Oh Boy

My friend got me the new expansion for World of Warcraft the other day. I told myself I wasn't going to play that game ever again, but in order to not offend, I started back up. Things are way different in the WoW now. I feel like I just started to play the game again for the very first time. A lot can change in a year I have found out. Oy.

What a last few days.

My apartment building's sewage pipe blew up, so I haven't had water in my place since Monday. So I've been showering at the gym, sleeping in a hotel and at my girlfriends place. I couldn't do my dishes or laundry, I would have to walk to different buildings to use the restroom. It was awful. But now that I have water I am making up for the lack of it, which would be greatly frowned upon by my city. But Portland can suck it!

But now that my life is back to normal, more or less anyways, it's time to get back on my exercise routine. I just bought some protein supplement so I can get big, and hopefully burn off the fat that has been on my body since I was 9 or so.I managed to lose like 50 pounds when I was a sophomore in high school, I've put that weight back on, but it's been in bone and muscle mass, but I still have a gut, and love handles and such; now I'm set on getting rid of it. With it being winter break, I have to focus on my health. In a time when people indulge and eat more then they need and do very little exercise, I need to do the opposite. My health depends on it, and my self-esteem as well, at a probably greater level than my health even.

I hope things go well this break, I hope my girlfriend and I spend time, and due to my exercise I get happier, which will affect us, which is good. I'll probably keep you posted on how things are going.

Cheers!

New Layout

Not like you guys really care, but as you can see there is a new layout to the blog. Like it or leave it, I don't care. The content will still be the same, which has no real common trend; but does life ever really follow a strict pattern?

Finals Week

In an hour I take my first final, Personality Psychology. It's going to be cake, then tomorrow I have Communications, and Thursday is Statistics. I think I'm going to just go in and write in random numbers for my Stat's test. I'm going to fail the class regardless of how well I do, so there is no point in wasting all my brain power on the class. Stat's can go to hell. But my other two will be fun and interesting. Let's hope I do well on these, I need to A's to make up for the F I'm sure I'm going to get. Cross your fingers!

I want nothing more than this.

I want to be like one of the men in a Hemmingway novel. They are always the most honorable men regardless of their situation. They are authentic macho's no doubt. They do what they have to do and don't complain, they do whatever it takes to support their families, and they respect others. The Old Man and the Sea is probably the greatest example of masculinity of all time. That was how I was introduced to that amazing novella, my college writing teacher told me that the book "will teach you how to be a man," and he was right. I've read it 6 times now and still learn something new about being a true, good, honorable and respectable man.

My hero. My idol. My favorite.

What would happen if?

I woke up this morning with this thought, and don't think I'm some sort of sick fuck for thinking this. What would happen if a baby was to be abandoned in the jungle, and got raised by some gorillas? Something like this has happened before, with a child being raised by wolves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child), I would wonder if the child would be capable of surviving in one of these kind of situations? If only this experiment would be actually doable in the world today. With IRB's (Institutional Review Boards) strict rulings for ethics, there is no way anything of this nature could be approved, and no one would be willing to give up their child for this study. But I bet the child would be able to develop fairly well, and then after the experiment, they would be able to almost successfully transition the child into the normal world. If they can teach lower primates how to use sign language, I feel they would be able to have a child who was raised by apes learn how to act more human then many would think.

Like I said, don't think I'm some sick fuck for this. I can't help what I started thinking when I woke up this morning.

OMG

I want this cat!

WikiLeaks

Have you heard about the newest mass of documents WikiLeaks has released this week? I'm sure you have, and I'm shocked. I am siding with the government on this. A lot of that information should not have been released to the public, because it could harm a lot of innocent people. I just read on CNN today that one of the documents released stated that China was getting tired of support North Korea, and thinking it was a "spoiled child," and with the current situation over on the Korean peninsula NK could react very negatively and this could explode to a whole lot bigger of a mess than necessary.

What also is making me irritated is the creator of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is thinking he is some sort of hero now; saying he has documents that can tear down a US bank and thinking he is doing a public service by releasing thousands of classified information which could end up in bloodshed. This guy needs to realize that he is not doing a great thing, more like a reckless thing and that many people are upset with him.

