The mind of Artie

Oh boy, a new semester of schoolin' to once again bore me. Nah this semester shouldn't be too bad, pretty fun classes including philosophy and psychology courses, all in all I'm not too worried about it.

In other news Gears of War 2 is utterly amazing (and not to mention utterly over the top as well). That game is just too much fun.

Emm...when I said I'd be posting more often i guess I was lying...my bad.

SO! It seems I am now in college, Central Connecticut State University to be exact.  It's amazing if you really think about it though.  It feels as if high school went by so fast, even though when I was there it felt like an eternity.  But now I'm living in a college dorm room on the CCSU campus, going to classes and having fun with my roommates and other friends. It's strange really.  The classes still make it seem like I'm in high school (with the exception of Freshman Composition), but the enviorment and company is totally different.  I've got to say though, it's been pretty fun so far. I won't lie, it did take a few days to get adjusted though, since all my family and old friends are no longer at arms length, and I have missed them greatly, though I'm not terribly far away, only 40 minutes.

On another note, I played through and beat Half-Life 2 again.  I forgot how amazing that game really was, especially the later levels when City 17 is thrown into chaos.  Striders (see image) are giant walking entities of death, with three attacks: the pulse minigun which strafes the ground around the target, tearing it apart; Its main cannon that, when fired, disintegrates any life in its path and destroys buildings it hits; and it's legs which end conveniently in huge spikes which are used to step on and impale the target if it gets to close. It's no help that they are incredibly difficult to take down without getting torn up. Yea, these things are badass and definitely one of the coolest enemies I have ever seen in a video game. 

Now to play Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 and 2 now!

Anyway, that's all I can think of to post right now.  I'll probably have something more interesting later.

OH LAWD! NEW POST! Been a  while eh? Man it's been quite an eventful past few weeks for sure.  I mean graduation from high school was huge (not to mention I was worried for a bit there that I wouldn't...).  It was an incredible feeling to have that diploma in my hand that I've been working so hard for the past four years, though in no way will college be easier, but we'll see eh?

Since graduation it's pretty much been what I like to call an "epic summer". Between multiple LAN parties, WoW, and other games I got my new laptop as well.  It's a Gateway P-172X FX, their best gaming laptop.  With a 17" widescreen display, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.45gHz CPU, 4gb RAM, nVIDIA 8800M GTS video card and 320gb total HDD space this thing has some good power to spare, and I'm loving every bit of it.  Not to mention is has a bunch of awesome bells and whistles that came with it as well: integrated webcam, mic, HDMI port, eSATA port, multicard reader, slot loading optical drive and a dedicated media control panel.  Oh how I love you laptop.

Moving on! Last night I went to see RUSH for the fourth time live, and for the fourth time they completely and utterly blew me away.   For those who don't know, Rush is a Canadian progressive rock band which has been together and playing for roughly 34 years now.  For around ten of those 34 years they have been my all time favorite band.  Their lyrical and musical genious have impacted me more than any other band has.  Their live performances are always amazing, by far the greatest (and loudest) concerts I have ever been to, and this one was no exception. 

Lastly (I guess) I have to get a new cell phone (RIP BlackJack).  My old one's screen got smashed after something fell on it, and then, like an idiot, I left it out in the rain.  Yea, I'm an idiot. Anyway, my new phone is going to be (if this eBay auction goes well) a Sony Ericsson W580i Walkman phone.  I've always liked that phone.  Hopefully it will like me as well.

Well I guess that's all for now.  See you again in a little while (hopefully earlier than two months this time!

I love it when you work your ass off on an essay for your English class and you find out that you did it wrong, even though you did exactly what the assignment wanted.  It's a wonderful feeling when you find out that the essay you were working on for 4 hours straight one night and then an hour or so a couple nights later is wrong, even though it's a good essay.  If there was ever a time I wanted to slam my head into something it's now.

Now, I know this is very cliché, but I can't help it.  With the sharp increase in gas prices (paired with a not so gas friendly truck) and the inflation of pretty much everything I am left with very little money from my pay.  I need this money for other things such as car insurance and my cell phone bill.  It is quite aggravating when your 180 bucks is reduced to 20 bucks between all the necessary expendatures one makes throughout the course of the week.  Oh lawd, what are we gonna do?

lol first post in 12 weeks.  My bad, no time.  Well, now I have a bit more free time. 

Any way I just got Mario Kart Wii and it is truly awesome.  The Wii Wheel that comes with it is pretty cool, and I enjoy playing with it, even if it may take a bit to get used to.  The races are fast paced and with crisp graphics and a smooth framerate the game plays quite amazingly.  The isn't without a few minor short comings though.  The AI in the 150cc class is very very difficult, mostly because it is very cheap.  Mario Kart has always sported "comback AI" where the other racers will randomly come back to beat you, even though you may be far in the lead but this is just rediculous.  I know Nintendo wanted to keep up the challenge and make the race fast paced but if you are far FAR in the lead and suddenly you fall back to 5th, 8th or last place because the AI actually teleports infront of you and bashes you with every weapon possible it is a bit....frustrating.  Some of the tracks themselves are a bit, well, boring in design and lack that necessary pop to get me to want to play them again (though with one of the greatest Rainbow Roads in a Mario Kart game ever, and some other really amazing tracks it more than makes up for it).  Although I have not played online yet (when I do, I will issue a report) I have heard many good things about it.  All in all, though I haven't played the game to it's full potential as of yet, it is a great addition to any Wii owner's library and can be considered a must have for any Wii owner.

