I just got back from my annual family beach trip to North Carolina, where we go to deep sea fish, surf, tan, drink, and swim.  It’s always a blast, and I love it there.  Topsail Island has never been a huge tourist spot, so it’s usually just locals and a bunch of families from around North Carolina.  The beaches are beautiful, the sand dunes sport hidden sand dollars and conc shells, and the beach houses are always decorated incredibly cute. <3

I went searching online for the history of this island, because I once found something similar to an arrowhead, and there are these strange lookout towers all around the island.  I also wondered, where did Topsail Island get it’s name?

Well, I found the answers:

Lying on the eastern coastline of North Carolina, perfectly set within thirty minutes in either direction to Jacksonville and Wilmington, it’s been said that Topsail achieved it’s name from a rather unique source, pirates. Blackbeard himself was rumored to roam the island, making his way to Ocracoke. As ships would pass offshore, the tall pirate ship’s masts could be seen in the distance, thus the name of Top-sail, (pronounced Top-sul by most). Of course, this is part of the mysterious legend of the island.

When the high sails could be seen waving in the distance, oncoming ships quickly turned around to flee from a possible confrontation. Not many wanted to come face-to-face with savage pirates, especially if they thought it was Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

…

Another significant piece of history for Topsail Island was the Tucscarora Indians. The evidence of prehistoric Indian villages and artifacts date back thousands of years. In the 1700s, they were known to have made hunting trips to Topsail Island. You can still find arrowheads made by the Tucscarora Indians all over the island.

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The U.S. Navy picked Topsail, particularly the Topsail Beach area, as their site for Operation Bumblebee. The Holly Ridge area housed Camp Davis, which literally led to a somewhat short-lived boomtown scenario. During Operation Bumblebee, nearly 200 experimental missiles were launched down the island resulting in the ramjet engine, which eventually allowed aircraft to push past the speed of sound.

Incidentally, Operation Bumblebee got it’s name from just that, the flight of the bumblebee. According to the aerodynamic experts, because of it’s structure, the bumblebee should not be able to fly. Of course, the bumblebee doesn’t know this and flies anyway. Such was the case of the experimental missiles.

There are many observation towers, which were used to track the missiles during flight. These are the small, three story block structures you see found scattered around the island. Some have been refurbished and one has even been added to a home in the Topsail Beach area. That one in particular was kept authentic with little remodeling in order to keep the integrity of the past.

I find all this rather interesting, specially since I’ve spent around 20 weeks throughout the years at this awesome place.

I played a really fun game the other night that I’d like to share because it’s a little addicting in that fun team player way

Synergy co-op Mode gives us an amazingly fun mod called Synergy.  You can use this mod for Half-Life 2, ep. 1, and ep. 2. To install it, you basically have to have the Half-Life games, with the SDK Source installed.  You then run the synergy installation and it’s all set!  Synergy mod even shows up as an independent game in X-fire.  It’s pretty cool

There’s a few kinks I found while playing the game with 2 other people.  There are a few places where the game skips (just a few puzzles, the end of a level, etc..). Another thing is the Half-Life games were obviously made for one player mode, and when you have multiplayer- it gets a little easy.

But it’s frackin TOTALLY RAD to run into a level with a team and take it out in minutes~!! omg!  Play it!!  It’s really fun to go through the Half-Life games on multiplayer!!!

Firefox 3 finally came out of Beta and into everyone’s home computers a few days ago.  Mozilla wanted to make a Guiness World Record of over a million downloads of their program. I was one of the many who helped Mozilla make that goal by downloading on Firefox Download Day!

What I like:  Firefox 3 is pretty. The toolbars are pretty much the same, with minor changes. If you start to type in a link that is close to one of your bookmarks, firefox will pull up that bookmark and you can easily jump to that page without having to type in the entire link address.

Also, there is a simple bookmark star inside the address bar so you can click and save in as few as one click!

