Single

It really happened. She broke up with me. Waterworks ensued. I have been called a girl in the past, and not I can do nothing but agree. I can't believe it. I loved her. I still do. I love her. I guess sometimes there's just nothing I can do. She's independent and irrational. I give everything a reason and always make sure someone is on my side.

There are so many things I shared with her, and so many she shared with me and the only thing I can't believe is that it's over. It really is done. Why is it done? Because we aren't compatible. I... Well I guess I don't give up.

I noticed she was avoiding me all day and I talked to my friends. I told them, the only thing that would upset me is if I wasn't surprised when she does it. That would be now. I'm really not surprised now. I expected it all day, but mostly since the AMV contest. It was when she pushed my hand away when I tried to hold hers. That was when I knew. I knew she was upset. About the argument we just had? No. We didn't argue about anything that was important to her. It was the arguing itself. And not this arguing, the fact that I always need to figure it out. Sometimes, it just doesn't need to be figured out.

I still can't believe it. I can understand it and rationalize it, but... To me, it's unbelievable. I just wish she cried too so I wouldn't be alone. Alone sucks. Single sucks. That's why I continually try to un-be single. And then attempt to be not single. I know it really won't work, especially if I couldn't fit with her, but I thought love was enough. I guess it isn't. I guess sometimes you need something else too. I just wish it would be enough.

So there it is. Me, alone, crying myself to sleep, with no one here to console me. Otakon is mean to me. I don't like it anymore. Rargh.

And so it begins

Otakon is here. Well, it's there. It's on. I'm just not there to experience it because we're waiting for the guy with a car so we can get there. The girls are preparing their outfits and the guys are sitting around waiting. When our ride gets here we'll have to wait for him to get in costume too. And my hair is all messed up. I forgot my brush. Thankfully I can borrow a hair brush, unlike a toothbrush.

I guess it's really late for a post when we're supposed to leave in 15 minutes, but that happens some times. I hope it's fun. It's likely I will have fun. If I don't it won't be because of the lack of fun things. It will be if she absolutely ignores me. They said the best friend's boyfriend didn't have fun last year. They say I'm like him. I know how he feels. There's all this great stuff around, but it's hard to enjoy it when it seems like she's actively ignoring me. You know people would suspect less if you acted like I'm actually one of your friends. Oh well.

So our ride is here. That means we have to be going soon. I guess I'm not going to be writing a long post. Well, long story short, still upset that she'd rather play online games with people who are in the room with her (and live in NJ with her) than sit down with me. I'm pretty sure she can do that when she's at home and I'm not around. It makes me feel like we don't have anything in common. This makes me feel more like I need to conform to her activities than does her telling me what they are. So instead of me being swayed by her, I have to investigate enough that I can be swayed by her, which makes me feel stalker-esque and desperate. Huh... Sometimes I hate myself.


EDIT:
Lukas does not censor his own work, but must note that hindsight is 20/20. She was debating breaking up with me during this time period. I would have avoided me too. I certainly wouldn't want to cuddle with someone who pissed me off for a month and didn't even look sorry for it.

I Give Up

I'm frustrated. I'm upset. I can't believe how apathetic everyone is. I guess it should be attributed to everyone being self-centered. I love my friends, but they can only assume I'm sleepy. I'm really not sleepy. I'm sad and upset.

How is it then she can drive 3 hours and then not even sit next to me? Well, she has to set up her knitting. Ok. Now that's done. Then what? Well, to the chip bowl. Ok. She's hungry. Then story time with the friends that she had three hours with in the car. But she doesn't have anything to say to me. I see. Ok. And then. Now it's the internet. She's not even noticing that I'm typing. No one is. I have no fear of insulting my friends within eye-shot because I know they don't care enough to look over.

They even ignore the words that come out of my mouth. I talk and no one hears. Am I even here? I think sometimes that I'm not. And even when I am, my opinions aren't.

So... she doesn't tell me that she cuts her hair. She tells Ben. I ask her if there's anything new and she doesn't mention it on the phone. Does she not want me to know? No. I doubt that. She doesn't care if I know? Much more likely. It really isn't hard to call or text or instant message maybe once a week. I would call once a day if I didn't think she would hate me for it.

I just want to know. Why can't they show that they care? I feel really broody sometimes. Maybe it's because I just watched a ton of Angel... I hope it's because I just watched a ton of Angel.

Argh...

EDIT:
Lukas does not censor his own work, but must note that hindsight is 20/20. She was debating breaking up with me during this time period. I would have avoided me too. I certainly wouldn't want to cuddle with someone who pissed me off for a month and didn't even look sorry for it.

Mischief Makers

I wasn't kidding when I said my game reviews would be really late. This is for a system three generations old, but still stands strong to this day.

Mischief Makers is a game for the Nintendo 64 and was one of the first few games to feature 3D models on a 2 dimensional playing field. This was surprising, as many developers were trying to move into 3D at the time, and showing you had the ability to, without harnessing the potential felt very awkward to quite a good chunk of people. Many developers were also trying to follow in the popular footsteps of Super Mario 64 by making their own 3D platformers. One of the few that succeeded was Banjo-Kazooie. It tried to build itself into an individual game that happened to be a 3D platformer, instead of trying to ride on the tail of Super Mario 64's fame. Many developers tend to do that, trying to make money off of a simple Nintendo game clone. It happened when Pokemon and Metroid Prime came out as well. I suppose this has nothing to do with Mischief Makers though, since the first 2.5D game they made was Yoshi's story (unless you count the Virtual Boy game Warioware, which had 2D sprites in a 3D landscape) and that came out much later in the life of the N64.

I used to go to a video game rental store every Monday night. My brother and I got to rent 2 video games. He would either get Mischief Makers or Pilot Wings and I would either get Wave Race, Space Station Silicon Valley, or Blast Corps. I loved all of these games, but Mischief Makers is my focus right now.

Mischief Makers used the D-pad. How many N64 games used the D-pad? I'm guessing that number is about three, and the other 2 sucked something fierce. The analog stick was so new, and many developers thought it would add so much to their games. They were right. Still, Mischief Makers was smart for sticking to the d-pad. In true 2D platformer spirit, there is no reason to even have 8 direction, let alone 360 degrees of movement. This meant that the game would have been suited for play on the Super Nintendo, had the 16 bit graphics been up to par for this game (which they wouldn't have been).

The mechanics of this game still shine through the years. The movement is very similar to Megaman games, pre-wall slide. You can dash and dash jump. You can dash before jumping, while jumping, or both. You can also dash in all directions, though down is not useful when on the ground. Actually, a down dash while on the ground does a roll. Anyways, this is turning into a summary when it should be an analysis. The most interesting movement aspect was the up dash. It didn't make you fly much higher, so could only make you reach places you were almost already at. Mostly it was useful when I needed to stay in the air a little longer. puzzles that made the up dash useful are what this game is all about. Small little quirky ideas build a great game.

One of those small things that was expanded into a game defining mechanic was the mixing system. You really don't know what you're missing until you understand that shurikens and boomerangs are both made out of flowers. In fact, there are no ingredients in a boomerang that aren't flowers. How cool is that? The mixing used the game's signature "shake shake" to power itself. This shaking could change many numbers of things. Shaking people made them drop gems or items. Shaking bombs made them tick faster. Shaking poles could extend or retract them and shaking some balls could reorient gravity. Basically, the game inspiring picking up and shaking everything they wasn't hinged to the floor.

The story was weird. I still don't understand it fully. They steal your grandfather because... they want to distract you, so you don't save the world? And then you try to rescue him anyways. You do math because... the townspeople are having a carnival. Wait... your grandfather is the 1st place trophy... Yes, this plot totally makes sense. Still, the game is intense fun, and I'm sure you could understand all the plot once you beat it once or twice.

