Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Gosh I Feel Lazy

It’s still freezing out and I’m already ready for it to be done. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so darn winding and dreary looking out. If the sun peaked through just a little, it would probably make me feel not quite as rundown as I am now. Maybe that has something to do with my final in Business Ethics in three and a half hours.

I’m still unsure what to expect from this final. The class hasn’t exactly been tailored to people possessing intellects, yet the final study guide was quite comprehensive and it seems like our prof is looking for in-depth answers. Even though this class was listed as a 300-level philosophy class, there are only two philosophy majors in the class out of the 25 students. The rest are mostly management and business majors, both groups being notorious for their lack of brainpower, which has been shown over and over again throughout the semester in discussion in class. If the test is really as difficult as I think it may be, I have a real hard time believing that many of the people in our class will be able to do well. I am also a little bit worried because our prof seems to eschew independent thinking in favor of concept regurgitation, which doesn’t sit well with me. I have always liked being able to articulate answers in my own way, yet still covering the bases, but here it may not suit my best interests.

In another class, Philosophy of Law, I should be getting my latest essay back today. I’m curious as to how I did on this on since I ramped up my amount of effort on it almost two fold from the first essay. Getting a “B” on the first one was not acceptable to me and getting another was not in my game plan. Now to see if I did manage to pull off the ever elusive “A” I’ll have to wait until 3:00 pm.

Then after my three classes for the day are over, I can actually relax for a nice, long, five day thanksgiving break. It’ll feel so nice knowing that I don’t have a paper or test urgently pressing. It’ll be nice to sit down and not wrack my brain trying to figure out what work I have left to do for my classes. It’ll be so nice to just completely veg out! Sitting down, watching some tv, playing a few video games with Ryan, and reading some comics are the only activities on my agenda for at least two days of this vacation. I’ll need this break because after it’s over, it really is crunch time back here at school. Two weeks of class and finals week is all we’ll have left. In that time I’ll have one final half hour presentation to prepare, one final test/essay, and two final papers. Yes, crunch time it truly will be.

Monday, November 24, 2003

Those Poor Exchange Students from Trinidad

It looks like winter has finally taken an icy grip over St. Cloud. As I came to work this morning, hoping ever so much that school would be 2 hours late or cancelled, I trudged through snow mound upon snow mound. We probably have about a foot of snow on the ground. I’m not going to lie, it’s very pretty, but I really don’t enjoy the subzero temperatures that usually, and this morning did, accompany the snow. I checked the temperature when I logged on this morning and it was a whopping 8 degrees out, but once you factor in the blistering wind, it was in the double digits—below zero.

I don’t know if I’m really ready for everything that winter entails just yet. I was having fun only wearing a fall coat and not having to worry about slippery roads. Friday night was the first night since last winter that I had to worry about slick roads, and slick they were. Kristin, Megan, Rebecca, and I took Molly out for her birthday.

We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean at the dollar theater and then hit up Chipotle for supper. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before but Chipotle is the best pseudo-fast food, pseudo-mexican, pseudo-restaurant that I know. They have absolutely gigantic burritos and chips. Yep, that’s all they serve, but holy crap are they good! Imagine a burrito that the God of Thunder, Zeus, would order when he’s really hungry after a long day of smiting us mere humans. I really don’t know what I will do in Rochester without one.

What’s so odd is that three of my favorite places to go here in St. Cloud have no counterparts in Rochester. Cold Stone Ice Cream, Krispy Kreme Donuts, and Chipotle are all food chains that have proliferated here in St. Cloud. Now Rochester is a bigger city, yet we have none of these chains present. Why? I simply don’t understand why someone doesn’t open at least one of these chains in Rochester because I know it would take off like crazy.

The other thing that is completely crazy is the weather here. I’m definitely not ready for winter. Oh, wait a minute, I already said that, didn’t I? I guess I’m still hung up about how winter significantly limits the options of what you can do to pass the time. Take this weekend for example. Yesterday I didn’t even leave my apartment except once to go move my car out of employee parking. I was getting a touch of cabin fever after only a weekend of winter. There’s only so much I could do in my apartment and Kristin & I tried to make the most of it, but the reality is that within our apartment there are about six things to do for entertainment. 1. Watch TV. 2. Watch a movie. 3. Play video games. 4. Read a book. 5. Play a card game. 6. Cook food. You could probably throw homework in there as something to do as well, but it’s definitely not entertainment.

