Imperial March (Rage Mix), by Force Commander

This one is neat.

Metallica Imperial March

Imagine Bush Baby Playing This....

Nah, he wouldn't be that smart.

Richard Should be Graduating Soon

Richard Arthur Maurin, I think, should be graduating this year, unless he has been flunked a grade.

I wonder if he'll be able to find this Blog before he gets kicked out of Care, or gets sucked into an Adult Institution he may never get out of.

I hope he does find this, and know I care about his well-being.

I may not have shown it, but I do care.

...

I need to go!


Class is going to start soon!


Chao!

I Can't Believe Summer's Over, but I Should

I never really did get to enjoy the Summer fully, as I didn't participate in a big splashing swim party. I don't think I ever was aware one existed nearby that I could attend.

It may not help that I think Splash War is a fun game (I'm damnably good at it, you see,) and tend to aggravate those who want to touch as little water as possible while still qualifying as "in the pool."

[mock whiny voice]

No-one wants to play with me!

[return to semi-normal]

But I did get to work my butt off doing schoolwork, while making time to familiarize myself with the joys of Anne McKaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, which lives up to it's reputation.

I've read "Dragonflight," "Dragonquest," "The White Dragon," and have just started on "Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern." All previous three were excellent, and surprisingly, Jaxom was quite plausible as a young male character, even though written by a mature woman. If she didn't emply ghostwriters, that is an achievment all by itself in my book.

I recently reviewed my grades and was reassured by the A/B grades.

I want a good cumulative GPA as much as the next college student, and I like that my GPA is now getting up there to the 3.x range. Last semester it was 3-dot-something, and hopefully it'll stay that way.

I'm semi-secretly planning to buy, or at least have bought a nice set of Expo Dry Erase markers for all of my favorite professors, Including Prof. Gabriel Bonner, Prof. Rusty Meadows, and Prof. Rajim Koonjbeary. I'm going to do this close to Chistmas, so that I can claim I gave them all gifts for Christmas. My memory may be pretty faulty, but I usually remember those people that actually went out of their way to make things doable for me, that didn't try to hinder me, or watched passively as I failed at something or things.

Anyway, things are going great at my end so far, and hopefully will continue doing so.

Chao!

Time Sure Went By, Didn't It?

I'm now taking NETW202 "Intro to Networking," BUSN115 "Intro to Business," and MATHLAB.

I am planning on taking on Mandarin Chinese, that should be interesting.

I've gotten a 107% (Curved) on one of my more major Networking exams, not Cisco Netacad, but a written exam for an associated class.

Gotta go, classwork to be done.

Chao!

Summer Semester #2

I have been spending a significant amount of time playing "Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos" on my Laptop against my Mom, who has lately been kicking my hiney, and our mutual friend, Dickey (who is an actual person). He doesn't have the time to really practice, but since we have invested so much time and money into it, I supposed he ahs decided to attept to leatl how to play.

I have played some on battle.net, but I'm still in noob territory, and I haven't completed the Campaign, yet. (That would be the single player storyline mode.)

I have developed some interesting maps via the included World Editor.

I'll include one, for those of you who happen to have a copy.

Chat Module follows:
There's no password, enter your first name as nick, and accept the room ID.

That's it!
(from freeJavaChat.com)


This application requires Java suport.
This server also available via IRC at:
irc://irc.ircstorm.net:6667/

Update for Summer Semester #1

I know I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd make it up to you guys by posting a really long one.

I have thought up some really neat ideas, ones I wished stuck with me, but I can say it would have made any book I wrote including those ideas quite deep.

I have pondered many things, some of which I will share with you.

I have thought about death, and how it affects people.

One of the ironies of life, said a friend at church, was that without death, there would be no time for "repentance."

I'm a Mormon, to some extent, or at least I'm born into a Mormon family, so I am familiar with a lot of Mormon ideology.

I have a brought-up-Neopegan bookworm (whom I wouldn't trade for the world) for a mom, and a sociopathic idiot who absurdly calls himself a Mormon for a would-be dad.

