BZM's Blog

LeBron Took The Easy Way Out

2010-07-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in the past week, I've been with minimal to no internet while on vacation.

So on Thursday, the spectacle known as LeBron James' free agency came to a close. After 30 minutes of useless analysis from anchors I'm tired of seeing, LeBron finally announced the team he will play for next season
The Miami Heat
Yes, the "worst-case scenario" came true. Wade, Bosh, and James are on a team that will most likely be filled by fans from the stands, based on the amount of cap room the Heat have. LeBron will most likely win a championship in the next 2 years with a team like that. But the whole free agency isn't my problem.
It's LeBron James and his selfishness and massive ego.
In the semifinals of the Eastern Conference this year, LeBron and his Cavaliers were up 2-1 in the series with the Celtics. In game 4, LeBron pulled a move that made realize who LeBron truly is. Rather than continuing to win games in a series I believed they would get through quickly, LeBron decided to "take a break" in Game 4. His team lost. Badly. At this point in the series, the Celtics gained a sort of advantage, and eliminated the Cavs 4-2 on their way to the Finals. LeBron's wish of winning a title was in his hands this year. I believe that the Cavs would have won the Eastern Conference, and may have beaten the Lakers in the Finals.
He threw it away because of his selfish nature.
So LeBron, you may get your title in Miami, don't worry, but you took the easy, pansy route. Rather than try your hardest with the Cavs, you will most likely
half-ass in Miami, but with real, TALENTED, and much better players in Wade and Bosh, you'll get your ring. But it will come with a price. No one will think
of you being the hero of the team, but rather the player that took the easy way out of his own team

Update: 6/26/10

2010-06-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

Here's an update of stuff on June 26, 2010

- So it looks like the US Soccer team lost again in the World Cup to Ghana 2-1. I didn't get to watch a lot of the game, but from what I saw, the team really didn't play like a team in the World Cup. Oh well, there's always 2014.
- England takes on Germany in the Knockout Stage tomorrow. Here's hoping that the Germans can take down the English, since they're the only team in the World Cup I really don't like.
- I've got a 7:00 flight on Monday to New Orleans. Of course, since there's no more SD-NO flights, I have to go through Nashville to get there. The good thing is that I get to spend time with my dad in July.
- My birthday is coming up on the 14th. I can't believe I'm actually going to be 16 (I put 16 in my description since I'm a lot closer to 16 than 15). I still have no idea what I want (kinda want a new PC, but I've already got money saved for that).

So that's all I've got for today. I might post a journal tomorrow, but it'll probably be a post about Paul McCartney's comments, calling people who don't believe in global warming "just like Holocaust deniers."

I Loathe You, Steve Jobs

2010-06-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

So the new iPhone officially released today (despite people getting theirs early in the mail). With the iOS 4 on it and a new design, people have camped out and much more for their new shiny phone. While the product is great and all (iPod Touch/iPhone is really nice), I have one problem with Steve Jobs and Apple:

You release your products WAY too quickly.

Now granted that their typical user of their products is usually seen as some dim-witted media person or a self-absorbed snob pretending to write a novel at the local Starbucks, that doesn't have to be who they market their products for.
A quick story:
- In 2006, I got a 30 GB iPod Video, at that time a high-tier product. Less than a year after, the iPod Touch and iPhone are released. Needless to say, I was angry. So earlier this year, my father, who had gotten a iPhone 3GS in July (top of the line then) gave me his old 2nd Generation iPod Touch (from 2008). When the new iPhone and iOS 4 were announced, I saw that 2nd Gen iPod Touch was supported. I was excited to see that the improvements (custom BG, multitasking) could be felt on my iPod. I later saw the lag and awful rate that 3G, which was released around the same time, had after updating. Filled with rage at how in less than 2 years a product goes from top of the line from unsupported, I now refuse to update my iPod Touch (I don't use my Windows partition much, so that's no problem).

