Here’s the deal – i had XP and Vista dual-booted, but got fed up. Vista was just sitting there, doing pretty much nothing, and XP was generally pissing me off. I had been considering switching to Linux for quite some time. So, I looked up some distros, and it came down to OpenSuSE and Ubuntu. I had experience with Ubuntu in the past, and, with the help of a friend, chose Ubuntu yet again. I cleaned out the Vista partition and formatted it for Linux.

It was the first time I had actually installed it onto a hard drive. I had numerous problems. I could not use a resolution higher than 1024×768, which is a problem, being many times smaller than my normal 1280×1024 resolution. After attempting to troubleshoot it and basically getting no luck (it’s 2am by now, by the way), I decide to scrap it all and just get my goddamn hard disk space back.

I get rid of Ubuntu, delete the partition, and expand my original partition back to where it was. Everything ran smoothly, until – and yes, there MUST be irony here or I wouldn’t be posting – I restarted the computer! Apparently GRUB, Linux’s bootloader, was still lurking on my system. When it couldn’t find anything to boot (I had deleted the partition), it gave an error. My computer wouldn’t start up.

But wait, there’s more! I researched how to get rid of it, and it turns out a simple FIXMBR (for “Fix Master Boot Record) command in the Windows Recovery Console would fix it. So I did so, and it did get rid of GRUB, but what was put in its place was something just as annoying – the Vista bootloader. It kept asking me if I wanted to use Vista or an Earlier OS, but Vista was no longer on my machine, so I only had one choice. Unfortunately, because Vista wasn’t on my machine anymore, I could never get rid of the screen. I looked up this issue and came across a solution. Apparently there was another command you could run in the Recovery Console called FIXBOOT, which would do God knows what to, um, fix your boot. I entered the command and restarted. When it came time for Windows to start coming up, nothing happened. The computer just stopped, presumably looking for something to boot, but finding nothing.

I booted into GParted with the LiveCD, hoping to find something that would aid me. Then I saw what had happened – the hard drive was wiped. I couldn’t believe it. I flipped out; I even cried. My work from many years past was on that hard drive. Later on I realized that the reason GParted showed a blank hard drive was because the file system was corrupt, and it simply couldn’t read the contents. However, the stuff was still on there. So I continued to troubleshoot, thinking the boot sector was the only thing damaged, caused by my horrible attempt at fixing that very same boot sector in the recovery console. So, basically, I attempt to fix it AGAIN. End result: There is either physical damage to the hard drive or countlessly many bad sectors. The disc in unreadable either way.

I’m going to take it to a data recovery place. I’m actually shopping around, hoping to find a place that will do it for less than $500. I need to buy a new hard drive, and my budget is pretty low. If anyone knows any reliable, yet not insanely expensive data recovery service ($400 or less to recover an ENTIRE hard drive 150GB and up), please, PLEASE post it here. Until then, every project I have is on hold, and may not be continued. This includes projects for school, the Golden Sun Soundtrack, etc. I know there are people who were looking forward to that soundtrack, but I cannot continue it when all my work on it has been washed away. I desperately want my files back, and will do anything to get them. Unfortunately, I don’t have the m money to pay top dollar, but I’m paying whatever I’m able to.

Thanks for being patient with me and my projects,
~ Jason.

Screw driving, I’d rather sing soothing music! (And then put cool effects on it to make it sound even more sleepy-ish.)

SAENU

I got my driver’s license.

Woohoo! Now if only I knew the way around my own hometown.

*runs off to buy that pretty TomTom GPS*

They’re not going to improve. Once an addict, always an addict. As unreliable human sources tell me, about one third of alcoholics over sixty are dead, one third are still fighting their addiction, and the other third are clean. I’ll explain why I think all of them are either the first or the second, and never the third.

Keep going »

A while back I wrote an article about HPV, or Human Papillomavirus. I mentioned in it that there was a vaccine in the works. Now, whether or not it is the same vaccine, it has been put to market.

I’ve been a bit upset about the hype that HPV is getting. HPV is not an epidemic, nor does it, at its stage, deserve the various commercials that now invade my television set more than the “Above the Influence” ads do. And when the ads come on, they’re incredibly cheesy and hyped up. The vaccine’s commercial, product named “Gardasil,” flaunts that with each vaccination there can be “one less” person affected by HPV.

Keep going »

It’s been a year since I opened up this site and started blogging. Well, perhaps not exactly a year to this day, but around this time was when the site ceased to be simply a domain name and began to be a blog. There were and are also other things this domain does, but only a few people know about them, because they are things specifically for that group of people.

In fact, the reason I made the blog was actually to cover up that thing. It was like some covert operation, and this blog was the spy. Now the blog is the main part of the site!

So whether I actually started blogging in November, December, or even January, know that I’ve had a fun year doing it. I’ve even gotten into it a bit, if I say so myself. And the site has grown massively. It’s getting four times as many visitors as it did back then. Perhaps that says something about the future of this site. Or maybe it just says what will happen when I finish remaking the Golden Sun OST. :P

Thanks a bunch to you and everyone who reads this place,
~ Jason.

Even though I’m sick, I’m still entering a statewide writing contest. My entry is now finished; let’s hope I win! Read on to read the entry, which is more or less the edited version of the beginning of the novel with an ending slapped on.

Keep going »

First a bad cold, now a stomach virus. When the hell am I going to get to go to school?

Happy birthday, me! I’m finally 17. Sure, I failed the driving test today, but I’m going to ace it next time. All I forgot to do was signal for a k-turn. Nothing big, just stupid.

So I’ll be… doing schoolwork for the rest of the day. Yay! …yay?

I was thinking about the way things look, and how physics itself is counter-intuitive. Now, mind you, this was during the end of physics class, so I was also quite spacey. Out of me burst a poem, one of my only recent ones with some form of rhyme scheme.

“On Looks”

Left alone, itself surmise

The universe will improvise

With classic clouds and gravitons

Black-holes, space-time, and photons

With all of this in stellar mix

It’s hard to tell what’s which from which;

Photons in black shadow’s hole,

Reality lost is space-time’s goal

Then suddenly it rearranges -

The universe makes several changes

Now everything is inside-out

And upside down and roundabout!

The universe’s resurrection,

Although it changes our perception,

Never was the bane of mind.

The cosmos is the same sublime.

So what thereof on transformations,

Testing universal patience?

Of who is who and what is what,

The answer must remain in thought.