Mindspy

2007-03-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

Right, finals at 8 AM tommorow, then I get to stand in red square gathering signatures for god knows how long.

Anyone who wants to see me do some improv, take a look here!

-Mindspy

Dead

2007-03-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

So I had to pull my second all nighter this quarter, ending up getting to sleep at around 7 A.M. Compsci is really starting to be a pain in the ass, but getting 16 out of a possible 15 makes it kind of worth it.

Over the next week or two I have two papers due, so I should have a fun time doing that. One on this shitty movie, the other on the founding of the NRA.

I'll update when I'm not trying to listen to my prof and blog at the same time.

Oh, I have two new members of my family, two goldfish, one named Gorbachev and the other named Reagan. I'm convinced the cold in my room is going kill them both before too long...

Thats right, their eventual deaths are part of a horrible pun.

Someone needs to brush up on their history...

2007-02-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

I just watched John Edwards give a speech in the Presidential candidates Forum in which he both quoted Dr. King (Many times over) and said that "The democrats have always been there [for the] disenfranchised."

Yes, and I've always been there for people who hate sarcasm. Doesn't mean I'm helpful.

Tom Vilsack looks the most promising for the Dem's.

Edit: wrong governor. And for my Irish readers, the democrats were the ones who were blocking Civil Rights and Anti-Lynching laws sixty years ago.
-Mindspy

Bullshit

2007-02-21T11:12:00.000-08:00

Today I get to watch some psychotic liberal documentary for a class, and I get to write a paper on it for my PolySci class. This should be fun actually, my teacher is a raving liberal, but I still like her enough to TA PLSC 250 for her next quarter. Anyone reading this taking 250 next quarter, beware! Muahahaha! Ah, I'm not that bad, I've taught before and assuming nobody has pain-in-the-ass-itis (other than me) we should get along fine. Plus, shes a ranting liberal who blames all America's problems on Richard Nixon!

An open message from my prof on blackboard today so eloquently explains why I have yet to see my midterm grade over a week after my classmates got it. I talked to him about it last Friday, and was told to send him an e-mail, so I did. This morning, I find:

My email went over its limit over the weekend, so I'm not sure if yours got through.
I deleted them all, to be fair, so if you still have a timely problem, get it to me.
Every person who has emailed me a problem game any time this quarter, or brought it into my office, with 1-2 weekdays for me to look at it, has received a solution from me. In addition, all problems that came in on Friday were solved. However, I often cannot respond to "crunch time" problems, so you should think about working ahead if you need help.
I really appreciate all the hard work you're doing this quarter, and will do all I can to help.
Geoff

Oh yes, this is just wonderful! I think I can sleep a little easier knowing that whatever future job I may find myself in, neither competence nor rational thought will be a requisite.

As for a little flashback, which I said I would do, here's the story of the history group.

On the first day of History 104, we were told that we could do one of two things, a paper or a group project. Either one of these was worth 40% of our grade. Each group would be assigned a topic, and every Thursday starting three weeks from the start of the class would have a different group presenting. Week one's topic was Leisure, which sounded like fun, so I decided to go ahead and volunteer (The only completely volunteer group) for the third week suicide group.

Now anyone who knows me knows how fabulously I get along with other people, and this was a prime example of it. We all managed to stay away from each others throats and with the exception of one person (Who, while being annoying as hell every other waking moment, managed to turn around in the last week and get more work done than any of us) managed to get a bunch of work done.

The presentation went really well, and when I went to the prof to get my grade, I got an 86%. That seemed a little harsh, but still within reason. Then I found out that some of the people working on my project had been told by the prof that everyone got a 92%. What. The. Hell.

So I go to talk to the prof, and he says "Yes, everyone got a 92%. Except you." Now we had peer reviews going in this thing and there is nothing more I hate than being judged by my piers in a manner that effects my grade. It turns out people had found me annoying and hard to deal with (Fair enough, I am perfectly capable of annoying the shit out of myself) but that was 6% and, therefore, a full fucking letter grade (Two, if you count + and -) away from everyone else.

