Wednesday, October 3, 2012

My Complaints With Borderlands 2

The below list is taken from http://explosivealan.com/2012/10/02/10-reasons-i-hate-borderlands-2/

I'm adding my 2 cents at the bottom.

1. It seems intent on stopping me playing everything else.
2. I threw a gun away and felt slightly emotional about it and that’s really not normal.
3. Face McShooty’s never coming back, is he?
4. Why am I stuck on the ground in this stupid Bandit Technical when I could be in a Buzzard?
5. “No matter how much you tip her, Moxxi will never sleep with you.”*
6. I still haven’t earned my second turret.
7. I’m not allowed to live up to the reputation I apparently have among the Bandit population as a “midget lover”.
8. The Energizing Bane gun. But only because it renders you practically immobile. Otherwise I’d use it all the time, especially in co-op.
9. Christ it’s three in the morning and I’ve got work tomorrow and my eyes are really dry like painfully dry but I am halfway through a mission and I’m in the right place to finish up another one too so I might as well kill two birds with one oh Christ it’s four in the morning.

The Missions aren't always clear.  I didn't know that I had to kill every robot and scag in one mission to get a door to open so I spent hours trying to find a way into a place that didn't exist.  

If you turn off the game sometimes it starts you way back, disregarding previous saves.  Some of the side missions are ridiculously long,  and not well thought out.   I kind of wish there was a way to upgrade guns that you love,  to keep them relevant at least a little while longer. 

If you die they do a percentage of your money that automatically goes away,  so in one mission I can go from 20,000 to 6,000. 

I personally enjoyed Rage alot more,  because the missions felt more focused, and the vehicles drove a lot better.   However this is a game that I will complain about as I beat over and over again,  like Dead Rising 2

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Indian

I remember growing up in McGrath Alaska.  Everytime I would get a tootsie pop I would look for the lucky Indian.   The Lucky Indian was rare,  but the local shop owner would give you a free tootsie pop if you found one.  I guess the lucky Indian was an urban legend,  that was so strong that a lot of stores adopted.  If you found a lucky indian you could redeem him for a prize.



I changed my design slightly from the original tootsie pop indian.  I gave him Timbs and a backpack.   Thought about giving him dre beats headphones but I liked the face how it was. 

I had to think about where I wanted the design on the shirt,  I wasn't sure if I wanted it off to the left,  or if I wanted the center of the weight to be in the middle.  I printed on some test shirts until I finally got the placement where I wanted. 


Permaset Supercover ink was used.   I printed on brown shirts with white ink.  Different color options were suggested,   I thought about other options but couldn't make my mind up so I went with white.





Alex a worker at Nomadic Stars told me I was pulling my shirts wrong.   He showed me a way that can prevent some stretching,  as well as keeping wet ink from getting on the shirt in places it shouldn't.   You start at the bottom and pull halfway up the shirt,   then go to the top and pull the shirt halfway.




After that is done you pull the shirt from the shoulders and put it in the oven.  The Lucky Indian Shirt is available at Yukon River Creations, in the Tanana Valley State Fair.




Nuchalawoyya Red and White

For my Nuchalawoyya sweaters I started off with American Apparel  sweaters.  I like them because they are light weight and soft.   I know in Alaska a lot of people want heavier sweaters in the winter,   but I think the sweaters are small enough to throw on under a jacket.

Before printing sweaters I have to make sure there's a lot of tact layed down.  When there isn't enough tact the sweater can lift off of the surface,  which can really mess up a print.

I lined the sweater up where I wanted it,  and made sure to press down,  so that the sweater would stick to the surface.

I printed the Nuchalawoyya and stars layer first. I chose to print this layer with white ink to make sure that it stood out from the black sweater.
I didn't like my first red color so I had to clear the screen out and start over.  The color wasn't bad it just was a little too dark.  I mixed in a little bit of yellow,  as suggested by Gary,  to brighten my red up a little bit. 

The red was still a little dark so I had to flash it.   This means that I put it under a heat source to dry the ink,  so I could print on it again.   I wanted the red to be bright,  but no so bright that it competes with the stars and Nuchalawoyya layer.  
After finishing the Nuchalawoyya sweater I put it in a rotating oven.  I would show this but this blog only allows me to post a few pictures per post.   The oven dries the ink and cooks it into the shirt.

After printing several shirts I noticed the white ink was starting to gunk up.   The finish line was really close with just 7 sweaters left to print.   Oden the owner of Nomadic Stars,  where I printed these shirts suggested that I take the white ink out and thin it out,  then reapply it to the screen.   Because the printing process was taking a long time and I still had another design to print,  my initial tendency was to just power through the gunky ink and get it done.  

