The Time is Quickly Going, & Boy am I Running.

So many things to do, and so little time to do it. I must stay in great shape, get everything ready for OCS, copy files, collect important papers, get all the things on my list, and prepare to leave all contact with the world as I know it for three full months. What the heck am I doing right now?

How pathetic have I become that I fear not having my blackberry because it is the ultimate connection to my world, on the go and at home? But it is fast approaching and there is much to be done. I barely even have time to regreat leaving it behind.

YIKES! So many things to think about and on top of all that I have four full page papers of things to memorize for OCS training. I’m not the best word for word memorizer so hopefully I can get through with that in the next few days. I am feeling slightly overwhelmed right now.

A big step in my life is fast approaching and I have millions of things to do. Also, I have millions of people to see. I wish I had time for everyone but I don’t see why I’m in such popular demand these days. I can’t be making trips all around the U.S. and I’m sorry I don’t have time for it, but it simply can’t be done.

With all the movement that I’ve been making I am just now starting to realize that I will have absolutely no privacy, especially with life on a ship. I haven’t decided how I feel about this yet since I consider myself a very independent person.

To see what is really in store for me and how I will adjust to my new life… well… Only time will tell.

Uncharted 2–> Among Theives Sequel

The only game that I have ever played that is made solely for PS3 would be Uncharted. I do not have a PS3 and I a huge fan of the Xbox and this is where my loyalties lie. This does not me that I won’t play games on the PS3 this just means that all of my gaming friends have only a Xbox 360 as well and I am not in a PS3 enviorment very often. My friend Pete, a good college friend was a huge fan of the PS3 and so we would have gaming parties at his house, although the gaming parties at my apartment were always better. haha.

One of the times I went to visit he introduced me to uncharted. This was shortly after its release date and he had a big computer project to work on. Since I was the only one over and it is a single player game, he let me play it. I almost beat the entire game that night, and I had great fun with it. I have previously talked about uncharted and how it is basically Indiana Jones in the name of Nathan Drake.

Now that the sequel is under six months away, we can start the countdown for Uncharted 2: Among Theives. Unfortunately I will not have the oppurtunity to play this game at its release date because I will be getting the shit kicked out of me in naval OCS, but I will be looking forward to stealing somebodies PS3 for a little bout of fun with it on my first break. If you don’t know anything about the first one and are not interested fine, but first have a look at the trailer for the second one. You’ll love it.

Also as a bonus I have an interview done by Nolan North on his Playstation.com website in which he talks with Emily Rose and Claudia Black, the voices of Elena Fisher and Chloe Frazier, the two main women in Uncharted two. I am extremely surprised by how much they look like their characters and I enjoyed this interview very much.

Reading. The Books. The Life.

I am a lover a books. And what I might ask makes me a lover a books? I have been thinking about this lately. What separates the readers from the non-readers. Is it the imagination factor, is it the genes, is it the search for more knowledge and excitement? How can one be so completely involved in the story and the other one so completely not?

I have been a “book nerd” since I was little. How do people even get into reading? Half the world is missing out on so much and they can’t even begin to fathom. Even non-fiction books are great. Just pick a genre and start reading… Life isn’t going anywhere.

P.S. Belle is my favorite Disney princess because in Beauty & the Beast she sings about books and always has her head in one. Love that.

One of my favorite parts of a good story is being so completely involved in someone elses tale that you almost forget where you are and what your doing. I openly admit to absentmindedly sliding through the days when I can’t put a book down. Nodding halfheartedly to whatever my mother or sister’s say and not even listening for a second as I stay completely engulfed in my book.

And you know what for all of the name calling in high school, I could so take it, because books matter more. Now I do believe that I went above and beyond with the reading criteria back in the day but it wasn’t to be the top of the class or the teacher’s pet, it was to read. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yes its true, I can also find myself at times trying to get out of a party or leave a bar because I just wanted to rush home and get one more chapter read before bed, and as it always turns out that one more chapter turns into three which turns into five and before I get to bed, the sun is already rising.

When I was a young child I couldn’t ever sleep and I was always wanting to read. As terrible as it was I would hide under the covers in the sweltering heat with a flashlight so my mom couldn’t see and I could finish that book I had started earlier on in the day. One of my favorite parts of elementary school which I still remember well is picking up my box [it was always a box] of books from the scholastic book club. I never had a better thrill than being able to order whatever books I wanted from the scholastic book club magazine. My mother fought me sometimes but for the most part she let me imaginations decide which books would be perfect for me. I would always get my box and run home so that I could see what was inside [even though I definitely already knew].

Another good story is when I decided I was running away from home I went upstairs, got the biggest suitcase I could find, and walked down to my bookshelf and started jamming it full of every one of my books. My mom just looked at me shook her head and walked away knowing that I would never be able to lug that thing out the door let alone down the street. She always brings that up. My daughter would never think logically of clothes, o never. She only has her mind on her books. Now its a good laugh, at the time I was determined.