Now keep in mind that our instructions very clearly said "Don't divide into groups and then go do your own little thing," which most people had done the second we had got out of the class on that fist day. The guy who was working on the portion of the project I was doing decided to do the intro and outro (Which made sense), so I was left to do one third of our project on my own. I did it, then I helped other people with their research, I even got a goddamn interview with a radio host for our radio portion (Which was cut so the fatass rap fan could go on about how awesome Howard-fucking-Stern was).

To summarize, I was a pain in the ass, but I also was the only pain in the ass both working on my own and helping other people. In short, I was the only person following the profs instructions. Fun times.

Back to the conversation with my prof, I was doing my standard "For fucks sake, Its not like I was picking my nose for the last three weeks" which all came to an abrupt end when the prof said "Are you questioning my grades?" I thought about this for a second and said "As a matter of fact, yes, I am." Realistically, he's probably had to say that many times before, and everyone probably went on the defensive immediately and said "Oh no sir, not me!" and then went on to explain how they were questioning his grade very carefully. Why fuck around, I was questioning his grades.

After about a minute he explained how it was never a good idea to say that to a professor, while at the same time changing my grade to a 90% (Same letter grade as the others in the group) and I walked away happy. er.

There you go, I'm just updating on the highlights, which means rants for a while, but that will all end soon. Hopefully I'll be out of these classes before anyone alerts the prof as to what the hell I'm writing.

-Mindspy

Back, I didn't die. Not really anyway... Braaaains...

2007-02-21T00:19:00.000-08:00

Wait, did I really wish people a happy thanksgiving in my last post? Shit, I was away for too long. I can't even blame classes, had Christmas break in between...

Oh well, I blame dolphins. Or Tim.

Either way, my resolve to stay away from social networking sights was waining a bit, so I felt the need to come back to Blogger, which now has some annoying deal with Google. I hate Google and their goddamn convenience.

Finals went well, I got a pretty good set of grades for my first quarter, and the one I've got back this quarter was an A, so I'm not complaining.

Okay, maybe a little complaining.

A lot.

My political Science teacher is a complete and total flake. It seems everyone has gotten their grades back except me, who is still into the dark as to what my grade was on that butchering of the English language he called an "exam." My TA has a problem understanding the profs. instructions, so while everyone apparently made the same goddamn mistake, he was in fact wrong, and everyone else had gotten the right answer. I didn't know that in the wide world of secondary education that the right answer was worth points up to a threshold where they suddenly count for negatives.

Actually, that is all I have to rant about.

I've been doing Racquetball, CSCI 103, HIST 104 (American history after the Civil War) and PLSC 101 (This, class, is a government *draws with crayons*). For the most part they've been don't-show-up-still-get-an-A classes, except history, which is delightfully challenging. The prof. in HIST 104 is actually a really good guy, a bit difficult test wise, but you really get the material down, even if it is with his heavy bias.

I've taken up playing Magic: the Gathering, since I have some extra income from my job (Teaching computer use) and I have a bunch of friends up here who play it. Anyone up from western who reads this should pester me about playing racquetball sometime, don't worry, I wont let you win (I'll lose of my own volition, thank you very much).

I'll try and add a new post at least three times a week, and for a while I'll be tossing in some catchup material in there to fill the gap that is the last few months. Now if you'll excuse me, its getting dangerously close to only a few hours (Read: less than 8) of sleep here, so I'm off to bed.

じゃね！

Tidbids

2006-11-23T02:08:00.000-08:00

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

We love Wii

2006-11-20T14:56:00.000-08:00

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

Greatest Ad Ever

2006-11-17T13:35:00.000-08:00

German engineering, arab technology.

Quote of the week

2006-11-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

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."

2006-11-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

Anything I missed? (Places i've been)

create your own visited countries map

2006-11-16T14:07:00.000-08:00

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.

Sore Loser

2006-11-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

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.

Transfer Archive 3

2006-11-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-13T15:38:00.000-08:00

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.