With the passing of fall, so many options for things to do are gone, or at least don’t seem as fun anymore. No more taking off for a run or going on a leisurely walk. No more outdoor sports. No more hanging out outdoors doing homework and reading which often helped because I wasn’t tempted to get off track by the television or my computer. Heading into town isn’t as fun of a prospect because you have to brave the cold and snow to get to your car and then you freeze most of the way into town. Winter just simply limits your options, and that is pretty much my biggest complaint about the season.

Friday, November 21, 2003

Students Can Piss Off

Finally, after a solid year and a half of my pushing for a change in the setup of the computer lab, it is finally going to happen—just as I am almost done working here. Isn’t it absolutely wonderful how logical decisions and changes take ages to progress through approval channels? It’s amazing how here in college they try to instill a solid idea of punctuality, yet once you see things operating in the real world you realize it’s all for naught.

Every class that I have taken, papers have a concrete due date (unless circumstances change where more time is obviously needed), tests are given on a certain day, presentations must be done when they are scheduled, and assignments are to be handed in on time. All of these have their reasons for exceptions or being changed, but that does not happen often. I know that when something is due, it damn well better be handed in at that time. It’s been ingrained into my system that I must obey schedules and I should get things accomplished in a timely manner—that’s just what you do.

Every day I come to work in the computer lab. Every day the computers still face away from me. I’ve asked over and over since the beginning of last year when they relocated my desk to change things so that they accommodated the lab worker. They always thought it was a good idea, but every day I showed up, nothing had changed. This year they started criticizing me for not being able to do my job correctly. In response, I then reiterated what I had for the last year, albeit a little firmer, to justify my position and finally something is being done. November 26th the computer lab will be restructured so that the computer screens actually face my desk so I can actually do my job. Amazingly enough, I will then be gone three weeks later. Thank you St. John’s Prep for your timely response to my request!

If I were to do my homework in the fashion that the prep school made changes to the computer lab, I’d still be working on my first paper from one of my classes that I took last year. I guess it just boggles my mind that it would take so long for something so small to be done.

I also have another wonderful tale about how much SJU cares for its students. Yesterday I wanted to get a check made out for something I ordered online. I went to student accounts, deposited some money and then asked if I could have a check made out.

“No, I can’t do that.”

“Why? Are you not able to print checks in the afternoon?” It was about 2:00 pm and I usually go there in the mornings, so I thought maybe they shut down the check printer in the afternoon. That would be a logical assumption since they couldn’t make me a check.

“No, it’s just really finicky and it might break if I try to print a check.”

“Well, can’t you just print my check and if it breaks then call to get it fixed? If it’s going to break, it’ll break eventually and you’ll have to get it fixed then anyhow.”

“No, Bonnie [the other student accounts worker] knows how to work it and she’s leaving now so I don’t want to risk breaking it and not having her here to fix it”

“She’s still here, though, so can’t you just try it and if it doesn’t work she can look at it quick before she goes?”

“No, she’s pretty busy. Come back tomorrow if you need a check.”

“Fine, thanks for your wonderful help. I really appreciate it.” It should be noted that this statement was fed through my sarcasm filter at 100%, so imagine me saying it in my most snide voice.

This isn’t the end of the story, however. I had to go to the business center to talk about some loan information and while I was there I asked if there was anywhere else I could get a check printed besides student accounts since they said the check printer was broken. Knowing that student accounts was still open, she called down there asking if she could get a check made out. Sure enough, they asked her how much and to whom.

“No, I didn’t need a check made out. I have a student here who needs one made………oh, really…..uh huh……ok, well I suppose I can do that. Richard, Don said that he didn’t want to make out a check so what you should do is go withdraw some cash and go have a money order made over at the post office.”

“Why? He said he’d make a check for you.”

