Poor Priest

"(Sob). You know, all of this is supposed to be for God, but normal people strive all their lives to have luxuries to make life more bearable. But I'm supposed to cast aside all of that and work for heavenly rewards."

So don't even mention luxuries, if that's not the point, unless you are really trying to be subliminal (you're not). Or maybe you're in the wrong calling, and you shouldn't be a priest anymore.

DLSC = Doing Last Second Commissions?

Why is it that people here (and I'm not just talking about students) LOVE putting off their work until not just the 11th hour, but the 59th minute and the 59th second?

If a teacher is not considered absent until after 30 minutes since the class started, he will show up at 8:29 am - after all, it's a 3 hour lab class, so they still have 2.5 hours to perform the experiment. In other words, finishing early is not as high a priority as not rushing the work.

If a policy of 10% per day deductions for last submissions are enforced, there will still be students who believe they can pass it ten days after the deadline, when only 10% of their efforts will be graded!

It's just so sad that there are still people who value "Hard work pays off eventually; procrastination pays off now" when it's so much easier to relax and have fun knowing you've done all of your work ahead of schedule and there's no "to do" list hanging over your head.

Blazing A Trail Through 1's and 0's

Thanks to the net and all the walk through information available for a lot of games, I've never been stuck in any one of them.

Except for Lego Indiana Jones DS. It's new enough that there aren't that many people yet out there who've completed everything.

In fact, it seems like I might be the first one to find out how to get the red brick from the first level of Episode 1 (Raiders of the Lost Ark), since no one has posted about it yet.

By the way, I couldn't find an image that showed both cheat codes and Lego Indiana Jones, but the above picture works just as well.

Think Twice Before Speaking

This is not the first time I'm ranting here about this person, nor is this the first time he has brought up this "concern" during a faculty meeting.

It was about the freshmen having no pictures in the class list given to him.

First of all, the students' pictures in the class lists were only instituted in 2006, well after he had started teaching here, so there was a time when he received class lists without pictures.

Second, if it's something he absolutely relies on to be able to identify his students (after all, does he give them an opportunity to talk in class since he's wagging his tongue the whole period?) what did he do before?

For freshman classes, especially large ones, I've resorted to asking the students to bring ID pictures on index cards for grade incentives (not as if it's coming out of my pocket).

I think it's inconsiderate to complain to Ms. Karen about it knowing she has enough problems on her job, and stupid to bring it up at a faculty meeting when no one else backs you up and it ends up just being a plea for attention, even (especially) if you do preface it "I know the answer to this has been brought up in a previous item about IDs this year being delayed".

Marvel and Adjectives

They dropped "Uncanny" from X-men, "Amazing" from Spider-Man and "Invincible" from "Iron Man". But they didn't want to call it Hulk 2 so they just went with "Incredible" which still confused some people (just like people a few years ago thought The Legend of Zorro was a re-release and not a sequel of Mask of Zorro).

Well, that might have jinxed it. They could have just called it the "Action Filled Hulk". Because it certainly was short on development. Sure the nods to the TV show are great, but it doesn't have to share everything with episodic formula*.

I liked the King Kong analogous cliff scene (which I don't know if it was intentional or not) and the Hulk using tools (and not just to throw around).

After doing a great job defining the physical change in Peter Parker in Spider-Man there wasn't much improvement in Tim Roth's build before and after the super soldier injections, and he was supposed to be a combat veteran in the first place.

Iron Man still is the better Marvel movie of the year.

* You don't want to know how many times that sentence was revised to prevent spoilers.

Dating Colored Girls

This game was lent to me by Chat. She agreed with the blurb on the label that it's the kind of game you would lend out to friends, since someone else had lent it to her.

Not my type though, not because of the concepts, since I've played a dating sim before (whose results were incorporated in your heroic character getting better skills; I'm talking about Thousand Arms for the PS) but I didn't like how I was constantly scratching up the touch screen just to finish a level.

It's a game, in other words, that uses the touch screen equivalent of button mashing.

I'll pass.

The Latest Computer Generated Overweight Hero

Dreamworks comes up with their latest rotund protagonist in Kung Fu Panda, not surprisingly voiced by one of the same people who were also in Shark Tale. Well, considering their biggest success is Shrek, go with what works in the formula right?

As the creators themselves admitted, it's simplistic comedy, and doesn't work if you look at it too deeply, particularly in how the final conflict concluded.

Having just come from another "prophecy" laden "fantasy" in 10,000 BC, I didn't like that part, which, when coupled with the oft-repeated line "there are no accidents" means they were all just slaves to fate.

And given the suspicion that Dreamworks always seems to be following concepts first introduced by Pixar (A Bug's Life - Antz; Finding Nemo - Shark's Tale; Monsters Inc - Shrek; Ratatouille - Flushed Away; The Wild - Madagascar) this seems to be their Incredibles equivalent.

Harrison Ford and No Royalty for Rendition in Plastic Interlocking Pieces

I got the Lego video game for Indiana Jones the other day, and have been playing it two nights straight on the DS. That's the problem with these portable consoles. You can already be lying in bed sleepy, but it will still be in your hands and before you know it it's past midnight already.

I finished Raiders of the Lost Ark Tuesday night, and was done with the climactic battle of Temple of Doom last night.

Doesn't mean I'll chuck it if I finish all three movies (yup, no Crystal Skull - which may be a relief for some) in less than a week. It just means I unlocked all those areas, and I can replay them with different characters (just like I had Vader fight the Emperor in Lego Star Wars) collecting more and more plastic studs to buy the extras.

I wonder if there's invulnerability for a million studs like in Lego Star Wars

The Philosopher's Stone 4 Years after Harry

I finished watching all 51 episodes of Full Metal Alchemist the other night! Unlike some other Japanese animated series, this one is not long drawn out. There was no status quo to return to at the end of each episode, there were revelations galore about the hidden nature of their quest the more you watch.

The ending, despite not being action packed, garners points for not being predictable, and having a satisfactory conclusion despite some open-endedness (I mean: it's not entirely a cliffhanger).

Now all I have to do is watch the movie. The character above is just one of my favorite characters, although there really are a lot of them to like.

Something Useful for Once

Something I got from nodwick.com: 25 Ways to Save Gas At the Pump. And to think it was written almost three years ago.

Talk about prophetic!

Blessed Are the Persecuted?

Not if someone uses it to wallow in self-pity and as an excuse not to put out more effort because they say that others will just judge them harshly.

Rise above it!

Success is the best revenge!

And by that I don't mean creating your own contest just so that you can give awards to yourselves, which I'm by no means saying has happened, but is just preventive maintenance against going that route.