Mario: Does he live up to the standards?

Go back in time with me for a minute. Mario, ever since he emerged from the original Donkey Kong Arcade game, has been a video game icon: probably the most famous one to this day. He's stared in countless video game titles. From the arcade, Mario made his way onto the Nintendo Entertainment System, the sole survivor of the console wars.

Now, back to the present. Mario has since been on every Nintendo console, (as well as the Philps CD-i, but we're going to ignore that failure of a console). Now, I'm starting to wonder: does Mario live up to his classic games in these new Wii games? Let's go through his 3 exclusive Wii games and find out!

Super Paper Mario: This is the 3rd game in the Paper Mario series. The original Paper Mario games were more RPG like, where it featured turn based battles and a variety of characters who help Mario on his journey. Now, Super Paper Mario goes away from this formula, and makes the game a platformer, with no interruptive battles, and all one smooth playthrough. Is this a good thing? Personally, I liked the original turn based gameplay better: it was a lot more challenging, longer, and had one of the toughest final bosses ever (referring to Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Old Door). But, this game is its own creation. The creativity in this game astounds me, where it jumps from world to world, with different graphics and a different gameplay style. It's very interesting and unique. Even with its creative gameplay though, I liked the original more because of it's challenge and RPG style gameplay. Does that make this game bad? Of course not!! This is, by all means, an excellent game. I found it a bit easy though, unlike The Thousand Year Old Door; that game was insane!! The final boss in that game took me FOREVER to defeat. I feel like this is mainly because of Nintendo trying to not scare away casual players with its difficulty. Overall, this game is one definitely worth playing, but it's not too hard, and not that long of a game.

Super Mario Galaxy: Okay, I love the graphics and the idea of Mario going to different planets. The camera angle adds a ton of depth to this game. But, for me, it's only a mediocre game. I mean, it's reminiscent of Super Mario 64 and all, but it just didn't have the greatest gameplay. It was typical, and not too different. It's a great game, don't get me wrong, but it's definitely not the best one out there, and I feel that's its gameplay style is a bit stale. Solid game, but it's a bit cliche.

New Super Mario Brothers: Okay, first off: I don't own this game, but I've played it, and it deserves a spot in this review. This is the only Wii game to not have a white case, which makes its red case really stand out, which is probably what they were going for. Fans of the original Mario games will LOVE this one. It features the original Mario side-scrolling action, but with up to 4 players. That's pretty insane. Nintendo did a great job with this game: you can to cooperate with your friend to get through the level, or you can be total jerks and annoy each other, so that you keep dying over and over again. The thing that I really don't like about this game, is how N008 friendly it is. If you fail a stage enough times, the game will let you bypass the level, or skip the part that you couldn't pass: for me, that kinda ruins the magic of the game. Why would I want to cheat myself from that challenge? Ah well, this game is a solid remake of the original Mario Brothers game, but remember: it's only a remake.

Essentially, I really feel like Mario on the Wii isn't that spectacular. The games are solid, but there's nothing new and original: only newer versions of the classic formula. I want to see a new Mario game in a way I haven't experienced or played before: I want something new. Of these 3, the closest was Super Paper Mario, but even then, the older games just seem better. And, at the last E3, when they announced Super Mario Galaxy 2, I wasn't that excited. I just thought "Okay, woohoo, another Mario Game." I wanted to be pumped for this release, but quite frankly, I can't. I hope I'm 100% wrong though, but I highly doubt that I will be.

Final Words: Nintendo, come up with a Mario game that's more original and more interesting that match your former timeless classics. That would be totally amazing. And, to those of you who are insulted by my review, don't take it seriously: it's an opinion. Although, if you look at the games in detail, I think that you'll find that the new games aren't quite up to par with the originals.

That's all for now,
ACRONYM of the Blog

They're just terribly comfortable. I'm sure everyone will be wearing them in the future.

That's right! This episode(if you can call it that), I have decided to rant about hats! Because I can and have nothing better to do with my time. Apparently. So, let's get started!

