KleenexTissue50's WWYD Journal

This is KleenexTissue50's Journal for Ed Bellis's What Would You Do. It chronicles a week in the life of Kleenex in March of 2008.

March 11, 2008
Dawn of the First Day

I don't actually get up at dawn. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are my 'early' days, and even then, my first class doesn't start until 10:25AM. Normally I set my alarm for 9:30, but today I was woken up by what I could only assume was a dying elephant. It turned out that it was just my roomate's fan (the room is like 500 million degrees in the winter) decided to do...well...something. That's thing's not getting turned on any time soon again. Anyway, after silencing the vile noise, I zonked out until my real alarm went off and then did the snooze thing for a while. Shower, breakfast, etc, made it to class barely on time. Whatever.

First class of the day is Calc 3 which is pretty lame because I kinda suck at it. That's a different story for a different day (perhaps one where I can't figure out what to write for 4096 words)! Even though I'm not doing too well in the class, I still like going just to listen to the professor talk. He's got this thick Russian accent and for some reason I get a kick out him listening to him pronounce things. Don't ask why because I don't know. I zoned out for the hour as per usual. Perhaps that's why I'm not doing well in the class! Afterwards I went and got lunch with a few people and then headed back to the room for a while. I think it was about this time that I was pitching some awesome WWYD Day 15 ideas to Ed and he said they all sucked and went with this journal thing instead. Lame. For the next hour or so, I accomplished pretty much nothing. I actually couldn't even tell you what I was doing, to be honest. I think I was watching some videos on Youtube.

At about 1:30 I decided to head over to the theater (I work in the shop there building sets for the plays) to help out a bit. We have a new Technical Director in this semester and he runs things a little different so almost no one comes in to work anymore and everything gets way behind. I am guilty of this myself. Today was nothing special, just legging up platforms for the next set which is being designed by the whack-job professor in the Creative Arts department. Originally he wanted a 'river' built through the center of the theater that was 60' x 8' x 1'. Which is a crap-load of water if you do all the calculations, and the floor probably wouldn't have held it. The set was redesigned into something equally as stupid and will probably change at least once a week as it usually does with all of his shows.

Anyway, worked there for about an hour then went downstairs to my Music Theory class which is pretty much a joke. Well, it's not so much the class as the professor. Which seems to be the theme of the Creative Arts department at my school. Today was just random composing, so I did my thing for a while and class got out early because I don't think the professor realizes that it should be an hour longer than he lets us out. Went back to the room for a little bit then headed over to the School of Science building for a math talk at 5:00. Normally I don't go to these, but I was getting extra credit for my Calc class (aw yeah) and I need it. I didn't really follow what was going and was busy solving a Picross puzzle I found, but hey extra points are extra points.

After the talk I had to work on a Programming Language project, so I went down to the CS Lab and lo and behold half the class is also there working on it. As is usually the case when you get three or more of the CS Majors in the lab at the same time, nothing gets done and we sat there and screwed around for a good 4 hours. Miraculously, some of the project actually got done, but it's slow going because the program we have to write the project in, no one knows how to use because it was never explained to us. The program also sucks. So most of the actual 'work' comprised of typing in random code and hoping it would do something. By 10:00 or so, I got tired and decided that roughtly 40% of the project was 'good enough' for me right now. It's not due until...uh...tomorrow at midnight. Woo. On my way back to my room I realized I have a bunch of other crap to do for Friday and now I have to figure out when to do all of it. Probably after I finish typing this up!

Which brings me to where I am now, I suppose. Fun and exciting. Hopefully this weekend'll be better 'cause I'm gonna be going back home for Spring Break, so maybe I'll have more to write about. Probably not.

March 12, 2008
Dawn of the Second Day

Actually, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I get up at noon because I don't have class until 1:00. I woke up pretty tired today becaus my roommate's been sick, so he was snoring. And he was snoring like a beast. Drowned out the noise with some music and finally manage to fall asleep after a few hours. First thing I did when I woke up was check my e-mail because notification for housing next year were going out today. We got the off-campus apartment which we were gunning for, so the day started out on a high note. After being stucking in a double for 3 years, finally having my own room and my own bathroom and a kitchen is going to be amazing. It's only about a 10 minute drive from campus and seeing as I'm probably only going to have classes twice a week next semester, it should be awesome. Aw yeah. Still need to sort out a few things for the apartment, but that's mostly minor. Like who's going to buy a new TV for the common room, because my 13" piece of crap isn't going to work.

