Back to School

Woo, back to school.. Today wasn’t too bad, although the general assembly was pretty lame, heard basically everything I did the last two years, the ‘this is a myth, that’s also a myth, this is not true‘ yadda yadda.. Only thing that was different was the teacher’s names that he announced.

Anyway, the new planner thingies we have a fairly lame, they’re so metro, so many colors.. They have pretty cool facts though, but the jokes are lame, sounds like stuff you’d hear from other kids 5 years younger than you, some were okay though I guess.

Already have an assignment in English, it’s a fairly good one though, it’s a 300-500 word story on anything that seems realistic, I have my prologue worked out, some of you may have seen it posted on Big Boards. It’s not gonna be the same though, cos I’m going to go over it and make it better, if I can.

Meh, Computer Applications is alright, and Japanese is pretty ghey, although we haven’t started with the main work, but hopefully it gets better.
I don’t like the teacher though.

I’ll go through more tomorrow, but my next big post will be on Saturday, when I go through my classes and stuff.

School Tomorrow

Wee, school starts again tomorrow, definitely looking forward to it, apparently I owe my best friend a hug for her birthday *rolls eyes*, anyway, looking forward to starting my classes, and most importantly seeing my friends again. For now all I can do is imagine what’s going to happen tomorrow, heh.

Alright, now that’s over and done with, I’m gonna go through stuff that I feel I should share that’s happening since my last entries like, last night. :O

• Alright, so I’ve been learning to play the Lip Gloss and Black solo (song is by Atreyu), and so far it’s coming along okay, apart from the fact playing it too fast seems to be cutting my fingers on the string, and I can’t play because what they’ve done to my fingers. They’re bright red, and when I push down on the string to get the noise from the fret it just hurts way to much, but I keep playing
• Been doing code previews on Big Boards, I was going to try and get all of the ZetaBoards ones done by today, but with school soon, it hasn’t been possible, and I got about half way through, looks like a job to do over the next week after school.
• While on the topic of Big Boards, I’m currently trying to do what I can to post topics in the community area, trying to get some more discussions going, if you have any ideas, feel free to let me know
• DefJam, almost done with the reopening, still need to finish a couple of areas of the skin and we should be right, get the community firing up for when we open! Also, we will be opening on the 8th of February. Be there!

Seems to be all I can think of that’s important so here is a heap of random stuff:

• guitar: Learned the Deanne the Arsonist solo (by Atreyu), fairly easy one, but it sounds cool as.
• Still practicing the The Remembrance Ballad solo (by Atreyu), still trying to get the hammer-ons right, keep getting dead notes, once I’m done with that I’ll be moving on to the harder part of the solo.
• Blisters on my fingers from playing too much guitar
• new 2009 goal: Alright, so I’ve set another goal for 2009, apart from my goals for helping at Big Boards, I wanna try start learning to write songs/lyrics/poems, it might be hard for me as I’m hardly ever thinking about anything, which will make it hard to “release my emotions” when I’m writing.
• coding: Okay, I need some opinions with you guys, I have a fair bit going on, sure, but I wanna know what you guys think of me sticking with JavaScript, should I keep going with it or not?
• graphics: Still going to be something I don’t take seriously, really just to play around with and experiment with, I might take them seriously a bit later on, when I think it might be time to do so.
• school: As you’ve seen in earlier posts, my school goals are to pass all my classes, and get Year 10 level in two of them. Any other goals I should set you think, just to try and challenge myself to do better?
• blog: I’m going to try and update this blog as often as I can, whenever I get the time, if I miss a day or two, I’ll do what I can to remember what happened, and you’ll just have more to read in one post.

Alright that’s it for now, oh and also, if you guys want, I’m going to add an “advertisement service”, well a free one anyway, see the pages up the top? “Home”, “Contact Me”, is what I’m talking about, so what this service is going to do, is allow you guys to put a board, website, blog or whatever link up there next to it. All you have to do is leave me a comment with your board URL, and a slogan/description, and it will stay there for two weeks.
And while you’re there commenting, please let me know what you thought of the posts and what you think you would like to see improved on, or included.