“Yes, but he’s afraid it might break on him.”

“But that doesn’t change the fact he would print a check for you and not for me. Why should it make a difference who’s getting the check printed. Either it can be or it can’t be.”

“I’m sorry, maybe you can stop back down there and talk it over.”

“No thanks, I already tried to deal with them.”

Oh my goodness. They don’t give a flying fuck about students but as soon as someone who works there wants the same thing done they jump on it. I hate how the administration works here. I truly cannot stand it and I will definitely not miss trying to walk through the rivers of crap they make you wade through just to get the simplest things accomplished. I know that I’m going to enjoy giving a nice big one-fingered salute to every last administration worker here when I finally leave.

Thursday, November 20, 2003

All Good Things...

I think it is finally starting to dawn on me that there isn’t much time left for me here at SJU. Next week is thanksgiving break already. After that we only have about three weeks of school—two weeks of class and one week of finals. Since thanksgiving is late this year, it’s going to be even harder coming back from break knowing that there is so much less time to spend on campus and with everyone here.

It might seem like I’m being a little overdramatic, but in reality how often am I going to be able to see the people on campus, participate in activities, and simply just be on campus? At most I can come up on the weekends. Sure, I can visit people then, but I’ll definitely miss not having everyone simply a phone-call or short walk away.

Missing out on all of the activities is what will probably be the hardest to take over the long run. I’m so used to playing volleyball three nights a week, having frisbee all the time, going to different philosophy presentations, and being in reading groups. None of this will be available to me anymore from home in Waltham. It’ll all be a solid two and a half hours away.

Back to the topic of friends and peers, at home I really don’t have anyone to hang out with outside of my family. Everyone I know is either still in St. Cloud, the Twin Cities, or else they’re somewhere even farther away. No one I know, besides myself, had made the decision to work or be in the Rochester area. Sure, I’ll love being able to actually hang out and be with my family all the time, but as much as I love them all, I know I’ll want contact with people my age group.

It’s definitely going to be a change, especially going from the college atmosphere to the “real world”. Friday of next week I’m going in to Kingland to discuss possible future employment. I’m hoping for a permanent position that pays well enough so that I can get my plethora of college bills taken care of. It would be wonderful to get my loans paid off as fast as I possibly can. It’ll also be hard to make the change from doing work on my own schedule, like I do here at college with my homework, to being on a regulated schedule. I did it for the last two summers, but that was only for three months at a time. The permanence of this type of lifestyle I don’t think fits very well with my personality, but do I really have a choice but that of conformity?

I keep thinking about the changes that I’ll have to make, but this time I can’t help but worry about them more because instead of knowing I only have to do it for a summer, I have to do it indefinitely. The end of an era approaches and I can easily tell you that I am not ready. In the last two years or so, I finally was able to fully embrace the college atmosphere and lifestyle. I wholeheartedly embraced it so much that I now do not want to move on. Transitioning has never been easy for me, and I am sure that this will be no exception.

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

You've Got to Have Heart

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but our indoor intramural frisbee season has started. Our team this year is a conglomeration of two teams from last year—our Rogue Squad, and a friend’s team, Dump with a Smile. Fittingly enough, we named our team the Dump Squad. It was too bad that the Rogue Squad didn’t want to get back together, but when I tried to round everyone up for the team I found out that most of our team had divvied up onto other teams and that most of our team formed up with Dump. I actually am enjoying this season so far and I like our players this year.

So far we’re three games into the season and we’re 1-2. The upside to having a losing record is that we’ve still won more games than we did last season! Last night’s game we lost 11-9 to probably the best team in the league. In my mind, we could have won the game, but one person on our team got burnt for about 5 of the other team’s points. It seemed like he just constantly gave up on defense and didn’t care. Often he’d just stop running if it looked like his guy was going to get the disc and he didn’t think he could get to it.

This lack of heart and effort has always been the one and only thing that I hate about playing sports with people. I always want to win as well, of course, but even if a team I play on loses, as long as everyone has given it their best effort I’ll be happy. When someone just doesn’t care, is lazy, or doesn’t have their heart in the game, I become very disappointed. Such was the case last night. If you’re not going to try you shouldn’t be out there playing, yet he continued to stay out there, trying to play defense extremely half-assed. I try not to blame things specifically on people, but last night is the exception and I know we would have won if he would have tried. Ok, I’m done.

