Reading Directions

This seems to be a pandemic in all age groups.  My sixth grade class revolves around a discovery learning concept in which the students are required to teach themselves certain topics in order to work through a packet on a given subject.  However, today it became apparent that the idea falls apart when the students refuse to read the directions.  Ugh.

But it’s not just my sixth graders’ problem.  I was at Blockbuster the other day (picking up MW2, but more on that later) and a woman was berating an employee because her movie was 37 days late and he wasn’t letting her return it.  Umm, lady… the store policy pretty clearly states that after 30 days the DVD is yours.  The employee was trying to explain that Blockbuster doesn’t buy back movies from customers, but the woman clearly wanted her money back.  Maybe if she had bothered to pay attention to either the due date or the directions on her receipt, this wouldn’t have happened.

And I will expand this to the recent idiotic actions of Tiger Woods.  Marriage comes with directions, right?  Like don’t have sex with women other than your wife?  Yeah bud, should have checked that ‘fine print’ before you did the back nine 😉

Rock Band 2: A Quick and Biased Review

Pros:

1. I enjoy the city/venue interface much more than Guitar Hero’s poster idea.
2. The range of songs is much more to my liking.
3. Overdrive makes the band get a multiplier instead of just increasing mine.
4. ‘Saving’ is a neat mechanic.
5. The vocal interface is much more user-friendly and intuitive.

Cons:

1. I was playing challenges that require me to finish the same song eight or nine times.
2. In the beginning, I’m playing the same set at three new venues… while realistic, it’s boring.
3. After I pause, the game does not count me back in.
4. The ‘expert’ difficulty is far too easy… about the same as HG’s ‘hard’ level.
5. Drummers cannot choose when to deploy their star power.

So far, I certainly don’t like it any better than Guitar Hero World Tour.  I will have to try GH5 before I make my final decision though.  Anyone else have thoughts on GH v. RB?

Thoughts like Fireflies

"I got misty eyes as they said farewell
But I'll know where several are
Cause I saved a few and I keep them in a jar"

Been stuck in my head all day   Darn radio; filling mi cabeza with all kinds of nonsense.  But then again it’s pretty much my only source of news from the outside world.  So I guess there’s a trade-off there that I need to just get used to.

Ever since my brother came home for fall break I’ve been playing Halo a lot.  It has such a solid co-op campaign and the multiplayer is pretty fun too.  The only thing I’m not a fan of so far is the restriction on which playlists you can use.  But Bungie has to make money, so I won’t complain too loud…

I realized something about myself while driving home today.  I always look for the easy way out and that really bothers me.  There was a time when the challenging road seemed like the best one to take, but lately I’ve been trying to get by with the least amount of effort.  This has likely been going on for 5 or 6 years now, but I really only had issue with it over the past few weeks.  And likely that’s because it impacted my student teaching experience.  But all this makes me wonder why I’m getting into teaching in the first place:  is this just me taking the easy way out?

My insurance company to be scared me today… got a letter saying that they discontinued my application.  That was a fun phone call.  Turns out they just discontinued the second app and the first one is still in the tubes somewhere.  Well, that means that I need a physical soon.  I also need a physical for my teaching cert.  I wonder if I can double dip?

Sixth graders are so adorable.  This is the first thing that enters my mind as they walk down the hallway every morning.  Then one of them runs by and smashes his binder against his friend’s head and I grimace as I realize that they’re actually little terrors.  Honestly, the girls are easy to deal with.  It’s those stupid little boys who refuse to show any signs of maturity.  How frustrating to think someone had to deal with me like this once.

Well, it’s time to sound the horn so I must be going.  Likely no one knows what that means, but I’m leaving it in anyway.  I can type fast.  This random conclusion brought to you by the letter N and the number 16.  Peace out holmes.

Judge Me Not

“I ask you to judge me on my legacy, not on this one isolated incident.”

This pretty much sums up my feelings about student teaching.  My supervisor is determining my grade based on three observations that he did.  Two of those observations fell on review days… not too much exciting going on there!  So the bottom line is I am getting a poor grade because of my lack of planning; even though I can’t plan for a day when my lesson plan says “ask for questions.”

Can’t wait til I have my own classroom.

Uneducation

In the wake of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, I have discovered that conservative Lancaster county frightens me with its beliefs.  The majority of people around me voted for McCain only because they hated Obama and everything he stood for.  Fine; vote however you want… that’s a topic for another blog.  But on Friday morning, I was accosted with the most asinine reasons for hating the President.

“He’s a Muslim leading our country into the hands of the terrorists.”  …wait, what!?  Obama and his family are professed Christians.  Additionally, the man has made a clear stance against terror.  “That’s just a front; he’s going to hand the country over to the Middle East.”  Ummm… why would he do that?  To what end point would that lead us?  And up to this point, I’ve been acknowledging your remarks like they’re actually legitimate… what the heck am I thinking!?  Conspiracy theorists will never be happy with rational answers; so why am I trying to use logic against you?

On the rare case that I can talk these people down, someone else has noticed the fracas by this point.  Much to my delight, it’s usually a religious zealot who jumps in next with “Obama’s the Anti-Christ!!”  Wow.  What the heck can I say here?  At first I had no clue whatsoever, so the church nuts ‘won’ since I had nothing to say.  But that irked me greatly and so I did a little research into what they were claiming.  Apparently the supposed Anti-Christ will be a world leader who rises to power because of his charisma and charm.  Then once in his position for long enough to feel comfortable, he changes all the laws and allows himself to rule forevermore.  But that doesn’t matter because everyone is so enamored by him that they beg him to stay.  Then he burns marks on our foreheads and ships the rest of to slave camps or kills them.  Depends on who you ask.

