Wednesday, October 9th

“WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO IGNORE YOUR TASK, RECLAIMER?”

This morning I woke up at 6 to study for a goddamn Biology test in a goddamn Biology class I’ve been ignoring for the last 3 weeks. I figured I could memorize enough to get a cool 60, and then I could manage a C with all the bonus points allowed for. But my morning took an all-too-familiar turn.

I made sure to check every e-mail account I have, even though I know there’s never going to be anything in them. Then I made coffee. I flipped through a magazine I’d been meaning to read. I didn’t actually sit down to “study” until 6:45. By 7:15, something amazing had happened. I had convinced myself not to study anymore. I decided that instead, I should just play Halo. I needed to play The Maw with the Legendary skill setting, because it had been so long since I’d seen the special ending. It was no use telling myself that I would probably have hundreds of chances to see that again and again, whereas I only had one chance to fake my way through Biology. My mind was made up.

I can say that I enjoyed my 45 minutes of Halo much more than my overpriced Biology book (65 dollars, with the pages stuck together with some kind of Kool-aid.) Of course, I was also late for my 8 o'clock class, since speed-running through Halo Legendary isn’t exactly predictable business. But I managed to get through and only show up 10 minutes late for class. And to top it off, I even think I might have pulled that 60 on the test after all.

So why can’t I “shape up”? Why can’t I get myself to spend even 2 measly hours every three weeks even for a respectable goal like my capitalistic guarantee of future happiness? I think I’m not really lazy as much as I resent the work. I resent being forced to memorize obscure Biological jargon that, ironically, isn’t going to make me a more biologically efficient creature. And knowing what such-and-such specific protein and enzyme and some other bullshit chemical does isn’t going to help me contribute to society. And it’s not going to even come close to giving me a feeling of accomplishment when I finally make my way over the Classist hurdle that these four years of enforced poverty comprise. If anything, it’ll just make me even more pissed off at a society that forced me to forfeit the greatest metabolic years of my life because they feel the need to put a Band-Aid on their plague of idiocy.

Shit… I could be much more thorough, exhaustive, and scholarly-sounding with this angst rant, but I have some clothes at the “laundro-mat” that are done drying about now. If I don’t go, I’m sure some fuckhead will steal my clothes just for a thrill. That is to say, one of Jehovah Gyra’s stalker-level fans will probably want to take my underwear.

Uhuh...

Sunday, October 6th

A WARM PLACE AGAIN...

I'm very happy to have re-released "A Warm Place", my talked-about ZDoom mod. I've started the sequel as well.

In other news, I've almost completely run out of food as of today. I tried to be creative and mix together the few things I have in the house. White flour, baker's cocoa powder, sweet-n-low, and margarine combined to make a surprisingly good poop-colored pancake. By "surprisingly good", I just mean that I didn't vomit. The end.

Wednesday, October 2nd

LETHARGIC AND LOVIN' IT... WAIT, SCRATCH THAT "LOVIN' IT" PART

I’d like to be doing something constructive, like working on my Silent Hill 2 review or the designs of three projects I have started in my spiral notebook, but my head’s just not in it. Maybe it’s a relative lack of sleep or malnutrition, but the only thing I can force myself to do as I sit here in the mandatory “Introduction to Computers” class is update this page. Has anyone or will anyone ever read this page? I doubt it. But since it’s less a complete waste of time than daydreaming, and maybe just the cognitive exercise I need to prepare and alert my neurons for the drive around town in thirty minutes to beg my creditors to just give me a few more days before taking away my car, house, and natural gas, I don’t see a good reason not to write.

A week or so ago my biology instructor, who I like in spite of his ironic profession to Christianity and strange insistance that we should all actually have to work for our grades, made a small aside to the falling behind of America in the field of education. I join him in taking this seriously, and wonder just how many years it will be before smug, superficial America will finally have its laziness catch up with it and either be destroyed or become a state dictated by the politicians to whose actions the majority of people are all but oblivious.

