Stuffed!

Well I meant to make this post on Thanksgiving night... but was really busy and kept being busy with stuff. Thanksgiving was fun. We went to the church that my mom works at, ate dinner with like 100 other people... it was a blast to say the least. It would have been fun to do a story on the event. Maybe I will next year.

So finals are coming up... I do not have a ton of final tests but I have a few project things to turn in... And I have been putting them off. I see a lot of work this week, but that is ok with me. I have been doing well in most of my classes and I know the stuff so I think I will do well.

Off to bed now.

Coney Island

I finished my Coney Island report for my writing class today. It really is a truly amazing place and I cannot express the joy I feel because I had a chance to go. Even though Astroland is no long operating and no amusement parks are running in the Coney Island area I think something will come to it. Another amusement park in the spirit of Coney Island and all the parks that came before it I hope. We will see what happens. You should all check out some history of Coney Island, it really is an amazing place. I found this video which I found to be sad but very well done.

Well it is way past my bedtime ...

Where the hell did I go?!

I have not posted for over a week now, oops.

What is new? I am trying to work on my profile story, but it is not working out well. I have a new idea for it which I will be working hard on tomorrow and Thursday, because it is due next Wednesday and I want extra time to make sure it is good. I had a big exam in History which pretty much made me focus on that for last Friday. I think I did well though.

One of my mom's cats died on Saturday night, it was "my" cat back when I lived there. Very sad but he was getting old.

Well I have to get writing for my ... writing class haha.

Decent Layout

Once again I am up far too late, so I bring to you a new layout!

I honestly like this. Well right now I like it, but we will see how long that lasts. The picture is from my trip to New York City. I took it while we were headed to a Italian festival in Brooklyn.

It took me a while to come up with a title for the blog. One other then "Max's Blog." I don't know how strong I am on sticking with this one, but time will tell if it grows on me.

A friend of mine just left last night to move back to New York. It is sad to see people go, but I just hope that my friend sees it as a opportunity to live a different exciting life.

Well I need to go to sleep. I have lots of homework tomorrow that I need to do... Bleh. Tell me if you like the blog layout. Not that I did much coding on it or anything, but it took some fiddling with the system. :P

America the proud

People around the country were flooding the streets and singing the national anthem on Tuesday night.

Barack Obama won the election and people in America were celebrating. I have seen quite a few videos of people singing in the streets soon after it was announced that Obama had won.

I must say it makes me so happy to see people responding with such glee. Here is a video like that from Portland's Pioneer Square:


I was at an election night party, drinking and cheering as it was announced that Obama had won the election. We even got to see the holograms on CNN. We all thought this was pretty funny. It just shows advances in technology I guess.

The world reacted the too. Rooms full of people in other countries cheering and holding up cut-outs of Obama. I feel like we can travel without having to wear shirts that say "I'm Canadian"

Now we look toward the future. Come January 20 I will be going to more parties to celebrate inauguration day, I wonder if I will be in one of those crowds singing the national anthem.

Layout changes

I am messing with the layout of this blog... So far I am displeased. I still have a lot of fiddling to do though, so we will see what I can get it to.

The last few days have been weird. I just am still in disbelief that Obama actually won. Very happy about it, but still in shock. I am actually collecting some newspaper stuff from the day after and I am getting copies of Newsweek and Time. I feel weird about it, but I think it will be worth it.

Well I am off to do a chapter summary for writing and to read about cod for history. Oh and btw I got 106% on my history midterm, thank you students who did badly so he used a curve! :P

GOBAMA

Picture taken from Flickr

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I am proud to be an American. That is all.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Ok I had to post this because I loved Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Don't Vote Part 2

They made another one. I thought it was important to post it and get it out there. I know I have covered this before... but we live in Oregon. They send you the ballot! Vote by the 4th K THX BAI!

Dead Space Review

In Dead Space No One Can Hear You Scream

Space, the final frontier, is a dark and scary place. Especially when you are trapped on a ship full of flesh eating monsters.

