Resigning = Innocence

Today, we have lost one of the comical Republican Senators. John Ensign of Nevada will resign amid an ethics investigation. He of course insists that he's done nothing wrong. And you know it's really a sign of innocence when you resign. It's not like there's pretty clear evidence of bribing the women he cheated on his wife with.

We'll miss you, Senator Ensign. Now we've just got Larry Craig. The rest of them don't really have the humor. Most are just downright scary.

I've done two things today. I went to class and I played FIFA. Right now I have terrible headache.

I depended on cough drops to stop my persistent cough during class, which works for the most part. However, it isn't ideal to suck on Honey Lemon cough drops for something like 5 hours straight. My mouth and stomach hated me for a while after that stunt.

Also remember yesterday when I said there probably wasn't a Tornado. Well, there was. In fact there were two Tornadoes confirmed in my County. The one that is nearest to where I live was an EF2.

I'm still so hardcore.

Ok, I can't really bear to stare at this computer screen any longer. So, a short and terribly disjointed post. What else would you expect?

Thanks for reading

-Michael

Gaming Tuesday

Ok, as promised to have been yesterday on Monday, but it didn't happen yesterday, because I talked about Jelly Beans, so it's happening today now. Mortal Kombat. I'm not feeling all that articulate tonight, so this won't be any good.

I think it's important to understand that I haven't played very many fighting games since Mortal Kombat 2 on the SEGA Genesis. That then means the learning curve for me is very steep, which will likely lead to me criticizing the game unfairly. I'm absolutely terrible at this game. I started on Normal difficulty and got my ass handed to me repeatedly. I knocked it down to Easy and I was almost competent.

It is as wonderfully gory as you'd expect. The fatalities are bloody and disturbing*. There are lots of different game modes, which is nice. I can't really speak to the game play mechanics yet as I'm still trying to grasp them**.

The one true complaint I have isn't really about the game necessarily. In Mortal Kombat it is necessary to use the D-pad. On the XBox controller that is a big issue. The D-pad is just terrible on that controller. It is impossible to be precise at all. If I can work that one out, then I think I'll be able to get this game.

When I went to pick up Mortal Kombat, my local Gamestop finally had FIFA 11 in stock. I've wanted this game for a while. It was definitely worth the wait. The gameplay is improved over last year. It is just fine tuned, which is all that the series really needed.

I don't have anything else to say about Video Games today.

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Last night I posted this tweet. Nailed It!

Apparently there was a Tornado Warning last night. I slept through it, because I'm so hardcore. There probably wasn't a Tornado, but apparently there's quite a bit of damage just East of where I live.

Thanks for reading

-Michael

*Expect when it's robot. Those are just not as fun though.
**n00b

I Don't Like Jelly Beans

This is an issue that only comes up this time of year, which is for the best. I just don't like jelly beans at all. Their texture is unpleasant. I've never really found a flavor of Jelly Bean that allows me to get over that. Lots of them are just unpleasantly sweet. Others are just nasty.

However, the other candy that this time of year brings out is one of my favorites. I absolutely love Peeps. I don't understand why these are only made for the Easter Holiday. Why can't I eat a sugary Santa during the holidays? Or a grainy American Flag* on the forth of July?

Get on that one Science/Candy Makers/Zeus

It was an absolutely dreary morning today. It was raining. It was chilly. And I had to be at class at 8:30. Generally, I rather like rainy weather. It was definitely that type of day. The ceiling was so low that I couldn't really see the sky scrappers downtown. I'm usually able to see them for most of my drive. That is the type of day I like to look out and see if it can't be winter.

However, it really sucks when you have to commute during rush hour. Any moisture on the roads and the traffic flow ends up sucking horribly. Problems that are already congested get worse. Drivers randomly decide to use their brakes. Drivers decide it's appropriate to go way below the speed limit in the fast lane.

That all could have been summarized in this: If I don't have to drive during rush hour rain is awesome. Otherwise I'd prefer it would stay away.

Anyway, as expected not a lot of people actually bothered to come to class. It is Spring Quarter after all. A quarter where you may skip too times in a week, once because the weather is too shitty, the other because it's too nice. I like this professor, I do, but taking notes from his lectures is just irritating. He likes to give back stories that we don't need to know about, which he'll qualify by saying we don't need to know. However the transition to material we actually need to know isn't acknowledged. As I sometimes tend to space out during the back story, it leads to missing notes I ought to be taking.

We watched a documentary about the Influenza outbreak today as well. It succeeded in making me feel bad. Not only because it was tragic and all. I coughed periodically during the film and I felt like people were terrified of me**.

Remeber that time I told you I'd write about Mortal Kombat today? That's been delayed until tomorrow.

Finish Him!

-Michael

*I don't hate the flag or the United States
**I use the proper covering of my mouth form, mind you!

We Do Our Dates Better

I don't dispute that in most measurements, the American contrarian nature has created a lot of things that aren't as good as their international counterparts. Our measurements of length have no understandable method to them whereas the metric system is simple. I know what a Kilometer means relative to a meter; I don't know what a mile means relative to a foot relative to an inch.

