Come visit me on DA!

I wonder if javascript will work in the regular posts... Let's try this.

I guess not.



Ah, still. Moving on.

Deviantart is an online art community where people from all over the world gather to show off their art and look for inspiration in the art of others. There are some absolutely amazing artists on here. It's a great place to be whether you're just starting out, or you're an established artist who is seeking to get your name out there.

People on Deviantart offer support and encouragement for each other. I have become a better artist simply because I have a group of people who are constantly encouraging me and pushing me to try harder. If you're ever in need of inspiration, browse through the millions of incredible art on this site. It's not limited to drawings - there is everything from paintings (digital and traditional), photography, website layouts, even textiles and jewelery!

And come visit me on DevArt, if you're passing by.

The Soundtrack of my Life

I didn't want to spam my xanga... I do this too much on it. So here's something so I'm not neglecting blogspot.


So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie.

Opening Credits: Nothing in My Way - Keane

Waking Up: Paralyzed - The Used (Ahaha. I am. 8D )

First Day At School: Monkey Punk - Big Idea (LOL! It's.. mischevous, so I guess it suits it somewhat. And school's like a zoo. : D)

Falling In Love: I Hate Myself for Losing You - Kelly Clarkson (Oh no! That's depressing.)

Fight Song: Satellite - Anna Nalick (That's not much of a fight song... )

Breaking Up: Blue and Yellow - The Used (I love this song so much. It can make sense if you look at it in a certain way.)

Prom: Bother - Stone Sour (What!? D: SO depressing. I didn't even go to prom.)

Life: With Me Tonight - The Used (Awww)

Mental Breakdown: Consider This - Anna Nalick (It works)

Driving Far Away: For Amelie - Leaves Eyes (It's a.. drifty song. I can see it fitting too)

Flashback: Gone So Young - Amber Pacific (So perfect. D: )

Wedding: Sad Story - Plain White T's (LOL It's the exact opposite: "This is the end of a really sad story, but don't feel bad for me, I started out alone and in the end that's where I'll be.")

Birth of Child: When the Love Falls - Yiruma (Awwr.)

Final Battle: A Ghost Between Us - Lacuna Coil and Nightwish (It's perfect battle music)

Death Scene: Passing By - Yiruma (This is so absolutely perfect... such a sad piano song...)

Funeral Song: Love Like Winter - AFI (Urk?)

End Credit: Run - Snow Patrol ("Light up, light up, as if you have no choice, even if you cannot hear my voice, I'll be right beside you dear...")

Killing me softly

I've been working insane extra hours. I've been at the museum since Saturday, every day, morning to evening. I have one day's break tomorrow, then it's back to work Friday through Sunday. I wish I had something more productive to say here, but I'm so tired... I'm hungry and ready to pass out. Hopefully I'll manage to grab some food before doing the latter.

Free Online Games (MMORPGs)

There are a lot of free online games out there, if you know where to look. Here are just a few the I know and like:

- Nexon - This is a link to three games: Maple Story, Audition, and Kart Rider. I've only played Maple Story and Audition, so you'd have to find out about Kart Rider yourselves. Maple Story is a 2D RPG type game where you do quests and level up. It's fun to play for a while, if somewhat repetitive after a while. Audition is a "dance" game - like DDR but for your fingers. This is challenging, and again, entertaining only for a while until if gets repetitive. Still, together, these games make a great way to pass the time when you have nothing else to do.
- Adventure Quest - To read about this game, check out this articlt. In short, though, the official website describes it well: Fight creatures to earn magical weapons and armor. Includes message board, chat, and top scores.
- Fly For Fun - Honestly, I've never played this and I don't think my computer could handle it. However, I've heard only good things about it. It's another leveling up game. If you're interested, give the site a look.
- Tales of Pirates - This game has a very interesting feature: you get to build and level up a ship. It is a 3D MMORPG, and there are often events going on at different times of the day.
- Runescape - Ok I HAVE to include this. This game has been around forever as far as I know. It lags me too much so I've never played it for too long, but if it's hung around for this long, it must be doing something right.
- Gunz - As far as I know, Gunz is and always has been free, but it seems to be in some sort of Beta testing at the moment. Anyway, Gunz is a game about... well... guns. Think Counter Strike meets an action anime or movie. It does get repetitive too, but it's very fun and addictive once you get into it.
- Hero Online - Hero Online is a bit like... a simplified version of World of Warcraft. The graphics and quests are not as developed, but the idea is the same. If you like WoW, Hero might be a cheaper alternative.
- Guildwars - Even though this game is free to play, you do need to buy it. However, it's a great deal and it's a beautiful and well developed game where you can make many friends, so I figured I'd include it. If you're willing to spend a little, get this game. It's worth it.
- Monster and Me - ...is a pet raising game? I just stumbled upon the site and I have to admit I'm definitely intrigued. I can't find the system requirements anywhere though... I probably can't play it thanks to this old computer. Oh well. It looks interesting though.