Thanks!

About Me

Alright, so in this post, I’m going to explain a bit about me, you might find it boring, I will also note a few facts about myself. And to make it a bit more fun, I’m going to use a whole lot of lists.

• So, to start things out, my name is Justin, I’m 14 and I live in Geelong, Australia.
• My life has basically evolved around technology my whole life, I think I’ve been using computers a lot since around the age of 6-7.
• This year I’m going into year 9, which looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.
• You could say I don’t have too many friends, but I love the friends I do have, and they’re all I need.
  Facts Time #1
  
  1. My three best friends are all girls, and no, not at any point have I had the thought, or even considered going out with them, hooking up etc. I’m happy having them as friends And they all rock.
  2. My New Year’s Resolution was related to school, hoping to pass all my classes, and in at least two of them, get Year 10 level.
• I enjoy making graphics, I’m not good at them, but I definitely have great fun testing around with new things.
  Facts Time #2
  
  1. As most people, my graphics designing started in MS Paint, although not doing all those signatures and stuff with the paint bucket. I used paint for pixel art, sitting there for hours on end making little icons, pixel by pixel.
  2. The second program I used was GIMP, which was introduced to me by Helena from Big Boards (woo go Helena), I used it for like 10months, got really used to it and it gave me a bit of a kick off.
  3. Last but not least I’m using Photoshop 7.0, it’s not the greatest, but it’s by far the most fun to play around with.
• Coding is also something I enjoy, once again I’m not amazing at it, only knowing HTML, CSS and a tiny bit of JavaScript.
  Facts Time #3
  
  1. I first started coding HTML at the age of 7, when I played.. *sigh* Neopets, it was a huge addiction back then for me and it was fun okay.
  2. At the age of 8-9 I was using “advanced” HTML, stuff like -moz-box, and z-index, it’s not entirely hard, but by far one of the coolest HTML tricks out there
  3. Before I actually learned CSS for real, I tried for about 3 months, but could never find the concentration, or focus to stick towards it, but after looking at Louis’ skins and what he had done, he inspired me to code my first skin, it was pretty crappy, but I got better over time. Eventually I moved on to ZetaBoards, and I must say it was the most fun I ever had coding/skinning, and working with Louis is the greatest, he is so funny, and can really get the best out of you.
  4. I’ve wanted to learn JavaScript for ages, but I’ve never stuck to it, but hopefully this year is the year.
• Foruming is pretty much what keeps my life so fun at the moment, I put a lot of time into them, and enjoy them.
  Facts Time #4
  
  1. The first forum I joined was made by me, I had no experience whatsoever in foruming, but I managed to set up a board and get it going.
  2. The second forum I joined was Big Boards, which is a forum that I’m still active at today, Big Boards is the forum that’s kept me going over the year I’ve been there (today is my 366th day :O).
  3. To be honest with everyone, I have easily made over 50 forums (InvisionFree and ZetaBoards combined), in the last year. And maybe three-five of them got past the creating stage.
• I have two parents (a mother and a father), as well as three siblings (two brothers and a sister), which I love dearly.
  Facts Time #5
  1. Between all my brothers and sister, there is a 3 year gap between birthdates. Mine 1994, my oldest-younger brother 1997, and my youngest brother and sister 2000.
  2. Yes my youngest brother and sister are twins.

Not much else to go through now, but now you know a bit more about me.

First Post

Okay, so here we go, first blog entry on Word Press :O

Anyway, school goes back soon, two days from today, I can’t wait, get to see all my friends again and everything, and it’s gonna be heaps fun with my new classes this year.

• To start out the awesomeness, I have three music classes, guitar in first semester, keyboard second, as well as an all-year after school VET class, which is basically like a band thing, where we work as if we’re in a band, we learn how to set things up, and eventually we start doing live performances at malls and stuff, gonna be really neat.
• I have two sports classes, and the good ones too, which I’m really looking forward to doing, because it’s gonna be awesome.
• Uhh, what else did I get, Basic Automotive, that’s gonna be a good one.
• Let me think, uhm.. I also have Japanese, was looking through the work book for it the other day, oh my it’s gonna be a challenge, hopefully a bit of fun along the way too.

