Finals

Finals are coming up soon. I can't believe how fast this semester has just flew by. I have a paper to write in like 4 of my classes that are all due next week lol. I guess I'm going to be busy this week with that. I don't really study much for my tests but maybe this time I can actually take my exams more seriously. I don't know if I want to even bother with HST. I'm already planning on retaking the class so should I bother to waste my time studying for it? I've already missed a couple of days this month. I just hope that I can pass my classes with a decent grade. I'm also a bit worried about my PSY 220. I need to get a B or better on this final exam in order for me to pass the class with a C. Hopefully the exam won't be too hard. I don't know how I'm going to deal with all these papers I have to write. I have a paper for PAR 101, PSY 223, and actually, that's it lol. Not as bad as I thought. Well hopefully I can deal with that then. I wonder how hard summer school will be. I hope it isn't too heavy of a work load.

Diet

I've been on this new diet lately. The thing that got me started on this diet was about 2 months ago when I went to the doctors for a checkup. When they weighed me, I was at 290 lbs. When I saw that I completely freaked out. I don't mind being overweight, but I do mind being over 300 lbs. When I noticed how close I was to 300 lbs, I decided that I had to do something about it immediately. So I first started out going to the gym with my roommate arik but I couldn't keep waiting for him to go to the gym. He told me that I should try going to the gym on my own. I thought about it and I just couldn't get myself to go by myself. So I decided I could loose weight by trying to eat less and eat healthier. So I've been eating less often, also my food portions are smaller. Also, I use salads as filler now if I'm still hungry instead of getting like mashed potatoes or another fattening side dish. When I went home over the weekend, I weighed myself for the first time in a month. I had dropped 23 lbs. I was so freaking happy. I didn't notice anything and nobody else noticed either. But when I saw that scale, I was definitely feeling good about myself. Now that I know that the diet is working well, I'm going to become even more strict with it. Towards the end of last week I was beginning to slack off in my diet. Starting to eat more and more often. Well good thing that I weighed myself so now I'm back on track. Hopefully I can get below 250 lbs. Then I will be satisfied.

My HST class

I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail my HST 101 this semester. The professor that I have is really tough for some reason. His tests are quite the doozy too. I failed my first 2 tests in his class so I'm not very confident about passing his class. I also didn't do very well on my papers. I am planning on re-taking the class either in the summer or in the fall. This isn't the first time taking history here either. I took history last year, it was black history. I ended up dropping that class because of how hard it was. I'm starting to think that I'm just really bad at history. I'm not very good at remembering dates and such. I also don't really study that much and it seems like you need to study a crap ton for history in order to just pass the exams. I'm going to keep all of his tests and take his class again. Hopefully, if he keeps his tests questions the same then I will be able to do much better. I'm still no good at writing papers though.

Date

Well I went on a blind date last night. It was the first time that I had gone on a blind date. In fact, it was actually the first time I'd been on a date. I met her through craigslist. I posted an ad in the personals saying that I was looking for a possible girlfriend. I got a crap ton of fake replies lol. After the first couple, I was able to tell right away which were real and which were fake. In 2 days I got about 20 fake replies and like 2 real replies. Well in any case, last night we decided to go have dinner at a Mexican restaurant. She is actually hispanic. I feel like the date went fairly well but the only problem was that it was very awkward for me. Being my first date I was pretty nervous. I also didn't really know what to talk about. I'm bad at small talking and I have a feeling that she is too. So there were many moments when we didn't even say anything to each other. Towards the end of the date she started talking a bit more and it made me feel more relaxed. I guess if shes talking a lot then that means she is at least a bit interested in me and isn't completely out of place. But the whole thing was still a bit awkward. I wish I could go back and maybe do it over lol. I would be more confident. But I guess it's a bit expected since it was my first date.

Survivor

Oh man, my favorite reality show I think is Survivor. I'm not exactly sure why I like it. Maybe it has to do with the situations that they are put in or something. This season is particularly good because all of the players have played before. I think my favorite survivors of all time are Russel Hantz, JT, and maybe Ken. I only like Ken because he is a gamer like me lol. It was actually very interesting to see Ken in Survivor. He did fairly well actually. Much better than most people thought. But back to the main theme. If you don't know, Survivor is a reality show where people are taken into the wilderness, split into 2 tribes, and they compete in challenges while they also try to survive. Survival includes finding food, building fires, building shelters, and just making good alliances. Of course these alliances rarely last very long but they are usually a good thing to have. To be honest, the thing that I think entertains me the most is some of the conflicts that people get into. I actually don't like watching most people because of their attitudes. But at the same time, there are lots of people that I love to watch because of their attitudes. If you haven't watched any survivor, check out the cbs website and go watch some episodes.

