Synth's corner

About a Boy

2011-08-24T18:10:00.002+02:00

The following post contains spoilers. Reader discretion is advised.

The first time I heard about the novel About a Boy by Nick Hornby was at my first year of social work, where we read a few excerpts at the English class. It wasn't until much later that I watched the movie and liked it. A few weeks ago the movie was on TV again and I rewatched, liked it again and decided to read the book as well. Now I finished the book and it's really good.
So, what are the differences? Up to about half the book the movie was quite a good adaptation, only leaving out a few minor things (Marcus renting Groundhog Day) and changing others (in the book, they went to the picnic with Suzie's car). The later part contained more discrepancies and the ending is totally different. Where the ending in the movie with Marcus and Will singing Killing me Softly was very sweet, the ending in the book with the jail was much better at showing how much the characters have grown during the story.
In conclusion, this is a very nice story, the differences make it worth both reading and watching it. They are both new entries in my favourite books/movies :)

X-Men: The Last Stand & First Class anomalies

2011-07-13T02:17:00.002+02:00

I recently watched the latest X-Men movie (First Class). It is by far the best of the series. But the end brings some anomalies with the beginning of the third movie (Last Stand).
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The majority of First Class is set in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis. At the end of the movie Charles/Prof X still has hair, loses the ability to walk, parts ways with Erik/Magneto and starts his school.
The prologue of Last Stand is set "20 years ago" (the majority of the movie is set "in the not too distant future", so this should be in the 80s), where a bald and walking Charles goes with Erik to visit Jean Grey's parents and talk to them about his school.

I think there are two possible explanations for these anomalies.
1) Each od these two movies is set in its own universe, while the other three are set in either or both.
2) Some time after the events of First Class Magneto takes his helmet off and returns to Xavier. Xavier installs some kind of iron exoskeleton and sends telepathic signals to Magneto who in turn uses his powers to move the exoskeleton.

School's out!

2011-07-11T14:30:00.003+02:00

For more than a week now, but haven't had the will to post it :D I finished all of my exams so I'm free until October. Except for that one day in September when I have to enrol. But until then I have lots of free time.

I borrowed some Discworld books from the library, I started playing SimCity4 and I plan on doing some programming for fun. And watch movies.

Series' cancellation

2011-05-21T21:15:00.003+02:00

Towards the end of May is the time, when most series get the final verdict, either they are cancelled or renewed. I picked up a few new series to watch this year , so I was especially curious which ones I'll get to watch next season again. The result? Only The Game of Thrones.
Here are the ones that didn't make it:

No Ordinary Family: I actually gave up on this super-powered family after about 10 episodes myself, so no tears shed here.
Shit My Dad Says: A nice comedy about father-son relationships. It ended with a cliffhanger!
Better With You: Another comedy, this time about three couples (a mature couple, their two daughters and their boyfriends). Luckily this one had a nice finale that rounded up the story.
Off the Map: Grey's Anatomy in the jungle, what could be wrong about that? Apparently enough to get them cancelled with a cliffhanger.
The Event: Biggest disappointment. The show was getting better with each episode. One more episode next week. There's a bit of hope that the show may be picked up by some other network... fingers crossed.
Lie to Me: Not a new show, this one got cancelled after three seasons. It was a good show, with real science behind it, good actors and characters. Unfortunately it missed a central plot, a red line to connect the episodes.
(Smallville: Not cancelled, but finally reached its final season. It's finally over and I'm free from its spell. At least until the spin-offs come...)

Pkmn Black: 3rd gym

2011-04-23T22:38:00.002+02:00

It's actually been about a week since I've defeathed the 3rd gym, but I haven't had the time and/or will to blog about it.
So, the third gym specializes in bug pokemon. As I chose the fire starter, I already had the type advantage, but even if I didn't, there were already flying type pokemon available to catch. The gym is shaped like a honeycomb with rubbery walls and switches to unlock gates.
But what I actually wanted to note is how many areas that are far from a city (and pokecentre) have a person at the beginning who, once defeated, will heal your team. Another nice addition :)

Holidays!

