A Collection of Reviews

In an effort to combat the boredom that is sitting at home filling out job applications and worrying about getting a job (after all one can't write all day, and really, when I think about it, the writing is another attempt at combating the boredom) I have been catching up with the current episodes of House M.D. and Heroes. I only had to catch up on a few episodes of House since I watched a lot of House over Easter Break, but those episodes were as good as ever, I enjoy watching Hugh Laurie who I first saw as Bertie Wooster in the Jeeves and Wooster TV series play the sarcastic, brilliant chronically rude Dr. House. I don't like the new crew of doctors as much as I liked the original spread, but the writing is still pretty good and Hugh Laurie is the one who carries the show

I had heard that the second season of Heroes wasn't as good as the first, but I thought it was still pretty high quality. The same complex interweaving plot that involved seemingly disconnected characters worked just as well in the second season as the first, though I am a little disappointed that the season was foreshortened by the writers strike. Peter Patrelli has grown a little too powerful, but they did a pretty good job of keeping him in check by having him work with the bad guy. I was a little disappointed that they brought Sylar back, even if he is one of the most impressively creepy villains that I have ever seen. I never really liked the way villains are so often resurrected in fiction in general, I like to believe that a particular threat can be dealt with permanently.

I have also been reading a lot of Webcomics as I mentioned earlier. Ctrl-Alt-Delete is an highly amusing computer-gaming comic. And Applegeeks is a quite entertaining apple-influenced counterpoint to Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Megatokyo is a well developed continuing storyline that imitates the manga style and uses a highly imaginative version of Tokyo (with ninjas-for-hire, rent-a-zillas, scheduled disasters—such as Zombie invasions—and a mech-equipped disaster police force) that draws on many ideas from many different varieties of Manga (from magical-girl stories, mecha and such) and conveys a serious and interesting message through all the silliness.More recently I have been reading Ozy and Millie , which is a highly intelligent web-comic done in a traditional old-style newspaper daily comic format. The characters are all anthropomorphic creatures (the MCs are Foxes but there are raccoons, rabbits, sheep and even a handful of dragons) and the artist uses them to convey a level of intelligent humor that has been sadly missing from almost all conventional newspaper comics that survive.

Last week I read Orson Scott Card's Empire. A look into the possibility of a civil war between the right-wing fanatics and the left-wing fanatics in America. The story was good, as is to be expected of Card, the characters were well-developed and the plot was fairly plausible and well-thought out. The only real problem I had with it was that it was too blatantly political (close to non-partisan, but not quite) and too close (and while still plausible still completely impossible) for me to be completely comfortable with it.

A Very Happy Birthday

The other day, May 24, was my birthday. I officially turned 20. One more year on the road of life and all that fun stuff. My life hasn't changed significantly, there were no world-shattering revelations. Just a good times, family and friends.

Lauren came up for the weekend to spend time with me, she drove all the way up from Maryland Saturday morning for me. All I had to do was promise to pay for her gas. Not all that difficult at almost 4 dollars a gallon. . . But it was well worth it, even though she was sick and running a slight fever when she arrived. It was wonderful to see her again, even if it has only been two weeks. She enjoyed herself and got better throughout her stay, so that wasn't as bad as it could have been either.

Sean brought his girlfriend Elaine down from Grove City for Saturday as well, so it was just the four of us while Dad and Sarah were at softball practice and Mom and the other girls were at a baby shower. It was good to spend some time with Elaine since she only started dating Sean at the end of the semester and we hadn't heard much about her. She is a nice girl and seemed to enjoy spending time with us even if we were a little crazy.

For dinner we had egg-rolls and home-made Chinese food which was very tasty. We opened presents and then watched a movie. I got the Prestige, Unbreakable, Season 8 of Stargate SG-1, a collection of Orson Scott Card's short fiction (Maps in a Mirror), Scarlet by Stephen R. Lawhead, some chocolate, beef jerky, a cool dragon ring, a black-and-red shirt with dragons on it and a new bag for my laptop. I am quite happy with the gifts I received but I am even more happy that I got to spend my birthday with Lauren.

Sunday we went to church together and played video games all afternoon. (Lauren really enjoys playing Morrowind or watching my sisters play it.) Today we went on a picnic and Lauren returned home. It is always most painful when she is traveling away from me. I wish she was here, but I know she has to return home and to her job.

After paying for her gas I am now full and truly broke. I have about 10 more dollars to my name. I really need to find a job soon. I am going to send out even more applications tomorrow, and I am going to see what I can do around the house. I'll also continue to work on Wingless to keep myself from going crazy with nothing to do.