Unfortunately, the emulations of this game aren't all perfect, so I can't actually get to the end. I own this game so I have no qualms downloading the ROM, which is much easier than would be finding my N64 and hooking it up. However, the ROM has one major flaw. There are several other flaws in the ROM that are little enough to overlook, but the big one is the invisible boulder in later levels. The sprite file must be missing. This sucks because I can't dodge a boulder if I can't see when it's going to fall on me.

Yes, the difficulty does get progressively harder, but that shouldn't be a problem since it starts out at such as easy level, and only gets more interesting level designs as the difficulty ramps up.

I would suggest going out and getting this game right away. If you don't have an N64, finding one for cheap on eBay would totally be worth it (especially if you grab other N64 games I will inevitably review later). If you can't, please find some way to contribute to the developers who are so great before you go out and download it (in the most legal fashion as I assume you all to do. Some places say it's legal for 24 hours before you have to delete it. I'm not sure if this is true).

All in all, I give this game a great out of 10. It is immensely fun and has kept me engrossed for the greater part of a decade.

Oh noes!

I missed a day. This is a bad thing. I'm so sad...

Oh well. It happens. Webcomic artists do it all the time. This reminds me. I'm a webcomic fanatic. I think it's my (self-diagnosed) partial ADD that makes me able to understand many plots at once much easier than several longer plots. My latest count was that I am completely caught up on 94 webcomics with a dozen more that I'm trying to catch up on. I have thought many times about making one myself, but I just never liked my own drawing. My writing is something I can be proud of (regardless of whether or not it is deserved), but my art is notably bad.

Many people have questioned the number of webcomics I read. They ask how I could possibly follow them all at once. The truth is that I wouldn't be able to follow one at once, so attempting a few more doesn't actually make me understand any less. In fact, most of my webcomics don't even have a plot. They might be gag strips or commentary comics. Even the ones that do have plot are still funny, even when taken out of context. They are an easy hour to laugh at the world, and with as many as there are out there, I can be much more selective than the newspapers are and still have twice as many comics.

In my opinion, the ability to show a face or landscape increases the storytelling medium tenfold. This is probably because my imagination is shot. Well, it would be if it ever existed in the first place. I'm an engineer. We aren't made to think up new stuff. We just have to make existing things better. I can do better. I have a very keen attention to detail. Many people have said so, but they also say that I can't sympathize with others or get the feel of a piece. I suppose this might be true, but I still have my favorite music. Though I put more emphasis on lyrics than most do.

Well that was off topic. Still, it kind of relates to webcomics. I care about the writing and the things that can be seen in the drawing, though I don't focus on the art. A webcomic can have good art and still be bad or bad art and still be good. I guess what I'm saying is that shiny is nice, but that's all it is. Shiny. A shiny watch can still be terrible if the hands don't move.

I'm an advocate of the theory that form follows function. Things that work are beautiful in their ability to work. Things that don't work are ugly, even if they have a nice paint job. Eventually trends catch up and things that work well become the "in" look. I don't really know if that's always the case, but I've seen it happen many times. I guess maybe I just see it because that's what I want to see, but if that's true, then so be it. I like seeing things that work as being nice pieces of equipment.

My Feet Hurt

For a month now, I have been going to Capoeira classes. It's a Brazilian form of martial arts that was made to look like dance. In Tae Kwon Do I was always taught to follow through. This meant hitting the other person in a sparring match as often as possibly. In Capoeira, hitting the other person is actually considered a bad thing. This makes things difficult for me.

Truthfully though, I'm glad the other person isn't hitting me. I'm hurting myself enough in this class as is. On the first day I did a handstand and my arms buckled. I was cut next to my eye by my own glasses. Also, the wooden floor (with nails sticking out in some places) does torture to my feet. My feet are getting callouses, yet they still manage to hurt after every class. My feet feel horrible. I don't like them right now.

I've had this before. It used to happen every soccer game, but the difference is that it was only on my big toe, instead of on the entire front half of my foot. Still, I go to my foot torture class twice a week and enjoy every single one. I just wish my feet would cry a little quieter tonight. I don't want to have to hit them again.

Sleep

You know that thing where you go to bed and close you eyes and then hours later you open them and get out of your bed? Yeah, sleep. I don't get enough of it. It may be my fault, but I really try my best to find as much as I can and never let go. Unfortunately, it isn't easy to find when you plan on working 8 hours with a 2 hour commute ad still want some free time and it isn't easy to hold on to when you have someone living with you who will yell at you even though he gets into the work transportation vehicle after you do. He always says it's my fault when we leave at 8:47 rather than 8:45, but do I say anything when he starts his shower at 8:32? The answer to that question is yes, but I don't say any of it to him. I leave the complaining for elsewhere.

Regardless, summer is a time for teenagers to catch up on all the sleep they lost over the school year. Now I can't do that and I've been walking around like a zombie day in and day out. I need some relaxation time, which is never gonna happen on my current schedule. As it currently is, I get maybe 6 hours on a weeknight and 8 each night of the weekend. 8 hours is not enough to bring my schedule back up to speed.

This is why I dislike having a summer job. It isn't that I hate money and it isn't that I dislike work. I just feel behind on my sleep. The problem is that I wouldn't catch up on sleep if given a week off. I would catch up on tv shows and games. Perhaps sleep too, but it would be sleep from 3:00 until 14:00 rather than from 22:00 until 9:00. That's one of the biggest problems. In order to sleep well, I would have to go to sleep an hour or 2 after I arrive home from work. That would mean I would spend all my time doing nothing but sleeping and working. Is that how a man should live? I say no! I say a man should work 8 hours including commute. This would leave a person with 8 hours to sleep and 8 hours to do anything he or she pleases every single day. If you split the day into thirds this evenly, then you would never have too much of anything, because you would have the same amount of everything.

Imagine what you could do with 8 hours of free time. You could watch TV for 2 hours, play games for 2 hours, and still have 4 hours for any other hobbies you like. You could use some of that free time for sleeping if you missed any the night before. The whole day would be yours to do with what you see fit.

The real problem here is that I wake up for getting to work on time at 8:00 and I don't get home until 19:00. That's almost half the day. It is half the day when the metro is acting up. That means I have some 5 hours of free time if I don't want to miss sleep. I'm trying to steal back my free time, but since I can't take it from my work or boss, I end up taking it from my sleep. Instead of having 8 hours of sleep I general have 5, which gives me my usual 8 hours of free time. However, this means the only person I am punishing is myself. Though really, what teenager would act differently, given the same situation?

I suppose, I should be getting to sleep earlier. That is not what I want to do. I want to have fun, sleep, and enjoy my summer. Money helps, but it does not make my life tons of better.

Also, UPDATE: On Tomato Mozzarella
I bought a Tomato Mozzarella from the Bagel Bakery today. They call it a Howard Beach. It was incredibly delicious. It might even rival Santucci's sandwiches. The were still a few key differences though. The sandwich was on French Ciabatta bread instead of a Kaiser roll, there was pesto and vinaigrette in place of the olive oil, salt, and pepper, and they put roasted red bell peppers on it. The sandwich still had its regulatory thick slices of mozzarella and sweet tomatoes, but the whole feel was different. It seemed drippy, because of the sauces, instead of solid like the Santucci's sandwich. Also, the size and shape of the bread made in less holdable, though slightly more crunchy, which I like. I think they both stand in the ranks of greatest sandwich ever made, and one cannot be placed above the other. I guess it really all comes down to whether or not you like salt, olive oil, red peppers, or some of the best creamy pesto I have ever tasted.