I havent seen many other differences between FF2 and FF3, so it’s still just as easy to use. :)  And if you downloaded on download day, you get this cute little certificate of thanks!  Teehee!  Check out mine!

As you all know, I recently moved in with my liek, rad bf. We had to sacrafice a few things already, just so two people could comfortably live in the same room together. We bought this little desk, and modified it to our needs. With that said, I now have dual monitors instead of just the one, and I also have a new Radeon X1900 video card.

I have to say having dual monitors is a really REALLY nice thing. It’s much easier to organize and multitask. I can watch a  movie on fullscreen and browse the web at the same time, or play a video game and chat in IRC side by side. The only downfall- video’s run best on the primary monitor than the secondary, and if you want to go dual- get the same kind of monitors. One of mine isn’t as bright as the other. It’s also a bit blurred which is a little bothersome…

After reformatting my computer, deleting a bunch of crap, and upgrading to this new hardware plus some new software… My computer is FINALLY running like new. I’ve been able to install all my games at the highest resolution and they run beautifully, without any rips or tears in the maps. I can’t wait to get my pwnage on!

Yay!  Another game review!  So I’ve been playing a really cute game called Pokemon Ranger on DS.  For all of you that are going lol n00b, I pwn you on UT…  well, I play fps too, but at the moment, my computer doesn’t have a video card inside it.  So I’m going down the line of hundreds of DS games I have and playin them all.

Pokemon Ranger DS is about your quest to become a great pokemon ranger.  You travel from village to village and are given missions from the senior rangers to help citizens and get to a higher level.  These bad guys called the Go-Rock Squad end up stealing special equipment from the good guy pokemon rangers team, and they use this to capture pokemon for their evil deeds.

The world you play PR in is pretty small.  You get to choose between a male or female character and name them as you want.  My characters name was Snubs (go figure).  Capturing pokemon is fun.  Now, you don’t throw them in a Pokeball and battle other characters.  You capture wild pokemon, they follow you around as you travel, then you use them once and they are freed.  Of course, you can capture them again if you want.  You can talk to all the characters in the game, and their conversations give me the idea this game is made for children and teens.

Leveling up is probably the main reason I’m still playing this.  I was able to get through the game in about 3-4 days, and every time I leveled up, I wanted to get to the next level.  :P  You also can get up to a Rank 10 in the game as a pokemone ranger.

My least favorite part about the game is the cut scenes.  The chat bubbles are slow (even on the fastest speed), and if something is happening that requires a part of the plot, you dont have the choice to skip.  This is annoying if you fail a mission and have to restart.  You have to sit through all the information again…

I’d give this game a 7 / 10.  All around a fun, cute game.  It’s easy to pass the time with Pokemon Ranger DS, and it’s a bit different from other pokemon games.  I wish I could skip cut scenes and I wish the game was longer. 

If you’ve ever moved across the country, you know what I’m talking about.  Moving is a huge stress.  Not only do you have to change your address for EVERYTHING (i.e., your bills, the postal service, even your job so you can file your taxes next year…), but you also have to pay lots of money for gas, try to fit all your belongings into a car, and say goodbye to all your close friends.  At least, thats what I had to do, and is it worth it?  Oh yea, totally

I just moved to Virginia, USA.  And I love it.  The weather is hot, it’s sunny all the time, and they dont get a lot of rain.  Of course, I haven’t sat through my first hurricane yet…  Everyone is very friendly, and there are a LOT less bible beaters on the east coast than my hometown in Missouri, USA.  It’s a bit of a culture shock, but since I’ve been to North Carolina to visit the family every summer, it’s not too hard to get used to.

Anyone watch Diggnation?  Revision3?  Darren and I just got back from a trip to New York City.  NYC is so expensive!  Gas is almost $4.50  up there, and the cost of a shitty hotel is at least $100/ night.  The show was hilarious.  Darren pushed me into going on stage to be a shot girl for Kevin and Alex..  Everyone there was very nice and welcoming to our little crew.  Needless to say, I can’t wait to visit the Rev3 crew

Oh, one last thing.  BARACK THE VOTE!

