Character: Prisoner; "Why just the other day..."

I have logged 40 some hours of Skyrim in the last 2 or 3 weeks, and let me say, my character is definately evil. I decided after I did the main quest that I wanted to join the theives guild, so from there I just spent my days looting homes, selling the goods, and killing dragons. I am making bankkkkk. I think I have a problem in the game now with stealing from everyone, even the actual Theive's Guild. I also just completed a quest where I had to harvest blood from different kinds of Elves. Creepy much? I really think that anyone who hasn't played needs to at least try this game. You get to personalize your character, save whenever you want, and you can do whatever missions you want whenever you want. You don't even have to do any missions at all. You can just run around and lead a BA virtual life. What is also a lot of fun is the nifty little glitches in the game.
My favorite being: "Why just the other day..."
In Riften, there is a bar tender that you can go talk to about his "lovely" boss. When you click to speak to him, he will tell you about how awesome it is to work for her. It then gives you a few options of what to say next to get him to admit that his boss isn't the best of employers. If you click on the option in which you bribe him, your speech will increase. Fun fact, you can keep doing this over and over again to get your speech to 100. Be warned though. It does take a bit of time (make that about an hour of just lciking A repeatedly) and you have to bribe him with money for a bit before you can just choose the persude option. Also, I would not suggest you do this if you have no practice fighting or haven't done the main quest at least because as your speech goes up, so does your level. This means enimies will be harder. Other than that, it's awesome. I did a mission a bit after this where I was trying to retrieve some books. Normally, you would have to fight the woman to get them, but because my speech was so high, I just asked her for them and she said ok. I had to kill her anyway to get the key to get out, but I felt like a boss. There are some other cheats in this game and others, but this one is by far my favorite.

Oh and if you are wondering about the Prisoner thing, when you start out making your character, the deafult is Prisoner in the name section, which you then change...unless you are stupid like me. I accidentally hit the wrong button and so her name is forever Prisoner. :)

Can You Run It?

So after the other day of having my computer crash fifty million times in the middle of WOW, I checked my computer and realized that it was the drivers. So I'm posting a site here that I checked it on that people can use so they don't get blue-screened. It'll run a test and check your computers preformance with any game. FIGHT THE BLUE SCREEN!

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

Valve "Steam Box"; Technology overload?

So here http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/valve_steam_box_console_rumor_sounds_like_a_bad_idea is a link to a news story about Valve, a privately owned game company, that is making prototypes for a new gaming console called the "Steam Box". So what's so fancy and new about this system? According to Digg.com "A standout feature is rumored to be a controller that could provide real-time biometric feedback from the player to the game. For example, a shooter would be able to adjust the intensity of the action based on the player’s pulse rate." But does that really make you want to toss your Xbox or PlayStation out the window to get in line to buy this new console? That would mean updating games too, just a couple more hundred dollars. The real question that most game makers and fanatics have is will this system take off and become a best seller or will it flop like many other consoles have such as the 3DO, CD-i, and Nuon?
What I'm interested in, however, is if little features that promote "new technology" are really worth all the money? Gamers already invest so much in new games, system updates, DLC's, etc. So would a new feature like this really drive the average gamer to go out and buy all new gadgets and games for it? Or are companies just exploiting gamer's needs for something new just to get a few extra bucks out of them?

WOW is consuming my life :)

So I started to play WOW last Friday I believe and I got so wrapped in to it that I'm at level 25 and I can't stop. I actually had to pry myself away so I could get work done for other classes. I always seem to do this with random games. I just want to play them all the time...but only if I'm doing well. I love my character, Blood Elf Paladin, Vanestra, because she kicks butt. Another plus side to this game is that I'm better than my boyfriend Andrew :) But here is the question that I want to ask/answer. Do I (you) get more wrapped up in a game when we are suceeding? (Do you spend more time on it?). I know I do. When I'm doing well in a game I could play for hours on end because I love leveling up and collecting items/kills. But say I'm playing the campaign for Gears of War. I quit about 20 minutes into it because I just can't seem to get the hang of it and finish what is required to move on. I usually play the online PVP, but if I'm not getting a lot of kills I just turn it off and not think about it for a while. I love gratification from a game and if I'm not getting it then I move on to another game. I think part of the reason for this is because of how easy it is (like we discussed in class). In real life, I feel like no matter how much I do I'm failing because I can't measure my sucess by levels and experiance points. I'm struggling with 6 classes, a job, a hunt for a second job, trying to find money to pay off my credit card debt and school tuition bill, I seem to never get everything done that I want to get done, my GPA isn't high enough, I don't go to the gym, etc etc, on and on. It's just too much. But in WOW, all my quests are listed for me and I'm told exactly where to go. For my accomplishments I get experiance points and know exactly when I level up. Does this mean I'm going to ditch the real world completely and just play this game instead of dealing with life? Not a chance. But it is a nice break from everything. I'm able to relax but also be engaged at the same time. I'm the type of person that needs to be doing something every second of the day otherwise I feel like I'm wasting my life away. Even now, I'm at work and I have a break, but instead I'm on here writing a blog while writing down the lists of things that need to get done this weekend. Games are good for me because I can do something without overloading myself and shorting out like I so often do.
So, like I asked before, do you get wrapped up more in a game that you are suceeding at? And why?