Balaclava: Possibly one of the coolest "hats" ever. I only call it such because wikipedia calls it a hat. Anyways, it's basically used as a ski mask and a mask for robbing banks. Also used for becoming a ninja and still being able to see. Cool hat, keeps you warm. So good looking and functional! A

Baseball cap: it's called a cap. It's worn at baseball games. It's so overused and overworn that no one cares. You know what it is so let's move on. C-

Bearskin: Only one of the most memorable and awesomest(yes) hats there is. You've probably seen them outside of Buckingham Palace worn by the royal guard. Everyone knows the tall furry hats and loves them. Probably keep you very warm and looks generally cool. Although in any other country besides Britain, you look like a moron. In fact, in Britain, you still look like a moron. But still cool. B+

Beret: A pretty cool hat. Worn by French painters, French mimes and military alike, it's pretty cool. Except fr the mime thing. No one likes mimes... not even mimes. anyways, they are easily recognized and most famous for being worn by a Walrus. (The Hyneman) B

Bicorne hat: If you can't figure out what that is, think Napoleon. Cool pretty much only because Napoleon wore it. C+

Chullo: A nice wool hat with flaps for covering the ears. Pretty functional, but really not that good to look at. The only reason I like this hat, is because The King of the Blog has an awesome Jayne hat. B-

Cowboy hat: must I say anything? big, stupid looking, really not cool at all. D-

Dunce cap: Just that awesome. For those who don't get why, I will tell you. A dunce cap is a sure sign of a stupid person, which is very important. You no longer have to engage with the stupid person and can avoid conversation all together! A

Fedora: The most epic hat of all time. Commonly worn by the mafia and other mobsters, this hat inspired fear and awesomeness at the same time. You don't mess with people wearing this. Later used in movies because when a stunt double is needed for a fedora-wearing person, you couldn't see their face underneath the fedora. Because it's awesome. I know many people who have these and they seem to be making a comeback. A++

Hadee hat: Civil war style hat. Long brim on the sides and curved upward. Usually decorated and pretty darn cool looking. I'd suggest you wear one and see what happens. A-

Santa hat: awesome, but once a year, so not that functional. Also, you look a bit too cliche. C

Top hat: Not too shabby. A sign of being a rich gentleman or Scrooge. I have to say they are pretty cool, but not the best unless you happen to be President Lincoln. B-

Tricorne hat: Not bad, but just too overused. Not that people wear it anymore, but it's a little cliche for some militaries. I wouldn't ever wear one. D

Turban: Awesome because it's just so darn ard to put on. By wearing one, you're saying "I'm awesome, and you aren't. Owned." However, if it falls off, you have to spend the time to put it on in front of others, and thus divulge the secret of putting them on. B+

Well, that's all I got, hope I have made your hat choices simpler.

Mahatma Gandhi

Today's rant is about everyone's favorite Indian political peace activist (okay, maybe I can't think of any others...) - Gandhi. However, pursuant to my nonconformistismalictasticfulness, and penchant for making up words when I feel like it, I shall rant not about how awesome he was as a peaceful protester and so forth but about what you probably didn't realize about this eccentric fellow.
As you know, Gandhi was a well-to-do businessman who decided to become an "untouchable" and dress and live as such. In doing so, he forced himself to wear skimpy and not very flattering clothing all the time, even going so far as to go barefoot. This, combined with the rough environments in which he, as an untouchable, frequently found himself, contributed to a massive degree of callosities on his body. I mean seriously, you could look at him and go "Dude! There's a frood who knows where his towel is. And who apparently uses it to rub sand all over himself all the time."
What's more, the life of an untouchable meant a very low-calorie diet. This turned out to be a double-bladed sword, as not only did he lose a lot of weight - especially muscle mass, due to a protein deficiency - but the low flow rate of saliva in his mouth caused him to have horrible breath. You could look at him and go "Dude! There's a frood who knows where his towel is. And apparently uses it to uh, soak up bad-smelling stuff and suck on it. Or something."
It gets even grittier! Before he established his reputation as a very awesome frood who knew where his towel was and used it to fight off the British (in combination with his formidable arsenal of civil disobedience tactics), his highly nonconformistismalictasticfulness ended up making him rather unpopular, to the point where those who encountered him would say "Dude! I'm sick of all these Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references!" and also see him as a somewhat supernatural sort of human.
In the end, you could say he was a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis. And also that he knew where his- okay, enough already.