Work here at the prep school has become even more retarded as of late. I’ve been told that I need to crack down more on the students who are playing games while I’m at work. I would have no trouble doing that, except I can’t. My desk is at the front of the room facing towards the backsides of all of the monitors so it is impossible for me to see what they are doing from where I sit. The library, and whoever is in there, has the view of the monitor screens. Often the study hall teacher in the library will come in and tell certain kids to stop playing games. I’ve been told that it is my fault that they’re getting away with playing games. I wholeheartedly disagree and I told them why I thought so.

When I’m at my desk, I can’t see their monitors. When I get up to walk around the room, they see me get up and simply minimize the games until I sit back down. They then resume their game playing. The only way they are caught is when someone glances through the library window and comes in to get them. I can’t really do anything the way that the room is set up. I have also expressed that and they didn’t really care. Right now it’s to the point where I really don’t care anymore since I’m only here for another month and then they’ll have no one in here in the morning. They’ve had the job posted as open for the last month or so and no one wants it because of the hours. I can’t really blame them all since I hate getting up early every morning. This job is definitely something I will not miss about college when I finally leave at the end of December.

Speaking of December, I’ve managed to finish a good portion of my Christmas shopping already. I always try to get almost all of my shopping done before thanksgiving because after that holiday, every store is packed all of the time increasing in people density exponentially as the 25th of December approaches. In doing my Christmas shopping I managed to find a couple of bargain gems for myself.

Our local Media Play, who usually has every CD, DVD, and video game overpriced by an average of $5-$10, had a clearance sale on some of their Xbox and Playstation 2 games. I thought it would mostly be crap that they were getting rid of, but I did find a could of good games—Panzer Dragoon Orta and Dynasty Warriors 3. I’ve been playing Orta the last few days and I am amazed at how beautiful it is. The cut scenes are as good as many Final Fantasy cut scenes and the story, although a little abstruse, is interesting. The gameplay is pretty much an advanced rail shooter, but even though it is pretty simple, it is so much fun. It really reminds me of some of the games I played when I was younger back on Super Nintendo and Sega Saturn except with unbelievable graphics.

They have a few other good games that I think I’m going to go back for today on my trip into St. Cloud to get the new extended version of The Two Towers that comes out today. The couple of other games will make nice Christmas presents. You can’t really complain about getting good, new Xbox games for only $10 each. Who knows, maybe they went into their stock room and found some more games they needed to clear out. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Thursday, November 13, 2003

Drinking Blood

For everyone that has been waiting for my Halloween pictures to be put up, they can now be found right here. I’m hoping to get a few others from a friend as well since I didn’t have that many. It’s hard to imagine that Halloween was almost two weeks ago already. The last 13 days have seemingly flown by faster than most, which is odd because I’ve definitely had much more to do lately than earlier this semester.

Yesterday was finally a chance for me to get everything squared away with my classes. I took about an hour in the morning and between four and five hours in the afternoon to read all of the assignments that had been given to me for today. I had a reading in Hume on his conception of ideas, impressions, and the nature of cause and effect which turned out to be somewhat interesting. That was the short reading. For the longer, more time consuming reading, I had a gigantic collection of articles to read on the interaction of religion and law. I find the topic extremely interesting, but I’m a little overloaded with it since we’ve had six decently sized articles to read in the last few days (about 100+ pages of pretty dense reading). Along with doing that reading, I’ve been working on a three-part essay for my law class on criminal law.