I don't see how Apple can even survive with a plan like this. In a 2 year span an amazing piece of equipment becomes obsolete, not supported in upgrades. I feel sorry for 1st Gen users of iPod Touch/iPhone, since they can't even get an update. 3 years and the device is worthless.
2nd problem: Your computers are COMPLETELY overpriced
Earlier this year, with my trusty 3-year old laptop now on its last legs, I went to Best Buy to shop around for a new computer. I took a peek at the prices of Mac laptops, and saw how expensive they were compared to equal PC laptops. In fact, I just checked again and the 17in. MacBook Pro is $2299, whereas the Dell Studio Laptop sells for $939. Both have 4GB RAM. Both have a 17in. screen. Both have an Intel i5 processor. The Dell has a better graphics card, and has an HDMI output. Will people honestly pay $1300 more for a brand name? Was the Mac vs PC ad campaign that influential? People think that a Mac means that they're free from viruses. It doesn't mean that at all. Those people forget what the point of a virus is. It's targeted at the MAINSTREAM computer (PC/Windows), thus why Macs have less viruses directed at them. I'll give you a top of the line anti-virus for $150(ESET NOD32 for about 5 years, though AVG is free and pretty effective) and a copy of Office for about $200. Hell, I'll even give you Photoshop CS4 and it's still less than a Mac! Are people really this gullible?!

To end this post, I challenge everyone reading to know the facts. Don't be a person influenced by the propaganda machine that is Apple. Would you honestly pay $1300 more on a laptop, just because it has some fancy logo and has a reskinned BSD Linux for an operating system?

Sorry For Lack of Updates

2010-06-22T00:48:00.000-07:00

Sorry for a lack of updates to my blog. It's summer now, and I'm setting a challenge upon myself: to update the blog once or twice a week (like THAT will ever happen), so expect actual post and/or blogs here now.

-Posted from an iPod touch

Journal #1: "What if?"

2010-04-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start to post my daily journal onto my blog. Here is Journal #1:

Sometimes I think about the "what if?"s in life. It's always been a common thought in my mind. Sometimes these ponderings are very simple ones. But more often than not, my "what if?" is a big one:
What if the levees never broke?

 I always think of this before I nod off to sleep. It's amazing how just some slight cutting of corners changed a city forever. For once, the world saw New Orleans as something it could never be imagined as: a damaged city, a wrecked city, a city without life. I may have almost lost a home, but the city almost lost its life. Could you imagine a world without Mardi Gras? To me, the thought is preposterous.
 To move away from the global aspect, the breaking of the levees changed my life forever. Before, I was a foolish child, believing I would always be free and safe. Nothing would ever happen to me. After, I emerged a new person. An event that lasted 2 weeks seemed to age me much longer than that mentally. I saw the atrocities of humanity and how idiocy dooms the world. I learned that I lived in a corrupt city, the government taking money and cops looting stores. To think that the men and women we believe protect us every day can be no better than the lowliest criminal. Another prime example of this is the murders on the Danziger Bridge. Cops killing the innocent, then being able to cover it up for almost 5 years. Even now, it sickens me to think about it.
 Positives can come out of even the worst events. I was able to see my community, which Mayor Nagin wanted to bulldoze and pretend never existed, rebuild itself, without true help from the government. It was a disheartening yet joyful sight. After the storm, I was fortunate enough to adopt a "Katrina stray," whom I named Mushi. He was more than a cat. He stood for the fighting spirit that we should all have. Even to the day he died, he would never give up and never surrender.
 Through a series of events, the storm brought me out here to San Diego. Even though it is not home, it is a wonderful place. Had the storm never hit and the levees never broken, I would have never had the horrid and great events that came from it. I would have never met someone whom I care about so much, even if she doesn't know it ♥

One More Time

2010-02-15T00:17:00.000-08:00

Hmm, the Colts may still have a shot to win. Tracy Porter, do you think they can still win?

...That's what I thought.
So finally, after 43 years of mediocrity and awfulness, the Saints finally get the Vince Lombardi Trophy. I still can't believe that they won. I've watched about 7 replays of the game and don't believe it. I mean good god, I'm wearing a Super Bowl XLIV Champions shirt right now and I still don't believe it. It's because I grew up around the decline of the Dome Patrol, the Mike Ditka seasons, and the 8-8, 7-9, and 3-13 seasons. I never thought it would ever happen in my life. I thought they would forever be out of the hunt for the championship, kind of like the Lions. But thanks to the greatness that is Drew Brees and Sean Payton, we're not only a team with a Super Bowl appearance, we're also one that has the Super Bowl trophy.

...So, I guess I really need to post here now, since I spent time making a banner and such. Hopefully I'll find time to do so

Why Linux is 1 Percent of Computers

2009-10-29T21:47:00.000-07:00

So Ubuntu 9.10 launched today, and it feels like a system meant for non-computer people now more than I've felt it be in the past 4 releases of using it. The Software Center or whatever it was called makes program installs so nice, no pop-up about post-installation man-db's and such.

