[INCOMPLETE] I’m Messing With RPG Maker Again [...Not True!]

Note:
This draft has been cluttering my stupid Manage tab for like four or five months now and I’m sick of it. I just want to clear some new space for ideas for entries. And I sort of lost my train of thought, y’know like 4 months ago, so it’ll be hard to continue on to finish it. And it’s too long to just waste it, so, here it is in its incomplete, half hearted glory. Believe it or not, it’s not the first time I revisited this post. I started writing it when it was really true that I was messing with RPG Maker again. Then it was about a month that I was working with it, and didn’t have time to actually finish telling you guys that I was working on it again. So, I tried to finish this post, but so much had happened that I got bored writing and I wanted to work on other entries. 5 months later here we are. The last couple paragraphs were added about a month after I started writing about this crap.

I’m messing around with RPG Maker again. I came here with the intention of posting a sort of generic “what I’ve been up to the past couple days” type entry but I saw that I had this big draft here that detailed the specifics of what I was doing when I first started getting back into things and I’m loathe to waste my efforts. I’ll try to connect the old-news of the draft with what I’m actually doing, but if everything following this paragraph seems discombobulated and incoeherent, well, that’s probably because it is.

ZOMG! Back to School!

Yep, it’s that time of year again. Gotta gotta go back to school and learn me an edjumication. The bad news is, of course, that being back to school will make it hard to find time to post here. The silver lining to this dreary cloud, though is that on Wednesdays I have a 2 hour gap in my classes that I will hopefully be able to dedicate to this piece of junk right here. Actually this is somewhat questionable, as so far the computer labs have been closed. I doubt they’ll be closed for the whole semester, though. In any case, it may be a few weeks before that option does become available I may not be posting much. Just a warning.

Anyway,  I’m actually posting this a bit late. I’ve already been back at Marshall for a week. Then again, if I posted this earlier then I wouldn’t be able to give commentary, so that’s alright.

I have to say that despite having some registration problems (long story) I’m quite pleased with the schedule I ended up with:

Monday
Time	Class
8:00-8:50	Chemistry
9:00-9:50	Anthropology
10:00-10:50	Latin
11:00-11:50	History

Wednesday
Time	Class
8:00-8:50	Chemistry
9:00-9:50	Anthropology
10:00-10:50	Latin
11:00-11:50	History
12:00-12:50	None
1:00-1:50	None
2:00-2:50	Chemistry Lab
3:00-4:50	Chemistry Lab

Friday
Time	Class
8:00-8:50	Chemistry
9:00-9:50	Anthropology
10:00-10:50	Latin
11:00-11:50	History

Didja notice how there are no classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Is that not the greatest thing ever?

Not only is my schedule itself good, but my courses are pretty swell, too.

Chemistry: OK, this one isn’t my favorite in the world, but it’s not horrible. This and its lab are probably my worst classes. The professor doesn’t seem to be as nice as the other Chemistry professors I’ve had in the past, though. Only time will tell how this’ll work out.

Anthropology: This should be a fairly easy course. Not a whole lot of homework, mainly light reading on a subject that’s fairly interesting anyway. I’ve never had this professor, but he seems like a pretty nice, easy going guy.

Latin: Yup, my third Latin course. I only have to take one more, but I’m going to take an extra one after that so that I get a Latin minor. ^_^ Which will give a whopping two minors, Latin and Chemistry. Yay?

Anyway, this class is gonna take some effort. We move through the material pretty quickly and there’s a lot to learn.  Not to mention homework everyday, weekly quizzes and the like. Yowch. On the plus side, the professor’s a great guy. He can be absolutely hilarious, too on occasion.

History: This is kind of meh for me. The material will be…hmm… I guess I’m just going to have to stick with “Meh” on this one. It’s US history from 1877 onwards. I prefer ancient history over this kind of thing, but considering that my  Middle and High School history classes never seemed to get up to that point (I don’t remember ever learning much about post-Civil War happenings) at least the material will be new. And more relevant than my previous classes had been.

Another plus: great instructor. Seriously. I had this guy my freshman year for a different history class. Highly reccommended, assuming you attend the same university I do.  This guy’s hilarious, although sometimes he tries a bit to hard to be funny. Still, great guy.

Chemistry Lab: Here’s where things take a turn for the worse. I hate the course. Boring experiments, tedious lab write ups, keeping a pointlessly detailed lab notebook. Oh, and the professor doesn’t seem very nice. In fact she seems really harsh and bitchy. The only thing saving this course is that the professor’s kinda hot. <3 Seriously she must be like straight out of grad school with a shiny new PhD. I thought she was a TA when I first saw her. Mrowr. Oh well, let’s hope the eye candy outweighs the bitchiness. Crossin’ my fingers.

Well, I’m done here. See you later.

Day in the Life of a Middle Class Republican

This may seem like something childish that would be circulated via email forwarding (and don’t we hate stupid email forwards, but that’s the subject of another blog). However, I think it brings up some legitimate points about the hypocrisy exhibited by modern conservatives. So, enjoy the story of a day in the life of Joe, a middle class Republican.

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, “We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have”.

Antlions in my Backyard!

This morning I made a nice little discovery in my backyard. Apparently, the local area is home to a fascinating insect known as the antlion. I am familiar with antlions from way back when I saw them featured in a documentary about African wildlife. I was greatly impressed enough by this marvelous insect that I was able to identify the creature instantly on sight. It was thrilling, as I never expected to encounter one here in America.

