I'm making a note here...

.... HUGE SUCCESS

So, yes.... I've played Portal. And I'm hooked. I love this game. And the ending theme..... I love the ending theme so much that it's my ringtone. That's how much this game has gotten to me.
I had heard/read mention of this game, but paid it no mind. I knew pretty much nothing about Half-Life. I knew that this set came in an orange box. I knew Half-Life was the source of head crabs. :D (more about my crustacean obsession later) So, when my roommate at the time mentioned that I would really enjoy Portal, I was curious. Then he played the ending theme for me.

Then I knew. I knew I must play it. And I loved it.

Here's a link to the song: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/extras/stillalive.php

It's a little flash animation up on the VG Cats website. Much amusement ensues.

Portal is basically a 3+ hour puzzle-type game. You pay as a woman that eventually gets possession of a portal gun.

Go in one portal..... leave out another portal. And while there's some physics here, and I've never taken a physics class, I became a master genius of physics. Throughout the game you're being guided by a computer with a deep appreciation of cake. And your only friend is a weighted companion cube (seen in the picture on the right).

Words can't even describe the game. I really got into it. I really enjoyed it. It could have been longer; I could have cried when I got to the end.

Also... you want to know what else I really got into?

Cloverfield.

Yeah.

But that will be covered next time.

Welcome to CrazyTown....

.....population: me. In fact, I am the queen.

So, it took a little bit to get used to my new routine of work and sleep and...... work and sleep. It's a bit weird, universities have started classes today and I'm not part of it. No rushing to class, no remembering schedules, no buying books. It's really weird.

Saw Sweeney Todd Friday; was quite interesting. There were three other people in the theatre with us; one of them was a guy who has seen the Broadway show a couple of times. He really enjoyed it. It was definitely dark and full of aerosol blood. There was blood spray everywhere; I instinctively ducked to the side sometimes.

The movie also caused a taste for meat pies. In fact, I believe meat pies are for lunch today...... excluding the whole cutting up and grinding down people bit. Which is a bit of a shame really.

So, there's been some prescreenings of Cloverfield and I've been avoiding most of the movie forums that I normally frequent. I want to wait to see the monster for myself and there's a few people out there that don't understand how to hide spoilers. Besides, I'm not sure that I have the self-control to stop myself from looking at the spoilers as well.

I've got some interesting stories from work to share, but I'm saving them for next time. As well as my thoughts on Portal (a super fantabulous game) :D

Happy Holidays!

One of my favorite holiday traditions: listening to "O Holy Night" sung by Eric Cartman.

Sky Kitten...

Sky kitten watches over all. Too bad it didn't show up while I was in London. It would have been interesting to have been on the eye at that moment.

So, being freshly done with school gives me tons of free time. Time to catch up on unplayed video games, unwatched and ranted about movies and recreational reading. I also have much more time to put toward blogging as well. So expect to see more posts than usual.

What? I'm bored.

Movies I am excited about (whether on DVD or theatre):
Cloverfield
Shoot 'em Up
Golden Compass
Sweeney Todd
the Machine Girl

for those curious about the Machine Girl, here's a link to the trailer : http://youtube.com/watch?v=MBt1SihHDt0

Check out my minicity and help my population grow : http://rosebranch.myminicity.com/

Currently obsessed with this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2h_AuyNArM&feature=related
The band wrote a song to the tune of the MegaMan 2 Wily stage theme. Super catchy and really cute.

Graduation, Cthulhu-style....

...would I want it any other way?

So, I am officially a graduate. Go me! :D

The ceremony was neat and not as long as I thought it was going to be. While everything leading up to it was nerve-wracking and I was sent into several mental meltdowns, the day finally came... and then went by insanely fast. At the end of the day I was left with a "is that it?" feeling.

I am currently transplanted at my parents' house. And while living rent-free is awesome, it's not really what I had planned on. But, I like to think of it as a bit of a sabbatical.

Although, honestly, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself when January comes around. I won't be going back to school... and that's a really, really weird feeling.

"No more school, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks."

I've been in school since I was 4... for 22 years, school has been a constant routine. I never took a semester off, I never took a break: I got my diploma and then hopped on my way to getting an Associate's and when I got that, I hopped on my way to getting a Bachelor's and after changing my major a couple of times, I got it... much to the enjoyment of my parents, friends, myself and, of course, Cthulhu.

But what do I do now?

Well, I've decided that when I ever get married, me, my groom and the rest of the wedding procession will be performing a rendition of "Thriller." Classy, yes?

I better start practicing now.

Looking Peculiar in Piccadilly Circus

I have no idea what I was doing in this photo... listening for the train maybe?

This picture was taken by a fellow British Studies student of Maddie, Catherine and I on our way to get our official Harry Potter 7 books. We left the dormitories at around 8.30p and didn't get back until 3.30a. But it was all in good Potter Madness fun. Yeah, I realize it's blurry but it still brings back great memories.

So, I'm working on getting my own website that hosts my photography; kinda like a huge, online photo album. But since my web hosting, web page making, computer skills and such are lacking I have to resort to begging people who have such skills to help me out. Until I can get this site up, I'll just have to be happy with having a few photos up at DeviantArt (follow the link found in my 'linkies' section) Nothing new has been posted in a while due to lack of editing software and the extreme backlog that ensued because of it. I'll be working on that during my sabbatical in Jackson and other points outward. But it's going to take a while: I've got photos dating back to June of this year and 1500+ photos from England/France alone to work through.

I'm adding some give free food links to the 'linkies' section and posting them here as well:

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=3

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Do your good deed of the day/week/month/year and give some people and pets some free food and care. :)

God Save the Interwebs

The Internet is a series of tubes, or so says a popular internet meme. But it really seems to have become more than that. I don't know anyone that doesn't come in contact with the Internet on a daily, or at least semi-daily, basis. Even my grandmum, who's fond of funny forwarded emails, is a frequent flyer on the Internet Airways. When people are asked what they cannot live without, Internet is pretty high on the list. Even during Hurricane Katrina, there were wistful conversations of cooked food, showers, favorite sitcoms and Internet.

Speaking of Katrina, I probably would have dealt with the whole situation better if I would have been able to see satellite images of the hurricane with huge macroed text personifying it by having it say something similar to: "I'm in your Gulf, rearranging your cities."

Granted, I did see these later on, but it wasn't the same.

Do we depend on Internet that much? Or is it just me?

Whether it's checking movie reviews and weather or researching cures for diseases, from mundane to serious, the Internet has become an integral of everyday functioning. If everything was to go belly up and the Internet was to be shut down for good, how many people would just atrophy away? How many riots would be going on in the streets? What in the world would we do? Are we that reliant?

I can see the headline now: "The Internet is Down; the End is Nigh."

There was an Internet outage campus wide awhile back and everyone suffered. Students weren't able to retrieve assignments left in their inboxes. Faculty weren't able to send out the aforementioned assignments. Getting the Student Printz (campus newspaper) together was a hassle. No serious (or otherwise) blogging could be done

Who else thinks that some sort of Internet generator should be made?

Much like generators of electricity, Internet generators would have an extra supply of Internet just waiting to get you through an Internet drought.

I should really market these. For she who controls the Internet, controls the world!

Besides, I have student loans to pay off and an Internet addiction to feed.

(This was an article I had written to turn in for Reporting class, I thought I would share some of my more interesting ones.)