After that I did the normal morning stuff, shower and breakfast (well, lunch I suppose) and headed off to my first class of the day - Programming Languages. The class period today was dedicated to answering questions about the project due at midnight, which was nice, so I made a bit of progress on that. Not a lot, but some, so that was nice. After PL I sit in on a Networking class, but today the professor just decided to show us Youtube videos for half the class. Not complaining because I was starting to fall asleep at this point. After that, it was off to Calc lab, which I usually loathe because there's this creepy little kid who sits at my table that twitches and mutters to himself all period. Weird. Thankfully, today's lab was pretty short and I finished in about half the time allotted. I even understood most of it! Maybe I can pull off a passing grade in that class yet. Having some spare time I went to grab something to eat from the sub shop (aw yeah meatball subs) on campus before heading back to the CS Lab to finish my Programming Languages project.

Back in the lab, it was business as usual - no one getting any work done. Spent a good 3 hours there working on this thing. We managed to get about 85% of it finished (the last to parts were just too daunting to even attempt), so we decided to settle for that. The professor is usually pretty lenient with grading projects, so that should be an 80 or so, which is fine by me. To be perfectly honest, even if the later parts were attempted, we probably wouldn't have gotten any points for it. After turning that in, I had to write up a quick paper for my Computer Science & Film class, which was complete garbage, but whatever. It's a 1-credit course and an easy A. By this time, pretty much everyone in the lab had vacated because Lost was about to start, as is customary on Thursday nights. Apparently the show is 'kind of a big deal' or something. Before leaving I stopped in to talk to some of my professors about some summer research I plan on doing here. As long as all the papers do through for that, it should be a good time. A far better alternative to going back home and working at ShopRite for 3 months - which is my usual summer routine.

9:00, headed back to the room and started packing things to leave tomorrow so I can get out of here as soon as my last class is over, and then got some Brawl in. Just kinda playing around in the game now because I've unlocked everything major already. Ran through Classic Mode with a few more people and did some target tests and stadium stuff. Nothing major. Played that for an hour or so, successfully distracting my roommate from a paper he's supposed to be writing. At which point I realized it was 11:00 and I should proabably write my WWYD entry. So here we are. After I'm finished with this, I'm probably gonna play some Fire Emblem 7 for a little while before heading off to bed. I should to laundry, but I'm too lazy and I'll probably save that for when I go home.

March 14, 2008
Dawn of the Third Day

I know realize that my day count as been off by one day. Not sure how that happened. I have done it every day so far! I just...picked the wrong date to start for whatever reason. Today was even more boring than the last two, but try and bear with me.

Friday is 9:30 wakeup, but I decided to set my alarm for 9:00 so I could finish up packing and leave as soon as my classes were over (woo spring break). Unfortunately, I didn't actually get to sleep until like 4:30 last night, so my sleep was minimal. Woke up pretty damn tired, but suffered through it and a shower woke me up a little bit. Afterwards, I packed up everything else I was going to bring home - Computer, Wii, dirty laundry and threw it into the back of my car, then headed off to get some breakfast. Of course, the calfeteria never actually has cereal out when normal people eat breakfast, so I was stuck having a muffin and some juice. I was running a little late so there was no time for anything extravigant. Made it to class just on time, as usual.

Calc 3 was, of course, pretty boring. My lack of sleep was kicking in at about this time and I think I was only half-concious during class, so I really couldn't tell you what we were learning about. I'll have to look into that later on. After Calc I stopped by my Web Design professor's room (took his class last semester) and informed him that the sample site he was using for the class has been hacked by some script kiddies. It was a pretty poor job, so he just kind of laughed at it, but I figured he might want to fix it just in case people actually use it for some reason. That was only a small detour before my 2nd and last class on Friday - Game Theory.

Much like Computer Science & Film, this is only a one-credit course that meets once a week, but it's probably my favorite class this semester. Basically each person in the class (there's only 7) has to take some kind of two-player game and analyze over the course of the semester and write a paper on it for the final project. I'm attempting to find a winning strategy for Mancala, and it's pretty cool so far. I love analyzing things like that and it's pretty much the only area of Mathematics I enjoy anymore (boo Calc). The class is really informal and the professor is awesome, so it usually goes by pretty quickly and it's a nice way to finish up the week of classes.

After Game Theory I wanted to bolt out and head back home, but my roommate convinced me to grab some lunch with him before I left, which was probably a good idea in retrospect because I hate stopping at rest stops to get food. Nasty stuff. Finished lunch at about 1:00, headed back to the room to make sure that I hadn't forgotten anything, then headed out to make the 2.5 hour drive back home. It's a pretty boring trip, but it's fairly easy for the most part and I'm used to it by now. Considering I only make it once a month or so, I don't mind it all that much.

Got back home just before 4:00pm, unpacked my stuff and sorted through all the mail that I had gotten while I was up at school. It was all garbage, as it always is. Except my tax refund. Aw yeah money. I need it because the brakes on my car are shot and I need new ones. So much for the money. Back at home I just kinda chilled out for a while, watched some TV, etc until dinner. After dinner I decided to play some Brawl again. Did Classic mode on Intense just to see how bad it really was, because the AI's been pretty ramped up. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I did need to use two continues. Still, not terrible for a first attempt, and I think I'll be able to knock that down to no continues in a fairly short period of time.