Shutting up.

Nerdology 101: Mathematical Constants

I'm going to start making some (not all) my posts related to the epicness of nerdiness. So, let's see how this goes.

This post will discuss some common (and not so common) mathematical constants. Personally, I think that it is important that a well educated nerd knows the basic mathematical constants. If you are a nerd of any kind, you should read this (ignore the calculus parts if you don't understand it). I will divide this into an basic and advanced section (for thoose of you not so mathematically inclined, skip the advanced section). So, let's get started!!

Basic:

Archimedes' Constant: When you ask someone to name a mathematical constant, the one that they will most likely answer is pi. I mean, who doesn't like pi(not to be confused with 'pie')? Most people who know what pi is (if you don't, continue to read this post, otherwise you are a n00b) can name the first few digits: 3.14 or 3.14159 if they have above average nerdiness. I, myself know 3.14159265358979, which is the first 15 digits, which is pretty good. However, when you think of people who know pi, you think of the people that can go 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288... or the pi song. Now, for those of you don't know what pi is used for, it is used for calculations relating to circles or any shape containing circles (sphere, cylinder, etc...). Pi represents the ratio of a circle's diameter to its circumference. In terms of calculus, it is the limit as the number of sides of a polygon, of the perimeter of the number of sides circumscribed around a circle over the diameter of the circle.

Napier's Constant: Ah, the natural number. It is pretty well known, as it is used to describe exponential growth, and has its own special logarithm name: The Natural Logarithm. While this number is pretty amazing, it fails to compare to pi's fan base, even though it is more useful for normal people in day to day life than pi. That, and e is incredibly useful in upper levels of math (i.e. Calculus). However, it is not completely ignored, for in 2004, Google announced that it was going to raise $2,718,218,828, which is e multiplied by a billion rounded to the nearest dollar. The decimal representation of this number is 2.71828182845904523536028747135266249. In terms of calculus, it is the limit as n approaches infinity, of 1 plus 1 over n raised to the power of n.

Phi: You probably didn't recognize this constant did you? Does the Golden Ratio ring a bell? It's the same thing! It is the ratio that is most aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it is greatly encouraged in the world of art. In actuality, it is a specific ratio of a smaller side to a larger side, and it commonly found throughout nature (in humans, plants. etc...). So, as you can imagine, this is quite an important number, although similar to e, it is commonly forgotten and ignored. It's decimal representation is 1.6180339887... In terms of Calculus, it is the limit as n approaches infinity of a Fibonacci sequence of n +1 over a Fibonacci sequence of n.

i: I know what you're thinking: "Pssshhh, i doesn't exist". Technically, you're right. i is the mathematical constant of the square root of negative 1, making it the building block of imaginary numbers. Most people either hate or love this constant. This number allows the exploration of a whole different area of mathematics, so its natural that some people hate it. You might be wondering, why the heck do we care about an imaginary number? Well, for 1 thing, there are mathematical applications, plus, if i is raised to an even power, it becomes a real number, making it so that i can be used to help equations that cannot otherwise be solved. Still think it's useless? Well, the quanity e raised to the power of pi times i, plus 1 equals 0. PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT!!! (Euler FTW)

Pythagoras's Constant: You most likely don't know what this constant is, even though you are actually already familiar with it: the square root of 2. Now, you may be wondering, why the heck is that considered a constant? Well, Pythagoras discovered it first, so naturally he named it after himself. Using the Pythagorean Theorem on a right triangle with legs of 1, the hypontanuse is the square root of 2. Now, you may be wondering what this constant is actually used for. Well, it is common in trigonometry because square root of 2 over 2 equals the cosine and sine of 45 degrees (or pi over 4 radians). It also used in the aspect ratio of paper sizes so that when you cut a straight line parallel to its short side, that the 2 sheets will have the same ratio (Bet that you didn't think that paper was so complicated!)

