Hi, I’m Mark and I have a problem. I spend money like mad house, if there is something I want, I get it. Here are two cases to prove my point:

Schizophrenia (Schizo for short), is now mine. What am I talking about? No its not the disease in my case, but a Leopard gecko. Here are some pictures of him:

Case 2: I’ve been wanting a new phone, a smart phone, so when Android was announced, I got real excited. So when the G1, the first android enabled cell phone was announced, I was hooked. The first day it was out, I bought it, and I have yet to regret it. Here is a picture of the beauty:

and yes, it does hover just like that. It blew away all expectations I had of it, it was more responsive, more user friendly, and easier to program for. Before it came out I had a pretty basic sms message logger, now that I have it, I have made it even better by making so it will log both incoming and outgoing messages, and counting how many times each word is sent or received. I believe some features I will work on are:

1. Make it so you do not need an internet connection, making it simply uses an internal SQL database (sqlLite).
2. Make so it will count how many messages per phone number (in and out) so you can see who you talk to most.

This phone is so amazing, you can get everything on it, full internet, calendar that syncs with google calendars, your contacts sync with google contacts, this phone pretty much syncs with everything Google and I love it!

Little Big Planet is an amazing game, I have had it pre-ordered since they announced it. Amy and Brandon have had a hoot playing it as well so it shows me how much the game really rocks. For those who don’t know, Little Big Planet or LBP is a multi-player platformer game. You are a sackboy, or sackgirl and you run through levels to defeat the “collector” who is stealing content from everybody and not sharing! How horrible!

Another thing I did was buy myself a blanket set, a smaller one for just me, and another one for sharing. I got them from http://fauxpawfurs.com/, I got the Sierra fabric, and it looks exactly like a wolf’s fur and feels really soft, but without it being actual fur! Here are some pictures:

It has been very nice to have, not that my apartment gets really cold, but it is nice to have something warm and fuzzy to have just in case.

So, if you haven’t noticed there is a trend going on there. Everything on this list is something that I bought. And most of them cost more than $100. So i’ve made a promise to myself and to Amy that I won’t buy anything like that for at least 1 year. This includes Video Games, movies, pretty much anything except for things I need to live, like food and rent and stuff.

I did go out and buy Mirrors edge, a game, but I traded in seneral other games so I only spent about $18 on it instead of the normal $60, and it was worth it, Amy and Brandon say they get sick when they watch me play it, but I just have tons of fun and run around and jump and punch and run again! it is a lot of fun.

My life is changing a lot lately, and I hope all is for the better. Drop me a comment, tell me what you think.

My main desktop, which has been dead for a few months has risen from the grave. I did not have to purchase anything new. All I did was replace all of the cables in there with a new one. Lucky for me I had a ton of SATA and other cables just sitting around so I could replace them. After I did that, I grabbed the latest bios from Asus’ website and re-flashed my bios to the latest version. Last thing I did was I cleaned out a lot of the dust that was in there, unplugged everything, and then pluged it back in. I then proceeded to install windows, and this time, no BSOD, no CRC errors, no bad indicators. I installed Vista Business x64 on it, then upgraded to service package 1, nothing bad happened there, and everything appears to be okay on the Windows side of things. I then put Ubuntu 8.04 on there and even upgraded to 8.10 and it took the upgrade like a champ. I have been copying my music and pictures to it and it still seems as happy as can be. So hopefully it stayes fixed, we will see though. I will run it though some paces of Game Play and Visual Studio and we will see how it fairs after that.

I have been pretty lazy lately and haven’t been programming much lately, just a bit of error handling here and there. I asked one of my co-workers about bash scripting and how he he learned and that I would have to probably take a class and buy a book. All of a sudden blam he gives me a 700+ page document on advanced bash scripting. I love it, so far it is more exciting than any fiction book I have ever read. I think it may also be one of my favorite books of all time. We will see how the “plot” thickens as the book goes on.