In the middle of all of that work, I’ve still managed to take a little time to enjoy myself. I’ve still been playing Mace Griffin for Xbox, which I have no trouble saying is one of the most frustrating first-person shooters I’ve ever played. There are a few reasons that I’m constantly ready to burn it in effigy to the video game gods, but the main reason is the AI. Enemies know right where I am, and have impeccable aim, as soon as I even partially enter a room. An enemy could be a virtual mile away and as I creep out of a ventilation shaft they’re already popping of rockets at me. There is also an abundance of enemy snipers that are always picking at me as well, but it is hard to tell where the shots are coming from. To make matters worse, there are also more than a few jumping puzzles, which don’t really make sense for a first-person shooter. The final issue that irks me is the extreme distance between checkpoints. If you happen to die (which does happen often), you have to start from the beginning of your last checkpoint, which you probably hit 15 minutes ago. I hate replaying levels over and over again simply because you can’t save it in the middle of a mission.

Even after being so frustrated so many times, I still keep playing it and I don’t know why. Maybe I just really want to beat it and overcome my frustrations. Maybe I’m just stupid. I don’t really know.

Yesterday I also sat down to watch Interview with a Vampire with Kristin. We had both been wanting to see this for a while so we finally decided to watch it. After seeing it, I am once again intrigued by the vampire mythos. You never age, never get sick, heal extremely fast, and are much stronger than an average person. The only downfall is that you must have blood to survive and can only come out during the night. I’ve always thought that I wouldn’t mind being a vampire, but it is a hard decision weighing the pros and cons of the vampire life.

Would I be willing to forego seeing the sun ever again except in movies and pictures? I think I could probably do without that. Would I mind drinking blood? This would be a little harder to do, but I think I could bring myself to do it. Supposedly, depending upon which vampire legend you subscribe to, animal blood can be used as a substitute. Would I ever kill? This I don’t think I’d be able to bring myself to do. I could never imagine ending someone’s life since my own is so precious to me. I would never wish for my life to be taken from me so I would feel completely hypocritical doing it to someone else, even if I felt they were a detriment to society.

The biggest drawback, especially in my mind, is not having to kill or drink blood or never see the sun again, but it is immortality—seemingly the main reason most people want to be a vampire. It would be nice never to have to experience the cold, icy grip of death’s hand, but that would not stop those around you from dying as you continued to live. I could not imagine having everyone that I have come to know and love eventually pass away while I never grew one day older. The constant changing of groups of friends and the longing for past friends and family might be too much to handle. As horrific as death seems, it is almost more dreadful to imagine a life where those around you can never truly stay with you. A vampire may be immortal, but within that immortality comes the price of isolation.

I can’t really say why this was really on my mind, but it was, and now that I’ve gotten it out, I can go back to writing my homework on Hume. Anyways, never become a vampire until you think about it. It’s like having a pet—are you sure you’re ready for it? Except pets don’t drink blood and kill people. Maybe people should just get pets instead of being vampires…yeah, that would probably take care of it. So next time you see someone on the street, make sure to convince them that it is better to have a pet than be a vampire.

Drinking Blood

For everyone that has been waiting for my Halloween pictures to be put up, they can now be found right here. I’m hoping to get a few others from a friend as well since I didn’t have that many. It’s hard to imagine that Halloween was almost two weeks ago already. The last 13 days have seemingly flown by faster than most, which is odd because I’ve definitely had much more to do lately than earlier this semester.

Yesterday was finally a chance for me to get everything squared away with my classes. I took about an hour in the morning and between four and five hours in the afternoon to read all of the assignments that had been given to me for today. I had a reading in Hume on his conception of ideas, impressions, and the nature of cause and effect which turned out to be somewhat interesting. That was the short reading. For the longer, more time consuming reading, I had a gigantic collection of articles to read on the interaction of religion and law. I find the topic extremely interesting, but I’m a little overloaded with it since we’ve had six decently sized articles to read in the last few days (about 100+ pages of pretty dense reading). Along with doing that reading, I’ve been working on a three-part essay for my law class on criminal law.