2011-04-23T12:49:00.002+02:00

Finally! And after three tests in this past week, I feel these 10 free days and quite deserved :D
Still, have some catching up to do with school work, some things I wanted to put on my blog and most importantly, relax!
Happy holidays, everyone

Celebrating St. Patrick's day

2011-03-19T13:52:00.005+01:00

I'm two days late with this post, but it's been two busy days, so I'm excused :D

For St. Patrick's day I decided to prepare a green meal, so I baked a green lasagna: green lasagna pasta and green spinach (and cottage cheese) filling, topped with grated cheese, served on a plate with a green rim. I love how simple and fast the recipe is and how great the result tastes :) Here are some pics of it:As the day wasn't green enough for us, Ana and me watched The Green Hornet. It's a weird movie. Not that the acting is bad, the characters are weird. It's a nice laugh, I guess. To cut it short: I don't recommend it, but I don't not recommend it either.

Pkmn Black: Second gym and forward

2011-03-13T15:06:00.002+01:00

The second gym specializes in normal types. And again the game is kind enough to provide an area just outside the city, where you can catch three different fighting pokemon. Remember the first generation, where the only thing against Brock were your starter, a bug depending on the version and Pikachu?
Another great change is the new itemfinder/dowsing machine. It was already better in HGSS, where you could walk around with the itemfinder constantly pressed, and now it's even better you don't even need to press it, but it works automatically and startspinging when a hidden item is nearby.
Now I'm chasing team plasma in Pinwheel Forest.
Current team: Tepig, evolved Lilipup, the blue judo guy, Munna, grass monkey, Poliwag's ripoff

Complex numbers in Java

2011-03-11T17:07:00.002+01:00

Our last programming homework had us write a Java class to implement some operations with complex numbers. As I found it pretty interesting, I'm sharing my file on here.
Examples of usage are in comments in the file. If anyone has any questions or suggestions on how to make it better, feel free to drop a line here or on email.
ComplexNumber.java

Pkmn Black: After the first gym

2011-03-10T19:20:00.002+01:00

I managed to put in some more playtime into Pokemon Black and got my first badge yesterday, whoohoo! :D I liked the animation after obtaining it. Also it's a nice thing to have the gym leader use a type advantage against you, even nicer to get a type advantage against him for free :D What I don't like is the absence of the "button" that enables you to run by default, as in HG/SS. That was really a great addition, shame they took it away. I really don't know why can't they leave all the good stuff introduced in previous generations.
I got to the city with the second gym (sorry, don't know the names yet), but haven't challenged the gym leader yet - I'm taking it slow, level-upping and capturing everything on the way.

Pokemon Black

2011-03-08T16:45:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I finally got my Pokemon Black! I chose the Black version because of its more technological tone (as I'm studying computer science). I haven't been able to put much playtime in it yet, as I'm busy with school right now, just an hour or two. So far I must say I like the new battle screen, all the zooming around, but I'm disappointed with the zoom. What's this pixelated view? I'm not playing Blue, I'm playing Black!

Now back to my homework.

New semester

2011-03-06T13:16:00.002+01:00

It's been two weeks since the new semester has started. Before it started we got a timetable that was full of bugs (overlapping classes, two courses in the same classroom in the same time), so these first two weeks were like some kind of beta testing, where we, the students, were beta testers and the school issued some patches. Now we finally got a (more or less) stable version, which is not very user friendly (twice I have classes almost the whole day, once only one hour).
I have five new subjects this semester: Linear algebra, Databases basics, Programming and algorithms, Computer communications and Human-computer communication. I am mostly excited about the latter one, as it combines psychology and computer science.

Heroes demotivational

2011-02-18T23:51:00.003+01:00

Here's my first attempt at a demotivational:

After reading the story about Bono clapping his hands every few seconds, saying that every time he claps his hands a child in Africa dies and someone telling him to stop clapping, but I found out this story is just a myth, plus there's already a few demos about that.
Anyway, I found out MS Powerpoint is the perfect tool for making demotivationals :D

Update! Dusting off the blog

2011-02-17T14:35:00.002+01:00

It's been almost two years since my last post. It's not like I totally forgot about it, I actually thought about posting here and there, though the posts would be something like "Oh I haven't posted in soooo long, I should do it soon", making me that kind of blogger, which I don't want. Anyway, now I'll try to post more regularly.