I could go on with the list, but this is about all the games I've played or heard about from "knowledgeable" sources. Enjoy!

AC Rant and 3 Best Free Radio Stations Online.

It seems that Associated Content is getting more and more picky about the content they publish. A completely humorous and pointless article about pigeons was published, while an article about online radio stations was turned down for not being original enough. Although you now get paid for pageviews, the amount they pay you per article has been drastically reduced. Oh well. I submitted my article as a non-exclusive, unpaid submission... so here it is for everyone else to enjoy. Or read it on AC HERE.


Are you tired of commercials that seem to have taken over your favorite radio station? Do you turn down the volume every time a song you don't like comes on? Would you like more control over what your radio plays? Or maybe you simply don't have access to a radio at work, and are in need of some constant good music to get you through the day.

Whatever you're looking for, I've found it. Once in a while, I get tired of regular radio stations, and go scouting the internet for something different. These are the three best sources of customizable music I've found online.

One dot fm (1.fm) - One dot fm has every possible genre you can think of. Choose from indie, country, dance, alternative, and so much more. 1 dot fm is a streaming online radio. You pick a station and get songs of that genre playing for as long as you want. Every three songs or so, there is a short commercial (less than half a minute), and then it's right back to the music. There are different stations for different bandwidths available (128k, 32k, etc) for those with slower connections. I have DSL, so I have no problems with the buffering. A warning though, if you have a slow connection, the buffering might break up the song too much and get annoying.

Pandora - I have written an entire article about this station before (in this article), and it's still one of my favorites. This website allows you to find new music that fits your style. I discovered a lot of my favorite bands through it. Although you can't go back to any songs, you can skip songs, mark them as ones you like or dislike, and browse the names, bands, and CD the song is on of all the songs that have played already. The design is slick and lags my slow computer a little, but not enough to bother me. It's a great source of new music.

Imeem - Imeem allows you to create playlists online using songs thatyou and other people have uploaded. You can listen to other people's playlists and favorite them for future listening. Here you are in complete control. You can pause, rewind, skip songs, whatever you choose to do. If you know what you want on your playlist, just search for it and add it. If you want to find new songs to listen to of a certain genre, simply look through other people's playlists. Many times, people like to make lists of similar songs together. Recently, however, Imeem has started cutitng certain songs into 30 second previews, to urge their download through itunes. This has discouraged many Imeem users. I still recommend this site, though. There are plenty of things to listen to. And if you like a preview, you can just get the song or cd itself. I hope you like these music sites online. Personally, I love not having to listen to people banter on about things I don't care about. When I turn on the radio, I want to hear music. So now instead of turning to my boombox, I just click onto Pandora and know that I can expect hours of the kind of music that I like.

A List of Free Sheet Music Online!

I play the violin, and I'm always on the lookout for free or affordable sheet music on the net. Usually, I just go to Central Library in Brooklyn, but it doesn't always have what I'm looking for. I've searched for a good list of free sheet music, too, but I have yet to find a recent ones whose links are actually still working. So here is my own list of websites that offer either free or very cheap sheet music. I only focus on violin and piano notes, but many of these websites do offer notes for other instruments.

- Everynote - This is the only fully paid site that I will list here. I include it because it's so cheap, easy to use, and quick. Why spend $30 on a book that will take 4 weeks to get to you if you can just dish out $2 (through paypal!) and have your music immediately? Give this site a look if you're searching for something specific.
- Music-scores - A decent selection of classical music for many instruments. Some of the more difficult pieces require a paid membership to the site, though, and I believe that there's a 3 download per day limit.
- Free-scores - A fantastic source of classical sheet music (including ensembles and chamber music). This site is a little less organized than the others, and it's a little harder to find things on it unless you know exactly what you're looking for. Nevertheless, it has SO much music.
- Music notes - Another nice site that has the option of membership.
- 8notes - Pretty much the same as the above two.
- My-piano - An amazing collection of modern pop and rock (among other genres) music notes. If you play the piano... give this a look! There is SO much stuff here.
- Evil_chocnut - Another great site with modern piano music. There are over 100 songs here, some of which are not on the my-piano site.
- Words & Music - Even more modern piano music that is not on the other two sites. This one is unique in that this music appears to have been transcribed by the creator of the site (who did an amazing job at it).
- The Final Fantasy Shrine - Sheet music from the official piano music books for te Final Fantasy books. There are some beautiful and challenging pieces here, so even if you're not a ff fan, don't miss out.
- Josh's Anime Sheet Music - The most complete list of links and sheet music resources for anime music, listed and organized alphabetically. So much work must have gone into the making of this site! I would list other anime sheet music sites, but they are all pretty much on here. So give it a look if you like anime music, or if you're just looking for some beautiful music - there are a few real gems out there.