Advanced:

Brun's constant: This one is pretty uncommon, and in fact, I can pretty much guarantee that unless your friends are mathematicians, they will not know this constant. This constant notates the sum of the reciprocals of twin pairs of prime numbers that are different by 2. Specifically, this number is approximately 1.902160583104. This proves that there is an infinite number of pairs of prime numbers (two primes that differ by 2). Outside of mathematics, this number has little practical use.

Mills' Constant: Another prime number constant, this number raised to the power of 3 time n generates a prime number. This constant is approximately 1.3063778838630806904686144926... Any prime number generated by this number raised to 3 times n, where n is a positive integer, is called a Mills Prime (i.e. 2, 11, 1361, 2521008887, etc...). This number is useful for finding prime numbers.

Plastic Number (Also called the Silver Number): Is the only real solution to x cubed equal to x plus 1. It is approximately 1.324717957244746025960908854. It is also the largest Pisot-Vijayaraghavan number (meaning that it is a real cubic solution greater than 1, whose other solutions are less than 1 in magnitude).

There are a lot more mathematical constants, but I only touched on a few of them. Now, go and impress/buffalo your friends with your new-found knowledge!!

ACRONYM of the Blog

P.S. Blogger decided to be annoying, and screwed up the format of my post (extending the page indefinitely to the left) and it took me a while to remedy it.

Umm....Help?

For some reason, my new post was mistakenly posted under 2/3/10 instead of 2/5/10. I really don't understand this at all considering I did it literally two minutes ago and it should read 2/5/10 5:20pm. But anyway, my post is down there if you care to read it.

~The Minister of Silly Posts

I'm pretty new here

Some of you may know me, but as far as all this goes I'm new on the block. I've seen some share in interests amongst all of us: webcomics, physics, anime, etc. Well in case the author at the end of this post does not indicate clearly enough my identity, I am Thurston. Perhaps I must keep in line with the title of this post, "Crazy Random Happenstance." I offer to you a dream I had when I was about 7, and taking karate (Choi Kwan Do if anyone is particularly interested): I go to my backyard because I know there's trouble. Above me I see there is a wire slung from the roof to a tree out in my backyard. In front of me are Barney and his friends trudging towards our house. They seek blood. I know I can beat them. Using the wire, I slide towards Barney himself and drop kick him from the wire. That yellow dinosaur comes from my left, and I easily dispatch him because, frankly, it's really difficult to hurt anyone when one's arms are a mere foot long. That girl dinosaur comes in from the right, and my brother, who doesn't even know karate, removes the threat with a well placed kick to the head. I did not find it odd that he could jump well over twice his height to land a kick to the bloated female skull. My parents watch from the glass sliding doors of the house, obviously pleased that the lessons were paying off.

From here, I basically wake up, knowing I had a dream that I will never forget. I've had a few others, some involving werewolves decapitating friends that I did not have and a hamster that could travel the speed of light, which I utilized for rapid transportation, and perhaps I can post new ones as they come up. This, then, will be my name for the blog: The Sleeping Blogger. This is, to a few, a double entendre, taking into consideration the hours of sleep I log at school.

You all seem to have a well enough basis for material to write about, but I often find there is little worth saying, so you may find my posts far and few between. Perhaps not, if interesting occurrences permeate my life in short enough intervals. I do like watching some anime. In fact I've just recently undertaken Soul Eater, as I believe some of you know rather intimately. I like playing tennis too. If any of you play tennis, tell me. I can never find anyone to play with. In class, I often find myself losing contact with the teacher and the material which I should be learning, especially as my final semester winds down to an end. Well, it should not have devolved as far as it has, but I am not attempting to change my actions. As a result, however, my creative processes find space to maneuver, and I sometimes create little devices that entertain me through the hour and a half that dictates the "learning period." I may post a few of these creations, among some that my friends create, as I see fit. I have probably bored many of you to tears, so I shall stop, leaving you with a line of lyric, which, if you can genuinely identify it, I will be duly impressed: "seven apples on the witch's tree."

