Thursday, November 23, 2006

Tidbids

Looks like the U.S. Army has finally come up with a slogan that doesnt suck, or at least sucks less. "There's strong, and then there's Army Strong." The downside to this one is that I can't have fun giving the army recruiters a hard time by asking which one of them it is (The old slogan was "Army of one").

Also, my useful PSA for the day, did you know that Nintendo, as well as being awesome, is also the oldest video game company it the world. Though they didnt start making video-games until the 1975, but they were formed in 1889 as a playing card company, and in the middle of the 1900's, they had a Love Hotel, a Taxi company, and a food company making stuff like instant noodles.

So for a company that owned love hotels, I guess the Wii wasnt a big step.

So, Happy Thanksgiving all, and may we some day get a president who won't pardon that damn turkey.

-Mindspy

Monday, November 20, 2006

We love Wii

NOTE: Wii is a proper noun in the context of a personal name (much like iPod), with neither "The Nintendo" or even "the" in front of it, so, though seeming like I've left out a word in several cases, I have not.

I wanted a Wii, bad. So at 5:00 PM on Saturday, I went and waited in the line in front of the Bellingham Best Buy and, considering what the PS3 lines had been like, I was supposed to no one there. So my friend and I set up camp, where we waited taking shifts going into best buy and getting controllers (which were sold out by their closing at 11). At about 8, we had some others show up, bringing the total people in the line up to 4 people. Watching movies and reading, we waited the time away.

By the time I'd finished a short nap, about 15 people had shown up, and when I finished reading another hour later, we were into the 30s. Eventually the line got to the maximum of 45 and we all dug in and waited as the night got colder. Some people ordered pizza and shared it with those there, and someone had set up a laptop and was playing South Park (Nice...) and later some movies. Some people had brought DS's, and were playing around in pictochat, which brought the pleasant surprise message of "All Hail Ball," which resulted in a long conversation between a fellow PAX attendee.

At around 12:30 I set up my sleeping bag with the rain kicking up, and slept. I woke up at around 6:00 as the guy sitting next to me with a portable DVD player was watching wrestling (At six fucking thiry, what the hell?) much to my displeasure. When I sat up, I noticed that the rain had kicked up into a full blown storm, where anything that wasn't nailed down was blowing into my face (me being at the front of line, and the wind blowing towards me). At around 6:30, those Best Buy employees who had already arived started up a list, to prevent what almost happened five minutes after the list had returned.

After the list had finished going around and been double checked (to make sure nobody wrote themselves earlier into the line), some guy got out of his car, into the back of the line and with a clipboard and paper in hand, yelled out "I'm going to start up a list to make sure nobody loses their place or anything, Ill just start it back here and toss it down the line." This was met with mostly laughter and incredulity, especially from those of us towards the front of the line. We politely informed him that the line was likely full, and that, while it was a nice try, he could go fuck himself.

At 8 AM, the Blue Shirts came out to give out tickets that, for a few hours at least, guaranteed that those in the line would get Wii's. At this, several people went home or to breakfast, while about 60% of the line stayed, not wanting to lose out on any play time with their forthcoming Wii's. Several people tried to explain that now that everyone had their tickets, the line didn't matter anymore. In a period of about three minutes, they found themselves right at the back of the line, or at least in their respective spots near the back.

Finally, at 9, the doors opened with both employees and my camera's flashing. My friend and I, first in line, went in. Though he had to flee to the bathroom, I was the first to go through the checkout with the Wii. At about 8:30, my roommate showed up to pick us up, so as soon as my friend had checked out with Wii, we headed back and set up Wii. Harrison stole the big TV upstairs for his Wii, and together we had four Wiimotes between us (only 2 nunchucks though, limiting us to WiiSports for 4 player).

I was mildly worried of Wii's physically demanding control scheme, but these vanished after I realized I had been playing for several hours. So far a ton of people have come to play Wii, and we have a ton of Mii's set up. So anyone reading this from the residence halls, come on down!

-Mindspy

Friday, November 17, 2006

Greatest Ad Ever

German engineering, arab technology.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Quote of the week

Leave it to Kotaku, Best quote i've heard all week.

"Gotta love activist high school students. A Fontana California high school's students and faculty members have had it with the escalating trend of school-related violence over the past several years, and have decided to do something about it. They've declared November 13-18th "Anti-Violence Week" at A.B. Miller high school. As part of the festivities, students tied ribbons on the school fence spelling out, "Life is Not a Video Game."

I personally would have gone with "Parenting is Not a Hobby," but that's just me."

Anything I missed? (Places i've been)



create your own visited countries map
My father sent my an article that was... Interesting.

Sony Computer Entertainment spokesman Daisuke Nakata declined to comment on the auctions, saying the deals were unrelated to Sony's operations.