I hope this helps someone out there!

Tornado in NY?

Apparantly a part of Brooklyn was hit by a tornado last night (while all of NYC and this area was hit by a huge and violent storm). Yes I do live in Brooklyn. The neighborhood that was hit hardest is very close to me. Roofs torn off, trees uprooted, the whole works.

I woke up while it was at its worst, it was pretty scary.

Mass transit was messed up... I pity those who had to go to work. MTA spokespeople actually said that if you haven't left home..... don't. There are something like 30 subway lines in NYC... 17 of them were either severely delayed or completely not working. The 1, 2, 3, A, B, D, R, and every other possible letter you can think of. Jeez.

In other news, I have an article about how to save money and time in the American Museum of Natural History written up... just need to type it (as always). When I do, I'll link to it here. And I will get around to the sheet music thing too, I just haven't had a moment to myself.

Vacation Blues and Amazing Webcomics

Why haven't I been blogging? I'll tell you why. You know how when you go on vacation, everything that can possibly go wrong... does? My guy and I went to his cousin's place in Virginia for a couple of days. We'd been really looking forward to it all month. We hopped on the greyhound bus and rode for 4 hours... got there without a problem, at 11 PM. We spent all of the next day at the pool, thinking we'd go sightsee Washington DC the next day.

The next morning his cousin wakes us up at 7 in the morning. My boyfriend's dad is at the hospital. He needs a quintuple bipass surgery.

I didn't even know they went up that high. Well we drove back that morning and spent all day in the hospital, and much of the next day. His dad is better now, he's been moved out of the ICU and into a normal recovery room. I think he was the money maker in the house though, so I don't know how they'll get by until he's back on his feet again.

So yeah. That always happens, doesn't it? ALWAYS on a vacation. I'm just glad he's okay.


And now, here is a list of some GREAT webcomics that I read regularly:

- Girls With Slingshots - Two girls, a bar, and a talking cactus. Updates 5 days a week.
- No Pink Ponies - No Pink Ponies. Updates randomly at the moment, it seems.
- Candi - Aww it doesn't have a "motto." But it's a great comic. Updates Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri.
- Noses Optional - Sometimes truth IS stranger than fiction. Updates Mondays.
- Count Your Sheep - More than cute. Updates... it doesn't say. Something like almost every day?
- Saint Peter's Cross - This doesn't have a slogan of any type either, but it's a very intriguing though somewhat dark webcomic about demons like you've never seen them before. Updates weekly, at the moment.
- Copper - Again, no slogan. I love looking at the comics here, they're so... different. Copper is currently on hiatus while the artist works on another project, but this I keep coming back to look at the same pages over and over so I decided it needed a mention.


I purposely didn't include much of a description of these comics. Click around - you might stumble upon something you like.


May all your vacations be an escape from life... instead of a hard fall back into it.

Dreams

I haven't been home in too long. Tomorrow I'm off to Queens, then Atlantic City for Thurs and Friday. 31-3 I'm heading for VA to relax a bit (though I know I'll end up getting even more tired than I would just staying here).

I haven't been keeping up with my blog, but I've been writing a bit. So here's a random bit that I just wrote.

You can tell a lot about a person just by looking at him. You can tell the superficial facts – his hair color, his height – and from those deduce the less obvious – his age, his weight. Most of the time you catch glimpses into his memories, into whether life has treated him kindly or dragged him around in the mud. You can tell his temperament by his laugh lines – or absense of – and by how often he smiles. Sometimes, if you’re good, you can tell the more intimate details: whether he’s a liar or a player, or an honest man who will never get far in life by being honest, but continues to be so.

But the one thing you can never see, no matter how hard you search, are his dreams.

No one can guess the dreams that invade us when we’re fast asleep. Sometimes the secrets our minds tell in the dark are obscured even from us. Imagine how much more we’d know about ourselves if we could remember every dream that visited us over the span of a lifetime. A dream can tell you more about a person than anything you can see or smell or remember – because dreams are not lived, and they are not remembered. It’s different.