Blog-Stretching Time

In response to recent pressures those of us on this blog have gone through, I must address the vicious cycle that is senior year. First of all, we are all quite sick of school by now. We're sick of teachers who can't teach and teachers who think their class is so important that they can give hours of homework and assume that you can ignore other classes (this is particularly annoying in classes such as Calculus or Health which I will never use in my current career path). We're sick of not having time for our beloved nerdy/geeky things such as video games and webcomics (or two novels stuck in the planning stages in my case). Most of all, we're sick of dumb people in our classes.

Senior year is also annoying from a social point of view, particularly right now. For one thing, we have no time to be social and actually *gasp* have fun. I can list several things I want to do with my friends that will be postponed indefinitely because of this idiotic work. One of these things was supposed to be started two months ago *cough* TCRH *cough*, but school has stabbed it in the metaphorical heart. The second annoying thing that I feel I must mention is prom. The venue for prom was announced recently and now the school has come down with prom fever (I'm sure this is a real and classifiable disease considering the consistency of the symptoms and the general unhealthy effects on wallet contents and single people). Anyway, in the week or two since the announcement I have probably heard the word "prom" 200 times and I have been dragged into the seemingly-satanic ritual of "finding a date." I won't be able to make coherent sentences if I get started on that, so I'll skip it. Use your imagination. In short, prom is an event that, if it were not so overly glorified, would be extremely exciting and fun. However, in similar spirit of any holiday, the prom season begins far too far away from the event itself to hold my interest for that long. Last year, I took to ignoring it until a time I deemed reasonable to think about it. Unfortunately, this year it won't work due to the fact that it's our senior prom and I am actually obligated to find a date this year. Imagine the hype of previous years and multiply by infinity.

Before I go on, I feel I must mention that I actually am excited for prom and I will go. My issue with it is the sheer amount of shallow chatter it generates.

Now that I have deviated a bit, I return. The point of all of this is, we're mentally done with high school. 'What's the solution?' you ask. College.

College is the solution to high school just as high school was the solution for middle school. It is the logical next step, it hopefully contains more interesting subjects and I pray it contains smarter people. The idea of college itself is a bit exciting. We imagine more freedom of self, money and study - not to mention more time to spend with our favorite nerdy/geeky people. However, there is one major problem: college applications.

College applications are a plague upon us high school students who actually take challenging classes. The baseline is: WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS! The personal information is easy. It's not fun, but it's do-able considering it's the same thing over and over again. Plus, with the miracle that is the Common App, I only had to fill out that info 3 times for the 7 colleges I applied to. The college-specific supplements are the things that really get complicated. Filling out your interests and prospective major are simple enough. The only differences there involve format. Then the eye catches on the colleges' not-so-secret weapons: THE ESSAYS [insert dramatic background music and extreme close-up here].

I don't mind writing essays. Generally, I like writing anyway. I write fiction mainly, but obviously nonfiction is not that much of a stretch for me either. In such things as blogs and college applications, it tends to be about myself and I have more extensive information on that than most other people. Besides, I'm Irish. I can write about nothing for pages (not as much fun though). The part that angers me most is the fact that A) the prompts are usually generic, boring and overused B) the word/character limits stifle creativity and C) most colleges require several essays EXCEPT, of course, the one college you actually need to entice to accept you. On a slightly related topic, I move that we make it illegal for a college to require 4 essays AND an interview unless it is something similar to Harvard or Princeton.