I’ve also been pretty depressing lately, not eating regularly, just laying around, doing nothing or watching TV or playing Little Big Planet Beta. I guess it feels that i’m hopeless on the girl front. I have tried several times to get a girl, and the only rewards are friends, which are always nice but I am yearning for more than just friends. I want someone I can buy stuff for, someone I can yearn for, someone I can love. I also want someone to love me for who I am, I don’t want to force myself onto anybody and I don’t want anybody to be forced onto me. If its not real love, then the point is lost and true happiness cannot be achieved. I wouldn’t mind having a girl friend right now, but I am not going to be desparatly searching for something when I need to focus on school. Once I am done with school, then I can focus more on girls and finding myself a wife.

My Mushu has been very happy lately. He has been really hungry and has been eating a ton of crickets lately. He isn’t becoming fat either, he is just getting longer, he can’t flatten out not even a 1/4 of what Leo can. I got a new video of Mushu Hunting Crickets up on Facebook and Youtube, heres the youTube link: Mushu eating crickets Newer videos will be done with a Tripod because I hate shakeycam videos and so it is hypocritical of myself to create videos that are of a type that I dislike. I think I will try to take a video of Mushu or another one of the wonderful pets we have at our apartment at least once a month. Leo has been pretty happy lately, Amy made a little platform out of rocks and a tiny log underneath for height and Leo loves that thing, Mushu’s Favorite place is still his corner hammoc.

I got into the Little Big Planet Beta, and can you say freakin epic! I can’t get enough of this game and its not even out yet. I even got Amy to play a few levels with me and she was having fun and having her Sack-girl throw her arms up in the air and stick out her tonge, it was really entertaining to say the least. The 21st is when it comes out, i’ve had the darn thing reserved for more than a year. On the gaming front, not much is going on, I haven’t been playing anything other than the Little Big Planet Beta, and even when I play that its not for very long. It almost seems as though games are not as important for me simply because I see my brother, he is hopelessly addicited to them, and yet he doesn’t care. He works part time, lives with my parents and he just plays games all day long. Don’t get me wrong, my brother is cool and all, but he has never ever been on a date, he doesn’t have a lot of friends, he just sits in his room and plays games. While people may think I do something along the same lines, think again. I am getting an education, I moved out of my parents house, I get outside at least once a day (i’ve seen him stay in his room for a few days without coming out other than to eat or use the bathroom), and most of all, I’m not addicted to games. Sure I get excited and buy a few, but once I beat the game, generally I am done, I don’t need or really want to play it again. Once I know the story line, it feels pointless to play it again. Same with books, If i’ve read them once, it doesn’t feel right to read them again, its not the same experince because I already know whats going to happen and so it is not nearly as exciting as the first time.

Look forward to more videos!

Well, My car mister may be fixed thanks to AbrakaMagic’s dad. It appears as though Walmart does not know how to change oil correctly and left my oil pan drain plug halfway out. I pulled my car into his garage and he cleaned the plug, put a new washer and a sealant on it and so far I have not noticed any new oil drips. I hope it stays that way because I didn’t know what I was going to do without my car.

Well, with my car nice and fixed I went into AbrakaMagic’s house to look at some fishes and talk a bit. A while later it came time to head home to my parents house. My car was still parked in the garage so I got in my car turned in on, started backing up all the while staring fondly at AbrakaMagic and suddently I stopped. Not because I hit the break or I stopped the car itself, I had forgotten something. A loud crunch and a sudden stop made my heart stop, the thing I had forgotten was my driver’s side door. I hit the break and pulled forward a bit, I didn’t want to look at my door, I know that I had made a huge mistake. I turned off the engine to inspect the damage. I had bent A’s garage door tack along with my car door. A’s dad kept saying it was okay, and 5 minutes ago he had the garage door going up and down just fine again. My car door would still shut although the window would no longer move and the door was boed out so that if it had rained it would have leaked right through the door. I felt like a total idiot, and I apologized so many times. I still will need to take AbrakaMagic and her dad out to dinner. Anyway heres some pictures of the damage:

Doesn’t look too bad huh?