Tribes 2

Over the weekend when I went home, I grabbed my copy of Tribes 2. I knew it wouldn't work on the mac OS but I was thinking that maybe crossover would be able to run it. And I was right. Yesterday after I downloaded it I started playing it. But unfortunately, I found out that the online capability of Tribes 2 was shut down. I guess not enough people were playing it to keep it running. Tribes 2 was really a great game. It was the first really innovative FPS. Many people think that Halo was the first really good shooter game but I think that tribes was much better. The thing that I liked mostly about Tribes 2 was the jet pack concept. I think Halo is going to have jet packs in their next game lol. I guess Halo is a bit behind. This game also had vehicles. Vehicles included motorcycles, tanks, fighter jets, bombers, and more. People even made mods for the game such as the construction mod. I remember that I had so much fun with the construction mod. You could make nice looking houses or large buildings. I remember there was this one house design that I liked to make. Single floor, no rooms. Basically just the living room with a chimney. If I were to go back and do it again, I'd like to add bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets. Maybe even a kitchen and many other rooms. Well enough about construction mod. I would recommend Tribes 2 but since the online play has been shut down there isn't much that you can do anymore.

Copyright laws

When I say copyright laws, I'm basically just referring to the youtube video copyright laws. The reason I bring this up is because youtube has removed so many of my videos due to some copyright. I wasn't using the videos for profit or anything that would benefit me. All of my videos were posted simply to share something with the world that I thought was interesting. All these strict rules came into place when Google bought out Youtube. I think that it's not fair to have so many videos blocked. I think the fair use policy allows for the use of copyrighted material for certain things such as teaching or commentary or some other things I don't exactly remember. I think everyone liked youtube a lot better before Google bought them out. Back a few years ago before youtube was bought out, you could find almost any video that you could think of. After Google bought them out, it seems like half of the videos that were up, violated some sort of copyright law.

New apartment

My roommate, my friend and I are looking for a new apartment for all 3 of us to live in next year. I forget the name of the subdivision but the area looked very nice. Right now I live in a 2 bedroom apartment. The only real complaint that I had was the size of our kitchen. We barely have enough cabinet space for me and my roommate to share. In the 3 bedroom that we looked at, there is literally like 2 times more cabinet space, along with a pantry. Our rooms are larger too. And the best part I think is that each room has it's own bathroom attached to it. I'm trying to figure out which room I would want and I'm gonna list some stuff.

Room 1: closest to entrance. Separate from other rooms. Next to outside stairwell so I may hear people. Might hear people coming in.

Room 2: closest to kitchen. Room seems a bit larger than others. Corner around room where I could have desk. Next to other's bathroom so I might hear them. Possibly next to person living next to us, so there might be some noise.

Room 3: corner room. public bathroom. Largest bathroom. Corner so it may get hot from the sun. Look at angle of the room relative to the sun before picking this. Might be good at night because 2 windows on corner to let in breeze. Will be next to roommate and might be a bit noisy.

My trip to Raleigh

Well over the weekend I went home to Raleigh. The only reason I went was because my parents wanted me to help out with an event they had going on over the weekend. My dad has a fairly large event that happens each year. He has his black belt instructors camp, along with his black belt world tournament/festival. When I went home on Friday, people were gathering from all over the world to attend the instructors camp. I'm not kidding about around the world either. We had people from Korea, Canada, India, and from all over the United States. People probably came from other areas that I didn't even know about.

Friday night we all slept at his tae kwon do school because it would have been pointless to go all the way home and come back out early in the morning to drive all the way back. On Saturday morning is when the festival was going to start. I thought I was going to go to the festival but my dad wanted me to stay at the school to redirect anybody who didn't know where to go. I think that this was actually good for me because I wouldn't have had anything to do at the festival anyway. When I was at his school I just spent my time playing some games and watching some anime lol. It was nice and quiet too.

That night when everybody came back, it got pretty loud. There was a large dinner party and there was some live music. My sister's music teacher actually came out and played some classical music for our dinner. After dinner there was some karaoke and an awards ceremony. Nothing to really talk about there. After that I went home and talked with my sister for a while. I really enjoy spending time with my sister because we don't really talk much otherwise.

Finally on Sunday I went to visit a friend of mine who I haven't seen in like almost a year. I also met his roommate who I haven't seen in like 3 years. We had a good time just catching up and playing some games. After I hung out with him, I had dinner with my mom, sister, and grandma from virginia. We ate at cheesecake factory. Food was excellent as always and then we all went home. I had to drive all the way back to Wilmington and it was already like 9 at night. I got back here around 11:15.