Everywhere I go I see idiocy. And I’m not just being my arrogant elitist self by saying that. I mean that I see true, avoidable idiocy. I see dangerous stupidity, and voluntary ignorance. People think it’s so important to keep up with popular media that they absolutely ignore serious problems. When they do take notice, they’re usually just thinking as the spicy newspapers and radio shows tell them to, or in some cases choosing between two, clean-cut schools of thought. As I stare at my peers with my jaw gaping, inside I fear terribly for my future. Is this going to be the new mean? If so, I can only pray that those above the norm become society’s gods rather than its outcasts, but from here it looks grim. I’ve had dreams and visions of the future, and none of them soothe my discomfort.

I have some experience with other countries, and I know that people are stupid wherever you look. But there’s just something special about Americans. There’s a line that can be drawn which only Americans dare to cross. There’s a level of seriousness that seems to be a matter of equilibrium to all other advanced societies, while we continue in our quest into the greatest depths of ignorance and superficiality no matter how bad things get.

I was trying to rush my way through an assignment in this very class a while back, and since the teacher was gone, everyone was confused as to how to complete their work. They whispered among themselves, selected a delegate, and sent that person to ask me “how you do this stuff.” It seems I am considered “the smart guy.” That’s fine with me. Not everyone can be a computer whiz. You’re bound to suck at or not care about a few things. But after carefully explaining multiple times how to set up tables to add, subtract, divide and multiply, another question came. In this case, a Y value was needed to represent a value 30 percent greater than Z. I had used the simple formula ‘ Z x 1.3’. The delegate came to me again, asking, “How do you get that number?”

“Well,” I said, studying the question. I didn’t want to give the answer away. “You need to have Z plus 30% of Z, so you’ll need to calculate 30% of Z and then add it to Z.”

“Huh? How do you do that?” came the response. I was disgusted to realize the sad truth. I wasn’t explaining Microsoft Excel anymore. These people were not able or willing to calculate percents. These college students were unable to rationalize mathematical word problems of a middle-school level.

Neither knowledge nor intelligence is valued in America. We try to skip over things as quickly as possible to earn a paycheck so we can go home and see the season premier of some hour-long sitcom. I sit here waiting to excel in this society or die from it before I’m able to escape.

UPDATE:

Today our instructor asked if men had more ribs, women had more ribs, or if men and women had the same number of ribs. The students ALL answered that men had fewer ribs! They actually went on to argue with him for a minute or so, and weren't satisfied until he gave them an explanation that didn't undermine their god-crap! And this is sophomore college I'm talking about! Have you gotten the message of my exclamation points!? We're doomed! Doomed, I tells ya!

Tuesday, September 3rd

RAMBLY IN MY TUMBLY

Today I found some almost rancid meat on sale at the WalMart. Yep. I bought about 20 pounds of it for 7 bucks or so. I won't be hungry for a while.

I also finally figured out how to run CDR's on my Dreamcast. Let's just say I have a few decades of new content to tide me over now, since I couldn't afford Super Mario Sunshine. Where to start? Zelda II: The Adventure of Link sounds good. Ah... Which brings up the question of whether or not it's illegal to keep roms of games that were stolen from you. All my NES games were stolen after I had roms of them.

Wow. That was a ramble. I think I had something in particular to say, but I can't remember what it was. I'll just give up.

Sunday, July 28th

1337 4(Q|_|151710|\| of WAREZ!!!!!1

Today was not a bad day at all... At 11AM I'm assaulted by "hey how r u?" while innocently minding my own business, deleting "break down doors with your new huge cock overnight!!!" mails from my Hotmail account. It was my cousin, and it turns out that she found the parents who orphaned me, and that they want to eat at CiCi's for lunch in Lubbock! Yahoo! Boy was I excited to join them! I don’t think I could have come up with any other people I’d love to have met with more than those worthless shitfucks. Driving 2 hours to Lubbock to meet my scrummy old white trash family was just what the doctor ordered. But all sarcasm aside, somehow I was compelled to go. And I hit the jackpot for sure!

Oh, you ask, what could you possibly have gotten out of that? Well, something much more important than the idea that my parents might actually care about me! I got (drum roll, please) SNES and Playstation software, as well as one of the new model SNES units! Yeeeeeaaaahhhhhay! The SNES was such great luck because my current unit's AC adapter and the controllers are screwed up. Now I can go back and replay my entire collection. Anyway, it turns out they found it on the side of the road in a paper sack, and I guess out of guilt and because they didn't (or didn't know how to) use it they gave it to me.