HTML

If you want to learn a really simple computer language, learn HTML. It takes about 4 minutes to memorize every single function you can do in it. There aren't many things HTML can do, and that's okay. It was designed purely to be functional in getting information through the internet and to the end user. There is no need for form or beauty if your goal is to move data.

Then there's CSS. It's a little bit harder, but it's for design rather than function. This means that you can specify numbers of pixels for sizes and distances. There are many very specific formatting options in CSS.

Then there's Javascript. It's quite a bit harder than either HTML or CSS but there are many things that require quite a bit more than those two, so I understand the increase in difficulty. In general there are things a programming language can do that HTML and CSS just can't. They can't evaluate functions, provide interactive information, or do many other things that most people just take for granted on the web. Javascript is more ingrained in the net than most people realize.

I learned HTML and CSS is because my boss asked me to redesign the web page. I started with trying to build an acceptable layout. Then, I decided that making a virtual layout would work much better and be better at showing my layout ideas. 2 days later, I know HTML. Once again, the 2 days of work doesn't surprise me because I know that there isn't all too much to do in HTML. Then I went to CSS, which took me about a day. A lot of it was just figuring out the synonyms between HTML and CSS. They have a lot of redundant features, and I'm told that I should use CSS if there's a choice between the two.

Now I have a rough draft of what the design would look like on paper and on a screen. Still, I need to be able to refine that into a working piece of the internet. However, I'm expecting my boss to just use one of those drag and drop applications because he wouldn't want to deal with HTML every time he wants to change his website. All my work will be for naught, but that's okay, because I still learned something and provided a layout for building off of when my boss actually does decide to buy the drag and drop software.

Alien Swarm Review

So let's look at this thing. It came from Valve. This is usually a good sign. It has 4 player co-op. Whether or not this signals good or bad, this has been done well by Valve is the past, so I say it bodes well. It consists of fighting off hordes of enemy creatures with a large variety of weapons. Three pluses on that mark. It's free. If that doesn't excite you I don't know what will. This game looks great on paper.

It also looks great on an LCD Panel. The graphics were built for the source engine, so I already expected great things, but it still looked good. It beats Half-life 2 by a good margin, and I think it outpaces Team Fortress 2 as well. I can't wait to see what Portal 2 does in Source.

So, this game looks pretty, but does it play well. I would say yes. I would say yes many times in a row and still be underplaying it. This game takes the teamwork aspect of Left 4 Dead, and seems to make it more interesting. You never rely on a specific class, unless you need a Tech. They can hack doors and arm bombs, so if there is a mission objective requiring hacking, then a Tech is required for that one mission. If you get infested, you better hope you have a competent medic. I like playing the medic because truthfully I don't really trust anyone with my character's life. I just played a game in which the medic rarely dropped health packs and everyone ran into the infesting aliens like they were warehouses of ammo. The last mission, I was the only person to make it out alive and our medic died half way through the mission. The worst part is when the people who needed health the most ran away from me while I was the medic. It was not an enjoyable experience. So, I'm glad that this game isn't as teammate dependent as Left 4 Dead, when teammates don't know how to work together.

The leveling system is also nice. There's more incentive to keep playing it. I don't know why I'd want to start a zombie apocalypse, but enticing aliens to eat my brain doesn't sound like a bad idea if I'm going to get a flamethrower out of it. Also, I'm sad to say it, but the weapon variety here is larger than it is in Borderlands. Alien Swarm has the shotguns, SMGs, pistols, sentries, assault rifles, and flamethrowers that Borderlands does. Wait... Borderlands doesn't have a flamethrower? Well, I was going to say that Alien Swarm also has the medic guns, freeze grenades, and Mini-guns that Borderlands seems to be lacking.

Also, unlike in Borderlands, the classes actually seem to matter. They aren't significantly different. Only the weapons that define the classes get locked to other classes. Only Medics can use healing items and Weapon Specialists are the only ones with the big guns (Miniguns). Being a Tech is fun too. The hacking is much quicker and fun than in Bioshock (and there aren't any luck based puzzles like in Bioshock) and it actually feels like hacking, unlike Bioshock 2. Hacking also adds another team play mechanic. You need people to defend you while you're taking down a computer's security or the aliens will overrun you.

So I beat the first campaign. Unfortunately it's the only campaign, but I expect community content to follow soon. Still, it's a lot deeper than it looks at face value. Playing it over again will allow you to unlock more weapons until you have the set-up of your dreams and if you pay enough attention, you can find PDAs scattered all over the game that give you an idea of what life would be like on a remote colony of Earth. Spoilers: half the data on the PDAs are spam e-mails. The alien extermination really need no plot, and it's easy enough to ignore if you don't care about plot, but it's there and is actually half decent if you listen. It is as little cliched as possible for an alien invasion game and really adds more reason to game than does the plot of L4D.

The game is beautiful and plays great for the price it costs (nothing, if you forgot). I don't see why everyone shouldn't give it a shot. It will also allow you to play any Source games you please as the game runs on that engine. A wonderful free Valve giveaway and all the Source mods you can play at an additional no price. There is no excuse for any of you to let this deal slide. That would be like not grabbing the free Half-life Death-match deal or ignoring that Portal was free for a week. Read: It would be a stupid thing to do.

Go out and show this game the love it deserves as the first good and free combination of Left 4 Dead, Bioshock, and Borderlands (In third person).

Valve, you are my friend

I got into PC gaming when Team Fortress 2 came out. I had played PC games before that, like Starcraft, Diablo, and Tribes 2, but TF2 was the first PC game I bought for myself. This revolutionized my idea of games. Finally, I saw a reasonable way to have a healer class in a first person shooter.

Since I had to buy Team Fortress 2 in the orange box (in order to get it on launch day) I also got Portal and the entirety of Half-life 2. I blasted through Portal and found it amazing. Then I played Team Fortress 2 for hours upon hours. I couldn't get enough of it. I was an amazing game.

And it only got better with each update. First, there was the medic update, which was beautiful since at that point I played medic much of the time. Then the pyro update came out. I tried out the pyro and loved it. Airblast made the class viable for me. Instead of being a close range class, he became an anti-explosive class. Consistently, Valve made me love each class more. Because I am better at anticipating movement than I am at aiming where the player is, the huntsman made me levels better at sniper and the dead ringer just made spy fun. The scout update brought the sandman and FaN for making the hit and run tactics I already use more efficient. Basically, I use all the items that people constantly complain are cheap (except the backburner, which had no excuse until it recently came into use as a half decent weapon by getting a damage buff). Then just a week or two ago Valve came out with an update to the last of their 9 classes, and their still gonna release a new weapon pack in a little while.

I guess I'm trying to say that Valve is amazing, and I've only talked about 2 of the Valve games I own. Half-life 2 has a story that rivals most novels and controls so tight that they puts Halo to shame (and have been since Halo came out, which was after HL2). So needless to say, Valve makes great games. Then on top of that they released their game engine and have allowed people to build mods in that engine. They've tried to make modding as simple as possible, and as a result there are tons of source mods available, some at or above average standards for video game quality.

Now, Valve is not one to let good enough alone. They are still producing more great work in order to keep me coming back forever. Currently they are enticing me with Portal 2. They said that they hired the team that made Tag. I was amazed because I played this game when it was released on the Digipen gallery and I loved it and because Valve hired a team from Digipen for the first Portal game. If Valve keeps this up I might have to go to Digipen myself. Here's to hoping that Portal 3 uses mechanics from Dreamside Maroon.