However I think the American way of dating is better. Let's look at it:

April 18, 2011

18 April 2011

Having the month first provides me with actual data that I can understand. I know what April means. There's only one April, but there are twelve 18ths of the month*.

Take that, World.

After a week of being ill, I'm going to go back to school tomorrow. My cough is still there, but I think I can keep it under wraps for the day. I've only got one class to go to, which is good too. My Soc class is canceled and I dropped my late class**.

Also, Mortal Kombat is out tomorrow. There will be much more about that tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

-Michael

*Did I get the pluralization of that right?
**Remember the class I said I was really uncomfortable in?

I Cough Everytime I Laugh

This is my new thing for today: If something makes me laugh, I have a coughing spell. It's brilliant and excruciating. Brilliant because it reminds how often I laugh. Painful because my head, chest, and abs are all really sore from so much coughing.

I beat Arkham Asylum last night and today I finished collecting all the collectibles*. Next mission is to beat it on hard difficulty.

I've also just realized that I have a big research paper due Thursday that I've done nothing for and have zero knowledge to go in with. I'm sure that will be a high quality paper. I think it ultimately means that my BEDA posts will be lower quality than the low quality posts you expect.

This is super short, but there's nothing else for me to say. Here's a video:



Thanks for reading

-Michael

10 Favorite Harry Potter Characters.

Inspired to make a list by Kayley over at owlsayhooot, I was determined to to just make list for today's blog post. It's should be simple and provides false impressions of length. I then had to think about what to make a list about. And that's why it's nearly eleven.

Then I just know I'll leave something/someone out of my list who I really meant to be in there. So here goes nothing. These overviews and explanations are going to be so general, so I apologize in advance.

My Top Ten Favorite Harry Potter Characters

1. Hermione Granger

She's a genius. She's idealistic. She's usually right. Where she really won me over personally, is when she stayed with Harry when they were on the run.

2. Luna Lovegood

If you don't love Luna then I don't know what's wrong with you.

3. Albus Dumbledore

He's just so fucking wise. If you try to you're best to act like you think Dumbledore would I think you'll do alright. That's not to mention that he's the greatest Wizard around. I feel like if you saw him do just a simple charm it would be super badass.

4. The Weasley Twins

I can think of no two better examples of good-natured people anywhere. They tease, but they're never cruel. Bad stuff happens to them they still crack jokes.

As characters they are unable to separated. Some people suggest otherwise, but they seem like two of the same people to me in the books.

5. Remus Lupin

The best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we get to see at Hogwarts. He was the best bet to keep the reigns on Sirius at Grimmauld Place. He was brave and a talented Wizard. He suffers a lot of injustice too because he's a werewolf. Plus he's the only Marauder on the list.

6. Hagrid

He's a super emotional half-giant. He's very loyal.

7. Harry Potter

You make the list when you Kill Voldemort.

8. Tonks

She married Lupin and was a Metamorphmagus. She was a klutz and an Auror. Did anyone else think that she had died in the Battle at the Ministry? I've reread that part recently, knowing that she survived and it still sounded like she got hit by Killing Curse.

9. Arthur Weasley

A wizard who loves muggle things, which provides create a few great bits of humor in the books

10. Cedric Diggory

In reality Cedric doesn't deserve this spot, but well I've got to put a Hufflepuff somewhere in this.

There you have it. Tell me someone I obviously missed in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

-Michael

Where's the Batcave?

11:26 Time to do this shit.

As this blog is slowly devolving into a symptom log. Well here how it it today.

I'm generally over most of my symptoms. My throats not sore most of the time, which is the big thing. I'm still coughing a lot though. It's to the point where the muscles in my stomach and back are starting to hurt badly. It's gotten worse later tonight and that's something I've noticed following illness the past few times. I start to have a really horrible chest cough late at night and I haven't found an adequate explanation for it really. I think it's mostly because my lungs hate me. It sounds like I have Pneumonia or something, but I don't as I don't have: 1) a fever 2) a deep cough all the time and 3) I'm not coughing anything up. However this will eventually lead to an annoying encounter with my father.

I've spent a lot of time today playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. It really is a fantastic game. I wish I had picked it up sooner on the advice of so many people. Also it produced (I hope) about as good of an anecdote as I can give you from a single player video game.

As the player of course you get to control Batman. So, I needed to get to the Batcave for a mission. I'd been there once before earlier in the game, but now I couldn't remember how to get there. So, I made Batman wander around for more than an hour looking for the Batcave. In effect Batman had forgotten where he put his Batcave. It was weird conversation with Oracle.

I eventually found it*. I had backtracked unnecessarily because I completely missed an obvious door. That isn't the first time that's happened to me either in this game. So if I have a criticism of this game is that the doors aren't obvious enough. Couldn't they be bright orange and noise?

I make for a pretty incompetent Batman.

It's 11:58. Suck it, BEDA

Thanks for reading

-Michael