Metroid Prime 3

Went to see Ursula LeGuin, which was short, but sweet. I got her newest book signed and even though I haven't read the earlier two books in the series, it should be ok, as it works as a stand-alone too.

I'm almost finished with Metroid Prime 3. I made it to the last boss fight and died. A review of that game is coming soon, after I get the best ending with the help of GameFAQs.

9/13/07

I'm going to see Ursula LeGuin at Beaverton Powell's later tonight, I may write about that later.

I'm working on a review of Super Paper Mario to be posted here and to The Furry One forum, which might be done today.

Finally, apple chutney makes a pretty good topping for Hebrew Nationals, and I'm excited to try the new seasonal Burgerville Hotdogs.

How I learned to delurk

In the interest of posting more, and more interestingly, I've decided to start writing up posts for maybe the next week or so whenever I get interested in something posted to the blogs I read and then never posting it--subsequently reading others commments to see just how off base I am. It's a bit of desensitization to posting to forums where the posters are often very knowledgeable and therefore, just rattling fof a post about whatever's on my mind could potentially be a bad thing.

Back from a long hiatus

Based on the amount of time I've spent on it, and the amount of time I'll have available to work this Fall, I've decided to drop the ballot measure website idea. However, I will continue to talk about and expand on it, because while I won't be pursuing it, I would be very happy to see someone do something similar.

Ok, Screw it, here you go.

I'll post a longer thing based on what I've already written eventually, but I've been holding off too long from writing this.

Temping for the "Read-before-you-sign" coalition last summer I was initially happy, but eventually got turned off as I learned more. While it's difficult to say reading before you sign is a bad thing, and I agree with their stated goals, things related to where the money was coming from, timing, and the amount of information we were given in the first place, made me a bit suspicious. There's more discussion of this in the longer post I eventually will make. However, even if my (and others') suspicions are off, I think this project will realize goals I have beyond what I saw happening with "read before you sign."

I want to create a website which has the text of the ballot measure initiatives. This means both the informal text of the article given to signature gatherers to present to potential signers, as well as the full legal documentation. This is so that potential signers can decide which petitions they want to, or definitely don't want to sign. I'd also like to have the locations of signature gatherers so that those who, reading a petition if they are interested can go straight to a petitioner. Google Maps would be integrated with this website for that purpose. Finally, a discussion board or wiki would be integrated into this same website, purely for the purpose of discussing the meaning of each petition. While I have a variety of other ideas I hope to integrate with this website, these three things: text, locations, and discussion, are the core of it.

Submissions for either side of the political aisle would be accepted--while I am a liberal and agree with the democrats on most issues, I want the website itself to be non-partisan. I also wish the website to be run as a non-profit. While non-profit, I have my own self-interest at heart here as I will be building my web design, database, and people skills through this project. It's also selfish in the sense that I wish such a website to exist, myself. Like many people, I don't like it when I'm hit up for signatures while walking to and from places for anything.

So, basically I'll be posting more on this later: some more of the reasoning behind why I want to do this, some features I'd like to add, and my plans for contacting people, blogs, and organizations to rally support behind this thing. The last of these is probably what most concerns me.

As a final note, if I can't keep this thing properly updated, there's really no point at all in proceeding with this, or any other project I want to talk about here.

Haven't posted in like two weeks.

I will update with the post about finding petitions for ballot measures in Oregon soon. Believe me.

Just found out that my uncle on my mom's side, the oldest uncle I have, died around noon today, at age 78. Probably a heart attack, I guess that I'll probably find out more later from other relatives.

Anyway, I will be posting more later.

Other ideas for making money...

It looks like my schedule is going to preclude me from working more than 10 hours this fall. I already posted about making business cards and doing the playing piano at weddings thing. With the caveat, of course, that I don't have an electronic (or other) piano I could drag out to the site of the wedding, I think it would be a good idea. Here's some other things I could do:

• Tutor in GRE prep.
  
• A paper/resume editing service.
• Sell stuff on eBay. Specifically I want to make and sell headphone amps. Usually these come in Altoids tins, but I'm thinking I might be able to build mine into some snazzy Japanese candy tins, bought from Uwajimaya.
  
• Selling jewelry made from old electronics (resistors, capacitors, fuses).
• Make, wrap up, and sell gourmet meals for PSU students, on the cheap. Need to get my food handler's license for this one. Otherwise, this is probably the least additional investment needed, but most labor intensive.
• A service for scanning old collections of slides. I'm already doing this for my grandfather's paintings.
• Another eBay idea: buy computer components off Free Geek, New Egg, etc. as necessary to build DVRs with MythTV.
  

w00t! Another job.

