User:Randall00

Randall00 UTC July - 29 - 2024 Talk | Contributions | Places I've Been | Edit Count | Sandbox | Templates



 :: My Bookmarked Wikis
 * Songs of the Century
 * History of Hip Hop
 * Punctuation

 :: Watchlist
 * Djarum
 * kretek
 * Dunhill (cigarette)
 * Super Smash Bros. Melee
 * Smashing...Live!
 * Knot

 :: Complete/Ongoing Projects
 * Andre Nickatina [[Image:checkmark.gif]]
 * Travellers Inn [[Image:checkmark.gif]]
 * Soup (album)
 * Roger Troutman
 * Solar Cola (future)

 :: Subpages /Userboxes /Sandbox /Talk Edit Count

 :: Declaration This page layout was stolen blatantly from Codu, who previously stole it mercilessly from Blankfaze.

 

Welcome to Randall's ultimate wikiportal to how I spend time on the internet. Presently, this user page contains the wikipedia-specific contributions that I have made since its inception as well as an external reference (to be used primarily by me) cataloguing pretty much everything I've done on the internet since I was 13. Maybe 12. I forget exactly, but either way, I was running Windows 95 on a 486 and made my first spam-free contribution to the internet in an AOL chatroom under the name of BANJOBRUCE, an alias that I had no part in creating and intend to have a very big part in not using ever again. When our 90 hour trial subscription of dial-up internet expired, we hooked up with an early incarnation of 3web and I've been Randall00 ever since. Well not quite, I admit I did try and shoot for "Randall" just, but as all the Jennifers, Christophers, Roberts and Lindsays know, it just doesn't work that way.

I'm still trying to track down the bastard who registered randall00@hotmail.com before I did.

Et cetera
The name "Et cetera" was originally given to an ancient web log (or "blog" before the term existed) hosted by Angelfire in the late nineties. The page underwent a serious overhaul and was eventually moved to its own domain name at www.et-cet-era.ca after a brief stint as an ICQ homepage.

The first incarnation of Et cetera still exists on the internet, though it has been dormant for quite some time. Originally consisting of nothing more than text and page breaks, the website underwent several stylistic changes before settling on a white-text-on-blue theme, punctuated by a bubbly banner design that I adopted from my friend's sister site, DiEt cetera. When I ultimately decided to move away from the free webhosting service of Angelfire, the entire website underwent cosmetic surgery, emerging as a more conventional black-text-on-grey color scheme, as well as new banners for the main page and each of its subsections. Additionally, the main body of Et cetera (nearly 120 entries) and many of its offshoot pages were scrapped entirely; a decision made to both close an old chapter of my personal life and maintain a respectable level of quality on the new page.

The design and navigation interface of Et cetera is one thing that hasn't changed. Since learning basic HTML, the page has always had its entries sorted in a numerical list on the main page* with individual links to each numbered entry centered in small text below the similarly-formatted links to subsections.

*The first version of Et cetera had entry #61 and all those following it were stored on a different page due to excessive loading times. However, this was largely due to the widespread use of dialup internet at the time and will not likely be repeated in the newest rendition of the site.

The Et cetera Network
Following my friend's half-the-calories creation of DiEt cetera, there would eventually be two more contributors to Et cetera-style pages. Both pages are no longer on the internet, though some versions exist at the Internet Archive. These four websites together formed The Et cetera Network, comprising Et cetera itself, DiEt cetera by Mitchell Duncan, QuiEt cetera by Reuben Colman and FrEt cetera by Christopher Wong. There was also a "network page" which served as a hub linking to the various offshoot websites, as well as an Et cetera-themed forum hosted by ezboard.


 * Et cetera
 * Et cetera @ Angelfire (dormant)
 * DiEt cetera (sister project)

Pro Impact Players
The Pro Impact Players are a three-person Super Smash Bros. Melee crew from my hometown in Calgary composed of me and my two roommates, Mitchell and Chris. We play the game competitively and have been doing so officially since October 2006.


 * Pro Impact Players @ SmashWiki

Pro Impact BI-WEEKLY Smash
Beyond participating in competitive Smash Bros. play, we also run bi-weekly tournaments in Calgary out of our home--the only active competition in the area boasting regular attendance. In doing so, we are able to influence the local community and promote the enjoyment of the game within the city and surrounding areas, as well as entertain and discuss ideas to organize and improve the national tournament scene.

Videos
Thanks to the advent of modern technology and a small dose of initiative, we have also released a number of videos under the Pro Impact Players name. The content ranges from technical demonstration, tutorial videos, highlight reels from the bi-weekly tournaments and just plain ol' entertainment.


 * See Pro Impact Players Videography for further details.

