Eric Greif's Rarely Updated Whinebox

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 03:36:16 GMT

My Birthday is this monday, and I'm planning on celebrating it this weekend with my good friends (if you're reading this, you're one of them.) Only thing is, I have no idea exactly what. Any of those good friends reading this: please feel free to tell or suggest anything to me.

Aside from that, I'm working on getting set up with my classes for Pitt. I'm making the call for that tomorrow.

And then there's work. I've had assignments here and there, and now I'm locked into one with that real estate info service that lasts until August. I feel good for now, but I'm a little worried on what to do when school starts. Though working as a temp has paid off well, and I'll share a secret on how to make temping pay: When you get an assignment, do your job well, and at least make aquantinces, if not friends, with your fellow workers. If they like you by the time the assignment is up, they might ask for you back in the future.

Though the truth of the matter is... I've only worked at 2 sites with my temp agency, out of a total of 5 assignments. and those two sites are neighboring buildings. Pretty neat racket my temp agency runs, at least I don't need to look up new driving directions each time things switch up.

Anyhow, games: I've been playing lots of them, and I really need to learn to start beating the ones that are solvable. My DS library has grown very bloated, such a great system. The 360 is one of the cooler purchases I've made, but while I'm having tons of fun with the backcompat and xbox live arcade, I haven't found the game for 360 that will ultimately justify the purchase. I got it because of backcompat, though. I've always wanted an Xbox. Hopefully a 360 game I'm really digging will release soon, but not likely until after summer.

Things are looking better...

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 15:04:13 GMT

The past two months in 2006 were pretty depressing for me. I had no job, no money, and pretty much nothing to be excited about. However, toward the end of February, things started looking much better. I had discovered that Pepsi/MtDew was holding a video game competition promoting their MDX energy drink product, and that a local internet provider had noticed my resume, and had interviewed me for a tech support position. The tech support position is VERY attractive, and I am very excited about being a candidate. As for the gaming competition, it was an invitational, which I quickly signed up for. I received the invitation earlier this week, and the actual competition was held last night. I played Unreal Tournament, and I saw MANY excellent players there. One in particular was Joe, an SA goon I know as Daedalus, who I know is a much better player than I. There's ALWAYS someone better there, and we had encountered someone who devastated the competition. Tim was at the competition as well, but he played Smash Brothers Melee, and the poor guy was eliminated in the first round. I fared much better in UT, earning 3rd place and 50 dollars. Joe got 2nd and the guy who got 1st place (I think his name was "dl") earned his 300 dollars. I need to play Joe more often, since he's the only way I'll be able to get better at the game.

So... this means that I am now, Officially, a PRO GAMER. Fatal1ty, I'll be gunning for you NEXT (and failing miserably)

I start a temp job on monday, and I'll finally be able to earn some steady money. It'll be even better if the internet provider hires me. I'm confident, though. Things ARE looking up.

THis update is well overdue.

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:13:41 GMT

I just had my room renovated. All my stuff is now settled in (thanks to the most appreciated help from Shadow The Rat) and is now shaped into quite the nerd's pad. I plan to have a little "room-warming" party to celebrate this accomplishment.

Whoever is reading these words is invited to said party. If you're on my LJ friends list, you're invited.

In other news, I've been working for a gift shop a friend of mine owns. It's a nice little store that specializes in Sanrio and other cute imported merchandise. It's tough work but it's giving me wonderful experience in a retail environment, as well as being good money. Aside from that, it feels good to be helpful to the friends of mine that own the place.

School starts at the end of this month for me, and I'm really looking forward to getting back in class. This semester is my last at community college. When my classes end I will have my Associate's degree. I'm very proud of myself for finally becoming a successful student.

And that's life for me at the moment.

EDIT: I'm a damned fool. I had no idea I was being vague about the date an time of the party. I mean Friday August 12 at any time at all really, but if a time would have to be named, it would be like after 4pm or 5pm.