Secondly, I also picked up Okami Wii Edition, even though I still have the original PS2 version.  It is the same game just with re-worked controls to allow the motion sensitivity and minor changes to the graphical department.  The controls generally work well, with minor problems in combat here and there.  The dodging move (fleetfoot) is a bit inacurate sometimes as with the the attacks with the glaive and reflectors.  Although there are some minor problems like that it is still a work of art all in all.

That's all for now.

Well the Super Bowl has come and gone, with the Giants emerging victorious.  I was ecstatic when they won, even though I also like the Pats.  I really think the Giants deserved it.  The whole game they outplayed the Pats, both in defense and offense and worked hard to obtain the win.  Congrats too the entire team.  The halftime show with Tom Petty was amazing as well.  He may be getting older (well...all of them are) but he can still sing and play as well as he always could.  I should really look into getting tickets for one of this shows, it would be awesome. 

And I finally have my truck back as well.  After spending almost a week in the shop for head gasket repair (could have done it myself but I was too lazy and had not time v_v) I finally have it back again, running at least four times as well as it did before.  It's a beautiful thing when you hear that engine purr like a kitten (and then roar when you accelerate), makes my heart warm.  Of course this repair cost me over 700 bucks, but I can drive it long distances again, so it's all good.

Last topic I have is my awesome essay for expository writing.  We had to write a division essay on a topic of our choice. Now, my original topic was about Military Strategy, but it was a huge topic and the time alloted for the essay didn't allow me to complete enough research to write an adequate paper, so, naturally I changed the topic to one that I know and love (and the first thing I could think of): Sandwiches.  Ahh yes, good ol' sandwiches.  While it was slightly half-assed, it's actually a good essay in my opinion, and written seriously.  Hopefully my teacher thinks it's as relatively good as I think it is.

Well that's it for now.  Live long, and prosper.

So the other day I got the game Rock Band in all it's amazing glory for my 360 and let me tell you, there's so much amazing glory in it I can say amazing glory all I want and it wouldn't suffice.  Drums are a blast on it, though I would say A LOT harder than it looks and much much harder than mastering the guitar.  I predict I will be on expert within a week though haha.  Tom Sawyer is a blast to play in my opinion, even though the cover lacks slightly than the master track, it's still too much fun. That could be because I am a huge Rush fan. And by huge Rush fan I mean I know every song on every album by them and in general know everything about those three guys.  They are my idols. 

Anyway my new courses this semester seem to be going well, aside from my new English teacher for Expository Writing is freaking insane it's all good. 

Too lazy/tired to write more. 

Huh....Why haven't I seen this anime before.  It's amazing.  Medicine Seller kicks ass.  I would like to thank Vampy from Accelerated-e for showing me this.  I am currently downloading Ayakashi (the Bakeneko arc) so I can get what MS actually does and such before really getting further into the Mononoke series.

So what I'm pretty much trying to say is that Medicine Seller is pretty much the man. 

Well that wasn't really much of a ramble...but whatever.  I'm tired.

Grr, I swear if I get booted off the intranets one more time I will go crazy. All this night my internet just seemed to die randomly for five mins and then come back. This causes me to repeatedly getting booted off of WoW and actually caused my character's death once because I was in a hostile zone. v_v It is quite annoying to keep taking the plunger to the tubes every time the get clogged. Fucking AT&T. It was more stable when I had the cable modem instead of DSL but my dad works for AT&T so we're stuck with it. Ehhh...fuck I hate the intranetz, they should really upgrade the tubes it's made of to a wider diameter.


(sorry for the low quality pic, here's the link to the original: http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t4/tobstv/fyouinternet.jpg )

You know, I started playing WoW two weeks ago and I'm sorry to say the game is amazing.  I swore I would never play that game and that hell would freeze over before I did.  Well the Devil is having a snowball fight with Hitler right now and Stalin is reffing.  ANYway, my character is a Blood Elf Hunter named Lythidia in the Gorefiend realm.  Her pet is an Elder Springpaw named Cief.  Well Lythidia and Cief are both level 20 right now, soon to be level 21.  I'm currently in Orgrimmar to pick up a few things but soon I'll fly back out to the Barrens to continue Questing there for a while so if you want to play and you're Horde just whisper me or something in game.  Remember I'm in the Gorefiend Realm.

So uhh yea.  WoW is awesome.  My friend Nutty has been pestering me to get it but then gave up.  Then one day he came over to my house for  a LAN party and started playing WoW and kept it in when he and three other people left at 2am to go to McDonnalds to get food (which turned into a 2 hour expedition across the New Haven County to Taco Bell, Shaws, and some little store.  We eventually ended up getting ramen and cooking it at 4am.  ahh...good times...) so I played his Blood Elf Paladin for a little bit and I thought it was pretty sweet.  So now I ended up getting it and my social life (what little of one that I had) is totally gone. 

Well I'm off to play some more WoW.  Lythidia waits!