April is Panda Month
... at the US
National Zoo.
I have no real reason for posting this news, except as a flimsy excuse to post a picture of a panda. I like pandas rather a lot. Way more than I like Pandas.
Plainsimplejakepourri
A collection of random thoughts:
- On my way home from school today, I saw a woman who appeared to be speed-walking in slow motion. It was very odd. Also, she had a shirt that said "kunt" on it, which I think was grounds to run her over. Unfortunately, I wasn't driving.
- I picked up NBA Live 2004 for Gamecube for $10. It has quickly become apparent that I haven't played a basketball video game in a very long time, and also that I know even less about basketball than I thought I did.
- I also rented Super Princess Peach for DS. It's a decent platformer, if you can get past the cutesy theme (I can), but it's extraordinarily easy thus far, and I'm not getting the sense that it's going to get much harder. I also get the feeling that I'll beat it by tomorrow.
- I rented a DVD, too, specifically the Office special. It's about fucking time I saw that. It's brilliant. I love the Office rather a lot. I also know as I watch it that I have something in common with each of the characters. I like to think that it's because they each have one shining character trait hidden beneath the neuroses and such. Even David Brent. It's just harder to see in him. At any rate, when I finished watching the two series of the show originally, I got very sad that they weren't making it anymore. I got over it, but now I'm feeling it again.
- Got a wireless router. Online Tetris DS will clearly cause me to fail (or quite possibly miss) my exam. Fortunately, I
think I only needed a D or a C- or somesuch on that last paper to pass the class. With a D, no doubt, but it's more than I deserve.
-
Facebook is stupid and pointless and a complete waste of time. Of course, it's only the latter because I'm wasting so much time there. On the plus side, it's a lot easier than actually making friends; of the 42 "friends" I have listed, I count at least six whom I haven't actually, in the strictest sense, met, another six whom I think I've only met in a single interview for the paper, and a bunch more whom I've had less than five minutes of conversation with. It's just that easy, folks!
I still think "Larocque Talk With Larocque" would have been a better title
My sidebar has a new link, and it's solid gold. Literally.* When I first went to
Real Talk With Larocque, I was laughing my ass off before I even read a post.
* Not literally.
How I failed an easy class: an essay log
It is now 8:25pm Tuesday. My final paper for Film Studies 200 is due at noon tomorrow. My status: I've decided which movie I'm going to write about. (It's Cronenberg's
Videodrome.)
Following in the finest tradition of the
Gateway—that tradition being one of wasting time with useless diversions—I've decided to keep a log of my progress as I attempt to complete the essay. Will I succeed? Probably not, but stay tuned!
9:10pm: I have prepared and consumed dinner, a simple but lovely spaghettini with fire-roasted tomato sauce and nutritional yeast. JLo added me as a friend on facebook, so I added her back. I've also checked hockey scores. The Oilers lost; that's not good. The Flames are winning, though, which is good, but not exactly as important. Believe it or not, I have done a bit of thinking about the paper, and have an idea of what my topic will be. Nonetheless, current word count:
0It should also be noted that, unlike previous essay bloggers, I won't be staying up all night. I'll wake up early if I have to, which it's looking like I will, but I needs my sleeps at some point.
10:57pm: Progress! Of a sort, and interspersed with bits of Tetris and facebook, but hey. I have an idea, dumb though it may be, and have actual words written, if not many. I forgot to mention that I'm only aiming for around 1500 words here, so yay for that. I may still have a slim shot at finishing. Current word count:
222. Still a ways to go.
11:36pm: I have wasted a bit more time, and I'm being endlessly amused by a sudden flurry of unsubscribe emails, and angry responses to those emails, being sent out to the Arts "town crier" list, and thus to a large number (I'd guess nearly all) of Arts students. I am very proud to be an Arts student right now, let me tell you. I just wish it had happened a week ago so I could've put it in the paper. Oh well. Anyway, at some point I also managed to write a few words for the essay. Current word count:
384. I'd better step on it. Current word count for this post:
373. I'm a moron.
11:54pm: I'm actually moving forward! Current word count:
500. The word:time ratio is still stupidly low, but improving rapidly.
12:10am: Fuck this, I'm going to bed. Current word count:
621. I'll set the alarm for early o'clock and finish it off in the morning, if a little shorter than it should be. I'm not accomplising anything right now, though. Well, I am, but slowly, and not of high quality.
6:16am: I'm up and "ready to go." Since signing off last night, I've received nearly 100 emails over the town crier list, which is both hilarious and not cool. Word count unchanged, but I'm getting on it.
6:40am: I'm a bad person, and read (well, skimmed) through all those emails instead of doing anything productive. Ross Moroz's reply was hilarious, and boy, did he make some good points, particularly about the Gatewayer participation. Word count unchanged, but I swear to Jebus I'm getting on it.