インターステラ5555 is an animated movie that goes along with the Daft Punk album Discovery.  From start to finish, there’s no dialog, few sound effects, and tons and tons of hot spicy Daft Punk dance mixes to keep you bobbing your head for an hour straight.  Since the animator Matsumoto of Galaxy Express 999 fame created this movie along with the production being overlooked by the Daft Punk band, needless to say it’s an amazing feat.  Interstella 5555 came out in 2003 and is definetly one of my favorite music videos :D  Go wiki it and read more, if you like anime or Daft Punk, you’ll like this film.

In other news, I GRADUATED!!!!!!! I finally graduated college and I’m moving in with my boyfriend.  Wow!!!  A year ago, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be in the shoes I’m in now.  This is a new chapter in my life and I’m so excited to share it with you all

I’m graduating college on Friday, and the closer it gets, the more I keep thinking about the past four years.

So much has changed.

I’m a completely different person than I was four years ago. I’ve learned how to protect myself from theiving roommates, I’ve learned that the internet is full of fraud, and I’ve learned that I LOVE technology. Of course, I knew this to begin with, but over the past four years I’m learning much more about myself than I’d ever thought possible. I’ve learned that I have more friends online than I do in real life. TV is a black hole that turns you into a potato, while IPTV gives you so much knowledge and creativity.

As I graduate my four years of college, I’ve started thinking to myself, ‘did I do everything I wanted to?’ Definetly not. I worked my ass off straight through. I’ve become a solid assistant manager at my job that I just quit (Cuz i’m moving!!), and I’ve learned that I love hiring and training! I wish I would’ve gotten the chance to meet people, join clubs, go to more events…

My major was a joke. Really! When I was a freshmen, I was pushed into graduating in four years to help me from being in debt after graduation. I think choosing a major your freshmen year is too soon. I was young, I had no clue what I wanted to do, and I don’t think I chose the right major. Sadly, I was four years too late.

So now I’m considering maybe taking a year off to save up, and go back to school in something that I love. Or maybe I’ll just become a famous IPTV star and live off the income. LOL

I want to learn more about computers. I want to help people build their computers. I want to test video games and do reviews. I want a job surrounded by tech. I know how weird it is for a girl to say that but, you know what? I don’t care what other people think of me. I am so perfectly happy when I’m playing a game or working on something tech related that I can’t imagine doing anything else as a career.

When I was in high school, I wanted to become an actress. I still have that dream. Now, I want to geek out. So whats the solution to this? Who knows? It’s never too late to figure it all out.

Life; It’s so complicated.

Mario Kart Wii

It’s a really fun game.  I definetly spent a good afternoon playing Mario Kart Wii with DK while he was visiting.  It’s the perfect game to just play circuit after circuit with a friend and pass the controller back and forth.  I think the races are a little easy.  We were able to unlock all the circuits in no time, getting first place in all but… I think 3 races.  Of course, the feeling of acheivement was great!  Everytime we unlocked a new car/character/racetrack, I got so excited!!  I wanted to keep playing all night!

Mario Kart Wii comes with a new nifty little wheel that you can set your Wiimote in, to ‘drive’ during the game.  We found the wheel to be incredibly stupid, and I tried various ways of playing.  Because the game is on Wii, you have the choice of playing with the wheel, wiimote, classic controller, etc.  I chose the classic controller and found it to be the easiest by far.  It’s just like playing the old school games from the old consoles.

The graphics are well done.  The edges around some characters and tracks are rough, but the coloring and scenery of racetracks from old games is pure awesomeness.  Nintendo kept some of the older racetracks!!  There are also quite a few new racetracks too, and I have to say, I love the new Rainbow Road.  It’s so colorful and pretty and ghey! lol

The music kicks ass.  Whenever you change menues, the music follows you.  It doesnt change songs, but changes the mood of the same track by just a bit.  It’s really cool! Hey! Listen!