Apparently I haven't been screwing up on the piano accompaniment as I thought! I'm going to get paid for coming in all of these times, plus I get to play at the group recital on June the 10th.

I'm very tempted to start designing business cards and to start playing weddings so's I can make a bit of extra cash...

Future Posts: Website for finding ballot measure petitions.

I've been working on the write up for the idea I had on finding petitions for ballot measures in Oregon. I think in the future I may break up posts that become as long as that one is becoming into chunks. Basically, I want it to be great, and it will be great.... when I finally get around to publishing it.

It will be posted, however. Soon.

Job, school.

Got a job with OHSU, I start training next week to do medical reception. After next week, it's going to be 5:30 A.M. to 3:30 P.M. every Friday. I'm going to need to carpool, because the $10 a day parking fee is a killer, and there are no buses that run that early. That brings up the question of whether any carpools run that early, either...

Meanwhile, I'm signed up for Quantitative Analysis this summer. My idea is that if I do well in this class, I'll go back, and try to pick up the pre-reqs for application to a biochemistry master's degree. Otherwise, I'll probably write off going after chemistry, and try to find schools with good cognitive psychology programs that are in places where Cait would want to go to law school as well.

The schedule for this class is really convenient, because I only have class Monday through Thursday, leaving Friday open for work. I'm hoping that the fact that class doesn't start until 3 means that I'll be able to find some more part time work at OHSU in the mornings, too.

Piano Accompaniment

Being a piano accompanist for my sister's Suzuki group class is hard.

I don't feel particularly nervous, partially because I'm only in a supporting role, partially because the audience is very small, but I'm screwing up a lot, despite that. Not screwing up in playing wrong notes so much as just dropping out. I don't feel nervous, but I do feel inhibited, like sometimes my fingers don't want to continue playing a certain phrase. I'm inhibited because I don't want to screw up, but also because a lot of times the piano plays a different part from the violins. While I'm used to harmonizing with a group as a clarinet, the vast majority of my experience on the piano is as the melody AND harmony at the same time, rather than alternating. So, that fraction of a second where I realize that I'm not playing with the violins anymore is enough to make me drop out for several measures-- sometimes.

What can I do to fix this? Memorize the pieces I'm playing(1) , so I can focus on just one part, (the violins) instead of three parts at once. Other than that, just keep playing in my sister's group class on Mondays until I'm used to harmonizing with three or eight or a dozen violins.

1: and it's not like they are hard to memorize, just that there are so many of them.

Future Post ideas: Websites I want to make (or see made).

All of these are going to materialize in the next week or two. I'll post links to them all at the end.

• My grandfather's paintings, a gallery website.
  
• Where to find petitions? Using MySQL and Google Maps to find petitions in Portland that you want to sign.
• Getting Things Done. My version of the system found in the book of the same name. Written in PHP with MySQL, to be GPLed so that anyone who wants to copy the code, can.
  
• Carpooling. A website which I hope will help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. More details later.

Basically, I'm using the gallery website as a project to learn MySQL and PHP on, both of which I'm going to need for every other project I listed.

New Blog

Welcome, everyone who read my livejournal, knew me in chat, or IRL and to the new people, welcome as well.

I haven't posted to my livejournal in a long time, even though I've wanted to, and there are a lot of things I've thought about that I've wanted to write about, but couldn't because I felt censored. I'll post more on why I felt that way later. Sufficed to say, if you're reading this, you might already know why I'm giving it up. If you don't, then you will know soon.

I'll continue to use my livejournal for reading and posting to my friends list, but not for anything else. It's not like I wrote in it for that much to begin with. I may get a new account on it sometime, for discussing more personal matters because I have a number of friends IRL who use it.

What I'd like to do with this blog is be able to post about the projects that I'm working on right now, essays on subjects I'm interested in, when I get the time, and ideas that I have. The last of those is what I'm most interested in, and, while it probably isn't what I'll be devoting the most space to on here, in my thoughts, it will be the biggest part.

Ideas? Well, ideas for websites I could see myself making, ideas for new products and companies, ideas for board, card and video games, and ideas for books and short stories. I'm still at a stage where I'm trying to hammer out what I want to do in my life. While I have a pretty good idea that I want to be a Neuroscience researcher, and I have a plan of what I need academically to get there, I have a lot of side projects I want to pursue which are completely unrelated to Chemistry, Psychology, or Neuroscience.