Well this is my last lament. If you can get only 1/8 of the satisfaction that I find in a good book then you should try it. Not every book is for everyone but there is something out there for you. I pity the poor soles who don’t even know what their missing because they are missing A LOT.

A world without books would be a world of misery. Stomach the books for your classes and move on to pleasure. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to finish it as long as you enjoy it. When I leave for navy training I will most definitely be envying all of the people who are out in the world reading. A book nerd I was born as and a book nerd I will be when I die, and I smile happily knowing it.

Books = great stories = my love = my favorite thing to do on a rainy day or a sunny day or any day for that matter.

Books, open the cover and recieve.

Giant Phone Compilation

One of the best shows on comedy central back in the day was called Trigger Happy. It was a prank Tv Show made by some Canadians and consistently had me coming back for laugh after laugh after laugh. Here is just one of the compilations entitled the Giant phone in which a man with a giant phone goes around interrupting different institutions with his obnoxious yelling on his giant phone.

One of the best is when he has the giant phone clipped to his pants while he is scootering down the road and he is wearing a phone headest. That is priceless. Check out the montage and just keep on laughing. hahahahaha.

World Peace.

Things’s.

This weekend is a time for receiving. Too many things going on all at once and every one of them will be a small package of happiness and surprise.

Here is a list of the receiving I will be doing this weekend in order of importance….

Next week will be a list of giving that I have done to make up for all the small things that make my life fantastically blissful.

3. American Outlaws

I have been trying to acquire this movie now for about four years. I rented it from the library back in the day, loved it and wanted it for my own. As it turns out a great friend who knows about my quest was out shopping and acquired said movie for just pennies. And those few pennies will lead to my great happiness in watching this movie again, and then maybe a second time all in one day.

2. Pictures!!

finally… Finally… FinAlLY!! I have been wanting to get pictures developed for some time now and I have finally been able to get all the pictures I have been lazily disregarding and not printing out. Now I will be able to immediately start my spring break scrap book that has been waiting ready for two months now, and I will be able to make picture albums of my trip to Hawaii!! EeeeEeEE! I love pictures. I find great joy in taking them and looking at them and this has been looooong awaited. So long in fact that I have placed an order for 1,327 pictures. Now that, my friends, is my biggest record yet.

1. Suunto Core Watch

I am definitely not a very good online shopper by any means. And when I say this I am serious. My problem with online shopping is the fact that I will never pay for overnight shipping and I absolutely positively hate waiting for something precious that I have ordered to come in the mail. I am very impatient when it comes to these things but to get good deals one must compromise, brood, and check the tracking update of said item twenty times a day till it arrives.

Now this is my beauty. The watch I have acquired for my military experience and I could not be happier with it. It is a combination watch, altimeter, barometer, compass, and depth meter. The only feature missing is the red button that turns it into a car that has automatic pioliting. I’m a huge geek when it comes to high tech gadgets and this watch even has my energy levels up. It has very many options, some I probably will never know how to use, but I will have them and I can’t smile bigger right now.

While I lay in wait for my watch, check out all of the crazy awesome things it can do. And don’t worry, that’s not the price I paid. I’m a bargain shopper by nature.

Come On Man!

HA HA.

[Toothpaste for Dinner Comics]

The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz

A+++++

Now what do you consider a long walk? How far can one go before saying O my, I think I’ve had a long walk today. What are the bounds to which you can push yourself before you just feel like you can’t go on one more step because you have walked all the way to those outer bounds and you would rather face death than continue on? When I was running the Rock & Roll country music marathon, I felt that 12 miles I trekked to the end with a leg cramp was more than long enough. Can you imagine turning that long walk into a year. Can you even begin to fathom that, because I couldn’t until I read this story. This true life story that is heart breaking and full of such heart. Heart is the only word I can give for it, because if anyone taking a year long walk would probably need quite a bit of heart to make it all that way.

If you can imagine for a second here, what they must have been through, let me try to put it in terms everyone can understand. If I were to walk the Appalachian trail, which extends from Maine to the Southern tip of Georgia it would probably take me four full months to go all the way and I would have to be an avid walker averaging around 30-40 miles a day.

Now taking a whole year I could walk the Appalachian trail down, back, and down again! Not to mention that when these men started their journey they left from the Southern tip of Siberia in the middle of the winter. In suffering conditions they went on their way with little to nothing in supplies. That by far is the most astounding. They fell through ice in the middle of the winter and had to suffer through crossing frozen streams in the ice cold. If this tale wasn’t true I could never imagine it.