It was all very dirty, but nothing that a little rubbing alcohol, q-tips, black rags and TLC didn't fix. (Rubbing alcohol and software cartridges... Ah, those oldschool memories!) Now they all work fine, granted you know the "crooked insertion trick" that most old SNES units (or is it the games?) seem to require.

So screw families, and let's dig in to some detail on what I obtained, in order of how excited it made me.

Aladdin: This game had the entire logo sticker missing, and had simply the word "ALLADIN" (haha) written on it in magic marker, but it was by far the best game of the bunch.
Of course I was too young and cynical when this game came out to want it, but the magazines did seem to have good words to say about it. Now that I'm able to see past the license, I love this game. It has a bit of a mechanical resemblance to Earthworm Jim (especially the swinging), and I thought Dave Perry must have been involved until I saw the credits myself. It's pretty easy for a serious gamer, but the tried and true method for appealing to a wide range of gamers (namely adding a special, hard-to-get item (in this case a red jewel) of which there are a given number of, and allowing the player to see how many he can acquire) came to save the day. It’s a classic but simple game with nice graphics. I'm glad to own it.

Tetris 2: Tetris is great, and Tetris 2 is great too. Not much else to say.

ZOOP: I was always interested in this game, but never had the financial freedom to buy it. It's actually not that bad, if you like puzzle games.

X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse: Seems like a nice time-killer. I remember playing it on a Genesis, and it's nice for a flat (no "up and down" dimension) brawler. 

Joe and Mac: This is one of those games that looks like simple, uninspired platform shit, and then surprises you if you give it a chance.

Jeopardy: Blah. But I'm a packrat, so I can't throw it away.

Spyro the Dragon: Yes! I was never able to get this game, but I played the demo and KNEW it kicked ass. I was super-duper happy to get this one.

Elemental Gearbolt: Jesus loves me, this I know. First of all, I absolutely love Working Designs. They are a great company that never disappoints. On top of that, this is a rare, overlooked game that 1337 |-|4|2|}|<0|23 gamers like myself can appreciate (as opposed to the person who writes “ALLADIN” with a black marker on his games).

Also there was some worthless crap like "Motocross Mania" and "Twisted Metal 4", along with the 8th edition of the Sony Playstation demo disc.

All in all it was a worthwhile trip. Though ironically I haven’t played them all that much because I recently also acquired a copy of Mario Kart 64 that I’ve spent most of my time playing in Time Trial mode and together with Temporary Colonial Keyboard Lady.


Sunday, July 21th

IT'S LIKE BREATH OF FIRE WITHOUT THE GREAT ANIMATION.

Welp, the show is over, so what did I do? I stuffed myself so full of Chinese food that I had to eat a Hershey’s bar worth of Ex-lax before I could even sleep, that's what! Wait, maybe that's not exciting news...

Oh, I also had the very rare urge to take in a cinema. Something about dragons burning shit caught my eye, so I went and saw Reign of Fire. It was actually a decent flick (am I hip to the slang, or what), considering how much I hate contemporary movies. And the sci-fi demographic meant that I didn't have to put up with previews of "Little Mike" (I only know about that because of Episode II (obligatory to geeks, no matter how much we regret the gap in the quality of the new two films), so don’t think the fact that I know it exists means that I have TV! I don’t have TV! Shut up!!!) or an Adam Sandler film or anything. Some of it really sparked my interest in the technical quality of films these days, and I might go to see sci-fi more often now. The movie itself wasn't that bad, though the relationship between the characters and the "oh no who's gonna die and who's gonna not die OMG I have no clue" aspects seemed a bit cookie-cut. It was fun to watch for a geek in a "The Spirits Within" kinda way, while also boasting some very exciting camera work in the intense scenes and some bad-ass boom-bam-kablooy stab-stab shoot-die rooooaaaaargh-I’m-a-dragon-and-I’m-gonna-burn-or-eat-you action and cool characters, even for the more jaded of us.

But don't think that just because this is the first entry into this ultra-human ego workout page of mine that the trip to the cinema inspired the diary itself. It's a pure coincidence, I assure you. Good night.