much (and she let me know on several occasions that she also liked me a lot). Ever since, I had really wanted to meet her and had planned to do so on the day of the Gameplay, but due to circumstances that didn't work out for her so we didn't meet up at all. However, she did let me know that she was planning a meeting for certain people she knew from JM2 and invited me to come as well. That day finally came yesterday when I went to her meeting together with Ralph! Me and Ralph met in the train to Utrecht central station and arrived there at the time we were supposed to meet (exactly 11 AM). We met up with Gwen, Danny, Roy and Sietse, talked for a short while whilst waiting if someone else might show and at 11:25 AM we decided we'd waited long enough so we left (by bus) to Gwen's house. :) Arriving there I immediately noticed the huge CD storage closet in the hallway and gazed on all the CD's in it. I know LOTS of bands in that collection and it is so nice to see other people with such good taste music. :D We had a very fun time there which, for Ralph at least, got cut short with him having to leave somewhat early in the day (around 3 PM, I think) due to work. After he left, the rest of us went to Gwen's room and stayed there for the rest of the evening (we also ate there -- Gwen's mom got everyone some fast food :P). It was a lot of fun, a lot of laughter and they're a great bunch of people to hang out with. :) I also loved being around Gwen, she's so nice and cute; I loved being together with and close to her and she very much liked the exact same thing at the same time, which resulted in some very awesome (and somewhat discrete) moments together (even while being surrounded by others :P). :) Needless to say, we didn't pay all-too-much attention to the rest of the group at some moments but that was alright, I think they understood what was going on. :P :) In the end, I hated having to leave so soon (It was only just around 10:30 PM), I was prepared to stay until much later (if allowed) but alas. :P Oh well, I can't wait to see Gwen again (hopefully very, very soon)! :D Also, on a more personal note in case Roy reads this (which I'm sure he might): I hope you don't hate me too much and I'm sorry for the way it ended up for you, I know how it feels to be in your shoes (really, you have no idea -- I know exactly how it is and what it's like). All I can say is that I hope this won't get you down too much and it all works out for you eventually (it might take some time but I'm sure you'll get over it). :) (I really don't want this to sound like pity, I don't mean it as such.) Oh, and the words of the day (I just have to mention these :P): vet cool"! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: GamePlay, Nintendo Wii! Date added: Saturday, November 25 2006, 08:20PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 230 --- Yesterday, me, Ralf, Nick and Patrick attended the annual HCC fair in Utrecht (albeit we actually only attended the GamePlay portion of it due to circumstances) where I got to play the Nintendo Wii for the very first time! :D:D I have to say I've taken a very strong liking to the console already and I can't wait to get it myself! :) Games I played on the Wii were Duck Hunt, Excite Truck, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Medal of Honor (which freaggin' sucked) and loads of other games that were put up to get the feel of the controller and handling. Games I only saw (not played) were: Zelda, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, Red Steel and Warioware. It was really very hilarious and lots of fun playing Wii Sports (Tennis) with all four of us. :D The handling of the controller is very well in some games (such as Wii Sports, Excite Truck) but lacking and downright horrible in others (mainly just Medal of Honor). Other than that, I'm very positive of the innovative new controller and I very much hope that it is to other people as well. On other non-Wii related topics, I also waited in line for 30 minutes to see a short 4-minute presentation of the Playstation 3, and after that actually getting to play it (for 6 minutes). :D I played Ridge Racer 7 on it, which was beautiful and I very much liked the handling of the cars (as I always have with previous Ridge Race titles); Resistance: Fall of Man, which I didn't like all too much; and another sort-of racing title which was real slow and seemed to be having a lot of FPS-drop issues. Other games I got to see were an F1 game and I think also another game but I don't remember that one. :P In all, it was a very lengthy and tiresome day (hence the late entry) but it really was lots of fun. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Nintendo Wii homebrew scene.. it has begun! Date added: Wednesday, November 22 2006, 05:04PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 229 --- I was there at the beginning of the Nintendo DS hacking/cracking and homebew scene and I'm here now at the dawn of the Nintendo Wii homebrew scene (actually, apparently, I'm still two days late but still. :P) Anyway, real exciting news just stormed uppon my browser as I read (and viewed) that GameCube homebrew is able to run using Action Replay and SDLoad! Unfortunately, though, the well-known Phantasy Star Online hack doesn't work (which was the method I had used a long time ago on the GameCube). :( Also, a lot of material is being reverse engineered by various different people (among which is the well-established DarkFader, from what I noticed). I can't wait to be able to try all of these findings myself when the Wii arrives that my little brother pre-ordered. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Rock Academy and Children of Men. Date added: Wednesday, November 22 2006, 04:42PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 228 --- Saturday, me Ed and Michel went to Tilburg to visit an open house for the Rock Academy there (an education Ed wants to attend). It was pretty interesting and there were definitely some really talented people there. I've also been thinking of doing an education in music but I don't want it to be rock-orientated. I'm still uncertain but it will either be in Jazz or in Classical, time will tell. First, though, I'm going to do Application Development for the next four years. :) When the open house ended, we went into the city for a short while to check out some stores and have dinner. Also fun to mention this: while we were eating at a McDonnalds, I made use of its wireless access point to make a connection through SSH (using DSLinux on my Nintendo DS) to my computer (running FreeBSD) at home. :D Not real groundbreaking or anything, but I've not done this before and it's fun to be able to do anything remote from so far though my Nintendo DS! :) After dinner we went back to the car to go home. On our way home, we decided (on the road) to go to Antwerp (yes, in Belgium) to a movie theater which was supposedly real luxurious. After quite some hassle in the city of Antwerp, we finally found the movie theater we had set off to go to ("Metropolis", it's called) and we saw the movie Children of Men, which was really a very awesome movie! The music in it was really great, too; it featured songs by Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Sigur Ros and more notably (to me, anyway) King Crimson with the song "The Court Of The Crimson King". :D:D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Very busy times. Date added: Thursday, November 16 2006, 11:31AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 227 --- Once again, I've let a lot of time pass by without so much as a word, hence this entry. :P Reason for this is that I've just started my internship a few weeks ago and I've had to deal with a lot of things all at once, I even find it hard to make time to do useful things for myself (such as practicing my flute or finishing on my own open projects). Anyway, I have tried to make the time to practice my flute and I am improving (slightly). I'm getting more and more familiar with the instrument and I still like playing it, I just wish I was a natural talent for it (so I'd be playing lots of cool songs and such). :P But oh well, all in due time. :) As for other things, nothing real exciting has happened or anything. My little brother pre-ordered the Nintendo Wii a while ago, and we're both looking forward to its launch coming 8th of December. :D It also seems that sgstair has put some projects on hold to (soon) start working on reverse engineering the Wii's wireless hardware (among other things). :o Can't wait to see how that will end up. :) I'm planning on keeping a very close eye on the Wii's hacking and homebrew scene (like I have with the Nintendo DS since it launched in America). Anyway, that's about it for now. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: I bought a Flute! Date added: Friday, October 27 2006, 03:09PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 226 --- Exactly three days ago on the 24th of October, I bought a Flute (also known as a Concert Flute or in Dutch: een Dwarsfluit)! I've never played any woodwind instruments so this is completely new to me. When I just had it I put it together without knowing how to properly assemble it and I tried to play it, unsuccessfully. So I sought for a little beginners how-to on the internet and found one (in Dutch) teaching the basics on how to use your lips/mouth to blow air into the instrument (also known as "embouchure") and it also has a fingering chart to teach how to play basic tones. After having read through the little how-to, I managed to play my very first tone; a C! However, after I played it, I came to the discovery that it didn't sound anything like a C. So I grabbed my keyboard and compared the notes and found I was actually playing a Dis! I have no idea if that's the way I play it or if it's off-key, but luckily I have a teacher at school who has been playing woodwind instruments for 20 years (also repairing), so I am going to ask him soon. Untill then, I'll keep playing and have been doing so for the last few days. I'm now actually playing very small riffs, so I am making progress (although I find it very hard :P). :) My only fear is that when my flute is tuned, I'll have to re-learn what I've learned so far.. but oh well, that doesn't matter too much: at least I'll have learned to actually play on it. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: FreeBSD! Date added: Friday, October 27 2006, 02:54PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 225 --- I know this is a very late entry, but I installed FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE (for the record) on the 13th of October, 2006. :D Everything went very smoothly; the installation, the set-up of various applications (through ports), the configuration of config files, the installation and configuration of NVidia (and TVOut!! -- which was a bit of messing around with my XF86Config file, but I did manage to get it working properly :D) and the installation of Enlightenment. Speaking of all of that, I think it's about time for a screenshot: [IMG: Screenshot of FreeBSD.] This screenshot shows FreeBSD running my favourite window manager: Enlightenment. There are a few things which I need to work on but none present any real problems. :P Everything is working really well and I'm enjoying everything FreeBSD has to offer. :) I love the environment and the way it operates (of course similar to every UNIX derive/variant, but still :P)! Soon I'll install Apache, PHP and ProFTPD and have everything set-up like I had it in Gentoo. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Beaten Ed to death in Tetris DS. Date added: Tuesday, October 17 2006, 05:35PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 224 --- I wanted to make a very short entry on how I managed to defeat Ed in rounds of Tetris DS (Push mode) a few days ago. The final score (before he had to go for some unexplainable reason) was 61-0 (in my favour, obviously)!!! :| :D :P Not only that, but the rounds really lasted (respectfully -- in Ed's favour) long. :o We played for over 3 hours and damn this game is addictive with two players. :x Since then we've played many times (even scheduled meetings after work/school) and Ed has gained skills and actually managed to win some rounds, but I still win the majority of them. :D Ed now also ordered the M3 Adapter to play games on his Nintendo DS and it is due any day now, so we'll see if he practices enough to take me on again. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: SnowWorld and I grinded rails! Date added: Saturday, October 14 2006, 11:49PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 223 --- Last Wednesday-evening I went to SnowWorld with the same person I went to last time (who wishes to remain nameless)! :D It was a lot of fun and I got to grind a rail for the first time ever! I've never done it before and was always a bit frightened approaching them. This time I'd had it though, I really wanted to try and do it (there also weren't too many people on that slope at the time) so I put my mind to it and I actually managed to do it on my second approach! After that I knew what to expect so I kept doing it over and over again and I realised I'd been frightened over nothing since it really isn't all that hard to grind them! :P The rail I grinded had two surfaces and there was also one with three surfaces which I also grinded afterwards. After those, I also grinded three other rails which were there (which were easier, and because of that I didn't want to grind before because I wanted to grind the real thing or die trying :P). Anyway, I also did the high jump, but that wasn't anything too special (done that before plenty of times). I did manage to do the old Indy a couple of times, though, which is always fun to do. :P In all, I only really fell once (landed improperly after doing the high jumping)! I don't care about falling; I openly admit it and showcase it to everyone around at the time, but it surprised me that I didn't whipe-out even once. :D I'm also looking forward to next time when I'm going together with Michel and Emanuele (my little brother) who'll be snowboarding for their very first time. :D :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Google acquired YouTube!? Date added: Monday, October 9 2006, 06:07PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 222 --- Apparently, it seems that Google has bought YouTube for a whopping $1.65 Billion worth in stock! :| :| I really wonder if this has been a smart move, especially since I read an article on Slashdot a couple of weeks ago entitled "Only a 'Moron' Would Buy YouTube" in which a really good point is being made concerning the seemingly endless copyright violations on YouTube. I also listened through the (audio) webcast conference call in which some very interesting questions were being answered. I guess only time will tell.. I just hope Google knows what they're getting into (apparently they do or they wouldn't have spent $1.65 Billion, but still..). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: OpenBSD screenshot and good-bye. Date added: Saturday, October 7 2006, 04:24PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 221 --- First off, the screenshot itself (which I took some time ago but never got around to post): [IMG: Screenshot of OpenBSD.] This screenshot shows OpenBSD running my favourite window manager: Enlightenment. Then some other news: I'm saying good-bye to OpenBSD. "Why?", you may ask, well let me first explain why I installed it in the first place. My main reason for installing OpenBSD was to try it out and experience it. See how it works, what it feels like, if I liked the environment, etc. Ultimately, I wanted to know if it was a good OS to run as a desktop OS. I've been using it for three weeks now and I've gained some pretty decent knowledge of how it works and how to interact with it; I've become somewhat proficient in using it. However, now that I've started feeling at home, I wanted to set everything up properly to be used as a desktop. So the first thing I wanted to tackle was one very important item to me; getting TVout to work with my videocard. Now I haven't set-up the X config file myself, to this point, because the automatically generated configuration file worked perfectly (1600x1200, 24 million colors at 75 HZ) but I did know it used the NV driver because NVidia wasn't supported. I knew this (NVidia only has a binary blob driver and since OpenBSD is firmly against blobs, well.. put two and two together and you'll come to the same conclusion I have) but I still tried to set up TVout anyway. Well, I learned the hard way that NV can't do TVout (twinview). This is the one thing that is making me leave OpenBSD, a simple thing as that. I know this may sound harsh to people but I really demand to have it in a desktop OS. I watch a lot of movies, music videos and DVD's through my PC and I watch them on my TV (which is a good 2-2.5 meters away from my TV). Now this isn't that big of a deal, in the end, because FreeBSD isn't so strict on security and does have a working NVidia driver, so the obvious step here is just to move from one BSD to the other. Remember; this is still an expirimental stage in my quest for the perfect desktop OS and if all else fails; I'll definitely go back to Gentoo. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Cory Doctorow's keynote from ToorCon 8 Date added: Friday, October 6 2006, 09:05AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 220 --- Today I was checking my daily bookmarks, one of which being HackADay.com, and I noticed a flash-embedded video entry with the title "Cory Doctorow's keynote from ToorCon 8". Below the flash-embedded video was this text: BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow gave one of the keynote addresses at ToorCon. The video is 50 minutes and covers all the internet hot buttons like DRM, net neutrality, MPAA, RIAA, EFF, etc. Video on Netscape. Direct link to the 170MB mp4. I watched through the entire video and it really struck me as being very interesting. Further more, it inspired me to do more research concerning the matters discussed by the speaker (which I have yet to do -- I just finished watching it). I don't really have much else to say as I'm not really knowledgeable in everything he talked about (yet) but I wanted to make a weblog entry about it anyway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Bought an M3 Adapter for my Nintendo DS! Date added: Wednesday, October 4 2006, 07:06PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 219 --- I bought an M3 Adapter (CompactFlash version) for my Nintendo DS and a 4 GB CompactFlash card for 170 Euro's to go with it! :D I placed the order a few weeks ago and received it last Friday! Since then, I've been meaning to update my weblog with the news but it completely took control of everything. :P It got me addicted to it. :o Of course, the first thing I did was put loads of games on it that I've downloaded in the past (right now I have 586 games). But not just that; it can do so much more than that! I also converted tons of music videos together with 3 whole DVD's (so far) by Dream Theater (Live at Budokan and their latest DVD SCORE) and Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells II; live at Edinburgh Castle) to be played by Moonshell. Altogether it set me back by around 280 Euro's but it was sure worth it! I love this device! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Gone out (again) in honor of my birthday! Date added: Sunday, September 24 2006, 09:34PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 218 --- Yesterday, Ed, Michel, Ralf and I attended the oh-so long awaited "De Buurtsuper" event at WaterFront to celebrate my birthday (yet again :P)! As to why I needed a second event?; mainly because Michel and Ed didn't want to go to the dance club I went to celebrate last time, but aside from that, the music is much better (more rock-oriented) and the atmosphere is ten times as good (big understatement). The day (or I should say; evening) started with Ed coming by with his brand new The Flower Kings DVD (which I've also purchased) which was filmed (in its entire) when we attended one of their concerts a few months ago (back in April). :o Sure enough, as we'd already guessed, we're also seen (multiple times) in the DVD amongst the rest of the crowd (and quite clearly visible too, at times)! We watched about two hours worth of the DVD when we had to get ready for the night, so Ed left and later returned (at which time Michel had already arrived). We left by (Michel's) car and met up with Ralf (who was already waiting for half an hour, as he told us :|) where we were supposed to meet. We got in around twelve (I think it was) and really had the best time with lots of dancing to very good music, cool people, good atmosphere, a few of so-called "mosh pit's" (thanks to Night Wolf -- guy I know from the 'net -- for teaching the English term for it :P) and lots and lots of laughter. It was really a very awesome night and I can definitely say that this has been, without a doubt, the best night out I ever had! I didn't even drink a sip of alcohol for the entire night (usually I drink alcohol to loosen myself up a bit)! Michel let me know that this had also definitely been one of his best nights out as well and I'm pretty sure Ed and Ralf were also real happy with it. :D I didn't get much sleep either; I went to bed at around 7 AM and I needed to get up at 11:45 AM to go to Carl's birthday party (again: congratulations, man!). :P Anyway, it's getting late again and I really need to catch up on some sleep. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: OpenBSD! Date added: Saturday, September 16 2006, 06:14PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 217 --- Two nights ago (September 14th, 2006 -- for the record), I installed OpenBSD 3.9 on a 40 GB hard disk I had lying around! Since my last hard disk broke I've been stuck with Windows XP Professional and it's been irritating the heck out of me. Because of that I decided to just bite the bullet and install something new and fresh, something I've never tried before; OpenBSD. I wanted to wait with installing anything until I got myself a new hard disk (a bigger one, around 300 GB or such), but since time progressed I realised that wasn't going to happen soon, put two and two together; OpenBSD. :P The install was pretty straight-forward, the only thing which I didn't know anything about was "disklabel", but since I've gone through the installation (in VMWare, with an install guide) before actually installing it on my hard disk, I was well prepared. At first I was a bit sketchy because I know my onBoard gigabit NIC has been a problem with Linux (well, it was two years ago), so I wasn't too sure if the install CD would pick up on it (if it didn't then I would be unable to install it because the install files are retrieved from the internet; they're not on the CD -- I'm talking about cd39.iso). But to my biggest amazement; it detected it and I was able to make a successful connection to the internet! Not only that, but it also detected my onBoard soundcard without any hassle whatsoever (using ALSA, in Linux, I usually need to fiddle with the settings a bit to get any sound at all)! After the install it took me a while to get some things straightened out and configured, but everything is really feeling homey now. :) The only thing which is lacking is proper NVidia support (there is none). However, everything flows reasonably smooth and there are no real complaints (yet :P). :) I even got to mount my other partitions (VFAT, EXT3 and NTFS) without any hassle and again OpenBSD surprises me with the fact it can not only read from VFAT and EXT3 partitions, but also write to them (reason for that is my experience with Solaris in which, at the time, I couldn't even read other partitions and Linux also couldn't read its partition)! I still have some things to fix (keybindings in my terminals is one major annoyance at the moment and I also hate the fact CenterICQ refuses to run), but there's still plenty of time for that. :P More soon, including a screenshot :P (oh right: I'm running Enlightenment again, as usual :D)! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Gone out in honor of my birthday! Date added: Sunday, September 10 2006, 05:00PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 216 --- Yesterday evening, I went out to Hollywood Music Hall (to celebrate my birthday) with Nick, Ralf, Nick's brother and a few others (some of which I knew from other times we went out as a group). :D It was a lot of fun, as always, but this time even more so because of one thing that happened; they played rock music for a long while (longer than usual -- which is just one or two songs)! :D Not just that, but they also played a lot of other music I liked (when going out dancing). :D I don't really have much else to say, but I just wanted to blog about it and say that it was very cool and that I really enjoyed myself. :) Thanks guys! :D It's too bad that Michel and Ed didn't want to come along, but I can understand that completely. :P To make amends, we'll celebrate it two weeks from now in the upcoming "De Buurtsuper" event at WaterFront. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy birthday, me! Date added: Tuesday, September 5 2006, 04:32PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 215 --- Today, September 5th, 2006, it's been exactly 20 (yes, twenty!) years since I was born! Happy birthday, me!! :D As for my first birthday present of the day, I got money from my mom (and her friend) to spend on clothes and such. :P At school, Ralf got me two DVD's: the latest Dream Theater DVD called Score (which he is lending to me) and a DVD by Mike Oldfield called Tubular Bells II; Premiere Live Performance Edinburgh. :D In fact, I've just seen Score (the Dream Theater DVD) and when they started playing Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence it totally blew me away! The use of a full orchestra, the atmosphere, the music itself, the people's reaction.. absolutely amazing! I got goosebumps and shivers all over, it really had a big impact on me. I'm not new to the Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence album, but seeing my most favourite of all Dream Theater albums being played (granted, just the second CD of the double-CD album, but still) really is a big thing for me! :D Thanks again, Ralf! Then in the evening, my brother (who lives on his own with his girlfriend) came to our house with his girlfriend to have dinner with us, which was also cool. He told me he has threefour DVD's of Columbo episodes lying for me which I'll soon get as a birthday present. :D And to finish off the day, later in the evening my dad called to congratulate me. :D I also spoke with my grandfather and grandmother (who live there with my dad) and my uncle and aunt (who are there on vacation). :) I also got tons of "Happy birthday!" greets from other people, which was nice. :) Thanks again everyone! (See you next year! :P) Oh, also, since Lenna's (16th) birthday is tomorrow (even though it's early to be saying this already): Happy Birthday, Lenna! :D And that about wraps it up for this entry. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Gone out with my younger brother! Date added: Sunday, August 27 2006, 06:49PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 214 --- Because Emanuele (my younger brother -- age 16) finished his school, he received 2 free entry VIP tickets to Hollywood Music Hall which were going to expire September 1st, therefore we decided to go there yesterday. Emanuele's never gone out to a dance club (besides one which was organised by school itself -- thus lame and boring), so this was kind-of his first time. Each ticket enables the ticket holder to bring up to 4 friends and also grant a complimentary bottle of champagne. The only catch, however, is that you have to be in before 11 PM, so me and Emanuele decided to head off at 10 PM to get there in time. At first I didn't really want to go because I've contracted a terrible cold (pain everywhere, coughing a lot, really worn out and tired easily, dripping nose -- the classic symptoms of the common cold). A few days ago, in fact, I had the worst night of my entire life! I went to bed at around 12 AM and at first didn't fall asleep until 5 AM, then when I finally fell asleep it was as if I woke up every 5 minutes (completely covered in sweat) and I kept moving around trying to get back to sleep. I even got up three times that night to get something to drink because I felt dehydrated. The next day, I woke up at 10:30 AM and decided to get up because I wasn't going to get much sleep anyway and for the rest of the day I was totally exhausted and worn out feeling very weak. Anyway, that was a few days ago and since I've been really trying to get better as fast as I can by doing everything I could think of (pills for coughing, 3-to-4 paracetamol's a day, eating good solid foods, going to bed on time and overall just taking it easy), which helped a lot. I was still sick, but I felt better and I felt I was able to go out and be active on the dance floor and such, so I decided to go anyway despite my sickness. So we left and I also met up with Ralf on the way, so he could also come in with us for free. Arriving at Hollywood, we were expecting to get in with relative ease and without having to wait at all (like the week before when we also had VIP tickets for Nick's and Gina's birthday), but this time we found a line that was just as long as the regular line! It seems we weren't the only ones that waited until one of the last days to use our tickets. :P Fortunately, everyone in that "VIP" line got in relatively fast (faster than the normal line would have taken us). Once we were in, we did what we always did; hang up our jackets and get some coins. The first (of 7) halls we went into was the hardcore/hardstyle halls, which were near empty. :P because of that we decided to go back to the main hall and wait it out there for a while. While dancing, for the first time ever, I noticed a normal girl (meaning: not the general Hollywood slut you come across way too often). So I moved away from where we were dancing to get a bit nearer to her but when I got there she was gone (and I didn't see her anymore throughout the night), which was a bummer but oh well. After a while we met up with Nick and his friend (same guy who came with us last time -- I still don't know his name) who had planned to come there as well. After that, the five of us went back in for some more dancing and drinking and such (as things go :P). What was also cool was that they were filming for a music TV channel (TMF), so there were camera's going back and forth. They also handed out some lights (simple LED's encased in some thicker plastic) so we could all create a certain type of atmosphere by dimming the main lights and we all lighted up our little lights while dancing. The fun thing was that the girl handing out those lights didn't really notice us (as we were up a bit higher than the main floor area) so I waved near her face to get attention and I got two hands full of lights. I then took two myself, gave two to Emanuele and shared the rest of the lights with random people who were near us on the elevated dance floor. :P Anyway, we did a lot of dancing in most of the halls (including the après-ski hall :P). After a while I was getting really tired from the dancing (because of my sickness) and I really felt the need to sit down a while and have a drink (because my throat was getting dry). So I told Ralf I was going to get a drink (I wasn't able to tell Emanuele because he was on a stage dancing, but that didn't really matter; I'd only be gone a short while). I sat down at the bar and I got myself some water which did me some good. It was at that time that the girl next to me addressed me. We spoke for a while (her name was Marianne, I later found out) when Ralf came out of nowhere to get himself a drink too. :P Anyway, she was alright and such, but I didn't want anything else from her or anything (I don't really know why, she just didn't feel right I guess) so I left to get back to the rest of the group. Having said about this to two friends of mine they tell me (in their way) I was stupid and should have gotten more out of it, and maybe I should have, but I don't really think she was my type anyway (she was really passionate about hardcore/hardstyle and went out three times a week -- Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays -- to dance to it, saying it meant the world to her) and like I said, it didn't really feel right in a way. Anyway, to get back to the story, the rest is pretty straight forward, we danced some more and drank a lot. Emanuele eventually got a inch away from being quite drunk (which was getting notable by the way he was dancing and behaving), but that's alright. :P I let him drink what he wanted, I was there to guide and supervise him anyway (I myself didn't drink that much, so I was well able to do so). We eventually left at 5 AM, to get back home at around 6 AM. In all, it has been a very good and enjoyable experience for him, he liked it and who knows, maybe next time we can go out again. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy Birthday, Nick and Michel! Date added: Sunday, August 20 2006, 09:05PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 213 --- Yesterday was Nick's birthday party even though his birthday (like Michel's) is actually today. Nick celebrated his birthday at his place where eight or nine friends gathered (including two old classmates: Patrick and Ralph). There was music, drinks, good conversations and such and, in all, it was a nice and sociable event. We (all of us except one guy who had to get up at 7 AM the next day for work) decided, around 11 PM, to go out to Hollywood Music Hall (where we also spent Nick's previous birthday party). Nick and Gina (who also -- presumably recently -- had her birthday) had birthday tickets to Hollywood with which we could get in without waiting in line and also receive a complimentary bottle of champagne (which they didn't get for some reason). But that didn't matter, though, the important thing, really, was that we didn't have to wait in line to get in. Once in, it took me a really long time to get in the mood (I don't know why, as I was psyched to go in the first place, but I didn't feel comfortable when I just got in.. it was weird). Eventually I did get in the mood, though (at around 1:30 AM or something) and I started to really let loose (I don't even think alcohol took much part in that either). Anyway, it was great having Ralph with us, we had a real good time with him (he's quite the party animal :P). We decided to leave for home at 5:30 AM and surprisingly, I didn't even really feel like leaving yet (I was tired, surely, but still in the mood for dancing). But it was okay, we had fun and we were all tired from all the dancing (I've never danced for such a consistent amount of time without taking many rests, and I've never left Hollywood so late in the eveningmorning :o). I eventually got home at around 6:15 AM, took a long shower and went to sleep around 7 AM. I woke up at around 4 PM. :x Which leads me to Michel's birthday: we had originally planned to go to Monaco Aan De MaasBavaria City Racing, but because I got up so late (and mostly just because of the weather) we had both (individually) decided not to go at all. But that's okay, we'll do something some day to celebrate his birthday (maybe together with mine which is in two weeks time on September 5th). :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Domain name! Date added: Thursday, August 17 2006, 04:07PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 212 --- I registered agilo.nl! I really wanted agilo.com but unfortunately (as everything good in life) it was already taken (by the same owner of agilo.de -- a german on-line pet store, of all things). I mailed him a looooong time ago if I would be able to take over agilo.com, but he wanted to keep it in case he might do something with it (nowadays it's just a mirror to agilo.de). And then there is .net and .org which are both taken. I don't get it, what kind of bastard uses my nickname, comprised of the letters in my name, as a name for a product or project? :S Oh well, I guess I should be realistic and accept it for what it is, but still; it irks me. Maybe some day I will own agilo.com.. some day. :P Anyway, for now it's just going to redirect to agilo.acjs.net, but in the future it will be a domain of its own (meaning I will use a hoster instead of ACJ's webspace), that is.. when I have the money. :P Not that I don't want ACJ's webspace, it's just for the best for both of us I think. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Back to programming! Date added: Wednesday, August 16 2006, 01:36PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 211 --- To keep myself busy (that is, focussing on things other than Lenna -- not that I have any hatred or anything against her, it's just that I need to process some things and it was hard to swallow the first couple of days) I've been keeping myself busy with programming again. From itty bitty little shitty things like XHTML semantically correct menu's and an SMS archive (in Dutch) completely in XML and XSLT (using Javascript to read out the XML nodes and structure it using the DOM into an XHTML formatted page) to the things I've been planning to do since the start of my vacation, which is to brush up on type definitions and pointers in C (using a tutorial on Pointers and Arrays in C). So far, I've come to Chapter 5: Pointers and Structures and among the things I've learned so far is what exactly pointers are, how they relate to arrays and how they work. What's made this even more fun is that I've also learned to use the GNU Debugger (GDB) to watch the program as it goes through its execution, following a tip in Chapter 3. It's fun to be this active in programming again. :) Also, I'm going to Nick's birthday party next Saturday which should be fun (especially since Ralf is also joining us in the evening as we go out). :P And the day after is Michel's birthday, and I'm not really sure yet but we may be going to this year's Monaco Aan De Maas in the city. Oh and also, of course, my own birthday is coming up on September 5th! :D And the day after is Lenna's birthday. :o So many birthdays in such short time. :P Anyway, that's it as far as this entry goes. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Time spent, weblog update. Date added: Sunday, August 13 2006, 01:04PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 210 --- Some time has passed since my last weblog entry and I don't really have much to say this time. :P I've gone out yesterday with Nick and some of his friends and acquaintances, which was fun but very tiresome (yesterday was the anual Dance Parade in Rotterdam, which led to massive crowds throughout the city). I also asked Lenna to come with me to the Dance Parade but unfortunately she didn't want to. But that's understandable considering she met some guy now. I eventually didn't go to the Dance Parade because of the heavy rains. But anyway, while going out I had fun so it was all okay. I've learned to play a new song by King Crimson called Peace -- A Theme. It's a very jazzy song, which I really like, the chords are (as with many jazz chords) really beautiful. I also recorded myself playing it with my webcam. I recorded this when I just learned to play it so it's not perfect, the timing is a bit off and I make a few small mistakes, but blah. :P Anyway, that's about it. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Extreme Makeover By Lenna! Date added: Friday, July 28 2006, 07:02AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 209 --- Lenna and I got together yesterday morning in Utrecht for her to kind-of have an overhaul at my appearance (as far as clothing and my hair are concerned). The following image shows the end result: [IMG: My new look as of yesterday.] This is my new look as of yesterday. We originally planned to first go to her place to watch the movie Requiem For A Dream (which I have never seen) and afterwards we'd head off for Utrecht, but things didn't turned out as planned because she'd returned the movie to a friend of hers who she lent it from. Therefore we decided to just meet up in Utrecht and go to her place afterwards to meet her friends and go swimming in De Put (small place to swim at near where she lives). So we met up and went into some stores to go and check out some jeans and shirts and such, we ate a bit at McDonald's and continued shopping. I eventually bought one jean, two black shirts (I have plenty of white shirts) and a black t-shirt. After having bought the clothes (I wore them immediately after purchasing them; Lenna made me :( :P Nahh, I wanted to wear them. :P :)) we went to a barber/hair stylist and had my hair fixed. He basically thinned out my hair a bit, trimmed it in a few places and afterwards styled it with Fudge hair shaper. I bought one of those Fudge hair shaper for 15 Euros (DAMN that's expensive, by the way..) so I can do it myself. We forgot to make any pictures yesterday (same as last time :S) but I was able to make the above image today, thanks to Ed. Anyway, after having been fixed up we went back to her place and after not-too-long set off to meet up with her friends who were already at De Put. Those guys were really cool and lay back and De Put looked an awesome place to hang out and enjoy yourself. We basically just hung out a while there, talking relaxing and such (they started a fire and made a barbecue which they do more often). Lenna gave me a quick tour of the surroundings but I never did go swimming (didn't really feel like it), but it was cool nonetheless. :) Maybe next time I'm there I'll go swimming. :D We left after some time to go back to Lenna's place for dinner where we were going to eat pizza. :D We were both really tired from our day so we were kinda fatigued and falling half asleep while waiting for the pizza to finish. :P After dinner we didn't do much else then go on the computer for a short while and watching some TV. She had planned to go back to De Put later on, so at around 8 PM (I think it was) we decided for me to leave. We drove to the train station by bike and not all-too-long after arriving there, there was a train arriving to take me home. Now, in one of my previous entries I was saying that there was one thing I regretted that I really had my heart set on at the time and I couldn't get myself to bring it across (didn't find the right time and eventually didn't have enough of it). Well, I finally got it together to asking her for something I've been wanting to ask for so long; a hug. As I expected (and hoped) it wasn't all that embarrassing and weird and she was happy to indulge. So we had a nice and lengthy hug. :) After that I had to hurry to catch my train, and I was off. :P Anyway, as far as shopping goes, I've gotten to know a few things I previously didn't (with regard to buying clothes), so this has effectively made it easier for me to go out and buy clothes like any man would. Thanks, Lenna. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Week In Arnhem. Date added: Friday, July 28 2006, 05:53AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 208 --- So last week my little brother, my mom and I spent the entire week in Arnhem (at my mom's friend's house) because of the Nijmeegse Vierdaagse which we were going to watch. In case you don't know; the event was called off after the first day because of two deaths and several hundreds of collapses due to the high heat. So the festivities (after the first day) weren't that big anymore. :S But we still managed to have ourselves a good time despite all the controversy surrounding the cancellation of the Nijmeegse Vierdaagse. I think I had most fun at an open area (free) concert last Sunday. The people there were very lay back, the music was good and there was a good atmosphere, I liked it a lot. :) Because there was only one computer there (and my little brother was on it a lot) I played a lot of guitar and brushed up on some old songs and such to pass the time. We got back home two days ago (Wednesday) at around 11 AM and a few hours after I got settled in, I went to Scheveningen (beach by the sea) together with Mick. It was a very hot day, and the water was cool and such, so we had fun. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: North Sea Jazz festival! Date added: Monday, July 17 2006, 08:45PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 207 --- It's been a busy day yesterday which prevented me from writing this entry, the reason for that is that relatives from Italy came over here for their vacation (my aunt and my neice) and I had to go and pick them up fom the airport with my brother (their luggage didn't arrive due to some mix-up and it's due to arrive tomorrow). The airport was cool and stuff, though, so it's not anything negative, I just didn't have much time to write this. :P Also, I'm going to Arnhem tomorrow with my mom and my little brother and we're staying there for the week. It's going to be a bit of a busy week, too, but more on that when I get back. Anyway, to get back on the topic, the night before yesterday (Saturday evening) I went to the anual (from now on housed permanently in Rotterdam for the very first time ever) North Sea Jazz festival. :D I went there together with Mick, and we had a reasonably good time there. The only thing we didn't like was the huge crowd and the heat. :P But aside from that it was really cool, lots of cool bands. We went in not really knowing what we wanted to see (aside from John Scofield, which my dad recommended) and the first thing we went to see was the Delfeayo Marsalis Quintet, which was quite good. We then went to see what else was playing in other rooms so we went to see Sergio Mendez (which sounded familiar by name) which turned out to be utter crap (we left within minutes) and then we went to see some other pop singer which I didn't really like that well. We then went for some air and food because we were getting kind-of hungry. After the snacks (I ate some pancakes and some icecream afterwards) we went on to the long-awaited Trio Beyond (consisting of John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette and Larry Goldings) which was really populair (the room was filled and the heat was near unbearable). They played really good music, I especially liked the last song they played which was really expirimental and psychedelic (with the Fender Roads and the clean guitar tints which reminded me of early Pink Floyd songs). After that performance we stayed in that room to see the Kenny Garrett Quartet which were also really good, really swinging and really awesome, I liked them a lot. Then at around 2:30 AM (I think) we left to head back home. So in all, it was a very cool (and at the same time, at 70 Euro's, a very expensive) night, which is up for do-overs next year. :) Maybe Michel has the money to come then, too. :P And maybe Ed.. but who knows, Ed keeps busy with his work and girlfriend and such.. I miss that old fucker. :( Anyway, yeah.. next year. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Music! Music? Yeah, Music! Date added: Friday, July 14 2006, 04:14PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 206 --- Well, It's been a while since I've learned new songs so today I've started learning the piano intro to Firth Of Fifth by Genesis on my keyboard. Since it's been a long time since I've did anything on keyboard/piano it took me a while to get anywhere, but I can now say that I can play half of the right-hand part (in 25% of the normal tempo and with two hands :x -- actually, I'm already learning to play it with one hand, heh.. playing it with two was just to ease learning of the part but is also quite stupid, as I well knew). Anyway, I've found another guy on YouTube that was able to play it well with two hands which really makes me envious. I've thought of learning this song ever since I first heard it (it's really beautiful) and I'm having a lot of troubles with it. Oh well.. practice makes perfect, as they say. I'm well under way to mastering this piano piece. :) Then in the evening I set out to learn Jethro Tull's awesome song (and at the same time album): Thick As A Brick. I've taught myself Jethro's guitar part already (at normal tempo and all); it's not all that hard and it's not all that much, to be fair. But it is a really nice song and nice guitar part to know and play. The only thing I hate is playing it with a guitar pick.. I am really not the type of guitar player that prefers guitar picks and in my frustrations I've now stopped playing for a while. But oh well, like I said before, practice makes perfect. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Lenna! Oh and Italy in World Cup finals! Date added: Sunday, July 9 2006, 07:35PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 205 --- Today, Lenna (different photo! :D) came to visit me! :D The reason for the visit is that on the 7th of July it would be exactly one year since we've known eachother! Of course.. today is the 9th of July.. so what gives? Well.. to make it short: I screwed up on the day that the 7th would fall on and said it was on a Sunday after which I to got her excited because Sunday is the day we eat pizza for dinner. :o After finding out that in fact the 7th falls on a Friday, we decided to just let the day stick and celebrate 2 days later. :P So anyway, the day started off very nicely by Lenna waking me up by phone at around 9:30 AM (I like it when she wakes me like that; it's a sure-fire way to give the day a positive boost :P:)) to tell me that she was just about to leave her place and would be at the train station Rotterdam Alexander (nearest train station to my home) at 10:45 AM and also told me she'd replied to the e-mail I sent her the evening before. After she hung up I quickly started my computer to read it and did so with a smile on my face. :) I then went to pick her up from the train station at 10:25 AM and got to the train station just as she arrived there. We then went back to my home where we had something to drink and went up to my room (after giving a very speedy tour of the rest of the house) where we then decided to watch the movie Saw. I've seen the movie before but she hadn't (she had seen Saw 2, though.. which is one of the reasons why we decided on Saw). Eventually we ended up watching the entire movie although we missed a lot because we kept talking and having fun and stuff. :P After the movie we decided to catch some air and go outside, so we went for a walk around the area of my house and went to give my friend Michel a visit. Arriving at Michel's place, we noticed that he wasn't at home. :S We then headed for a fast food place to get some grub (well, for her anyway; I wasn't hungry :P) and some cigarette's (again, for her; I don't smoke :P). After she had eaten something we headed back home (past Michel's place again to see if he'd already returned; he still hadn't). When we came home, my mom had already arrived so my mom and Lenna got introduced and talked for a short while and we went back to my room again. I showed her my Nintendo DS and let her play some Mario Kart DS, Mario DS (the mini games) and eventually also Nintendogs (which my little brother bought a long time ago). Pictochat was fun as well; we got to create some hilarious "comic strips" sort-of thingies and got to say some things that were easier said through it than in real life. :P She really liked playing on it and was already hinting on buying one for herself (actually.. she wanted to steal mine :P). :) Then my older brother came in from his place with his girlfriend and their two dogs. Lenna got introduced to them as well and with that, it was already dinner time (MAN time flies when you're having a real good time). :o So we ate a quick appetizer and then it was on for.. Pizza! :D It was a very nice and sociable dinner, we all had a good time. :) After that we went up to my room again for the remaining hour and she fiddled with my Nintendo DS again until it was time for her to go (at 7 PM). :( I dropped her off at the train station where we had to run for her to be able to catch her train, and just like that she was off on her way home. The only thing I regret is that I really had my heart set on something and I couldn't get myself to bring it across (didn't find the right time and eventually didn't have enough of it..) but oh well, maybe next time? :P I really had a good time with her, I love talking to her and being with her, I like teasing her just to see her reaction (is that evil? :P), I like watching her as she plays on my Nintendo DS (:P) and a lot more I just can't say in my weblog. :P I'm really looking forward to next time we meet. :D Oh, right, Lenna wasn't the only highlight of the day (although, admittedly, the biggest). :o Italy placed itself for the Fifa World Cup finals a few days ago and had the finals today against France! :D After dropping off Lenna, I went to visit my brother to watch it with his girlfriend and his neighbours at their neighbours place. I'm not going to write a lot more about it, Italy won the finals and is World Cup champion! It was an exciting match, the referee (as most games in this World Cup) sucked for giving a false penalty (like italy received against Australia), a gigantic foul was made by Zidane and Italy won in the end after penalty kicks with 5 to 3. Of course I am very happy for Italy, but my mind is still clouded by the thought of Lenna and how today went (in a positive sense, of course :P). :) And with that, I end this weblog entry (I hope I didn't forget anything :P). :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Miscellaneous tidbits. Date added: Monday, June 26 2006, 08:42AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 204 --- So, much time has gone by since my last entry. This entry is just to say that I haven't died or anything. :P I've been busy with school a lot lately, I'm in my final week (if everything works out okay) and I need to finish some unfinished projects (just need to hand them in at this point). In other news: I've decided to pick up where I left off at Nintendo DS development! I left off around the time where PAlib was still in its infancy, but it has matured so much it's replaced ndslib/libnds completely. Therefore, I've used the PAlib Wiki to help me set up a base system on which to start developing. I've got nothing to show so far, been messing with it a bit, learning up on the library (pretty solid library, too). I'm kind-of working on a little something, though, but it's really nothing yet. Also, I've come to terms with my shortcomings in C and I've decided that I need to brush up on type definitions and pointers before I can really start doing anything useful. I've found a tutorial on Pointers and Arrays in C which I think might be able to help me out a bit. I'm also finally going to get an M3 Adapter next month! I already downloaded tons of Nintendo DS roms (462 to be exact) which I'll be able to play then. :D (I know, I know; piracy, unsupportive, etc., etc.) Then there's the North Sea Jazz festival coming up next month which I'll be attending together with Mick which I'm really looking forward to. :) And another thing I'm really looking forward to, which is just two weeks off from now, is when Lenna is coming over to visit me. :D On July the 7th it'll be exactly one year since we've known each other and she agreed to come over on the 9th of July in celebration of it (which is on a Sunday -- reason for that is that my mom usually makes pizza on Sundays and she likes pizza :):P). But anyway, it'll hopefully be a fun day for both of us; we'll see how it turns out. :) And that about covers it for now. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Jazz in Duketown with Lenna! Date added: Sunday, June 4 2006, 02:05PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 203 --- Yesterday the long-awaited day finally came. :D I went to Jazz in Duketown together with Lenna! :D:D I woke up at around 11 AM and left off to catch my train a bit later (my train arrived 12:15 AM) but it had a slight delay resulting in me missing my next train in Utrecht, which made me have to wait 20 minutes for the next train to arrive. :S Anyway, I got to her train station a bit later as planned and picked her up there (looking as pretty as ever :)) and we headed off for Den Bosch/'s Hertogenbosch. When we first arrived there we had to navigate our way to where the stages were (we just followed the crowd because we both didn't know the city so well) but we eventually settled in by a stage next to a small church. We stayed there for a couple of minutes and went off to find more stages where the rest of the bands and events would come at a later time (we also already decided we'd have Pizza for dinner, so we needed to find a Pizzeria in the area :P). Walking for a while led us to a bigger stage next to a very big church (which was in renovation) where there was a band getting ready to perform (doing soundchecks) so we waited there for them to start at which time the sun finally set in! :D They started playing and we listened for a while when Lenna suggested seeking some shade under some trees. having done that, Lenna then whipped out some paper and a pen and just started drawing a random person which stood right in front of us leaning on his bike. When she was done with her drawing it was very, very well-drawn, a perfect likeness. :| I showed the drawing to the person and he acknowledged it, but he didn't seem to speak any Dutch. :P Lenna continued to make three more drawings of random people during the day which were all equally good. In fact, I though she drew like this a lot at home but it turned out she'd never drawn people in this way before, which absolutely stunned me. :| I know you're reading this, Lenna, so here's to say: continue drawing the way you did, you're really very talented (really!)! After a while we went back to the little square alongside the smaller church and stayed there for a while until we were getting hungry. We had already decided a while back to find a Pizzeria of some sorts, so Lenna went out and asked someone who said there was one nearby. We sought for it and found it after not even 2 minutes (it was very close by :P). It was a very nice restaurant which was all decorated and had nice flowers and everything. We went in asking for a table but it appeared all tables were spoken for (it was that crowded) and we were told we had to wait a couple of minutes. Time went by (10-15 minutes) and we were finally appointed a table for two on the outside terras where we got ourselves seated and ordered our pizza's. We had some nice talks about ourselves and such (as things go) and I had a great time with her. I'm glad we didn't just go to McDonnalds for dinner. :P After dinner we saw some more bands on various smaller stages and went back to the big square along the big church where there was a sort of Latin music being played. We stayed only a short while but we danced there for the first time that day which was very nice (it showed we both finally loosened up considerably). Eventually, we ended up on another very huge square (which earlier that day was still a market place) which was filled with people! We hung around there listening to the music and having fun, talking, etc, really loosened up and relaxed and we even got some cotton candy. :P Whilst eating the cotton candy, though, Lenna suddenly realised we lost track of time! She checked her watch and realised we only had 20 minutes to get back to the train station to catch our train! While running back to the train station we came across a booth where people were selling small light-flashing "Jazz in Duketown" coat pins, so I quickly bought two so we had some sort of a souvenir to remember the day by. :) We ran towards the train station and we (thankfully) managed to catch our train. :P Her boyfriend picked her up at her train station so she didn't have to go home alone in the dark and I was able to meet the guy. In the few minutes I spoke with him I concluded that he's a cool guy, seems nice in all and he's a lucky guy to have such a wonderful girlfriend. Anyway, In short: we had a very great time together and saw some cool bands play good songs (and saw some lesser well-performed acts) and in all it was a very awesome day. :) And in a way (and I am just realising this now), this has been (sort of) my first date. :o :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Cisco CCNA1! Date added: Thursday, June 1 2006, 03:01PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 202 --- I've finally rounded up my Cisco CCNA1 training course! I took the final exam today and scored a whopping 87% (out of 100%)! My course grades: Cisco Grades ListModuleGrade Module 188.2% Module 274.4% Module 390.6% Module 4100.0% Module 573.2% Module 677.5% Module 777.3% Module 890.0% Module 961.0% Module 1076.0% Module 1187.5% The final exam was reasonably tough, luckily I studied sufficiently for it. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: SnowWorld! Date added: Thursday, June 1 2006, 02:52PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 201 --- Yesterday-evening I went to SnowWorld with an old friend/instructor of mine (who wishes to remain nameless in my weblog). We'd been planning to go to SnowWorld for a long time now but it just never really happened. I contacted him a week ago about being a reference in my CV and I mentioned having never gone there with him (but how I did go on a wintersports vacation to Austria). He replied to my mail saying he had a few vouchers to go in for free for a certain amount of hours which are able to be used until the end of May. So after a few e-mails back-and-forth, we decided to go yesterday evening and meet up in Zoetermeer. It started off perfectly (note the sarcasm), I got on my train and arrived in Gouda where I had to catch another train to Den Haag (Zoetermeer is a stop on the way). Well, I missed that train and had to wait 20 minutes for the next one to arrive.. and as if that's not bad enough, when it did eventually arrive and I got in, the train was separated with its front-end. Me being as observant as I am, I noticed when the train drove in that the front said "Arnhem" (which was a complete opposite direction and didn't make any sense, resulting in me just ignoring it completely). The signs on the station itself clearly indicated the train was going to Den Haag so I was convinced I was getting in the right section of the train that was going in the right direction. Needless to say, I was wrong. :( Apparently, the front-end would go to Den Haag en the back end would go back to Rotterdam. :S So there I was, back in Rotterdam, almost an hour later.. Being as pissed as I was, I called up Anonymous on his phone to let him know I would be there a bit later, explaining what had happened. Anyway, an hour later I was finally in Zoetermeer where I had to be and we went off to SnowWorld. It was very awesome, I got to do a lot of things in the two (two and a half) hours that we were there on the (three) in-door slopes. More specifically, I was training going down fakey (leading with the wrong foot in the front) which made me lose balance a couple of times but I eventually did improved that. :D I also trained on a few jumps; the only trick in the air I was able to perform from long-last was an indy, but now I did a 180 landing in fakey for the very first time. :D There was also a very big jump with an air-filled bag behind it, so you could do whatever and still land safely. I went over that a couple of times but the second time I did and I dropped myself off of the air-filled bag, I slipped and landed on the slope on my tail bone which still hurts me now. Oh well, it didn't affect most of my remaining boarding time much and I got a lot out of it in the end. :P In all it was nice to board again and it really was somewhat rewarding (in terms of training). Maybe I should do this more often (when I have more money :P). :) Thanks again, Anonymous! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Entry 200! Date added: Wednesday, May 17 2006, 12:16PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 200 --- Lenna requested I got off my lazy ass and make another blog entry, so here it is. :P I promised myself not to make a big deal out of this (as is old custom), but why the hell not? This entry marks 200! :D Not to let this entry be consumed by just that, I'll now blog about a couple of things that I didn't (yet) blog about before. The 10th of May was my mother's birthday which we celebrated on the 13th (a Saturday). We went to Arnhem to my mom's boyfriend to celebrate it at his house. We threw a big party, had a lot of guests and it was a lot of fun. :) I have also decided it's time to change the way I look starting this summer, so to try it out I wore the best clothes I had on a very hot and sunny day (black jeans, white undershirt and a white open shirt). I'm not trying to be some casanova or anything, I just feel like I've been walking around in baggy and cheap clothes all my life, in other words: time for something new. (Fun fact to mention: I haven't worn jeans in daily life for years.) I also (finally) saw the movie The Brown Bunny! It's a very awesome movie! At first I was sceptical, but knowing it was a Vincent Gallo movie I wanted to see this very much (I absolutely loved Buffalo '66, the movie which -- along with my friend Ed -- introduced me to Progressive Rock). I have to admit, though, that the movie takes forever to build up, but that's not without dissapointment (unlike the crappy movie called 2001: A Space Odyssey which was a complete waste of my time). The ending is very saddening and makes you think about what exactly happened to the main character. A very great movie nonetheless and absolutely worth having seen it. That about covers it, I think.. Oh, right, me and Lenna have a few songs which we want to try and play (I tabbed one of the songs because there was no tab available at the time), more about that some other time. :) Oh, and also: I'm going to two jazz festivals soon! One of them is coming next month called Jazz in Duketown (going there together with Lenna). :) The other is one of the bigger jazz festivals (if not the biggest?) in the Netherlands which is to be held right in my own city (for the very first time ever) called North Sea Jazz Festival, which I'll (probably) be going to with Michel and Mick (so far, maybe Ed will come too). Both festivals are three-day events, but I'm only going for one day (probably both on a saturday). Anyway, more info on that soon. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Hard Disk Failure. Date added: Thursday, May 4 2006, 07:21AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 199 --- Well, it seems my premonition was well-placed. Gentoo has been running very unstable the last four days (constantly crashing and locking up) and I was unable to fix it. I've tried installing a newer kernel (I was running an older one, I though that might have been the problem), I've tried running fsck and I've looked at every other possible cause to the problem. Suspecting it was a hard disk issue, I started making backups from the data off the disk which led to the conclusion that it was indeed my hard disk (Windows would constantly crash when trying to copy certain files off the disk). I've salvaged what there is to save but I (reluctantly) had to leave stuff behind (DVD's and such) due to lack of space on the backup drives. This has one upside, of course, which is that I am now able to finally switch my main OS. Installing (or buying) Mac OS X is no option because I feel it's not mature enough on native x86 hardware (besides their intel Mac's) and lack of funds to buy the hardware from Apple itself. Installing Solaris is out of the question as well (it's a very nice OS, but it should be run on SPARC and isn't qualified to run as my main OS -- in my opinion). Unless I find anything else which intrigues me enough to install it, I may end up installing some *BSD or I may just install Gentoo again (I know, I know, but the thing is; I want to see if it changes much from having had it for two years and installing it freshly). Either way; I first need to find/buy a new hard disk, until then, I'm stuck with my dual-boot: Windows XP (urgh). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: My first gig (with Lenna)! Date added: Saturday, April 29 2006, 01:12PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 198 --- Today was my very first gig, ever! Lenna and I (see picture below) performed the song Sacrifice by Anouk. :) [IMG: Picture of me and Lenna.] This is a picture I took with Lenna at her place. The day started off by her waking me up at 9 AM with a phone call, we talked for a while (me still being half asleep -- she told me she'd got up around 7 AM :S :|) and I eventually got up to get ready to leave. I left home at 9:45 AM and arrived at her station on 11:15 AM. We drove (by bike) to her village centre (where everyone gathered for the Queensday fair) to see if the truck (which held the stage) was there this year (there were some rumors it might not be there at all, so we were a bit worried). Luckily it was, so we went to the booth which organised it all to ask if we could perform our song, to which they said that we couldn't. :| Due to lack of interest in the previous years it was cancelled and the stage was set-up for a fixed schedule. To say the least; we were very dissapointed but were still determined to play the song (be it in the crowded streets or otherwise), but before doing that we decided to go to her house to run it over a few times (and to upload the pictures we took with her webcam the last time I was there :P). It worked out well enough and so we headed off for the fair again (I told her we should ask the people again if they really didn't have any place for us, after all, we did practice for it and it was only one song). So in our approach to the booth I saw a guy coming from the stage wearing a suit and I let Lenna know I spotted him and I though he might be the organiser. Lenna approached that guy and we told him our tale and sure enough, he was the organiser! Moreover, he'd see if he could possibly squeeze us into their schedule! By this time we were (obviously) getting very excited (even though no promises have yet been made). Because it took the manager so long we decided to have a walk through the fair and check out some of the stuff that was for sale. We walked a while and came to a certain spot which, to her, looked like a good spot to play off-stage (I was unsure about playing off-stage at all) and right at that moment some people came (I think she said they were her neighbours) who asked if we were setting up to play, so now we had to choice but to play there (Lenna insisted and when Lenna insists.. there's no hiding :x). :P So I unpacked my guitar and we started performing (which was kinda quirky on my part) and finally decided not to finish the song at all because the music from the stage was overlapping our little off-stage performance too much. :( After that little mishap we went back to the before mentioned booth to see if that manager had any luck in putting us on stage. We weren't able to find him and it was at that point it started raining and eventually hailing horrendously! We saught shelter under a party tent (which was very crowded) where I met a guy from my school (knew him by face, don't know him otherwise) which recognised me. We had a little chat, turns out he also plays guitar and is a soprano singer himself (though he came there only for friends and the party). Anyway, to get back to the story (I know it's getting tedious :P). The rain/hail cleared after a few minutes, we spotted the manager and he immidiately went to ask the schedulers if it was possible to fill us in on stage. After having waited some more minutes we were told we could perform our song on-stage after the guy currently on the stage finishes! Now we were getting really psyched and nervous! We waited until that guy finished (luckily it took him some time :P) and we were allowed to go on stage! It's important to note that there weren't that many people on the main square at this point (which made it a bit more comfortable for me). We went up, I set-up my guitar and did a very fast sound-check, turned around to face the audience and the main square was filled with people! :| While performing our song, on-stage, I lost my nervosity completely and Lenna and I shun like the sun (at least for a couple of minutes that were the length of the song :P). :D She really is an amazing singer and I didn't do all-too-bad myself. :) We recieved a warming applause when we were done and recieved a lot of compliments. :D It seems even her parents saw our performance; they had just arrived to the main square as we started playing. :D It was a very nice experience to be able to play on-stage for an actual audience and we have already planned to practice more songs to perform in the future. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: My first small gig (with Lenna)! Date added: Wednesday, April 26 2006, 06:48AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 197 --- I'm going to have my first small gig on a Queensday fair (Saturday) in Geldermalsen with Lenna; a girl I met on-line a long time ago (almost a year now) through SuperDudes/SugaBabes (she occasionally sung through her microphone via MSN Messenger so that's how I knew how well she could sing before undertaking this). We're going to perform the song Sacrifice by Anouk. I've been practicing this song for a a few weeks now and I went to visit her yesterday for the first time to practice together. Sounds odd and all but she's a wonderful singer and I practiced this song so much I knew it by heart, and sure enough we worked magic (that is to say; even while practicing seperately, we still managed to study to perform this song perfectly). :P This will be the first time I'm on-stage, ever, with my guitar and I'm already a bit nervous (although I have high hopes). :x Oh well, we'll see coming saturday. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: The Flower Kings Concert! Date added: Friday, April 21 2006, 05:31PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 196 --- The evening of the day before yesterday (being Wednesday-evening, if you're still with me so far :P) I went to the concert of The Flower Kings with Ed, his girlfriend Saskia and Mick! The concert was fucking awesome! Of course, I've been to one of their concerts before, but that was an instrumental tour, this was with actual singing. Their set-list was amazing (playing a lot of big epics, including my favourite: Love Surpreme). I've gotten this from some forum (can't remember which, I was Google-ing -- it's funny how that can turn into a verb, isn't it? -- for the setlist and found it on some forum. I think the encores were different, though..): Check In (from the album: Paradox Hotel) Paradox Hotel (from the album: Paradox Hotel) Hit Me with a Hit (from the album: Paradox Hotel) Last Minute on Earth (from the album: The Rainmaker) In the Eyes of the World (from the album: Stardust We Are) Jealousy (from the album: Paradox Hotel) What If God Is Alone (from the album: Paradox Hotel) Pioneers of Aviation (from the album: Paradox Hotel) Love Supreme (from the album: Adam & Eve) The Truth Will Set You Free (from the album: Unfold the Future) Touch My Heaven (from the album: Paradox Hotel) Mommy Leave the Light On (from the album: Paradox Hotel) End on a High Note (from the album: Paradox Hotel) Life Will Kill You (from the album: Paradox Hotel) I Am the Sun - Part 1 (from the album: Space Revolver) Encores: The Blade of Cain (from the album: Adam & Eve) A King's Prayer (from the album: Space Revolver) There were camera's all over the place, and it was said on the website from that venue that they would be recording for a DVD. :o I'm sure I'll be on it and I'll definitely buy it (if just for the songs alone). :) The concert started at 7:30 PM and finished at 11:15 PM (actually, I found out later it wasn't finished yet, they still played one more encore which I missed! :() at which point me and Mick left to go home (had to catch the train). I arrived at Rotterdam Central Station at 12:15 PM (Mick took another train towards his home) where I had to wait a long while for my next train towards Utrecht Central Station (which goes past the stop I need to get off; Rotterdam Alexander), so I put on my MP3 player and started listening to Pink Floyd's CD; Meddle (Track 6; Echoes -- one of their best songs ever in my opinion). It was by pure coincidence that when my train departured from Rotterdam Central Station that Echoes finished playing; while the train was speeding up I was hearing the sound of the space-ship -- or the likes -- taking off at the end of the song, which led into the next song at track 1; One Of These Days (I'm Going To Cut You Into Little Pieces). It's hard to discribe now, but I got a real eerie feeling from that. It was really cool as it took place. :P So anyway, the concert was amazing, I got home at 2 AM (I was beat to shits the next day as I had to get up at 7:20 AM) and I really enjoyed myself. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Atari 800XE! Date added: Thursday, April 13 2006, 03:44PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 195 --- Last Saturday I bought an Atari 800XE! I bought it from a guy at a very small fair for 5 Euro's (about the same in dollars). :D I came with the following 7 games: Moon Patrol Super Breakout Defender Star Raiders 2 Rescue on Fractalus Barnyard Blaster Hardball It works perfectly and is in very good shape. :) I'm going to learn BASIC somewhere in the future to try and do something interesting with this thing (besides gaming :D). :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: April Fools Gone Souer. Date added: Thursday, April 13 2006, 03:29PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 194 --- I waited with posting this due to the possible complications that might follow by what's happened, but since everything has been solved I'm now able to (finally) post it. Okay, so, April 1st, also known as April Fools. Boy, what a fun day, everyone playing tricks on everyone and such! Being what day it was (or rather; would be, because this was still on March 31st), me and Ralph (from here on called "Ralf" because I like that better :P) decided to play a little trick on a girl both he and I know on MSN; Sabina. It started out as a thought; tell someone the lie that I'm gay (people who know me will know that is fairly impossible to believe) and then go from there (no real goal or anything). I decided to play the trick on Sabina on that day (so it wouldn't get noticed). So I told her I had confessed to a guy in school that I liked him and that he didn't really accept it and I would be affraid that he'd tell the world. She didn't really seem to care about it much but I kept building the story up and franticly trying to get "help" (advice) from her. Anyway, Me and Ralph decided to also pull this prank with his girlfriend (Nadine -- who is best of friends with Sabina). I was not to tell her anything; I'd leave it all up to him and he wouldn't tell Sabina; that was up to me. So, April Fools cometh (Saturday), we told them both (me to Sabina, Ralf to Nadine). Sabina's initial response was "BASTARD!" after which she "acted" like she was furious. After I tried to calm her down she let me know that was her April Fools gag. :P Then the wait was on to hear from Ralf who was supposed to tell his girlfriend. After he told her (via phone) she really blew out. She was really furious of both Ralf and myself. She sent me a message through GMail Chat saying how pathetic I was and such (that would be the last time I ever heard from her). She wouldn't even want to talk to Ralph anymore.. I really didn't understand where all her rage was coming from.. it wasn't as if I said I killed a person and was seeking help or anything. Ralf mailed her and tried to get in contact with her but she didn't want any contact (seems she e-mailed him on sunday saying she didn't want to have anything more to do with him for the time being; she'd contact him). He decided it might be a good thing to just go to her on Monday to apologise in person (I've asked eight friends of mine if that would be the right thing to do and all of them agreed it's the best thing to do in a fight; don't do it via e-mail/phone/MSN, talk to her in person). Monday cometh, he skipped school to go to her and try and apologise. She ignored him completely that morning when she went to school, so Ralf waited until she was off school (4 PM) and tried to ask again, and what do you know it, she ignored him again. :| She then proceeded to call Sabina and (franticly and while wheeping) tell her she was being stalked by Ralf, that he had pushed her up against a wall (to try and get her attention is my best guess), that he'd been following her everywhere she went and that she was very scared of him now. (...) So Ralf turned homewards (confused as hell, I'll bet -- at least, I was). Days went by, there were some talks with all parties involved, nothing got resolved. I didn't understand it, WHY was she so mad?! I finally got my answer from an e-mail she sent Ralf saying that her mother was peeping in on her chat while she was having it with Ralf, so she asked her mother for advice to relay to Ralf. If that wasn't enough, she also asked for advice to a (gay) friend of hers (while Ralf expressly told her to keep it confidential). Then April 1st cometh, she (after having been told by Ralf) had to step up to the challenge of telling her mom and the gay friend it was "merely" an April Fool's gag. That being a shameful thing on itself; while calling that gay friend of hers he had been getting really angry and was crying and said something along the lines of "Why do they always pick on gay people!?". My response (I really feel the need to place this in my weblog)?: sniff-sniff, boo-hoo-hoo, cry it out you gay faggot. But anyway, that does explain the reason for her being angry.. but so terribly angry? It was just a joke! Get the fuck over it! She and Ralf both tricked me into a joke which was (at least from my feel) even worse and that wasn't even on April Fools! I didn't stop talking to her and Ralf (at least not after the first 15 mins), what's wrong with her? :S Anyway, after a few days she then finally went back on MSN (she had blocked me) to talk with ralf and saying she might wanted to try it again (still uncertain). Still a few days went on, and coming the weekend Ralf asked me to go out with the whole group (which I declined) consisting of Nadine, Sabina, and some other people. Later that night I get an SMS text message from Ralf saying Nadine has been "cheating" on him that night (he later told me on MSN that he caught her and a friend of hers making out). He was really angry and hurt the first few days but he's better now, from what I can tell. Moral of this story: I have no fucking clue. :S But this'll probably be the last April Fools gag I ever pull.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Google Talk update! Date added: Friday, April 7 2006, 07:16PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 193 --- Google Talk has updated with some very awesome changes! Normally I won't post about application updates (other than my own creations), but this I feel I should mention (for the sake of publicity -- even if my site doesn't get all that many visitors). Notable changes: Avatars (support for transparent PNGs!)! Chat skins (built up using CSS!!)! Notices: Google Talk will convert all avatars to PNG files and store the cache in C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Talk\avatars\. Google Talk keeps chatlogs locally in C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Talk\chatlogs\ (I'm wondering if Google Chat spools these here for GMail's chatlogs and if these can be messed with in a malicious way). Google Talk keeps its skins in C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Talk\themes\, and custom skins in its user\ directory. C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\ holds older versions of Google Talk. (When a chat is shaded) Tab selects other chats (knew this before) but CTRL+Tab will move focuss to other chats. You can "steal" other people's avatars real easily (not a real challenge nor useful function, but funny nonetheless). :P Expectations: Overthrow of Microsoft (there's always hope :P). Linux client (I know you can use its jabber protocol, but I mean an official GUI client :P -- I'd use it. :)). Interface getting (even more :P) homey (meaning: one can easily feel right at home). Todo: Create my own skin/theme (or find a dedicated Google Talk theming site). :P Also, something happened April 1st (A.K.A. April Fools) which I'll put in my weblog at a later date (I wasn't planning on making any entries before I'd make that one, but I really wanted to blog this, so..). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Fun questions list. Date added: Saturday, March 25 2006, 10:40AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 192 --- I picked this up from ACJ's weblog who in turn has it from one of DArqueBishop's weblog entry and thought it was kind of fun :): Choose a band / artist then answer ONLY in titles of their songs . . . Choose a band / artist: King Crimson Are you male or female?: 21st Century Schizoid Man Describe yourself: Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With How do some people feel about you: I Talk to the Wind Describe your x boyfriend/girlfriend: I Ran Describe your current crush: Moonchild / Fallen Angel (I couldn't choose between these two, forgive me :x) Describe how you love: Model Man Where you want to be right now: Heaven and Earth What would you ask for if you had one wish: Dig Me Share a few words of wisdom: The World's My Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum Where do you live: Pictures Of A City Now say goodbye: Peace ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New project, new keyboard! Date added: Wednesday, March 22 2006, 04:16PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 191 --- I've been real busy working on a new project of mine which features XMLHttpRequest which will eventually be an add-on for this very weblog. It's been taking up a LOT of my time, I've really been taken in its grasps. I've never worked with it, and I've never done such extensive work with javascript before. To play it as safe as possible, the script will be added to this weblog without the need for extra HTML; I will include everything using your browsers' DOM (only one little change must be made and that's to the "onload" attribute of the body tag to initiate the javascript). As an added side-effect, the browsers which do not support all of this won't have any strain put uppon them. :) Of course, this is all still theory. I've started on it and it's working but with a lot of hacking about. :P Eventually I want the code to be real clean and sleek. Not spoiling anything yet and it probably won't be such a big deal to anyway, but I still want to work on this if just to give me a better hands-on understanding of XMLHttpRequest (that, and it interests me). In a non-related story, my mom bought me a new keyboard (the musical instrument, not the keyboard for a computer, duh)! :D It's a "Yamaha PS-55" which has no MIDI interface, but it's still a very awesome keyboard to have to jamm-sessions and the likes. It's an awesome gift, thanks mom! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Horizon's by Genesis. Date added: Monday, March 13 2006, 01:24PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 190 --- I've learned to play the song Horizon's by Genesis (from the album Foxtrot)! I was playing the album the day before yesterday and when it hit this song I was amazed by its sound, I loved it! I didn't even let it finish playing, I stopped it half-way through and I looked up the tabs for the song (which I had in a tab-collection ZIP I downloaded at NetGamez) and started learning it. It took me three hours straight to learn the song! :o But it's worth it. :D I can't play it exactly as the recording and I still make a lot of small mistakes, but practice makes perfect, as they say. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Netgamez 2006A! Date added: Friday, March 3 2006, 07:55AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 189 --- After a week's rest from my wintersports vacation, I'm all set to go to NetGamez 2006A. My leg (that is; my knee and my ankle) still hurt me when I walk or carry heavy things but that's not going to ruin the fun. :P An ex-classmate is also going to compete in the Counter-Strike 1.6 tournament being held there with his clan which could be interesting to see (he's actually one of the few people who actually outskills me from school). Other than him, band-mate (bass-player) and friend; Michel is also going with us. :D I have a short list of things I want to download there and I've recieved a new 150 GB harddisk from my brother to download them on. :) I'll see what's available for download. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Wintersport 2006! Date added: Saturday, February 25 2006, 02:14PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 188 --- Well, I'm back from my wintersport vacation! It was very awesome, I had the best time ever! I've kept a daily log since I was there. It's not complete (meaning that I can't write down all the things I've done), but it's large enough as it is. :P February 18, 2006 (day 1) Today has been a very long day. The bus-trip was fun but at the same time also terrible. I managed to get some sleep out of the trip (about 6 hours worth) but I absolutely hate sleeping in buses; it's just not comfortable at all and you keep getting woken yo by noises made by other passengers, urgh. Anyway, we left home (at the rendezvous) at 8:15 PM and eventually arrived at 10:20 AM (having made stops every 4 hours). We had to wait a while before the organiser had settled everything so we could all unload, but we found a way to enjoy ourselves while doing so (Requires DivX to play). :) After having been appointed a room and everyone got settled in, we went into town to get our gear and to buy day-passes so we could start hitting the slopes right away (we were among few to actually buy a day-pass for EUR 24,-). I found out I'd been given a very excellent snowboard, even better than the boards been given to either Mick or Ed. :D Anyway, I made a few whipe-outs but otherwise did alright (not having boarded for so long). We headed back to our stay at 5:05 PM to get back in time for dinner (which was horrible) and decided to keep a journal -- on paper, mind you -- to keep track of each day, February 19, 2006 (day 2) The day started off nicely, we (me, Mick and Ed) had a very nice and relaxing sleep (after our horrid bus-trip the previous night); we went to bed at 8 PM (and I have to say, the beds are fantastic)! Anyway, we had a great day on the slopes, oh how I've missed the thrills and sensation of getting on a snowboard and boarding the mountain slopes. :D I don't want to leave anymore. :( :P During the day another buss arrived with new guests for the hotel, English (skiing) guests to be exact. They seemed a cool bunch, but I didn't spend a lot of time with them or anything. A big group of people decided to go out that night, as did I. I decided to bust out the cool glow-bracelets I bought and wear them to be all cool'n'shit, y'kno?! No, but seriously (:P), it looks pretty cool as added accessory. :) Anyway, we went to a bar then decided it wasn't cool enough so we walked around looking for something else, met two guys also from The Netherlands (from Leiden) that were kind of cool and decided to go to a bar/disco we happened to come across that features topless dancers. :D But yeah, it was a fun night with a lot of drinking and stuff, we all had a good time. :) February 20, 2006 (day 3) I woke up with one hell of a headache (read: hangover) and felt short of sleep but I had to get up sooner or later, so I did had breakfast and headed off to the slopes in Zell am See with Ed and Mick. It was a perfect day; sunny not too cold nor warm, I boarded amazingly well (meaning that I didn't fall too many times or nothing bad happened, etc.). We came across Peter Dullaard (my mentor in highschool and the organiser of the trip) and hung out with him and an accompanying teacher. We ate in a very good restaurant on the top of a mountain and after that decided to go board for ourselves again (just us three). Then, we found the perfect off-piste part of the mountain yet! At first Ed didn't feel all to right about it, and neither did Mick, so we didn't do the route the first time we saw it (we also saw a guy in a kind of road-agent vest, so we thought people were being told not to go off-piste there -- there was a fence to hold off people but there were tracks of people that went through the fences and onto the off-piste routes anyway). The second time around I decided to take the initiative and go for it anyway, with or without Mick and Ed, so they had the choice to either follow me or let me off by myself (I have to say, I'm glad they chose to come with me). It was perfect in every way (I felt so, anyway), it was very adventurous and felt a bit dangerous in some aspects (you had to keep paying attention to what you were doing or risk a high fall or a run-in with trees). We've done that off-piste route twice and then I did it again by myself (alone) because Ed and Mick were through with it (It was very tiresome but truly awesome!). I've found an element in snowboarding which I like most of all now; going off-piste. The thrill and adventure of not really knowing exactly where to go and to keep paying attention to what you're doing and needing to have at least some skill to do some of the routes you find makes it all very attractive for me. I love it!! February 21, 2006 (day 4) Today we went to Kaprun, a neighbouring town to Zell am See which is higher up in the mountains (reaching its peak at 3023 meters up in the clouds). The stories I've heard were true! Kaprun is perfect for going off-piste in every way! We must've spent 90% of the time of the day off the pistes in Kaprun. :P What was also very funny was that, once having reached the top (not the absolute top, but at around 2900 meters -- the absolute top is the fun-park, which houses jumps and stuff like that) we (me, Mick, Ed and abound 8 other guys and one girl from our group -- snowboarders and skiers) had a small race; the first one to get to the start of the ski lift wins. To my biggest amazement, I actually won that race! :D I went soooooo fast on my board, it was really frightening (I was a bit shaky getting to the finish) but I didn't stop once. My board did the rest, I guess. :) I also found an off-piste place which everyone can see from the ski lift but no one has done yet which was perfect! I found my way to that place (in my second attempt; my first attempt got me to a place which was meters above where I had to be and made me shit my pants in fear of its steepness) and got two good rides over the beautiful unprepared snow (leaving my trails where on one has gone yet). It made me kind of proud. :D :P In the afternoon we went to a very fancy restaurant at 2000 meters high to have lunch where I ate very delicious pizza. :D I'm thankful I ate a lot because the food at the hostel itself was horrible (as usual and as I expected). February 22, 2006 (day 5) We went to Kaprun again today and I decided to bring with me my MP3-player to have some music accompanying me while I board (as Ed has done for a few days now). It's a fun experience having music to listen to while boarding, instead of hearing the wind breeze by (I was listening to the albums entitled Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Nursery Cryme by Genesis and Close To The Edge by Yes). :) I ate Pizza again in the same restaurant as yesterday, and it was delicious once again. :) Ed and Mick joined me to the place where I went yesterday because they also wanted to go through the same snow, and by now I knew exactly how to get there (I've been going there for a few times now). Ed made some spectacular jumps there as well (almost knocked his head up against a ski lift! Haha! :D). We've also made some pictures and movies of us boarding and also boarding this off-piste part (in which I nearly made a whipe-out :P). :) Also, I found the most perfect off-piste route yet! No trees, but hella-dangerous and exciting! One wrong turn or miscalculation and I could end up meters down over a small cliff and most certainly break something (which is exactly the kind of thrill that drives me to do these things). I took the route three times, trying to convince Ed to come along but he didn't want to ("Maybe tomorrow", he said). :( So anyway, at the end of the day my knees were killing me due to the amount of goddamn bügles (hopes of snow being piled up due to skiers). I even had trouble walking around because of it, but a bit of ointment Peter gave me helped sooth it down a bit. As usual the food was horrible and I got a good rest back in the hostel. February 23, 2006 (day 6) Today we decided to go to Kaprun again, which was totally unplanned. We decided to go because the weather seemed to be in its favour and everyone had such a good time there. This was perfect because now Ed could also try the off-piste route I found yesterday! We decided to go there during mid-day and headed off in that direction. To get to it we needed to cross a bit of the slope where speed was an essence in which (due to my pain in my knee) I made a wrong decision in that I went too fast where upon I fell really hard in a big heap of ice/snow where I sprained my ankle really painfully. After a bit of muttering, aching and cussing, I finally got up and continued to do the off-piste part with Ed and Mick (feeling the pain, but not really realising how serious it was). Me and Ed made our way up there and we both made the drops (Ed made a very dangerous drop through a very small and narrow exit through the mountain which was fucking awesome! :D). Mick also did the route but didn't make the exact place I kept telling him about, so he didn't find it near as spectacular. :( Anyway, we then arrived at a small restaurant where I took a bit of a rest. When I got up however I was unable to stand on my right foot (where I sprained my ankle)! I hopped around a bit to get around and get some food etc., but I was unable to get back on my board (this was all around 3:15 PM). I then stuck around at the restaurant meeting up with other people from my group and Peter and went back to the hotel at the end of that day (4:30 PM as every day). Peter once again gave me the ointment he gave me before and I rubbed it over my ankle. My ankle never hurt so much before in my life, I was really concerned about it. I didn't go swimming as was planned for a few days now and I didn't go out with the rest of the group, instead I stayed in and tried to get some sleep but even sleeping hurt like hell, everything I did with my right leg hurt like crazy! :( February 24, 2006 (day 7) My ankle now hurts less resting me assured that it's just sprained, not broken, however I'm still not able to walk normally on it. This was also the last day of the wintersport vacation and I had to sit it out. :( While everyone went up the slopes of Zell am See, I returned my equipment and spent 5 long hours roaming the town I was in (waiting until the rest would bring in their boards and skis later that day so we could all head off back to the hostel together). I spent the day listening to my music, taking walks (very slowly and painfully -- my though was that I may walk it off slightly), going to an Internet cafe/arcade hall and I ate in a pizzeria next to the Internet cafe. I nearly fell asleep twice while sitting on a bench outside. The day couldn't be over quicker when people from my group started to come in (after having spent exactly 5 hours by myself). Anyway, we then headed back to the hostel and packed the rest of our things to get ready to leave. We left the hostel at 7 PM that night and arrived back home in the Netherlands at 8:15 PM. Here are some of the pictures Ed made for us: Wintersport Photographs [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Fantastic mountain view at dawn (1). [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Fantastic mountain view at dawn (2). [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Fantastic mountain view at dawn (3). [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Fantastic mountain view at dawn (4). [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Fantastic mountain view at dawn (5). [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Me (wearing a ski-mask), letting you know everything's rockin'. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Mick, letting you know everything's rockin'. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Mick, withering away in the cool breeze of the mountain. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] The fantastic off-pistes of Kaprun. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Again, the fantastic (and at the same time dangerous) off-pistes of Kaprun. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Idem ditto. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Me, resting a while before taking on the treacherous off-piste mountain-side. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Me, taking on the treacherous off-piste mountain-side. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] One of the off-piste routes which was very steep (not all-too-clearly visible in this picture). [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] The off-piste slopes as could be seen from the ski lift. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Idem ditto. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Ed, at one of the off-piste routes. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Ed, carving his ass off. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Mick, doing it Russky-style (got to love that adorable hat [IMG: <3]). [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Mick, doing something very awesome (if only I knew what. :()! [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] The three Stooges!! [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Me, being, like, what the fuck, dude.. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Mick, being, like, himself.. :| [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Ed, being super-sexy. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Aww, the poor thing. :( That cat got his paw stuck in between a door (from what I heard). :( Poor little guy. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Ed, in a very awesome and artistic photograph. [IMG: Wintersport vacation photo.] Peter Dullaard, ex-mentor (in highschool) and the guy who organised our trip and set everything up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Nintendo DS Web Browser! Date added: Wednesday, February 15 2006, 11:13AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 187 --- The Nintendo DS is getting itself a web browser made by Opera! Opera has made a press-release about it on their site. It looks awesome and very promising. :) Although never actually tried both, it seems that in functionality it bares a small resemblance to PointyRemote (one of the very first VNC-like applications to be made using SgStair's WiFi library). Anyway, very cool stuff, can't wait to have/try it. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: King Crimson T-Shirt! Date added: Thursday, February 9 2006, 01:24PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 186 --- I bought this King Crimson T-Shirt from the DGM Live store: [IMG: Picture of the King Crimson T-Shirt.] The T-shirt showing the Schizoid face on the front and the old man wizard face on the back. I've been using that picture as my background in Windows at school to show off (:P) but I've always liked the album-cover ever since I saw it (a year ago or so). Anyway, It rules, it's a very nice piece of art and I like it a lot! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Getting tired of Gentoo. Date added: Wednesday, February 8 2006, 09:21AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 185 --- This must be the last thing anyone expects me to say, but (after nearly two years of using it) I'm really getting tired of Gentoo Linux. I do want to say that, yes, I do use the ~x86 mask in ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86", so technically, yes, all of this is my own fault. Still, I am seeing and have seen so many errors and bugs in newly emerged applications (or even while compiling, failing to do so because of library updates or misconfigured -- by Portage itself -- development applications), it's now driving me to the point where I'm no longer fine with it anymore. I just want it to work! Some might say to just change ~x86 back to x86, but that is impossible because I'd have to re-emerge my entire system (and it's not just the ammount of applications; it's more the incompatibility between certain applications with incompatible libraries and/or things like that). I read (somewhere on Gentoo.org) that it's not recommended anyway. I'm seriously thinking about a replacement for Gentoo in the form of *BSD (or maybe Debian -- I've used it a bit for a project at school and I liked what I saw) or maybe (just maybe) even Mac OS X. This isn't all I have to say on this but I'm sure I'll get back to it in a later entry. Anyway, I'm going to look into getting another OS more in-depth after I get back from Netgamez. For now, I'll just stick to Gentoo and take the poking. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Auto-paragraphs function fixed! Date added: Monday, February 6 2006, 09:16AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 184 --- I didn't have much better to do at school, so I started working on fixing the auto-paragraphs function. I worked out how to fix it and implemented the fix as can be seen in a previous entry. It's not pretty (neither code nor output) but it works. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Netgamez! Date added: Sunday, February 5 2006, 04:03PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 183 --- So I'll be going to Netgamez again in 26 days (March 3 to 5) together with my brothers and band-member; Michel. Some guys from school also said they might be going but are still uncertain (except for Leo, an ex-classmate who said he'll be going with his Counter-Strike clan, as far as I can remember). Anyway, I don't have many things I feel I need to download (unlike last few times where I actually made lists of movies), but I'll see what's available when I'm hooked up on its network. I may download a GBA games collection from someone (I've seen 'em last times) so I can play them on a GBA flash card I'm planning on buying; M3 Adapter (SD-card version). It'll be the 6th time (or something like that) I'm going to Netgamez. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Time flies! Date added: Sunday, February 5 2006, 11:54AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 182 --- Time really flies when I'm fucking up school.. I mean. :x No but seriously, a lot of time past by since my last weblog entry and nothing much interesting has happened. I'm about to recieve my last warning and last chance to fix things at school (long story) to keep myself from getting kicked out, but I'm not too worried about that (I've already decided I'm going to try and set things right again). I went to see the movie Munich yesterday with Mick, it's a cool movie. Not really in my interest or anything, but it's a good movie nonetheless. I'm getting really excited about my wintersport vacation the 17th, I can't wait. :D I also realised that there is a small bug in the Auto Paragraphs function I created before. I made a big error coding it in that I thought that the