While reading through comments about your generic "Lol linux sux win7 is better", I came across once again the comment of "If it's so great why is it only ~1% of computers?" Then the thought finally hit me, more than it did in the past year.
Go to Best Buy, Staples, etc. and look around at computers. What do they come loaded with? Windows. Walk down the street. What's that billboard for? Windows. Watch the TV. What's that a for? Windows (or Mac). See a pattern? The reason for all this time that Windows is the majority over Linux is because of marketing (and because you can't really market Linux because it's free).
Imagine if you flipped on the TV, and the first ad you see is for Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, whatever it may be. Would you feel a little want to install it or use it? Maybe. Imagine you walk into Best Buy and every computer comes loaded with Fedora 11 or Ubuntu 9.10. Would you use it? Of course you would, because it's already there.
Those are the reasons why Linux use is so low. There is no multi-million dollar ad campaign behind. Best Buy isn't wanting to put it in the computers because there's no profit in it. They don't get money for it.

(tl;dr Windows is more popular because of large ad campaigns, Linux is free, and because your average Joe doesn't venture from the norm.)

"Racism's Over, RIght Guys?"

2009-09-24T21:53:00.000-07:00

I know the title seems very odd, but just bear with me.
I've just been reading over a commentary article on CNN about how Obama has handled his presidency for this getting closer to November 4th, when he was elected president. I was intrigued at how much the race card has been played over the presidency over the past few months, usually surrounding the health care debate. Here's a few lines from the article:
" Rather than bringing people together, those who run Washington have demeaned Americans for participating in the debate! House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls them un-American. The [resident dismisses their arguments as "bickering". Worst of all, the race card is being played in an attempt to shut down legitimate debate.

While I did not support Rep. Joe Wilson's decision to shout out during the president's address, I was appalled to hear him called a racist for daring to disagree with a black president. I know Joe Wilson. I had the privilege of visiting Iraq and Afghanistan with him. He is no racist."

Back when Obama was running for president, I was on a trip in D.C. with some friends. We got to talking about the election. Every other person in the group seemed to be supporting him. When they asked me who I was supporting, I gladly said "I'm supporting McCain."
To them it seemed to at that point I had put on some sort of Klan paraphernalia. They called me a racist, called me an idiot for supporting him, and said that I hated black people (the group talking to me was 50% black and 50% white).
It seems that many counter arguments from people de-evolved from talking about his "change" that he will bring (Hey guys, newsflash: Change does not always mean good change. Also any new president will bring some sort of change) into playing the race card. If you don't like Obama, you're racist. You don't like what he's doing? You're racist. Don't like his cabinet? You're racist. Don't support government run health care? You're even more racist.
It's 2009, people. This isn't the 70's, 60's, or the damned 50's. It's the 21st century. Hell, it's almost the 10's. I don't wanna sound racist, but don't you think racism has died away, and shouldn't truly be a reason for someone not supporting or liking something? We've elected a black president, we have blacks in many positions in the government and in important jobs. We're not the cross-burning, segregating redneck people that we were when it comes to race. We've become civilized people when it comes to that. And the fact that it becomes a shield behind which the Democrat party comfortably sits is appalling.

I might update this post a bit more tomorrow, it's 10:30 PM and I need some sleep.

Mal Fort

2009-07-09T00:33:00.001-07:00

I would first like to announce that Mario in the Lylat Kingdom is now on deep freeze. It has existed since 2007, and now has somewhat sickened me to see it sit there with so few levels created, not even enough to fully complete the land of Meteo. So yeah, unless something miraculous happens, MITLK is dead.

So now is time to announce a new project: Mal Fort
Mal Fort, meaning Strong Evil (in French), is a hack about the overthrow of the fierce dictator of the land of Maeronia, where this hack takes place.

Right now, I have little to offer storywise, but expect updates on story, and screenshots!

The King of Pop's Dead

2009-06-26T14:35:00.000-07:00

My blog today was just going to be on Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon dying, and how my summer is going. Then I got back back from a hike and checked out #smwc (SMWC's chat room) which had "R.I.P. Michael Jackson" in the topic. I thought it was some joke they did, so I checked out AOL to reassure myself, but I was wrong. The main headline was "Michael Jackson Dies at 50." I was very shocked. So me going to sleep last night consisted of me putting my iPod on and listening to a Michael Jackson album I have on it. This was pretty sad news.
-------------------------------
So...let's get back to being happy. The blog had a slight remake, changing the banner and putting a BG in (though I'll probably integrate my blog with my website, so expect another makeover in a few days).
-------------------------------
My birthday is in a few weeks. I'm so psyched, though I really had no idea what to ask for.

