This is a Blog

Seeing as how it’s been a while since I posted anything, I figured I would update this blog to remember things later on. Or something.

I haven’t said much because I haven’t been online all that much. When I’m not at work I’m normally playing video games or doing something with Mal, and it’s now a rarity to even see me on AIM. I know that’ll change when I get back to school, but it’s weird right now to think I’m not online very often.

Work has been going pretty good. The economy has definitely affected business, but there’s been $100+ nights (rare, but they’ve happened). It’s cool to think you can walk in at 4:30pm and walk out 5 hours later with over a hundred bucks in your pocket. The job is pretty easy and is mostly just being someone’s personal servant for 40 minutes (something some folks like to take advantage of).

I had a huge list of video games to play and beat this summer, but I also wanted Mal to play some of my favorites. She’s beaten Gears of War and Halo 3, Portal, New Super Mario Bros, and we’re almost finished with the first Phoenix Wright game. I normally don’t juggle so many games at once, but here’s my ‘now playing’ list: Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Phoenix Wright, Chrono Trigger DS, Pokémon Leaf Green, Sonic Unleashed, and a handful of other DS games. Tomorrow I’m going to pick up Wii Sports Resort, even though it’s mostly for my father.

Despite juggling so many games at once, I’m doing a pretty good job of keeping up with the stories of all of them. There’s a few other RPGs that I’d really like to start, but I know I can’t handle any more right now. I’m nearing the end of Phoenix Wright, then I’ll probably devote a good bit of attention to Fable 2. I’m also having Mal play through Half-Life 2, since that should really be a requirement for anyone who loves video games at all.

But, besides work and video games, there hasn’t been much going on. I had a Halo party for my high school graduating class again (it normally happens about twice a year or so), but I’m assuming that would fall under video games. Even so, the summer hasn’t seemed dull or boring at all, and I’m enjoying it to the fullest, especially since I’ve got Mal with me.

So there’s my update, internet. Keep on the lookout for more of that weekly Ninten Speaks stuff, since that’s the most you’ll be getting of Stephen Georg online until school starts. (And oh yeah, I also just released a new song about EarthBound—you can listen/download it here, but I’m sure it’ll show up on my site in another day or so).

Been quite a while since I last updated this. I got really busy with my finals in school and just didn’t seem to have the time to take care of everything I needed to. Luckily it’s been a few weeks since then, and I’ve now been out of school for a few days (since the 29th of May). Plus it’s already June! Crazy.

My grades haven’t come in yet, except for 3D, which I managed to squeeze a ‘B’ out of. I’m actually pretty happy about that, considering I had already accepted the fact that I was going to make a ‘C’ in her class. Apparently she really loved my final project (so much that she gave me a 95 on it). Speaking of which, I never posted my 3rd project here. Here’s the Seahorsican, a giant hybrid animal created from foamboard. While I’m at it, here’s the final project, Shrimp Nigiri. This quarter, as I’ve said many times before, just wasn’t that hard, and I think I ended up doing alright. Next quarter I’ll be taking Drawing II, Speech & Public Speaking, and Advanced Computer Art Applications. I won’t be taking another Film class until January, unfortunately.

Now I don’t have to worry about school for a while (mid September, actually). I’ve been looking forward to this summer for a handful of reasons, and now it’s finally here. The first (and biggest) thing coming up this summer is my trip to Wisconsin to see Mallory, and it’s just 8 days away. Hard to believe the time has crept up on us like this. Every day seems so long, but after a week passes you can hardly believe a week is already gone. This principle seems to apply to almost everything (if not everything), and it’s really astounding. It seems like just yesterday I was starting college, and now an entire year has flown by. Truly crazy stuff. I’ve been really busy in the first few days back and I’ll probably stay pretty busy until I leave, but we’ve still managed to talk for a while every day. Our relationship has really grown over the last 3 months, and I’m anxious to see what 3 more months will bring.