Dead Space is the recent survival horror game released by Electronic Arts (EA). You take on the role of Isaac Clarke, a engineer sent to fix what is thought to be minor issues with a deep space mining vessel. But of course it all goes to hell within seconds of reaching your destination.

You quickly end up trapped millions of light-years from home on a ship full of hungry creatures. Your only option is to fight your way through the hordes and find some sort of escape.

One of the biggest selling points of this game for me is the environment. EA has done an amazing job of crafting a realistic and horribly frightening environment. The ship really draws you in and feels like it could be a real and terrifying place. All the small corridors with lots of access for hungry beasts will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole game, you'll end up approaching everything with suspicion and fear.

Dead Space offers a few twists on your standard shooter game. With most zombie games you know to aim for the head, not in dead space. The object of most battles is to amputate your enemies to slow and destroy their weapons. This forces much more consideration when blowing away the advancing monsters. Add onto that the lack of ammo and you really have to make your shots count.

This game comes with all the sounds we have become accustomed to with horror games. Clanging of random metal objects, whispering voices, blood curdling screams, ect... But it gets really good when you travel into the vacuum of space. The sound fades and all you can hear is Isaac's labored breathing as his oxygen tanks run dry. Of course while inside the ship and you can hear someone softly, and creepily, singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is almost equally freaky.

Another twist is the lack of a heads up display. Instead of having a normal health and ammo bar in the corners of your screen your health bar is along Isaac's spine and your ammo appears on the weapons when aiming. This is a take on the heads up display that I quite enjoyed. It is unobtrusive and fancy looking.

Because Isaac is an engineer he can use workbenches spread throughout the game to upgrade his weapons and armor. The system offered here is fun and interesting and lets the game be more specialized toward your style. You use power cores, found throughout the levels, to upgrade your equipment with a grid system unique to each individual item.

Dead Space offers a wild and interesting story. You will always be guessing at what kind of twist the game will take next and almost always you will be pleasantly surprised. A single play through on standard difficulty took around 12 to 13 hours, plus the game offers decent replay value thanks to the new game plus system.

The downsides to Dead Space are fairly limited. Boss fights almost always feel simple compared to most of the fights involving random monsters throughout the level. Usually it is a short fight where you have to hit a small section of the boss, then soon after it dies. But the game does still hold up its creepy design, the bosses have extra points in the hideous factor that all monsters in this game share.

If you play other shooter games you will probably be annoyed at the look sensitivity of this game. At first I was quite annoyed with it, but then I noticed the real appeal of it. It kept you feeling boxed in and was another mechanic to keep you terrified of monsters coming from any direction. While adding to the claustrophobic feeling of the game it can get a little irritating.

In conclusion this game is a gripping science fiction horror that will have you on the edge of your seat until completion. The release date so close to Halloween was no mistake.

Dead Space was released on Oct. 14 for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, Oct. 20 for PC. Retails for $59.99 on console, and $49.99 on PC.

Busy Busy Busy

I have been so busy these last two weeks, and it does not look like it is going to slow down. Last weekend I went to the Building a Better Journalist event in Eugene. It was a blast in my opinion.

The first session I went to was the Avoiding interview pitfalls with Les Zaitz. I took about four pages of notes during his speech, I honestly think that will improve my interviewing skills significantly.

Then I went to Diving in deep waters with ProPublica's Steve Engelberg. It was interesting and fairly informative. The main point of the speech was that there are no stupid questions, and as journalist we really have to believe that so we can get all the info needed.

Then we had the Lunch panel, where they talked about the future of news. That was pretty interesting because they talked about all the decline in newspaper jobs and what will be happening with traditional newspapers and all that.

Next I went to Podcasting. Which was actually more of how to use recording devices and how to edit sound files. It was pretty cool, I am thinking about getting some kind of recorder so it was good info.

The last session I went to was the So you want to be a blogger? Not that I really intend to be a professional blogger or anything, I just thought this one would be interesting. And it was! I added some blogs from the people presenting that session to my bloglist here. I like the Biking one a lot.