Dragonball Kai

No, no Dragonball Kai isn't a continuation of Dragonball GT. Dragonball Kai is actually a remake of Dragonball Z. It's not a complete remake however because they removed all the fillers and digitally remastered everything from the original. I think that they also revoiced everybody. Some characters got new voice actors but most of the characters are still voiced by the original person. Dragonball kai is usually put up on most anime sites on Sunday morning. Right now in the series, they are up to where Goku has just defeated Freeza and he is trying to escape planet Namek before it blows up. I think it is at episode 53 right now. That is amazing because episode 53 in Dragonball Z was around the time when Goku had just arrived on Namek. They basically cut out about 40 episodes of filler which is really good. One of the biggest fillers they took out was the journey from earth to Namek that bulma, krillin, and gohan went through. In the original dragonball z, that journey took around 10 episodes but in dragonball kai, that journey took like 2 episodes. Another big filler that they took out was the training between gohan and piccolo. Those episodes lasted around 10-15 episodes but in dragonball kai, it was cut down to about 4 episodes. I really like how much they are cutting away from dragonball Z. There was so much useless stuff in the original, but now they can just stick strictly to the storyline.

Final boss of fight caves

The final boss of the fight caves is named Tz-Tok Jad. This big guy is lvl 720. He has 2500Hp and can hit upwards of 970 damage. He uses all 3 attack styles of melee, ranged, and magic. It is recommended that you stay away so that he will only use ranged and magic. Since his attacks can 1 shot almost any player you have to use protection prayers in order to survive his vicious attacks. His ranged and magic attacks have a distinct animation and sound that he makes when he is going to cast his attack. If you see his head dip down and a meteor forming above his head, then you have to turn on protect from magic. If you see him lean back and stand on his hind legs, then he is going to use a ranged attack. These are very easy to recognize but the only problem is that he attacks once every 5 seconds. This means that you have to constantly switch prayers, and his attack pattern is random. When he gets to 50%HP he summons 4 little healers lvl 108 to heal him. To stop their heals you have to attack them one by one and get them to attack you. If they are attacking you they will no longer heal the boss. Usually by the time u can get aggro from all 4 healers Jad is back up to full HP. When the healers are attacking you, you have to be very careful because they can hit you up to 200. If you aren't watching, these guys will chip away at your HP and kill you before you realize it. Just keep healing through the damage and keep switching prayers as you are attacking the boss. Eventually if you do everything properly, the boss will die and you will be teleported out of the fight caves. Then you will be given 16k tokuul and a fire cape.

The Fight Caves

I am going to describe the fight caves here.

The fight caves is a mini game in Runescape where your objective is to kill the final boss for the fire cape reward. There are a total of 63 waves of monsters. The monster information is as follows.

Lvl 22. I don't remember the name for any of these but I'll just put up their combat lvls as each monster has its own combat level. The level 22 monsters are very easy but they are annoying to fight. They drain your prayer when they hit you. They drain 1 prayer point unless they hit you for over 20, then in which case they drain your prayer for (damage) / 10. Meaning that If they hit you for 20, you will loose 2 prayer points. These little guys are 1x1 in size and they have a total of 100HP. If you do decent damage, you can usually 1 shot these.

Lvl 45. These guys are a bit bigger and a little bit stronger. These attack with melee and take up 2x2 in size. You can hit these from a safe spot. These have 200Hp. When you kill this, 2 lvl 22's come out. Not the 22's mentioned up top but different lvl 22's. These 22's are very easy to kill. They take up 1x1 space and they have 100HP. Easy to 1 shot these. If you are using melee against this guy, you will take damage whenever you deal damage to it. It is recommended that you use ranged against these.

Lvl 90. This attacks with ranged and melee. If you are within melee distance it will switch to melee attacks, but if you stay away it uses ranged. This is also fairly easy to kill. It has low defence but it's attack is very high. Meaning that even if you have good armor, it will still hit you fairly often. It is usually a good idea to kill these as soon as possible. These are 3x3 in size and I believe they have around 500HP.

Lvl 180. These are big dudes. They look kind of like lizards that are standing on 2 feet. I believe this is 4x4 in size and it attacks with only melee. You can kill this from a safe spot using any ranged method (including halbard). These also have very low defense but these really hurt if they hit you. These can hit over 300 so it is not recommended to fight them head on. I believe that these have around 1000HP.

Lvl 360. These look a bit like Egyptian lions of some sort. They use magic and melee attacks. When these things are alive, you must have protect from magic active otherwise they will hurt. These can hit over 500 so you should be very careful. These can be a bit annoying to kill because they have a lot of armor. Oh yea and stay out of melee range so that they will only use magic. I think these are 3x4 in size and cannot be safe spotted. They will always attack you with magic.

The final boss will be explained in another post.

