The Cost of Power

     So Pennsylvania has been blisteringly hot the past few days.  Been spending most of my days hiding in the air conditioning, except when I have to drive somewhere in non-air conditioned car. -_-  Anywho, I happened upon an interesting, or rather disturbing, news article using my iPod's Pulse app.  A glistening example of the cost of America's power and hunger.  The article discusses the fact that there are roughly 20,000 oil spills in the United States every year.

"While most people have been paying attention to the debt crisis, another American

 disaster has been taking place under the radar in Montana. Three weeks ago, an ExxonMobil 

oil pipeline pumping medium crude into the United States from from Canada burst, spilling 

42,000 gallons of sludge into the immaculate Yellowstone River, the longest 

free-flowing river in the lower 48 states."

     The worst part is that the companies responsible for these "small" spills rarely pay any major consequences.  I could speculate about them paying off the higher powers but...

Anywho, as much as I love cars, we need to find another source of power other than oil.  America, and the world needs to find a safer, cleaner power source before it kills us all.  Of course, as long as there's money in the oil industry it's not going to go away any time soon.

     In other news, I'm currently watching the German Grand Prix on Fox.  XPSMcLaren has many more details about this weekend's motor sports events...and oddly by watching this I'm supporting the current petrol industry aren't I...dammit.

Time Keeps On Slipping Into the Future

     Busy busy busy...and yet nothing to do.  Now that I'm finally done with college, assuming I pass my project, I've been sitting at home trying to find a job.  Yippee.  I have to balance my searching between finding a career, and finding a job to fill time and make money until then.  I must say, although being able to apply online to places is great, I hate the process used. I'll Best Buy as an example, though plenty of other companies are guilty of the same.  After spending time filling out the basic stuff you are subjected to very long, tedious, and repetitive questionnaire.  I recall one from the Best Buy application that asked "Close friends aren't worth having because they'll only betray you in the end;" you then chose from "Strongly Agree, Somewhat Agree, Somewhat Disagree, and Strongly Disagree."  First off, that's a very off the wall question, and I'd question the sanity of who came posed it to me.  Now some of the questions I don't feel can be answered with the four generic options  given, and some of them you know which answer is most desirable even if you don't agree with it.  Now this process is supposed to help companies choose the best candidates to work in their stores, but you know what the desired answers are, and give those instead of your honest opinion, what does that make you? A liar? Now I'm not going to say all these employees are lying, backstabbing, do-anything-to-get-ahead people, but that's what these so called "Aptitude Tests" are really filtering for.  I feel a five minute, in-person interview would be a much better indication of a candidate's character. Oh well.
     This past Thursday I attended the U2 360 Tour show at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.  My mom bought the tickets two years ago, and then Bono hurt his back and had to postpone the entire tour.

While I'm not U2's biggest fan, the show was still incredible.  The size of the stage, all the lights, and the 360 screen in the middle was incredible even from our nose-bleed-section seats.
     In SCAdian related news, I head a rumor from one of my local fencing marshals that the East Kingdom heavy fighters might refuse to fight at Pennsic.  Apparently the current king of the East made some decisions without consulting anyone...and they are pissed about it.  So imagine one guy running out to engage an army. That'll be the East's king this August. I do hope it it's caught on tape.
   

I Don't Have a Spending Problem

I have a saving problem.

Had an awesome weekend, and as usual spent too much money on Magic.  My friend from home, who is now dating one of my ex-s, came to visit again.  We played a lot of said cardboard crack game. On Saturday I rediscovered a store at the Uniontown Mall called Sports Collector's Universe.  They have pretty good deals on all things Magic related. Ultra-pro deck boxes for $1-2, good card sleeves for $4/80 sleeves, boosters as far back as Fifth Edition and Ice Age and Homelands for $2.50 - $3 each. Fat Packs and Commander decks for $25, and booster boxes for $90.  Needless to say I spent too much there, not that they mind.

My one friend Gina, the actual before-mentioned ex, decided to split a New Phyrexia booster box for $45 each.  On top of that we were allowed to choose three other booster packs for free.  We choose a Zendikar, Conflux, and M11 pack.  Gina pulled an Eldrazi Monument:

I opened the M11 booster and pulled:

We promptly traded he two. The Conflux pack was a bit disappointing, and by that I mean there was no Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker in it.  Anywho, we proceeded to open the booster box, each pulling a handful of mythics and generally good/useful cards in the process.  I now have both

I honestly like the regular version on the left better, as it shows Sheoldred better.  Not that I'm getting rid of the promo of course. I'll probably trade the regular one for an Emrakrul, the Aeons Torn that my friend pulled while sitting next to me.  And by friend, I mean the infamous Shane. There's a funny story there too.

Before going halfers on the booster box with Gina, I had picked up the stack of Rise of the Eldrazi boosters and said "Even though there could be an Emrakul right here in my hand, I'm better off buying him online." Ten minutes later Shane opens one of those very boosters and there's Emrakul.  Not. Cool.  Irony is a bitter-sweet thing, it really is.  As pissed as I was, it still makes me smile and laugh a bit. Shane has agreed to trade Emrakul to me for a healthy stack of cards, especially rares that I'm not ever going to use.  I'll now put a list of other good cards I got, though not all....would take too long.

 

Personally I want to make a helmet based on his head.

  

In other news I'm procrastinating badly on my paper for my graduation project, which hopefully will be done Friday.  I was doing decent work on it until I was pocket dialed by one of my other ex's psychotic mother.  I hate this foul, sub-human creature enough that it lost what little work ethic I had and started ranting a little about pocket dials on Facebook.  Now, I don't hate many people in the world, but I will openly admit despising this woman's existence.  Close friends know the reasons, and they all pretty well agree.  Oh well.