"It's a vendetta, leader."

Frankly, I'm disappointed with the group discussion we had. While I agree that the colors were bland and the panels were too close, making it a bit difficult to read, it has a great story that we never even got the chance to talk about. The one question that I love to ask people after they read this book is did V do this for justice or out of insanity? No doubt the man was a little off his rocker after all the experiences he had in the camp. I don't imagine anyone would come out of that and not be a bit on the crazy side. The world he escaped back into wasn't that much better either. The constant security that these people are under create a terror and fear that you can seem to sense throughout the book. The secret police are crooked and the official government is not much better. Like I said in class, this society is extremely similar to 1984. The Head is Big Brother, the different departments are like that of the Ministry (s), the secret police are the thought police, both societies are poverty stricken and surrounded by cameras to watch their every move. There's no doubt that the writer must have picked up 1984 at some point in his life and used some of the features for Vendetta. I also get a Holocaust type feel when reading about the camps and their experiments. The Nazi's often preformed drug and other experiments on many people, especially twins/siblings, the mentally handicapped, and children. Similar experiments are preformed in the Vendetta camps.

So there is where his base crazy stems from. But what about the torture he put Evey through? Did he really think that it was the best way to "teach her"? True, experience is the best way to learn anything. But dang! She went through so much and that on top of it began to make her even a bit crazy. How does starving, beating, and degrading anyone make them "see the way"? I supposed it worked though, because she did end up taking his place. So, 10 points to the psycho?
Also, even though he really seemed to "payback" the people that made him who he is pretty hard, I find a bit of justice in that. Some may have been a bit much, but hell, these people destroyed the lives of so many people.

Based on that and other drastic events....Crazy or not? You decide.

"It would take many books, my life, and no one wants anyway to hear such stories."

First off, I absolutely loved this book. The Holocaust (well, WWII in general) is one of my favorite things to learn about. It was definitely a depressing time full of unnecessary death, but it showed the world how severe and wrong discrimination can be. What I enjoyed about this book was the fact that it was finally a personal Holocaust story that WASN'T Anne Frank. His father's journey during and long after the Holocaust sheds new light on the way it had affected the lives of the survivors. One example is his tendency to hoard and save. He had to do that so much during the war that it just makes sense that it would become habit and continue. 

But what I really want to discuss is his use of animals to represent the characters and the scenes where he draws the characters with masks on human bodies. As we talked about in class, it is obvious that he used such simplified characters in order to give you the chance to put yourself into the story and try to get a deeper feel for how difficult it was. It was also a great way to make a distinction between the Polish Jews, the Nazi's, the French, etc. This way you can focus more on story that is being told than the pictures. 

I also found it quite interesting that at certain points in the book he drew characters with animal masks on. In class, we discussed that this could represent him putting on a facade; that he was raised Jewish but feels disconnected from this. But another thing I thought that it could be interpreted is that this is his way of reminding the reader that this is real, it's scary, and it needs to be recognized as serious. You see the hair sticking out of the back of the mask and remember that this was his father's life and it seems to haunt Art in a way. The Holocaust seemed to cause his mother's suicide and caused his father to be obsessive and cold-hearted. It goes to show that this major event in history affected more generations than just the ones that were involved in it. 

“Something about being rejected at Church Camp felt so much more awful than being rejected at school. ”

This book made me thankful to be agnostic. When I was growing up, my mom would take us to CCD (Catholic Sunday school) and I don't remember much except for the priest telling all of us at communion that if we didn't repent that we were going to hell. Between that incident and my parent's divorce we left/were kicked out of the church. I revisited the whole god idea a few years later because my best friend grew up in an uber Christian family, but still didn't believe. I hold strong to the fact that there is something out there but not necessarily the Christian god and I think part of this decision was made thanks to the harshness of the church I went to. I hate when people shove their opinions and beliefs down my throat and expect me to just comply. Maybe that was part of the reason Craig stopped believing in god. All those years of just having others tell him that they are right and he should take their word for it, no questions asked, can really have a toll on someone. 

One example being the teacher that told him basically that drawing was stupid and not god's work. How the hell would you know that? This book really showed the bible-thumping side of Christianity and how they rarely practice what they preach. Do they not say that god will love you no matter what? 

Another part that really got to me (and the honesty surprised me) was when the preacher let Craig know that the Bible wasn't exactly the word of god and because of this Craig stopped believing. There are so many contradictions in the Bible that it makes it hard for me to believe that people eat it up and say it's law. (Yet they get the option to pick and choose what they'll follow. Problem?) 

I liked watching his struggle with Christianity throughout the story because it shows a certain degree of honesty about how religion works in the individual. I know a few people that have experienced a similar struggle and they have a hard time talking about it, so it was nice to get someone's true feelings on the matter.