So I'm anticipating great games and have been getting constant free update to great games I already own. Now what? Valve is releasing a game that new employees created to prove they are Valve material, for free. Wait, what? Free. They are giving away a source game (presumably with the engine), in an effort to prove how badass their developers are. I think they win. They absolutely succeed in their attempted goal and I love them as people. What other company would just release a game for free? EA did with battlefield heroes, but only with the intention of charging people for customization. Sony did the same thing with free realms. There is no doubt in my mind that Valve is one of the most consumer friendly companies in existence, especially in the video game industry. What boggles me is that Valve can stay in business. And then if they can, why can't other companies do similarly?

Here is that free steam game, which is called Alien Swarm. The only requirement for getting it is that you have Steam (which is also free an you should have already if you are in any way a PC gamer).

Valve, thank you for all that you have done for me, for being with me through highs and lows, and for caring about me even though you have never met me and do not know my name. You are my friend.

Language

I don't find German a hard language. I'm sure it is, but with all my exposure to it, I never found it hard. Therefore, it surprises me when people can't understand what I say in German. Many of the words are similar. Ja (yah) is yes and nein (nine) is no. Uhr (oo-ur) is hour and Fritag (fry-tog) is Friday. The language is even easier when you realize that all nouns are capitalized. Because I recognize the similarities, the language just comes to me (not fluently, but I can understand 90% of what my family talks about). So once again, it's a surprise.

This applies to so many concepts. It surprises me when someone has to look down at a controller to play a video game. They don't intuitively know which button is jump and which is run. Most of my friends do. We learned computer input as a language. This also works for math, history, and other academic subjects. People may say math is just a language. I must say, I think they are wrong, but we do definitely learn both things in similar ways. We have to learn basics and concepts before we learn formulas and sentences. You certainly can start with formulas and sentences, but then you don't understand the actual reasoning behind the language until you mess it up and someone corrects you.

Because all subjects can be broken down into the same aspects, it is hard to understand why someone may hate a particular subject. I hate history, but people always ask how I can't remember dates when I can remember the formula for finding the eigenvalues of a multi-variable equation. I truthfully don't have an answer for that. It doesn't make sense to me. Some people just take it as not liking the subject, but I'm convinced that's not the case. I'm convinced it's the interest factor. It's easier for people to learn about what they find valuable and intriguing and it's important that people all find different things intriguing. If they did not, then we would mess something up. We might repeat history or abandon all scientific development. As they say, it takes all kinds.

So if they say that, then why are all kinds separate? Why is it harmful to my four year plan to take a language as a engineering major? Why is it stupid to take philosophy? These are two things my adviser actually said to me. I found it ridiculous. There is no reason that any person should be told to ignore all but one focus of study. If we do, then who will translate the math? Who will psychologically analyze historical figures? Who will program the grammar applications? Academic subjects have to intermingle. I can understand not all people want to learn more than one thing, but the people who do should be encouraged, not demoralized. Programs should review and store history. Math should be spoken between country borders. And video games should be used to teach language. They both undeniably require similar skills and should be presented to people as such. It would draw in fresh minds and suit everyone's learning style in their particular fashion. Subjects should not be blocked out by time periods, but should be taught when they are wanted. People should be nudged towards coeducation between disciplines. I'm sure the result would be nothing but greatness.

Interests

Do you know what frustrates me? My friends frustrate me. It isn't that they are annoying or that they try to spite me, but that they just don't seem to care about me. When one of them tells me something is good, I generally show some strong interest. Ben likes Borderlands and I actively tried to level my character so that I could play with him. It was me spending my own efforts to play nicely with others. Then I got Bioshock 2 and GTA4. I played them some, but went back to TF2 and League of Legends rather quickly. You know why? Because I wanted t play with my friends. Ben got Prototype and then played that for a good chunk of time. He only went back to TF2 when the engineer update went live, and I don't know how long that's going to last. I can't play single player games anymore because I feel bad when my friends are playing multiplayer games and I'm not. I don't know why I should but I do.

Now, this is great. I play what my friends suggest (not always, but a good chunk of the time) and I enjoy playing with them. However, when I find something cool or fun, it is not often that they enjoy playing that with me. In fact, often they won't even try it. I've been noticing this more and more with my college friends, but it actually started with my brother. I was always disappointing that my brother was so presumptuous. Now, I couldn't help that he was my brother, so I would just go play on my own or with my friends. Now that I'm having the same issue with my friends, I don't know what to do. If my friends really just assume that they don't like what I suggest to them, then I don't think I want to hang out with them quite so much. And on top of that I like hanging out with people who share my interests.

It extends to more than just games too. In food, they will not try things I say I like. I don't mean that they've tried it before and I'm trying to make them give it a second shot. I mean that they've never tried it before, and they really aren't going to change their minds no matter what I say. This means I end up always going where they want to go, eating what they want to eat, and doing what they want to do. I wonder if I'll ever be able to enjoy myself when hanging out with them. I mean, even when we all decide we want to play TF2, we play on the maps they want to play on. Chelsea won't even try new maps now that she's found the ones she likes and Ben finds excuse in the fact that he's playing a map that's on my favorites list. I think they don't understand that I like variety. Just because some map is on my favorites list doesn't mean that's the map I want to play right now.

There's yet another thing that bothers me. They don't like variety. Once they've found something they like, they stick to it. I'm not saying that determinism is a bad thing, but try new things. That's how you might find something better than what you had before. So what if it's bad? Then you know not to try that next time. I certainly hope they aren't opposed to change. Wait, that's silly. They are opposed to change if they won't try anything new. This means that Joss Whedon will always be the best TV script writer ever. This is just not the case. He is very good and may be one of the best for a very long time, but nothing guarantees his position for all of time. Trying new things is incredibly important. That is how society advances. Would you all still be thrilled if televisions were still in black and white? Would the world be dandy if no one ever thought to make a video screen because we already have the radio? Be happy with what you have, but aspire to greater things. This aspiration is what improves. It makes things better.

Then the worst part is that my friends either push these few things they love onto me, or they don't even mention them. I want them mentioned, but I don't want to feel forced. What would happen if I don't share your love? Would you be upset? I know I would. However if you introduce them to me then I might share your love. I can't if you don't let me try. Unfortunately, I don't see my friend's thinking or feeling that way.

So there they are, set in their solid paths, which is by no means a bad thing. And I, though not of the most friendly nature, am the outgoing one. I'm the one that is pushed to try new things and to force my friends to share them if I even want them to try something new. Or if I myself want to try something new, since I'm always persuaded to their will.

Christmas List

I have one! This is exciting to me because for as long as I can remember I had to think of things when people asked me what I want for a present. I would usually tell them to surprise me, but people don't like this approach. On the other hand, I do like surprising them, and I do think I do so well often.

However, there is one person I don't know how to surprise. That would be my girlfriend. I don't exactly know what she likes and in the things she does, I am not exactly well enough versed to make a solid decision. I know she likes certain TV shows, but would she like a boxed set of DVDs? I'm guessing no. How about a video game? But which one? She likes platformers, but only 2D platformers. Then again, she has no problem double jumping around in Team Fortress 2. So a shooter? No. She already has the only shooter she'll ever need. What do I do? A book? I don't know how to find an interesting book without her help. How could I suggest one to her? She's already told me explicitly to never get her jewelry. Why not? I think I have a good sense of what would look good. I almost find this insulting. Eh... I don't know what to do. Fortunately, that's a topic for another blog post. This one is about me.

I know what I want. I have 3 things in mind right now. One of them is quite expensive and I don't really want to buy it for said reason. The Archos 5 internet media tablet. I don't mind waiting before buying one because I'm sure Generation 8 will be out soon. Some rumors say it will have 3G, though I'm not sure how important that is since the monthly subscription will not be something I would love to pay for. This device would allow me to watch any video or listen to any music I have in any format. I wouldn't have to deal with any of apple's silly conversions. I would basically use it to fill walking time and other times when I'm bored. I would just pop on headphones and be gone.