Here's what happened in the past 2 years in a nutshell:
After graduating I started looking for a job, first in Nova Gorica and surroundins. Unfortunately I was cought in the "experience magic circle" (you can't get a job because you lack experience, but you can get experience if you don't have a job) and the "no money for internship excuse". See, many of the jobs I could do with my degree require me to first finish a year of internship first (in case someone who wants to go to FSD reaches this blog: BEWARE! It's really tough getting a job as a social worker!).
Then in September (still 2009) I moved to Ljubljana with my girlfriend as she started school here. I started looking for a job here, I even went to some interviews, but got nothing. Towards the end of the year I enrolled back to my old school to upgrade my degree to a university one (as opposed to the college one), which I got in February (2010). Now my full title is "Rok Gomišček, univ. dipl. soc. del". After that still no luck with getting a job, though I got better at Guild Wars at that time...
In the middle of Summer luck seemed to be about to change as finally there was an official call for 200 internship places by the social chamber. The protocol was as follows: get in touch with an organisation (no list given), they send an application form for you and in the case of more than 200 applicants, you get scored on various criteria. As I found out about this somewhat later and I was at the sea at that time, I started sending emails to various organisations whether they'd take me for the internship. I got a few replies back that they wanted to meet me for an interview, but I also got a reply from MDMB, with an internship plan and no need for interviews, just signing the papers. To cut a long story short, I didn't get the internship, because this organisation falls under the education chamber and not under the social chamber.
Then I decided to go to school again, as it's better than just sit and wait for a job and do nothing else. I applied for psychology and computer science, didn't get in the first one, but got accepted in the latter. I'm happy there, doing fine, just finished the first semester.
Oh, and we finally got a Wii :D

That's about the bigger changes in the past two years. Stay tuned for new posts ;)

PS: If you check the previous post, I got another wish granted (about the next pokemon generation) :)

A wish came true!

2009-05-10T22:51:00.002+02:00

One of the wishes I made in a November '08 entry came true! They have finally unveiled the names for the 2nd Pokémon generation games remake: Heart Gold and Soul Silver. Yes, I find the names strange too. I prefer the speculated Dusk and Dawn, or Sun and Moon. Oh well, as long as there is the remake on the way :D Though one of the greatest things about the 2nd generation was the HUGE step forward the games made (day/night, shinies, colours, ...) and being remakes I doubt there will be any big improvements. Let's hope for them in the next gen in about 2-3 years ;)

Rok Gomišček, dipl. soc. del.

2009-04-07T10:32:00.002+02:00

I did it! Yesterday I finally graduated!
Even though I had been somewhat nervous the previous day and had a terrible night (two graduation related nightmares), when I got in front of the blackboard to defend my thesis, I felt good and gave a good presentation. After that my mentor gave some comments and asked me a question I didn't totally understand, but somehow I answered her. The other two teachers just gave "short" talks and no questions. After a bit of waiting they told me I got an 8 for both the thesis and presentation. I was disappointed as I expected at least a 9... Anyway, my overall grade is so still a perfect 8, which I always considered my lucky number.
After graduating we (dad, Ana and me) went to a Mongolian restaurant in Ljubljana, where we had a great all-you-can-eat lunch. The waitress found out that I graduated and gave me a tie to match my shirt ^^
Later, in the afternoon, the adrenaline subsided and tiredness came. :)

Driving google latitude around

2009-03-06T21:57:00.003+01:00

Today I went to Ljubljana and back alone, so I decided to take Google Latitude with me for a ride, to show Ana where I currently am. After exchanging phones and sims (because my phone doesn't support Latitude and data transfer is cheaper on my sim) I set everything up on the phone and started driving. Let me add that the phone I used didn't have a GPS integrated, so I had to rely only on ground transmitters. But it's enough to give an approximation of my whereabouts while driving a longer distance. Anyway, I checked a few times while driving and it was showing my location quite ok. When I arrived at my destination, Ana told me that she couldn't follow me on iGoogle. Soon we found out that was because she had it in Slovene, where Latitude doesn't work yet. So for the way back she set iGoogle to English and could see me. This time I checked my position only once and it was still following me. When I got home I found out that Latitude still thought that I'm far away, at the place where I checked my location. I guess this is because the phone has a sort of a "sleep mode", which it enters after a minute or two of no usage and during this "sleep mode" it doesn't search for my location and send it.
So while the technology is here, there's still a lot of improvement to be done. One of these is to enable Google Latitude to work on my phone (Nokia N70). Please?