7:22am: My best (or most prolific, anyway) progress thus far. Best of all, I'm now onto the fourth page, meaning I only need another one or so. I'm now lowering my target to 1300 words. Current word count:
8867:57am: I've broken 1000! Better than I thought I'd do. Current word count:
10088:29am: I've cheated my way onto the fifth page (that's metaphorical cheating, not literal, so no need to report me), which means I basically just need to wrap up without worrying about the word count. Hurray! Nonetheless, current word count:
1247. If only any of them were good.
9:07am: Just about five full pages, and you can call me Quitty McDonerson, 'cuz that's it for this shit. What's this" proofreading" you speak of? Final word count: a shamefully low yet unexpectedly high
1385. I'm glad to be done, but next year, I think I'm going to try actually being a student.
Thanks for reading along. Now is bus-catching time.
Destructive Speed
How the hell did it take two decades to come up with Push mode?
The mode in question is an absolutely brilliant twist on Tetris, found in the latest version, Tetris DS. You and your opponent play your pieces onto the clump from opposite ends of the field, and try to push the other across the deadline. Two-, three- and four-line clears push the clump towards your opponent. It's like tug-of-war (except you're pushing and it's Tetris), and it's intense. It's also so natural that it feels like you've been playing it for years. I love it, and will probably fail my class because of it.
As for the rest of the game: also awesome. The standard mode that we all love is there, of course, though it's a little different. Now you can keep a piece alive by continually spinning it once it reaches the pile. That can make things a little easy early on, but there's a tradeoff: once you reach the higher levels the pieces fall ball-assingly fast. It's ridiculous. By level 14 or 15 they're coming down unmanagebly fast. At level 20, they literally don't even fall at all; they just appear at the top of the pile. Some people don't seem to believe this, so I'll be happy to demonstrate if you ask. At any rate, this all changes the game somewhat, and people may argue about whether it's for the better (I'm quite satsified, myself), but it's still Tetris, and it's still awesome regardless.
As for the other modes: Catch is neat, but not really my thing; Puzzle is neat but the control is annoying; Touch is a cool diversion, but certainly not a replacement; and Mission (racing against the clock to complete specified tasks) is a fun complement, but again it doesn't really stand on it's own. Standard and Touch modes are where it's at.
In conclusion: buy Tetris DS. If you don't own a Nintendo DS, buy one, then buy Tetris DS.
Addendum
After playing a brief bit of ultimate earlier today, I have someone to add to the list I started in my previous post:
Jake Troughton: you're On Notice. Get in shape, fatso. It should take more than 30 seconds of physical activity before you start having trouble breathing.
Snubster
Scotty Bomb over at
Ten Thousand Monkeys points out an intriguing new site, "borrowing" from the Colbert Report:
Snubster. There, you can create lists of people/things that are On Notice, as well as Dead to Me.
Colbert is a fine guy to steal ideas from, and that's as fine an idea as any. But the thing is, you don't
really need Snubster for this. I can create On Notice and Dead to Me lists just fine on my own. And now, that's what I'm going to do.
This is a very preliminary list; I'm not going to spoil it by listing everyone at once. Plus, I'm too tired to think much about it right now. But let's go.
Guy who stole the University Cup: you're On Notice. Theft is not cool, and theft of championship trophies is especially not cool. I admire your balls in just picking up the trophy and walking out, but still. Bring it back soon, or you'll be Dead to Me.
Producers of the new Battlestar Galactica: you're On Notice. How dare you make me wait until October to find out what the hell the Cylons are up to?
The Edmonton Oilers: you're On Notice. This whole "meekly slipping into the playoffs only to inevitably get swept by Dallas" thing is not impressive. Pull it together and give me reason to get excited.
The Gateway: you're Dead to Me. But I hope we can still be friends.
Perfectly able-bodied people in SUB who wait for ten minutes to catch the elevator from the ground floor to the second floor: you're Dead to Me, just like your brains are to you. Seriously, it's bad enough that you're too lazy to climb the really obvious set of stairs that many of you walk past on your way to the elevator anyway, but with the incredibly bad SUB elevators, taking them up the one floor
invariably takes significantly longer than taking the stairs. You're dumb.
I've got a theory
Nothing to do with demons or songs, though. Rather, I have a theory about the popular television program
24. Now, I've never seen an episode of this show, so bear with me, but I think this is a pretty solid theory. Basically, I believe that the creators of
24 decided to name the main character Jack Bauer because it rhymes with Max Power.
Thoughts?
Disgusting
My phone's camera is pretty terrible, but this birthday card from Tim is pretty awesome.