Right now, I am finally done with my applications and nearly done with my interviews. I am infinitely glad that I've made it this far and I wish the colleges would respond sooner, but overall that piece of the process is good. My goal now is to apply for every scholarship known to man to get money to fund this escape from high school. Needless to say, I don't have $100,000 on hand or anything nearly like it. I need as much money as I can get from these scholarships. The issue is that the vast majority of them take quite a while to prepare an acceptable entry for. Also, the deadlines are quite often on the same day. With school work and all of the scholarships I have to fill out, I may spontaneously combust. However, I did find a small glimmer of hope when I saw a $5000 scholarship for simply drawing some species of duck or goose in its natural habitat (to be made into a stamp). Obviously, with such a diverse array of subjects there must be at least one with my name on it. I just hope it's the $20,000 one.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my ranting. I'm sure some of you can empathize.

~The Minister of (not always) Silly Posts

Please don't step on the penguin

As the blog is beginning to move ahead without me, I feel somewhat compelled to make a post about something. As nothing particularly interesting has happened in the past few days, I shall proceed to rant and rave about one of my favorite subjects:

webcomics

How, one might ask, does the discerning nerd find the webcomic(s) that is right for him (or her)? The most reliable source is from other fellow nerds, but if you find one that you can't get any intel on, here's the strategy I use most. Go to the beginning of the current story arc/chapter/whatever, assuming it isn't 200-something pages long like one comic I could mention. If you can't find chapter markings, or if it's just too long, go back a good number of pages (20, 50, somewhere in there) and educate yourself on how things work in this world, according to those pages. From that much you can usually tell if you like a comic or not. Don't worry in the least bit if something you've read doesn't make sense as you're doing this. You're behind by about 500 pages of pure awesomeness, there are probably oodles of inside jokes that whizzed right over your head as you were reading your sample of the comic.

Most people who don't read webcomics do (or rather do not do) so because either it takes too much time to weed through all the garbage out there, or it's just not interesting enough to them. Folks, I'll give it to you straight, there is a LOT of junk out there. Some's badly-written, some's badly-translated, some's just downright nasty (if you find a comic labeled NSFW, find another comic). But there's also a lot of good stuff out there. If you'd like some pointers towards a couple good ones, I'd be more than happy to give them to you.

Dominic Deegan
Rated PG-13 for language, violence, and innuendo
My personal favorite among all the webcomics I've ever read. It's well written, well-drawn, and filled with pure epic win. It's set in a fantasy realm all its own, filled with magic, elves, orcs, dwarves, hobbits, and a talking cat.
There is a chapter fairly close to the beginning of the comic that's somewhat risque, and every now and then you'll come across a bit of... stuff that he could have just as easily left out, but of the 2000+ pages he's done, I'd say you need to throw out 50, tops.

8-Bit Theater
Rated PG-13 for language, violence, and innuendo
Almost as win as Dominic Deegan is 8-Bit Theater. 8-Bit Theater is a spoof on every Final Fantasy game you've ever played, and most of the ones that you haven't. Black Mage, Fighter, Red Mage, and Thief battle their way through the lands in an attempt to overthrow Chaos and restore order to the world... theoretically. They might do it if they can ever stop stabbing themselves in the back long enough.
Black Mage reeeealy likes White Mage, and makes it quite obvious... often times more crudely than necessary. Read cautiously when BM and WM are in the same page.
Tacked onto 8-Bit Theater as side projects are How I Killed Your Master (a martial-arts manga), Atomic Robo, and Warbot in Accounting. All are written by the same guy, all are drawn by different guys. [shrug]

Looking For Group
Rated PG-13 for excessive violence and language
Much less selective than 8-Bit Theater on what it'll spoof. An elf, a warlock, a minotaur, and a female of unknown pedigree all try to find their place in the world. It turns out the elf is destined to be king of an ancient elven civilization. Funny how life works.

Dr. McNinja
Rated PG for violence and brief language
He's a doctor. And a ninja. And he's Irish. Put it all together, and you've got Dr. Mcninja. When he's not treating patients at his private practice, he's fighting zombies, ghosts, pirates (obviously), and tennis-playing robots.

Awkward Zombie
Rated PG for cartoon violence and brief language
A spoof on almost literally any video game you can think of. It's about as full of nerdy win as you can get. Pokemon, Metal Gear, Oblivion, World of Warcraft, Super Smash Brothers... you name it, she's probably done it. If she hasn't, she probably will in the near future.