Now, the slight problem with this is what sony did to Lik-Sang for legitimately selling imported consoles;

Lik-Sang.com, the popular gaming retailer from Hong Kong, has today announced that it is forced to close down due to multiple legal actions brought against it by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Sony claimed that Lik-Sang infringed its trade marks, copyright and registered design rights by selling Sony PSP consoles from Asia to European customers

Lets stop blaming Microsoft and Apple for being an evil empire trying to dominate the world. Microsoft can't even dominate their own OS. Someone set up a fire, I say its time to burn Sony and EA.

On a differnt note, two midterms down, one to go.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Sore Loser

Jeeze, shut the hell up already!
Clint Curtis said he is considering a legal challenge to the election results: "In this election, the results did not match the Zogby pre-election poll, our internal VoteNow2006.net polling, or our exit polling," Curtis explained.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Transfer Archive 3

Cindy Sheenan has decded that the standard rules of being mortal no longer apply to her;

(Emphasis mine)

Cindy said that she is determined t not only wants to see George Bush impeached but she wants to see him tried for Crimes Against Humanity. She states is so determined to see this done she says she will live for 1000 years. She went further by saying that even if she were involved in a fiery plane crash she would walk out alive just to see this done.

Kristinn yelled out to her as she was leaving the stage that the Iraqi’s have a memorial to the victims of terrorism saying that Freedom Isn’t Free. Cindy got back on the stage to say of course freedom is free, if it wasn’t it would be called expensivedom.

How sad, her son bravely died for a cause that she has dedicated her life to undermining. At least i'll be able to rest in peace knowing that she'll be waiting 1000 years for charges that, even if they do find there way into court, will be thrown out as complete bullshit.

Also, who gave her the comic wit of Ben Stiller? Expensivedom? Hot damn, someone give her a pullitzer.

Fun times.

-Mindspy

Transfer Archive 2

Yeah, kinda forgot this blog existed briefly.

I'll be insanely busy this week, I have three midterms, and I "forgot" to study any of the material for them. So I had about 180 pages for a history midterm in 9 hours (I started reading an 1:45, finished at 12). Next up is 158 pages for Mythology and Folklore by Thursday, and 360 for PolySci by friday.

Fun times, shouldn't be too hard.

On a non-sequitur, the american publishers of Naruto are going to go batshit when they get to the point that one of everyone's favorite characters started smoking! God forbid! They already had to edit the manji (卍, a Bhuddist symbol, as opposed to the german [use of the] Swastika, which was mirrored and at a 45 degree angle), but the smoking thing is actually plot related, and they cant just edit this to somthing else. Heh, god forbid this gets in the way of killing people.

Transfer Archive 1

Well, since I came back from Japan in June, I haven't really posted anything that I've done. So, lets get a brief summary of the better part of a year going in here.

When I got back, I tended to lounge around, there wasn't much to do for a while other than draw and play games, so it got fairly boring. I did manage to get a bunch of reading in though, so that was worthwhile.

In the mid-summer I went to my Mothers 50th birthday party, which (I say with all due affection) she dragged us up to eastern Canada for. It was actually a lot of fun, as I got to see one of my best friends Stevie there (He lives in Ireland, so I don't get to see him much). We got to hang out, and we went shooting, which was both a blast (No pun intended) and a dream come true for Stevie, whose been a gun nut for as long as I've known him (14 years) but because of Ireland's anal-retentive gun laws (Not even the Garda are armed) had never got to shoot anything more than a shotgun. So I think getting a chance to shoot everything from a 9mm to a custom built sniper rifle was the highlight of his trip.

Which reminds me, I need to get back down to Wades.

After that, I returned home for a few weeks, which I spent secluded playing Eve Online.
Around this time my Dad had open heart surgery, which was a bit nerve-wracking for all of us (especially him), but his recovery was much faster than it was expected to be, and by this point he's pretty much back to his grumpy old self.

Before I went anywhere else, the important matter of PAX had to be taken care of, which was a complete and total blast, and I managed to go the second day with my friend Aaron, which, considering all of the penny-arcade fans who went, made the entire thing like a big 14,000 person in-joke.

Aaron and I went with my mom to Europe for a few weeks (My dad was originally going to come, but he couldn't since he was still recovering), which was a lot of fun. We went to Spain first, spending some time at the Alhambra and visiting the old archeological sights, which are quite literally everywhere. Next stop was Ireland, where we proved to Aaron that the Irish drinking culture seen on TV is actually understated. finally we made a brief stop in the UK and saw the Producers on stage, which was probably one of the more funny plays I've ever seen.

Finally, I came back, had to give a million vials of blood for medical tests, and went to university the next day. WWU is pretty nice, it fairly laid back and studious, which is a pleasant break from last years insanity. I'm studying history now, so that should be a little easier than last years physics (Which I love, I just suck at math, which doesn't really mesh with it).

And possibly most odd of all, I have taken up a sport. Or a pre-sport as the case may be. I have started Ice skating, with the hopes that some day I may follow in my fathers footsteps and play ice hockey (albeit badly, and a little taller).

Oh yes, and I turned 18.