It really was a good weekend, and Lauren really did make it wonderful.

I Can't Draw

I have been reading a lot of web-comics and I keep wishing I could do something creative, witty and funny like that. And thinking: I could write that.

There is however one slight obstacle to this idea. I can't draw. This comic pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole situation.

Summer Projects

I still haven't managed to get my hands on a job. None of the places I have applied to (predominantly retail) have gotten back to me yet. I have not given up hope and will continue to apply, but it is starting to get me down. With the economy the way it has been going I doubt a lot of places are hiring if they can help it, and those that are probably want more commitment than the three months of summer. And then there is the added difficulty that I always start by asking for Sunday's off so I can keep the fourth commandment even though most places I am going to apply to are looking for grunts to work the undesirable weekend hours.

Seeing as I haven't gotten a job yet I have had lots of time to sit around and indulge my creativity. (That is to say when I wasn't sick.) I've been throwing ideas back and forth, I wrote a short story for Inkies (my online writing group) and have been bouncing ideas for some sort of serialized (possibly blogged) piece around.

I decided to settle on one of my novels and try to get it finished with the intent of submitting it, but was faced with the problem of deciding which one. I have done considerable work on No More Than Pen and Ink, Wingless, and Rebel Dragon and I am quite fond of all of them (and none of them know where exactly they are going as far as conclusion. . .) So I asked my Inky friends Rose and Aleka (and Lauren) what I should invest my time in. The unanimous conclusion was that No More Than Pen and Ink was the least publishable since it is a compilation of worlds. It was decided that Wingless was most suitable.

So I am now going to try to figure out how Wingless ends.

Movie Review: National Treasure Book of Secrets

Today I went to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets with Sean, Elsa and Tessa. It was an enjoyable movie, thought the Villain really didn’t have enough motivation, his entire plot to discover the lost city of gold called Cyabola by forcing Ben Gates into the hunt by implicating his great-grandfather in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (how did he forge that page anyway?) was supposedly fueled by a desire merely for fame and to be remembered by history. It even turns out the he is not really a bad guy in the end and he sacrifices himself to save the others when earlier in the movie he had been trying very hard to have them killed. There is no change of heart, just a (rather contrived) situation that required him to sacrifice himself, really only so the main characters could survive. His character is very contradictory and his motivation isn’t nearly strong enough to get him to do what he did.

Secondly, the relationship issues between Ben Gates and Abigail were highly contrived, there was no real journey from “I hate you, stay out of my house” and arguing all the time, back to “oh its good, you can move back in now” other than the thrill of the treasure hunt. If their relationship is going to be founded only on the high of the treasure hunt, than their relationship should never have existed in the first place and it is no wonder that they didn’t work out.

The plot itself was rather contrived, of course, but that is rather expected. It centers around events that the writers obviously thought would be interesting, such as breaking into Buckingham Palace, making out in the Oval Office and kidnapping the President. It made for a fun, if unbelievable story. Really, how in the world did a solid-gold Aztec city make its way to Mt. Rushmore? And why was Gate’s great-grandfather deciphering a cipher that leads to clues that haven’t been created yet?

However, the biggest problem I had with it was that it presents a strong revisionist view of history, portraying Lincoln as the hero-president who unified the States, rather than the man who almost tore the states apart and single-handedly destroyed States Rights for all eternity

The acting was quite solid (you can’t really expect much less from Nicholas Cage) and the writing brought about some fun situations and good dialog. All in all it was a fun movie, but quite contrived and utterly unbelievable.

Money and College

Going into college I had a scholarship that provided $3000 a semester but required a 3.0 GPA to keep it. My first semester I pulled a 2.98 GPA (mostly because of Dr. Szabo’s Critical Approaches to Literature class and the fact that I am an antifeminist—New Chauvanist—and rebel against the standard academic approach to literary interpretation, preferring to read what the author wrote rather than projecting some other interpretation on the work. . . and because I hadn’t thought I through far enough to articulate my idea of literary interpretation in a solidly defensible manner)

That was okay, I only needed slightly more than a 3.0 to keep the scholarship and that would be fairly easy, right? . . . Wrong. I made the mistake of taking Sarah Fairfield’s Sociology class (when I couldn’t get into Dr. Frey’s) Don’t get me wrong, theoretically, I would have loved Sociology, it is just the kind of study that I love to do and I would have loved to learn how societies work, and how all the little things come together to make society. But Fairfield did a really bad job of teaching the class, didn’t do a good job of engaging with the material and didn’t tie anything together (which I thought was pretty much the entire point of Sociology. . . ) and on top of that she graded the papers and journal entries really hard, which made it really hard to actually do well without engaging with anything.