In the middle of all of that work, I’ve still managed to take a little time to enjoy myself. I’ve still been playing Mace Griffin for Xbox, which I have no trouble saying is one of the most frustrating first-person shooters I’ve ever played. There are a few reasons that I’m constantly ready to burn it in effigy to the video game gods, but the main reason is the AI. Enemies know right where I am, and have impeccable aim, as soon as I even partially enter a room. An enemy could be a virtual mile away and as I creep out of a ventilation shaft they’re already popping of rockets at me. There is also an abundance of enemy snipers that are always picking at me as well, but it is hard to tell where the shots are coming from. To make matters worse, there are also more than a few jumping puzzles, which don’t really make sense for a first-person shooter. The final issue that irks me is the extreme distance between checkpoints. If you happen to die (which does happen often), you have to start from the beginning of your last checkpoint, which you probably hit 15 minutes ago. I hate replaying levels over and over again simply because you can’t save it in the middle of a mission.

Even after being so frustrated so many times, I still keep playing it and I don’t know why. Maybe I just really want to beat it and overcome my frustrations. Maybe I’m just stupid. I don’t really know.

Yesterday I also sat down to watch Interview with a Vampire with Kristin. We had both been wanting to see this for a while so we finally decided to watch it. After seeing it, I am once again intrigued by the vampire mythos. You never age, never get sick, heal extremely fast, and are much stronger than an average person. The only downfall is that you must have blood to survive and can only come out during the night. I’ve always thought that I wouldn’t mind being a vampire, but it is a hard decision weighing the pros and cons of the vampire life.

Would I be willing to forego seeing the sun ever again except in movies and pictures? I think I could probably do without that. Would I mind drinking blood? This would be a little harder to do, but I think I could bring myself to do it. Supposedly, depending upon which vampire legend you subscribe to, animal blood can be used as a substitute. Would I ever kill? This I don’t think I’d be able to bring myself to do. I could never imagine ending someone’s life since my own is so precious to me. I would never wish for my life to be taken from me so I would feel completely hypocritical doing it to someone else, even if I felt they were a detriment to society.

The biggest drawback, especially in my mind, is not having to kill or drink blood or never see the sun again, but it is immortality—seemingly the main reason most people want to be a vampire. It would be nice never to have to experience the cold, icy grip of death’s hand, but that would not stop those around you from dying as you continued to live. I could not imagine having everyone that I have come to know and love eventually pass away while I never grew one day older. The constant changing of groups of friends and the longing for past friends and family might be too much to handle. As horrific as death seems, it is almost more dreadful to imagine a life where those around you can never truly stay with you. A vampire may be immortal, but within that immortality comes the price of isolation.

I can’t really say why this was really on my mind, but it was, and now that I’ve gotten it out, I can go back to writing my homework on Hume. Anyways, never become a vampire until you think about it. It’s like having a pet—are you sure you’re ready for it? Except pets don’t drink blood and kill people. Maybe people should just get pets instead of being vampires…yeah, that would probably take care of it. So next time you see someone on the street, make sure to convince them that it is better to have a pet than be a vampire.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

409 Wins

Another wonderfully busy weekend has come and gone. With this one, many things happened which necessitated that some of my homework get pushed back, which then in turn meant I had a bunch to do yesterday morning which meant that there was no time to add to the journal. Now that that has passed, here’s a new entry.

Thursday night I went to the cities to meet my parents and pick up Ryan for the weekend. This was probably the last weekend he’d get to stay with me before I’m finally done for good here at SJU. It was a good weekend for him to come up because he managed to witness history in the making. John Gagliardi, the coach of the SJU football team for 55 years, won his 409th game to become the only college football coach of any division with that many wins. It seems amazing that our very own SJU coach holds the record for most wins now.

In going along with him breaking the record, there was a record-breaking amount of people and media on campus on Saturday. We usually get around 2 or 3 thousand people per game, and if it’s homecoming or the Johnnie/Tommie game we might get 5-7 thousand max, but with the hype machine churning for the last year or so, we had well over 13,000 people in attendance for Saturday’s game. That’s about twice as many people as we have for our most prolific game every season, and those games feel packed.

Ryan and I were going to go to the game on Saturday, but about three hours before the start of the game, I talked to someone who was over at the stadium and they told me it was completely packed and crazy already. Since Ryan and I don’t like crowds, we stayed in our apartment and listened to it on the radio while we played cards. It was an extremely close game and there were many times that it seemed like we wouldn’t be able to pull it out. We were playing an undefeated Bethel team, but we came out on top 29-26 for a stunning win. Sports Illustrated put up a nice article here. Along with SI, there was media from almost every other outlet there as well—every local radio, tv, and print news provider, ESPN, and a bunch of other sporting publications.