As a side note: Though further testing should be done, I think that in Ljubljana Latitude works better than over here in Solkan and Nova Gorica. Here it just shows a big circle over either of the towns, but there it seemed to give a better approximation.

Home Alone 4

2009-01-06T09:25:00.002+01:00

A few days ago they showed this movie on TV. Both Ana and me know the other three entries in the series, but neither of us knew about this one. So we decided to watch this one...

(Watch out for spoilers, but if you know any of the movies from the series, there won't be many)
This movie returns to the family from the first two movies. Or at least tries to. I'm not sure what they tried. We have Kevin, his parents, an older brother and sister, even Marv. But two more of Kevin's siblings are missing and Harry has gone too, supposedly he died. Kevin's age suggests that this is happenening between the first two entris in the series.

Plot: Kevin's parents separated some time after last Christmas and now Kevin's dad (Peter) lives with his new girlfriend Natalie (note: she is not the reason why they separated!). She is rich, successful, pretty and young. Before Christmas Peter asks his children if they would like to spend a few days with Natalie and him. After a fight with his brother, Kevin decides to go to them. There he meets a strick looking butler (who in the end in pure Home Alone tradition turns out to be a good person) and a kind maid. Natalie's house is a "smart house", where things are done simply by voice command. Natalie gives him a big room full of toys and its own spa (bathroom sounds too small).
Since Natalie has a busy social life she and Peter spend their evenings out and this give Marv and his girlfriend a perfect opportunity to check the house, because they will try to kidnap a prince that will come to visit Natalie for Christmas. Since they have one of those keys to use voice command and Kevin can't summon the butler, he starts suspecting the butler is their accomplice. To get rid of them Kevin "accidentally" floods the house, which gives Natalie a panic attack. Because the video footage was deleted, Kevin has no proof that there were any burglars and so no one believes him. He gets scolded a bit but Peter and Natalie thought this is because of the divorce.
Kevin, Peter and Natalie have fun together decorating the Christmas tree (which turns out ugly), but Natalie has her designers change the decorations (to some good looking ones). The next day Kevin, while chaising Marv and his girlfriend, ruins Natalie's party. After that Natalie tells Kevin to behave, because this is an important time for her. We see that she managed to frighten Kevin. The next day Marv strikes again. kevin finds out that the maid was actually helping them, as she is Marv's mother. Of course Kevin captures all three of them. In the process he persuades the butler t o quit his job. He also invites the prince adn his family over. And his parents decide to be together again. Since Natalie is left alone, she starts crying, at which Kevin laughs at her.

I think the movie creators were relying too much on the movie's name. The main kid in the other movies was way more witty, setting many more booby traps all around. This time Kevin was most of all mean, almost like Problem Child. He also looks uglier, resembling the kid from this other movie.
They were also overly mean to poor Natalie. Remember: she didn't steal Peter from his family, she didn't need him for his money or something material... She must've truly loved him. She accepted his children, gave Kevin a big room and presents. She was probably the only normal person in the whole movie and how do they treat her? In the end, when she's crying, they laugh at her.

I suggest avoiding this movie.

Lack of New Year related songs

2009-01-06T08:56:00.002+01:00

So the Xmas and New Year holidays are behind us. As usual, there were a lot of Christmas songs and movies in the last month. It's easy to name just a few songs: Jingle Bells, Jingle Bell Rock, Last Christmas, Santa Claus is coming to town... But what struck me this time is that there are almost no songs related exclusively to New Year's eve/day. It is mentioned in some songs, but it rarely plays a major role.
Googling I found out that Auld Lang Syne is traditionally a song sung at New Year's. Then I remembered ABBA's Happy New Year. In Slovenia we also have a song by Alfi Nipič, Silvestrski poljub (New Year's Eve's kiss). I believe there are more hidden somewhere, probably in non-English languages and maybe in cultures, where they celebrate New Year's day and it's not so close to Christmas or some other big festivity.
That's because I think it's Christmas' "fault" New Year doesn't get more songs, as it steals the spotlight. Which made me think some more and I realized, that they are basically the same thing! Both are festivals of light. Christmas replaced the old pagan winter solstice celebration, where they celebrated the arrival of Son's child and the start of the days lengthening again. And for New Year's day we throw so many lights in the sky (fireworks), that it's like we're trying to shoot the night away. I also think that for symbolism's sake having the start of the year during winter is bad, it would be better either at he beginning or end. Sure, on the calendar winter has just started, but it was cold much earlier. What we had in the days of old was, in my opinion, better symbolism (Haloween and carnival dates for New Year's day).