Yes, people deserve the right to know what their government is doing and I agree with that; but releasing information that could cause more harm then good is not my idea of a public service. You have to weigh the costs with the benefits when it comes to something like this, and I feel that the costs are way more pricey than the benefits.

Disagree if you want, it's a free world on the internet, well hopefully. But that is another story.

Sources:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/30/news/economy/banks.wikileaks/index.htm?hpt=T2
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/29/wikileaks.new.documents/index.html

Empty Fridge

You would think that when one has a empty refrigerator they would go and purchase some more food. Not I however. I'm lazy and post poning it until I absolutely need to. Fuck having different food to eat, I'll just live off of spaghetti and chilli! I really should go shopping though. Try to stock up one more time before intense cold hits Oregon again.

Home

I'm home for Thanksgiving. It feels good. I needed to get out of Portland, away from the school, away from my girlfriend, away from my friends. Let's hope this vacation does good things. I think it will.

SNOW!

Portland got snow. This is a big deal, even though we only have like half an inch on the ground, everyone will be freaking out because they don't know how to handle it. Yet I still have school. This is lame!

My Quest for a Casual Xbox 360 Game.

I like video games. I like them a lot. It took me years to finally catch up, but I finally got my Xbox 360 this Summer. Right away I went in pretty hard, I bought Fable 2, beat it in a week. I got Dragon age: Origins, beat that in two weeks. Then things started to get dull. I picked up Magic the Gathering, the super nerdy card game with my friend, so all my time and money went into that. Because of this new-found hobby I wasn't putting in nearly as many hours as I should have on my Xbox. I am awful at FPS games Like CODMW, and I have a TV that is nearing 20 years old, so the on screen text is nearly impossible to read. So, as time went by, I drifted away from my Xbox.

I did not like that however, but with me being in school now, I never have time to actually sit down and play. I recently got Mass Effect, because it's supposed to be one of the best games of all time. I like the game, but the commitment of time it takes to get into the game and understand the story and each individual characters story is too much. So I realized what I need to enjoy my Xbox; casual games.

Now, finding casual games is a lot harder for me then it sounds. All games for the Xbox are built for Xbox live. I do not want to pay the $50 for a year of live, especially since I am going to be moving into a building where I cannot run live. So I've been thinking about some non-online casual games to play. I'm thinking racing games, something I can turn on, play for twenty minutes and then turn off. A type of game that if there is a story mode function, I can come back to it 2-3 weeks after last playing and understanding where I'm at. This is the kind of game I am looking for. I just bought Orange Box tonight hoping that Portal will be able to provide me some casual fun without requiring too much of my time. So far so good. I'll let you know how it goes in a week or so.

If any of you readers out there know of any good casual games that do not require Xbox Live let me know. I am in need of some things to do in order to kill time.

Cheers!

All hail the king.

Eminem is one of my favorite rappers; and in my opinion, one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all time. He is so good at writing quality songs that get you emotionally invested into them. His lyrics are out of this world, his flow and speed are second to none. Not to mention he doesn't rap about the usual rap stuff. You know, fuckin bitches, drinking Hennesy, smoking weed. Sure his stuff get's violent and offensive, but it gets you, like I just stated, emotionally invested into the song; which I feel is a key component to good music.

Eminem's song 3 AM is one of the best he's ever made. It's really violent, but the structure and flow of the song is that of something rarely seen in mass media rap music. His rhymes are incredible and the way he put's these words into a rhythm is absolutely breath taking. Here's the video for the song. Like it or leave it, it's one of the best I have ever heard,from the greatest rapper of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAuo8IOFNuE

Fuck yes! I loathe Hipster's, and so does everyone else it seems. This is the best C&H yet!


Source: http://www.explosm.net/comics/2239/

Productivity Woes

I have a Statistic's Midterm tomorrow that I need to be studying for, but there are so many other things I'd rather be doing. Here I am doing one of them, posting a blog about my woes, so you can read about them. I would rather be playing Pokemon Sapphire, because I have never beaten that game; I would also much rather be trying to get through Mass Effect, but that will have to wait for December when I am on my month long winter break.

