Victory Is Mine!

A couple of victories for me in the past week. Last week I had a pretty important test in my calc class. And I scored 100!! The only thing that is kind of a drag about that incredible score is the fact that it was out of 110 points. Ah well, a 100 is a 100, and it's the first 100 I've scored on a test since the 10th grade, so there. Happy Happy Joy Joy! The class is going great, and I'll be done in a month's time. W00t!

And now victory # 2. I received an email from HP stating that I am eligible for a free repair of the left hinge on my laptop. This hinge has been broken for well over a year now, and it's been a severe pain in the ass trying to open and close this laptop. It's been the only real reason I don't take my laptop out of the house...that and the fact that the battery life is shite. The downside to this is the fact that I have to send in my laptop to HP and have them repair it, which could take up to two weeks between the time I send it off and the time I get it back. That sucks the fat one, but hey, they're going to not only fix the hinge, but they're going to fix the plastic casing that houses the lcd screen since it was damaged by the broken hinge. My lappy will be good as new once again!

The reason it's going to take some time to fix is because there are quite a few people that have the same problem. I knew this from a while back because of so many people on various message boards complaining about the same problem. I figured it would just be a matter of time. HP has finally heeded all the complaints, and for that I say to HP: "Thank you, it's about friggin' time!"

Just to make sure all my important files are safe and secure, I've taken the liberty of backing up all my files. Times like these that make me glad I have two external hard drives.

Time to go to bed, it's 4am, and I have to wake up in about 3 hours.

Pepsi Rant

The following is a response to an article my friend CJ sent me in an email regarding Pepsi's new image overhaul. Here are two articles about Pepsi's image campaign:
http://adage.com/article?article_id=132016
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/pepsi_new_bottles.php
My rant makes references to the first article. So without further interruptions:

Ok, that logo looks like the bastard child of Pac-Man and Barack Obama's campaign logo. These execs were looking for a "quantum leap" in changing Pepsi's image, and I'm not seeing it. "By making the logo more dynamic and more alive ... [it is] absolutely a huge step in the right direction." I'm not sure what Frank Cooper's definition of dynamic is, but that word does not come to mind when looking at the new logo. "Derivative" seems more like the word. I look at that logo, and I'm imagining the creators trying to foresee a future where lower case rounded sans-serif fonts will replace more 20th century modern standard fonts (i.e. Helvetica, which is still EVERYWHERE by the way), and the feeling they're trying to convey with the logo is something similar to the future as told by the "I, Robot" movie that Will Smith was in. If that is the case, I think they looked too far into the future.

The previous Pepsi logos represented the era that they were in at the time, in terms of cultural relevance as well as the advertising trend of that particular time. This new logo seems to defect from the timeline as if it's trying to defy convention. Often times in advertisement that works, but I'm afraid that this might stray a little too far and alienate some people. In the article, Tony Spaeth says "It worries me that it is less durable, less permanent and classic. It comes across as more of a campaign idea than an enduring brand expression." I agree with what he is saying here. The new logo and accompanying typeface doesn't adequately represent Pepsi to me, and I'm sure others will agree. It almost feels as if they'd be changing the Pepsi flavor along with the logo, that's how much of a defection that logo feels to me from the current and previous logos. I hope they don't, I prefer Pepsi over Coke.

</rant>

Good rants like that don't come very often, so I thought this one was worth posting.

Bi-annual Update

Been awhile, yes. Lots going on? You bet. Am I going to touch upon all of them in this post? Ha, you're funny. I'll get to the main points first and then I may divulge in other stuff.

So, when we last left off, my college diploma was in limbo. With .05 grade points separating me from scholastic freedom, I returned to New York very broken and unsure of what I could do. So I said fuck it all and started looking for work. Unfortunately work did not come, and still hasn't. But behold, one day, a cousin of mine called my mother, and they somehow ended up on the subject of my degree status. As it turns out, that particular cousin and her husband are really important people in southern local colleges, so they devised a plan to talk to my school and see if they can work out something that could help me move one step closer to getting my diploma without having to go back to Hartford. A few weeks go by, my cousins and the entire computer science department of the University of Hartford somehow make a deal for me to take one last course at a local school. We all agreed that I would take Calculus I, and I chose the school pending approval from the dean of the Math Dept. I chose CUNY Medgar Evers College because it's the closest school from my house (20 minute walk close!) So all I had to do was get the ok from the dean. His response: "This course is fine. Good luck."

W00ts!

So cut to today. I'm doing well. I've gotten perfect scores on all but one quiz (9 out of 10 points on the quiz, not bad), and on the first test I got an 86! Which interestingly enough was the highest score in the class. I have two more tests and countless other quizzes to go, but As for right now *knock on wood* things are good. Yeehaw!

Hmmm, what else is going on? Ah, yes, I still have no job, so I'm sitting around at home trying to hone my skills in all things computers. I recently put up a web page for my graphics portfolio. I wrote a good portion of it in JavaScript, which is awesome sauce! And I threw in some flash video instead of random downloadable video to make things easy on those with crappy internet connections. I also put together a new animation, somthing I ended up making out of just a random idea I wanted to test out. It's pretty awesome! Go check it out: http://gfx.ccwii.net

Now that I got all that out of the way, expect (maybe) some new posts about stuff on my mind, and many rants to come! As for right now I'm in a daze, because Barack Obama is been elected our future 44th President!!! I am proud of my country, I am proud of my people, I am proud of my generation. I am just damn proud right now.


OBAMAAAAAAAA!!!!