But other than just the classes, it’s gonna be awesome to catch up with all of my mates again, which is sweet. So apart from school, all that’s really going on is foruming, and guitar.
With guitar, I’ve been playing since about mid-August last year, which seems like ages ago now, but I’ve learned a fair bit, but I’m not going to go through them now, maybe later.
With foruming, it’s been a real rush lately, new staff positions on forums, and a whole lotta fun to come, for now here’s all I’m going to say.

• DefJam administration, DefJam is a music board, that looks like it could possibly succeed, and I hope it does, cos a fair bit of time has gone into it. We’re almost done and about to open up, just fixing a few unskinned/misskinned areas, sorting out plans for forums and the layout, as well as ideas for future, the board can be found here, watch out!
• AdView reviewer, AdView is an advertisement/services board, that I’ve just picked up a review spot on, which will hopefully give me more to do.
• MiniToshi welcome rep, MiniToshi is a general discussion board that not much has been said about, MiniToshi is basically Mini City, Toshi meaning City in Japanese, my job is to simply welcome people when they join, but just not a simple hi welcome to the board thing. An explainitary post, which is unique for each person that is welcomed. I’m looking forward for when it opens, link can be found here, keep your eyes open!
• Elements staff personnel, Elements was an avatar board, but is currently revamping, there I am currently staff personnel, which is basically like a mod position, keeping everything in order, and stuff organized, and the staff team is great, especially Kuzco, he’s an awesome guy, and does his job well, I’d definitely recommend taking a look once it opens, be sure to do so! Link can be found here!
• Big Boards! My most favorite board of them all, alright, so today marks a year since I joined, which is like, totally awesome, I managed to rack up 2,500 posts over the year, but not that it really matters. My current job is an Evaluator, it’s basically like a review job, but it’s much more fun with how it’s set out, I love it, it’s also helped me with other jobs I’ve had in past, and current. So now that I’ve made one year at Big Boards, my next year is going to be devoted to helping out Big Boards, but either:
  1. Advertising around board’s that other staff haven’t/don’t.
  2. Posting new discussion topics, debates, and everything to help make the community better.
  3. Helping out with the Archives, if possible.
  4. Testing out codes in the Indexes, and if I can, take screenshots to add to the previews area.
  5. Giving as much support as I can, and be as helpful as possible. Along with this I’m going to try and learn more, so I can help in more areas, and also make it easier for the user I am supporting.
  6. Finishing up my documentations I have in progress, as well as improving them slowly over time.
• BandRPG, BandRPG is currently a work in progress, that most likely won’t be completed for a long time, due to my helper Jayden, not being online much anymore, and also with all the other stuff that will be going on around it. Basically BandRPG is what the name says it is, it’s a music/band RPG, and to put it simply. You register, sign-up your character, which can either be made up, or self-based, you then role play like usual, and also have the option to join others in bands, as well as battle against them.
  Once it’s all worked out, and everything is final and ready to begin, I’m hoping it works well and it can be my first, successful and long lasting board! The board is opened, but not completed, but if you are interested in joining and posting around in the community while stuff is being set up, go for it! The board can be found by clicking this link!

Alright, so that’s all my forums down for now, just to finish off this first entry, heres what you can possibly find in this blog in future:

• Stuff about how school is going, whether I am doing well, if things could be improved, and what I may need to do/sacrifice to improve.
• How life is in general, whether anything important has happened, explaining about it.
• Forum updates, pretty much what it says, I’ll post updates for forums that I visit, whether they be very minor, or huge, you’ll see them.
• Music, you’ll hear about how that is going along, which reminds me, I forgot to explain about that, but maybe next time.

Okay, that’s about it for now, hope you guys enjoyed reading it, if not, send in a complaint and I’ll see what I can do to make it better next time Thanks!