Aside from that all-important trip that I’m extremely happy (and incredibly nervous) about, there’s the Starmen.net Convention coming up in mid July (about 3 weeks after I get back from Wisconsin, actually). I’m definitely pumped about this, not only since I’ll be able to see Mallory for yet another week, but because I’ll be able to finally meet Mr. Benjamin Carignan, someone who has been a very good friend to me over the last year or so (could be longer/shorter, I’ve discovered I have a horrible recollection of time). Along with him, I’ll finally be able to hang out with Martin again, and this time hopefully have more to say (since we’ll obviously have more than a few things to talk about this go-round, unlike last time where he more or less awkwardly stood around and didn’t say anything, heheh). I’m flying up with Will again, who is an awesome dude as well, and this time the trip won’t take as long (actually, it probably will since we have to go from Charlotte to Atlanta before heading to Chicago). Anyway, yeah, the Starmen Con will be a blast, moreso than last year for sure.

Aside from that, the rest of the summer is going to be straight-up work. I’ve already decided that beside those two important dates, I really have nothing else to do or accomplish, so I’m going to devote my entire summer to working like a madman. I’m kind of interested in buying an iMac at the end of the summer if I could afford it, and I’m willing to work as long and as hard as I possibly can to afford it. Supposedly someone could get me on at a restaurant as a waiter, and while it’s something I’ve never done (and never really had an interest in doing), the money is absolutely amazing. Seriously, you’ll make a few hundred dollars a night in tips. That’s really crazy, and I definitely wouldn’t mind bringing drinks to crazy old golfer dudes if it meant having more dough in my bank account. And by more I really mean making up for all I’ve spent in the past few months—I’ve bought two plane tickets, survived in college (buying food, necessities, and ridiculously over-priced art supplies), and a plethora of other stuff, and I need to work a ton this summer to really make up for all the time in school that I couldn’t work. Two jobs? Maybe. We’ll see what happens. I’ll probably go job scouting this week and let them know I can start after the 17th. Then I’ll be able to work for a bit until the Starmen Con comes around. Should be a fun, interesting, and crazy busy summer.

Back to the thing that’s been on my mind for the past month and slowly takes over more and more of my brain everyday—the trip on June 10th. After spending literally 20 weeks inside of a dorm room and going outside minimally (very minimally), I decided I should maybe head to the beach to get out in the sunshine. So yesterday Seth and myself spent an hour and a half at the beach. In my stupidity I didn’t wear sunscreen, but honestly, do you really need sunscreen if you’re only going to be outside for that long? I only laid out for an hour, with the other time spent in the water. Anyway, you guessed it—I’m burnt. Not badly though, just maybe a little pink. Honestly it doesn’t really bother me that much, I just wish I wouldn’t have stayed as long as I did. I’m thinking that in another day or two it will turn into a brownish color and stop stinging, and I’ll probably be back out on the beach again. Sunscreen next time? Meh, probably not. I’ll just stay out for much less time, heheh.

Oh—I don’t think I ever mentioned the outcomes of the PK Tube’n. I was able to come up with an idea and have Dan help out with filming. Our video was called Bring Lucas To America, and shares a lot of similarities with the popular /earthbound series, mostly that it’s yet another crazy public stunt by me. We didn’t win anything, but we did get an honorable mention, which is A-Ok with me. I also managed to get a lot more subscribers because of it, so I’m really happy with the outcome of the contest. We actually shot the video in HD, so expect to see the high def version on Vimeo sometime in the near future.

And with all of that being said, and with myself feeling good that I finally updated this thing, I think I’ll stop. I still have what seems like a million things to do, including a few special things I need to try to accomplish before I leave for WI. I’ll keep this updated as best I can—I’ll probably write one more post before I leave, and if not, expect one crazy huge one when I get back, probably with a photo album attached (or several—who knows how many pictures we’ll take, heheh).

Every 7+ days I write my brain down here. It’s that time again!

Under the 40 day mark for the trip to Wisconsin, and only 29 days left on the chain (how long until the end of school). I’m getting really excited, but as usual I’ll keep that to a minimum in the blog.

But good lord am I excited.

Anyway, in terms of schoolwork everything seems to be getting gradually easier… or harder… or something. Preproduction has taken a turn for the better, and it seems we’ve dropped all assignments to work solely on the final project, which luckily seems to be very easy, if a bit time consuming. 3D seems to be looking up a bit since the professor seemed very interested in my design for the latest project, but who knows what I’ll end up getting. With some luck I could pull up the grade in her class to a ‘B’, which could give me some padding in case I do bad in Art History (albeit some hardcore studying should keep me afloat just fine). Overall school this quarter, as I’ve stated before, has been much easier than the past two, even if my grades haven’t been quite as good. I’ve still got 4 weeks to fix stuff, so I’ll be working on doing that.

