Asdquefty’s Journal

I bought GTA4 a month ago, pretty much because everyone else did, but after playing ti for a day or two I stopped playing it because it’s just not my type of game. It’s good and everything, but it’s a little frustrating and I wound up running out of money so I can’t buy the equipment I need for the next missions. If anyone has any ideas about how to get money other then the missions, feel free to leave me a comment.

I found out today that George Carlin died on Sunday, June 22, and it’s a real loss to the comedy world. He was the only comedian who I’d watch because he just said what was on his mind without any regard to what others might think. I really enjoyed his work, especially Napalm and Silly Putty, and he’ll be missed. RIP

This is going to be a long one, so bear with me.

It’s hard for a lot of people to imagine what it’s like to grow up with any kind of development, attention, or learning disorder because most people don’t have one and everyone has a hard time appreciating how others people think differently from themselves.

The main experience I’ve had is never really feeling connected to my peers. I’ve been picked on, shunned, ignored, and it happened the whole way through school from kindergarten all the way until grade 12. Hell, I still don’t connect with my peers now that I’m at university, which is what finally got me to get it together and ask for an assesment. I thought going to university would solve all my problems because I could leave all the crap of school behind, which isn’t how life works.

It’s hard because while everyone learned to be social and later got more involved with their peers, dating, parties, and building up good memories of growing up, hanging out with friends, having a first kiss, and all the normal stuff I was pretty much left out. I was and still am way behind my peers in socializing and I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot. None of the memories most people have of being a teenager and having good times.

The flipside of the coin is that I’ve just kinda breezed through school, albeit with average marks because I don’t really care for most of the subjects until I hit some computer programming courses in grade 10 and started getting regular 90s in the subject.

The process of growing up is important and has a lifelong effect on how someone’s character develops. In my case my bad experiences with school growing up is something I have to work through as I frequently experience anxiety, low moods, and often lack the motivation to do anything unless I really push myself or have a genuine interest in the activity. I wish it wasn’t this way, but it’s how life goes when you grow up with a development disorder or learning diability even if you are diagnosed early.

I’m sure anyone who has had a tough childhood can relate to this, and I’ll keep you in my thoughts if you let me know I’m not the only one who had a hard time growing up. Stay strong and take care.

In my travels through Entrecard, I’ve been finding a surprising amount of blogs set out just for making money or telling people how to make money with a blog. I just find it really kind of lame, because they’re all the same and the content has no meat to begin with. It’s not interesting to read and it’s really obvious that it’s just a job. I don’t disagree with making money from a blog or website, but at least have some interesting content or provide some kind of reason to go there other then popping in just to drop Entrecards.

Another thing I ocassionally find on EC is people who put a widget on something other then a blog or forum, which I disagree with because EC is meant for blogs.

I watched a documentary about Aspartame today, and I thought it would be important to share. Just a note, it’s an hour and a half long.

It helps to have a good laugh during a rough time, and I found a comic that makes me laugh:

I’ve been through some unfortunate events recently, and it’s really opened my eyes. I feel like I can confirm to myself that, yes, I have Asperger’s syndrome and there’s no way for me to avoid it, even if I ignore the label.

Of course, when people think of Asperger’s they think of the social impairment, the awkwardness, the special interests, and the repetitive motions and routines. They don’t see the other problems that it encompasses because that part of it is not as well known.

For me, I have problems with identifying and regulating my emotions. I rarely know what mood I’m in or where I’m headed until I get there. Imagine a city where none of the transit buses have signs indicating where they’re going, and you just hop on a bus and hope for the best. When you don’t know where the buses are going, it’s really hard to know which one to take and how to avoid the ones that go to bad places. The only emotion I can know for sure I’m feeling is sadness, because I’ve been there way too much. I’ve been struggling with my emotions a lot, and I don’t have anything in the toolbox that can really help me repair my moods.

Well, there was an Apple conference today and they announced a 3G iPhone and a new service called MobileMe. Nothing else of real significance happened, but the tech sites are working overtime pouring out crap by the truck load because they’re all excited about the new 3G iPhone and all the little detailed.

Everyone, step back for a second: IT”S JUST A CELL PHONE. Sure, it looks all slick, but it’s not that revolutionary and just throws on more features. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a tech guy, but I don’t need to do all kinds of fancy stuff on my cell phone. I make calls and send the odd text message, and I’m quite happy with my Samsung SPH-A920. I feel no need to upgrade my phone at all, because there is nothing wrong with it and I don’t like promoting waste.

Features are great and you feel all wowed when you get a new device, sure, but I don’t want to deal with the results of the features. It’s bad enough I have a cell phone, but it’s necessary because of the decline of payphones, and I don’t use my cell phone that much. My grandpa uses his cell phone more. These new features; whether on the iPhone, Crackberry, or a Palm or WinMo device; just serve to strap us to our jobs and contribute to the whole “go-go-go me-me-me” style of society. When I leave work, I want to leave the thoughts of work at work, period.

I love to program, solve problems, and all that stuff because it’s just so engaging and how I naturally think. I’m an analyzer, a systematizer, a planner. I constantly think about how to fix stuff and make it more efficient. The whole tech-gadget world is a bunch of hoopla to me. I understand it and I’m immersed in it, but it’s wasteful and people are always going for the latest thing. I like to stay a little behind the curve and let others go flying off the diving board, it’s their choice and someone’s gotta do it to help smooth things out.

I refuse to buy the latest and greatest, simply because I don’t need the latest and greatest. I can think of all kinds of amazing tech gear that would be really cool, but there’s not benefit for all that cost. The next thing I plan to buy is a minifridge for my room. I think having cold Pepsi beats a small performance boost on my computer which isn’t even slow by any means.

I’m studying computer science, and I hate all the “buy-buy-buy” hype of the tech media.

My current gear is the following:

1. HP Pavilion A6057C Computer, with a few upgrades: A second DVD burner, a 450 watt power supply, a EVGA GeForce 8500GT, and a boost to 2GB of RAM.
2. Xbox 360 with 20GB hard drive.
3. Samsung Syncmaster 225BW 22″ LCD monitor.
4. Acer AL1716 17″ LCD monitor.
5. HP PSC 1210 Multifunction Printer
6. VTech 2.4GHz Cordless Phone
7. Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick, for MS Flight Sim X. Unfortunately, FSX doesn’t work, thus reminding me why 99% of my gaming is done on the 360.
8. Samsung SPH-A920 registered on Bell Mobility.

Anyway, that’s three posts in one day, so I’m doing well. Take care.

Most of my visitors come from Entrecard, which is no big surprise because I don’t really promote my blog anywhere else. I hope you’re all enjoying my blog and feel free to leave me some comments.

The other not so big source of visitors is searches, usually from Google. I’ve had searches for all kinds of stuff, but the most common one by far is some variation on “Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Terrorist Hunt Help”, so a lot of people must be looking for help with the game if they go far enough into Google’s results to see my post. I’m thinking of writing another post about it soon, so if you think the first post about strategies for the games helped let me know. If you’re stuck on story mode, some of those hints can be applied to story mode if you put some thought into it. I’ll have to think of a few more strategies for Rainbow Six before I make another post about it, I might have a go at pointing out where clusters of enemies spawn because I’ve noticed somewhat of a pattern to it.