I love my mother, could care less about the other freak.

I have, as you guys probably figured out, been from public institution to public institution. Most of those were "residential treatment facilities," meaning I stayed there long-term, and got lots of head doctor attention. Mostly, I just had a bunch of orderlies look out for me, but there were a few guys and gals that were more than faceless "direct care personnel," or however they put the title. Some were true (or as close to true as you can get in a place like that) friends.

I especially honor Mrs. Williams-Coleman, in that she went (as far as I knew) beyond her duties, and actually took us under her wing as would a mother hen.

I really appreciate that.

Dr. Jack Charles Hinds is a great guy. He may have not been there every day, but over time, what I got to know of him showed that he was (and is) a quality guy.

There are others in similar facilities that I knew, Mr. Aaron from Meadow Pines RTC, as well as "Sphincter Woman," I called her that because I was "Sphincter Man" to her. It was an inside joke, obviously.

Also obvious, was that I couldn't come up with a better comeback quickly enough. I can do so now.

I went to the Angelika Film Center in Dallas for the first time. I watched "Paprika (2006)," a Japanese anime, which I enjoyed.


I will keep you posted!

-- Alex Maurin

Mother's Day Poem

I wrote a poem for my mom and her mom. They both were pleased, though Mimi (Grandmother Penny) had issue with two lines. See if you can guess which ones:

Letter to an Unsuspecting Mother

(And Her Mother)

You ask why it is that I'd rather you didn't die,

Well I thought it rather obvious that I didn't lie

When I said I really do love you.

That is something I cannot deny: I really do.

Whenever you said I was facetious or rude

I never did say I was your clone, dude,

but I'm always your child, however crude.

I love you, and have always loved you, both.

I may choose a different path than you,

But that's not 'cause o' anything you did or did not do.

You are Mama and Mimi, and that settles the matter,

I'd trust you however the mercury, mad hatter!

As simple the words, however clichéd,

I cannot deny the truth.

Forever and always, and evermore,

I love you exponentially, more and more.

Can you see them? Anyway, see you guys later! Happy Mother's Day!

New Club - PC Gamers Club

PC Gamers Club

I am now looking to see how much interest there is for activity in a PC Gamers Club for DeVry at Irving ( www.dal.devry.edu ).

This club is still forming, and anyone enrolled in DeVry interested in joining please don't be afraid to claim positions.

I'm still figuring everything out, and kinda feeling my way through it, and I don't have anything concrete in mind,

but I was thinking that the club would consist of people who enjoy playing older multiplayer games, and not-so-old multiplayer games over an Ethernet LAN. Everything else would revolve around that singular purpose, to have fun slaying each other. My favorites that I have in mind are Warcraft III, Command and Conquer II: Red Alert, and similar games, but this club is DEFINATELY NOT restricted to that. Doom, Quake, Halo: Combat Evolved, and other games are definately in mind, and any member can suggest other multiplayer LAN games.

I can't wait to play Halo: Combat Evolved, and if I could just get comfotable with the controls, I might be interested in BattleMech 4: Mecenaries. The controls are goofy, so it'll take quite a bit of practice just to get comfortable with controlling the mech.

Anyway, happy fragging!

I Love My Brother

I Really Do Love My Brother

I know I do, because even though I mistreated him, I missed him when he was gone. I'm glad he got the chance to go to a family-setting foster home. I was never good enough for that. I was shipped from RTC to RTC (Residential Treatment Center), and they tossed me about like a hot potato.

I hope he comes home to:

6001A Orinda Drive
Dallas, TX 75248

If you find this page, Richie, click this link:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=6001A+Orinda+Drive,+Dallas,+TX+75248&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=35.136115,59.238281&layer=&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=16&ll=32.956753,-96.806846&spn=0.009092,0.014462

That opens to Google Maps with a map of our home selected.

Hope that helps.

See ya later.

I'll Be Waiting for my Classmates.