World of warcraft

If you don't know by now, world of warcraft (wow) is probably the most popular online game today. There are hundreds of millions of wow players around the world. Everything about this game is excellent. Blizzard made a really good overall gameplay and storyline. The level up system is very good and easy for most people, the party system is excellent, and I think this was the first game to actually have a really good dungeon system. Most other games that have a dungeon system just can't compete with what wow has. One thing that makes the dungeon system so incredible is the loot system. Most equipment in the game comes from dungeons, which makes a good goal for people to reach when they run them. Not like other games that have equipment either crafted or buyable, you have to actually earn your equipment in this game. There is also a very nice raid system that this game has. Raids are just like dungeons except you can have many more people in your group. Normal dungeons allow up to a 5 man party however raids can go up as high as 40 people in a single party. This makes for very fun gameplay. Running around and taking down monsters that are 100 times your size, fighting along side 39 other group members. There is nothing like the feeling of a good raid. It is difficult to describe but if you ever do it, it is really fun and it is an amazing feeling when you succeed. Wow has just so many great things about it that I can't describe them all. There is however one down side if you decide to play this game. This game is very addictive as most people probably already know. Don't start up this game unless you have very good control with time management.

Fairy Tail

Overview of the Fairy Tail anime

Fairy Tail is a new anime that came out a few months ago I believe. The setting is in medieval times, with the addition of wizards. This is the typical thing you think about when you think about a medieval times with witchcraft and slaying of dragons. Well this anime is a bit like a video game. There are different types of wizards that do different things. Such as fighter wizards who use their powers to magically generate and switch armor/weapons. There are elemental wizards who use elements such as fire, air, water, etc. to fight. There are transformation wizards who transform their bodies into beasts or whatever to fight. And finally there are summoning wizards. These wizards call upon minions to fight for them.

In this world of wizards there are whats known as guilds. Guilds are like organizations that you join. Almost like a gang, except without the negative connotation. Each guild has a guild master who runs everything. The guild members survive and make money by doing tasks from the task board. These tasks are things that people around the city need accomplished for a reward. These can range from finding a lost cat to slaying a dragon and rescuing a king. The anime even makes references to a level up system. I really like this anime because it is very funny, and the action is intense. I also love the soundtrack that is used.

Prince of Tennis

Overview of the Prince Of Tennis anime:

Prince of tennis was simply amazing. It is still one of my favorite animes to this day. The main character is the son of a retired pro tennis player. He was raised by his father to play tennis day after day. When the story starts out, the main character is in middle school as a 1st year. He joins the school's tennis club and competes for a spot as a "regular". Regulars are the top players in the club that make up the school's tennis team. The other members of the tennis club are just members and don't actually participate in tournaments. Surprisingly this 1st year tennis player beats most of the 2nd and 3rd years. This earns him a spot as a regular. The story continues on as the play in many other tournaments but I won't spoil anymore.

I think the thing that made this anime so interesting is how they exaggerated tennis. All of the serves and returns look epic (as most animes do). And the way that every player seems to make a comeback of some sort always makes it very suspenseful to watch. You don't have to be interested in sports to watch it either. I never watch any sports but after just watching the 1st episode, I couldn't help but keep watching more and more.

Runescape

This is a quick overview of the MMORPG called Runescape.

Runescape is a very popular MMORPG. Basically this is a game where the objective is to ultimately finish all quests, get all skills maxed, and get the best armor. This online game is very popular because of it's non member free play. Many people don't know if they want to play a game or not so a free trial or free play is always good to get people hooked. However, this game doesn't have like a 30 day trail. This game has unlimited free play. Free players are restricted to areas, quests available, items, and skills but there are still enough things to do that you could play for a whole year for free and still not finish everything. In order to max out all skills and complete everything in the game it will take the average person 5 or more years. The game is heavily based on the grinding system where you must spend hours upon hours grinding exp in a skill to level up. The game is run through Java and so it works on all operating systems. You get to meet millions of other players as you run through this game. I highly recommend this game for anybody who has some free time and wants to do something. The system requirements to run this game are also very low, so you are able to play this game through virtually any computer. All you need is a decent internet connection. Did I mention that there is nothing to download? This game is streamed to your computer so that there is no download required. Simply start up and play.

Political cartoons

So this is the political cartoon that I found. I think it's pretty funny lol. Basically it seems like the artist wants to show people that Obama was much more prepared for his debates than his other candidates. I'm not sure if the man on the right is supposed to be Mccain because it doesn't seem to represent him very well. But in any case, this just shows how much more preparation Obama put into his campaign. I'm not sure if this is actually true but that is what I think the artist wants us to believe.

It is also possible to see this from another angle. You could also say that Obama had to heavily rely on resources to debate properly while the other party could handle the debate with only a small amount of assistance.

In my personal opinion, I would say that the first assumption is more correct. It seems as though Mccain (or whoever that's supposed to be) isn't very prepared for a proper speech based on his facial expression.