Happy blog-and-a-half-iversary!

It was exactly a year and a half ago, on October 17th, 2005, that I started this blog. Now, normally I wouldn't celebrate something like this, but I missed the monumental 1 year anniversary and I want to do something about it now.

I started this blog knowing I'd have an audience of pretty much one at the time and was happy with it. I just thought it would be cool to immortalize my thoughts on the internet. Today, I thought it would be cool to look back and see if I've matured since starting this thing. Those of you that started following this blog last September could also look back at things and come to the realization that I was probably secretly posting about you. :P

Anyway, the first post is pretty boring, but I'm intrigued by the next one. Wow. Did I say that? I dunno, that felt really immature at the time.

Funny how stoked I was about the Guitar Pro Mac version. And later, GP5 in general. The Mac version of GP5 is sitting on my laptop right now and I don't really use it much. Actually, the last song I did was on GP4 on my parents' computer last Christmas. I like GP5 because it makes things look really pretty and it's good for actually printing music, but, as a compositional tool, I like 4 a lot more. It's a lot more efficient and easier for me to control. That and my laptop is too slow to run RSE (the sound library) and that laptop keyboards suck for doing this kind of thing.

Here's a weekly feature that didn't last very long. I think I did it twice before I finally decided to just post less funny links.

I remember this day all too well. Looking back on that, I'm actually quite happy I lost that job. That time of my life felt way too stressful and having a job that randomly changes your schedule on you is not very fun to have. It paid well, but that's the only really good thing about it.

Heh, I remember this. I should arrange that song sometime...

Reading the last bit of this post makes me laugh. First of all, at one point last year I was down to one post a week at times. Second, my posting schedule right now it about once every two or three days, and I'm complaining a bit that I went one day without posting something. As for the first part, I didn't end up going to that. I forget why, but I think I had to stay home and watch my brothers. That part's a bit fuzzy now.

Yes, I still retain a lot of the enthusiasm from this post, though not all of it. Trig identities still rock, though. I still love it when two things that seem to be unrelated come together in a way you don't expect.

Why don't I play Guitar Hero much anymore? Maybe it's just cause the disc is a bit scratched. I'm still planning to get GH2 some day, and I'm really happy the 3 comes out for the Wii sometime soon.
I don't know if I share the same enthusiasm that I had at the time towards The OneUps. Yes, they're still really awesome, but I like their older stuff a bit more than I do their newer stuff. And that Christmas song stayed as my most played song for a very long time, long after I stopped listening to it.

This day felt pretty good. I think I've matured a bit in my faith since then.

It's funny, I look at my Christmas wish list from Grade 12, and I don't think I got any of those things for Christmas, with the exception of the first one. However, I do have all but the Calvin and Hobbes one right now. The DS (at least, mine) came a year later though my brother got one that year, the pad's in production (still) and will hopefully get done this summer, I got the OneUps CD towards the end of the last school year, when they were having a clearance sale and I got it for ten bucks, including shipping, and I got a video iPod (a nano really wouldn't have worked as well with the collection I have now) as a grad gift.

Argh. That was one long night. I didn't sleep much and I'm still amazed that I got such a good mark out of it considering the fact that I put off pretty much all of it till the last night. Sometimes I think I still don't seem to have learned much from that...

That was a really good first term for Grade 12. No other comment.

I would love to go to something like this again. I still love my extreme ironing comment.

Don't bother trying to guess anymore or wonder why the comment doesn't make any sense, it's one of the things that got lost (along with a hit counter) when I switched to the new version of Blogger.

That pedal was just as good as any of the stuff on my list that year. I still use it when I play the guitar and it sounds great.

This is still one of my favorite projects from Grade 12. It was just a lot of fun to do and I really like the end result. Actually, it's sitting on the shelf next to me right now.

I still really like this quote. I don't think it's that true anymore, but I still like it a lot.

The other weekly feature that didn't last. I've learned not to try doing regular features anymore, because it doesn't work.

I loved that day, and it was pretty much a lead in for things to come. I didn't realize then how much work it would be to get that combo group going (along with being involved in every song for Café Jazz), but it was still really worth it and a lot of fun.

This was the best pi day ever. It's kinda cool that a math-related thing happened to me on pi day. It was great.

I really liked that retreat. I went in with somewhat low expectations, but it went really well. For once, I actually felt God in my life and it was one of the happier, more emotional moments of my life.

