Anyways, I am glad the semester is finally over. It turned out to be much more work than I originally thought it would, but I managed to complete it was a 4.0 average. My course load included:

• The Modern Novel
• English Literature I
• Children’s Literature
• Fantasy and Science Fiction
• American History II

I was prepared for a lot of reading and writing (and boy did I get it), but it was actually quite enjoyable. Since graduating high school (and truthfully sometime before), I hadn’t done much reading (outside of blogs, tutorials, and “coding” books, but this semester for the four English courses alone I read ~75 books and wrote about 31 papers, which seems somewhat high for four fifteen-week courses, but in all actuality was not as bad as one would believe. A number of the texts I read this semester I would highly recommend.

Read in “The Modern Novel:”

• The Stranger – Albert Camus
  The text in  follows the downfall of a stoic man following the death of his mother to his perceived “acceptance” of the meaningless of life and of his coming execution.
• Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
  The text, set during the early twentieth century follows two families, a cliched American family and an Eastern European family of immigrants in and around New York City.  The magic realism (using actual people or events and adding fictional elements to the point where the division between reality and fiction is blurred) of the text illustrates the changing attitudes in America during the era and calls into question the perceived aura of perfection of the era.
• The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
  This text was my favorite (followed by Ragtime), read in “The Modern Novel.”  Morrison’s tragedy follows a young black girl, cast aside due to her skin color and familial circumstances, struggling to find acceptance by attaining the “bluest eyes in the world,” thus embracing society’s ideal portrayal of beauty.
• The Tortilla Curtain – T.C. Boyle
  This text follows two families, one of American descent and one of Mexican Immgrants who following a hit-and-run become entangled in each others lives.  Boyle’s text illustrates the effects of illegal immigration on not only American citizens but also on the illegal immigrants.
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
  This text, I will admit, was probably the hardest vocabulary and allusion-wise but is worth the struggle in the end.  The text set in Nineteenth Century England follows the fall of a man from polite society after a confrontation with the titular “French Lieutenant’s Woman.”  This text is unique as it twists the rules generally associated with a novel.
• Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn
  The last text read in “The Modern Novel,” was a short epistolary (written in letters) novel following a fictional island in which letters, after falling from a statue in the center of town, are outlawed.  The text starts out normally (albeit with a sophisticated vocabulary) and concludes in what can only be compared to a game of Mad Gab.

In Fantasy and Science Fiction I read: Frankenstein, 1984, The Giver, Feed, American Gods and The Golden Compass.  While I did enjoy nearly all of the texts read in this class (Frankenstein in paticular), I did not enjoy them in nearly the same was as I did the texts of “The Modern Novel.”  If for some reason you’re interested in the other texts I’ve read this semester and want to see what I think, check out my BellaBiblio page (This is a work in progress).

On a less academic note, I renewed my interest in the original Spyro The Dragon games, particularly Ripto’s Rage (Gateway to Glimmer) and Year of the Dragon.  I don’t know what it is (perhaps something about the gems…), but I love playing these games–despite the fact that I’ve beaten them both numerous times.

I figured I would give a shout out to Jason Mills who sold me a used copy of Spyro Year of the Dragon.  He was prompt and courteous and I would definitely recommend him to anyone looking for electronics or video game stuff.

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Anyways, turns out today on “Chiller,” Sleepaway Camp 2 and 3 were on and I couldn’t help but watch it. The lines are kinda cheesy, and the plot is predictable, but like a train wreck, you cannot look away. Oh well.
A 24 hour horror movie marathon isn’t a bad way to start ones break from school.

Anyways, back to the dog. Last night at around 2:30, I ran to the local Byrne Dairy and was helped by some creepy, impish lady with absolutely no personality. After getting my caffeine fix, I return home and come inside. I look up the stairs (which are conveniently located near the door) and there is no one there. I turn to put my keys on the hook and turn around again, and there she is, eyes WIDE open and staring. I’m sure anyone would jump after seeing what I saw.

I let her outside and went into my room in the basement. I continue working on my Psychology test and after about ten minutes, I go to get her. Wiping the mud off her paws and taking her back to my sisters room, I returned downstairs. I turned off my light and got ready to go to sleep. Just as I roll over to reposition my pillow, I saw something move from the corner of my eye. I quickly looked and there was nothing there. I finish repositioning my pillows and all of a sudden… there the dog is, staring at me, teeth showing and everything. Once again, she freaked me out. After five minutes of her sitting on me and attempting to lick my face, I managed to get her to settle down. The next thing I knew, she was asleep at the foot of my bed.