Even after knowing all that; Obama = Anti-Christ?  Well, now I’m beginning to have my doubts.  Surely anyone with even a touch of charm and charisma is just a harbinger to the end of the world… AMIRITE?  No, I am not.  People, there are points where we just have to let our crazy fantasies go and live life as if nothing strange is about to happen.  Because if he was the AC, shouldn’t the ultra-conservative Christians be okay with that?  They end up in heaven so what do they care?  And from what they’re saying, if he is the AC then the rest of the world is going to love what he does right up until the part where he affirms his allegiance to Satan!

Now, I myself am still subscribing to the belief that President Obama is a decent gentleman with the best interests of his country at heart.  As for the Nobel Peace Prize, I contend that this must have been a slow year.  I disagree with the awarding of the NPP based on ideas… I think we should hold out until those ideas become actions and start actually helping people.  But regardless, this doesn’t change my view of the man who won this year.  He is the President and I’m going to support him if I can and respectfully disagree with him if I don’t.  Either way, I don’t think rumor-mongering is helping.  If you want your opinion to be taken seriously, try presenting it in an intelligent manner with some logic behind it.

Oh, and to left-wing Lancaster County, try to educate yourselves before jumping on your neighbor’s band wagon of Obama-hating.  If you put aside your preconceived notions and listened to the man for what he’s saying instead of who you think he is, I’m thinking that you might actually like some of what your hearing.  Take a minute to stop contributing to the mindless masses and actually do your job of being a well-informed citizen.  Thanks, sincerely me.

Not Enough

How many blog posts from every site combined are about how the author doesn’t post enough?  I’d love to see someone take the time to figure it out because I think the number would be staggering.  Why post at all if all you’re doing is complaining that you don’t post enough?  That’s just something I’ll never understand.  But then there’s also the wonderment of why post at all when no one reads it.

That, my friends, is something I fall victim to: addressing my make-believe crowd as if everyone hangs in the balance waiting for me to spew forth words of wisdom and sage advice for the ages.  So maybe I’m closer to those angsty authors than I really like to think.

Well, big night ahead of me.  Missing both the Harvest Bonfire and the Bridge Bash to go chaperone a bunch of pubescents.  Awesome.

Firefox

Some add-ons for Firefox have recently come to my attention and they certainly are making my life easier.

Personal Menu: this add-on hides the Menu toolbar and lets you bring it back at the press of a button.  Great for saving a few pixels and getting the most out of your computer screen.

Favicon Chooser:  Those little pictures next to your bookmarks are usually great descriptors of their site.  But ever run across those few that are generic pics or sites that don’t even have them at all?  This add-on allows you to upload any tiny image from your comp and set it as the favicon on any of your bookmarks.  Delete the associated text and you have yourself a fantastic icon bookmark toolbar.  Great space saver!

Strata40 Theme:  This theme by SpewBoy gives a sleek look to Firefox and his related Stylish code puts the tabs on the top of the screen.  Also, his code makes the toolbars tighter and more concise while also cleaning up the extra space in the tab bar.  A must have for those users looking to drop some wasted space.

Stylish:  Right now I’m running more scripts with this thing than I know what to do with!  The add-on lets you load your own style sheets (or choose from a wide selection available on userstyles.com) which alter the look of any webpage you visit.  Some of the most popular ones affect Facebook or Firefox.  My favorite code?  A CSS script that removes the ads from Facebook.

I urge anyone reading this to experiment with their own add-ons and come up with a combo that works for you.  You’ll find that some add-ons go well together while others tend to fight when loaded simultaneously.  The key is finding something aesthetically pleasing that also gets the job done.  Check out Lifehacker for some ideas.

Dunkelweizen and Friends

Most Wanted Sam Adams List:

Cream Stout
Hefeweizen
Scotch Ale
Honey Porter
Blackberry Witbier
Winter Lager
Old Fezziwig Ale
Cranberry Lambic
Utopias

Anyone had these?

Just keeping things real?

What is up with people this week?

Lil’ Mama rushes the stage to be seen next to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, Kanye West steals Taylor Swift’s limelight, and Serena Williams displays her boorish side by exploding in a temper tantrum.  Add this to the heckling Senator and we have some very interesting, high-profile occurences that lead me to one conclusion:

America is just plain rude.

Today, people are simply becoming much more bold and liberal with their opinions.  “If you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all” is certainly not a phrase that people look to anymore.  Added to this is the fact that celebrities apparently think they can do anything they want to and get away with it.  Their fame apparently makes them unaccountable; unlike the rest of us whose mediocrity forces us to take the blame for what we do.

Although, it’s unfair to cynically lump all celebrities into the same group as Williams and West.  Take a look at Beyonce.  Her attitude at the VMAs was a bright point in a night otherwise overshadowed by the Kanye-Swift incident.  So while society as a whole may be getting ruder and ruder, there certainly are those who make an effort to reinvent civility.

To those people; you have my warmest regards 😉

Gamercard

This is a custom Gamercard that I created using GIMP 2.6.  It has all the information that a normal Gamercard has, but it’s sweet looking 🙂  Clearly I had too much free time today.