tag was a block-level element. Of course I should've known better (despite the deceptive name) that it requires a block-level element to be its child (such as a

tag). I haven't found the time to fix it yet so I tremporarily added a div to my previous entry. I will fix it as soon as I find the time to do so. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: English Assignment (part 2). Date added: Sunday, January 22 2006, 05:58AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 181 --- A bit later as planned, but I finally received word from my English teacher about the grade on the assignment. I sent him the link to my (this) weblog to show him my English grammar (since, obviously, my weblog is English in its entire). It seems he already found out I had written it myself and said my weblog convinced him even further that his previous decision was unjust. He sent me this e-mail to reply to my e-mail (in which I sent him the link): Dear Alessandro, Today I had another look at your assignment paper. I have to admit I was too harsh in my judgement of you. You did write it yourself. I see that now. Sorry for the inconvenience. I hope you realise that your level of English does not occur too often in a teacher's lifetime. Thus it can happen that after having graded 20 papers of abominable quality and 10 more that were copied straight from the Internet, in my frustration over so much stupidity, I overlook the one paper that shows promise. When I came home today, I read your mail and visited your weblog. This convinced me even more that I had made the right decision. I would even go as far as advising you to keep this part of the log and our correspondence. Put it in your portfolio and keep it for next year to be used as proof of your competence in the English language during your Proeve Van Bekwaamheid (nice word for exams). I'll try to remember this incident and be more fair in future grading. At the same time I would advise you to keep going "all out" , as you put it, in future papers. Regards, W.P. de Wit I'm really glad this thing has a happy ending now, I was really mad when he gave me my initial grade. :P I'll probably also keep the mail for my exams next year (that is, if all goes well; my grades themselves are a bit on the low side, but that I can work on). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: English Assignment (part 1). Date added: Tuesday, January 17 2006, 08:25AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 180 --- My latest English assignment was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I've decided to share it with everyone. It wasn't so much the assignment that was so awesome, it's more the grade I got from my teacher (read on to find out) and the reason behind it. Okay, first off; the assignment. The assignment was for everyone in the class to write a manual about any topic they wanted (could be anything; some numbnuts even chose "Manual To Screw In A Lightbulb" and "How To Install Enemy-Territory", to give a view of the direction people were taking it). Anyway, the assignment wasn't just some regular assignment, it has more value than that so we had to put a bit more effort into creating it. So a few weeks ago on a day when school was finished early (thus freeing up space for the day) I decided to compensate some hours I had missed (not due to skipping school but because I was late for too many classes; they subtract points for attentiveness). I decided to do this together with a classmate of mine; Achmad Salek (a cool guy, I hang out with him occasionally) and had decided to compensate for an hour and a half (otherwise it'd get too late for our standards :P). That (obviously) gave us a LOT of time to work on our small assignment so I decided to go all out and make it quite extent. The topic I chose was just as idiotic as the before mentioned, entitled: "How To Tune A Guitar". It didn't end up excessively big or anything, it was only about 6-or-7 pages worth of text (including an index page) describing how to tune to different kinds of guitar tunings and different kinds of oddly-stringed guitars (7-strings, 12-strings, etc.) and some imaging (to fill up space, obviously :P). I actually made a pretty decent manual from it if I do say so myself. :x I handed it in the following day and the teach said he'd review it and grade it later. So yesterday I get to class and I get the assignment back on which my grade is noted a thick 5.5 out of 10 (10 being "best" -- otherwise known as; impossible). :| Obviously I asked why the grade was so low to which he replied I had copy/pasted text from the Internet because obviously no-one can write with the grammar I used... I took it up with him and after explaining that, yes, I did write everything myself (I had an hour and a half to kill, which gave me plenty of time to do it) and explaining that I've always made my own assignments for English class (because English is the only class I can show --read: boast-- my English grammar, and I always like to enhance/extend my English grammar and vocabulary). After having explained all that he said he (the fair man that he is) would give it another review baring it in mind. My little brother has had this on occasions as well at school (he, like me, is very profound and adept to the English language and also likes to show it in his own assignments, like me) and he, too, receives the occasional subtracted points because teachers don't believe he wrote his own assignments. But I guess it is the highest compliment you could possibly get, I guess, although it does make it harder for me to write new assignments because I don't know what to do next time; use simpler grammar just to show that I "fit in" with the rest of my class or deliberately continue to use my own grammar in which case there's no telling what the next judgement will be (it always has been uncertain if the teacher believed that I was using my own grammar or not). Anyway, I'll probably post a follow-up to this entry soon enough (I should be getting it back this week). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Wintersport! Date added: Tuesday, January 17 2006, 07:42AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 179 --- I have just payed a staggering 645 Euro's (about the same in Dollars) for my Wintersport next month. :D I've never been poorer but I couldn't be happier. :) We'll be going to Kaprun/Zell am See in Austria (wherever it may be; I've never been there before and quite frankly, I don't really care. :P As long as I can board the slopes --and off :P-- I'm satisfied. :)). I'll be going together with Ed and an old friend of mine (a friend of Ed who I met in a Wintersport vacation years ago). I really can't wait. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: King Crimson turns 37! Date added: Friday, January 13 2006, 02:40PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 178 --- The band King Crimson has has turned 37 today! Nothing special about the year-count or anything, I just felt it was worth mentioning. :) Happy birthday, King Crimson! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Windows Vista and.. Robert Fripp? Date added: Saturday, January 7 2006, 07:26PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 177 --- Robert Fripp, the founding member of the band King Crimson, is doing the music for Windows Vista! Channel 9 posted an article about it (together with a 25 minute duration video of Robert creating soundscapes on his guitar) on its website just a few days ago (thanks to James LaBove (kryptondog) for pointing it out to me). [IMG: A picture of Robert Fripp creating soundscapes for Windows Vista] Robert Fripp creating soundscapes for Windows Vista on his guitar. The video shows Robert Fripp creating various soundscapes for Windows Vista (a good four hours worth) and I'm really glad they chose him to do it. There is no-one who can create better soundscapes than him (that I know of, anyway :P). :) When I install Windows Vista (I'll probably try it once; I'll most definitely not change my main OS: Gentoo Linux, to it, though) I'll think twice about disabling the sound scheme's. :P :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: CSS highlighting script. Date added: Sunday, January 1 2006, 08:43PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 176 --- I wrote a CSS highlighting script today. I initially started out with the thought of creating a script similar to PHP's highlight_file() function to show CSS files in similar syntax highlighting. So I got myself started writing out a basic outline and started to work things out with regular expressions. I got so deeply involved with my regular expressions that I eventually finished the project five hours later! :| Anyway, here are the files: /style.php?file=style.css Showing the source of the stylesheet used by this weblog (/style.css). /style.phps The source of /style.php. If anyone decides to use this; be sure to thoroughly read the comments inside! :) One important notice, though: It does not support one-liners, the CSS file must have reasonable syntax (read the comments for a sample). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy New Year! Date added: Saturday, December 31 2005, 08:16AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 175 --- Well, the time finally came; Happy New Year everyone! :) As a reflection on last year, I've come to do a lot of things I've never done before: I went out for the first time in the summer (and been going out since :P); I had my first tastes of love (however little it may have been); I've gotten to get quite a lot of work done on the computer (learned some new programming languages such as Assembly, worked out lots of projects in PHP, etc.); I've sought out what I want to do in the near-future (as far as my education is concerned); I've learned how to play the guitar (and will obviously continue playing :P) and formed a band with friends (Ed and Michel); As for my New Year's resolution?; probably the same as it's ever been: to get myself a relationship. :P Other than that, I wouldn't know, really. I don't think I have many other things I look forward to be doing next year, I'll see when time comes. :) Anyway, this'll be my last entry to make this year, again: Happy New Year! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Auto Paragraphs! Date added: Wednesday, December 28 2005, 03:45PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 174 --- I wrote a small extension to my weblog that will create paragraphs from my entries. I used to just place a line-break after every line I type (even empty ones) but this way it's a bit more semantically correct (see the source to fully understand what I'm talking about). You can also see the source of my weblog (look for the paragraphs() function). It took me (literally) two hours to write it (I'm not really that great with regular expressions, but I have to say this was a real cool learning experience). I want to thank Matt for his auto-paragraph script, it helped me understand how to tackle certain problems I was facing. :) Also, I did get some presents on Christmas! It was on the second day of Christmas that I recieved a Sega GameGear and a small keyboard (Casio SA-10) from my brother and his girlfriend. Cool gifts, I'm playing with them daily now. :) At least I can play some keyboard again. :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Server-migration complete! Date added: Monday, December 26 2005, 08:46AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 173 --- Well, not all vhosts have been transfered yet but this one has. :) I have yet to gain shell access but at least everything's back in working order. :) No more downtime, and hopefully no more script-kiddies to worry about. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Server-maintenance. Date added: Saturday, December 24 2005, 02:41PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 172 --- Well, it finally happened like I predicted a long time ago. Our server got attacked by script-kiddies all over and brought down to its knees. We're now in the process of moving to another server running another Linux distribution called: CentOS. I'm not sure (yet), but I may lend in a hand at server-maintenance of the new server (as in; software upgrades and configuration, etc.). Oh well, we'll see. In the meantime, please excuse the down-time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Vlora. Date added: Thursday, December 22 2005, 02:17PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 171 --- Well, vlora and I broke up. :( Not like we had all that much to begin with, but I thought it was a pretty good thing. As to why, well lately things have been a bit on a low-key (didn't say as much anymore, etc.), and we never met up again after out last meet-up (if it were up to me, I'd go to her every day, gladly, but she told me always had other plans, so..). Anyway, It's not fair to give her all the blame, I guess I should have.. well, I don't really know what I could have done more.. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Google Homepage Image Selector. Date added: Thursday, December 15 2005, 01:13PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 170 --- Yesterday, Google released the Google Homepage API including some new "widgets". I saw the widgets and I found them to be very cool, so I took a look at the sources of some of them and came to realise that I could make my own modules. So, I took the Developer Guide and while doing that, I got the idea for making an image-placeholder, so people could have some personal picture in their Google Homepage. I've finished it (to my liking) and made it ready for publication: [IMG: Screenshot of the Image Selector module] Screenshot of the Image Selector. I've also sent it in to be added to Google's index (someone will probably have done something similar since this isn't really anything ground-breaking, but still, it's my first little module to try out the API. :P). Anyway, one thing about the module: if you're using the Developer Module be sure to set this module to be "inlined" so that the image you select isn't being cut-through (so you don't need to scroll in the iframe). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: HP 9000 (Model E55). Date added: Friday, December 9 2005, 11:20AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 169 --- I was talking with one of my teachers the other day and we were talking about some hardware that was lying around (parts of an HP 9000 (Model E55) server). After he told me what they were I told him that I'd kill for a functional machine like that and that I'd like to try it out to see what's possible on its hardware and architecture. He told me that I could have one fully-assembled machine of the same type and take it home with me. The only draw-back would be that it doesn't have a terminal to operate it. :( Anyway, I took it home with me today (thanks to my class-mate Achmad for helping me carry the damn thing :P -- it's as heavy as lead, sorta, kinda-ish; it's very, very heavy :P) and took it appart to have a look at what's inside. I then looked on the internet to find what information I could on the thing. It's a pretty neat piece of hardware and I hope that HP-UX is still installed on the harddisk that's inside, otherwise I may put Gentoo Linux for HP/PA on it. My intentions are just that out of curiosity, I don't have any plans to run anything of real value on it (yet). Maybe that'll come in the future (if possible). :) I can't wait to fire this thing up. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Increase Of Down-stream! Date added: Thursday, December 8 2005, 08:34AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 168 --- My ISP (Chello) sent out E-Mails to its subscribers to let us know that our down-stream has increased! :o My subscription changed to 1 MegaBytes-per-second down-stream! :D The upstream didn't change, though, it's still at 128 KiloBytes-per-second, which is a shame but I can live with it. :) Now I have the urge to start downloading again. :P Hm. :x ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Vlora. Date added: Monday, December 5 2005, 09:38AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 167 --- Two entries ago, I wrote briefly about that I'd met a girl on-line named: Vlora. [IMG: <3] I met her on this profile site called SuperDudes/SugaBabes (A Dutch variant of MySpace) where I have my own profile. After some 20-ish private messages we decided to add eachother on MSN's instant messenger: MSN Messenger so we could talk off-site. On-line (and on the phone) everything went alright and we connected real well, we share a lot of common interrests and some hobbies. So we had initially planned on having a meet last week (since she doesn't live too far from where I do) but due to circumstances that didn't happen then. So last Saturday we planned another meet which did suit us both. We met in Spijkenisse Centrum at around 1PM last saturday where I was greeted by her with the sweetest hug I've ever had. :) We spent our time together talking and going to a music store which sold guitars, amps, records and other instruments where I played a few things that I could on some very awesome (and low-priced) guitars. :P Anyway, I like her a lot and I think I have fallen in love with her (and she with me). :o :) [IMG: <3] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Laugh About It by Racoon. Date added: Wednesday, November 30 2005, 07:12AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 166 --- A few days ago, Vlora sent me a song by Racoon called "Laugh About It" which she said was a nice song. I listened to it and already realised it was pretty simple to play so I looked it up (in retrospect; could've found it out myself, but yeah...:x). Anyway, there's a second guitar part which is not mentioned at all so I tried to find it out myself and asked Ed if he could help. Ed and I found out how to play it (after some playing around with it) and I decided to tab it and send it in so others could get it. :) Right now it's being reviewed at ultimate-guitar.com. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Short bits and pieces... Date added: Friday, November 25 2005, 03:49PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 165 --- The weather was fucking horrible the entire day throughout the Netherlands (forecast shows that tomorrow won't be much different -- might actually be getting worse). Just thought that needed mentioning. :P Today was fun, though, I went to the HCC fair in Utrecht, played some new games, placed 3rd in a small Call of Duty tournament, placed third and first (twice) in a small Mario Kart DS tournament (won a Nintendo DS keychain and a small decorative Nintendo DS button for a shirt -- not the round and cheap ones you see everywhere :P). My little brother actually bought Mario Kart DS today; it's a very awesome game (which I too want to buy). On my way back home, we got stuck in the train for about an hour (at least we had a bit of fun while waiting). I've finally found a way to speed up the bridge section of Carpe Diem by Dream Theater by a small tweak in how I grip the chords. I still need to let them ring properly but at least I have the speed down now. :) In closing, in short (thought this is worth mentioning shortly and vaguely :)); I met a girl on-line (I know, shut up): Vlora. :) [IMG: <3] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New guitar piece! Date added: Monday, November 14 2005, 12:59PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 164 --- I've started learning to play a part of Dream Theater's "A Change Of Seasons" called "Parte Diem". :) I can already play the piece from its beginning (starting at 7:00 -- The seventh minute into the song) until near the end (at 8:23). Still have some way to go but I've already learned the part I wanted to play. :D The rest is just extra (to finish off the song properly). :) I am having a lot of trouble playing the bridge right, in the correct tempo (impossible for me, so far) but other than that I can play it in pace and on tempo (I do make some small mistakes with some grips, though, but I can work that off with practice). :) Oh, and yeah, I still need/want to learn the rest of Anime-inanimate (from John Petrucci). :x ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: My education. Date added: Friday, November 11 2005, 07:47PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 163 --- For a while now, I've really been thinking about my education and the state of things as they are now. I've felt unhappy about my education for 4 years now, knowing what I really want to do is software development (which I've been doing for over 7 years now), but being stuck on such a low level of education (currently: MBO 3). The level of education that's on is HBO which requires a student to either have certain level education (still above mine), or be 21 (and I'm currently 19). So far this year I've been slacking off a lot, so much, in fact, that I'm not sure whether or not I'm even going to complete this level of education. And it's not because it's tough on me or anything, in fact, it's the exact opposite: it's way too easy. I've had the exact same assignments last year and the year before that and I'm still not learning anything new! I've talked to my dean in regards to having my current education sped up substantially but he keeps suppressing me and tells me I won't make it on higher grounds (which is absolute bullshit because I lack the competence, mentality and most importantly: knowledge). Today I've visited an Open Day on the Haagse Hogeschool in Den Haag to have a glimpse of where I'd really want to be. I visited the IT presentation there which gave me a real satisfaction. This is where I want to be, this is what I want to do, this, is what I've been doing for the last five years now! I'm certain I can fit in easily and not have many problems adjusting! I asked the person who gave the presentation (and afterwards a dean on the school who told me the exact same thing) if I could apply anyway despite my age and level of education, to which they said I couldn't because they're bound by legal rules, so they couldn't grant any form of special entry. I'm going to have a talk with my dean again next week and see what he can tell me now that I know exactly where I want to be. If he can't help me (as he stated before) and I'm forced to just stick to what I'm doing now, I'll be sure to keep slacking for the rest of the year and maybe even flunk out. But I really couldn't care less. If it comes to that, I'll wait until I'm 21 and apply for it anyway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: That guitar piece... Date added: Friday, October 28 2005, 09:06PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 162 --- A bit later than planned but I just wanted to make an update about my last entry. I've now learned how to play the piece well enough and on tempo with the MP3! :D I went to my (big) brother's house yesterday to have a jamm-session with him (he plays very excellent piano/keyboard) and he came up with some cool piano parts for it, heh. :P Anyway, this part has really given me a great insight to what's possible with my guitar (technique-wise). I'm already beginning to get new ideas in the same style (on electric guitar, yes :P). :o This part has been really good for my progression in guitar play, I feel. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Guitar piece. Date added: Tuesday, October 25 2005, 09:22AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 161 --- A few months ago I downloaded a lot of guitar movies (instruction videos and impressive music videos) which I watch on occasions. A few weeks ago I watched a movie called "John Petrucci - Young Guitar - Demonstrations.avi" in which there was a certain lick (guitar part) which I didn't know what song it was from. I asked band-mate; Ed, if he knew which song it belonged to. He said it was probably a song from John Petrucci's (only) album "Suspended Animation", and said I'd probably not find it (for downloading). Stubborn as I am, I searched anyway and after some 40 minutes I finally found a BitTorrent link (in your face, Ed! :P). After downloading it (with 60 KB/s, Ed! :D) and reviewing it (it rocks!) I finally found the song which the lick originated from; Animate-inanimate. Having found that, I searched for the guitar tabs and found a decent (if not, perfect) one of it on ultimate-guitar.com. :) I now know how to play the song (starting from where the finger-positions start) through to the end. :D It's hard to match John's speed, though. I can play it at about 2/3rd of his speed. :P Still though, with enough practice I can make this work (it's really an awesome lick!). I've practicing it for the last two days straight (whenever I can). :P Btw, a bit of side-info: I've fixed a few minor bugs in this weblog (mainly in the search engine and in the entries-per-page functions). There's also a slight bug with how the pages are shown (select "Page 1" and compair it with the fron-page), but since it doesn't matter much I'll leave it be (I don't wnat to completely re-invent the function :(). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Search engine! Date added: Friday, October 21 2005, 07:15PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 160 --- I added a feature to my weblog which I've never even attempted to write in the past: a search engine! Check it out (in the top-right corner of every page, can't miss it)! :D I've thoroughly debugged it myself but if there's still any bug in it, please contact me about it! :) P.S.: Special thanks to Aidan for his excellent pattern to exclude HTML tags from the searches! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Atom feed! Date added: Wednesday, October 19 2005, 11:13PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 159 --- I've looked into building an Atom feed and thought it'd be pretty easy to port my existing RSS feeder to also feed an Atom feed. So behold, your Atom (1.0) feed: weblog.rss?syndication=atom It passed the validator (like the RSS feeds), but it may still be wrong (the documentation surrounding Atom is not as good as I'd hoped it to be). If anyone comes across something which should be corrected, please drop me a line. :) Next up is the RDF feed. :D Anyway, it's almost 6:30 AM here now and I am finally going to sleep now. :x ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: RSS Feeds! Date added: Wednesday, October 19 2005, 06:21PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 158 --- I've finished the RSS feeds! Behold: RSS 2.0: weblog.rss?syndication=2.0 RSS 0.91: weblog.rss?syndication=0.91 Real soon I'll also make an Atom feed available. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New weblog! Date added: Monday, October 17 2005, 06:14PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 157 --- I've finally, finally, finished my new weblog! This version does not only look new by layout, but has also been re-written from the ground up! It validates (and conforms!) to XHTML (1.0 Strict), CSS (some CSS3 was used) and WAI-AA. Didn't have enough yet?; Soon there will also be an XML file with an XSLT and also an RSS feed (just because I can :)). :D I've also been thinking of implementing a comment system.. but I'm still unsure if I'm going to build it. Also, I hope you're using anything besides Internet Explorer to view this page because I've really given up on conforming to IE (I have some support but a lot is lacking, hence the notice on top of the page). I've been working on this redesign for some time now, and I'm happy I've finally come around to finishing it. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Spock's Beard concert and Busy weekend. Date added: Thursday, October 13 2005, 02:31AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 156 --- Last Friday, I went to the Spock's Beard concert in De Kade (in Zaandam). The concert was spectacular, both amazing and very awesome! Getting there was one hell of a trip, though and don't get me started about the trip back home. In short (shortest I could make it): 5:00 PM, Left home by train (one train was cancelled, so we had to re-route our trip). 8:00 PM, Got to busses in Zaandam, the busses drove us to the road we told him and we had to walk 60 minutes to get to there (later we asked if there was a shorter way of getting from there to the train station, they told us if we walked a certain way it'd only take us 10 minutes :(). 9:00 PM, Finally arrived at De Kade! 12:15 AM, Awesome concert ended. :( Bought a SB T-shirt! :D 3:33 AM, Finally arrived in Rotterdam (there were no more night-busses, so we either had to walk home, or wait for the first trains/metro to start running again). 4:15 AM, We decided to start walking home the 20 kilometers. 5:45 AM, We gave up, we were all too tired from the long day we already had. Ed called his parents to pick us up. 6:05 AM, Finally arrived back home (fell asleep on my bed like a brick, slept until 7:00 PM!). And as far as the rest of the weekend in concerned: Saturday I went out with Nick to a big party at Hollywood Music Hall which was great fun, as usual :); Sunday I went to the snowboarding Nokia Big Air world cup which was very cool to watch; Monday I went snowboarding with Nick in Snow World (soon I'll also go there with my ex-internship colleague; Martin van Willigen :)). :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Spock's Beard concert! Date added: Monday, October 3 2005, 04:08PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 155 --- Well, today I've finally gotten three tickets (for myself, Ed and Michel) to go see Spock's Beard, live, at De Kade in Zaandam (Netherlands). :D I've waited a long time to actualy go and see them live. :) I also wanted to get tickets for Dream Theater but no-one wants to come along with me so if I'd be going I'd be going alone. :( Anyway, I'm sure there is always next time, right? :( ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: B3ta Haribo Project and Nintendo DS Wifi! Date added: Saturday, September 24 2005, 09:25AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 154 --- Yesterday Ed and I decided to try and see if we could successfully create new forms from factory-built Haribo candy. We got the idea from B3ta.com where few people have already (unsuccessfully) tried to do so. You can read more about it on: http://www.diffission.com/b3ta/ As for Homebrew NDS WiFi, it looks like Stephen Stair (sgstair) has done it! Today, most of the statusses on his site turned to "100%"! I think we expect to see homebrew WiFi for NDS very soon! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy Birthday, Alessandro! Date added: Monday, September 5 2005, 04:24PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 153 --- Today (September 5th) is my birthday, I'm now 19 years old (yeah, that old). Ed made me this: [IMG: Birthday picture] I'm hoping ACJ will make me something as 1337 as last year, but that's up to him. :x Anyway, I celebrated with Ed and Michel last Saturday: we went out to Hollywood (Ed's first time! Omg!). :) And upcoming Thursday we'll have a nice evening dinner with the family. Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! :) (See you next year. :P) P.s.: Diffission opened its site at: http://www.diffission.com/ (I didn't make the site! -- Don't come whining to me about the XHTML/Flash!). :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: "Diffission" has been born! Date added: Thursday, August 25 2005, 06:18PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 152 --- After a lot of pondering on a suitable band name for the band me, Ed Van Der Molen and Michel Olivier have founded, we've finally settled with one name which we all thought was a cool band-name to have (which wasn't cliche or already taken) which was coined up by myself while roaming Wikipedia for some inspiration. :) Our band name is: Diffission We're aiming to be a band of the genre: Progressive Rock. That's all for now, but stay tuned as our website will be launched really soon! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Band news and Nick's birthday! Date added: Tuesday, August 16 2005, 04:41PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 151 --- So, I can officially say that Ed, Michel and I have formed a band together. We don't have a name yet, but we do have ideas and are on the verge of writing some pretty good music. We're planning on making a Progressive Rock Opera album. Can't say much more at this time, sorry. :D Saturday, I went to birthday party of Nick de Lange (Nick de Lange told me to stop using his full name; Nick de Lange, because he didn't like me saying "Nick de Lange" all the time in my weblog. So therefore, "Nick de Lange" will now be knows as "Nick", not as "Nick de Lange". Happy now, Nick de Lange? Good. :D). It started off where he and I met in teh city to go see the Dance Parade in Rotterdam. From there, we left to go pick up some food at Nick's work and proceeded to go to his house. We had a barbeque there together with all the attendees, which was really cool. I laughed my ass off listening to some of the stories being told by some people, it was really a kick-ass party. :D Not to mention all the alcohol which went into it. Nick's brother actually got so drunk by the end of the evening that he threw up all over the place. Another girl who was there also got really drunk (she needed help getting back to the car), haha. Yeah, the party was fucking awesome. :D After that, Nick and me had already planned to go to Now&Wow, but since one of the girls who came with us (who got dressed to go with us) got some beer spilled all over her, she didn't want to take the risk of getting bounced, so we (we ended up as a group of five; me, Nick, Pandora & A.K.A. Paddo" &, a guy who's name I forgot and that guy's girlfriend) unanimously agreed that we should go to Hollywood (which kind of irked me at the time but I guessed it would be just the same). When arriving at Hollywood and had already danced a bit, Nick started to feel kind of nauseous and decided it was time for him to leave. :( I ended up going home with the last night-bus, at 4:30 AM. It was too bad Nick felt sick, but other than that, it was a really cool day. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Flashed My Nintendo DS! Date added: Wednesday, August 10 2005, 10:22AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 150 --- My little brother bought a GBA Flash Card, and I was able to (finally) flash my Nintendo DS' firmware a few days ago. I've been playing homebrew code/games (through WiFiMe and using the flash card) since then. :D There are some pretty amazing homebrew developed games so far (notably: Omalone). I want to start developing for the NDS soon, as well. :) I've also flashed Ed's NDS, and the NDS of a friend of his. They both bought RaLink Wifi cards so they can work with WiFiMe, heh. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New guitar, concerts! Date added: Sunday, July 31 2005, 06:29AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 149 --- Yesterday, my new guitar arrived at Feedback! I was able to pick it up before 5PM, so I rushed over there with Michel and picked up my brand new Stagg A 2006 (black). :D It's a really cool (cheap Ovation replica)/guitar with very nice sound coming from it. There are some minor flaws in the guitar, but for 200 bucks, I really can't complain. :P Also, Spock's Beard has announced new tour dates, of which two will be held in The Netherlands! I'll definitely be going to one of those (probably with Ed). :) I will probably also be going to Dream Theater the same month. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Went out to Now&Wow with Nick! Date added: Sunday, July 31 2005, 06:23AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 148 --- Oh my god, I finally, FINALLY, went out to Now&Wow (with Nick de Lange, omg!)! At first I was really insecure about if I was able to get in at all, since their door policies are so terribly strict (on clothes, the way you look, etc.). I decided to put on a black pants, a white t-shirt and a closed white shirt on top of it (which was semi-transparent). I met up with Nick there and we walked in where we were greeted by the so-called; "door-bitches" (A.K.A. bouncers). One woman asked us if we'd ever been there before, I decided to shut up and let Nick do the talking when he said that he'd never been there before (while in fact he had been there several times before). Anyway, big lie, omfg, anyway, the point was that if we'd never been there before, maybe she wouldn't be so strict on policies and let us in just to get the feel of things. Nick was all okay but she had troubles with what I was wearing (:|) so she told me I should lose the shirt and just keep on the t-shirt, then I'd be okay and set (and warned me to dress more appropriate next time I come there). So I went in with Nick (while being fiercely checked for weapons and drugs by the next checkpoint). When we were finally in it wasn't all that crowded so we "chilled" for a bit in the lounge area (the second hall of the three halls) and had a few drinks and something to eat. After a while people started to get in and things were getting really crowded and, well, I don't really have to explain where all this is going. :P Anyway, I had a cool time there with Nick and I really let myself go on the dance-floor. :) We got to do this again sometime (*cough* 13th of August on Nick's birthday *cough*). :D I just need to go out and get some proper clothes for next time (however odd it was, because I really didn't think much wrong of what I was wearing. It really is a nice shirt). Anyway, yeah, Now&Wow is cool place to be. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Best dream I have ever had. Date added: Sunday, July 31 2005, 06:22AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 147 --- Two days ago, I had the best dream I've ever had in my life: I was walking her to her house and left her at her front-door (while she'd not yet opened the door). Then I left her there and as I started to walk away she walked along with me for a very short walk (like, a few steps), while staring me in my eyes (as I looked back upon her). I tried to assure her I'd be fine when she put her arms around me and kissed me on my lips (with her very sweet, soft and tasty lips -- my very first kiss). Then she turned around (her back facing me) and was about to walk home (happy and smiling) when I embrased her with all the love I could give, put my head on her right shoulder and kissed her on her right cheek. She let me hold her for a short while and then I let her go to go back to her home, I held her arm gently as she walked off (her hand being slit away from my hand) while I said something to her with a very loving tone of voice (which I can't remember what that was). Then I awoke from my dream and felt so overwhelmed with love (and mixed feelings), I didn't want to wake up yet. So, I tried to get back to sleep (unable to get back to that dream, as you may have already guessed). I know this'll be sappy and stupid for most people, but I really couldn't care less. I hope I can ever really do feel as happy and loved as I was in my dream. *sighs* Also, I know I should be over her by now, it's been almost a month since I last spoke to her (I think maybe she's on vacation; either that, or she's blocked me from her MSN list) and until now, I was sure I really was over her, I really have no idea where this dream came from. Sad to say, I guess I still do have feelings for her even though I've tried to move on since I last saw her and told her what I felt about her. I know dreams don't mean anything but maybe this dream reflects on what I had expected on where to go with her. I don't know. All I know is that this must have been, without a doubt, the best dream I've ever had in my life so far. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Late entry, much happened. Date added: Thursday, July 28 2005, 12:33PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 146 --- I've been working on a new weblog system, which has prevented me from making any new entries to this (old) one. It's near completion as far as showing weblog entries goes, I just need to add the remaining admin area to it and it'll be done. No sneak previews yet, but it will be done (hopefully) within a week. Now, as far as new things go: I've pre-ordered Nanostray from Lik-Sang which shipped when the shipment came in and it has already arrived (Over a week passed since I made the pre-order. :P). The game is very cool and very graphical. I've noticed it's unable to maintain a steady Frames-Per-Second (FPS) count when in multiplayer mode and both ships are in and under fire due to the intense graphics. I've not seen that happen in single player, though (thankfully), but it does say a lot about the graphics in this game. It's amazing! I've also bought Bomberman DS for the Nintendo DS a few weeks ago (never did mention that in my weblog). I don't have much to say on it, other than the fact it's a cool game. :P I also bought that guitar tuner I was talking about in my last entry. It works really well and the built-in metronome is really a plus. I'm still waiting on my new guitar to arrive at Feedback, though. I hope I'll be able to pick it up without much trouble (because I lost the pre-order receipt -- I kept it in my wallet which got stolen :(). I'm sure it'll be alright. :) I've also gone out again last Saturday (5th or 6th time now) with my neighbour; Erik, but this time I didn't go to Hollywood MusicHall, instead, I went to WaterFront. I liked the place, it was really laid back and there was some pretty decent music. I heard a lot about Now&Wow, I really want to go there next time I go out. I hear the bouncers are pretty strict on policies, though (the way you look/dress, etc). I'm going to the birthday party of Nick de Lange (jeweettoch!") on the 13th of August, and afterwards (in the night) we'll be going to Now&Wow, so I guess we'll see what happens then. :) And a few days ago, I bought three new Spock's Beard CD's (all special editions): The Light; The Kindness Of Strangers; Beware Of Darkness. I think all three are very excellent CD's, and I'm playing them constantly. To have a very small and funny excerpt from the lyrics: "I am Senor Valasco, I drink my milk with tabasco!". :D I guess that covers most of what happened. Stay tuned for my new weblog which will be here soon! :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Lost my wallet!! Date added: Tuesday, July 19 2005, 05:36PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 145 --- Today, I had intended to go to the music store Feedback to buy a guitar tuner (with built-in metronome), I had intended to wake up early, leave quickly and get it, so afterwards me and Michel could jamm together. I slept in, by accident (I have a tendency to turn off my alarm and continue sleeping -- I have two alarm clocks, one of which is controlled by PC, which I'm programmed myself). So I finally did wake up when Michel called me by phone asking if I'd already gone to Feedback. I told him I hadn't, and he told me he'd go along with me. We decided to have a quick lunch before going, as we both hadn't eaten anything yet. So we went to Burger King where we ate and we left when we finished, heading for the train to get to Feedback. When arriving at the train station, I suddenly realised that I didn't have my wallet on me! I rushed back to Burger King in hopes of retaining my lost wallet but it was no longer there! :( No-one had seen my wallet, I asked around and looked where we sat, but nothing. :( I had 120 EUR (~ 150 dollars) in my wallet (I took it with me in case the guitar I ordered had arrived at Feedback), my ID, my my bank card and a few other cards, goddamnit (sorry, must be said -- I'm extremely pissed about this). So, I quickly canceled my bank card (had to call about that) and filed in a report at the police in order to obtain a new ID card. I don't know what else to place in here for now. I'm really fucking mad about all this. :( ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Newies! Date added: Saturday, July 16 2005, 04:51PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 144 --- I've been waiting too long to write this weblog entry. I can now officially say that I'm writing my very first songs together with my friend Michel. :) We're seemingly progressing along very nicely, we have 4 concept ideas we can work out now and we have one song which is in mid-completion. I've found this very awesome riff on my guitar which just came out of no-where (I was just fiddling around the fret-board, as a matter of speech :P) which we are trying to build a song around. Michel keeps finding these very awesome (high tone) bass lines for it, it's a real catchy tune already. It definitely has potential. :) I'm also writing one song by myself which is also progressing nicely. Not much info on it yet, I want to work it out before I show anyone. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Went out, danced, got drunk. Date added: Saturday, July 2 2005, 01:16PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 143 --- Well, I went out yesterday with a classmate of mine (Nick de Lange -- jeweettoch" :D). We went out to Hollywood Music Hall again, like before. I had two free entrance tickets which allowed us to get in for free and we also got two free drinks (two small lousy little bull-shit drinks which tasted like cough-sirup :(). So anyway, when we were in and had those drinks, we decided to check out the dance floors in some of the rooms (there are multiple rooms with different kinds of music) and get some more drinks to get myself loosened up a bit (this is normal for me since I am a shy little boy exploring the world.. and stuff.. :P). So, after a few drinks and dancing and stuff, I really started to feel the effect of the alcohol I drank (note that I don't drink alcohol a lot) allowing me to loosen up a bit, take a bit more chance. I've done this the last two times I've gone out, no big deal. So this time, I decided to stretch my limit a bit by drinking a bit more. And after a while, it really took me more efford to stand on my feet and so we took a short break in the lounge area outside. Then when we went back in, I had considerable difficulty trying to walk, let alone dance at all. So after a while, Nick told me we should better call it a night (I recall this was around 3:00 AM, or something like that). So we made our way to the stop for the night-bus and waited a while for it to arive. Nick needed to be on a different bus, which arived prior to mind, and I recall telling the bus-driver where I needed to get off and I took a seat, nearly dozing off on several occasions (I recall being so far off the planet, I was actually singing out loud by myself, in the bus :S). So, when I got home (I have no recollection of what time it was, by then) I recall waking up my mom who told me something (I'll be damned if I remember what it was) and making my way to bed (more like dropping myself on the bed, actually). So, this morning, I got up at, like, 10 AM with the biggest headache I've had in a long time, still being able to hear the music pounding inside my head. The reason I woke up was my thirst. I drank tons of water from the sink and ran into my mom again who adressed me on my being drunk the other night (casual, not at all mad), and told me I should get some more sleep. So, I went up to my bed and got a bit more sleep. I woke up again at 4:50 PM. :| So, in short; yesterday was awesome, and I got to experience my first real hang-over (not my first time being drunk, though. I've gotten drunk a few times in the past). :P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: GMail notifier for Linux. Date added: Saturday, July 2 2005, 10:08AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 142 --- After long consideration and looking around the internet for one, I've now pieced together my own GMail notifier for Linux in Python. It runs on the libgmail library. All it does is it checks for new/unread messages in your inbox. It can be found/downloaded here: files/gmail.py It's not the best script ever written or anything, in fact, I barely even know Python. :P Then again, Python is such an easy language in which to accomplish certain tasks. Anyway, it looks alright (in my view) and it's functional. Feedback is always appreciated. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: It's Blogging Time! Date added: Thursday, June 23 2005, 09:07AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 141 --- So, last Saturday I went out (for the first time ever) to a disco called Hollywood Music Hall with a friend of mine and a neighbour. :) First, we went for some drinks in some bar and then we entered the disco (at 00:50AM). We stayed until 4:25, when we took a night-bus back home. In all, I had a real good time and am keen on doing it again, soon. :) Yesterday, I studied a number called Made Alive/Overture by Spock's Beard on my guitar. It took me a while to get to know the chords, but it wasn't all that hard. I can play it now and I'm really liking it. :D Mad props to Ed for teaching me how to tune my guitar down by one step. :P And, today, I bought by third music album, ever. :) I bought Dream Theater - Metropolis PT2: Scenes From A Memory for EUR 11,99. I listened to three sample songs in the store and I liked it so much, I bought it right away. I'm thinking of buying a shirt with the album-cover as inprint (have been considering this for a while, but I never listened to the album before). Also, I've been jamming a lot lately with another friend of mine; Michel. He plays bass (recently bought his first bass guitar) and is really progressing with it. This friday I'll be attending another jamm-night at a local youth centre and maybe he'll be able to play on-stage, too. :) Anyway, so much for now. I'm still relaxing from my free time now that my internship has come to its end. I do think I need to get back to programming, though. But right now, I want to relax a bit, get things sorted out and stuff. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: End of my internship. Date added: Friday, June 17 2005, 11:32AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 140 --- Well, the time has come for me to end my internship. Today was officially my last day and I would like to thank a few people through my weblog. First of all, I would like to thank Cyril Hanoeman for being so supportive throughout my time with him. You've not been so easy when I started out but as time progressed we really seemed to get along fantastically. You seemed to be the only one to really understand me most, not just superficially, and encourage and motivate me a lot. Not a lot of people could see beyond my exterior like you could. You really made me feel my best at the time I've spent with you. And if that isn't enough, you gave me the opportunity (on more than a few occasions :P) to develop myself socially. I've not found anyone in my life able to do that for me and I thank you deeply for that. I would also like to thank Cyril Pool for trying to be the best he could be towards me. You've been a nice colleague to work with and I am very appreciative of your good advice. I also want to thank you for going out on a whim and help me get some type of salary for my internship. :) Then I'd like to thank Martin van Willigen for being the most that he could. I think it was hard for you to accept me when I started out as it was hard for me trying to get along with you. After a few months we did seem to get along better and better and you finally showed me that you did respect me in a way to actually notice me (not just give me tasks to carry out :P). In all, it was nice and very informative working with you. I'd also like to thank Kay Vervoorn for being such a cool guy to work with. :P Our taste in music didn't seem to differ all that much and it was fun being able to talk with someone about some of the music I listened to. It was also nice to be able to talk to someone about my web-projects and web-developments in general. I also want to thank Cihan Utu and Lorenzo van Nieuwkerk. I know both your stays were less pleasant, especially when you just started out. You both have been nice to work with and I think it's a shame things turned out sour for you guys. I wish you both good luck with your future education and/or careers. But most of all, I want to thank a very special girl to me; Mirella, for being so incredibly nice towards me. You've been the first girl in my life that has ever been so kind and sweet towards me and in doing so, you've given me so much confidence and reason, you have no idea how much that means to me. Your smile/wave/greet/talk always made my day seem perfect no matter how my day initially was going and really made me feel great. Getting to know you and be around you have been the best moments in my life so far. Now that I have all this off my chest (and believe me; it wasn't easy for me to write all this down), I can reflect on myself. :P I've had a really good, wonderful and educative time at the VOS. I've learned a lot throughout my time there and I will undoubtedly be able to use my gained knowledge in the rest of my education. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Disneyland! Date added: Saturday, June 11 2005, 07:21AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 139 --- Disneyland (Paris) was fantastic! :D I had a really fun time there, the rides were amazing. I've done Space Mountain 2 four times, I enjoyed it most of all coasters. :) I've done pretty much all that I set out to do in just one day. :D I spent the day roaming around with other teachers (since I barely knew anyone else). But that didn't matter much, they were fun to spend the day with. :) In all, I had a great time there. Could have done with a bit more sleep, but hey, who's complaining? :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Disneyland (Paris)! Date added: Monday, June 6 2005, 08:01PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 138 --- This Friday I'll be going to Disneyland in Paris. :D I'm going (for free :P) with the school I work at as an intern. :) We leave at 3:00 in the morning and get back at 2:30 in the morning. :S the main problem with that is that I travel by public transportation and there is no public transit at that time at night. To get there, that won't be much of a problem. I'll take the last subway up there (and arrive at around 12:30AM) and wait until 3:00AM. The way back, however, isn't a matter of just waiting. I checked online at when the subway and trains start their shifts and that won't be until 8AM. I'm not about to wait 5 hours to be on my way home, so I'll probably just call a taxi or something (haven't figured it out yet). I already know none of the people I know can drive me, I've asked around from class-mates to neighbours and no-one is able to help me. :( Oh well, I'll probably just go by taxi, then (and spend 50 bucks on a cab-ride. :S). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Busy weekend. Date added: Sunday, May 29 2005, 08:12AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 137 --- Friday night I went to a jamm night at a local youth centre (the Little Cave). I watched a friend of mine (Ed) play on-stage and I decided to also play a bit of bass guitar near the end of the night (actually, it was on request by Ed). Another friend of mine (Michel Olivier) also stopped by as he's getting very interested in playing bass guitar. It was a fun night, not too many people though, but I had a good time nonetheless. :) Saturday, I went to a music store (Feedback) to buy my first electric guitar (I already had an amplifier). I bought an Ibanez GAX 30 BK for EUR 159,-, a guitar strap, a guitar bag, some plectrums and some backup snears (you never know :)). In all, I'm now EUR 200,- poorer. :( But anyway, this guitar is really awesome. I've been playing acoustic guitar for a good few months now, and I thought it'd be time to try out electric guitar. :) Then, Saturday evening, I went to the cinema's (with Ed) to go and see Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. :) It's a really stunning movie, the details and special effects are amazing. And not just "Oh, wow, computer-animated.", but really amazing and sometimes lifelike motions and effects. Story-wise it was all known from the start (if you've seen the last movies, you know Anakin will become bad and end up Darth Vader and have two children who will be named "Luke" and "Leia"), but it was still worth seeing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Passed! Date added: Monday, May 23 2005, 04:48PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 136 --- I passed my exams! :D The exams weren't all that hard, but somehow half of my class was able to flunk them (don't ask; some don't even know how to devide 100 by 10 -- one calculated it on his phone and answered "four" :S). Anyway, I still have my internship to finish now (which is near its end as well) and then it's on to the next level of education. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Exams are finally over! Date added: Thursday, May 19 2005, 01:19PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 135 --- Today was the last exam I had to do (had three days of exams). I think I did okay, it wasn't too hard (except for one part). I think I passed, but we'll see. More on this on Monday, when I get the results in (or Tuesday, since I'm going to a wedding on Monday -- Nephew is getting married). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Exams, work, internship, argh! Date added: Tuesday, May 3 2005, 10:23AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 134 --- Well, I'm taking a short time to quickly make an entry. I'm currently doing a lot of school work which is due next Monday and on top of that, the week after I have my final exams. So I don't have much time to make long and extensive entries (if any). That is all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Polarium! Date added: Monday, April 25 2005, 02:54PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 133 --- I bought Polarium, this game is awesome! I don't know what else to say, heh. It's a very addictive puzzle game, its been worth my 30 Euro's. :) Only think that I hated though, was the fact that right after I bought it and played it for a bit, I decided to stop for a while and go on the internet to see what's new. And right then I read that a demo for Polarium has been ripped and can be played through WiFiMe (Yes, I downloaded and tested it -- it works flawlessly). :( Oh well, I would've bought it anyway I guess. :) Oh, I need to remind myself to get myself a GBA Flash Card. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Fantastic day! Date added: Wednesday, April 20 2005, 03:20PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 132 --- Today must have been one of the best days I've had in months, possibly years. It started out pretty lousy (I got to my internship 20 mins late) but aside from that the rest of the day was fantastic. Also, I bought a wireless network card (Sweex LC700030) from my internship supervisor (who sells hardware for his own company) which is compatible with WiFiMe. I tried it and it works perfectly! I'll be buying a GBA Flash Card soon, methinks. Anyway, more on today perhaps on a later date. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Old news items. Date added: Sunday, April 3 2005, 12:33PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 131 --- I know I've been neglecting this weblog for a while, it's due to the fact I'm real busy working on stuff for my school and internship. Therefore, some important news (to me, anyway), I was unable to post. Hence this entry. King Crimson The last few weeks I've been completely overwhelmed by the music of King Crimson. I first heard one of their songs ("Moonchild") in a movie called Buffalo '66 some years ago. Back then, I already loved the music of this film (much was done by Vincent Gallo) and tried to find the songs online, unfortunately I was unable to find any. So, a few months ago I saw this movie on TV again and it reminded me of the music. After the movie was over, I went to my computer and tried to find the music once again. This attempt led me to a site which held the entire "The Court Of The Crimson King" album! Not only did I get to listen to Moonchild again, but the entire album! Because of that and the fact Ed van der Molen helped me find my way with other Progressive Rock bands (Dream Theater, The Flower Kings, Symphony X, Spock's Beard and many others), much of my taste in music changed. Getting back to King Crimson; Ed gave me another album by King Crimson entitled: Discipline which is, also, mindblowing. I liked this album so much that I set out to find more of King Crimson, so I went to a store which sells (amung other things) music, DVD's, computers, etc. and I found a DVD by King Crimson called "Deja VROOOM". I went to one of the preview counter (they let you preview CD's and DVD's) to check it out. After watching and listening to two songs, I knew I had to get this DVD, so I purchased it. This DVD is so amazing, it's a dual-layer DVD filled with King Crimson music from various albums, performed on-stage! I even like some songs better than they are on the recordings (which is absolutely rare, in my case because I usually hate live performances). Anyway, I'm still on the prowl for new material I can get, and hopefully am able to obtain more music. :) New Design for my webserver I've started working on a new design for my webserver. This design is new in every way (to my standards), meaning several things: This design... ...has a menu on the left of the page. ...conforms to not only XHTML 1.0 Strict, but also to WAI-AA. ...is an actual web-site now, instead of a portal. ...will be easier to convert to XHTML 1.1 than the old design. In all, it's better than its (current) predecessor. Netgamez 2005A I went to Netgamez 2005A to compete in the Counter-Strike tournament, together with my little brother, big brother (who didn't play anything, he just downloaded like a monkey) and a friend of mine. Ed was also planning on going but he didn't have transportation, so he couldn't make it. We needed to recruit two people there as well, because we needed a team of five players. Anyway, to keep it short, we lost big time and we sucked (sure, we have our excuses, but that's what it comes down to). The teams there were just way too good. Perhaps next time. Anyway, I also downloaded some stuff there, you can check out the list: File: files/list_netgamez_2005a Moved my room to the attic I moved my room from the first floor to the attic (my old brothers' old room). This room is so much bigger, and I now have everything in one room (after my big brother moved out, my PC was in the room and my bedroom was on the first floor). The only thing that I dislike is the noise my (self-made) router makes, I am unable to get to sleep properly because of it. I tried to remove the cooler from the power supply (which was the thing which made the most noise) but, of course, you can't just remove it. It'll overheat.. Replacing it was impossible due to the fact that my collection of coolers all make noise as well (except for the ones that are currently in my PC). I'm still bothered by this to this day, and am on the look-out for a better cooler, or a replacement PC to take over as router (I have two other working PC's). Anyway, my room kicks ass now, I even have a couch in this room, it's so big. :) A lot of old news, there must have been things I forgot to mention now but I'll try and update more often. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Circus Brimstone Date added: Saturday, April 2 2005, 06:00PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 130 --- I just got back from the very first concert (entitled; "Circus Brimstone") I've ever been to. It was a concert of a band called The Flower Kings. I went there together with a friend of mine (Ed van der Molen -- ex-class-mate and ex-colleague, fellow Gentoo clan-member, guitar teacher and so on and so forth). Actually, this was all his idea. The Flower Kings is his most favourite band and he was already planning on going. He asked me if I wanted to go with him and I, having never ever been to any kind of concert before, thought that'd be cool. The music was instrumental (the main vocalist was on tour with another band, I think -- or so I heard), but that didn't matter much, the concert was awesome! I had a really good time, the music was fantastic. There were a lot of people there but it was a small place, it wasn't a huge complex or anything, it was big enough. In all, there must've been around 200 or 300 people there, if that (it's not like I've counted or anything -- the site says the room can have up to 750 people but I think that's a bit extreme although that could be my misjudgement, anyway, the room was filled). In all, it was a really cool concert, I'm looking forward to my next one. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Bought Project Rub (Feel The Magic XY/XX). Date added: Monday, March 14 2005, 01:42PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 129 --- So I bought Project Rub (European version of Feel The Magic XY/XX -- personally, I prefer the American title) today. And only for double its cost in the states; 40 Euro's (50 Dollars)! (Notice the sarcasm.) The game is hilarious and really awesome! It's too bad I've already finished the game now, though. And only after a few hours. :( The mini-games remain interesting and amusing, though. I'll definitely play them for a while. And there are still a few extra's to unlock.. I just wish it'd take a while longer to finish the game itself. :( Oh well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Nintendo DS, European launch (differences!). Date added: Friday, March 11 2005, 01:58PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 128 --- Well, my friend Ed got his Nintendo DS today, since it launched today in the Netherlands. I've already had it since September. However, when we fired up multiplayer it seems that the American version of Metroid Prime: First Hunt demo is different than the European one! You can not play multiplayer together. Not even with Download play. You can spot three main differences in the splash screen: Copyright notice reads "2004" in the US version and "2004-2005" in the European version. The hidden egg is gone (the lighting dot in the US version). The font color of "Hunters" (in the top screen) is different. Further more, in the top screen on the main menu in the US version you can see some text discribing the suit, there is no such text in the European version! We've also noticed changes in Mario DS, mainly: The US version of Mario DS starts up a bit faster than the Eurpean one In the title screen, the US © has been changed to ™ (in the European version). Also, I don't know if this is a big thing or not, but both DS' seem to be giving connection problems (connection is unstable and lags sometimes) on both PictoChat and Mario DS, it seems fine in my US version of Ridge Racer, though. Anyway, we still love the Nintendo DS, just minor annoyances, y'know. Although I am dissapointed at not being able to play multiplayer Metroid. :( ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Maktone chips. Date added: Monday, March 7 2005, 06:31PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 127 --- About four or five years ago, my father downloaded a game for me I really wanted to play, that game was Black & White. The game, having been cracked, came with a custom installer created by Class. The program also featured some music to go with the installation process. One of those music tunes (a "chip") was created by Maktone and I really liked it. In fact, I liked it so much, I kept the installer program long after I finished playing the game itself. The tune really catched on and I could listen to it for hours without being bored by it. I kept the installer over the years, listening to it once a while (it really is a good tune). Anyway, the day came (multiple times) I wanted to have the music seperate from the installer, but I was unable to rip it myself. I even tried recording it through a loopback (my dad did it for me at the time). Unfortunately, every method I tried resulted in quality loss. :( Well, as you may know, last year I installed Gentoo Linux and I was from that point unable to listen to the song anymore (Cedega/Wine didn't work with it), so it got lost in some of my older files. A few months ago, I installed Windows XP Pro as a dual boot to be able to play the one game I love to play; Counter-Strike (and since shortly; Half-Life 2) and came across the installer again (by a sheer coincidence). Anyway, I started checking google again in search of "maktone" and sure enough, I found his site! I gave it a quick browse, downloaded all the music files I could get and started checking if the tune from the installer would be included in the files I'd downloaded. And I eventually found the file (SAE03.MOD) I'd been looking for all these years! The URL to his site: http://sidchip.ath.cx/~maktone/ What's more, I really like the rest of his chips. I'm listening to them a lot now, there are some very awesome tunes in there (even one of Super Mario World!). I wrote an entry in his guestbook, hoping he'll notice me. Perhaps he'll drop me a line, who knows. Anyway, check out some of his stuff, the chips are really awesome! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: BrainFuck. Date added: Sunday, February 27 2005, 05:24PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 126 --- A few hours ago, an old friend of mine gave me a link to New Order which contained a page explaining the programming language called "BrainFuck" (because it may/can cause a headache, I guess). The language itself is really easy and is much like Assembly in a way. It's a real fun language to play around in. Having read the page, I write two little programs (two exercises mentioned on the page) to test if I could actually write something myself. I first compiled the C source of the compiler, then created a little script to automate compiling: obfc $1.bf -nv -c $1.c && cc $1.c -o $1 And I created the two programs. The first one was to write out my own name (I actually already did this before I even saw the exercise). The BF code: >+++++[<+++++++++++++>-]<.++++++>++++[<++++++++>-]<.++.+++.+++.[-]++++++++++. Which will write out: "Agilo" Then the second one, to print out the ASCII table (notice I skip the first 32 characters on purpose): >++++++++++<++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++[+.>.<] This language is really awesome, in my mind. I'll try and write some more programs as time progresses. By the way, thanks Jort! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Backup script version 1.2. Date added: Sunday, February 20 2005, 12:12PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 125 --- I've worked on my backup script for a while and fixed the creation of the directory scructure. It's now automated instead of having to manually type out: /usr /usr/local /usr/local/apache2 /usr/local/apache2/htdocs Meaning; less editing and more flexibility. File: files/backup_02202005.sh ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Guitar lessons and other newies. Date added: Friday, February 11 2005, 02:31PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 124 --- About three weeks ago, I've gotten a guitar from a friend of mine (Ed van der Molen/Fuzzy/Deus_Ed.) I've been practising on my own a lot and I feel like I've got a grip on playing it. He keeps telling me I'm progressing very rapidly and I've got a very keen sense for it. He's teaching me trick after trick to improve my play and I explore things myself as well. More recently I find myself playing tabs from my favourite band (ever); Puddle of Mudd. I practice every day for at least an hour (mostly at night) and I'm planning on buying a new guitar in two weeks time (since the one he gave me has a snear missing since he gave it to me and is kind of busted up with cracks all over the place.) As for the rest of the time, I'm very busy with my internship. I really like the school I'm working for (as a Systems Manager,) and I really put a lot of efford into it. They like having me as well, even the principal himself told me I did a very good job (which I hear he doesn't say very often). Anyway, I've really shown my best qualities and behavior there and I'm really feeling like I'm contributing to the school itself. I wish I had gone to that school when I was younger (where the term "younger" is used lightly, because the ages range from 12 to 19 as the school is a very high educational level variating from one or two levels away from university). As you may guess, I'm putting some of my spare time and off-hours into the school as well, helping them out with their servers from home or creating PHP scripts to manage a database. My instructors (three in total, of which two I spend most of the time with) are very nice, too. Cyril Pool is kind of grumpy some times, but a fun to be around. He knows his hardware and (naturally) his job mostly involves hardware. Cyril Hanoeman is very skilled in a lot of areas. He's very Novell-minded and knows his way around Linux, too. He's doing all the software that needs to be installed, manages users, sets up network applications and knows more than what his job title is saying. Then there is Martin van Willigen who does all the networking. He knows basic Linux (works mostly through Midnight Commander though) and is very Microsoft-Minded. The only things he stresses most is documentation of work which is, sorry to say, not my best quality. But nevertheless, he's a cool guy and reminds me much of a person I knew online (DArqueBishop, staff of the MortalKombatOnline network.) There is also another Intern from the same school as me (another location though) called Cihan Utu. He knows his part in hardware and is trying to get familiar with Microsoft's Access at the moment, heh. Anyway, he's an okay guy. Listens to Hip-Hop, makes mixes through the use of Fruity Loops and has a cool car with loud boxes, etc. The kind of stereotypical person in Rotterdam, I'd say. Still though, he's a fun guy. In other activities, I'm still playing on my Nintendo DS and I'm keeping a regular check on new developments, hacks and cracks. I just recently (finally :P) finished Super Mario 64 DS. :) I'm stuck in a certain level in Ridge Racer DS though, which made me (kind of) lose interest in the game. But I'll pick it up in a while and re-check my chances, eventually. :) Well, that's about it for what's going on in my life right now. I'm like where I am right now, except for work hours (getting up at 6:30AM and returning home at 6:00PM,) but I'll live. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New backup script. Date added: Wednesday, January 19 2005, 01:52PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 123 --- I wrote a backup script before, but after reviewing it it really is very unreliable and some might say dangerous. I've re-written it from scratch to make it reliable, stable and better than the previous. This one is easy to use even for someone without much scripting experience. File: files/backup_new.sh Hope it helps anyone besides myself. Also, if anyone is going to use it, please drop me a line. Feedback is always nice, even if you modify on it. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: I've discovered a bug in Mario 64 DS! Date added: Tuesday, January 4 2005, 09:04PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 122 --- In course 6 (Haze Maze Cave -- the black watery substance you jump into) I've discovered a bug. When you start, go left through the door. Make your way to the door in the back (where the boulders come down). Go through that door to find a lift that goes downwards. Now, this is crucial, step onto it with your back up against a side. While going down, press the 'X' key to zoom up behind Mario (first person-ish). Now watch and see everything pass besides you. :) Discovered by me while playing at 3:41AM (Wednesday, January 5). :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Nintendo DS!! Date added: Thursday, December 30 2004, 08:10AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 121 --- I've finally recieved my Nintendo DS!!!! Finally! :D It took about a week to get here, if not longer (seemed like an age), but it's here! I bought it together with Ridge Racer DS and Mario 64 DS. The games look amazing! Even the European charger (Piranha) I bought for the GBA SP works with it! Thanks a lot, ]{0MBAT !!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy New Year in advance! Date added: Wednesday, December 29 2004, 08:21AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 120 --- I won't be home for New Years Eve, so I'll just say it in advance; Happy New Year, everyone! Also, I bought a Nintendo DS through ]{0MBAT for 305 dollars (in total). It hasn't arrived yet though. :( I hope it will be arriving soon, I'm really excited. :D But anyway, thanks again, ]{0MBAT! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Dynamic DNS. Date added: Friday, December 17 2004, 02:54PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 119 --- A very short entry: I signed up with no-ip.info to obtain a DDNS (Dynamic DNS) address to point to my little server. My account is: agilo.no-ip.info I created it because it seems my IP is changing every fucking week or so and my IP logger which logs my IP address to IP.txt is kind of annoying, having to look it up and then be able to visit my webserver/shell. Anyway, so much for my "short" entry, heh. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Been a while. Date added: Friday, December 17 2004, 02:47PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 118 --- Well, nothing really exciting happened. I updated my skills page a few times. I got a laugh out of this hilarious site: http://www.xftpx.com/ieonly.php. Oh, most importantly, though. I'm buying a Nintendo DS (Double Screen). I was already planning to for a long while, and had already decided to buy it a while ago. I've made plans together with ]{0MBAT for him to buy one (since it's not released here yet and won't be until about March 2005). He's already bought the DS, Ridge Racer DS and Mario 64 DS and we're in the midst of payment. If everything goes well I should have it within a week. :D Sorry for the lack of enthusiasm and semantics (I AM SO SORRY ACJ!), I'm really tired. :( ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Whoop! Date added: Wednesday, December 1 2004, 02:36PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 117 --- First, a quick notice: My IP changed again (wtf?:|). My new IP is: 213.93.245.223 In case it changes again, I've created a small little shell-script which automagically uploads my new IP address every 30 minutes to: http://agilo.acjs.net/IP.txt That way, you can be sure (within a time-span of 30 minutes, anyway) of what my IP is. Anyway, to continue, I was THIS close on pulling the plug on my weblog. :( I had decided a little while ago I needed to get my act together because I've been so damn lazy towards programming and such. Therefore, I had decided to give up a few things. One of which was my weblog (hence the lack of entries). Well anyway, I changed my mind on pulling the plug on my weblog but I did drop other things I was doing way too much of. One of which is downloading and watching movies (to name just one thing). I wanted to start something new, something fresh, something to keep my mind active while I'm still young and easy to adapt to new languages. Therefore, I've started learning; Assembly (Linux, Ix86)! I've made a start last weekend (4 hours straight on Saturday, and 5 and a half hours straight on Sunday), and I've so far learned the itty-bitty basics (the registers and the most common instructions). I've found NASM to be the best assembler so far (syntax-wise), and started learning with that. I created a few things to get me started into Assembly, nothing ground-breaking, but a start nonetheless. The things I've made so far can be viewed at my Webserver (http://213.93.245.223/others/ASM/). More will be added as I progress! :D Also, I finally found a way to get PHPS (PHP Sourcecode) files working on this host! :D:D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New cable modem! Date added: Monday, November 15 2004, 08:21AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 116 --- Well, as you might have noticed, I was offline for the past 6 days due to my new cable modem being installed. I'm not going to go too deep into the installation of it, because it was done all wrong and I suffered a lot of downtime because of it. The best thing about this new modem is that I can now get 512 KB/S downstream and 128 KB/S upstream! :D The worst thing is that my IP has changed to 24.132.55.70. :( Oh well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Counter-Strike: Source! Date added: Friday, November 5 2004, 03:16AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 115 --- Since Netgamez, I've been playing Counter-Strike: Source non-stop. I cannot get enough of this game! Not only did it visually improve, the maps changed a bit, too. Jumping has changed a lot, and the long-range aim of the AK47 has changed too. It's still the superior weapon, but it's kind of.. I don't know, it has changed since Counter-Strike. I'm trying to get my friend Ed to play, but he doesn't have a Steam account and since the NoSteam version of CS: Source is shit, he's stuck playing on cracked servers only (meaning; the one server he has that he can join). I've sent the game to my good ol' CS buddy; Blasty, who I've recently started playing with. I think it's fair to say that we've all lost skill since DutchCentral (RIP), especially since we've kind of abandoned Counter-Strike since then. But we're improving a lot over time, and soon we might get as good as we were then. I sure do hope so, because seeing Blasty play was a real treat a lot of the times. Same goes for Ed though, being that he was a member of a very powerful clan that partook in many games on DutchCentral; Dork (his nickname used to be -=Dork^FuzzY=- -- If I recall correctly). Anyway, I know things have changed and the DutchCentral of then will never be back, but now that Counter-Strike is back, I know a lot of people will pick up on it again, if not just to check out the new engine. Chances are I might run into another server with the same feel DutchCentral had back in the day. P.S.: I know, I've downloaded it.. So sue me. I will buy it once it hits stores here (Half Life 2 + CS: Source), no worries. ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Back from NetGamez! Date added: Monday, November 1 2004, 04:47PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 114 --- Well, I'm back from the LAN party. It was great to be there, except for the fact Linux (yes, the kernel) was, and still is, giving me a real hard time. Something is wrong in the TCP/IP modules and I'm not sure what it is. Everytime I get an upload, or I download a few files, I get bad packets. My /var/log/syslog and /var/log/kern.log repeatedly kept adding a lot of lines saying that, and grew to file-sizes up to 700 MB each (thus crashing eventually, if not paying attention/stopping transfers and NULL-ing the files). On top of that, the Direct Connect client DCGUI-QT keps having issues (not being able to connect, crashes, etc). Eventually, I booted to my 20 GiB Windows XP Professional partition (tripple-boot, for games-only). This presented me with another issue. It couldn't write to EXT3 File Systems (I have a read-only driver to access the drives, though :)). :( So now I had to download 18 GiB worth of things, reboot to Linux, copy the files to my other free drives at 4MiB/S (had 170 GiB free on seperate drives) and then boot back to Windows to download more. This is really ridiculous and further more; annoying. I'm hoping that 2.6.10 will have this fixed, until then I'm fine with it as I'm not that much of a downloader at home. Anyway, I've compiled a list of the (little) things I've downloaded: - List ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Netgamez! Date added: Friday, October 29 2004, 03:12AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 113 --- I've not made much entries the past weeks because I've been too busy getting ready for the Netgamez LAN party I'll be attending this weekend (tonight-Sunday). As before, I've created a little list of things to download. My PC is offline at the moment (all packed and ready to go), so i can't get to that list now. But I'll post the list of things I downloaded on probably either Sunday or Monday. Until then! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Another week, another entry. Date added: Monday, October 18 2004, 12:25PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 112 --- Linux-World was awesome last week. I attended Sun's vendor session, one seminar about open source software and walked around the different stands which were there (one of which being Red Hat). There was a lot to see on Linux and Security. Another thing which I'm thankful for is having the week off this week. I'm really taking it easy and not doing all that much. I have worked a bit on my webserver, though. Mostly behind the scene (i.e.; include file), and I've also cleaned up the directory structure a bit. I've installed Webalizer and set it up and is now working fine. And I did a bit of twaeking here and there. I've also done a bit of C programming to brush up my skills on that. I've kind of neglected it for a while, doing other things instead (PHP and SQL). Also, I've just read that the Nintendo DS (Double Screen) will be regional free, which is awesome because it allows me to import it from the US once it launches. :) That's about it for now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: I'm still alive, everyone! Date added: Sunday, October 10 2004, 05:25PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 111 --- Yeah, I know. I've not been adding a post for over a week (what the hell?). I've been really busy with my internship, it really wears me out. :( Anyway, I've finally finished my own made poll (source)! I've been working on that, on-and-off, for the past two weeks, and I finally got around to finish it today. Also, I'm going to Linux-World next wednesday. I asked the day off to attend it. :) I'm not sure what to expect, but I hear it's really cool. Even Sun is going to be there! I'm really looking forward to it. Another thing I'm looking forward to, is the upcoming vacation next Friday. :D And the weekend after that is the next NetGamez (LAN party)! This week is going to be really awesome. Not only because of the things above, but also because all public transportation is ging to stop on Thursday to protest, making it impossible for me to get to my internship or school (thus; the day off!). Yep.. a lot of excitement on my part. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: SQL! Date added: Friday, October 1 2004, 03:58PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 110 --- I'm finally learning SQL (Structured Query Language)! I've been scripting and coding for so long now, but I have never even touched SQL (well, once, through Microsoft Access, when I was learning ASP.. but since I quit ASP very quickly afetr picking it up -- hated it with a passion -- I never got around to fully learn/use SQL after that). Anyway, I've installed MySQL two hours ago to help me, and so far I've already learned a whole lot. I know the basics (creating/deleting/editing databases/tables/rows, basic querying with sorting/searching/"WHERE"-conditions, etc). W3 Schools helped me a lot, in fact, it's the only resource I used to learn SQL. Well, I did use Google, but only for two specific things; MySQL user-management and changing column data types. Heh. Anyway, I've stopped for today, but I'll pick up where I left off, tomorrow. Oh, on a side-addition, aside from all of this SQL-talk: My big brother gave me a 19 inch monitor! Now I too can finally enjoy the beauty that is 1600x1200. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: GameCube games! Date added: Sunday, September 26 2004, 08:07AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 109 --- It's been a while since my last update. The reason for that is that there's not much going on right now. I mean, since I have my internship going and all I don't have as much time I can be online and do something useful, so there isn't really much to say. However, during the past week I've started downloading GameCube games, since I can leave downloads going unattended. I've so far downloaded Puyo Pop Fever and Animal Crossing, and I've already downloaded Zelda: Four Swords a few weeks ago. It's too bad I don't have the time to actively play those games. :( Puyo Pop Fever is a great game, I used to be addicted to a similar game called Kirby's Ghost Trap (or; Kirby's Avalanche -- American title) for the Super Nintendo. With the so-called "Fever-mode", this game really is a cool game to play again. :) I've not yet played Animal Crossing though, although my little brother has, and he says it really sucks. I have yet to see, heh. Zelda: Four Swords is a fantastic game to play, I really love this game. It really brings back the feel of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I can forsee myself playing this game for a very long time to come. I'm now downloading Starfox Adventures. I've played it on pods before, and back then, I didn't like the game much. But I'm willing to give a deeper insight into the game and maybe re-value it. I really loved the Starfox game for the Nintendo 64, and I want to see if any of that game is left in this one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Three new GameBoy Advance games! Date added: Saturday, September 18 2004, 09:00AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 108 --- Today I've bought three new GBA games: Donkey Kong Country 2 Advance NES Classic: Bomberman NES Classic: Legend of Zelda Three for the price of two, I couldn't resist. :) I had been meaning to buy Donkey Kong Country 2 Advance for a very long time now, and now I finally had the money to actually buy it. :) I now have a total of twelve GameBoy Advance games. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Sailormoon! Date added: Thursday, September 16 2004, 10:11AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 107 --- Well, after 7 days of continuous downloading I now have the full Sailormoon series (1 to 46) and am now downloading Sailormoon R (continuity of the series, see the Sailormoon episode list). So far, I have episode 47 until 57 of Sailormoon R, but I'm still downloading. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Hyuga does love me! Date added: Sunday, September 12 2004, 03:56PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 106 --- This from Hyuga: [IMG: Happy Birthday picture from Hyuga] Isn't he sweet? :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Hacked up BitTorrent. Date added: Thursday, September 9 2004, 07:00AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 105 --- I just hacked up BitTorrent, it now downloads without asking for a folder or file to save in/as (set it to a fixed folder) and it automatically closes once its finished downloading, so it can start the next download (through a simple bash script). The reason why I did this is not because I like leeching downloads. The reason I did this was because I'm currently downloading the entire first season of Sailormoon (bite me :)), and I can't wake up at 4AM each day to set up the next download. So I needed to make it an automated process. This was especially a nice thing to do since I've never really did anything in Python, and this gave me a nice glimpse into it. And, I'm impressed! Python really is a flexible language, and extremely easy. The above hack took me only 5 minutes! I dare say Python is easier to learn than, say, PHP or Perl. Then again, I already know PHP and a portion of Perl. In any even, it's a very easy language to pick up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Happy 18th birthday, Agilo! Date added: Sunday, September 5 2004, 08:53AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 104 --- Today, September 5th, it's my 18th birthday since I was born at 9AM on September 5th, 1986, 18 years ago. I am now an adult, yay! :D I got some birthday pictures from my online friends, too: [IMG: Happy Birthday picture 1] From my sweetheart from Idaho. [IMG: <3] [IMG: Happy Birthday picture 2] From my favourite diety and hoster; ACJ. [IMG: Happy Birthday picture 3] From one of my favourite LaBove's; kryptondog. [IMG: Happy Birthday picture 4] From my bestest friend from Scotland (and ex-LOI member); PS2Viper. Thanks everyone!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Sailormoon, Dutch intro video! Date added: Thursday, September 2 2004, 02:52PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 103 --- I was checking Wikipedia and it just so happened when I was looking for anime titles, I came across Sailor Moon. Which got me to thinking that I used to watch it on TV two years ago. That being the case, I quickly scurried over to Google to check up on some sites. After searching for a string (I don't remember which), I came across sailormusic.net. Now that's where my nostalgia kicked in. I remember back when I was watching the show on TV, that I really liked the Dutch version of the intro theme. Which made me so nostalgic that I went over and searched for it on that site, I downloaded nearly every song, and all the MIDI's, and, no luck. :( So then I went back to Google -- Google is my friend -- and searched for a few obvious strings, like I did two years ago. No good results. Then I remembered that the German version of the song was the exact same song, only in german. So I searched for the German intro. And eventually, I found the german intro song (in WMA) through the Internet Archive (obviously, because the original site was put offline). On that very same site was a Dutch person who said he liked the Dutch version very much himself, and posted the lyrics of the Dutch version. Now, with a phrase of that Dutch version, I searched -- yet again -- on Google. And surely enough, I found a site which hosted the Dutch version of the song, and, better yet, the intro movie! Download: - Dutch Intro Movie (RM) - Dutch Intro Music (MP3) Download it while it's online! Oh, and, for my dear readers who are/were on the same quest (Hallo daar, Nederlanders!): when the files are offline, just contact me and I'll try and help you. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Phantasy Star Online. Date added: Wednesday, September 1 2004, 03:27AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 102 --- I finally got my hands on a copy of Phantasy Star Online! This is important because now I can test the all-known exploit myself, and fnially try out GameCube Linux. Although GC Linux gave me a problem when I loaded it, the screen is too big for the TV and it assigns a wrong LAN address for itself. But it's still at the beginning-stage, so I guess eventually it will be fixed and better usable. Also, I downloaded Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. I still need to test it though, so that's coming up later. :) More to come, stay tuned! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: 160 GB Hard Disk! Date added: Sunday, August 29 2004, 09:17AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 101 --- I bought a 160 GB Hard Disk on today's computer fair, for only 95 Euro's! Granted, 25 Euro's more, I could've bought a 200 GB HD, and in fact, I did have enough money to buy that. But I settled with 160 GB, it's enough for me, for now. :) Looks like I'll have plenty of free space for the upcoming LAN party. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Kuru Kuru Kururin!! Date added: Tuesday, August 24 2004, 12:59PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 100 --- Wow, after a year, I finally bought another Gameboy Advance game! Were it not for the special price, I migth not even have bought it now. It was only 15 Euro's/Dollars! :D I wanted this game for a very long time, but the price was always at the 50 barrier which prevented me from buying it. Until now. So, yeah. Game on! :D What's that? Oh, right, my GBA is calling me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: I'm.. crying of pure joy. Date added: Friday, August 20 2004, 02:08PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 99 --- I'm so happy right now. IGN has announced today that Mortal Kombat: Deception will also be available to the GameCube!! :D Now I won't have to buy a Playstation 2 to play MK: Deception! I am so happy! :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Seven Samurai and Ju-on 2. Date added: Friday, August 20 2004, 10:00AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 98 --- Yesterday evening, I've seen the movies Seven Samurai and Ju-on: The Grudge 2 on my DivX player. I rented Ju-on: The Grudge 2, but I downloaded Seven Samurai (and Ju-On: The Grudge) on my last LAN party. Seven Samurai is a fantastic movie, dispite the fact the movie is from 1954 (and naturally is black and white). The movie lasts 3 hours and 20 minutes though, but I knew that in advance and watched it at 9PM, on purpose. The reason for that is so that I can watch the next movie (Ju-on: The Grudge 2) afterwards, at midnight (I watch horror films at night, you don't need to be a genius to figure out why. :)). Ju-on: The Grudge 2 really is a great movie. It explained a lot about Ju-On: The Grudge, and naturally itself. I tend to think this one is a bit more scarier than Ju-on: The Grudge, it definitely makes more sense. Anyway, in all, yesterday evening was a fun night for Japanese movies. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Kernel 2.6.8.1. Date added: Tuesday, August 17 2004, 09:12AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 97 --- Kernel 2.6.8.1 was released several days ago (to be more specific; on the day I returned from my vacation), and I then wanted to upgrade my kernel. Problem was, the framebuffer patch wasn't ready for it yet, so that forced me to wait a little while longer. Yesterday I was getting impatient, so I checked on its status again, and, finally, it was released! Yesterday it was too late to start the install process though, so I waited until today. And, I'm now running 2.6.8.1 without any problems. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Back from Sicily! Date added: Sunday, August 15 2004, 01:05PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 96 --- I'm back from my three weeks vacation to Sicily! I got home yesterday at 4:30 PM, but didn't have enough time to update my weblog yet (please excuse). Anyway, It was awesome and very hot (as to be expected). Like I stated before I went on vacation; I went by train, and, let me tell you, the 30-hour trip was very draining. I got to see a lot though, on the way to Sicily, we stopped for 10 hours in Rome (waiting for the next train). Well, the good news is that I got to see Rome, and the Colosseum. The bad news is that it was raining the entire fucking day and besides going to the Colosseum, we were at the station the entire time because of that. And, on top of that, the best part (nothern italy) was done at night. :( But even so, there was still lots to see the rest of the trip. Having arrived in Messina by a ferry boat, we were picked up by my niece (who was to be married that week) and brought to the house of her mother (my aunt). We stayed there until after the wedding (it was a great wedding, but the actual wedding ceremony was done in, like, 20 minutes, if that). After the wedding, me, my little brother, my big brother and his girlfriend went to my fathers' house (in Giarre). We stayed there for the remaining two weeks. In those two weeks, we've been going to a lot of tourist-places (like Taormina/Gardina) because my big brothers' girlfriend has never been there, and wants to see all of those things. We've also been going to the beaches a lot of times to cool down. I've also spent a lot of money there, not just on the tons icecream either. I bought a DivX/XviD capable DVD (plus and minus) player there for 75 Euro's. Works great, I can now watch all the movies/anime I've downloaded on it. :D By the way, in the previous entry to my weblog, I failed to mention that also my mom's boyfriend was going with us (also by train -- obviously). Having said that, I can now continue; my mom and her boyfriend stayed the week after the wedding in Lipari (a beautiful island off the coast of Sicily). At the end of those three weeks, I was really looking down on the 30-hour trip back by train. Again, the best parts were done at night, and again, I slept little. But I was really glad when I got home again. The first thing I did was check out a few files on my new DVD player. :) After that, I had dinner, and got on my computer. I expected there to be a lot of E-Mails in my inbox, like previous years I went on vacation. And, I was correct; 589 new E-Mails, most from Bugtraq, others spam, and a few from known people. There also were over a hundred new updates in Portage, and a hell of a lot of news relating to Mortal Kombat (with MK: Deception nearing release). I started the updates to Gentoo last night, which lasted until early this morning. Anyway, I'm catching up on news as I go, and I'll be back on track within the next few days, heh. It's good to be back. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Vacation! Date added: Friday, July 23 2004, 02:40PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 95 --- Well, I'm going on vacation for three weeks, to Sicily. More specificly: I'll be in Messina for the first week (going to a wedding of my niece), and the remaining two weeks I'll be in Catania (Giarre) visiting my dad (who lives there). We're (me, mom, little brother) will go by train (30 hour trip, and we'll stay an additional 10 hours in Rome), and my big brother and his fiancee will go by airplane. "Why by train?", you may ask? Two reasons we're going by train: my mom's affraid of flying and there are loads of things to see. So, yeah, it's going to be awesome and hotter than hell. Luckily there are all the beaches you can go to, to cool down. :) So, if you wonder where I am, now you know. P.s.: I'm gonna miss having no internet/computer there, but that's alright because there are so many other things to do there. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New PHP project, finished. Date added: Thursday, July 22 2004, 09:16AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 94 --- I forgot to update my weblog with the news I started a project for ]{0MBAT (a guy I know from IRC and the Mortal Kombat world). I was sick of not doing anything for the entire week, so I asked him if he had anything he wanted for his website. I've created a few PHP scripts for him in the past (random avatar, random affiliation banner, news section). He informed me he wanted an easy manageable Winamp Skins section which he could use. I since finished the project, and is located here: http://24.132.55.70/kombat/ -- Main page. http://24.132.55.70/kombat/?amount=25 -- Main page limited to 25 skins. http://24.132.55.70/kombat/?start=25&end=60 -- Main page, showing skins 25 to 60. http://24.132.55.70/kombat/?add -- Adding a new skin. http://24.132.55.70/kombat/index.phps -- Sourcecode file. http://24.132.55.70/kombat/database -- Database file. It took me a total of around 12 hours to complete this. That's not very fast you may think, but bare in mind that I had to manually grab the necessary info and put it in a single database file. Thank goodness for all the beautiful Linux tools (mainly; VIM, SED and GAWK). :D Also, I've uploaded the files to this host for refference (or in case people are interrested): files/winamp_skins_file.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: I QUIT! Date added: Thursday, July 15 2004, 09:28AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 93 --- I handed in my resignation form today, I have to work until Thursday next week, and I'm done. I've worked as a stock worker at the supermarket Bas van der Heijden for about one and a half years. I'm sure going to miss filling the racks, handling the place where the bottles are returned, sweeping the floors and cleaning up outside back... NOT! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Screenshot! Date added: Thursday, July 15 2004, 07:04AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 92 --- It's been a while since my last screenshot of Gentoo, so I decided to make a new one. The Background hasn't changed, but there are a lot of changes to GKrellm2. files/screenshot_07152004.png ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: PHP 5! Date added: Wednesday, July 14 2004, 06:22PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 91 --- Well, I downloaded PHP 5 today. I was very bothered by the fact that I had done a perfectly good hack on PHP 4's PHPS handling, and wasn't sure if I was able to port that to PHP 5. But, thankfully, it turns out that Zend didn't change much (if anything at all) to Zend/zend_highlight.c. I came to that conclusing by creating the appropriate patch for PHP 5, and checking it: $ diff -u Zend/zend_highlight.c ../php-4.3.4/Zend/zend_highlight.c > patch.diff $ vi patch.diff Coming to that conclusing, I then patched the file for PHP 5: $ patch -u < patch.diff -p0 I was still a bit sketchy if it would compile and install correctly, but everything turned out well. And, PHP 5 is now running perfect along Apache 2. :) Files: - files/patch.diff - files/config.nice ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Re-installed Solaris 9. Date added: Sunday, July 11 2004, 06:57PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 90 --- I re-installed Solaris 9 yesterday-evening/this-morning. This time, with the partition layout the way I wanted it (Solaris Boot, Solaris, EXT3 and a FAT32 partition), and with the programs I select. There are still a few dozen ports opened on install though, even though I took out the main few annoyances (like Apache, and Sun Management Console Server -- I know, I know, the managent console server should be installed, but I only used it for installing patches, which I can now do via console anyway). Anywho, it all runs correctly now, and I'm currently using CDE as my default window manager. At a later stage I might install Enlightenment again, but at the moment, CDE works nicely for me. I like CDE's window decoration, I even put its decoration as default in KDE on Linux (even though I don't use KDE, at all), heh. :P Oh well, still a lot of software to install and configure. I'm glad I got the scroll wheel driver to work this time. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: All sorts of trouble. Date added: Tuesday, July 6 2004, 07:41AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 89 --- Well, I've not posted for a while, and there's a reason behind it. Roughly a week ago, I compiled the 2.6.7 kernel (straight from kernel.org), without any problems. Now, I have a new monitor, and wanted to reconfigure X11 to adjust to my new monitor, and install the latest NVidia driver that was released a few days ago. So, I configured X okay, and was installing the NVidia driver, when it halted on an error, saying I needed to switch off 'rivafb' in my kernel, thus having to recompile the kernel. After the kernel (and modules) compiled, I placed the files (bzImage and System.map) in /boot, as I always do, and rebooted. Now here is where it started happening. Once booting into 2.6.7, it gave me an error saying "Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs /dev/hda3". Though, I know hda3 is my root filesystem. So I rebooted again, and luckily I still had my 2.6.6 kernel, so I booted into that. The first thing I did was check my kernel settings, which were all okay in my eyes. To be safe, I deleted the .config file, and grabbed my backed up copy of my 2.6.6 .config file. I did a 'make mrproper', copied the backup .config file, 'make oldconfig' to set up the "new" features, 'make menuconfig' to check to be certain (and re-removed the 'rivafb'. -- hey, I'm not that stupid, heh), then compiled the kernel and modules, and installed the lot. Rebooted again, and, the same problem. After doing the same for a few hundred time, I got so sick of it, that I re-downloaded the 2.6.7 kernel completely, and set that one up manually. But STILL the same damn error occurd. I got so frustrated, I made a post on the Gentoo forums (first time I've ever seeked help on a forum, mind you). That didn't help. So I decided to post my problem on a newsgroup (alt.os.linux.gentoo), which kind of helped, but not really. In the end (yesterday), I found my answer. It seems that I needed to switch on "CONFIG_MSDOS_PARTITION" in the kernel. Which is weird, because in my 2.6.6 kernel, I did not set it myself, in fact, I don't remember setting it at all. Either way, it's fixed now, and I set up X11 accordingly, and installed the latest NVidia driver. On top of that, I tweaked my kernel so heavily, it's now 1.6MB, instead of the previous 2.2MB. And, I'm now using the "CONFIG_4KSTACKS" option in the kernel, just because now I can. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Gothika. Date added: Tuesday, June 29 2004, 08:44PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 88 --- Well, I've just seen Gothica, and this is the quote of my reaction to it, returning to IRC: I'm back from; Gothika.. I'll let you know later.. plz. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THAT'S ONE SCARY FUCKING MOVIE :| I've not been frightened like that since I was, like, 13. Jesus christ. Note; it's 3:37AM here, now. I'm alone. Etc. That's all. :( ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New host! Date added: Saturday, June 26 2004, 06:58AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 87 --- Thanks loads to ACJ for generously creating an account on his host for me. :D Now my weblog can continue its existance, while my website will vanish. Thanks again, ACJ! You r0x! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Ashley! Date added: Wednesday, June 23 2004, 11:22PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 86 --- I added Ashley's (also known as GuiltyByDesign) weblog to the quick links above. :D Check it out, or else. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Linux kernel 2.6.7! Date added: Tuesday, June 22 2004, 04:29PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 85 --- I installed the Linux Kernel 2.6.7 today. Everything works fine, and as with the 2.6.6 kernel, I only needed to re-install the NVIDIA kernel module. I deliberately waited a while before switching to 2.6.7 because the framebuffer module was a bit unstable (from what I've read). Everything works fine for me though. :) Even the lm_sensors module works perfectly. :D Well, time to boot back into Solaris. I will master Solaris, in due time. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Sick of GNOME, installed Enlightenment. Date added: Tuesday, June 22 2004, 02:23AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 84 --- I was getting real sick of GNOME, so I decided it was time to install Enlightenment. My favourite window manager (just above WindowMaker). I like it for it's speed and simplicity, and just the overall look. I've gotten real used to it on Linux over the past year since I've had Gentoo. So I ported the configuration files, and menus too. :) I've taken a screenshot of Enlightenment in action. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Solaris color depth fixed! Date added: Sunday, June 20 2004, 10:18PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 83 --- Finally! Finally I've fixed the color depth from 256 colors to 16 million colors. The manuals I read were wrong! The manual said I should change the "defdepth" switch in the /etc/openwin/server/etc/OWconfig file to 24 or 32 for a higher color depth. I knew it was that switch I needed to change, but changing it to 24 and 32 always crashed X, instead of fixing it. Until now, it was reasonably okay with the colors being at 256, but now I'd had it, and I boldly put "16" in there to see what'd happen, and that fixed it! I've also learned how to mount my CD-ROM and DVD writer. It's really weird in Solaris, so I'm going to put a few lines here for reference: iostat -En /etc/init.d/volmgt stop prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0p0 prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0p0 mount -r -F hsfs /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s2 /cdrom/new mount -r -F hsfs /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s2 /cdrom/new#1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Quick update on that screenshot. Date added: Sunday, June 20 2004, 04:23AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 82 --- I made a new screenshot of my desktop on GNOME. As I stated in my last entry, it's now 1280x1024 at 256 colors. I'm going to use GNOME from now on, CDE is nice, but there's a problem whenever I log in and I can't figure out what it is (probably a /etc/init.d/ service I removed when I was closing down ports). I'll look into it at some stage though. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Solaris hits the weblog, again. Date added: Saturday, June 19 2004, 11:17PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 81 --- I've managed to set my resolution at 1280x1024 now. But just before I gave it a shot, I took a screenshot of my desktop at a resolution of 800x600. The color depth hasn't changed though. The next depth I can choose from after 256 is 16 million colors, and apparently Solaris can't manage that without an actual driver. Anyway, I still have a whole lot of things to do. For one, what I'm already working on: when I initially installed Solaris by its default installation set-up, I saw (after running a quick nmap scan) that there were over 32 ports opened. Not very safe. I've managed to pull that down to 5 ports (SSH, Apache, Solaris Management Console, and two RPC ports). Also, when I changed something to my Xconfig, it won't let me log in normally to CDE (Common Desktop Environment) anymore. It's really weird, but I'll be able to fix it, tomorrow. :P For now.. wasn't there some movie I had to watch on TV? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Fixed some things. Date added: Friday, June 18 2004, 11:10PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 80 --- Finally, no more 640x480 at a color depth of 4 colors! I've finally managed to fix the resolution and colors! I'm so happy, and Solaris looks really beautiful now. Now I can really start using it, and gracefully learn how to get the most out of Solaris. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Solaris installed! Date added: Thursday, June 17 2004, 11:10AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 79 --- Well, to say the least, I've installed Solaris. Needless to say, it brought with it a lot of problems. For one, I'm stuck on a 640x480 resolution with a color depth of 4 (yes, four) colors, a mouse which doesn't scroll (even with a driver), and sound which doesn't function. On top of that, it used not a partition of my harddisk, but the entire 120 GB harddisk. :( I feel like being back on Red Hat (when I just started using Linux). Oh well, I concider myself a smart guy, I'll figure things out as time progresses. :) By the way, I can be found on IRC (irc.webmaster.com) in my default rooms; #mortalkombat, #scorpionsrealm and #gentoo. Don't ask me to check out some nice looking site or anything though. I'm on IRC through my PentiumMMX, without a GUI. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Solaris! Date added: Tuesday, June 15 2004, 08:39PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 78 --- Well, I'm going to install Solaris tomorrow. In order to do that, I need to clean up my hard-disk first. So, I'm going to burn 17 DVD's, then remove all the partitions from this drive, create three new partitions (I'll see about the sizes when I'm at that stage), install Solaris and then re-install Windows XP Professional. I figure it'll take me about two days, especially since I need to burn all the DVD's. So, if you don't see me online, now you know the reason why. :) Coming to think of it, I have my PentiumMMX on which DamnSmallLinux resides.. I can go on IRC through that. :D Anyway, wish me luck! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: I'm still alive! Date added: Sunday, June 13 2004, 07:04PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 77 --- This week, I've been watching movies I downloaded at Netgamez (whenever I had the time) instead of doing other things (like updating my weblog). :) I've watched a few movies, a lot are still waiting to be seen. There's just so much to choose from, now. :D Anyway, yesterday I had a bit of spare time to do other things, so I decided to work on my PHP skills and find out what the hell '$one->$two' and '&$blah' do. I've seen those two things being done in PHP and other languages (C/C++) before, but never really knew what they did. Now I do know, finally. Took me a while to find them though, as I didn't know where to look on PHP.net. I've also hacked the PHP sourcecode to change the parsing of PHPS (PHP Sourcecodes) files, a bit. I added a prefixed white-space, and made the font smaller (for now). I'm going to make it XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant, soon. Oh, and, I started a photo page for GuiltyByDeign (Ashley). [IMG: <3] :o ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Back from Netgamez! Date added: Sunday, June 6 2004, 11:40PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 76 --- Well, I'm back from Netgamez, and I've gained 89 GiB of movies, anime and games! :D I've created a list of all the things I've downloaded for reference. :) Netgamez was cool, there were about 1300 people there, all of whom were either downloading or playing games on its network. There was no internet connection there except for four dedicated machines. I, on the other hand, did have a (fast) internet connection, and openly shared it with my brothers and friends. I simply installed a proxy server on those dedicated machines, and set up my machine to use that one as such. :D The only internet connection Netgamez did allowed was the connection for the MSN protocol, so that people could use MSN Messenger (or clones). Anyway, it started out quite chaoticly, because I needed to set up the network connection on all 5 PC's (in order: little brothers' machine, big brothers' machine, big brothers' friend's machine, my friend's machine, and last, my own machine). Not only that, but within 10 minutes of being set up, both my brothers' friend's machine and my friend's machine got infected by the Sasser worm. :O I got to hand it to some people for not ensuring their PC's are virus free before going to such an event as Netgamez. Thanks to those few who brought it with them, now loads of people got infected by it. Anyway, they both had to re-install Windows as a result, and before setting up the network connection, install the patch microsoft released for their Windows versions. By the way, I didn't sleep the first night, I did sleep for 8 hours on the second night. :D Oh, and I played three rounds of Laser Gaming, for the first time. It fucking rocks! Definitely a thing I'll be doing more. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Netgamez, tomorrow! Date added: Thursday, June 3 2004, 10:39PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 75 --- Tomorrow, I'll be heading off to Netgamez. I've finalized my todo list and hope I'll be able to find everything on it. I'll let you know once I get back! :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: A bit of nostalgia! Date added: Monday, May 31 2004, 02:44AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 74 --- Thanks a thousand times to ACJ for pointing out these links to me: http://www.yasin.be/tvintro.php http://www.yasin.be/tunes.php I bet you also watched a few of those shows when you were a child, in my case, 90% of those enlisted. :D Thanks a lot, ACJ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Liebt Gunther. Date added: Wednesday, May 26 2004, 10:54PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 73 --- A while ago, I saw an hilarious MTV Short called Liebt Gunther. When I saw it, I laughed by ass off so hard, I nearly cried of laughter. So now, being reminded of it, I went out to find the movie on the internet, hoping someone would have it. And after searching for a short while, I found it, here: http://humor.nl/filmpjes/gunther/ (Download). Have fun! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Dark Water. Date added: Wednesday, May 26 2004, 10:14PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 72 --- I rented a Japanese horror/thriller DVD called Dark Water and watched it yesterday-evening. It's a very cool movie, it scared me to shit at one particular scene (at the end, where the mother goes into the elevator and.. -- that's all I'll say :)). Anyway, I liked it so much, I decided to copy the DVD (the first time I ever copied a DVD, or rather, created an image and burned that. Since I only have one DVD writer). I did it using Pinnacle's InstantCopy. A very good program, if I may say so. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Netgamez is coming! Date added: Sunday, May 23 2004, 11:31PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 71 --- Netgamez 2004B (a LAN party) is nearing! It will be on 4, 5 and 6 June, to be exact. I've bought 50 DVD's, of which I already burned 10 (broke one :(). I'm already getting excited about it, I've made an (incomplete) list of what I want to download. Hopefully, I'll be able to download them there. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Far Cry! Date added: Sunday, May 16 2004, 04:21PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 70 --- I was downloading 3 GiB (Far Cry) through "wget", a downloading tool for Linux, and I shut down Apache Web Server, because I needed the downstream to be as fast as it can, without being lagged. So I wrote a script to check if wget was active, and, if not (thus wget was finished / the downloads were finished), start Apache. The script I wrote: #!/bin/sh if [ "`ps aux | grep "wget" | grep "grep" -v`" ]; then blarbla="yes"; fi; if [ $blarbla ]; then echo `date "+%H:%M:%S"`" Nope, still downloading.."; else sudo /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start fi; And I simply did: $ sleep 5000 ; ./start.sh ; sleep 5000 ; ./start.sh ; sleep 5000 ; ./start.sh ; sleep 5000 ; ./start.sh ; sleep 5000 ; ./start.sh ; (etc) And it worked, too! (I wasn't really sure if it'd work, but I decided to give it a try anyway.) When I got back, there were 4 messages that the downloads were still active, and underneath it, four messages that Apache has started. :D Now I need to burn the BIN files on either CD's or a DVD, whichever the readme file says (I didn't read it yet). :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: E3 news up to my neck. Date added: Thursday, May 13 2004, 11:54AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 69 --- Well, I think it's the least to say that the E3 has noticably begun. Just yesterday, I was flooded with news over the Nintendo DS, Sony PSP and more importantly, loads of news on Mortal Kombat: Deception. There were about 12 or 13 new movies, and I now have them all (thanks to CAMK). Including the Gamespot complete and IGN movies. I'm sharing them on my computer at this URL: http://24.132.55.70/mkd/ More to come as E3 progresses, so stay tuned! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Kernel 2.6.6! Date added: Monday, May 10 2004, 11:40PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 68 --- I upgraded (patched) my Linux kernel to 2.6.6 this afternoon. Everything works fine. I was a bit scared when upgrading though, it seems that if you turn on CONFIG_4KSTACKS, it might break the NVIDIA driver. Luckily, because I've read about it, I turned it off (it was on by default). I also got bootsplash to work in my consoles. I've uploaded a screenshot of it in action, so you can see what I'm talking about. Also, I forgot to add it to my weblog yesterday, I downloaded and installed BlackBox for Windows. It works really well. So well, in fact, that I've set it as my default shell for Windows. I also convinced my friend Garret to check it out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: My blog code! Date added: Friday, May 7 2004, 10:52PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 67 --- I was a bit bored, so I started browsing around the internet and came across this site which had a so-called "blog code". I was interrested in it, seeing as though I also have a weblog now-a-days, so I clicked it and filled out the survey to get my own blog code: B2 d t++ k- s u-- f i- o++ x e l c ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Semantics! Date added: Friday, May 7 2004, 04:56AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 66 --- For the last two entries I've started using semantics in my additions. I've decided to use semantics wherever I can from now on. Reason for this change (I owe largely to ACJ, for it was his weblog that got me to there) is because I've read WaSP. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Edited Apache source making it XHTML. Date added: Friday, May 7 2004, 04:25AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 65 --- I hacked* the Apache source codes of the indexing module mod_autoindex.c to make its output XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant. To check out a few example pages: http://24.132.55.70/upload/ http://24.132.55.70/ftp/ It took a bit of messing around to get it working though. Also, thanks to ACJ to help me sort out a small issue I had, heh. :) * A hacker is anyone who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations, primarily in their fields of interest, namely programming or electrical engineering. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Ignorant people at work, unbelievable. Date added: Thursday, May 6 2004, 09:46PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 64 --- So, today, I was at work (supermarket -- stock worker), and a co-worker asked me; "Do you use MSN Messenger?". I replied: "Nope, I don't use Windows.". Him: "How can you not use Windows? What do you use? DOS? Hahaha!". Me: "Nope.". Him: "How can you not use DOS, your computer runs on DOS!". ... don't even get me started. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Nintendo! Date added: Saturday, May 1 2004, 04:11AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 63 --- I bought a NES today at the queensday fair. I bought two, actually. One EU and one US version. :) Both put together, I have two controllers, a zapper and four games. :D And, in case memory has the better of you: [IMG: picture of a NES] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Kernel 2.6.5. Date added: Saturday, May 1 2004, 03:59AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 62 --- I finally made the switch from 2.4.22 to 2.6(.5)! I was concidering this a long time, but because of issues I had in the past when trying to go from 2.4.22 to 2.6.0 (had to re-install Gentoo -- boot partition was somehow corrupted), I never did change. Now, I did it step-by-step, and with the official sources from kernel.org. Everything runs fine now, and noticably faster (kind of). I only encountered two problems when I booted. On of which was that I forgot to turn on VGA support for FrameBuffer support in the console. Therefore, I kept having a black screen when booting (boot parameter: vga=792). The other being that I forgot to also compile the correct NIC. :P I turned those on (booted back to 2.4.22 real quick), fixed them, put everything in their place and everything worked fine now. I didn't even need to re-compile the ALSA driver. I did however need to re-install the NVIDIA driver, but that was expected. But in the end, I'm glad I finally made the switch. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: DamnSmallLinux on my PentiumMMX! Date added: Monday, April 26 2004, 09:19PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 61 --- I installed DamnSmallLinux 0.6.3 on a 210 MB harddisk, on my old PentiumMMX! It runs fine, though, as expected, it's not very graphical. :( Oh well. A third PC is still a third PC. :D (Note; that old PentiumMMX is the same machine that also runs Minix. It's dual-booted now. :D) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Registered Linux user. Date added: Saturday, April 24 2004, 03:38AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 60 --- I'm now a registered Linux user. :) I registered myself and my current machine at The Linux Counter. This is my certificate: [IMG: Certificate] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: "Hacking" challenges. Date added: Tuesday, April 20 2004, 11:41PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 59 --- It's been a LONG while since I finished Try2Hack and today, an old friend suggested I tried out Hack This Site!. So I registered and played a bit. I have to say, it's been a long time since there's been such a good site on overall hacking and cracking teachings in such a manner. I already knew most of the levels though, it's not that hard, but what I did notice was that if a newbie were to play this, it would teach him/her the basics (in all-round tricks and hacks as you progress). That is, if the person doesn't cheat by checking the answers on the forums. My statistics can be found here: http://www.hackthissite.org/userinfo.php?id=agilo I've finished the web hacks and did a few "missions", which were quite fun. Although I did the application hacks through Wine and was therefore unable to open most of the (Visual Basic compiled) programs. It's a real good site to start off from, in any event. There are also loads of guides and tutorials on numerous fields, as (for one) is SQL injections. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Little bro.. and Linux? Date added: Tuesday, April 13 2004, 11:27PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 58 --- That's right. My little brother also runs Linux now. He wanted to give it a go, and is now an annoyed but content Mandrake user. :) I decided to put Mandrake on his PC so I could get the experience of setting it up (bwah), and to see if it was anything compared to Red Hat (bwah). Well, the setup went fine, it runs and all. The sound driver fails to install, and it takes ages to compile new applications on his Pentium2. But other than that, I guess it's an OK OS. If it beats Red Hat? Well.. yes and no on more than a few things. In overall, I'd say Red Hat is a better OS than Mandrake in terms of things working properly, but Mandrake is easier to install and begin with. Anyway, if he doens't like Mandrake, I guess we can always replace it for Red Hat (or Fedora, nowadays). Note to little bro: Stick to Linux and learn! :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Backup utility. Date added: Monday, April 12 2004, 03:49PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 57 --- I wrote a backup utility for Linux to backup important files whenever I need to. It can also be used by other people, as I modified it to be able to be used by anyone. Plus, if you know anything about shell scripts, you can easily add your own files to be backed up. Check it out: files/backup.sh ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Water on Mars!! Date added: Saturday, April 10 2004, 03:08AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 56 --- ACJ has reports of water on mars. A picture: [IMG: Picture] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Last Exile original soundtracks! Date added: Saturday, April 10 2004, 01:25AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 55 --- I finally have the long-awaited Last Exile OST's! I got them off IRC, and they're great! :D When I had seen the entire series, I wanted the soundtrack so much, but it was at that point still unreleased. :( So what I did, to get at least a few tracks, was rip them myself, and check the internet for some sites. Other than that, I also checked on P2P protocols (Gnutella, Kazaa, SoulSeek and a few others), and IRC. I came up with 4 individual songs. :( With those, and my own ripped intro/ending, I could at least listen to a few tracks. Then as time went by, I kinda forgot about the Last Exile soundtrack, and was satisfied with my measly 6 songs. Yet a few hours ago, I read in some other weblog (I don't remember which) he had downloaded the OST's himself. Which got me thinking I also still needed to download them! So what I did was immidiately check links through google, which led me to #anime-ost on Irc.Rizon.Net:6667. A quick search led me to a guy who shared both OST's, and I downloaded those within a few hours. :D I'm listening to the OST right now, and am already having nostalgic memories of the series. Maybe I should watch them again. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: New screenshot. Date added: Friday, April 9 2004, 08:33PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 54 --- Well, since nothing much is happening, and I felt like I should update my weblog again, I quickly made a screenshot of my current "desktop". files/screenshot_04092004.png ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Not much. Date added: Monday, April 5 2004, 09:52PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 53 --- Not much happening that's worth mentioning, really. I was home alone with my little brother, for four days. It was chill, no nagging and such, real lay-back. I cleaned my room today, the place was a real mess. Unbelievable, to some. That about covers the past 5 days.