Comedity
Rated G
Welcome to Comedity. Please don't step on the penguin.
Another of my all-time favorite comics, Comedity chronicles the life of college student Garth Graham, as well as that of the multiple sides of his personality (good shoulder, bad shoulder, 'cool guy', random trivia, Prime (the guy usually in charge), and most notably, the penguin). It has been unfortunately discontinued. However, he continues to ply his trade in

Finders Keepers
Rated PG for violence and language
Take a look behind the veil. There live all of humanity's collective hopes, dreams, and fears. Watch out... nothing is as it seems. Nothing.

Lackadaisy
Rated PG for violence and mild language
New Orleans during Prohibition... you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Speakeasy's are running rampant, and they're starting to trip over each other. Follow the story of Rocky, an accident prone, more-than-slightly crazy, all-around henchman and part-time violinist. He's also a cat. They're all cats, actually.

Helia
Rated G
The girl in the yellow dress, as told by Aaron Kauffman. Accident proneness (is that even a word?) seems to run in her family, she lost both her arms after her mother was struck by a meteor. She later has a new pair of arms donated to her by her best friend. That's about as far in the story as we've gotten so far, but it's a work in progress.

Apple Geeks
Rated PG for cartoon violence, language, and mild innuendo
Who needs a human girlfriend when you can build one out of a Mac? Meet Hawk, an average guy with a not-so-average set of skills. He can build or program pretty much anything, but it has to use Apple software. He avoids Windows like the plague, and just pretends Linux doesn't exist. He makes up for his poor computer gaming skills by building a computer to play for him... and also to be his girlfriend, but that didn't work out so well.
Hawk also built Alice, Garth's computer that he uses over in Comedity. Alice is basically Eve's (Hawk's own android) sister, just less buggy.

I think that does it for now... if I think of another one I'll put it up here.

In the interest of having some sort of signature, until I find one of my own, I've decided to rip off that of my squadron commander.

Happy Groundhog's Day to all, and to all a good night!

Regards,
Spam

Failblogging

So, it's time for another one of my spectacular blog posts!! Not really, but onward anyway!

Okay, so you might be wondering what this post is even about. Well, it's going to be about an assortment of things, so let's dive right in and find out!

Part 1: The Internet

Okay, so you're on The Internet right now. Most people use The Internet for a variety of things such as viewing Email, chatting, going on social networks, playing games, etc... But, if you are going to truly embrace The Internet, you need to do a few things. First, know the rules of The Internet. If you are not familiar with the rules, click here IMMEDIATELY!! Second, check some of the entertaining sites on The Internet regularly. I'd recommend going to http://cheezburger.com/ and finding the sites with the humor you identify most with (there's a few links in the sidebar, but a LOT of the sites are left out). Also, be sure to check various webcomics, youtube, and other such media. You never know when the next big thing will appear on The Internet. Third, you need to understand 1337 s0 7h@7 u c@n pwn |\|008s. Finally, check The Internet regularly, as it stops for no man!

Part 2: I Choose You, BLOG POST!!

Okay, so if you didn't get that reference, go educate yourself IMMEDIATELY (Or skip this part if you don't care about this topic)!! This game series has been present since the 90s, and has spawned one of the best and most successful game franchises of all time. Any gamer that has not played a game in this franchise (especially the originals) is not a gamer. I personally have played Red, Silver, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Blue Rescue Team (not as good as the main series), and Diamond (As well as Yellow & Cyrstal on Visual Boy Advance). These games are just pure awesomeness. Sure, they've gotten carried away with the sheer number of them, and their names, but that doesn't detract from it at all. It still retains it's appeal, as shown by the fact that a remake of gold/silver called HeartGold/SoulSilver is coming out (basically combines Kanto/Johto/Honen regions, so there are 9 STARTERS!! Plus, like in yellow, YOU CAN CHOOSE ONE TO FOLLOW YOU AROUND!!! ) This post is simply a tribute to one of the greatest game series ever. May it live forever (the card game and TV shows can die for all I care).