Terinal Tip Of The Week (5/11)

2009-05-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was trying to decide if I should do a recurring blog post every week devoted to some subject, so I guess I'll try an Terminal tip-related post every Monday!

Get all the audio you want off Youtube:

Before you start this trick, you need to download a nifty little script that'll download Youtube videos:
Youtube-dl
Also be sure you have ffmpeg.

First, find the youtube video you want.
For example, let's use this link to the song Americana, by Offspring.

now that we have the video we want, type into terminal

youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU-vs5YtH1Q

this will download the video to your current location (which by default is your home folder)

now that we have it downloaded, now it's time to convert it to an MP3!
Type into terminal:

ffmpeg -i OU-vs5YtH1Q.flv -f mp3 Americana.mp3 (I would personally rename the video to something simpler before converting, like song.flv)

And after all of that, you should have the song you want. I would probably use this to get any good sound bytes I find on Youtube, but I guess that's just me :)

I'm So Very Tired

2009-05-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

I guess I should get in the habit of posting here at least once a week, whether it'd be my random thoughts, hack updates, or just posting for the sake of posting.

I ended up getting AT&T U-Verse set up in my home yesterday, along with upgrading the internet. Took until today until I could get a wireless signal to my room, though...

I never posted about the game systems/games I recently got over spring break and before that, so here it goes:

Over spring break, I went on my usual trip to New Orleans to spend time with my dad, see relatives, etc. My dad and I ended up stopping at the flea market in Harahan, since we needed to kill time before dinner with my bro. I ended up finding an Odyssey2 (wish I could get superscripts on this thing) for aroun $20.00 . The great thing about it from a collector standpoint was the fact that it was still in the original box, styrofoam, everything. It even still had the pamphlets, booklets, and full, in case, games for it. I got it, since I had brought $30.00 with me. That was probably my best investment (this beats out the boxed Master System by a little bit).

Also got a Sega CD for $50.00 at Luna. Still haven't gotten games for it, because all the SCD games at the store sucks.

I guess that'll do it for this blog post. Hopefully the next post is an MitLK update :D

I Should Be Doing English Work Now, But Meh

2009-04-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

I guess I suck for not posting here in a while. School has been such a bitch to my free time, so I'll take some of my English work time to post. It's simple poetry analysis anyway.

I've recently been learning Japanese on my own, with the inspiration of it coming from my friend Mei, who is half Japanese and is always doodling Kanji on her arm (hope she doesn't find this :P).

I realized in speech class how nervous I get in front of ~30 people. I seem to always make pauses.

EDIT ON 5/1: I know I said brb when writing the post, but then after my dinner, I started working on my English homework, which took the rest of the night (not really, I just kept getting distracted).

School today was boring as usual, though I finally got back my results from my persuasive speech in Speech calss. I ended up with an B+, which was a lot better than I expected to do.

Got KSSU, Pokemon Platinum, and Sonic Chronicles last weekend. Haven't gotten a chance to play SC, but I must say, I'm impressed by Platinum. I'm the kind that didn't see any reason to buy Pokemon games after Crystal came out around 2000 (though I got Leaf Green for my 11th birthday, I never played it much). The only thing that actually motivated me to buy Platinum was that it was available at Luna Video Games when I went in, and there was nothing else there to buy, so I got that.

Anyway, I'll probably update this blog more, and give it a less depressing layout :P

Happy New Year, etc.

2009-01-22T21:21:00.001-08:00

Merry new year to everyone! There are just a couple things I wanted to jump into

I'm finally back to my good ol' laptop. The charger for it went out, and I was suck with an older laptop, which I had luckily installed Xubuntu onto the day before the problem started.

Clear Channel, the radio giant, cut 9% of its workforce this week, and San Diego was deeply hurt by it.

The Clear Channel building lost around 50 people from its staff.

Xtra Sports 1360 has 1 person left on its staff
Many other stations lost staff.
Rock 105.3 got hurt pretty bad by it. Jay, the producer, was cut. Boy Blunder/Producer Rick was cut from the station, who had been there since around 2004. The Mikey Show lost 2 of its on-air crew, Sean and Zeth, which really sucks, because I'm a big fan of the show.