This brings me to my second wish list item. Grado's SR60i headphones. These are supposedly the best headphones you can get in their price range, and that isn't a bad price range. Considering these would cost more than my speakers and headphone quality is generally rated higher than similarly priced speakers, these would increase the sound quality of my music by multitudes. I would cherish these, though still not as much as an Archos 5, if I were to get one.


I would also like a drawing tablet. I have found drawing and painting to be fun. I have found art in general to be fun. I just suck at it. This tends to be the case because I erase and redraw so often. If I were to draw on a medium for which complete erasure is an option, I'm sure my art would improve and I would be less frustrated, allowing me to draw more and have my art improve even more. This medium would be computerized drawing. However, drawing with a mouse is quite difficult. Drawing with a tablet is not nearly as bad. I know that Wacom makes the best drawing tablets on the market, but I'm not looking for the best. I'm looking for good enough at a price that doesn't make my wallet cry. For this I have seen something called Kanvas. They are a company who are trying to make cheaper, but still high quality, drawing tablets. They make other products too, but this is the one I'm interested in.

As for other wish list items, they are mostly generic items that suit my indie gamer style. I still want a decent computer game pad for emulators and maybe a nice library of games that even I wouldn't have considered. Other than that I wouldn't mind some nice mystery or comedy books. Books in the same vein as the TV shows Monk or Psych. I also have a list of games that only ever grows larger. On that list now are The World Ends With You (DS), Dragon Quest 9 (DS), Soul Bubbles (DS), Puzzle Quest (Or I hear there are sequels) (DS), Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS), A Boy and his Blob (Wii), Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii), The sequel to Kororinpa (Wii and sorry for the vague description), No More Heroes 1 & 2 (Wii), Red Steel 2 (Wii), Mad World (Wii), Braid (PC), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PC), and Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC). And as always, any suggestion for music to listen to will be appreciated. Still, I would much rather have the above 3 items than I would any of the things on the list in this paragraph.

P.S.
This double post day is to make up for missing one yesterday. I apologize to all my 2 regular readers and hope you can forgive me.

The Job Thickens

The title is a pun if you know that we're now working on 3D embroidery. It's like regular embroidery, but with foam padding underneath to give it a squishy feel and a pop out look. It's very interesting. I don't know if I would every want it on any embroideries myself, but I can definitely see the appeal to many customers. Also, it is much more fun to do 3D embroideries than those boring 2D ones. It's fun peeling the foam and it's fun squishing the final product.

We also did an applique yesterday. We actually did two, but the first didn't turn out to well. The part that's interesting to me is that the applique material is made out of polyester so I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to sublimate onto it. Then we would have full color appliques to be embroidered upon any clothing type.

My most recent job is working on the Ballyhoo store website. It isn't an easy task, being that I've never done website design before, but I like to think that I can be an objective judge of what looks good and what doesn't. I know this varies from person to person, but right not the Ballyhoo store site looks like a back alley of the internet. This isn't to be mean, as I see my blog as a back alley of the net. I just mean to say that it doesn't look like a viewed page. It doesn't look accessible. My job here is to change that. I think I can do that. He says he wants a complete site redesign, but I'm still not sure what he wants changed and what he wants the same. He says it should be changed from the ground up, but I'm still not entirely sure what that means. For one thing, we should get rid of the cloudy background. There should be something more fashionable and much less distracting. I suppose I should figure out how to reinvent the site, rather than seeing if I can muddle with the code until it looks good. Well, off to work I go.

Tomato Mozzarella

A simple sandwich, yet ridiculously simple to screw up. It really only requires 6 ingredients. This sandwich is not just bread tomatoes and mozzarella, but I suppose it could be if you're the kind of person who throws chicken into a pan with non stick spray and eats it when it's cooked through. (This is basically the recipe most of my friends used when they decided they don't like tofu, but that's a different rant.) Simple does not have to mean bland. In fact, simple should not mean bland. If you complain that a meal you cooked is bland, then you have to cook it again but use more spices. I say more cause I assume you wouldn't complain about something being bland without first trying to spice it. You should not assume the dish is bad and never make it again. Now that that's cleared up, I can get to telling you what a good tomato mozzarella sandwich should look, feel, smell, and taste like. I don't really care about the sound of my sandwiches, but that's your call. And if the sandwich doesn't sound right to you, then try increasing or decreasing the resonance frequency of your sandwich. I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

The bread you use. It should have a crust. I don't care if it's a flaky crust like on a croissant or a hard crust like you'd find on a German brotchen. If you have sliced loaves then I suggest you either go back to the french toast post or go out and buy crustier bread. Personally, I don't like brotchen that aren't made in Germany or floppy croissants for holding together wet ingredients (which most sandwiches will have unless they are actually made with sand). Therefore, I go with a Kaiser roll. French bread will also work, but absolutely make sure that it isn't stale. Stale bread makes everything except for sea voyages worse. Cut the bread in half sandwich style. (If you don't know what sandwich style is then please educate yourself with google image search.)

The cheese. It should be mozzarella, but I'm guessing you already knew that. It should be in a ball or similarly round shape. Sliced or string mozzarella will not do here. You should unpackaged and slice the cheese with a thickness between 1 and 2 centimeters. It's hard to slice mozzarella thin, but that's okay because less cheese isn't necessarily good. If you're on a diet, don't make the slices thinner, eat half of the sandwich for lunch instead of the whole thing. You would still take in the carbs from the bread with tinner slices, and my method leaves you half a sandwich for dinner, breakfast tomorrow, or to give to your friend. Layer the cheese on one half of the bread.

Then the tomatoes.  Or tomatoes I guess depending on how you pronounce them. (The best part is you probably read that the way I intended you to without even thinking. Yes, I am psychic. Thanks for asking.) You need to slice them as well. Perhaps a centimeter thick. Perhaps slightly thinner. I don't mind. Use your own discretion. I trust it to serve you well. Now piece those slices into a layer on top of the layer of mozzarella.

Now come the important ingredients. You need salt, pepper, and oil. I don't care whether or not you like pepper, just take some out of the cupboard. Put the salt on the tomatoes. A pinch or two should work fine, but I generally put on more than is necessary without too many consequences. (I tend to like my food salty) This should get the tomatoes to dry a little fairly quickly which is good because in a dish this simple, things as seemingly unimportant as the tomato texture can make or break the dish. Now put on pepper. Once again, I don't care whether or not you like it. The mozzarella cheese (if cut thick enough) will absorb most of the flavor put onto this sandwich. That's why I see many people not minding putting jalapeno peppers on this sandwich. They taste much less spicy with a slab full of cheese. If you actually want your sandwich to taste peppery, then put on a bit more than you usually would. After the "spices" are on (spices is in parentheses because salt and pepper are more staples than spices) you should put on olive oil. A tablespoon or two should be enough. In fact, two should be more than enough. Aim for one. Use a second if your sandwich is particularly large.

If you want to get interesting you can put on grilled zucchini, steamed bell peppers, roasted carrots, or numerous other vegetables (raw artichoke hearts work well), but I believe the plain mozzarella tomato should be tried first so you know the strength of the sandwich that you are messing with. It's base is an amazing piece of architecture that you should explore and take in before you cover the walls with paintings and photographs. For one of the best instantiations for this monument of a sandwich, you should try the Mozzarella Tomato on a kaiser roll at Santucci's in Silver Spring, Maryland. They have seemed to perfect the sandwich, as I have enjoyed it every time I get one there.

Addiction

I don't know why, but I get obsessive. I quickly become entirely entranced in one subject, and don't waiver for quite some time. Then, once I see the next piece of cool, I immediately drop the last. I obsess over specific games, game genres, recipes, TV shows, music, and tons of other arbitrary little things one after the other, but rarely get good at any particular one.