So, now that I’ve managed to steal about three minutes of your life, do dogs normally sneak up on people, or is Sasha (the dog), have ulterior motives?

but much to my enjoyment, this layout was there instead:

Now honestly, which one looks better? The second one without question. It’s been almost two years since a layout has made that much of an impact on me—and in fact this is the first “professional” layout to do so.

But yesterday I received a spam message that bypassed the filter and took me a second to notice its fishiness.

erik has sent you a link to a post on Consumerist:

Title: Tell A Friend: You WILL NOT Need Cable After The Digital TV Switch
Link: http://consumerist.com/5115821/tell-a-friend-you-will-not-need-cable-after-the-digital-tv-switch

erik says: VIAGRA, VICODIN, CIALIS! +more Innternational Rx is having a huge sale! Worldwide overnight shipping, Very descreet, no prescription required. http://www.****.com/redir?url=http://groups.google.com/group/****

What was funny is I know someone named Erik who at one point wold send me links like that, and the day before I received it, I was talking to Chris Van Patten about The Consumerist, and funnily enough about tvs and high definition.

They would’ve gotten away with it too had they put a bit more space between the consumerist link and the VIAGRA, VICODON, and CIALIS links. Oh, and if you are going to spam me, be sure to spell-check your document and possibly spell your company name correctly.

Tell me how pathetic this is, I’m 18 and a Nickelodeon/Nicktoons aficionado—I mean, I know em all from the “Backyardigans”, to “Rocko’s Modern Life”, and even some of the more obscure Nicktoons, like “The Mighty B!” and “The Secret Show.” Basically, I’m a 9 year old at heart and you can imagine my anger when I found out my local Cable company is pulling the plug on ALL Viacom channels (this includes Nickelodeon, MTV, Noggin, TV Land, etc). While I don’t paticularly care for MTV, TV Land and the few other Nickelodeon “sister stations” are frequented while I’m coding.

At 12:01am on January 1, these stations will go black and we’ll be stuck with Disney *gag* and the Time Warner’s own shitty news and entertainment stations. Now before you go and pull the “You still watch TV on TV?!, I must say that I am going to miss the Nicktoons talking in the background as I work and not having to worry about clicking “Next” or “Continue” when watching shows—not to mention getting my cartoon fix without breaking the law.

Either way, it should be interesting to see what the eighteen viacom channels will be replaced with, but I can almost guarantee it’ll be shitty…

Anyways, I have been working at Best Buy since late July and despite its negative connotations among the geeks of the world, I have to say I enjoy it. I started off selling computers but lacked the, erm… immorality needed confidence to sell the service plans. I was then moved to receiving (and came close to quitting). Finally, two days before Black Friday (November 28) I was moved to Administration (checkout and returns). I do admit I like it better up there and thankfully I didn’t take the rash action of quitting.

Now some of you may be wondering what the hell happened to Dunkin Doughnuts, well simply it was the most tedious and irritating job I have EVER had. Nothing better than being screamed at for too little (or too much) sugar or cleaning up puke in a parking lot.

As for college, I am in my last week of this semester and I am looking forward to being done with my classes for a few weeks. Overall I am doing well with my lowest grade being around an A-. My only issue is attendance, surprisingly driving 20 miles to class every day got old, who would’ve thought!. Next semester I managed to get most of my classes online so I should have the attendance issues… hopefully.

And finally, I managed to get Zeisu (you know, the project I was working on for a couple years, killed and restarted numerous times, and generally bugged the shit out of people with) to a working state. The irritating Beta page is gone and registration—through openID and username/pass—is open. Feel free to play around and attempt to destroy it look for holes and report them to me. Also be sure to post any features you’d like to see.

And before I get a rush of emails, I am well aware that the last thing the world needs is another social network, but give it a try. The amount of customization should be to your liking.

So that about sums up the last few weeks, or months rather. Now lets see if I can get back into the habit of posting more than twice a year…

It was a long and tedious task, but finally we finished. Weeks slowly went by then my mom (and a few other members of my family who will remain unnamed) decided they were homesick. So lucky me, I got to move everything back to the first house. Nothing better than a rousing game of musical houses.

So following the move, a series of mishaps involving various shitty telecommunication companies, a set of demon children and pit bulls and a depressing bout of unemployment, things have finally begun to slow down… but for how long?

This time, I plug in the box and try the vcr. The VCR had eaten a tape. “Thats what was making the noise” it thought to myself. Taking the tape out, I unplugged the vcr. The buzzing went one one more time. Freaking out, I unplugged everything in that corner of the room.

You can imagine how freaked out I was when I heard the buzzing again. Running over, I saw it was my fricking cell phone. God I feel like such an idiot. *smacks head*

Anyways, I’m tired beyond belief and must sleep.