However I remember what happened in my last print when I tried to just go through some gunky ink,  and how it messed up my last couple of prints.  So I did what was suggested.   It may have slowed me down by half an hour,   but it payed off.    

The final result is shown below.

Monday, July 16, 2012

My Mega Man approach to Running.

On my run yesterday I was thinking about some of my friends on the team at EWU. I was thinking about how Curtis Suver and Patrick Chessar would always tell me "Enjoy it, you're not going to win, gotta get pumpmed about the PR's" That used to annoy me, because I was rarely happy with how I was running.

I'd set goal times that were out of my reach and get mad everytime I didn't get them. The last two years that I ran for EWU I pretty much PR'd every single time I raced. Pretty soon my times weren't that bad anymore. I think what Suver and Chessar were trying to say is I gotta enjoy all of the little victories.

When you play Mega Man you pretty much get your ass kicked repeatedly. Every single level can seem impossible when you start playing. But then you take your time and eventually get better at each little section. By the time you're ready to face Dr. Whily you make all of the levels look easy. You don't get frustrated because you're getting yor ass kicked, you take all of the little victories and build off of them.

I went through injury after injury last year, and never got my mileage up. Working sitting down for 40 hours a week also contributed to my weight gain. This summer I'm taking my time and building my mileage slowly. I'll race occasionally and get my ass kicked, but I'm slowly getting faster. I probably ran around 50 miles last week, and even though I'm not seeing the results on the scale I would like to, I'm happy with the little victories. I mean look at where I was last year. I know if I can get my mileage up a little bit more, and add some speed wokouts, I'll eventually get to where I wanna be.

So yeah I might suck it up for a while, get my ass kicked, but each time I'm moving forward towards the goal. Even though I'm getting dominated by Bubble Man eventually I'll be beasting Quick Man and Metal Man, and maybe next year I'll be ready for Dr. Whily. Just taking it one day/one obstacle at a time, enjoying the little victories
.

Cheers, Dru-P

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

One mile at a time

Working on getting back in shape one day at a time. I'm using future races as motivation, but at the same time I'm trying to look at the big picture.

My first goal is to lose 20 lbs, I wanna lose between 20-40 lbs this summer. Which means I might not be competitive to race, because it's hard to drop weight and keep strength. Just listening to my body, and trying to slowly add mileage.

I had to take 2 weeks off to allow my knee to recover which slowed everything down, I ran short for 2 weeks, Did some short and long for a week. This week I'm trying to go long everyday, but if I have to stop I'll allow myself to stop, also I don't care how slow I'm running this week or next week. I'll try to go next week without stopping during my runs.

I'm not going to worry about speed for at least a month, the weight is the first issue that I have to deal with. When I ran out in Washington my weight ranged from like 140-180. I ran best between 150-155 out there. I'm sure I could have been lighter but I wasn't too concerned with all of that. After taking 2 weeks off for my knee I weighed myself at like 208, I think I was about 195 before taking 2 weeks off.

So if I'm in the 180's by Nuch I'll allow myself to run that race. If I'm in the 170's by WEIO I'll allow myself to run that race. Weight isn't that big of a factor, but it's about the big picture and overall health. When I got hurt I'm sure a lot of it was because I was playing on these hard ass basketball floors, running around, and just being fast and heavy. Just thought it would make things easier on me if I lost some weight. I also plan on going on a 3 day water diet at some point. I hardly ever drink water, I just drink Juice, Pop and Beer. So I'll eventually try to cut back a little on the non water drinks. eventually. haha

Good luck me,
Dru-P

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Electrical Engineering

I recently explained to somebody why I don't have an Electrical Engineering degree.
It was a degree I was quietly pursuing for a while.

I slowly took the math and physics classes required for an Electrical Engineering degree, while taking Computer Science and circuits classes. However when I got into the real Electrical Engineering classes, it's like the class split into two groups. Who helped each other and did homework together.

Other then those two groups there were 2 genius's who worked by themselves... and me..

It was like they seperated me and alienated me. I was having a little trouble in the class, and didn't know where to get help. I was also taking some very hard Computer Science classes at the time. The Electrical Engineering class just had us drawing circuits over and over again, solving for various currents and resistances.

I asked somebody if this ever got fun for them, and they responded. "When I can't solve a circuit, and I finally get the answer, I get such a good feeling" I was like "F that I get that with programming." So I gracefully bowed out to pursue Computer Science. In my defense at the time I was also highly addicted to an online computer game called "Zombie Panic: Source".

Just thought I'd clear things up. Much respect to my electrical engineers, but they did do me a little dirty. The same people that I coached through math. If I ever consider engineering again it will probably be Computer Engineering or Mechanical Engineering.