Good news: Got Assassin's Creed II as a late birthday present. I'm about half way through right now. I'm happy getting a new game that I can't beat in one sitting. Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2 were short. So far it's better than the first game in almost every way, except I'm disappointed with the graphics. Ever since that one video for AC2 that looked so good it almost seemed like it was real people a couple times I expected uber graphics and cutscenes that looked like that. Either way, great game.
Bad new: My dog is dying. He's about 11 or 12, big German Shepard. His legs are weak and he can barely walk (3 out of 4 hurt him and his hips have bad arthritis). He was 125 pounds and is now 80. He's not eating his food and I have to lift him up since it hurts for him to stand and if I'm not there to lift him he'll soil himself trying to get up so he can go to the bathroom. The vet gave him painkillers and something to help with his arthritis, but if that doesn't help enough he may not last the week, on his own or getting the shot. All he does is sleep and he won't eat so I'm worried. I hope he'll be able to pull through this...
On a side note, I need to watch Schindler still and finish reading about it now that I have my laptop back. It's a PDF file on my laptop so I wasn't able to get to it during the break.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Laptop broken and now fixed
For some reason, a few days ago my laptop and AC adaptor stopped working simultaneously. So I called Dell and they sent someone out to fix it (just got it fixed about an hour ago). My mom was being all crazy and demanding that the girl on the phone send a new laptop, with a lot of unpleasant yelling about how she lives in another country which had nothing to do with laptop. After apologizing to the poor girl, I was informed there would be a repairman that can be sent in a few days. I think having my same laptop with new parts inside it in a few days beats having a new one a few weeks later. So I had a good experience with Dell's customer service and it gave me something to write about since I'm falling behind on my blogs! It's a win-win situation.
In other news, I need to finalize what I plan on doing for my research paper. I've been interested in Rommel and Stauffenberg (tried to assassinate Hitler) lately and want to research them.
In other news, I need to finalize what I plan on doing for my research paper. I've been interested in Rommel and Stauffenberg (tried to assassinate Hitler) lately and want to research them.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Night
Professor Stewart likes to always quote Elie Wiesel's quote that's about bearing witness. I don't remember if that was in his speech, but I noticed something else that I thought was important in the speech. It was about being heroic during a terrible experience. Wiesel said it was heroic to share bread, to have faith, to be human. When reading Night, I remember him saying how his trip there alone changed him. He felt different over-night. He ended up keeping quiet and looking out for himself instead of trying to help others, and if I remember right, he said he normally would've done something about it. I can understand being in that situation can change people drastically, from being a person to being treated like an animal. I remember there being a friend of the family who would give up a bit of his rations to help Wiesel stay healthy. Wiesel must've really thought he was a hero, especially when he'd say he wasn't that hungry. Chances are he was extremely hungry because they didn't get much food (not enough to feed me, at least). I think it's those who wouldn't let the Nazi treatment change them are the people he considered heroes.
One part I did sort of like was how Wiesel recalled himself and other prisoners running from barrack to barrack grabbing clothes and stuff while naked. He said if it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation they would've been laughing because they looked so funny. It's good to see that there was just a little bit that they could look back on a laugh about. I'm not exactly sure if he actually found it funny looking back on it, but that's how I interpreted it. Or maybe I just want to think that he found it funny, so that there can still be a shred of happiness hidden in there somewhere so the prisoners had at least something to laugh about.
One part I did sort of like was how Wiesel recalled himself and other prisoners running from barrack to barrack grabbing clothes and stuff while naked. He said if it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation they would've been laughing because they looked so funny. It's good to see that there was just a little bit that they could look back on a laugh about. I'm not exactly sure if he actually found it funny looking back on it, but that's how I interpreted it. Or maybe I just want to think that he found it funny, so that there can still be a shred of happiness hidden in there somewhere so the prisoners had at least something to laugh about.
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Long-lost "Five Finger" Quickwrite!!!
*cue dramatic music*
This thing was so lost and forgotten that even Indiana Jones wouldn't have been able to find it! Anyway, it takes place during the times when everyone gathered in the basements during the bombing raids in The Book Thief.
When arriving in the cold basement, you could feel the staleness of the air. It wasn't frequented much before now, so there never was any way for fresh air to make it down here. It was crowded too, which didn't help at all. It got stuffy real quick. Parents were hugging their crying children to try to calm them down, some of the adults were shaking in nervousness, and others just sat down against the wall. Sitting looked like a good idea since there wasn't much to really much reason to stand. When sitting down against the wall I finally realized just how cold it was. The rough, freezing wall felt uncomfortable on my skin, so I tried to keep my hands and arms away from it. Without thinking, I let my hands rest on the ground to my sides, but that too wasn't a very good idea either. The ground was also cold and covered in dust and dirt. I know this is a basement, but couldn't it have been cleaned out at some point if the owners knew that this would be a shelter?