In the end I made it through that class with a C- and happy with a passing grade. . . well the put my career GPA at 2.9. . . just shy of the 3.0 I needed to keep that $3000 a semester. My parents were far from pleased and the pressure was on, I needed to make a lot more money and I was going to be stuck with a lot more debt. My financial aid packet came from Geneva today and instead of the $3000 scholarship for academic excellence, I had a $2700 grant each semester based on financial need, making it only $600 I have to make up rather than $6000. I was much relieved and my parents are no longer quite so livid about how badly I did and how under motivated I was to do well in Sociology.

All in all, I am quite happy.

Now I just need that job so I can have some money. . .

Listless

Here I am. In the evening, after a day that has been both satisfying and dissatisfying at the same time. It started out dull enough, with a little sleeping in (as any good Saturday should). Not that I slept in by most people's standards, I was up and showered by 9:00. I did some laundry (which sorely needed to be done) and did some other work around the house, trying not to think too hard about the job search that hasn't been going terribly well (I don't know if it is because I don't want to work on Sunday's or if the places I'm applying at aren't looking for summer help when they say 'now hiring'). I played some video-games, listened to music and watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager.

Then this evening we went to church and hung out with the other families at our church, had a meal and played some board games. There weren't many people there other than the Pastor and his family and the Panichelle's (of course, that is a good 13 right there) and our family. But it was fun to be around all the little ones again after being at college. After that we (all the families from the church) went to my little sister's softball game and watched her team get soundly beaten, still it was 10-and-under softball, which means it wasn't a big deal. I spent half of the time pushing Clara (who is somewhere around 2 years old, but don't quote me on that one) on the swings and following her around and doing her bidding. Little kids are so much fun. We played some Frisbee behind the field and had a good time.

After that we went to Brusters, where my sister Elsa was working. And proceeded to heckle her and order ice-cream. All and all it was a fun day. But still, hanging over it was a sort of dissatisfaction. Something is out of order, I am home for the summer after my first year of college and everything is different. My twin brother is now also back and he is different. Nothing is the same and I'd almost rather be back at college. To make it worse I don't have a job yet and I have no money. And my girlfriend lives in Maryland, and I've never before had to deal with a long-distance relationship. Everything would be easier to deal with if she were here.

An Episode of Interest

Before I continue my chronological epic concerning the start of my college days I feel compelled to narrate the most interesting events that have happened as of yet. (Yes, more interesting than the game of Ping-Pong tag that is currently causing normally sane young men to charge up the halls of the dorm.)

I'll start with the hook:

We set off the fire alarms in the girls dormitory.

To detail the events leading up to this dramatic event I must start with the trip to Wal-Mart. I'm not sure whose idea it was initially, but a number of people among my circle of friends decided that they needed to buy things, so they found someone who was willing to drive them to Wal-Mart. We left at around 5:00 PM, seven of us in a mini-van. These are the main players. Theresa, two Abigails, Andrew (Quincy on this day), Dan and myself. (Heather went with us to Wal-Mart, but she left before the culmination of events.

We bought many things, as a group, though I managed to only spend six dollars. Being poor college students we bought a variety of food, along with other necessities of which we had either run out or which we had not thought to bring. Among these things Theresa purchased the ingredients to make Pizza. After a good two hours of shopping we returned to campus. When we arrived we dispersed our various ways to put our loot away, and to gather things that would be either useful in the making or consumption of Pizza. I collected the tub of cookies my sisters had sent me and then we proceeded on to the Girls dorm where the Pizza was going to be made.

Since it was not open hours we were forced to make the pizza in the lounge (which is much nicer than the lounge in the guys dorm.) Theresa carefully shredded the cheese with Dan's pocket-knife and they greased the pans with pepperoni grease. It wasn't until we tried to use the oven that we discovered that the oven on the first floor does not work. The girls proceeded to test the ovens on the other floors and discovered that only one oven worked. So we quite naturally started to cook the pizza in that oven. Since the guys were still not allowed out of the lounge on the first floor the girls mostly stayed and chatted with us, though they did keep an eye on the pizza to make sure it did not burn.