Think again:

See? you can see through that crack!

So, after I came back up to logan, I immediately went looking for an autobody shop.

I went to Miller Auto Body first because they were the closest. I let the guy know that I only wanted my door bent back into place (after a minor mishap in a garage) and that function was the only thing I was worried about, I didn’t care what the painted looked like, nothing. They said they would have to replace the door and re-paint it, at the price of $750, and thats with a used door, $950 for a new door. They expected it to take 4 hours to put a door on a car, seriously I have done it in 30 minutes, an hour max. I told them sorry and I was going to take my business elsewhere, I then found another place, Don’s auto body, and they where amazing, they gave me a 1 hour quote to fix the door (Once again I told them the exact same information as I told these guys) And they took my car back, about 40 minutes later, they came back and said they were done so they were only going to charge me for 30 minutes of work which ended up being about $25. So here is mister now:

looks a little rough, I don’t mind because he is fixed

The door:

So Mister is good to go now! Anyway here is the lesson to learn:

Don’t stare at beautfull women while operating heavy machenery, they do not mix. Don’t get me wrong, beautfull women are amazing and fun to be around and to talk to, but you might as well operate the heavy machinery blind.

*Note: Names where obviously changed to protect the awesomeness of people, my own rep can always take a hit I don’t really care.

Also I have fixed some minor bugs in the wordpress code, someone should have told me that if you look at an individual post it would have huge text! Anyway it is fixed.

So my car, Mister, has been leaking oil and transmission fluid, from what I can tell and what my Manager thinks, it is the crankshaft seal that is going out. So I have at least 1 bottle of oil just sitting in my car now just so if I get low, I can fill-er-up at least a bit to keep her running. I’m not quite sure what I should do, get a new car (or a scooter has been suggested more than once to me)? Spend a lot of time and money trying to get it fixed? I’m not sure what to do, but its for sure, either way I am going to have to spend money I don’t have trying to get my car running as I think it should, namely not leaking oil when I park him.

My work is having their Quarterly (I think) highway cleanup so I am going to go do that tomorrow moring at 8am. Not too exciting but not too bad, it will help the environment, even if just a little bit. Anything is better than nothing right? Plus it will be with a whole bunch of nerds (Maybe? I’m not sure) so that could be lots of fun, I just need to make it fun.

Mushu has been getting really big, it is suprising me, he used to fit really easily in the plam of my hand, and now he is the size of my palm. I can’t wait until he gets huge, I expect it to be at least 4 more months until he is the size that Leo is now, and with Leo you have to use 2 hands to comfortably hold him now adays.

Anyway I’m going to get back to programming, hopefully it can calm me down enough that I can figure out what to do about my car.

So I have been watching a lot of Planet Green lately, and I learned that Bill Nye is going to have a new series called, “Stuff happens.” And the “preview” of the channel ends tomorrow meaning that I will lose the channel and to upgrade to the package that has that channel, it would at least double the TV bill which I do not think I am prepared to do. The first episode is tonight, I guess I will have to see if it would be worth it.

Leo seems to have been chilling out, we believe it is just a teenage mentality. We did lots of research and most people say that Beareded Dragons get cranky around their teenage years, which Leo is now considered a teenager.

So this semester I am not going to school because of a mis-communication. I asked my mom to send me some money from my fund for school, she sent off the letter and she sent the letter but the letter never got to the bank, so I never got the money and therefor the school did not get the money so they dropped my classes. It does suck, but you know it is alright, I am planning to go to it next semester, but for this semster I am just going to work for full time and save up for school for the next few semesters.

This week I ordered 1/2″ crickets because a little while ago I bough 1/8″ crickets thinking that Mushu would enjoy those better, but no he perfers the biggest crickets he can find. So those should arrive later today and I am sure he will love them.