Anyway, at this point I was so busy trying to make myself comfortable that I had blocked out the noise and the movement of the cramped people. I did notice one thing though. It was quiet. For some reason, the noise had just stopped and you couldn't hear anyone talking. After listening carefully, a voice of a young girl appeared in the small noiseless void of the basement. She was reading from a book. The words had a calming effect and everyone had finally stopped panicking; I even forgot about my attempts to try to make myself more comfortable. Everything seemed to vanish and all that was left were the words that seemed to float above the crowd then distribute themselves among the people for all to enjoy.
The smell, the stuffiness of the air, and the cold floor didn't matter anymore. Most people probably even forgot about the fact that there could be an air-raid. Suddenly, there was an abrupt interuption. The sirens gave the signal that it was safe to return back to our homes. I'm sure a couple people almost wanted there to be another warning so they could listen more to the story, but when you think about it, it'd be better to listen to the story when our lives aren't possibly in danger.
This thing was so lost and forgotten that even Indiana Jones wouldn't have been able to find it! Anyway, it takes place during the times when everyone gathered in the basements during the bombing raids in The Book Thief.
When arriving in the cold basement, you could feel the staleness of the air. It wasn't frequented much before now, so there never was any way for fresh air to make it down here. It was crowded too, which didn't help at all. It got stuffy real quick. Parents were hugging their crying children to try to calm them down, some of the adults were shaking in nervousness, and others just sat down against the wall. Sitting looked like a good idea since there wasn't much to really much reason to stand. When sitting down against the wall I finally realized just how cold it was. The rough, freezing wall felt uncomfortable on my skin, so I tried to keep my hands and arms away from it. Without thinking, I let my hands rest on the ground to my sides, but that too wasn't a very good idea either. The ground was also cold and covered in dust and dirt. I know this is a basement, but couldn't it have been cleaned out at some point if the owners knew that this would be a shelter?
Anyway, at this point I was so busy trying to make myself comfortable that I had blocked out the noise and the movement of the cramped people. I did notice one thing though. It was quiet. For some reason, the noise had just stopped and you couldn't hear anyone talking. After listening carefully, a voice of a young girl appeared in the small noiseless void of the basement. She was reading from a book. The words had a calming effect and everyone had finally stopped panicking; I even forgot about my attempts to try to make myself more comfortable. Everything seemed to vanish and all that was left were the words that seemed to float above the crowd then distribute themselves among the people for all to enjoy.
The smell, the stuffiness of the air, and the cold floor didn't matter anymore. Most people probably even forgot about the fact that there could be an air-raid. Suddenly, there was an abrupt interuption. The sirens gave the signal that it was safe to return back to our homes. I'm sure a couple people almost wanted there to be another warning so they could listen more to the story, but when you think about it, it'd be better to listen to the story when our lives aren't possibly in danger.
Modern Warfare 2 online
Don't have much to talk about really, so I thought I'd share a story of three of my favorite kills online so far, two using the throwing knife.
The first: I was shooting a guy and he breaks open a glass window and jumps out to try to get away from me. I sprint and follow him and jump out the window too. While going to jump out the window, I prepare my throwing knife and as I jump I throw it at him while I'm still in the air and get him in the back as he's running.
The second: I'm following two guys with my stealthy character, so I never showed up on their radars. I aim my throwing knife up and throw it. The knife flies over the first guy's head and hits the guy in front of him on the way down. As the knife is in the air, I run over to the guy in the back and use my combat knife and get him in the back. I ended up getting both guys almost simultaneously.
The third (which happened a few hours ago): I snuck up on a guy and knifed him in the back and saw another guy coming around the corner, so I prepared my throwing knife and threw it. Or at least I thought I did. The guy I knifed had dropped a grenade, so when I thought I grabbed the knife, I picked up the grenade. When I threw it, it bounced off the guy's head and blew up above his head, killing him, his partner next to him, and nearly me (I was on the edge of the blast radius and took serious damage).
The first: I was shooting a guy and he breaks open a glass window and jumps out to try to get away from me. I sprint and follow him and jump out the window too. While going to jump out the window, I prepare my throwing knife and as I jump I throw it at him while I'm still in the air and get him in the back as he's running.
The second: I'm following two guys with my stealthy character, so I never showed up on their radars. I aim my throwing knife up and throw it. The knife flies over the first guy's head and hits the guy in front of him on the way down. As the knife is in the air, I run over to the guy in the back and use my combat knife and get him in the back. I ended up getting both guys almost simultaneously.