The only issue I had with gameplay was that anytime you get hit by something, it seems like things pile up on you.  For example, if I got hit with a red shell, as soon as I get hit, I also get hit with a blue shell, a squid, a green shell, and I get run over by Bowser.  It happened to computer characters as well.  I’d hit them, and they’d get hit a few more times by other people.  It’s annoying!

All in all, great video game.  It’s perfect for families, parties, etc.  There isn’t any violence at all. It’s so fun!!  Even Molly Wood likes it. 

So I recently got a Palm Centro on AT&T and decided to write up a little review of my own on my new cell phone.

First off, the phone itself: My phone costed $200 with a $100 mail in rebate thru AT&T. Does anyone else hate mail in rebates? They’re somewhat retarded in my opinion. Obviously, I’m giving AT&T tons of money as it is already, seeing that I just renewed my contract with them. Hopefully my world will still be delivered when I move to Williamsburg Virginia, and I won’t have dropped calls that they insist do not happen often. The Centro is a pretty cheap phone for all of the amazing gadgets that come along with it. This is my first smart phone, so I was a little lost at first… I decided to do the geeky thing and actually go through the tutorial and read the handbook. Everything seemed pretty easy to do.

Although, I did have a rough time at first. I started out with a different palm centro. With my first one, I had downloaded hotsync and synced my phone with my computer. Luckily, all my contacts were saved onto my computer after I moved them to my phone from my sim card. A day later, my Centro continuously tried to HotSync even though my comp wasn’t hooked up to it. Weird, eh? After Darren did some very helpful research, I discovered this was very rare, but it’s happened before. I simply went in the next day and traded it in for one that works. This time, I didn’t set up HotSync. In fact, I didn’t even unwrap the USB cable for the phone. Evilness. So now all my contacts are gone, but still saved on my computer. I’m adding them in as I need them.

Buttons: I love the buttons on this phone. Once I started to do some SMS on the new Qwerty keyboard, I got used to it pretty fast. The buttons on the keyboard are a little small, but perfect for a girl with nails, like me. You can personalize the keys as much as you want! I took Darren’s advice and stuck the camera to the side button, and changed my main buttons to whatever I use the most. The camera looks great.. It takes about 3-4 seconds to run the camera.

One of my favorite parts of this phone is the ringer/vibrate switch. Since I have classes, I love the fact I can just switch a button to turn off the ringer. It’s easy.

Centro’s also can take micro-SD cards. Luckily, I had one from my handy dandy mod chip for DS, so I simply stuck some songs/pix on there, stuck it in the phone… oh yea, this was the aggrivating part. It took FOREVER to figure out how to copy those songs/pix onto my phone to use as ringtones/wallpapers, respectively. You have to go into the Web app, and link to the file, then save it as a ringtone, image, etc… It takes way too long to add pictures and songs to the phone…

I love the firmware. Palm is so user friendly. Everything you need is at your fingertips. Each menu item has a cute lil picture to help you figure out what it is. Each application has information available, and each menu page has helpful tools to guide you through your first time with the system.

I love the schedule/calendar. It’s so helpful. I found an easy way to set alarms by setting a calendar event and telling the phone how soon I want an customizable alarm to go off. All in all, great operating system, and great hardware. It’s so cute. Everyone I’ve shown my new phone to loves it. It just looks techy and geeky, and perfect

But one of the downfalls is the battery life. I read some reviews online before buying my phone and everyone said battery life isn’t that great. I can usually have mine last about 3 days, then I have to charge it. My old phone could run 5-6 days without a charge, so this is a little annoying for me…

All in all, I’d give the Palm an 8/10. I LOVE IT! It’s not perfect, it has flaws, and it takes some getting used to, specially if it’s your first smart phone. But the device is very user friendly and incredibly customizable. And I love it

P.S. I’m on twitter!  Follow me!