And the day after just freaking rocked. That number went up to $24000 later, too. I'm amazed and if it weren't for that, I might not be where I am right now.

I still hold Café Jazz as one of my favorite things from Grade 12. A lot of work went into that, but it paid off in the end. I'm just glad it was Easter right after that so I could recuperate.

The band trip last year was really good and a lot of fun. Breaking a string during a solo in a concert for the second time on a trip was definitely really cool. Good thing it was the last concert of that trip. Finding an ITG2 machine was also really cool. And the cheese factory rocked.

I remember this. If you were around the VGMusic forums at the time you'd see this and many others like it in a lot of people's signatures. It got to the point where images like that were forbidden. I'm still amazed I started that. And it's a bit of video game related joke, so don't worry if you don't get it.

I can't remember any moments that stand out, but I remember dry grad rocking my socks off. I also really liked the grad ceremony and prom. I got to dress up all fancy and just have a lot of fun. Being out in the hallway playing cards because the music sucked was probably the only thing I didn't like about it. Days like those kinda made me feel a bit depressed, because I really liked Grade 12 and I didn't want to move on. Looking back, I still kinda feel that way, but I was also exposed to a lot of new stuff as well. Right now, with the short trip it takes to get home, I kinda get the best of both worlds.

Oh, yeah, my favorite project from Grade 12. I still love the end result and how much work actually went into that (and how many times the grapher program crashed, to my frustration). It was all worth it in the end.

Ah, the iPod. I don't use it as much as I used to, since iTunes works really well a lot of the time, and the last.fm support for iTunes helps (there's also iPod support, but it's kinda tough to use and it's a bit restricting). That being said, I still use it quite a bit.

My morals have kinda changed since this happened. I say kinda in that I get a lot of the popular Christian artists (namely Hillsong United, Switchfoot and Relient K as the first ones that come to mind). That being said, I still don't care much for most popular mainstream artists today, whether that's a bad thing for me or not. That being said, I'm still a big Denver and the Mile High Orchestra fan, and I don't think I've met anyone who has heard of them before I tell them about it. Yay for lesser-known indie bands! On a related note, I used to think of Switchfoot as tied for my favorite band with DMHO. Now, I'm not saying they suck now, but after experiencing more music, I'm not as sure about that anymore. They're still really good, but I've heard a lot of other really good bands since then as well.

And then high school ended. See earlier comments.

The raspberry plant job taught me one thing. I don't want to do labour as a job anymore unless it pays really, really well. That 12.5 hour shift followed by an 11.5 hour shift really killed me. I don't really want to work there again.

I still regard DMHO as one of my favorite bands. Even after hundreds of plays with their songs they still sound really fresh and I'm trying desperately to find their first album, though I think it'll have to be online. Hopefully their website will let me buy one at one point. I don't quite have the passion for them that I used to, but they're still amazing to listen to. I kinda wish they'd come out with a new album soon. One can dream...

I need to use my camera more...

The Philippines trip was good, and it makes a really good conversation topic as well. The trip itself was a lot of fun and I got a lot of CDs that I might not have bought otherwise.

Sigh... the second road test I failed. I need to get my L back.

I'm not going to go all retrospect on anything after this, simply because you've probably read it all already.

One more thing: my favorite random link of the last 1.5 years? The Earth Sandwich project. It's gotta be the most creative, useless idea ever, and it's awesome.

Anyway, those are the most memorable moments from the last year that still kinda mean something to me. But I didn't get everything. You can go ahead and read through the archives and see how much of it you remember as well. Some of this I'd probably forget if it wasn't immortalized on some hard drive that Google owns. Here's to another one and a half years of blogging.

edit: Oh, and one more thing: That time below this post? That's when I started writing this post. The actual time I clicked "publish" was after 4 pm, I think.

Other little tidbits about the blog:

I chose the name and especially the domain trying to find something that anyone on the outside will see as gibberish, but the people who do know what I'm talking about will see the reference and enjoy it. Kinda like that Zelda shirt I got on the band trip last year. It's also really short and sweet. e-4-c-5 just rolls of the tongue really easily when someone wants to pass of the domain name quickly.

There used to be a hit counter and last summer it got 1000 hits somehow. Now, at the time, only 2 people (late edit: that includes me :P) that I knew of read the blog, so that's not too bad for me. The problem is that Blogger reset the template when I switched to the beta.

Anyway, that's all I'll say.
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Current music: Less Ashamed of Self - Inspired