One of the biggest video game releases of the year, Grand Theft Auto IV, just came out, so we went and picked it up the other day. I’ve only had about 45 minutes with the game, but I really like it. I’ve seen a ton of the game already, though, with Alex and Ian at the helm of the controller on a daily basis. I’ll play it a bit more when I get a chance, but I’m sure I won’t delve fully into the game until later this summer.

On a final note, I should probably mention the PK Tube’n. It’s the ‘last leg of the Siege’ and is composed of releasing a ridiculous amount of YouTube videos upon the internet, all related to EB on the VC, or bringing M3 to America. It’s a really great idea, but what is attracting me (besides the fact that it’s a video contest) are the prizes: I need that darn air freshener. I’ll be putting my plan into action tomorrow, hopefully, and maybe have something ready to watch on Saturday or something. We’ll see what happens :D

How the heck do you spell ‘jiminy’? Anyway.

The extended weekend has come and gone. Unfortunately it never lasts as long as you hope for, and even if it does you never seem to notice the time once it’s gone. Sucks, really, since 4 days of no school is a really awesome treat. Now we’re reduced to another full week with our incredibly small 3 day weekend.

The weekend is a strange thing. I find myself explaining that ‘on the weekend I’ll sleep late and regain the sleep lost during the week’ but unfortunately that never seems to come to fruition. I’m up until 5 am or so and wake up everyday at 1:30 pm sharp (seriously, how the heck does that happen?). You have to wake up before 2 pm on the weekends because that’s when the café closes, and it doesn’t reopen until 5 pm (by that time you’ve probably starved yourself to death). So on the weekends I’m averaging 8 to 8 ½ hours of sleep, which is fine, except the fact that in the week I’m only getting 4 to 5 hours every single night due to my awesome schedule of 8 am classes every freaking day. Now of course I can’t complain too much as I’ve chosen the schedule myself, but seriously: what was I thinking?

We just had a project due in Color Theory class over the weekend. Seeing as how I’m some sort of addict, I created mine with an EarthBound theme. Luckily our professor allows the use of Photoshop for projects, because I’d probably be screwed if we had to actually paint anything. I painted my book for the first project, but I’d like to avoid that in the future. Our professor doesn’t grade as harshly as our last quarter studio professor did. This new guy just wants you to meet criteria as opposed to having some mind-blowing composition, so I’m feeling pretty good about his class so far. My other class, Art History, is equally easy (we’ll see how easy the tests are as of tomorrow), and Video Production is a blast since it’s my major. School hasn’t been too much of a problem.

Back into my play world of games: this weekend I purchased yet another xbox 360 controller for reasons still unknown to me. I guess it was the fact we had 4 people in the room at all times (seriously: Nick practically lives with us and occasionally Dan stops by too) that made me want to complete the set. We played some Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 but that was it. Nick also started a Dead Rising file and over the weekend probably invested 15 hours into the game. A little extreme (especially considering he put off homework to play it), but hey, whatever.

I also tightened my belt today (that’s bad news for anyone who hasn’t been paying attention). It seems like I’ve lost a little more weight. I’m assuming by the time I return home again I’ll probably have lost another 5 pounds or so. I don’t have a way to weigh myself here, so I tend not to worry about it. I’ve got bigger fish to fry (that sounds delicious, by the way), so I’ll lean toward my school work and forget about eating.

And forget about eating is something that happens frequently. I actually didn’t have my first meal yesterday until 7 pm, and since I woke up at 1:30, that’s what I like to consider a ‘problem’. With any luck that will be a one-time thing, as I hope to eat regularly if possible.

As for the rest of the day: I’m going to get something to eat in about 30 minutes, then take a nap for a while until 1:30 when I’ve got to go to class. Come back around 4:45 and begin studying for a Art History test I have in the morning at… you guessed it… 8 am. From what I understand, the tests should be just as easy as the class, so I’m excited about doing well.

Alright, Ramen time.