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: 1080 degrees: Avelange + NGC broadband adapter. Date added: Tuesday, March 30 2004, 11:01PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 52 --- I bought a NGC broadband adapter and 1080 Degrees: Avelange, stop. 1080 kicks ass, stop. Alessandro addicted, stop. Must go and play more, stop. P.S.: Need players with WarpPipe to play 1080 Degrees Avelange or Mario Kart: Double Dash!! with, online, stop. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Spare parts. short-circuit! Date added: Friday, March 26 2004, 05:38PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 51 --- I got some hardware off of a few old PC's at school. A few old Pentium CPU's, and some fans (small and larger one). I wanted to attach the fans to my PC for better cooling. I got the small one working, and put it on (reversed -- pointing to) a chip on my motherboard. It worked, and it's cooling quite nicely (had to be creative with it, because a. it wasn't meant to be reversed, so b. it didn't have any initial method of placing it on the chip). Anyway, on to the big fan, a normal fan for any system. It has a plug which attaches to my motherboard, though my motherboard didn't have that certain plug. So I cut the wire, and attached the two wires (black/red & black - 12V - cables) to a similar power-plug, which forks from a molex plug (which I had to cut too, because it originally had another small fan to cool an old CPU). I attached the wires with tape (I didn't have anything else) and everything worked perfectly. This was all done yesterday. So, today, when I got home from school, my fan had stopped, so I assumed the wires were disattached (still inside the tape). Well, I was too lazy to power down, and I wanted to attach the cables with a connector this time. So, I grabbed the two cables, and one of those accidentally slipped from my fingers, and hit the other one, causing a short-circuit. :o So I sat there. Holding the the cable, dazing at the power supply. Hoping nothing fatel had happened to any other parts. I hit the on/off switch, checked the power-button on the back of the power supply, set it on, off, and checked a few things. After a while, I let the whole thing rest and grabbed a snack and a drink, thinking what I'd do now. 10 minutes later (snacks were good) I went back to my PC. I checked the on/off button on my power supply, and turned it on. After that, I tried one last time to turn on my PC. And, amazingly, it turned on, like nothing ever happened! :o Right after that, I turned my machine down, connected the wires with the connector and turned my PC on to write it in my weblog. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Crossover Office. Date added: Monday, March 22 2004, 03:40PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 50 --- I installed the trial version of Crossover Office yesterday, so I could test my pages in Internet Explorer. I tried installing IE through Wine a few dozen times, but that didn't work. :( Doing it through Crossover Office worked though, and IE functions, but is quite slow and limited. But that's okay, as long as I can test my pages. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Been a while. Date added: Monday, March 22 2004, 03:27PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 49 --- Been a while since an addition. I seen The Italian Job (2003) yesterday morning (4AM). Cool movie, but I like the original one better. :) What I also came to notice (note that this was at 4AM. :P), is that when The Napster "hacks" the traffic control station, and you pause the frame, you can read the IP of it. The IP being 195.251.24.85. Well, when I ran a little nmap trace on it (I actually paused the movie to do this. :O), it looked really interesting. Take a look at the result: removed Looks a lot like a UNIX machine. I didn't go much further than that though, I continued to watch the movie (after saving this IP), heh. :) Anyway, ShingoEX was kind enough as to send me another movie (a Chineese movie this time). The movie is called Returner, and it's an okay action movie. I really liked the device to slow time down for 20 secs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Day off. Date added: Wednesday, March 17 2004, 03:24PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 48 --- I had the day off from school yesterday, so I thought it'd be a great opportunity to catch up on some sleep, heh. I also created a team page for my school project, located at http://www.teamimpact1.tk/. It has some info on me and my teammates, quite fun. It's in Dutch though, so.. yeah.. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Zatoichi OST. Date added: Sunday, March 14 2004, 12:16AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 47 --- I downloaded the original sound track to Zatoichi, I love the music that much. :) I especially like the track called "Festivo". Here's a list of the tracks: Zatoichi - 01 - Road To A Post-Town Zatoichi - 02 - Firewood Chopping And A Farmer Who Wants To Be A Samurai Zatoichi - 03 - Ginzo's First Command Zatoichi - 04 - Naruto-Yarice Merchant Massacre Zatoichi - 05 - Gambling House Massacre Zatoichi - 06 - Wasteland Masscre And The Reminiscene Of Geisha Zatoichi - 07 - House On Fire And Massacres All Over Zatoichi - 08 - Constructors Zatoichi - 09 - O-Kagura Zatoichi - 10 - Zatoichi Showdown Zatoichi - 11 - Festivo Zatoichi - 12 - Road To A Post-Town (Alternate Mix) Zatoichi - 13 - Ginzo's First Command (Alternate Mix) Zatoichi - 14 - House On Fire And Massacres All Over (Alternate Mix) Zatoichi - 15 - Trailer I downoaded them from: http://eole.megarezo.org/zatoichi/ (Note that by the time you read this, the link might not work anymore.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Zatoichi! Date added: Wednesday, March 10 2004, 02:08PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 46 --- Shingo-EX sent me Zatoichi, which he downloaded a few days ago. I saw it last night, and I loved it! It's a great movie, I especially loved the cultural(/historical) aspect of it. But there is a (remarkable) lot of music in this movie too, and a lot of humor. Some scenes were hilarious. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Weekend. Date added: Tuesday, March 9 2004, 09:28AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 45 --- The weekend was fun, a friend I met last year at that years' wintersport came by on both Saturday and Sunday. I also burned some DVD's and CD's for him with anime and movies. :) I didn't do much else the weekend, although I do know I still have loads of things to do. For one, I have to update my site with about four pages of news about the up coming Mortal Kombat: Deception. Also, I need to remove Gentoo and install Gentoo 2004.0, then I need to configure that, secure it, update it and install custom software. Then I need to resize my Windows partition and add another partition in the freed space to install Solaris (9) on that and then I need to set that up, configure it and secure it. So I have about a weeks worth of job activity for home. One problem though; I don't have enough time to do it all. :( ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Intellivision! Date added: Saturday, March 6 2004, 05:28PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 44 --- I found my old Intellivision up on the attic, together with two games; Space Armada and Swords & Serpents. This thing is old (1980), but still really cool. :D I hope I can find more games for it, maybe I'll get them off eBay (they are still being sold by users of eBay). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Busy like hell. Date added: Wednesday, March 3 2004, 02:30PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 43 --- I've been REALLY busy with school-work and Mortal Kombat news, I still have yet to update my site. Anyway, my paycheck finally came in, but since I've been away to Austria for a week, it isn't all I hoped it to be, heh. Also, today, I had a conversation with a teacher at school - UNIX related, mostly, - he recommended Solaris to me, as well as BeOS. Reason for the recommendations was that another teacher I used to have told me UNIX wasn't free, at all. He told me UNIX is written for specific hardware and machines, so that it cannot "just" be downloaded and installed on a x86. It seems he wasn't completely right about that. I'm glad I got to know about this, I'm downloading Solaris 9 as I'm writing this. I'm really anxious to try it out. :) I think I'll install it somewhere around the weekend. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Back from Austria! Date added: Saturday, February 28 2004, 04:28PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 42 --- Well, I'm back from Austria, it was great! The snow was good, especially on the last day when it was excellent to go off of the regular slopes. The second day was a huge blizzard which was really awesome! I had a lot of fun, the people were nice as well (except for the usual few who shall remain unnamed). I'm currently gathering pictures from the people who took them, which will hopefully be up soon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Wintersport! Date added: Friday, February 20 2004, 12:03PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 41 --- Well, today I'll be going away to Austria for 7 days, to go snowboarding. :) I'm really looking forward to it, I can't wait. Hopefully there will be loads of good snow. :) This will be the second time I ever go snowboarding, last year being my first. I did some lessons last year, but I quickly outgrew the class who took lessons. Anyway, I hope I haven't forgotten how to do it, heh. We'll see. I'll be back in a week! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: UT2004Demo. Date added: Tuesday, February 17 2004, 12:32AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 40 --- Since a few days now I've been playing Unreal Tournament 2004 (demo). And I've got to say, I am so loving this game. I'm playing it a lot now, to be more specific; Onslaught. It is really addictive, especially online. Also, I'm completely enjoying my own creation, my self written client of Babylon, for Linux. It's working really well (I edited it a bit today). The current version of it is Version 1.0. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Babylon. Date added: Sunday, February 15 2004, 11:05PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 39 --- "Babylon is a powerful information tool that instantly provides relevant information, translations & conversions for any word or value you click on." I use it a lot, but the problem is that it is only for Windows. :( Therefore, I've created a Perl script for Linux that can do (almost) the same. The difference being that my script get's its values from the site itself, not the protocol. The sites' search feature is limited, but free (and still very extensive). You can check out the files here: files/babylon.pl files/babylon (Edit the path in this file, then chmod 755 and put it in a bin directory.) Hope it helps anyone, feedback is appreciated. :) (Note; I initially created this for personal use, so some things might not work or you might need to edit it.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Scary movie 3. Date added: Sunday, February 15 2004, 05:20PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 38 --- I saw Scary Movie 3 today, hilarious movie. :D Too bad it's a screener, but oh well, at least I've seen it. :) Earlier today, I was trying to rip DVD's, and trying to convert from *.VOB to *.AVI, but no success. :( I must have at least compiled a few dozen programs trying to get a functional, working and good program, but alas; to no avail. I need to get into the whole DVD ripping scene now that I've got my DVD+-RW. :) Also an interesting thing. I came across a twelve-year-old boy (online, obviously) whose spelling and punctuation was near perfect. I'm mentioning this because this is an extremely rare event, I wish more kids would follow his example and stop "L0L wr1tien liek th1s l0l!!!". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Bought a DVD+-RW! Date added: Saturday, February 14 2004, 12:09AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 37 --- Wow, my big bro brought up the topic of buying a DVD writer, and I was trying to convince my mom (not an easy task) into buying one. Eventually (few hours of talking) she agreed, and we went to buy it after dinner, around 7:30PM (late night shopping). We bought a 4x DVD+-RW for 120 Euro's (120 Dollars) and some DVD+R's. I burned my entire Last Exile series (anime) on one DVD! :D I had to re-compress an episode though (the least significant one), to fit it, and it fits PRECISELY. :D The first DVD movie (legally bought) I watched was - what other than - the Mortal Kombat DVD. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Weekend! Date added: Friday, February 13 2004, 04:18PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 36 --- Finally, it's weekend! All this free time. :') Today started (as usual) with school, followed by me returning the books I had rented. Now I'm just doing nothing, a bit of programming/hacking, compiling stuff and messing around with my little webserver. :) Maybe I'll go watch a movie later on, maybe some Anime. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Apache 2 + PHP 4.3.4 + Perl 5.8.2 (mod_perl 2). Date added: Friday, February 13 2004, 02:33PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 35 --- I custom-compiled Apache 2 two days ago, together with PHP 4.3.4. But I also wanted to run Perl webscripts on it, in case I ever start to learn Perl (firmly). Perl was already installed, so all I needed was mod_perl. I downloaded that, compiled it, and installed the lot. Everything works great! See for yourself :): http://24.132.55.70/ (Layout & content is still in development.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Underworld. Date added: Tuesday, February 10 2004, 10:38PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 34 --- I saw the movie Underworld a few hours ago, good movie. It's not (quote) "the greatest vampire movie", but it's a nice movie still. I think it's more of an action film than a vampire film, for one there's too many guns, like Blade, and not enough (attractive) storyline. But it's still a nice movie to watch. :) Also, in other unrelated business, a screenshot of my desktop, for historical value: files/screenshot_02102004.png Oh, and, be sure to check this out, it got me addicted to it for a while, hehe: http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/SSCrabble/long.htm Thanks to Murdoink and ACJBizar for the link. :) (files/screenshot_scrabble.png) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: I'm better. Date added: Monday, February 9 2004, 06:16PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 33 --- I'm much better now, I went to school again today, and everything else went fine. Saturday I watched Ichi The Killer, but I later found out it was the censored version. :/ Luckily I knew a guy (ShingoEX) who was also in Japanese movies and anime, and he had this movie too, uncensored. So overnight he sent it to me, and I watched it yesterday evening. As it seems, whole scenes were cut out. :/ Anyway, I also watched Tron after I watched Ichi The Killer. :) Maybe tonight I'm going to watch another movie from my collection. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Still sick. Date added: Friday, February 6 2004, 12:18AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 32 --- I'm still sick. :( I didn't go to school nor work today. Oh, and it's been exactly one year since my ban was lifted in a chatroom called #mortalkombat, so, I don't know. I went back to the room, heh. That's it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: I'm not feeling too good. Date added: Wednesday, February 4 2004, 08:22PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 31 --- :( I'm feeling sick, like, I have a splitting headache, throat hurts like hell when swallowing anything, my neck hurts for whatever reason I can't think of, and.. well.. I dunno, I'm starting to feel feverish. : I didn't go to work today as a result of it. Hopefully they won't be so mad, because I didn't call in sick.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Home again. Date added: Sunday, February 1 2004, 05:04PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 30 --- I was at a 3-day LAN party, it rocked I have made a list of what I have downloaded, check it out. :) I'm pretty tired now, I didn't sleep too well there. :P But it was awesome to be a part of such a huge LAN party. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: NetGamez! Date added: Saturday, January 31 2004, 02:44AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 29 --- Wow, they have Internet dedicated machines here. Just a quick entry, it's cool here, Í'm going to make a list of downloaded stuff when I get back. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Last entry. Date added: Thursday, January 29 2004, 10:20PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 28 --- This is my last entry for a few days, as I'm going to a long awaited LAN party. :) It's going to be awesome. Well, I have preperations to make. Be back with loaded disks/CD's on Sunday! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Still alive. Date added: Wednesday, January 28 2004, 11:46PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 27 --- Been busy with Linux, homework, work and such things. I'm looking forward to the LAN party friday-sunday. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Webserver on TOMSRTBT. Date added: Monday, January 26 2004, 10:52PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 26 --- I've set up a httpd (asmutils) webserver on my old PentiumMMX through TOMSRTBT. TOMSRTBT is Linux on 1 floppy disk, it loads itself into the memory of a PC. It's Minix under the shell. Anyway, check it out here (when it's up -- since it's not dedicated): http://24.132.55.70/ And, since TOMSRTBT is resetted after each boot, I've created a small setup shell script to get it going, nothing big, at all, but it works: #/bin/sh cd /tmp/; sleep 1; echo "Fetching the index.html file.."; wget ftp://24.132.55.70:21/index.html; sleep 1; echo "Setting up the server.."; httpd /tmp/ 80; ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Quake 3 Arena (Demo). Date added: Saturday, January 24 2004, 11:34PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 25 --- W00t! I got Quake 3 Arena (Demo) working on Linux! It looks good, and runs smoothly. I didn't even expect it to run at all, since my previous experience with OpenGL has been somewhat disappointing. And since Counter-Strike won't run via Wine, I guess now at least I have a shooter. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Busy day. Date added: Friday, January 23 2004, 07:19PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 24 --- I had a busy day today. I had to get my mom to fill in some paper, otherwise I'd be kicked off of school. So, I had to go home (45 minute trip), let mey mom sign it, go back to school (another 45 minutes), then go to get two UTP cables for the upcoming LAN party, and I went to check up on things in the public library. The security on those computers suck by the way, I found a way through every security they built in (disabled viewing/running/opening/getting local files, internet, network..). :) Library's always fun for that stuff, especially now they've all got NT on it. :D Anyway, I got these two books; C Leerboek (Kenneth A. Barclay), a book on C (I'm still a beginner, although I have made some little programs). AtotZ UNIX/LINUX (Dyson, Peter), a book on (obviously) UNIX and Linux. Not that I really need those, but they might be handy when I'm bored or something (maybe something to show off to my teachers at school or something, who knows). I also found kind of a rare Mortal Kombat CD. It's the Original Motion Picture Score (not to confuse this with the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), by George S. Clinton. It has the original music from the first MK movie, not the later finished songs, but the actual ones used in the movie itself. It's really awesome to hear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Ugh. Date added: Wednesday, January 21 2004, 09:16PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 23 --- Today was a fucked up day at school, I fucking hate Dutch class, and now I'm seeming to hate the teacher as well. It's a long story to type out, so I'm not going to attemp it (tired -- just came from work -- going to bed soon). :S Anyway, I hope tomorrow will be a better day, in general (that is to say, not just school). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Updates.. urgh. Date added: Tuesday, January 20 2004, 09:28PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 22 --- I have like a dozen updates to do on Linux, I'm now emerging the packages.. I'm hoping QT won't fail the compile again, I had such a hard time installing it last time.. Also, I'll be compiling Kernel linux-2.4.22-gentoo-r5. And then I'll need to update my settings for some programs again. So it'll be a busy day tomorrow (or this weekend, whenever I feel like compiling it). I might wait until after the LAN party. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: A 1 terabyte hard-disk! Date added: Tuesday, January 20 2004, 01:01AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 21 --- When I saw this, I was baffled. A hard-disk with the capacity of 1 terabyte. Who wouldn't want that? Yet the price is $1.199,- :( Check it out: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10118 Also, I found this to be very funny :D: http://drunkmen.xs4all.nl/url2png.php Also, this: [IMG: You are Sagara Sanosuke!] Which Rurouni Kenshin Character Are You? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Screenshot. Date added: Monday, January 19 2004, 08:52PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 20 --- A quick update; a screenshot of my files, movies and their size currently on my HD: files/screenshot_01192004.png ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Chello is indeed faster! Date added: Monday, January 19 2004, 05:27PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 19 --- After a bit of confusion about my up- and download speeds, I've now reached an understanding that it is faster because my ISP has given its users faster speeds! Speed tests are crap, and they're far from reliable, a few tests gave me a result of 140 KB/S down. :S So it's not accurate to say the least. What I do see, however, is that downloads are getting up to 303 KB/S! That means that the new download max has to be at least 384 KB/S. I have heard from people that it is now DOUBLE of what it used to be, which means my max is now set to 512 KB/S!! :| I have yet to see it get higher than 300 KB/S, though.. Time will tell. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Battle Royale. Date added: Sunday, January 18 2004, 11:01PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 18 --- I finished watching Battle Royale, it's a good movie. I don't know which I like better though, heh. :) Although there are now a few things I don't understand about BR2. Maybe I'll watch BR2 again, now that I've seen BR. Download: BR Theme song ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Battle Royale. Date added: Sunday, January 18 2004, 05:23PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 17 --- After seeing Battle Royale 2, I wanted to see Battle Royale, very badly. So I asked a friend (ShingoEX) if he could send it to me, over night, and he did. :) The transfer finished somewhere this morning, and I'm going to watch it later on. I've read people say that 1 is better than 2, and I think 2 is already a good movie. So I'm not sure what to expect from the first one, heh. Oh well, time will tell. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Battle Royale 2. Date added: Sunday, January 18 2004, 01:02AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 16 --- I found the subtitling at: http://divxstation.com/subtitle.asp?sId=19446 And I just watched the movie, with it. :) It's a surprisingly good movie, I liked it. Although I don't have an all to good feeling about the ending. It's an okay ending, I guess, but it doesn't make much sense. They could have made a better ending like that, or at least cut out the scene where they rush out of the building with their guns. Yare yare. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Battle Royale 2. Date added: Saturday, January 17 2004, 08:45PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 15 --- I found this website: http://www.mobileducator.com/ It hosts all sorts of movies, and even a few DVD's, along with episodes and MP3's. The best part is.. I'm getting those files at 300 KB/S (stable)! :| I downloaded Battle Royale 2 from there. Now all I have to do is find the subtitles! :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Tsukihime. Date added: Saturday, January 17 2004, 04:09AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 14 --- I just watched the remaining 6 episodes to Tsukihime. (A quick note; this anime is also known as Moon Princess.) I think it's a very good Anime, not as good as Last Exile, or Rurouni Kenshin, but I certainly enjoyed watching it. :) I really like the story, and the way it's drawn. It really gives a nice feeling to this series. I'm downloading heaps of Spiral episodes at the moment. Yet I really am clueless to what it is, heh. I guess I'll see when I check the first few episodes. If I dislike it, I can always delete everything. It's going at 230 KB/S (constant), and I'm going to bed now. Sleep, and such. So I'll just see where I'm at in the morning. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Anime! Date added: Friday, January 16 2004, 11:57PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 13 --- A list of Anime currently on my hard-disk:(The list got removed on 27th of April, 2005 due to XHTML rules -- it doesn't matter much, the table shows over 15 GB of new anime series that I've downloaded) And I'm still downloading. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Homework.. bleh. Date added: Friday, January 16 2004, 11:17PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 12 --- I handed in my homework today. I made what I initially had to do, plus a bit extra, that way I'll have less work next time. :) And to think, I had the day off today (heck I didn't have school the entire week). On top of that, next Monday and Tuesday I'll also be free of school! Yes! No school for me! :D Yogata. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Finished watching Last Exile. Date added: Thursday, January 15 2004, 03:57PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 11 --- Yesterday-evening I watched episodes 16 to 21, and just now, I watched 22 to 24. This anime is so awesome, I've really enjoyed watching it. It ends well (more or less). I hope they'll make more episodes, or a second season of it, or something -- anything. Yesterday, I set a few downloads up for transfering at night. Bomberman Jetterz episode 1 to 4 and Hundred Stories episode 1 to 7. All finished downloading this morning, and I'm now downloading the remaining Bomberman Jetterz episodes. I decided to download Bomberman Jetterz on the count of me being a SNES fan and all. :) I wanted to see what this anime is like. I'm downloading Hundred Stories on behalf of Blasty, a long-time friend. It's some kind of Horror series, he says. So I'll check what that's all about. :) Well, enough ranting for now.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Samurai Pizza Cats! Date added: Wednesday, January 14 2004, 09:41PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 10 --- Hehe, I downloaded episodes 1 to 30 of the Samurai Pizza Cats anime. I saw the links on a page, and my nostalgia kicked in, so I decided to download them. Each file being 11MB (give or take), it took me about 2 and a half hours (going at 15/20 KB/S). I have no idea if I'll watch all of them though, hehe. :D ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Random quotes. Date added: Wednesday, January 14 2004, 05:04PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 9 --- I added a random quote thing on top of this page. I thought it'd be nice, heh. Check out the generator script on the sources page, if you like it. Also, I managed to download the final episodes 16 to 26 of Last Exile. I'm going to watch a few (again) tonight. :) I also finally completed downloading episodes 6 to 10 of Samurai Deeper Kyo. It took me 3 whole damn weeks to get it through BitTorrent. : Now I just have to download 11 to 26. :S Oh well, they'll finish eventually. Otherwise I'll find them for sure at the upcoming LAN Party. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Last Exile. Date added: Wednesday, January 14 2004, 12:47AM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 8 --- I downloaded and watched Episodes 8 to 15 of Last Exile. And after seeing this much, I can easily say that this is my second favority Anime I have ever seen (All-time favority still being Rurouni Kenshin). I was sceptical about it at first, especially after Episode 1, but it's so amazing! I'm going to download and watch them all with excitement. This truly is an amazing Anime, both story and animation wise. The music is cool (especially the intro song), and the characters are really attractive in the sense that one can easily relate to at least one of them. I recommend this anime to anyone, with the utmost enthusiasm. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Mail to a friend fixed. Date added: Monday, January 12 2004, 10:56PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 7 --- The "E-mail this to a friend" feature has been fixed. You can now let people know of an entry made in this weblog. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Murdoink made me a kickass banner. Date added: Monday, January 12 2004, 10:08PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 6 --- As the title reads, Murdoink, a long-time friend through the net, made me a banner: [IMG: Scorpions Realm of Mortal Kombat] Personally, I like it a lot. Thanks Mur! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: School sucks. Date added: Monday, January 12 2004, 03:13PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 5 --- Yeah, nothing new, I know. I had a test today. I was there on time, as scheduled, and the teacher wouldn't let me do it. She said I was too late. Go figure. Urgh, I can't stand Dutch class, I fucking hate it. Anyway, I'm going to ask her if we can arrange another appointment to do it. Hopefully she'll agree. Also, I updated my site again, finally, with MKTE endings. Took me a while to get them. I hope to get things sorted out with Takeda soon. He's agreed to host a few of my files to help me save bandwidth. He has unimited bandwidth, so that's cool. :) To visit his site: MKZone.org. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Mail to a friend. Date added: Sunday, January 11 2004, 11:58PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 4 --- The "Mail to a friend" feature is half-implemented now, but it doesn't work yet. It also refuses to open in Mozilla because of an error I have yet to fix. I know what the problem is, and I know how to fix it. I'll fix it tomorrow though, because I'm too tired to do it now. Just wanted to say it's there, but not yet functional. Also, I will soon add a "Friends" section (or a place on the main page). It will consist of links to friends' weblogs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Last Exile. Date added: Sunday, January 11 2004, 11:08PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 3 --- Last night (today -- early morning), I watched 7 episodes (2 to 8) of Last Exile. An anime I was very sketchy about at first after watching episode 1 (some time ago). Now I watched Episode 2 which was a whole lot better. In fact, it attracted me so much, I just HAD to see episode 3. After seeing 3, I had to see 4, all the way to 8 (I only have 8 episodes at the moment). Each episode lasts about 22 minutes, and I started watching at 2:30 AM. Counting that out, I watched them for 154 minutes which comes down to 2 hours 34 minutes. So, I went to bed, real late/early. I got up today at 4:30PM. :S Oh well. The anime kicks ass. I'm looking forward to getting more episodes at the upcoming LAN Party. Also, I hate my homework -- Nothing new, heh. Goddamn A-Plus (program we use at school) is driving me crazy. I ripped the program from the PC's at school so I could do work at home. And I got a few answers to some modules from a class-mate. In all, it helped, but it still took me a long-ass while to finish it. Oh well, better late than never, I guess. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Weblog. Date added: Saturday, January 10 2004, 09:39PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 2 --- Well, I kept up coding/tweaking/enhancing my blog. I added a calendar for god knows what reason (I was bored, heh). And I added a permalink for each entry, so you can easily link to it, and such. I'm thinking what to do about the comments, I might decide to not add it at all. I'll think about it. I also decided to publish the source of my (this) blog. You can snatch the latest stable/working sources at: source.php Anyway, besides my blog, I just watched Warrior Zone on Discovery Channel. It featured two hours of Chinese and Japanese fighting styles/history. It was quite interesting and all. I'm gonna watch Showdown In Little Tokyo later on tonight. Not sure what to expect from that. That's it, I guess. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Entry title: Agilo's weblog finally finished! Date added: Friday, January 9 2004, 11:47PM Written by: Agilo (agilo3@gmail.com) Entry ID: 1 --- After quite some time, my blog is FINALLY finished! Well, as far as 'blogging goes, anyway. I'll have to add the comments feature some day, heh. Let me begin my 'blog with a hilarious commercial-clip about the Apple PC: http://ancientspear.com/mac.wmv -------------------------------------------------------------------------------