Washington bound!

A lot has happened since that singular post I made last year when I brought my website back online. The biggest thing is that Joe proposed to me in October of last year and of course I said yes.

The other thing is that we made plans to move out to Washington together but we had put it off since it wasn’t feasible for his job at the time. But in July we decided to move by March 2020 and stuck with that goal. It’s been a hectic couple of months but we managed to settle on an apartment in Everett, Washington! I also found a store to transfer to for Starbucks and I’ll remain a shift supervisor there as well, so I’m happy for that.

March 2nd officially be my last day of being an Illinois resident. It’s going to be bittersweet as I have some family out here along with my coworkers and friends. But I’m more excited to move to Washington as I fell in love with Seattle and surrounding areas back in Fall 2018.

Goodbye, Chicago!

Long time no see

This poor website has gone through some intense trials and tribulations. From expired domains to deleted databases to years long hiatuses… At some point I managed to repurchase said expired domains and just sat on them for years but never actually did anything with the websites.

And.. despite deleted databases, when you spend hours going through multiple different backups, you realize you have an old SQL backup which isn’t everything you lost, but most of it.

Which leads me to right here, right now. It’s only a six year old backup but hey look, it’s my own website again!

Razer is great for one product and that’s their Naga

For a couple of years now, I have stayed as far away from Razer products as I could. I had no luck with the Razer Lycosa and the Razer Onza TE was another nightmare. In fact, only Razer product I ever “loyally” used after that fiasco was a basic Razer Lachesis mouse. My keyboard replacement for the Lycosa was a Logitech Illuminated keyboard and the Xbox 360 controller? Never used again (in general)! I stopped playing any console games and actually made the switch to PC gaming. Best decision ever too!

The main title I’ve been playing for the last few years has been an MMORPG called Rift. Actually, it’s weird saying “few years” because it still only feels like I’ve been playing this game for a few months. Anyway, so as my experience grows in the MMO world, I have come to realize relying on just your keyboard for some insane keybinding combinations is really awkward. There’s only so many ways to combine Shift and ALT with letters and numbers. So.. a friend of mine kept telling me that I needed to buy a Razer Naga. The price was the main factor that prevented me from investing in the Naga.

Eventually, I caved in. I bought the Razer Naga and I do not regret it at all. It’s made my gaming and work life much more productive and easier. I admit that I was completely hesitant to drop more money on a Razer product but so far, I am proving myself wrong. They might not have reliable keyboards (at least for the Lycosa series) or controllers, but damn do they make good mice. My Lachesis went through a lot of uh, abuse and usage. My Naga just gets a lot of usage from work and gaming but it’s held up really well. My only qualm? I wish it was a little easier to dismantle to clean it out (on the inside) but I can’t complain.

10/10 – Would buy another Razer Naga

Razer Onza TE and the issues it has

I honestly was hoping I wouldn’t have to write another poor review on a Razer product but unfortunately I feel I have to. I’ve had my Razer Onza Tournament Edition for exactly one month now. I had been looking forward to it since it was announced at 2010’s CES. I pre-ordered it the second it was made available in January, so you can say I was definitely excited for it.

razer onza te

I got used to the controller fairly quick but the first issue that arose from the controller: Serious feedback from any mic being used with it. I tried it out with a pair of Astro A40s, Tritton AX 720s and then just the official Xbox 360 headset. Two of the three had severe feedback–it was bad enough that the feedback would output to people in my XBL party. The Xbox 360 feedback was only audible [to myself] when people were talking. It would pop/crackle when someone started talking and hiss/pop once they stopped talking. It was passive enough that I just did my best to ignore it. It sucked having to stop using headsets I dropped insane money on because of feedback.

That issue started the minute I used the controller unfortunately. If that was the only problem with it, I’d be content and deal with it. But it wasn’t. Two weeks ago both of the analog sticks started to have response issues. I should note that I had absolutely no slowturn issues at all. I ran the test and it passed 100 across the board. The issue I had was that the analog stick would just stop sending out a signal that it was still in use. While I was playing Modern Warfare 2 MP, a perk I often run with is marathon pro. That gives me endless sprint. So all I need to do is push/use the left analog stick and I’m running non-stop. Well, that definitely didn’t happen. I would constantly stop as if some invisible wall was spawned in front of me.

Then when I’d try to sprint again I would only be able to move what can be construed as 2-3 steps before I’d have to let go of the analog stick and then push it forward. This is frustrating because despite unplugging the controller (and eventually restarting my 360 Slim) the issue was still present. So not even 20 minutes later, I started to have issues with the right analog stick. It had the seem lack of response–it would stop accepting that I was moving the analog around and stick to the last position it was in.

Knowing all of the frustration I went through with my Razer Lycosa, I knew that I was not going to live with it and deal with it. I want a controller that works! I love the Onza TE, especially being able to map the buttons AND change the tension for the analog sticks is a GODSEND! The controller is slick, light-weight and response time with the buttons is amazing. I just am not going to use it with the analog stick issues. Whether or not it’s a bad controller or the entire batch, I’m hoping I can get an exchange for the Onza TE as soon as possible.

Going from the Onza TE to my old Xbox wireless controller is brutal!

Super busy the last few months

I have severely neglected my blog again :(. Around the time school started, I picked up another part-time job that is more like full-time and is pretty demanding of mine time. So between school work and work work, I have been absolutely swamped this year. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but I haven’t been able to do any fun coding on my site or work on any of my own projects.

Right now my weekend looks like it will be full of Adobe Flash for my midterm project that’s due Monday and a website for the website competition through JJC which is due by March 11th. Not only that but I also have a client I picked up over the week, so I’ve got his site I need to do. Blargghh, no time for anything anymore.

Either way, I don’t mind it so much but sometimes I feel like I never get ~me~ time anymore to do whatever I want. Perhaps this is what I can use to justify the fact that I want to purchase the Astro A30s for myself. Kind of tired with my current headset and wouldn’t mind having these. I almost bought a new 23″ Acer LED but I stopped myself for some reason. I suppose I felt that since I still have a secondary monitor that’s 19″, that I don’t need the 23″. Pfft.