Albums
The Lighter Side of Indifference (2002)
 * This, like the albums that followed, is a collection of mostly instrumental guitar-based tracks, but also branches off into some fairly obscure areas. Most of this album was heavily influenced (and it shows) by the music of GuitarWar.com, however notable exceptions to those stylistic elements include a trance song with a guitar solo, a piano ballad with a guest vocalist, a very basic jazz tune and an atrociously bad recording of an acoustic instrumental.

Fractals (2003)

Randall Morrison (2007)

Hermione Granger & the Philosopher's Stone
This is a novel I wrote over a period of no longer than six months and finished just in time for Christmas of 2005. It is a parallel novel to J.K. Rowling's initial tale in the now-legendary Harry Potter saga, telling the story as seen through the eyes of supporting character, Hermione Granger.

Star Wars 0027
This is a serial novel written in ten parts that came about as a result of the collective imagination of myself and my friends who all banded together for a fun exercise in character/story creation during the summer holiday between 9th and 10th grade high school. Originally based on Star Wars-inspired childhood roleplaying games, the story expanded into a lengthy apocryphal timeline of fictitious events within the universe. That story begins approximately 20 years following the events portrayed in film and concluding almost 40 years after that fact.

When you have written a novel, many people (typically those who don't realize that simply writing a novel isn't enough) will ask whether or not you've made an attempt to get it published. Star Wars 0027 is not published primarily because it's not good enough, and secondly because Bantam/Del-Ray, the company that controls the Star Wars license, goes to great lengths to ensure that all the novels published under their name and the plot developments therein coincide with the fictional history laid out by previous publications. Incidentally, shortly before I had finished Star Wars 0027, R.A. Salvatore announced that he would be publishing Vector Prime, the first novel in a forthcoming (and since greatly expanded) New Jedi Order series. In this book, he was to stage the re-creation of the Jedi Council, an event that occurs under entirely different circumstances in my own novel. Thus, my already non-existent hopes of having a published Star Wars novel to my name were effectively obliterated. For the record though, Salvatore's book was a considerably stronger literary effort--however, I still believe that the actual story of Star Wars 0027 could've been a science fiction tale of appropriately epic proportions in the hands of a better writer.

Facebook

 * Facebook

The latest addictive pop culture fad and internet phenomenon to strike the growing youth of our civilization. When it comes to media-based social networking, the truth is, Facebook is the best. The content is highly customizable, allowing you to filter out some of the advertising and other spam-like contributions that frequently break similar websites and communities.

MySpace

 * MySpace

The tremendous success of MySpace and its irritating automatic streaming audio were two very good reasons that I didn't make an account. However, as they began to offer more support for independent musicians, particularly with the "MySpace Music" account creation feature, it quickly became apparent that if the other musicians I know all have three free songs playing for anyone who visits their page, I really ought to have one too if I hope to make any musical relationships at all.

LiveJournal

 * LiveJournal

I was also a late arrival on the LiveJournal scene, having been posting anonymously and reading various journals for quite awhile before making one myself. Originally, I just couldn't find a reason to make one, since everything that I had intended to submit to the internet at the time was pretty much covered at Et cetera. Nevertheless, as my eye for detail and passion for quality work became all the more scrutinous, I eventually created the journal under the title "Colloquial All Sorts" because by now, all the reasonable variations of "Randall00" were long taken. I used the page as a hub for "thoughts I used to forget before I had a place to write them down." It wasn't uncommon for me to be walking around, living my day-to-day life and then not having a pen when I thought of something noteworthy.

Colloquial All Sorts is now dormant; it ultimately suffered the same fate as the original Et cetera, turning into a digital cornerstone of my own misery. Recognizing this, I made my final post and maintain the account for posterity (read: "posting purposes").

Nexopia

 * Nexopia

Nexopia is something of a local phenomenon and is the only social networking website that I know of that can lay claim to being founded in Canada, and what's more, in Edmonton, located not six hours by car from where I live. It has expanded to a degree where they are starting to see an influx of international members, but most of the profiles belong to Canadians. This has obvious positive ramifications for making realistic connections with other people, but it does suffer from the very same plague that any community on the internet does: Trollitis.

Orkut

 * Orkut

I created an Orkut account when I learned that it was a property of the Google media conglomerate and when it comes to software, I must admit that I am often blindly and naively showing my support for Google-related things without even realizing it. I sometimes find myself downloading Google software that I don't need and creating Gmail accounts when I already have a perfectly good e-mail address. After all, they do have the [www.google.com third-best website on the internet] and they support FireFox (a change everyone ought to make), plus Gmail really is the shit--it makes me wish I didn't have a perfectly good e-mail address. Anyway, I intend to do more work with Orkut, but so far, I have to say that by appearance at least, it seems pretty shoddy for a Google-sanctioned project. Despite following Google blindly into battle all the time, I'm still a realist and I won't hesitate to jump aboard the first truck out of the trenches if it's looking like death!

UPDATE: Orkut has now been superceded by perhaps the first-ever well-streamlined social networking utility: Facebook.