Wikipedia describes the adult form of the antlion like this:
The adult antlion has two pairs of long, narrow, multi-veined wings in which the apical veins enclose regular oblong spaces, and a long, slender abdomen. Although they greatly resemble dragonflies or damselflies, they belong to an entirely different order of insects. Antlions are easily distinguished from damselflies by their longer, prominent, apically clubbed antennae and different pattern of wing venation. They also are very feeble fliers and are normally found fluttering about in the night, in search of a mate. The adult is rarely seen in the wild because it is typically active only in the evening.

However, as you may have guessed, it’s not the adult form that endeared me to this insect, nor was it the adult form that I encountered earlier today. It is the larval form of the antlion that is the real source of fascination.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the antlion’s larval stage:
The antlion larva is a ferocious-appearing creature with a robust, fusiform body bearing three pairs of walking legs and a prothorax forming a slender mobile neck for the large square head, which bears an enormous pair of sicklelike jaws (mandibles) with several sharp, hollow projections. Depending on species and where it lives, the larvae will either hide under leaves or pieces of wood, or dig pits in sandy areas.

Sound intriguing? Yeah, well it gets better. See, antlion larvae have a very interesting method for capturing their prey. The antlion larvae dig themselves a littler crater-like home. They take utilize their home in a fascinating method of hunting.

Wikipedia describes their predatory habits:
Since the sides of the pit consist of loose sand at its angle of repose (that is, the steepest angle the sand can maintain, where it is on the verge of collapse from slight disturbance), they afford an insecure foothold to any small insects that inadvertently venture over the edge, such as ants. Slipping to the bottom, the prey is immediately seized by the lurking ant-lion; or if it attempts to scramble again up the treacherous walls of the pit, it is speedily checked in its efforts and brought down by showers of loose sand which are thrown at it from below by the larva. By throwing up loose sand from the bottom of the pit, the larva also undermines the sides of the pit, causing them to collapse and bring the prey with them. Thus it does not matter whether the larva actually strikes the prey with the sand showers.

Now do you see why I was excited? Antlions are awesome! Which is why I decided to help them out. I whacked some ants with sticks and tossed them into the pits. It was really fascinating watching the pit trap in action. It was really cool seeing the whole flipping dirt at the ant thing.

And not only did I hand-feed them some ants, but I scattered spoiled leftovers around the pits to help them attract more prey. Mwahahaha!

Well, I guess that’s it. If you want to learn more about antlions, please check out the Wikipedia article.

Long Time No See, eh?

Hello, readers. It’s been a while. I honestly don’t have a whole lot to say right now, but I’ve been wanting to at least alert you about my continued survival. That’s right. Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

You may be interested in what I’ve been up to while I haven’t been writing here, but unfortunately I’m going to have to be cryptic and mysterious about that, for the most part. You see, I have been extremely busy involving myself in another internet endeavor and the only thing I have to say about it here is that it looks like my attempts were a monumental failure.

Apart from that I had been up north at my mom’s place for several weeks. Very nice to see some familiar faces. I got to see Wescott (who had recently been to Japan) and some of my other old friends. Not to my surprise, but definitely to my pleasure, one of said friends, Jason, now operates a podcast called “Talking the Talk,” so check that out. I also got to see some of my southern relatives that I don’t see very much.

All in all I guess that means things have been pretty good lately despite my lack of productivity. And speaking of lack of productivity, I’ve temporarily stopped working on anything RPG Maker related. Not that that’ll come as a shock to you or anything, given my history.

Yeah, and as far as blogging goes, I’m disappointed with myself. I really had hoped that this summer would be very productive. Needless to say, it hasn’t. However, I have not totally neglected my duties. I have about 20 (!) unfinished (and in some cases unstarted) blog entries waiting to be posted. Some of these I have no intention of finishing, and will probably just post them as they are. Some of them may end up just getting deleted. Either way, here’s a sampling of what the future holds:

Creationist Museum Lies About Archaeopteryx- The Creation Museum’s portrayal of Archaeopteryx was so inaccurate and so conveniently in-line with what creationists wished it would be like that I have no other alternative than to accuse the museum of outright dishonest and purposeful misrepresentation of facts to advance their agenda.

E.T. Versus Nessie!- Why I feel that it’s more plausible to believe in UFOs than the Loch Ness Monster.

Symptoms of Mental Illness? Cho’s Girlfriend Jelly and his Old Pal Vlad- Some thoughts on the psychological state of the Virginia Tech killer and how the media look in the wrong places for clues to the causes of crime and evidence of an abberant mental condition in those who commit them.

Seung-Hui Cho: A Speculative Biography – I try to get under the skin of “The Question Mark Killer” to show how important it is to be sympathetic even to the world’s “bad guys” so that tragedies like the carnage at VT may be prevented in the future.

I Finally Ended Up Playing “Super Columbine Massacre RPG!”- The title says it, I finally got around to playing the most famous (or infamous) game in RPG Maker history and I’m posting this as a detailed review.

And there’s plenty more where that came from. I have recently managed to acquire some actual published creationist literature (including that book about “creation compromisers” like myself!) so you’ll be hearing about that too, eventually.

I think that should be all I needed to say for tonight. Later, guys.