We experienced the overwhelming crowd just a little ourselves when we tried to leave for St. Cloud about an hour after the game was over. Just getting out of campus was a chore and it took us about 15 minutes just to get out of our parking lot. We took a back way into town as the main road was one solid line of metal and rubber. People who were taking the bus between campuses Saturday were treated to, on average, one hour bus rides instead of the 10 minutes it usually takes to get between campuses. It was simply incomprehensible how many people were packed onto our little campus on Saturday. Considering the entire SJU student body is under 2,000 students having more than six times that many people around was really amazing.

Besides the football game, Ryan and I had a lot of fun doing other things as well, mostly video games and movies. We went to see The Matrix Revolutions on Thursday night. There was a group of about 10 of us that went and most of us enjoyed it. Besides the ungodly amount of special effects in the movie, the other thing I really enjoyed was the score. I enjoyed it so much so that I ended up getting it. As opposed to the soundtracks for the last two matrix movies, this one was made up of classical and a little opera instead of retread nu-metal and techno.

On the ride back to my place Ryan picked up State of Emergency for the Xbox to play. It seems like every time he comes up he gets a new game, but that’s fine by me because they end up staying at my place anyhow. It’s a pretty cool game and a lot of fun to play multiplayer. The other thing I like about this game is it allows you to use the songs that have been ripped onto the Xbox hard drive as the soundtrack to the game. It’s the only game that allows me to do this. What I don’t understand is why that isn’t a common feature for all games. I can’t imagine it is that hard to implement. I often get sick of the stock music with most games and simply turn it off after a while. Instead of having silence for the music track, it would be great to listen to the 150+ songs that I have on my hard drive, so if any Xbox game developers are out there, make sure that you can use custom soundtracks for every game you develop!

Thursday, November 06, 2003

The Post Office is Run by Idiots

It turns out that the people who work at the student post office here on campus are getting dumber and dumber daily. Two more wonderful incidents have made me come to this conclusion. The first incident is a simple one, but one that has happened before: I had another package that came with delivery confirmation and they didn’t give me a notice again. They simply ignored it once again, and I only knew I had a package since I went over to the actual post office to mail some packages. Honestly, how hard is it to put a notice in someone’s box? It only takes like 30 seconds max to fill out the card and maybe a minute to walk over to my box and put it in there.

The other incident was more comical than anything else. I was in a hurry about a week ago and didn’t want to walk my packages all the way over to the real post office to mail so I just stopped by the student ran one since it was on my way to class. I usually avoid mailing things through the student one because they have a bad habit of not charging the right price for postage—they seem to overcharge. Anyhow, I had three packages to mail and the total came up to $3.64. I handed the kid working a $10 bill. From here comic hilarity ensued.

He looked at the bill, put it in his drawer and then stared at the drawer for about 30 seconds. Did this kid suddenly go into a meditative state? What the crap was going on? Thankfully, he came out of this state and started grabbing some change, but as he was grabbing some, he’d put some back and grab a different combination, then put some back, then grabbed another combination, then asked me how much the charge was again. It was $3.64. He then pulled out a five dollar bill, a quarter, two dimes and three pennies. Hmmmm…$3.64 plus $5.48 doesn’t exactly equal $10 in the math I was taught back in first grade. Maybe this guy was using some advanced form of highly derivated calculus, but I’m pretty sure he was shorting me money. Not wanting to cause this poor soul any more confusion or make him have to think so hard his head might explode, I told him that I needed another dollar and that he should take back a dime and two pennies. As soon as I said that, he looked up to me like I was Jesus. He was so lost in this process of making change that he needed someone to guide him and I was the light unto his path. It really makes you wonder how some of the people here get into college at all, let alone a private school because, man, this guy was dumb!