Then after the conference was over I went to a bar near by with a bunch of the people. I talked to one guy who works in Salem and covers mostly political stuff, and talked to another Journalism student from Eugene.

The night before the conference I went to a friend's independent film showing, so I was up pretty late. And then Saturaday after the conference I went to a Corn Maze, then was up late again because i was hanging with the same friend... THEN my bus home left at like 7am so I was up super early... Yea...

I'm Only Sleeping

Well I missed two classes on Wed. I just kept hitting the snooze on my alarm clock... But I did not miss any quizzes or other homework so it should be fine. If I sleep in tomorrow I miss two quizzes... yea I will be making sure I wake up on time tomorrow.

Getting close to election day, don't forget to vote. We live in Oregon people... they send you the ballot you send it back, not hard.

Hmmm... well time to finish up some homework and study for quizzes. WEEEEE!

OMG WHAT IS THAT?!

Dead Space box art. Picture taken from Wikipedia.

I bought Dead Space... And my TV is in perfect working order... That game is terrifying. Many times I have to pause and just calm down. Often I will yell a string of obscenities as I get mauled by some mutated monstrosity... I highly recommend everyone give it a shot. The game is really amazingly crafted, but enough about that.

I will be going down to Building a Better Journalist this weekend. I am really excited. On Friday I am going down to hang with a old high school buddy and watch a showing of a few of his short movies. Then Saturday is the Journalism thing. Should be a fun but busy weekend.

Well I should get to bed. I am afraid of catching what has been going around so I will be popping vitamin C this week, haha.

Get educated about ballot measures

I just got done writing my story on the speech I attended. I strongly suggest everyone look into all the ballot measures we will be voting on this year. You can find lots of helpful nonpartisan info at the League of Women Voters' site

Hm I guess this blog is reflecting how into politics I have been recently. Oh well... that is ok, I think people should pay more attention to this stuff. Although I do understand that most people do not have the time. Sad.

I should do that sleep thing... but my HDTV is calling me to go play GTA4 :P

Cleaning up

Well I should have been working on homework and my next story but I ended up cleaning my kitchen. Man that stove had gotten pretty nasty, now it looks like new!

So I hope everyone watched the debate last night. Joe the plumber was mentioned more then Iraq in the debate last night, I heard about 20 times just from McCain. Also this picture they got of McCain at the start of the debate... is just funny.

This picture was taken from The Huffington Post

Well I need to write about ballot measures. FUN! (the weird thing is that it actually is for me...)

VOTE!

This is important stuff. It amazes me that people don't vote, but whatever. I encourage you to vote though. The deadline to register is the 14th of October, and it takes only a few minuets (if that).

Well I just got my bike back from the shop today. Got new handlebar tape which is so comfy. Got a new helmet. And uh... all the repairs from the last accident. I also replaced the brakes, which have not been replaced from the date of purchase.

Time to go do more homework.

Hmmm

This is a picture of a pin I bought in support of Barack Obama.

This weekend I received a e-mail from a former co-worker about the election. It had a link to a graph showing estimated electoral votes for the upcoming election. On this map you could check out former elections. So I went to the older ones, 1972 to be exact. That really blew my mind looking at the 520/17 split. I started to poke around more and saw that it had happened a few times. I have only paid attention to the more recent elections, so I am used to a pretty close split. Honestly I hope that happens this year but in the Democrats favor, but I doubt it will happen to such a extreme. GOBAMA!

Edit: Do not forget to vote.

Blast off

This Picture was taken while I was in NYC, this is the John Lennon memorial section of Central Park.

Well here I am, finally starting school again. So far it is going well, I have actually been keeping up with my homework. *GASP* Although I just purchased a new HDTV... so that might end, haha j/k. Most of my classes seem fun, and all the homework is very reasonable. So right now I am pretty confident about school. Well here is to another step forward in life. *cheers*