In my dreams, I am always the hunted.

In my dreams, someone is always chasing me, always trying to hunt me down and kill me.

Just like that.

There’s never a reason, just a man (and it’s always a man) and a weapon. The weapon varies – sometimes it’s a gun, sometimes a knife. Once it was a candlestick (“Mr. Blue killed Mr. Sapphire in the Kitchen with the Candlestick”).

He never catches me, but I never get away, either. I awake from the dreams as I enter them – in the constant and neverending state of being persecuted. Sometimes I find shelter. Other times I run straight out into the morning, where it takes me a moment to realize that I am no longer dreaming as I blink away reality, getting my eyes accustomed to it.

And I am never scared.

They are not tangible dreams, the kind where you know you’re dreaming. They are the real, you-are-here dreams, where every moment is as real as the bed you lay in. Yet I still feel no fear. I run up hills and down ravines, through empty and crowded streets, up and down spiraling and decrepid staircases – all the while being chased by a man and a weapon – and I feel no fear. While I know I should fear for my life, all I can think is “not again.”

When I awake, I forget the dreams until later in the day, when they come back to me slowly, bit by bit, at the most unusual times. At work I will glimpse a portion of the stairs where I had earlier been clambering on all fours. I will stop short in the middle of a sentence, prickling with the sudden feeling of being watched, and the equally sudden reflex to run away. In the midst of making love I will hear gunshots.

He never catches me, though.

Dreams can tell you so much about a person. You can’t tell a dream by seeing a person, but you can tell a person by seeing their dream.

In my dreams, I am always the hunted.

But in my dreams, I am never the victim.

Free Sheet Music

I'm so glad that I didn't make any plans for yesterday... If I had been working, I don't know how I would have gotten home. A huge steam explosion (77 stories high, according to one source) occurred in Manhattan, near Grand Central station. One person was killed, 18 injured... thank goodness it wasn't any more. Most of the places I read about it don't even bother saying the cause - they just blatantly state "It wasn't terrorism!" Of course, my mom is absolutely convinced it was.

Now they're saying that while there is asbestos in the dust, the air is clean. How does that work? Meh. Hopefully by the time I have to work on Saturday, everything will be settled.

In other news, I'm writing an article for Associated Content about free sheet music on the internet, so be on the lookout for that. I'll link to it here when it's up (whenever I get off my lazy butt and finish it).

Quizpoints

I got a giftcard from Quizpoints!

I just got a $10 Target gift card in the mail, and now that I am sure that it pays and works, I definitely recommend it.

Quizpoints gives you points for signing up for offers and doing daily surveys. If you do 15 surveys in one month, you get 250 bonus points. However, I've only been able to do one so far because I don't qualify for any others. Instead, I've stuck to doing the offers. I have a separate email account from my main, and I use it just for things like this. If you plan on joining quizpoints, I recommend you do the same.

I signed up to all the sites that did not require you to pay cash for a "trial", and those that send you free samples (I still live with dear old mom, I don't think she'd appreciate that). Just for those, I have made 890 points in a day, and some are still pending (most offers state that they will be processed within 30 days).

Once you reach 500 points, you can cash out for a $10 gift card to an impressive amount of stores including target, Home Depot, Outback Steakhouse, JC Penny, and a lot more. Some of these ship within 7 days, others within 30 (7-day shipping is specified on the rewards page). 1200 points will get you a $25 gift card, and 2300 are worth a $50 gift card. Quizpoints currently offers "huge rewards" - for 13000 points, you can get a card for $300 to target, walmart, or amazon, or order something online for $300 and quizpoints will pay for it.

If you're cautious like me, you can fill out only the free offers and get a nice gift card once in a while for less than an hour's worth of internet surfing. If you're daring, you can sign up for paid trials and cancel them, to get pretty impressive sums from Quizpoints.

I should already be sleeping right now... I have work tomorrow. But I JUST got the card, and I wanted to share. I'm going to Target tomorrow to use my new gift card. Yay. :D

Once again, Quizpoints really does pay out!

Where do Nursery Rhymes come from?

If you delve deeply enough into stories by the Brothers Grimm, you will discover that a majority of their stories are about violence and horrible ways of getting murdered. Yet these stories are read to our children as "kid" stories, sometimes right before bed as bedtime stories. Many things that we deep to be childish have histories that are nothing short of horrifying or simply surprising.