 I want to provide some way to keep connected with my classmates without peeing them off, so I guess I'll be playing a juggling act between this http://crazy-alex.blogspot.com, http://groups.google.com/group/devryu-class/

I love this song I downloaded and modified: http://groups.google.com/group/devryu-class/web/Mom-Torture-Song.mid.

That's the current version of it. Be warned, it's a bit repetitive, but it calms my nerves. Grandpa thinks of it as a war chant. I'd have to disagree.

I will keep you guys posted,

Alex

Starting a New Term - Adds Spring to my Step

I'm feeling good today, having had a small respite from griping elderly family members, and having nothing important on the agenda (that I can think of, at least). I'm really hoping I can find a way to connect to my new classmates, but this is always a tricky business, because I'm dreadful at using a phone, and no one uses email, chat (either IRC, Jabber, or the new one, PSYC - see http://www.psyc.eu/psyc.html or even any proprietary one either) as I more primary means of coordinating things. mailing-lists are fairly good, but chat is definitely my preferred mode of communication over long distances in a synchronous fashion. The eCollege version of web forum, called Threaded Discussion, does the job, but underlying that is the assumption that everyone will be unable to communicate effectively at around the same time. I do prefer to type than speak (when attempting formality, anyway, as I love eye-to-eye chatting when you're not being recorded with a microphone, the records of which are to be scrutinized by a bunch of white-coats). I also like testing and trying new technologies, and I have some hope for that new PSYC chat protocol, it sounds like it would work very well, once released. Those guys have managed to hype me up, at any rate.

I definitely want to get a PSYC server running, if given an occasion to do so. (He-he-heeee!)

I'm taking a really trying class, as well as a (hopefully) fun class, the trying one being the COMP100, and the maybe fun one being COMP192. COMP100 was trying, not because it was hard, but due to the exact opposite. I was exerting 12 to 13 times the effort to keep from being sarcastic, unpleasant, exasperated, or something, than actually do the work. I must have succeeded, because, after I did the two labs due the next week in a short time that day, I impressed my instructor with the art in which I completed the work, rather than any disrespect for his class. I'm not saying the class isn't good, or anything like that, but it would be insulting in the extreme if I was unable to test out of it. Father forbid!

At any rate, I'm excited about this other class, this class I haven't experienced as of yet, COMP129. It sounds fun, and I've already heard good reports about the professor. I am not going to let myself be anything less than excellent in that class. According to what I've read and felt, I believe that, once completed successfully, you should be able to take the A+ Certification Exam, and do well (as in pass).

I'm waiting for my chance to prove that I have potential, and that I'm not a completely empty-headed fool.
I'm crazy, not stupid. (At least that's what I keep telling myself. My grandmother is hell-bent on proving just how stupid and useless I am, as is my grandfather. My old Major Payne is trying his best to motivate me with negative reinforcement, which I have grown immune to over the years. The only reason I pay him any mind at all is because I love the sorry sucker. That's the only reason I listen when he tells me I'm under his roof and that he expects the respect he deserves (he does deserve it). My grandfather tell me a lot of things that are difficult to listen to (not because the message inflicts any pain on me, but because I usually have to override the many parts of me that automatically shield me from ridicule, cruel jokes, criticism of any kind, especially negative, and other forms of mental, emotional, or other non-physical abuse, and such defenses take a lot of effort to override. I know it's for the best, logically, to listen to him, and heed the warnings and advice he gives, but the way he delivers the wisdom he does sounds so much like ranting patronization that I have to actively disable my automatic defenses designed to shield me from verbal assaults.

You can tell I have learned a few things about ignoring the stupid kids that like to make fun of kids besides themselves, can't you?

This armor is not enough for my grandfather, though, and I guess he intends to rip these very carefully designed walls down and build them how he wants to.

Ah, well. I love him anyway.

Back to my classes, I'll be going to my first COMP129 class this Wednesday at 6:00 PM in room 254.
Wish me luck!