Recent obsessions are Buffy (which I finished yesterday), pita sandwiches, and voice changing software. I've obsessed over voice changers before but obsessions are not one time deals. They ebb and flow, deciding for me when I like them and when I don't. I've been obsessed over the Archos products for about 5 years now, but I saw them first when I was in about 6th grade and didn't really think about them much between 2 years ago and 1 year ago. I find them awesome even when I don't obsess about them, but it brings a whole new level to it when I look for news all over the internet.

My biggest current obsession is Monster Hunter Tri. That game is amazing. To me it feels like PSO, but with much better controls. I love the crafting because I love hording loot and being able to make the weapons I currently own do much better, rather than replacing them. However, I did just get a new weapon because I wanted one of a different type. Today marks the acquisition of my first bowgun. It feels completely different than the swords or hammers. It almost plays like a new game. The movement are still the same, but the aiming that replaces the chaining and combos really makes a difference. Also, the quests are all very similar, but all fun to me, especially when they help me fill out the Hunter's Notes log.

So, you can see how I get when I'm obsessed with something. I was the same way for Borderlands until the game actually came near. When I heard the news that all the guns were bullet weapons I was upset. There was so much promise for random alien weaponry, but all of the innovative weapons were really terrible. I could create better weapons than those developers did. And I did. I went into my save file and built a shotgun that could drop in the game, but had league of power beyond any other gun I had seen before it in the game.

Once again, how I get with obsessions. I have said many times that I'm addicted to addictions. I fall into things completely until I have something else to put all my efforts towards. I guess the current one is blog posts. I hope I will keep up with them, but so far only my weekday posts have any consistency. At least I'm trying. And at this rate my writing skills should just sky rocket. I can see it now. This time next year I'll have a novel to my name and everyone will love it. Unless they have eyes...

Well, I do hope you enjoy reading and I hope you continue. And tell you friends I need more readers. I do love readers. They make me happy inside.

Buffy is over... it's really done

I finished the last episode of the Seventh Season of Buffy yesterday. I know Joss went on to write an eighth season but the TV show is over. I don't know what to do now... Do I continue on reading? In order to do that I would need to find out where I could read them. I'm not one to often buy books considering the frequency with which I read them. Ah, well, I'll find somewhere eventually.

"I'm drowning in Cool Whip!"

And now my speech is interspersed with various Buffy quotes. Hm...

All in all it is a great show. The dialogue is wonderful and the characters are really easy to relate to. However, I am upset that Buffy is my least favorite character in Buffy. Xander is a BAMF and Willow just owns everything that crosses her path.

There are only a few things that frustrate me. Why does Willow insist on being only a lesbian? I would understand if she always felt uncomfortable with Oz and realized that she could never love him, but that's not how it went down. She will always be bisexual in my eyes and her not admitting it feels like bisexuals are still looked down upon, even by people who accept homosexuals. It seems like you're allowed to choose which ever sex you please, as long as you don't respond, "both."

I hope people reading this don't think I'm a gay-basher. I don't exactly know how they could make that argument when I'm complaining for bisexuals against a heterosexual script writer, but people out there will argue anything if given the opportunity. I have many times been thought of as fighting civil rights acts, but that's not the case. I want everyone to be equal. This means that men and women should both be given equal pay, but they should also both be listed in the draft. I understand that pregnant women can't go to war, so excuse them. I understand that if a draft occurred this would make many women go out and get pregnant, but I'm sure there would be ways to work around that so women don't use their ability to give birth as a weapon against the government. That's unsettling; thinking of women using birth as a weapon. I just don't want people continually arguing for equality when it suits them and traditionalism when it doesn't. You should actually follow the beliefs you set for yourself. If you can't do that, then how can you expect other people to?

So... I've gotten off topic. I love Buffy. I really do. I just think that Joss is a douche sometimes, and ignore things other times. Which brings me to my second complaint. No one ever explained why only girls can be the slayer. I understand that girls are called upon, but does that mean that only girls have the potential? Could not men also have the potential, but just never get called upon because it's in the rulebook from above? No, that was just skipped over.

SPOILER ALERT
Also skipped over was that Angel did nothing when he found out that Spike got a soul that couldn't be taken away. Why did he not ask how? Why did he not attempt to get one for himself? Then he could have sex with the woman he loves. And if he could do that without losing his soul, then they wouldn't have to separate themselves from one another. This completely overlooked point has me entirely dumbfounded.
END SPOILER ALERT

So, even with the stupidities, I love the show. Although, I really want my friends to know they they can't just overlook the stupidities of one show while calling out all of the stupidities of another, and citing that as a reason for not watching it. Stupidities are stupidities no matter who writes them, even Joss.

Ta-da!

Ta-da is a mark that I've accomplished something of at least moderate significance. Today I have done so. I have finished my brother's birthday present. I am hesitant in saying it was hand made, but it was as close as I could possibly get to hand making something like this. I designed the vector graphic from a bitmap and trace the vector graphic into a Melco embroidery machine file. I think that's enough hints as to what he's getting, just in case he actually does read my blog. But, I would be happy to show you guys if I get a picture of my brother wearing the thing on Sunday, his 23rd birthday.

By the way, can anyone tell me what the importance of a 23rd birthday is? He can already drink and smoke. He's had his driver's license for some 5 or 6 years now. He won't gain anything from this experience. Well... except for the drinking and smoking and rampant sex that everyone has during every birthday that occurs while in college. But aside from the legends, myths, and stories about college life, what does a 23rd birthday hold? Does it garner respect? Fame? Are people just proud that he hasn't died yet? I know I certainly am, but that's an everyday thing. More so on the days that he does extremely stupid things. His birthday usually isn't one of those days because he isn't usually one of those guys. He celebrates with beer, tv, and games. He does not celebrate with roof jumpings, shopping cart races, and wildly swinging around a hammer while hammered.

I know I liked my 19th birthday, but that was because my party was a gathering of friends. One of these friends lives in another state but still made the trip just to lie in my bed. My brother lives with most of his friends. I'm sure they're going to party it up whether or not he wants to. I just hope I get to him early enough that he still has the sobriety to appreciate the present I got him. That might end up being the day before his birthday...

I'm sure he's going to have a good time. It will happen. I will force him to good time it up if he isn't already doing so, but it's unlikely that he won't be. At least this will be one of the first birthdays where he actually won't mind me showing up. I won't be an embarrassment. I won't be a tag-along. I'll be his friend and with his friends. And I will show them all up in the present department. I tend to do that... I don't know how. I'm just amazing like that.

Late... for everything

As is normal Lukas behavior I started out worried and hopeful. Then once I became comfortable I started getting later and later. I showed up for work today at 10:22 AM even though my work starts at 10:00 AM. Why does this happen? I think it has to do with the fact that I feel asleep on the train and missed my stop. But I was actually rhetorically asking why this happens in general, and not why it happened today. I think as I feel more comfortable with a job I am less worried about getting fired because I know that my work is quality stuff. It could be that I'm bored with my job and my subconscious really just wants me to be fired. Most likely is my inability to keep a normal sleep schedule. I get tired around 11 PM or 12 AM but I generally don't go to sleep until 2 AM. As the lack of sleep builds, I continually get to work later and later and stay up just a little bit longer each night. I really need to go to sleep right when I get home from work today, but I would lose all of my free time. I would wake up, go to work, go home, and sleep. At least, my Wednesdays, when I leave work at 8 PM, would be empty of fun. In an effort to grasp the little amount of fun I have, I have been doing very little around the house. This is pissing off my dad and ruining yet another aspect of my life. Then again, today my dad got upset at me for making me lunch too slowly. Cooking food is never something that should be done in haste. And my dad is the man that made me 10 minutes late to my first class every day of high school. He's the one who always had one more thing to do before we could leave. I truthfully don't feel any kind of regret for spending the necessary time making my lunch. I regret many other things, but that's not one of them.