Nursery rhymes are no exception. Some of the very first rhymes that kids learn are really about events in history, usually satirizing the royal and political realities of the period. For some reason, the messages behind nursery rhymes have all but become obsolete, and today these rhymes are sometimes called nonsense rhymes. So what is the real message behind well-known nursery rhymes?

To find out more about the origins of Mother Goose, Rock a bye baby, Little Miss Muffet, and more, read the article.

Can you hear me now?

A friend of mine recently gave me a link to an article about high pitched ring tones that adults can't hear. I never knew this stuff existed! I love how the ring tone was originally meant to be, and I quote the article, "an ultrasonic teenager repellent." It's like spraying water on your cat. Teen bugging you? Blast the noise and solve all your problems! Teen-b-gone!

It really is a horrible noise, by the way. I don't know why anyone would want to use it. And anyway, whether adults around you can hear the noise or not, what's the point? If you're in class and can't pick up your phone anyway, why suffer through the painful screech?

I tested this on my mom. She really can't hear it. It's a little sad to think about losing something you're not even aware of losing. This might explain why I can feel when the tv is on from another room, while my mom is astonished at this and doesn't understand when I complain.

Read the article here. You can hear the tone there for yourselves.

Make a left at the old man

I present to you a typical conversation held during lunch with my coworkers at the Museum of Natural History:


Martin: I drove my car to work today.
Zhi: Yeah? Me too. What kind of car is it?
Martin: [Insert car talk during which my eyes just kind of glazed over]
Zhi: Aweome! Can I drift it?
Martin: No you cannot.
Zhi: Aw come on!
Martin: ...No you cannot.
Luz: I learned to drive in Puerto Rico. It's different over there. There are no big signs saying "You are on whatever street." If you need to go somewhere over there, you go by landmarks.
Jovan: What, so if you stop for directions, people will just be like.. make a right at the gas station.
Zhi: Then a left at the liquor store.
Jovan: When you reach the red house, turn left.
Zhi: But not the really red house. The kind of pinkish faded red. You'll know it when you see it, trust me.
Jovan: Then you'll come to a whole street of yellow houses. You have to turn at the lightest one.
Zhi: And then you'll see this really old man... he's ALWAYS there.
Martin: Where's the old man? He died! Oh no, where do I go!?
Luz: Exactly. And don't forget to pass the cows. Oh, have you ever driven with one of those GPS systems? They tell you exactly where to go, it's great.
Zhi: Yeah, except they always make you go the long way. "Turn left. Turn left. Turn left. Turn lef-" hey wait a second, we just made a circle!
Martin: The scenic route, man.
Zhi: And they talk back, too. You'll be cursing it out and it'll go in that same voice "shut up."

Compose music - the easy way

I was watching "Scientific American Frontier" the other day, with Alan Alda (I love that guy), and they had a segment about composing music in a completely new way. Instead of writing out scores for instruments and massive knowledge about music and theory and notations, there is this program called Hyperscore that allows you to use symbols and colors to compose music instead. The show didn't explain too much about it because it encouraged viewers to go online and try the program out for themselves. It did show a performance by a live orchestra of a piece that had been composed by a 10 year old boy using the program.

At the time of the episode's filming, this program was free, but when I went online to check for myself, it turned out this is no longer the case. It costs $30 to download, or $40 if you want the program sent to you by mail, in a nice package and box. This is a "limited time offer" though, so don't miss out. If you have the money to spend, this looks like a really fun toy to play with. You can check out their website here. Check it out for yourselves.

I wanted to embed a demo video but I can't get any good ones from youtube, so here's a link to the one on the site instead: http://www.hyperscore.com/harmony_line/about_hyperscore.php

I've been messing with my settings here, and I added a picture and a comic of mine on the bottom of the page... I'll change it around once in a while. :D

First post!

A few years ago I discovered ways to make money online, and slowly broadened my horizon and knowledge of how to do this. Now I'm ready to take it a step further.

Hence this blog.

This blog has two purposes - I plan on sharing interesting and bizarre information I find on the web here, and I plan on learning how to make money through blogging. If you're like me, and are thinking of (or in the processes of) venturing out into the world of blogging, you can check in here. I'll post information and progress with money making through this site as I go through it.

And now I'd like to share some things about myself.

I've recently turned 20 years old. I live in New York City, and work part time as a membership assistant at the Museum of Natural History (and LOVE it to death). I attend New York University and major in English Education. I love cats, penguins, and small furry animals, as well as my computer, which is so old and senile that typing this is lagging so badly that I can write a whole sentence then wait half a minute for the computer to catch up.

If you're still here... thanks! I hope to find out a lot about blogging and whatnot, so here goes... *clicks 'publish post'*