The third (which happened a few hours ago): I snuck up on a guy and knifed him in the back and saw another guy coming around the corner, so I prepared my throwing knife and threw it. Or at least I thought I did. The guy I knifed had dropped a grenade, so when I thought I grabbed the knife, I picked up the grenade. When I threw it, it bounced off the guy's head and blew up above his head, killing him, his partner next to him, and nearly me (I was on the edge of the blast radius and took serious damage).
Monday, November 16, 2009
Been falling behind on blogs, but I have good reasoning... sorta!
My reason (not "excuse," I hate that word) is that I got Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, both of which are very excellent games. Uncharted is about fortune hunters that are after a mythilogical artifact that is involved with Marco Polo's trips and Modern Warfare 2 is a sequel to COD4: Modern Warfare and is another epic war game set in modern times. I won't go much into the games when it comes to story, but both are epic and have pretty good online play.
Uncharted is a mix of a shooting game and platformer since there's a lot of climbing involved. Those who play it may feel like there's a bit of an Indiana Jones feel to it since there's treasure to be found and there's Nazis (except they're always dead Nazis who have been lying there for 60+ years)! As for Modern Warfare 2, I feel like explaining what it's about, besides being an FPS, would ruin the story a bit.
Ok.... I'll talk about one part, and it's a spoiler, so continue reading at your own risk if you want to play the game without having any knowledge of what will happen in the game!!!
Ok... this should be a safe distance... Anyway, in the game, there is a part where you play as a deep CIA agent trying to get close to a terrorist. Part of gaining his trust involves join him on a mission to go massacre hundreds of innocent civilians at an airport. This got the game a toooooon of bad press before it was released, with people claiming it will cause little kids to think its good to be a terrorists and so on. I don't want to go into a huge debate, but M-rated games = 17+, not little kids. Parents need to keep their kids away from these games.
Continuing on... This scene was by far the most distrubing in the game, as people are trying to squeeze through tight security points as they get mowed down by machine gun fire and some try to drag their dying friends and family or crawl away from the bloodshed. The good thing though is that the game warns you ahead of time. When you put the game in for the first time, it warns you of disturbing content that may offend people and give you an option to block it. If you decide not to, you get to the mission, and can't take it, the game gives you a back-up option that allows you to skip the mission and continue to the next one. This is the only mission that has this disturbing content (or at least I think so, nothing else seemed to really stick out).
As for "why is this in the game?" it's because it's crucial to the story. The tension between the US and Russia are high after the end of COD4, almost like a new cold war, and this part was the spark that started the fire. At the end of the mission, your character is killed by the terrorist and left at the scene of the massacre, pointing the blame on the US since all the Russian people there were killed and all they found was a dead US agent. This starts a huge war where Russia basically Blitzkriegs the US, ruins the capitol, and we desperately fight to hold our ground. The war doesn't fully end and there are a few things left open that could easily be used to make a Modern Warefare 3 in a few years from now.
Anyway, it's a good game, but if you have a weak stomache and want to play it, you can always skip the massacre and get straight to fighting terrorists and invading commies. It's almost like Red Dawn.... sorta (I think... never saw the movie, only heard about it).
Uncharted is a mix of a shooting game and platformer since there's a lot of climbing involved. Those who play it may feel like there's a bit of an Indiana Jones feel to it since there's treasure to be found and there's Nazis (except they're always dead Nazis who have been lying there for 60+ years)! As for Modern Warfare 2, I feel like explaining what it's about, besides being an FPS, would ruin the story a bit.
Ok.... I'll talk about one part, and it's a spoiler, so continue reading at your own risk if you want to play the game without having any knowledge of what will happen in the game!!!
Ok... this should be a safe distance... Anyway, in the game, there is a part where you play as a deep CIA agent trying to get close to a terrorist. Part of gaining his trust involves join him on a mission to go massacre hundreds of innocent civilians at an airport. This got the game a toooooon of bad press before it was released, with people claiming it will cause little kids to think its good to be a terrorists and so on. I don't want to go into a huge debate, but M-rated games = 17+, not little kids. Parents need to keep their kids away from these games.
Continuing on... This scene was by far the most distrubing in the game, as people are trying to squeeze through tight security points as they get mowed down by machine gun fire and some try to drag their dying friends and family or crawl away from the bloodshed. The good thing though is that the game warns you ahead of time. When you put the game in for the first time, it warns you of disturbing content that may offend people and give you an option to block it. If you decide not to, you get to the mission, and can't take it, the game gives you a back-up option that allows you to skip the mission and continue to the next one. This is the only mission that has this disturbing content (or at least I think so, nothing else seemed to really stick out).
