C is for Challenges

So a couple of months ago, I first stumbled upon the A-Z challenge... thingy... Anyway, so I was like this looks fun! Let's do it! I could do this and Script Frenzy and finish my classes.

Yeah.

WTF was I thinking? This challenge isn't too hard, and I'm actually ahead in my Script Frenzy. My classes are my biggest concerns (obviously). I have a test tomorrow in calculus... T-T  I'm going to bed early tonight (like in 10 minutes). Maybe take a sleeping pill to knock me out the majority of the night...

B is for Bros

I've become addicted to watching videos by PewDiePie. This guy is probably the most insane player on Youtube. Despite the fact that he's Swedish, his English is actually pretty good. His commentary makes watching horror games easier. He uses a facial camera, so you get to see his expressions (as below):

He tends to upload a couple of videos every day, but the ones I like the most are his clips from Happy Wheels, where he plays as the irresponsible parent and the son.

If you have the time (and you don't mind a little vulgarity), just pop in on his channel and become a Bro! Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie?feature=watch



Image from http://www.fanpop.com/spots/pewdiepie and http://askangel.deviantart.com/art/Pewdiepie-s-funny-ass-face-montage-xD-287361030

A is for Assignments

We've reached the final stretch at ASU for the spring semester. The last day of class is April 24th, and the professors are trying to get those last few assignments in. Here's what this month's looking like:

BIO494 - Marine Ecology and Conservation
4 short essays and a joyful *gag* presentation next week

MAT266 - Calculus for Engineers II
Homework for most of the remaining lessons and 2 exams. If I can get at least 75% on both of them, I should be able to pass. If not... I've already registered to retake it T-T

PUP420 - Theory of Urban Design
Group project and presentation

SES102 - Earth & Space Science II
Homework 4 (and maybe 5) and final exam

SES 104 - Earth & Space Science Lab II
A couple of afternoon labs and a night lab

SES311 - Essentials of Astrobiology
Group project and paper. We have to finish creating a (fake) NASA mission as real as we can make it.


That's it! Hopefully, I'll be able to survive to the end of the semester.

Shooting Ourselves in the...

In two shocking bills working their way through different state legislatures, politicians show how little they understand people and students especially.

The first bill, hailing from Arizona, targets college students. The gist of the bill is that all students, with two exceptions, would have to pay at least $2000 a year out of their own pocket towards their tuition without the aid of financial aid. The idea was that students would have a greater interest in graduating if they had "a bit of skin" in the game, and they point to the dropout rate as well as the percentage of students who pay none of their tuition. Never mind that the fees and books can be a good portion of a student's expenses.

Now, I did mention two exceptions to the law. The first is the student athlete. The politicians said that student athletes are exempt from the law because they bring in money to the school. Reasonable enough. Of course the schools put a lot of money into those students, but that's a minor detail.

The second group of special students are honors students. The only things these students bring to the school are their brains and the fees that the honors colleges charge. These students will not have to pay because they have "earned" their free ride.

Now I have a few questions about this bill.

1. How many students fully pay for their tuition through loans, as opposed to just grants and scholarships? I fall into this group, where I get only $500 a year from a Pell Grant, no scholarships, and an employee dependent waiver and use loans to pay for the rest of my tuition. 
2. How would they prevent the disbursement of financial aid refunds to students who haven't paid that bill? When would the money be due by? Would it be due at the start of the semester, or would there be due dates spread throughout the semester?
3. How would this increase graduation rates? With the economy as it is, students have enough trouble finding a job already, and probably many of those that do have a job find it stressful to juggle school and work. I can already see the dropout rate rising as students struggle to pay this fee, and fewer students will enroll. 

Let's turn our attention to the second bill. This one comes from Utah, which might explain its... ideas. The congressmen here want to eliminate sex education to reduce the prevalence of teen sex and premarital sex. This also comes with a prohibition on discussions about homosexuality and contraception by teachers.

Now, I don't know what they taught in sex ed when these men and women went to school, but I certainly didn't hear about homosexuality being taught to any degree during sex ed when I went. Contraception does more to protect people than just preventing pregnancy. Removing any instruction on how to properly use condoms increases the probability that kids won't use them right and expose themselves to STIs and other dangers.

Additionally abstinence-only sex ed puts teens at risk. In the guise of protecting their health and virginity, they tend to engage in behaviors, such as oral and anal sex, and there has been a corresponding increase in STIs coming from the behaviors.