Now Slavomir Rawic was a polish calvary officer at the beginning of World War 2, and he along with many other Polish men were captured and accused of being spies to Russia. Although the accusations were false these men went through pure torture from their arrest, until they ended up at a Siberian labor camp (Camp 303)  near the Southern tip of Russia. It took  them over a month to get there by train from Moscow and crammed in cattle cars!

After being at the camp for several months Slavomir decides that he must escape and finds a gang of people to do it with him. After they work out their plan and do their deed they must now secretely walk all the way through Russia, Mongolia, the Gobi desert, and the Himilaya mountains to India where they know they will be saved from Russian rule.

The most stunning part of the book was their trek through the Gobi Desert. Walking and walking for days without food and water. Not being able to eat or drink and only being able to get up and walk through sand. That must be the worst of all the tortures. When they finally decide to eat the snakes they see around this is the only thing that can save them.

Their last journey through the Himilaya mountains from the hot desert of the Gobi to the freezing temperature of the Himilaya’s, they encounter what could quite possibly have been the yeti or the abominable snow monster.

The most saddening part of the book is the end when they finally reach safety. When their minds betray them after all of the suffering and when they are finally okay they cannot help but keep living as they have lived. Its even more saddening that the survivors were unable to keep in touch with each other after they moved on with their lives. In the end had I the heart and depth to go that far to reach safety, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. An entire year is a long time and one in which suffering can pay a tool.

Overall this book was heart piercing, it had me laughing and crying. The entire story was enjoyable and shocking, especially his time spent at the Russian jail with torturer’s. Put in the same situation, if I were asked to leave a manual labor camp that I was sentenced to for twenty five years, for only the slightest possibility of surviving, I would most definitely take the offer. I would rather die trying than with no fight left in me at all.

A gripping tale…. A most gripping tale.

The Cake is a Lie. Like We Weren’t Already Aware.

Here I am, referencing one of the basic most epic games to come from the orange box and I can’t help myself. God knows we all love portal. Yes its a one day challenge but it was almost better to play then half life 2 or team fortress. The sick sense of sarcasm that this game provides us was enough to make it an instant favorite and success among gamers everywhere.

One of my favorite lines [and I suppose this is mostly spawned off of a good friend who introduced me to the game and quickly made me know and love the game] would be “I will not stop enhancing the truth”. That is amazing.

One of the funniest stories I have about portal is making fun of said friend [noted above] and laughing about him playing the game. Let me set the mood for you. He’s all alone, in a dark room, with the small glow of a lamp barely visible behind the desktop. He is gripping the mouse and as he clips away through the levels of the game he is laughing creepily and neurotically to himself. eh ehh ehhhh. It is a fond memory I have and one we have spent many a day laughing over in the past.

I guess you might have had to have been there to understand but I can write what I want and you can choose to read it if you take a liking to it.

So for once and for all, as it always will be “THE CAKE IS A LIE” “THE CAKE IS A LIE” “THE CAKE IS A LIE!!!”

O yes and I would also like to note that during the portal review on zero punctuation, the Australian could not find one thing wrong with this game. He even says yeah I can’t say anything more about this game. That in my opinion is a great review, since he is always bashing something or other. Portal, you rock and this is a long awaited tribute to you that should have been written much earlier!

Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 Same Day Release.

For all to the Left 4 Dead fans, it will be a great day on November 17th when the sequel is released in stores everywhere and you can jump right back into the zombie killing action. Yeeha! And for all the medieval fans [or should I say people who wish to find out medieval things by tapping into other DNA] out there that are interested in real game interaction Assassin’s Creed 2 will be released that day. So, there will be fun for everyone everywhere. You better run out and pre order a copy of your choice now so when its released you can jump right into the action.

Assassin’s Creed 2 will hopefully be better then ever and there is a huge expectancy surrounding this game. We were in love with the interaction that Assassin’s Creed had to offer, like doing things out of the ordinary attracted the normal passeby’s attention and you couldn’t just go crazy out there, you had to act cool or people would wander about you and stand down under a building as you walked across the roof saying O my what is that man doing up there?!?

I will always remember the era that surrounded its first release and the excitement as I watched videos about it online. Now, there is another buildup as the time ticks down to the sequel. All we can hope is that its not nearly as repetitive as the first one and that after working their way through the first one they can bring back a second one bigger and better than ever. Altaïr Ibn you are bad ass, and I enjoy playing you. Love the sword. This is a game to be excited over.

And of course we can’t forget about Left 4 Dead.

Thanks to Machinima who makes some of the best video game videos ever, I can supply you with a Left 4 Dead 2 Trailer. If you aren’t excited about the game, you will be now.

Just one Question… IS THAT TYRA BANKS AS A ZOMBIE??!??? Because I’m willing to bet that it is and she totally takes a head shot. hahaha.

Enjoy the trailers and get pumped for the games!