As for "why is this in the game?" it's because it's crucial to the story. The tension between the US and Russia are high after the end of COD4, almost like a new cold war, and this part was the spark that started the fire. At the end of the mission, your character is killed by the terrorist and left at the scene of the massacre, pointing the blame on the US since all the Russian people there were killed and all they found was a dead US agent. This starts a huge war where Russia basically Blitzkriegs the US, ruins the capitol, and we desperately fight to hold our ground. The war doesn't fully end and there are a few things left open that could easily be used to make a Modern Warefare 3 in a few years from now.
Anyway, it's a good game, but if you have a weak stomache and want to play it, you can always skip the massacre and get straight to fighting terrorists and invading commies. It's almost like Red Dawn.... sorta (I think... never saw the movie, only heard about it).
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Today's Guest: Sidney Bolkosky
In class today, we were visted by Sideny Bolkosky, who has done a lot of research and interviews involving the Holocaust. I feel as if I have learned not exactly facts and statistics of the Holocaust, but about the experience as he recalled parts of the interviews he had done in the past. He mentioned how the trains were just terrible with all the dying, hungry, and thirsty people all crammed into a limited area with no form of restroom. The people he had talked to said there is no ways words can describe it. He said in multiple interviews, it was described as something like if the seas were made of ink and the sky was paper, there would not be enough ink and paper to describe how horrible it was.
The description of how horrible it was agreed with what was mentioned in our reading from Night. I know it's a horrible topic, but after reading that part and hearing Bolkosky talk about the interviews I think I really want to read Night. I know the Holocaust is real, but the inhumanity is so unreal. The Jews were being slaughtered like animals, but even killing animals in such a manner is still horrible! I think since it seems to unreal, it makes me more curious to find out more to make it seem like less of a mystery.
One point Bolkosky brought up was the people who took care of the payments for the trains. They knew there were a ton of Jews being taken to camps and they were all one-way, but they didn't know the details of what was going on, and they were called desk killers (or murders, forgot what he called them). I'm a little unsure on it. If they didn't know what was going on, how can they be guilty? I know if I had a job like that, I'd feel extremely uneasy about it but I would do it so I don't get fired and don't have money to support my family. I think if they knew about what was going on and they continued to do so anyway, then maybe they should get some punishment, but I don't think the average worker should be punished. I think it is the leaders of the company, who probably had a much better idea of what was going on and agreed with help the Nazis, that should get in the most trouble. This is sort of like the "Exile or Mercy" argument we had earlier. Also, just what I think would be what I would have done, if I was forced to help the Nazis, I'd make it hard for them on purpose. Make them fill a ton of forms, jack up the prices, etc. to get myself more money and make them get tired of it and do the work themselves and stop my involvement. I know that may seem almost cruel, but it might work to get out of having to be involved with it without saying "no" and getting killed or having them take over the company. I'd feel guilty, but I'm not cut out for business. I never want to run a company, even less so if something like this was going on.
The description of how horrible it was agreed with what was mentioned in our reading from Night. I know it's a horrible topic, but after reading that part and hearing Bolkosky talk about the interviews I think I really want to read Night. I know the Holocaust is real, but the inhumanity is so unreal. The Jews were being slaughtered like animals, but even killing animals in such a manner is still horrible! I think since it seems to unreal, it makes me more curious to find out more to make it seem like less of a mystery.
One point Bolkosky brought up was the people who took care of the payments for the trains. They knew there were a ton of Jews being taken to camps and they were all one-way, but they didn't know the details of what was going on, and they were called desk killers (or murders, forgot what he called them). I'm a little unsure on it. If they didn't know what was going on, how can they be guilty? I know if I had a job like that, I'd feel extremely uneasy about it but I would do it so I don't get fired and don't have money to support my family. I think if they knew about what was going on and they continued to do so anyway, then maybe they should get some punishment, but I don't think the average worker should be punished. I think it is the leaders of the company, who probably had a much better idea of what was going on and agreed with help the Nazis, that should get in the most trouble. This is sort of like the "Exile or Mercy" argument we had earlier. Also, just what I think would be what I would have done, if I was forced to help the Nazis, I'd make it hard for them on purpose. Make them fill a ton of forms, jack up the prices, etc. to get myself more money and make them get tired of it and do the work themselves and stop my involvement. I know that may seem almost cruel, but it might work to get out of having to be involved with it without saying "no" and getting killed or having them take over the company. I'd feel guilty, but I'm not cut out for business. I never want to run a company, even less so if something like this was going on.
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