Basically, I'm ruining my life to hold onto the thin grasp of fun I have left. Now I think I understand what my dad feels often, however fun for him can't be attained in front of a computer. I personally don't know whether life would be better feeling crappy all time when not playing, or being just pretty okay almost all the time and just never playing. My solution in late high school was to fall asleep during classes. I didn't feel crappy and I got to play. I just didn't learn all that much... This really does follow that old saying, "Grades, sleep, social life; pick two." So far I have been giving up sleep, but I actually might just give up social life, because my sleep situation is falling way out of control and my parents would kill me if I ever even thought of dropping the grades and work.

You know, I actually tried very hard to not have a job this summer. I even told my dad that I didn't want one. He really didn't care. He wanted me to have a job. I don't see why. I've always been told that I only have so much youth and that I have to take full advantage of it, but how can you take full advantage of youth when people are making you constantly work? All these chores that my dad gives me because he's too lazy to do them, I would be able to do them if I didn't have work. My dad has been actively telling me that he doesn't see any value in these games but... that's just a fairly stupid statement. These games are what keeps the current generation sane and enthused. Without them I would have little reason to wake up. I'm not saying my life is empty, but my friends all live a least half an hour drive away. My girlfriend lives 2 states over. I'm just saying that without a computer, my life would be better spent in solitude. My friends would be too far to see often, and many people who do live close enough are all unintelligent and frustrating. How would my dad feel if I took away his bicycles and television? I don't even tell him that I find them worthless. I really should. I feel he would just shrug it off so I think the whole scheme is pointless. Eh...

Well, I'm going to work on sleeping more and not losing any play time. It may work out, and it may not. Whatever happens, I feel my life will feel better with a rested Lukas in it.

French Toast

This here is an important post. Remember it well. French toast is a time honored tradition full of deliciousness and cinnamon. I'm hoping you all found that last sentence to be redundant. Otherwise, please get out of my kitchen right now. You have no taste and do not deserve any of the delicacies that I design and bring into being.

So, I hope you all understand how french toast works. It really isn't hard. There's eggs, bread, and butter. These are the main ingredients. But just these 3 things will never come together into a fine piece of culinary art.

I don't love ingredient lists because people tend to skip over recipes if they don't have everything on the list, but they're standard for shopping trip so here goes. And remember, you don't need everything here. My dad made french toast with no milk the other day and it was still quite delicious.
A loaf of bread
4 eggs
A half a cup of milk (that's 4 tablespoons, right?)
Butter, about a stick of the stuff
Some salt
Some pepper if you like the stuff
Some nutmeg
Some sugar
Some cinnamon (If you skip out on any part, please don't make it this one. You can have cinnamon-less french toast, but it's like soulless love. Something is just.... missing.)

On this list, when it says some, if you are just scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last little bit, you probably still have enough of it. Just make due with what you have.

The bread should be sliced. If not, then slice it. I don't care how thick you slice it, as long as you slice it. Loaves of bread make terrible french toast. Note, however, that thicker slices will need to soak longer. So, sandwich sized slices tend to work out quite well.

Now that the bread is all in order, you'll want to deal with the eggs. Put about 4 eggs (minus the shells) into a bowl. Stir with a fork. This is a fun part. I enjoy scrambling eggs in a bowl. Yum! Killing chicken fetuses really whets my appetite for breakfast. Then put in about half a teaspoon of salt (normally chefs tell you not to add salt to eggs until they're almost done cooking, but french toast doesn't work as well with salt as an after addition), an eighth of nutmeg, and another eighth of pepper. I hate chefs telling you to use "a pinch" but that actually would be good terminology here. However, I included measurements in case you are "pinch" incompatible. Stir some more. It's great fun! Add a teaspoon of milk per egg (this recipe works even if you want to expand it because it doesn't give amount of milk, but milk to egg proportions!) to the mixture and stir again. Yes, there is a lot of stirring, but I certainly believe it's worth it.

Now take a medium or large pan and melt butter in it. The amount of butter depends on the size of the pan. This could be anywhere from a quarter stick to a full stick. You're the one that knows if you're on a diet, so modify accordingly (This means less for smaller pans and more weight conscious people). While that is melting you have to make a decision. Do you think you suck at cooking? I don't want you to tell me, I just want to know for these next instructions. If you're worried about burning the butter, then add a tablespoon of oil. Either corn, vegetable, or olive will be fine. I'm not a fan of canola oil, but if you like it then go ahead. This heightens the burning point of all those lipid substances in the pan. It will change the taste a little, but not enough to make most people care. This distinction here is whether you care more about not burning food, or staying truer to your goal flavor. It's a very light distinction, so don't sit on it too long. At least decide before th butter starts to burn.

Now it's time to put the bread in the eggs. Your hands will get messy. If you didn't wash them before you started, definitely do it now. Let them soak until the butter has finished melting. Maybe a little longer if they don't feel floppy when you try to move them. It should be slightly difficult to keep them in one piece depending on the bread you use, but don't let that discourage you. Broken french toast is still delicious french toast. Put the floppiness into the pan. Fit as many as you can in while leaving a gap between the pieces. Don't try to do them all at once. Now, wash your hands again so you can pick up the spatula. Wait a couple minutes and then flip them over. Once you flip those over put the next few slices of bread into the egg mixture. Timing here is crucial. If you mess up one nanosecond the entire recipe will be ruined! Melodramatic time is over. Your french toast will be fine. Once you remove the first set of french toast you can put on the second. Then isn't much need to re-butter the pan, but I suppose you can if you love fat that much. Glutton... Yay demeaning my readers! That's the way to get more hits. So then, repeat this frying and soaking process until you run out of either egg mixture or bread. You should have enough to feed 3 or 4 people if it was the egg that you ran out of first. Or, you could feed me. I would love you forever. It's true.

The last step here is crucial. I'm not joking this time. Take a small bowl and put in about 2 tablespoons sugar to 1 cinnamon. Stir with that tablespoon you used for measuring. Now take spoonfuls of this wonderful spice and gently sprinkle it over the french toast. You can go overboard with this stuff, but it takes quite a bit to do so considering how delicious it is.

If you have leftover bread you can put it away. If you have leftover egg mixture than you can make some scrambled eggs.

I look forward to you guys making this. Everyone puts a personal spin on french toast eventually, considering that after a couple months of cooking most people find it elementary. Just tell me what you put on french toast so I can duplicate and eat your designs. Actually, I would prefer you making it yourself, as no chef can follow a recipe as well as the chef who made it, but if you won't come over to my house I'll settle for just seeing it. And make french toast for your friends. It is one of the most delicious breakfasts ever when made properly. Then you can tell them where you learned to make your toast so frenchy and delicious and my readership will double! Unless of course you all have more than one friend. Well, enjoy!

Gamers

What defines a gamer? Someone who plays a lot of games? Someone who is very good at games? Some people can be very good at gaming while never playing it and some people can play a lot without getting good at them. I tend to be pretty good without too much play, and play quite a bit. I think it is because gaming skill is fairly transferable from game to game. Playing so much over so many years makes picking up a game quite a bit easier. Still, skill and playtime don't always go together.

One thing that is upsetting is the fact that either your friends get better than you, or you get better than your friends. Both scenarios suck. On the one hand, it's no fun playing with them because they kill you so often, or you feel like you are always letting them down. On the other hand, it's no fun playing with them because you're always covering for them and assuring them that it's still fun to play with them no matter what their skill level is.