I have always had trouble motivating myself to study for any test, largely because I have always been really skilled at school. I graduated High School with a 3.3 GPA without trying for a single class. So far my GPA in college is 3.2, again, without much effort put into studying. Writing is easy for me, putting words together to form coherent sentences is something that I take pride in; and as any of you who are in college know, college is largely paper writing. So now that I am deciding to take my math requirements for my degree I am faced with the problem of not being the above average grade, below average effort student that I have been for the last 15 years of my educational life.

This is a problem, it's effecting my self-esteem. I can't just coast through this class and understand everything the first time? This is new to me, and I know I'm sounding very narcissistic right now, but believe me, if you were in my shoes you would be feeling the same.

Luckily I found a way to get into the mood to work, and once that I am in that mood work get's done. It's a real simple thing, two websites put me into this state of work-overdrive. These two sites are:
http://www.rainymood.com/
http://www.endlessyoutube.com/watch?v=HMnrl0tmd3k
Listen to these two together my friends, these will put you in the mood to be classy, to relax, to get work done, or all three at the same time. You can listen to the song for three hours and not even notice that it has played through 30 or 40 times.

So that is my rant, and my solution. I hope some of you can empathize with me, and perhaps some of you are the exact same way. Hopefully the two websites I've given make a difference on your study habits, sleeping habits, or just give you something else to listen to while you are sitting in your room talking to your man or woman.

Text Messaging: Evil in Disguise

If I had to choose one thing to dislike about this information age, and trust me there are several, it would have to be text messaging. This handy means of communication has ruined communication between two people tremendously. Unfortunately, much like Facebook, the only ways to communicate with your peers is through text messaging. People don’t answer phone calls; but will respond immediately to a text. Myself for example, I send an average of 6,000 texts per month, and use and average of 100 minutes a month. Almost all of the texts go to my girlfriend, who lives a few blocks away, and most of my minutes are two my boss who seems to call me about anything and everything lately.

Now this ratio of communication styles is okay by me. The only problem is, I will spend 20 or 30 minutes trying to explain something to my girlfriend, or friend. This could have been explained in less than a minute had we been on the phone or face to face. However, both of us are too busy to actually have a conversation on the phone, or the subject matter of the conversation is that of private contents. However, as I have seen countless times, and have done many more countless times, we could move to a more private location to carry out this very short conversation instead of dragging it out 10 times longer then it should be.
Also, and this is probably my last reason, as this is a Blogspot post and not an essay for class, therefore I don’t have to be so thorough and detailed, the receiver of the text message is reading this message in entirely a subjective way. For example, my girlfriend will ask me if I want to come over, and I will respond with “Sure” and she reads that as “sure…” not thinking I want to come over. However, I meant that “Sure” as “Sure! You better believe it toot’s!” Once this message’s meanings has been mixed, I then have to explain that my punctuation-less "sure" really had a positive message, and not the negative one she read. And as I said above, I will now have to take the next 20 minutes or so explaining my statement in as few words as possible so I don’t have to text seven pages of text message so she can understand what I really meant, and because she is too busy watching Spongebob Squarepants with her baby brother.

I guess what I am trying to say is that, due to this cultural obsession with text messaging we have lost very important communication skills and are reading these messages we receive with the entirely wrong context. We are also wasting our precious and non-refundable time dealing with the nonsense of having to explain a simple sentence via 160 characters.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are worse things out there. Such as professors obsession with using our online services to teach and issue tests and readings; or employers only accepting online applications, removing a very valuable chance at first impression of your potential employees, or the youths lack of activity due to all the television and video games that they are playing. But this isn’t about those things, this is about text messaging and it’s evils.

I also understand the very beneficial things that text messaging bring along. If you have short messages to say and have no way to squeeze in a conversation about the problem, a text is a efficient way to get your message to the other person. Sending numerical entries as well, like phone numbers or addresses and such. But like the slow line in the grocery store, you really notice when these things go wrong, and not when they work oh so smoothly (Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness).