Install A Font in Ubuntu Using Terminal

2008-12-13T11:16:00.000-08:00

Just a quick tip to those wanting to install fonts in ubuntu, here's a quick how-to.

1. Open Terminal

2. type sudo cp (path to font, ex. /home/bzm64/desktop/triforce.ttf) /usr/share/fonts/truetype/custom

3. Terminal will prompt for your password. Type it in, and hit enter

4. You're done. Go check to make sure that the font is install at the path you installed it in.

Fox Sucks, Ubuntu switchover, etc.

2008-12-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

To any of those who are eagerly awaiting updates to my blog: get outside a little more.

Completely forgot what I was going to post at first, because I found out that Fox has decided to cancel King of the Hill after 13 grand seasons, to make room for bullshit animated shows: ex. The Cleveland Show.
gg Fox, you lost a lot of viewers.

Also I got tired of using Vista, so I switched over Ubuntu 8.10, which is pure awesome.

[url=http://i34.tinypic.com/ok8rxy.png]Here's a screenshot of my desktop[/url]

I guess I'll try to update this thing a bit more (when was the last post, September?)

ExGFX + Custom Block = SMB1 #-# Screen

2008-09-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

About a few days ago, I went through some of the old rom hacks I did for Super Mario World. One of them was a SMB1 remake with SMW GFX. Then an idea popped into my head: "Why not try to make the preview screen before a level like in SMB1?" I worked on it the past few days and, as the picure above shows, was actually quite successful. Pressing any button brings you to a remake of 1-4, including a block that when you touch it, the boss music starts (bet you know where that goes in the level ;) ). I'm not looking for this to be the epic remake of the year, since the last good SMB1 remake for SMW was SMBDX by peter_ac.

3 Years, Really?

2008-08-29T23:29:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, today is August 29th, and is the 3 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall in Louisiana. In the free time I had today, I looked back at the past three years to see how much has changed. Many businesses I remembered (Canal Blvd. Super Market is my most memorable) are now gone, with no chances of coming back. People I knew have moved to places such as Texas or Baton Rouge. And most importantly, [i]I[/i] have moved, from New Orleans to San Diego.

I'll post later about Gustov and such, but I have to get to sleep. The LSU game tomorrow has been moved to 8:00 A.M. PST, and I don't want to mis that ;).

I'm Bored

2008-08-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

So, I moved in about a week ago. I didn't get a chance to post until now because I was at Disneyland. Just a tip, NEVER try to keep your head forward on California Screamin', you WILL regret it D:. I've unpacked all of my game systems (about 20 systems), and I decided to see how many games I had. I have...150 video games, worth a little more than $7,000. I was completely shocked it was worth that much. I'm wondering how much E.T. for the Atari 2600 added to it.

Link to Gamespot account with names of games I have:

http://www.gamespot.com/users/BetaZeldaman/games_table?mode=own

Moving Day 24 Hours Away

2008-07-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that I am actually moving from New Orleans to San Diego, California. Not as I had hoped for most of my life, but San Diego is a good city. My cat and turtle are already over there (cat is actually on a special flight over there right now). Tonight is mostly packing a few suitcases of things to bring with us on the flight tomorrow.

There are a few things I have to say that I'll miss about New Orleans. The first thing is my home. I have lived here all of my life. I'll also miss my high school. I was going into my freshman year there, which is kind of my second year of high school. I'll also miss my friends, like Ryan, Rodger, Brandt, Rafael, Tucker, and Trac. I've known all of them (except for Rafael and Trac) since 5th grade.

So, wih that, I'm back to packing. I'll update this tomorrow when I get to San Diego ;)

Introductions

2008-07-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

So, I decided to make a blog.

I'm BZM, or Scott to my friends. I'm 14 and from New Orleans. I have quite a few talents. I play the saxophone, keyboard (piano), and guitar. I'm very interested in computers and programming. And I'm a hacker. Not the "I'll steal your passwords and destroy everything" hacker, the "I'm going to modify (blank) game with (blank)" hacker. I started around April 2007, when I joined Zelda's Secret Ocarina (better known as ZSO), an Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask modification site. Around May 2007, someone there showed a Super Mario World hack he did. I decided I wanted to hack SMW. I joined the site SMW Central around June/July 2007. Now, I don't hack OoT or MM much anymore (much to the dissapointment of those that wanted me to finish my MM hack :P), but I still hack SMW.

I'll post anything going on in my life here.