Of course, the first thing we knew of the disaster was the alarms going off and the strobes blinking. The loud wailing and flashing lights drove us out of the building before the RA's told us we were supposed to evacuate. It turns out that the oven had produced enough smoke (not from our pizza) to set off the alarms. And the best part was that it was just before the kick-off of the Steelers game.

When the alarms go off, the fire department comes. It was only a matter of a few minutes
before two fire-trucks and a police car come flying up and stop outside the dorm. Moments behind them were campus security and a few of the college administrative staff. The RAs explain the situation and the fire-men go in to check it out. While we were standing around waiting to be let back into the dorm I handed out cookies and Dan took pictures. Theresa, proving her notoriety was approached by a number of people jokingly inquiring if it was her fault. They were however surprised to find out that she was involved.

Many people were concerned and annoyed by our pizza.

We were just hungry.

The firemen took a huge fan and blew all the smoke out and after a short while let us back into the building. To our relief we found that the pizza was not burnt. So we settled in to eat while the others went back to their football game.

The pizza was great.

As we ate the pizza everyone walking by either glared or snickered at us. Which was even better.

Concerning College, The First Few Days

Well, after a long absence from the blogging scene I have returned, and with the intention of actually updating. And possibly detailing some happenings in my real life. Now that I have one. It has been requested that I describe my first day of classes. But I found that before I could do that I had to explain something of the events that led up to the first day. To give the ambiance and feel of my college experience as well as possible. This may be a leangthy tome, but I shall break it up into reasonable chunks.

I arrived last week at Geneva College (a christian college in Beaver Falls PA). The Football team moved all my stuff into the room and then I waited for my room-mate to arrive so that I could arrange the furniture (yes, I needed his permission.) The first night all four guitars on our hall were brought out and engaged in a pretty decent rendition of “Hotel California”, it made a nice ambiance to the hall. At nine they served cookies and milk in the lounge and there was general socialization. During this general socilization an upperclassman walks up to a group of people and says “Hello, I’m Nate.”) thusly inducing a massive wave of introductions. When I gave my name Nate seemed excited. He explained that I was one of the few names that he remembered from the list of people in the focus group he was leading, and that there was another Marlin on campus. At that point I was dragged of and introduced to the other Marlin. That night I also learned that even if I introduced myself at first as Lyn, people always latched on Marlin. “Oh that is a cool name.” “Like the wizard, cool.” Or “ Marvin? Martin?” etc. Still, I have the feeling that I am going to be stuck somewhere between Marlin and Lyn.

The next day the craziness began. First we had an opening meeting, where they explained some of what was going on with Orientation week. After that we met our “focus groups” (which are basically our classes for the Learning and Transitions course, which is designed to help us get used to studying for college work), my group was composed entirely of English Majors, had three mentors (Nate being the most prominent and vociferous) and was overseen by the Research Librarian. We introduced ourselves and then proceeded to play a rather common name-game (that involved saying names and tossing an object around the circle). It worked fairly well, by the end of the class I knew the names of everyone in it, though I did not always associate the proper face with the name. After this we played a little game of “Never have I ever” since we hadn’t used all the time we were supposed to. During the game I was profiled as a D&D player. The person in the circle (one of the two Roberts in the class) said “Never have I ever played Dungeon’s & Dragons" and then turned to me. I was indeed forced to stand, and since I was the only one I assumed the center. During this experiment we also found out that not even the librarian had read the entire Canterbury Tales.

After this enlightening meeting we proceeded to lunch. Which was decent. I can’t remember what I had.

When we were done with lunch we had more meetings, first they explained various things about classes that I pretty much already knew or could have figured out on my own (how to use a Syllabus and how to keep ahead of assignments etc.). Then they discussed various policies, laying out the rules and explaining the judicial process.

Then they made us take a survey which included questions about how much money you were paying, how much financial aid you were receiving, your SAT scores and other various things that I couldn’t remember. If they wanted me to put down accurate answers (or even answer at all) they should have let me do it from the safety of my computer. Otherwise, I am sure they have places where they can find most of the information listed.

After that was dinner. And then we took buses to Pittsburgh, where we boarded the Gateway Clipper Fleet ship “Majestic” and proceeded to socialize. That was pretty cool. I took about a hundred and seventy pictures, vary few of which were of people. I socialized with a number of people, all of which I already knew, to one degree or another. With that many people it just seemed fruitless to introduce yourself to someone that you didn’t know. The sea of faces and names would only become more muddled than they already were.

We got home around midnight and proceeded to go to sleep. For the most part.

(Will be continued with the next days)