Wed, 11 May 2005 22:46:50 GMT

Well, I managed to ignore my LJ for a while, and a lot of cool stuff has happened since. Tekkoshocon has come and gone. I had a lot of fun with that, the highlights being how fucking amazingly lucky ffgamegirl is regarding the matters of reserving hotel rooms and selecting randomized collectable toys. Because of her uncanny luck, we had a room in the PENTHOUSE, and she managed to select the two mini-transformer replica toys that I wanted the most (Optimus Prime and Megatron). Then I got to participate as a contestant on the game show Anime Press Your Luck. I did well, riding hard on the coattails of jessica's luck aura, but then I lost the aura and got whammied twice. No matter, I still got a free DVD (Gantz vol 1) and a sweet NO WHAMMIES button. Tekkoshocon ended with my room party where Tim shadowtherat got smashed while we invited our next door neighbors to play Karaoke Revolution with us. The room down the hall where the convention workers were was having a party too and Tim managed to get even more smashed. Then, later that month, Jessa, Tim, and Sarah sarahtheboring went to a very fun lanparty. Bawls and Pizza and unlimited access to a Lan with lots of gamers makes for a fun night. Jess and Sarah even found a new game to get obsessed about, Guilty Gear X2.
Then I worked my ass off for the rest of the month, enjoying some fun weekends were we saw the new Hitchhiker's Guide movie and Kung Fu Hustle... and now I have my grades.

A - Human Sexuality.
B - Intermediate Algebra
B - Systems Analysis and Design

I'm really excited. I'm now in the process of throwing my resume at EVERYONE so I can get work for the summer. I might even have an interview tomorrow with a computer shop. ROCK.

The weekend before the con

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 22:10:49 GMT

I'm quite excited about next week. I have an exam for Algebra, which i shall study hard for. Then in 7 more days, Tekkoshocon. I can't wait to see all my buddies there. Today I'm haning out with jess this weekend, maybe meeting up with sarahtheboring and then going to see The Ring Two. More on that later.

Also it's april fools day, and so far all I've seen are not very funny death announcements, espicially the death of one very funny Mitch Hedberg who will be sorely missed. Why oh why couldn't his death be a hoax. :(

EDIT: OH MY GOD, That's the funniest April Fools joke ever. Kudos to you livejournal. And poo on everyone who rarely updates their journal. Espicially me.

Yay for direct deposit.

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 20:48:51 GMT

I got a deposit slip in the mail today telling me my paycheck will be deposited in my account tomorrow. This comes as a large relief to me as I was worried I might lack funds for the upcoming convention and lan party. According to the pay dates I should be well set for the con.

Last night I met a goon on xfire and played some UT. I kinda sucked at first, but soon discovered I was most talented in defense on the CTF maps I played. Lots of people give SA a bad rap since there's a LOT of ignorant douchebags who have not just unpopular but inappropriate opinions, however they're good people to game with. I've never met a griefer from SA.

I'm at work now, "maintaining" a barely occupied computer lab. By "maintaining" I mean "waisting time by making LJ entries". It's very quiet and relaxed right now and the peacefulness is enjoyable.

I'll be meeting sarahtheboring. I discovered her when I was browsing the users of the Tekkoshocon forum and found someone in the same town as me. She's worried I'm going to have some kind of expectation, but frankly, I have no idea what I'm even supposed to expect aside from some local girl who likes anime and games. I'm just interested in meeting like-minded people I guess.

I'm also really happy for my sweetheart. Jessa might be getting one of her stories published, and if that happens, it means some wonderful things for her. I'm proud of her already, since I think her writing is wonderful, but if she can get paid for her work, i'll be even prouder. I keep telling her to write more, but sometimes it tends to come off as nagging, and that's one of my bad qualities. I'm persistent to a fault.

EDIT: sarahtheboring is quite poorly titled. I had a blast BS-ing with her. I talked about anime and video games, and then when telling her about my japanese friend who likes to cosplay sans-shirt, I took her to the children's section of B&N to find a Miffy book. It took a while to find, but I found the most INNAPROPIATE book for the children's section. And then I bought it. It was an "it's happy bunny" book called "Life. Get One." and it's the most wrong thing I've ever picked up. Wrong enough to own. I made sure the lady who keeps the children's section got those books out of there and put it in the teen section where it belongs. The problem with society isn't violent movies, music or videogames. It's that booksellers put ITS HAPPY BUNNY in the children's section.