So here is my definition of a gamer. It's a person who enjoys playing games. It doesn't matter if they play often, as long as they've played. It doesn't matter if they're good, as long as they try. I don't like people who complain and rage over games, but that doesn't mean I would say they aren't gamers. I know that games frustrate me too. I just try not to complain to friends, yell at random people online, or take any aggression from the game with me into real life.

So here I am, complaining about my friends who are better and friends who are worse. I'm raging about games over the internet. I'm doing all the things I said shouldn't be done. But it's okay, cause at least I bottle it up. It's all good if you just don't tell anyone.

So off of that sidetrack. Games are fun! Play with friends. Don't mind their skill level and hope they don't mind yours. If you enjoy games, then be a gamer. And be proud of it. It doesn't matter the game. Even farmville works (even though most people who identify as gamers hate that piece of trash). Play what you love and love what you play and everyone can find a game they like. Everyone can be a gamer.

Games you should know and play

You've all heard about Okami, Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus even though very few gamers have played them. There are countless other games in this category, but I'm here to shed the light on the ones you guys don't know about.

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Lukas. He bought all the handheld games his brother bought so that they could play them together. His Pokemon blue to his Pokemon red and both of them with copies of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. However, there was one game that had good enough excuse for them to both buy a copy, yet no one has heard of it. Metal Walker, is the name of the game. The player's pet can be customized, but no too greatly. There are many enemy types, but not as many as in Pokemon. All in all the game feels like a stripped down Pokemon until the kids take one more thing into account. The battle system.

It was called flipping. I suppose it still is if anyone still actually plays the game. You aim your pet and press the a button. Then a meter starts sliding back and forth. Most try to hit the a button again at full power. A select few try to guesstimate exactly the amount of force necessary to hit the enemy and get themselves out of harms way. Even the items in the battle system were interesting. You couldn't just use them. You had to drop them on the battlefield and them "flip" into them. It changed the strategy even more because you could carry items that lower the attack or defense of the monster that hits it, and then flip the enemy into the item. This battle system was very unique and few games have done anything like it since. It made for a great game. Maybe not great enough to justify the Pokemon length story, but great enough to justify buying the game twice for two kids.

Overall rating of the game. It's a simplified Pokemon sort of deal and Pokemon is always good, but the battle system is something everyone should try at least once. It's addictive, requires more skill than Pokemon, and doesn't bore quite as quickly. This game is definitely worth a look even if you decide not to play it for more than half an hour. In the end, Lukas was happy with his purchase.

Juices

You know what's delicious? Blueberry juice. It comes from a fruit so small that you don't even think you can juice it, but there it is, right between Cranapple and Crango. It's tastes much better than it has any right to. It's not even blue. The juice is this deep maroon color. That's closer to red than it is blue. But I can't criticize this fruit in any actually way because the juice that comes from it dances on buds of taste. It is sweet, but that's not why it's good. Apple juice is sweet too, but blueberry surpasses apple by miles.

It's like the first time I had strawberry nectar. It's smooth, but with chunks of strawberry in it. It's creamy, but has no cream. There's flavors in strawberry nectar that don't exist in the strawberries themselves. It's impressive. It's amazing. It's imprazing. That's where strawberry nectar lies on the taste-o-meter. At imprazing. And blueberry juice is right up there with it. It hasn't the leaps and bounds of the nectar, but it's the best juice I've ever tasted. Though, many juices can be made twice as good by mixing them. Apple and orange work well. Mango and pomegranate tastes far better than one would expect. And cranberry pretty much just mixes well with everything. That is one category where blueberry juice falls short. It doesn't have a good mixing buddy. I have to believe it's out there, but I haven't found it yet. Even though blueberry falls short on the mixing side, it is by far the best standalone juice on most grocery stores' shelves.

So there you have it. I know you have all seen it, even if you don't remember walking by it in the store, but the next time you go to fill your fridge, make a stop in the juice aisle and pick up a liter or two. You won't be dissatisfied. You might even be gracious! And then in your gratuitous nature you might tell your friends about this great blog where you saw that blueberry juice is the wave of the future. Then they'll drink and think about how cool their friends are. Don't you want to be cool? Try blueberry juice today!

Next time on Lukas' food reviews, we will explore the intricacies of chocolate milk. Or, we might even review a food!

My Job

Would you believe it? I work in an embroidery shop. A store called Ballyhoo. We create promotional products for companies at (what I would consider) reasonable fees. We make custom shirts, hats, jackets, bags, pens, blankets, and many other things. We even have a snuggie type product called a couch potato that we can embroider. A custom shirt that says whatever you want costs only $15 (including the price of the shirt) and if you buy in bulk the price goes down pretty quickly.


So now that I'm done shamelessly plugging the store I work in, I'd like to tell about some of the things I do here at my place of work. Yesterday I came into work. I put a couple shirts on a couple machines and embroidered out the pattern we had to do for the customer. It was just some simple words. Then we had to test out another logo on the embroidery machines. That was actually quite fun and the logo doesn't look too bad. All in all those things took up my morning and a bit of the afternoon, so then I had lunch. The next thing I had to do was figure out how to make a rhinestone pattern. I spent the rest of the day doing that. You'd be surprised how hard it is to rhinestone. It's much more difficult than you'd think. Fortunately it doesn't require individual placement on the clothing. Unfortunately, it does require individual placement on a computer program, Corel Draw. It's much like Adobe Illustrator, except it is made by Corel. I think that's the biggest reason that people don't buy it. Another reason may be that its user interface is incredibly convoluted compared to most Adobe products.

So, yesterday I spent half my day rhinestoning (The act of placing rhinestone. Its now a word). And the entirety of this morning was spent creating an embroidery pattern for the final fantasy 7 logo, the meteor. Yeah... I get paid to do this. But truthfully, it's a ton harder than you would think it is. I really wouldn't be doing this for fun. However, I don't not enjoy it. Basically, if I was elsewhere, I would be gaming, but here I have no problem digitizing (The act of turning a logo into embroidery machine readable data. This already was a word. I didn't invent it).

Also, if you want a shirt I hear that friends and family get discounts. Call, click, or come in today to the Ballyhoo store of embroidery and screen printing (and tons of other shirt writing methods)! I guess I wasn't done shamelessly plugging the store.

Stupid Things Politicians Do

My brother told me once (actually several times) that I'm a parrot. It is true that my brother likes to say whatever he can to upset me, but in this respect he was right. I did used to parrot my father. He was my only source of political information and I took all the information that I could. Unfortunately, he's a die hard liberal so any information I take from him would absolutely be biased.

My dad has often enumerated (yes, he actually counts on his fingers while speaking the numbers out loud) the many things that Republican politicians do that are stupid. I tend to respond with the fact that all politicians do stupid things. I'm assured that even though they all do, Democrats don't do nearly as many and even when they do, it's all completely good faith, while Republicans are all evil. If you have been noting that none of this is my opinion, then you will understand that I would like some help here. I would like to be informed about all of the terribly stupid things that Democrats do. Actually, stories about any stupid politicians would do. I would just rather it not be about presidents. They tend to not actually be as important as people think they are.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I want some ammunition. I want to be able to make my dad to stop telling me about stupid Republicans by responding that all politicians do stupid things, with supporting arguments. I want my dad to stop being so vehement in his opinions without any idea of the wrongs committed by those he defends. Actually, I want this of all extremists. I want all strongly opinionated people to stop for just a moment and look at themselves. I want them to reconsider their views. If they pick up the same views, then so be it. I don't mind them having opinions. I mind them telling me about those opinions and telling me that they resolve the issue, when it really can't be that simple. Otherwise, the issue would already be solved.