Regardless of the convenience of text messaging, I really wish it would go away. A regress in that technology and this cultural fixation, and a resurgence of phone calls would not only free up a lot of time, but would save me, and I’m sure hundreds of thousands of from the hassles of having a message read in the wrong context and spending the half hour trying to explain themselves and change their significant others mind that they really want to come over and aren’t just doing it because they asked. However, I don’t feel this will happen, at least the later T-Mobile Sidekick’s have been able to make phone calls.

Things Pokemon Should Do To Make Their Games A Million Times Better.

I have been playing Pokemon since the beginning. I remember when I first got the cards in second grade, I was so excited. Then I eventually got the game, and my life had forever changed. I would (and still do) spend as much time as I can playing the game, catching and leveling as many Pokemon as I could. I have played every generation, I even have paid off the Pokemon White Version that is going to be coming out in Spring 2011. I am that serious of a Pokemon fan. Now after all these years of playing the game I have found some things that I feel would make the whole experience better for everyone. This is a list of things Pokemon needs to do to make the games a million times better:

1. Allow a Pokemon to follow you at all times. They did this in Heart Gold/Soul Silver but it was the first Pokemon in your party. Don't do that, allow the player to choose on of his six to follow him at all times with a menu in the Pokemon tab of your start menu. If they want to choose someone else, all they will have to do is select the next Pokemon they want to have follow them.

2. Get rid of Hm's. They are a waste of a move slot. Are you telling me, that Lapras can't learn how to swim be across a body of water unless it knows Surf? I caught Lapras in a body of water swimming. Making Hm's be a racial perk would make things so much easier for everyone to use. No longer would you have to carry around an Hm slave that is a much lower level than your party just to make sure you can break a rock that is preventing you from getting to a legendary Pokemon. These moves still only be usable once you have gotten the appropriate badge, but I am tired of having to delete a wonderful move to teach my Charizard how to fly. That mother fucker is huge and wouldn't even notice if I was riding on his back across the region.

3. Incorporate some sort of MMO function. With the DS having wi-fi make it so that I can see another trainer running around the same city as me, not just underground. I guess Black and White are doing this, which makes me super excited. Hopefully I can fight them by talking to them and maybe trade as well. No more Union Rooms and waiting forever to get a trade done. Just walking around the city and talking to all the trainers I see. Now that would be cool.

4. More story. In all the Pokemon games there seems to be a story underneath the fact that you have to beat all the gym leaders and become the Pokemon League Champion. The first two generations had Team Rocket, the next one had Team Aqua/Magma, and the fourth has Team Galactic. The fourth generation came the closest to really revealing the story behind Team Galactic, but I really want more. I feel like they could up the game to a whole new level and bring in even more players if they made the plot involving the Team Baddies more clear.

5. Another take from the World of Warcraft, whenever your Pokemon levels, let it regain it's health and Powerpoints. This way you could level more efficiently without having to go out of your way to go to a Poke Center just to get your moves back.

6. Let abilities be hereditary. Meaning, that I can breed Pokemon to gain different abilities instead of the two per species. For example, Infernape only gets blaze, and I would kill for him to have Iron Fist or whatever its name is. If abilities were able to transfer through breeding then I would just have to breed Infernape with a Hitmonchan and there we go, an even more bad ass Infernape.

7. Let there be some sort of system that checks for the levels of my Pokemon compared to the level of a random trainers Pokemon. There's nothing more frustrating than trying to catch a swarming Pokemon in Platinum and then a weak beginning of the game trainer wants to fight. Allow there to be in-game level comparisons and if your Pokemon are say, 15 levels ahead of the trainers, or vice-versa, the battle doesn't happen.

8.  Make the storage system better. I just saw in Pokemon Sapphire that I should organize my boxes for particular types. That's a really cool idea! Only if it would automatically send water Pokemon to the water box, and fire Pokemon to the fire box. This would be possible if they added a bit more mechanics into the storage system and settings functions of the game. This then would allow the suggestions made by the game itself be reasonable suggestions for people to use.

These are all I have for right now, I am sure I will come up with more things to write about in this as time goes on. Keep checking on this for more ways to improve Pokemon.

Cheers!