Rising Star Games blog

2008-12-03T12:36:00.003+01:00

Rising Star Games, the company responsible for bringing (delayed) Harvest Moon games to Europe has opened a corporate blog. Since in my thesis I also write about the importance of blogs for corporation, I can only salute their decision :) So far it looks more like a news page, but we can contribute with our comments, which is great. I do hope that in future there'll be also stuff like behind the scenes talk, exclusive previews and the likes. I've already asked a question there yesterday (about the release of RF2 and RFF) and am awaiting a reply. And judging by my past correspondance with them, I'll mosT likely get one, as they have a great PR policy. I received quick replies from Richar Barclay, their marketing manager. He was patient enough to anwer all my nagging questions ^^ And once I sent an e-mail during the weekend and I received an automatic reply, that if I needed something urgent, I could contact him via phone. Wow.
Anyway, that's a new RSS feed for my Google Reader. I still have some questions for them, among them is, whether they translate directly from Japanese or from the American translation. But I'+ll wait until the chance to ask this shows up.
Anyway, I hope caring for the blog won't slow their main work down, but it'll motivate them to have faster releases. I mean, it took one year for Rune Factory to come from Japan to North America, and then almost two years to get to Europe. At least Rune Factory 2 made it to NA "only" after 10 month. HM:IoH took a year and a half from Japan to NA, but then just three months to Europe. So things are indeed looking better :)

School rant + No more exams

2008-11-28T23:03:00.004+01:00

This is sort of a continuation to this blog entry.

So, I was at school in Ljubljana yesterday (Thursday) for my last exam. But although the exam was scheduled only at 4 o'clock pm, I was there already at 11 o'clock am, because I needed signatures from my teachers in a small student booklet to show that I've passed their exam. The thing is, I have all my grades on-line and that's stronger proof than some writing on some paper. And what's more, the generation after me doesn't even need to get the student booklet filled, the on-line grades are enough!
Before leaving I had to find 7 teacher.
I made an appointment with one of them but she emailed me the day before that she won't be able to make it on Thursday.
One was supposed to be giving a lesson to the 4th years, but at school I found out they have their practical work now, so they are without lessons. And no teacher.
Another one was supposed to be teaching that day, again the 4th's, so he wasn't there for the lecture, but he should've been there for his "meeting hours" (when he's supposed to be at school to meet student - too lazy now to find a better word). Nope, he wasn't there. No notes. Just a locked door.
And the last teacher had a note on her door stating that she won't be able to have "meeting hours" that day.
The only consolation is that I met a teacher I hadn't planned.
At the end of the day I still have to find 6 teachers.

I really didn't mean to be writing all of this at first, so I changed the title of the post a bit, added something :D

Anyway, to the happy part.
Me and a schoolmate had our presentation on the topic "how do Slovenian centres for social work e-communicate". I'm the kind of guy who gets stage fright quite easily, so as the exam hour drew nearer, I was getting worse. I played some Harvest Moon to keep relaxed when there was still a lot of time left, but when my classmate arrived to rehearse one last time I was concentrating on trying to relax. Anyway, in the end it turned out there were just 5 of us doing the exam, which helped a bit, since I wouldn't have a big croud. Plus one of the was also a schoolmate, which also helped as I prefer known faces. Still, my palms were sweaty, even though it wasn't hot and I tried wiping them. Yeah, I know, probably not the right assets for a minister candidate... But I digress. The slides were well made content-wise, I think. And they looked perfect, all thanks to Ana, because she helped with the background. Kristjan, my so-presenter, did a good job with his part, he added nice things in the presentation. I think my part went well as well. I was trying to speak slowly and clearly.
But we got only a 9... :P As I said in an earlier post, I needed at least a 9 and I got it. My overall grade is now 8 and I can get into postgraduation programs... after I graduate. Which, well, is getting closer. But that's a different story. For now I'll enjoy the feeling that there's no more exams (at least in pregraduation). But tomorrow I have to go to Ljubljana again, to find 2 professors.