Part 3: NERDS

I feel obligated to talk about a few Nerdy things. But first, some background: society (being the spawn of Satan that it is) has put a negative context on the term "nerd". Why is this? Nerds are clearly superior to non-nerds in almost every way that matters (A few exceptions, but the point stands). So, why is the term negative? And what can you do to help solve this? Well, first of all, you need to prove that you are a nerd, and you can do that by answering the questions below!

1. Do you find yourself knowing unusually high amounts of knowledge in certain academic areas?

2. Do you tend to dislike the "preps"/"jocks"/"cool kids" ?

3. Do you think about academic subjects outside of school/work?

4. Do you talk about academic subjects with your friends outside of school/work?

5. Do/did you take advanced level courses in school?

Academic in this sense means any real valuable courses that a school would offer (includes tech, business, etc...) And, when I say say academic subjects, I mean more than 1 (clarification for non-nerds).

If you said yes to at least 4 of the questions, you are most likely a nerd. So now that we have this established, how can you contribute to the world of nerds? (aka the world) First, whenever someone calls you a nerd, thank them, and take it as a compliment. So many people will be confused by this, which leaves them vulnerable to your nerdy mind tricks (use your knowledge to outsmart them). Also, begin plotting with your friends to do something (ANYTHING). Plotting is a good mental exercise to stimulate creative thinking, and exchange of nerdy ideas. There are other things, but I will save that for another post. (Also, be sure to look HERE for information on how to do nerd bombs).

This may be the longest post on the blog (or one of the longest.) So, farewell for now!!

ACRONYM of the Blog

mmm....new teeth.... that's weird. Where was I? oh yes! Video Games!

Hello again my non-existent viewers, and welcome to the first installment of old-school Gaming.
This section is for games that most people have played but I have just gotten around to playing. Basically I'm reviewing older, but still fun, games.

First off, Golden Sun. Great game if you can get through the first part. Not that it's hard, there's just way too much talking. Also, there is no way to skip any of it, you just have to wait and bear it. Other than that, there are some annoying puzzles in each dungeon. Some are fine, others take me quite a while to figure out, just so I can get one special sword. Combat however, is a different story. Very fun to perform and many options to choose from. Djinni hid throughout the game help in combat by performing a special ability ranging from attacking one enemy, healing your party, or reviving a character. After the ability is used, the djinni are ready to be used in a power attack. The attack hurts all enemies and is more powerful depending on how many djinni are ready. Or, you could use "psy-energy" which is just magic. Or you can attack normally. It's fun.

Final Fantasy Tactics. AMAZING GAME! A boy is placed into the world of Final Fantasy, joins a clan and fights to get back to his world. Along the way, you find more people to join your clan. There are many different classes from hunter, archer, sniper, thief, warrior, black mage, white mage, red mage, fencer, ninja, assassin fighter and animist.... to name a few. Many of the weapons you get (only one weapon type per class) give special abilities. After a certain amount of time wielding these weapons, the character masters the ability, meaning that you no longer need the weapon to use it. The battles can take a while and are extremely annoying at a few points. Some enemies can't move, but will take control of your characters and attack you. At one point, I only had a white mage to use until my other characters came out of their stupor. The amount of weapons, armor and abilities is a little daunting, as I forget what I still need very quickly. There are literally TONS of missions, each giving you items that can be used to perform other missions. If you fail a mission, you can redo it a few battles later. They range from dispatching one of your units for a certain amount of days or battles to fighting a few enemies. The map is fun to move around on, and random other clans will pop up and you can battle them, thus giving you an infinite supply of experience... if you have the time. All in all, an amazingly well-done game but can make you scream at some points.

Also, to show how amazing Google is, I would like to draw your attention to the bottom of this blog. Google automatically placed a search bar at the bottom and used the best line EVER! "find the droids you are looking for" I submit that google is awesome. and none can oppose it.

All right, that's all I got for now. More to come in the future.

-The Doctor