Well, now that was definitely a relief to let that out of my system. It would also be a relief if we suddenly had the 80 degree weather that we had about 2 weeks ago again. As I walked to work this morning it was a whopping 10 degrees outside. I’m not ready for this frigid weather yet. It’s also such a weird feeling as I walk from my apartment and then reach the computer lab because there is such a difference in temperature.

My apartment, now that the air system in our room works, is at a nice 73 degrees. Comfortable. The walk to work is unbearable—10 degrees and windy. The halls of the prep school are nice, though, when I get there at a nice 70-72 degrees, but when I get the computer lab it is like walking into one of the smaller pits in the depths of hell. Since the room is all locked up overnight and the computers are constantly running, it is easily over 80 degrees in the room when I get there every morning. I’ve made a habit of opening the window as soon as I get there. Add to the sweltering heat of the computer lab my imbibing of coffee, I sometimes wonder if my body will spontaneously combust from all the heat coursing through my body. Thankfully it hasn’t happened yet, but I’m still very suspicious.

Well, I should be wrapping this up about now. I have to jet off to my sociobiology class where we’re studying Habermas. He’s a prominent modern philosopher and we’re reading his language philosophy at the moment. I’ll say that from my initial reading of his work that on my confusion scale he’s getting close to reaching the Levinas and Heidegger level of head scratching. I think I’m getting it, but from the way he writes I’m just not sure. After class I’m off to Burnsville to meet my parents and pick up Ryan. He’s coming up again for a weekend to visit. It should be a great time. We’re going to see Matrix Revolutions tonight (which I’m expecting to be horrible). Let’s hope that my car works good for the trip down.

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Lady Frost has Arrived.

Halloween has come and gone another year. With its passing this fall, winter has taken an icy, cold grip on us. It is apparent now that fall is over for us here in Minnesota. The temperatures have dropped to around freezing and we now have a few inches of snow on the ground. It’s all very pretty right now, but as nice as it is, as soon as the first snow comes, you know it can only get worse over the next few months. Before we start worrying about MN’s artic climate, let’s remember Halloween.

I had a fun time on Friday, mostly anticipating getting dressed up. This year instead of dressing up like a woman I decided to go as the Crow. As much fun as it was being a chick, I wanted to be something a little darker this year. Staying with the theme of “darker”, Kristin went as a dead, goth chick. I think we might have been the most dead and dreary couple out on Halloween (at least to the places we went to).

We visited two parties, one an 80’s themed party, and the other simply a big drunken mess. The latter we did not stay at long. We were there pretty much to make an appearance, say some hellos, and then head back to the first party we were at, the 80’s party, where we stood out from the pack. Most of the people there were in 80’s attire. Three of the people there were, cleverly, the Ghostbusters. I’ll try to have the Halloween pictures up sometime this week so you can see some of the costumes and the jackolantern we carved up.

Besides hanging out on Halloween, it was a pretty lazy weekend for me. I watched football on Sunday and spent my Saturday evening playing video games and watching tv, along with some occasional homework doing. I managed to beat Halo and now I’ve started playing Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter. I like it so far, although it seems to be nothing more than a standard first person shooter. It’s unique draw, however, is that you get to fly spaceships too. It’s fun flying them, but it’s nothing too special. I’m interested enough in it to keep playing, though, so it succeeds in keeping my interest. Kristin recently started playing Blood Omen 2, which looks to be a lot of fun, and she finds interesting as well.

I recently finished writing a paper on evolutionary ethics, so that is why I hadn’t put a lot of time into updating my thoughts. Usually whenever a paper is due it takes precedence over all my other writing simply because I too easily get burnt out on typing. I can usually only type for about a half an hour at a time before my hands just want to give up. I can usually tell that I’ve been at the keyboard for a while when I start having to use the backspace key more than any other one.

Well, that’s about it for today. I’ve just been pretty boring as of late, but this weekend I should have some good writing material as the SJU football coach could possibly become the all time leader for wins at 409. My little brother, Ryan, will also be coming up to stay on Thursday since he has school off. I’m looking forward to it, but I should probably hone my Mortal Kombat skills before he gets here so that I don’t get my butt completely kicked once he gets up here……oh, who am I kidding, there’s no way anyone can beat that kid at MK.