That's about it for today. I'm heading out in a few minutes to meet up with some of my friends back home, so I'll probably be out most of the night. When I get back I may try some online Brawl before I go to sleep. Played one match earlier and there was some weird controller delay. Not sure if it was just that match or what, but I'll fiddle with some options and see what happens.

March 15, 2008
Dawn of the Fourth Day

I'm a little early today, but I'm going out tonight, so I'll miss today if I don't do it now. Today was the first full day of the Spring Break, so as is customary when I'm home, I slept late. Until like 2 in the afternoon. Aw yeah. This is partially due to the fact that I was out later last night than I planned and didn't get to sleep until about 4 in the morning. First thing I went to do was get some breakfast, but once again there was no food in the house. This seems to happen every time I come home. Perhaps my parents are trying to tell me something !! I scrounged around and eventually found some cereal. Wasn't the best, but it was about all I could do without having to go out and buy something myself. Showered up after breakfast - nothing like finally being able to shower in a non-public bathroom.

Once I was all cleaned up and whatnot, I headed downstairs and booted up my computer. My laptop's monitor has been on the fritz lately, and today was a bad day, so I had to go ahead and find an external monitor and hook it up. So now I have his sloppy rigging set up downstairs just to use my computer. I need to get a new one, but I can't afford anything right now. I'm thinking I'll probably invest in getting a new one sometime this summer, but we'll see. The setup I have now may be clumsy, but it works for the most part, even though the max resolution on the external monitor blows. I've gotten used to it.

Anyway, I decided to download the most recent episode of Survivor. I used to follow the show pretty religiously, but once I went to college I kind of lost interest. Seeing as this was a pseudo-All Stars season, I figured I'd check it out, as I do still enjoy the show when I can. Unfortunately, I have class when it airs, so I need to download the episode the following day or two, but that's a minor inconvinience. The season has been pretty lousy so far, though. At least for me. All the players I had liked when it started are gone now, so there isn't a whole lot left I'm rooting for. Ah well, that always seems to happen with All Star editions of reality shows. After that was over it was probably around 4:00 or so and I decided to give some online Brawl a shot. I played one match yesterday but some more people were around this afternoon. Unfortunately, the lag was about 10 times worse than last night. I played matches against 4 people. One of them was completely unbearable. The rest were more laggy than yesterday, but at least they were somewhat playable. I think the biggest thing that bothers me, though, is this weird controller lag I get in online times, where my input and actions have about a 1/2 second delay on that. Totally kills my timing and makes it really hard to play. Overall the online system is pretty sloppy in the game, but I'll go ahead and assume it's my internet connection until I get some more matches in.

And for the record, skill level of people I've played so far - Sess > TheRye > Destoyer > WVI > pxl

I'd probably put myself inbetween Rye and Destoyer at this point if I had to place myself somewhere. It is hard to gauge though, considering the conditions were less than optimal. Kind of frustrating because I know I could have put up a much better fight against the people I lost to. I'm hoping there will be some fixes to the system that makes online matches run smoother, otherwise I don't see myself partaking in them very often. Not like it matters much because once I'm off Spring Break, I'm back to an internet connection that I can't connect my Wii too. Augh.

That was about it for today. Didn't get much accomplished because I woke up so late. This is likely also be the case tomorrow! I'm heading out now to hang with some friends and play Brawl lag-free "aw yeah". Most of them have never played the game yet, so I should be able to have my way with them muahahaha. We ight play some Rock Band too, depends on how well they all take to Brawl. Might get tired of it after playing for like 6 hours, but who knows! I need to bring my Wii though because no one else has save data for it. Having hard drives in my consoles is kind of making me miss memory cards. And no, I'm not going to spend extra money on an SD Card. Not like you can save Brawl data to it anyway. I wonder who thought this was a good idea.v

March 16, 2008
Noon of the Fifth Day

I figured it was stupid to keep using dawn when I never get up before 12:00 anyway. Got up today at around 2:30 or so. I was out a lot later last night than I figured I would be - didn't get in until quarter after 4am. Woo 7 straight hours of Brawl. I should actually start trying to go to sleep earlier, but my sleep schedule is so messed up it'll be hard to get fixed. Oh well. Once again, there was nothing to eat for breakfast this morning. Had to tough it out with some lousy cereal again. Looks like my parents went food shopping today, though, so I should finally have something to eat tomorrow.