Anywho, I hope everyone had a great 4th of July, assuming my few readers are all American, and if not, then I hope you at least had a great weekend anyway.

Assimilation

I'm not sure if it's come up on my blog here before, but I'm pretty much addicted to the Magic the Gathering trading card game(worse than some of my other hobbies).  This weekend, not only did one of my best friends come out to my college for the weekend (a 4.5 - 6 hour drive depending on how fast you drive), but we also saw another friend completely join our addiction. See (500) Days of Shaneiferd.  We took my friend from home and our latest victim to some of the local comic/card shops and spent far more money than we should have. Our Saturday night culminated in a five person game, and it was some of the most fun I've ever had in a 2+ people game. Such games are usually incredibly long and boring, but there wasn't a dull moment with this group.  We decided that Shane fit the Blue magic profile of manipulation and politics almost too well. Even though his freshly built deck wasn't all that intimidating, he did his best to manipulate his stronger opponents into working with him.

I bought many individual cards this weekend, but I did buy two boosters at the one shop. The New Phyexia pack contained a Moltensteel Dragon and a holographic Chancellor of the Dross. Two rares in one pack, pretty exciting stuff. 

 The same shop also had boosters from the Mirrodin set, which released back in October 2003.  This was one of my favorite blocks back in 9th grade, I had to get at least one pack (A block by the way is usually a group of 3 sets within the same storyline/plane). I'm glad I did because I got some cards I didn't own and some I hadn't even seen.

Had plenty of a newer version of this one, but never the original.

 

 The last card that I'm pretty excited about I acquired as a single. It was actually a pre-release promotional card that you'd get for buying something the first weekend or something like that, but since it's been a month I got one for a couple bucks.

Ooooooo, shiiiiiiiiiny.

 I have to confess that Black isn't my strong point, though I employ it more than Green, so finding a good use for Sheoldred and Chancellor of the Dross might prove tricky, but I'm sure I'll make do.

That's enough about my hobby/addiction,  and I'd like to encourage everyone to share their hobbies with other people, no matter how weird or nerdy or plain insane. Until next time, keep corrupting your friends!

The Living Dead Are Amongst Us

Seriously, check out this wicked cool science: http://www.npr.org/2011/06/13/137029208/heart-with-no-beat-offers-hope-of-new-lease-on-life

An artificial heart with no beat, no pulse, and no EKG reading.  Any medically trained person would declare you dead.

Been a big week, yet boring in some ways.  Lot's of hurrying up to wait type stuff.  More details to come by the end of the week.

Till then, keep on laughing.

Nintendo's E3 2011 Opening

These are notes I took on my cracked iPod Touch during the live webcast

E3 Nintendo
Zelda concerts worldwide + CDs
Sept. Four Sword free on DSi
Dec. Skyward Sword

Satoru Iwata
To serve every player
Luigi's Mansion 2?

Reggie Fils-Ime
3DS for everyone
-Mario kart
  Customizable karts
  This holiday season
-Star Fox 64
  Use system as control yoke
  Your face and voice linked to your ship
  September
-Super Mario 3D
  Before end of year
-Kid Icarus Uprising
  3v3 multiplayer battle
  3d cards
-Luigi's Mansion 2
  Several new mansions
-Resident Evil mercs & revelations
Mario & Sonic Olympics
Ace combat
Tetris
Cave story
Driver renegade
PAC-man
Tekken
MGS snake eater

3DS Virtual Store
-Excitebike
-Pokemon enhanced Pokedex "Pokedex 3D" Nintendo eShop only

Wii U
Controller has 6.2in touch screen & classic buttons
Can play whole game on controller
Drawing pad, board games
Video calls
Browse
2012
Backwards compatible
can transmit HD to TV

Smash Bros. For both Wii U & 3DS
-will work together somehow

LEGO City Stories for Wii U and 3DS

Darksiders 2
Assassin's creed
Ghost recon online 
Batman arkham
Dirt Codemasters
Aliens Colonial Marines
Metro Last Light
Tekken
Ninja Gaiden 3

Wasting Away Again

Today is June 6th, the anniversary of D-day, one of the biggest and most complicated military actions the world has ever seen.  During World War II, this was the Allies' last chance to take Europe back from Hitler and his Nazi regime.  Failure was not an option. Young men on both sides, most probably younger than my 22 years, fought valiantly.  Yes, even the German troops should be recognized, for not all Germans were Nazis, and I'm sure not all those on the front lines agreed with everything Hitler did.  Either way, no matter where in the world you live, today should be a celebration of Liberty, and the hope that it will always prevail, and that someday, we'll perfect it.

In other news, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3.  This time of year is more exciting than Christmas for most avid gamers.  I think one of this years biggest buzzes is what Nintendo is going to release next.  It's been five years since the Wii was released, the average lifespan of a Nintendo console.  There's speculation that we'll get a beefier Wii, dubbed Wii 2 or WiiHD.  The writers over at Gamesradar think we'll get something even better.  Nintendo has stated it won't  release a console that doesn't do things completely different from the Wii, so suspicion turns towards an HD powerhouse similar to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.  One of the writers suggests that the new console's name will simply be "Nintendo," raising the points that Nintendo tried not to associate their name with Wii very much at any point, keeping it casual for casual gamers.  Now, they think the big N is trying to win back the "hardcore" gamers, with the machine that should have followed up the Nintendo Gamecube.
Either way, I'm pretty psyched to see what tricks Nintendo pulls, even though I won't be able to afford a new console for a long time.

Until next time!