Teens will be teens. They are basically bundles of hormones and new urges. With underdeveloped impulse control, they're going to experiment with sex. There's no way to stop them unless you lock them up until they're 25, which is when their brains finish maturing and the impulse control kicks in.

Leaving the problem up to parents doesn't solve anything. If parents don't know anything about sex ed, then how can congressmen expect kids to learn safe measures? Of course, if they think that "OMG, they're not teaching sex ed! We're going to stop having sex" is going to work, maybe they don't expect parents to have to teach their kids anything. After all, abstinence worked so well before.

Mass Effect 3 Demo Review

So I played the ME3 demo on my XBOX360 yesterday, and I must say, I am impressed. I still haven't finished the first game (a failure on my part), but I enjoyed the changes to the combat system in ME3.

ME3 introduced Jane Shepard, a fan-created version of the main character John Shepard, as an alternative to the male character. The features of Jane (and I'm guessing John) are adjustable, allowing for a new level of customization. I will admit that while it was interesting to play as a girl, I did not care much for my dear redheaded Jane.

Now, the demo was broken into two parts. The first part is probably going to be the tutorial level of the game. It introduced the basic controls of the game, though I don't think it told me how to use the special skills, like the biotic skills that my class gave me. The combat and AI were just hard enough to pose a challenge but not too difficult as to sink the player in frustration. It also set the stage for the game in a series of cut-scenes that were not skippable.

The second half of the demo was an interesting escort mission that brought back characters from at least the first game. Again, the combat was not too difficult, though I had a bit of trouble finding ammo for my rifle. Nothing like finding yourself duking it out with the boss with nothing more than a pistol. Though I did find some ammo about half-way through the battle.

All in all, the demo for Mass Effect 3 was satisfactory. It did its job by introducing the story better than mere trailers, showed off the graphics and combat system, and allowing players to...well... play and get a taste of the game. I'm excitedly waiting for the release on 6 March, and you can bet that I'll be at the GameStop at midnight.

Kidney Stones, Act 2

Last night was not particularly enjoyable for me, despite Once Upon a Time being on. I got another kidney stone. I sort of recognized the constant urge to pee and the pain growing in my side a bit faster this time, so I took some of the painkillers the hospital prescribed me last time and started chugging the water. Thankfully this time I either did not get any nausea or the anti-nausea pills caught it before it got to that level.

I don't know if I've passed the stone or not, since it must have either been really small or it's still making its way through my system. It still hurts a bit in my side...

I get the feeling I might be a frequent-kidney-stone-sufferer... This is the second one in less than two months! The US Department of Health and Human Services says that once a person gets more than one kidney stone, more are likely to develop. I don't want to have anymore...

"The River" premier review

ABC premiered their new show The River this past week, and despite my aversion to creepy looking shows like that, my attention had been captured by the trailer. Now, I was a little hesitant when I saw that it was done by the same people who did Paranormal Activity (a movie that did not impress me). I still gave the show a shot though.

My first impression were neutral. The acting was a bit... stilted. The characters, with what felt like the exception of Emmet (the missing father), did not garner any sympathy from me. Even after the first episode ("Magus"), the characters had changed little. The wife (whose name I can't remember at all) remained an almost obsessive woman who (shocks of shocks) had an affair while her husband was away. The son, London, seemed to flop between his original stance of "Leave me alone" to "Let's go find Dad"...

I was also expecting a bit more horror. The scare factor seemed a little low for even TV. American Horror Story was scarier than this, though I did not see much of that show either, thanks to that incredible thing called college. The first monster had not been as interesting as I hoped once it was revealed that it was the ghost of one of the crew members who had died before the rest of the Magus's crew went missing. I think that they could have drawn out the monster a little more, filled in a few details, before finally killing it, but they didn't.

Even creepiness seemed a little weak in the first couple of episodes. Episode two brought the first "interaction" with Emmet Cole, where the daughter of the mechanic is possessed by his spirit. She moved through the ship with jerky movements before lying down next to the wife. One of the first things out of the wife's mouth was "You can speak English?". Seriously? You've been basically living with this girl for almost a week or so, and you think that she's been hiding this ability to speak fluent English? The special effects in that scene were not particularly well-done either...

The only redeeming value of the show so far is the story. Granted, it's a bit of the stereotypical hunt for the missing person, but adding in the aspects of monsters in the Amazon and magic, especially "The Source" that Emmet was looking for, and this show has an otherwise interesting plot.

All in all, I'll place this show on my "let's see if this gets any better" list. The storyline is interesting, but if the actors don't learn to relax and play their characters believably, then I'm booting this show into the dead pile.