I’m done with college. For now and ever more. So, as a projects blog, I’ll give you now a rundown of my situation and what I’ve got on my plate, or at least planned.
First and foremost is Chinese. Graduating with a degree in Chinese from the University of Maryland qualifies one to do jack shit. None of us are comfortable speaking the language and none of us could read a Chinese newspaper to save our lives. Some of my fellow graduates are getting somewhat international jobs that have some dealings with China, because they’ve got their eye on the cash dollar bill. I need to learn the language. My plan is to go over to Shanghai, China’s largest and fastest going city, the New York of East Asia, and spend 20 hours a week teaching English. This will be enough to keep me living over there and I’ll use the rest of the time learning Chinese, outside of a classroom, the way I did French in Africa.
Martial Arts. I’m putting Haidong Gumdo on hold until I return from China. By “on hold” I mean that I plan to continue keeping up my conditioning for it, but I don’t plan to progress very much at all. My physical focus for at least the next year will be knife combat. Be it training for knife duels ala. Dune or putting a shiv in someone’s back ala. Riddick, I’ll now be concentrating on training with under a foot’s worth of blade. I have a perhaps marketable invention for knife dueling, which exposure and justification I keep delaying to put here. Now that I’ve mentioned it, I hope that holds me to blogging more soon.
Video games. Some people play video games as a hobby, others make video games as a career or hobby. Until now I’ve been simply thinking about games as a hobby. This stems from my involvement with a lesser known great of a game called Infantry and my playing a classic great game M.U.L.E.. Multiplayer dynamics intrigue me. I believe I see alot of things that haven’t been done but could also be great. But I’m no programmer and I don’t own a development company. With that I’ve scaled my dreams down to fit to size. Success with the smaller would lead to eventual attempts of the greater. I couldn’t even produce the crap titles with which Grue spends plenty of time. I think I could, however, make a browser game. Again, more on that later.
Those are the main projects for the summer and beyond. Here are the others.
Music. Attending The Fucking Champs concert inspired me to pick up the guitar again. I have no ambitions but to have fun. So, I bought a new pack of rust resistant strings, given my rust monster complex. I’ve even found a way to extend the life past when the coating wears off. I use a metal cleaner called Mr. Metal, which is a no rub cleaner that I used for blades before trying on guitar strings. Anyway, I’ve started learning stuff fromThe Fucking Am album, but I’m more than open to suggestions as to fun stuff to play, as I’m going to reach a definite ceiling to my ability to play Champs works. Now if only I could find my pedals…
Fluorecent rocks. New Jersey might suck, but apparently Bear, Loki and Grue are sitting on a gold mine as far as fluorescent rocks are concerned. I think you guys should really “dig in” and start hunting rocks. Are you guys up? As soon as I can contact Chuck Grogan, I’ll have him give us a starter run-down.
So that’s that, an exposé, mainly as a way to hold myself to the projects. You should hear about these in more detail very soon. If not, you guys have official rights to bug me.
Do rusty strings have terrible (and possibly interesting) acoustic qualities?
Or are they only notable for their tendancy to snap, turn your fingers yellow, and cut through calouses like so much sandpaper?
I’m all over the rocks thing. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was a wee little tot.
Bear I don’t think you were ever a “wee” little tot. “Loki” and the word “wee” can be used in the same sentence though. But yeah, the rock thing sounds like a great summer project. Will you all need my metal detector???
Dragon: As the self proclaimed king of them, I can say that rusty strings have 3 main qualities. First, you simply cannot slide your fingers along them very well. Second, the corrosion thickens the string in uneven areas. This means you can tune the string to a certain note but, as you progress up the frets, the notes become more and more off. And third, as you guessed, corrosion gives them the tendancy to snap. Counter-intuitively, however, that’s not mainly because of rust weakening the structure of the string, but that, again, the string becomes thicker and thicker. Because of that one has to tune the string tighter, eventually putting more strain than the string (usually the thinner strings) can handle.
Bear: Word is born.
Thom: Metal detectors probably won’t help (though I don’t know, perhaps they can find precious metals as wel). But, maybe you should offer to fund their fluorescent rock project by offering to lend them ultra-violet lights (there are two kind, long wave and short wave, write that down) in exchange for them giving you a cut of the rocks. Then you could use the black lights for a fluorescent display case as a permanent fixture in your home.
Consider it. You’d be the talk of the town.
DICK – Let’s start rock hunting!!!! I can’t wait. However, we need to start rock hunting only after we play the board game Zombies!!!. On a side note, the same site also reviewed Vampire Hunter. They confirmed what I thought about Vampire Hunter after playing it with Grue, that it SUCKED.
DJWEBB – Yes, we will need a metal detector. I would like to be in charge of using the metal detector if possible. We’ll also need your night vision goggles – to see the rocks at night.
Zombies!? Curse your lifeless shambling legs!
A friend around here had Zombies, but my bid to play it was outvoted in favor of some robot-related logic-puzzle. It’s probably for the better anyway since most board games are bound to dissapoint me anyway. The really cool ones especially since I tend to get emotionally invested in the outcome of those, then passion outweighs strategy and I end up crushed by greater intellects at the table every time.
Besides real men (and women) play the RPG equivelant.
(RPG in this case meaning “Roleplaying Games”. But, hey, if you want to play a zombie game using rocket propelled grenades, then who am I to stop you?)
I’m all about some runescape, but I really haven’t been spending as much time on it as I should…
I’m sad to admit I have regressed even further and have spent way too much time lately playing ‘Usurper’ on a certain internet based BBS.
If you want to get a game-thing going let me know. I’ve got a bunch of ideas for a Crack Pencils game. I won’t/can’t program, but I will script out that bitch.
You know how to contact me.
That’s interesting. I was talking earlier this year to Loki about the Crack Pencils thing but I got too busy to go through with it. I had some ideas of my own and I don’t think it would be a huge project to complete. Maybe I can work on this on the side.
Yeah, expect to hear from me, if you don’t just see me soon.
mike…if the rocks are fluorescent, why do you need night-vision goggles to see them? shouldn’t they appear visible to the naked eye in all their fluorescent glory?
Guys, check your emails about the rocks.
Megan – It is every young man’s dream to don a set of night vision goggles. While everyone else is looking for rocks, I’ll keep lookout for quarrymen who might try to beat us up for coming onto their land. Also, think of how absolutely cool I’ll look? People might mistake me for a secret-ops man, or even better a somebody from the Matrix.
Quarrymen is a good word.
Those interlopers who skulk through the dusk, night, and gloaming in search of wayward rock-hunters.
Are they out to protect their stone excavation sites or hunting for human quarry?
Mike, you told me you wanted the night vision specs to check-out some local college hotties that live down the road. Which one is it? For protection while mining rocks or to “star gaze”?
Hey DJWEBB, you just remember who cut those tree limbs blocking your window down for you back in the day so you could spy on you know who.
Why do you think I bought the night vision lens?
I thought we had to night-vision goggles to shoot at Curtis Wooten’s cat, AJ. Meow.
No, I think AJ may have already been dead by the time I got the specs. How tragic.
I was looking for another “kitty”.
You bums.
You bums, indeed.