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:40:54 GMT

Went to shadowtherat's place last night and watched Mega 64. Mega 64 is goddamned funny, and they're becoming more well known. Ubisoft has been featuring their material for a lot of their upcoming games, including my most desired upcoming game, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. After watching the entire mega 64 dvd set we played games, which was no small feat as most of Tim's systems were either in an unplayable state or they were missing in action. We played some Castlevania homebrew beatemup that became rather boring, and then we played Puyo Puyo 4 on dreamcast. Tim's a fucking puyo master and just when you think you have him down, he will rape you with his awesome puyo skill. I must have gotten buried with a layer of block puyo about 5 times the contens of my entire screen, and no amount of super moves could save me from my demise. I still scratch my head on how the hell he pulled that shit off.

I'd like to take a moment now to tell ffgamegirl that I love her dearly and that I am very sorry for the sad and terrible things she has to deal with lately. I won't be going into any more detail beyond that.

I have to work today at 3 and I couldn't be happier. I was so worried that I couldn't get any hours for work study during spring break, but I have a supercool boss, and this will help me have some cash for tekkoshocon.

I am Eric's ignored livejournal. Weep for me

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 23:12:29 GMT

Wow, long time since I bothered to put anything in here. Perhaps I should make more updates so I don't have to do massive updates.

Let's see, school's going well. I have 3 classes. Intermediate Algebra, Human Sexuality, and Computer Systems Analysis and Design. I have good grades in the first two classes, but I have a D in systems analysis and design because I missed the midterm, however, my instructor is cool and I got to take it. I'm currently waiting on the grade on that one. I've also gotten a job at the school doing work study. I work in the computer lab. I'm to put print outs on a table for students to collect, and to help with various problems. I also do little assignments I'm given, usually to write down mac addresses or tag numbers on machines. The pay and the hours are very small, but it's a little money for me.

I'm also excited about a few things coming up in the near future. In about 3 weeks I go to Tekkoshocon. It's an anime convention in pittsburgh, and I'm incapable of not supporting a convention I don't have to travel out of state to. There's also a all-night lan party at a place called cyberconxion (say: Cyber-con-EX-shun) I've been there before for a tekkoshocon promotion, and I had a lot of fun with my friends. Maybe I might go there during my spring break this week to play some stuff with some buddies. Anyhow, I'll try to update this place a bit more. I guess it's a good habit to keep some sort of personal log about the insignificant things that happen in my insignificant life.

Goddamnit

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 13:13:45 GMT

Today was going to be a good day.

I was going to get up an hour later, so I could go to my algebra class at 9am instead of 8
I really figured I could use the extra sleep due to a restless night.

Well, that plan went to shit when I went to my car, tried to start it, and turning the ignition failed.

It makes a noise, but the engine won't run.

A neighbor helped to jump start the vehicle
but that failed too.

I just got off the phone with AAA and I left a message on my instructor's answering machine

Hopefully I can make it in time for my english class, and see my algebra instructor for some details on today's lesson.

But so far... I have a very bad feeling about today. I hope hope I'm wrong.

a whinebox with no whine

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:18:42 GMT

Well, here in my whinebox there has been a great lack of whining. Today I shall correct that.

I fear failure in my algebra class. It's college level algebra, intermediate level. I took fundamental last spring and I did somewhat well (read: By the skin of my teeth). This semester I'm ok on assignments, but the tests are kicking my ass. I'm trying to fix the situation, and I'm grateful that I have a teacher who wants to help me do all I can to get better, but I greatly fear that everything I can do from both a studying/working standpoint and in a getting assistance standpoint isn't going to help me.

Fortunately, I have 3 other classes I'm doing just fine in. I'm very confident and happy with my results in these classes. I must keep in mind that while I repair the algebra situation, I can't neglect what I'm already doing well in.

I have some other thoughts on this, but these are thoughts I do not wish to entertain.

terrible ads

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 02:17:53 GMT

Usually ads created by local stores are not particularly awful... they're just kinda meidocre...

Except for this one ad for a store called Joy's Japanimation.

Now the store itself is one of the best to purchase anime and other items from, but their commercial is so mind bogglingly awful, the director of the commercial really needs to work for a big name company to do the next series of "Can you hear me now?" Verizon commercials.

It begins

Tue, 21 Sep 2004 05:54:49 GMT

I made a livejournal today. I'll be surprised if I make an entry beyond this.