Wtf?! It's snowing!?

2008-11-24T08:42:00.003+01:00

First when I looked through the window I saw some strange "drops" among the rain, like you see strange drops when it's hailing (had quite our share of hare this year). And yes, there were snow flakes mixed in the rain! Which is very strange as in these parts it usually doesn't snow much if at all. And at first it wasn't even sticking, but now he grass, rooftops and the middle of the road are getting white. Where is Al Gore with his global warming now?? I believed him, I truly did. But it seems all his talk was just another politician's promise. *throws a snowball at Al*

Edit: It's just raining now. I guess my rant helped =)

Season's break

2008-11-22T23:29:00.002+01:00

Two of the series I watch, Smallville and Supernatural, are now on an almost-2-month break. Which means it's time for a recap (so I'll know where they left off when they start again).

Smallville: Clark lost his powers (again) and the Martian helped him restore them and started working at the Daily Planet. Chloe used her Brainiac powers to save Clark and Kara from the Phantom Zone, later got amnesia, gained back her memories but lost the knowledge about Clark's secret. Clark reinstalled the fortress of solitude, which Brainiac overtook and painted black. Davis fell in love with Chloe, but she married Jimmy. Davis is actually Zod's son, the great destroyer. Lana interrupted an almost kiss between Clark and Lois. She also seems to be a double-agent. Davis transformed, kidnapped Chloe and took her to the black fortress. Someone that's probably Lex was shown from behind with tubes in him watching Chloe's wedding video.

Supernatural: Castiel! He's so ultra cute and cool! Uhm, yeah... Dean got rescued from hell after 4 months (on earth), but it was morel ike 40 years for him. Sam practiced his demon ESP with Ruby, with whom he also had sex. Lilith is trying to break 66 seals so Lucifer can walk free. Seems that Dean is supposed to play an important role, that's why they saved him. Then a girl, Anna, could hear angels talking. After a hypnosis she remembered that she used to be an angel, then she and Dean had sex in his car. Both demons and angels wanted her. She got her powers back and disappeared (for now). Dean finally said that in hell he had been tortured for 30 years until breaking and then he started torturing others.

No luck with Harvest Moon

2008-11-21T22:38:00.002+01:00

A few days ago, I think it was on Wednesday, we received Harvest Moon DS Cute. This time we made sure the games was an original one by buying one that had a picture of an authentic cartridge on the auction listing. And it really was authentic! the box art had better printing, the manual contained instructions and the cartridge had two sets of numbers on the back. BUT! The game didn't load. Not in my DS, not in Ana's DS Lite, blowing didn't help... We contacted the seller and explained everything. He said the game worked when he tried it before posting. But he's prepared to exchange cartridges, so we'll do that. I wonder what happened and that the next one will be ok.

Also it's been over three weeks since my HM:FoMT has been shipped from the UK and it still hasn't arrived. But it's not the first time that the Royal Post lost a package. They also lost Pokemon Pearl last summer, which in the end arrived much later (after a complaint was filed) and the package was in a bad shape (the game was ok luckilly). I contacted the seller and she said she'll raise a complaint with the post. I hope they'll find it soon. Maybe it travelled to Slovakia, I don't know.

Oh, by the way. I'll post this here as it's the m,ost appropriate place. I finally got my Visa Electron and the PayPal verification :) No more asking around for help, yay! \(^_^)/

Last exam

2008-11-20T13:44:00.003+01:00

Today I mailed (not e-mailed) my research papers which are the main part of my last exam. The other part of the exam is the presentation which will be next week. And after this I only have my graduation left.

But I need to get at least a 9 for this exam (the best grade is 10). Then my overall average grade (from all the years) will be 8, which means I can sign in post-graduate studies. Namely this will be firstly a semester of school to get a university degree (now I'll get a college one). And after that I'll get a psychology major. I don't know yet from which field of psychology, but there's still some time to decide. And I also haven't decided about my doctorate. I just know that at some point I want to be minister for social affairs and since ministers usually have doctorates, I'd better get one myself as well.

But before that future becomes present (and past), I still have to finish my thesis and next week start preparing for the presentation. I really need a 9 at least!