After doing the rest of the normal morning routine (shower, etc.), I headed downstairs and booted up the computer. It's been a week since Brawl came out, and my pseudo New Year's Resolution was to write and submit a review for every game I beat this year. I've played well over 30 hours of the game in the past week, and completed nearly everything the single-player has to offer, as well as spend countless hours with the multiplayed, so I figured I had enough experience with the game to write up a review for it. Turns out I had way more to write than I thought and managed to churn out the longest review I've written so far, coming in at about four and a half pages in MS Word. It's no Ashley Winchester, but I was stilled pretty shocked that I could go on for that long about the game. If I wanted to be really cheap, I'd post it here and fulfill my posting requirements for the next three days, but I won't do that because Ed said no loopholes with a GRR this time. I'll post the link to it here when I write tomorrow's entry for anyone who is interested (which is no one).

I spent more time on the review than I had figured, but no big deal. After I finished that up and submitted it, I think I just surfed the boards here for a while. To be completely honest, I don't remember what I did for about an hour before I at dinner, which means it probably wasn't very exciting. Maybe watched TV or something. I ate dinner around 6:30 or so and I've got to mention how much better eating dinner is at home than having the same old cheeseburgers and pizza I have at school. After dinner I headed back downstairs and played some Fire Emblem 7. I started the game about a week ago and I haven't been playing it that much, but I get in a few missions here and there and I'm enjoying it just as much, if not mroe than Fire Emblem 8 so far (the only other game I've played in the series aside from the first 3 missions in Fire Emblem 4). I'm just about done with Lyn's portion of the game - I think I've got some more mission to go. It's been pretty easy so far, but then again, that's to be expected seeing as all of Lyn's stuff is just a glorified tutorial. About halfway through the mission I was on, I got interrupted because the rest of the family had rented a movie and wanted to watch it. I asked what they got, and it was Michael Clayton, which is something I wanted to watch myself, so I turned of the game in favor of that.

The movie was pretty good. I certainly enjoyed it anyway. I don't know that it was Best Picture Nominee worthy, but I didn't really think there was anything wrong with it. Certainly one of the better movies I've seen in the past year or so. After that was over I flipped through the channels on the television for a while and ended up settling on Iron Chef, which was already halfway through, but there was nothing else on, so I decided to stick with it until it was over. By then it was about 11:00 or so, and I was getting hungry again, so I went and grabbed a quick snack before heading back downstairs and starting to type up my journal entry for today. The day is almost over, so I'll have to wrap this up soon.

As for the rest of the night, I'll either go back to Fire Emblem 7 and try and get through a few more mission on there, or I might start watching Season 1 of Lost. I've been kind of curious about the show for a while now, seeing as everyone is talking about it, and I've got a week off for Spring Break, so I've got some time on my hands. If I don't actually start it tonight, I'll probably do so within the next few days. So yeah, today was just as boring as the past few days, if not moreso. Glad I've only got two more of these to go, because I'm running out of ways to drag these things out longer than they should really be !!

March 17, 2008
Noon of the Sixth Day

Running a little late, so I need to make this quick, even though Bellis gave us some leniency with the times these needed to be posted. Today was another 2:30 day. I stayed up late last night watching Lost. Got through 3 episodes and I'm liking it so far. Not quite as much as 24, but it's a fair substitute while that's no on. Anyway, today there was actually food in the house! Shocking, I know. I decided to go for some waffles because I was too lazy to make anything that required more effort than a toaster oven. They were decent, but I've had better. The Aunt Jemima ones aren't as good as the Eggos and they get kinda soggy which is pretty gross. Still better than the cereal I've been stuck with the past two days, though. After I took my shower I called up one of my friends and sorted out my plans for the remainder of the week. Kind of - nothing we ever do is really set in stone. It's more of a "hey we gonna do something?" conversation, but at least it's a start for getting something going.

Went downstairs after that and checked out the board for a while. My Brawl review was posted, and I'm sure you're all dying to read it so here you go.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/wii/review/R123357.html

Longest review I've written so far, by far, but I think I already mentioned that yesterday, so I'm just fishing for extra characters in this post right now. After I sorted that out, tranny found an awesome typo in the review, so you can go ahead and see if you can find it (though there are probably more than one). I decided to play a little Brawl this afternoon (I've not played as much since my 7 hour marathon the other day) and I did a few of the challenges I had. Nothing that was too tedious - a few simple ones like the combo total in training mode and some target test junk. I also went and finally downloaded Breath of Fire II on the Virtual Console. I bought it over Christmas break, but was having trouble downloading it, so I just kinda left it seeing as there wasn't much I could do about it. I won't be able to start it for a while, I'm in the middle of too many games right now, but it's there for when I feel like getting to it.

Speaking of games I need to finished, I played some more Fire Emblem 7 and finished up Lyn's story. It was only 2 more missions, so this wasn't really a very big accomplishment, but making progress is better than I can say for most of the other games I'm working on right now (haven't touched Wild ARMs or Lunar Knights in well over a week, not to mention Donkey Kong Country 3, Sin & Punishment, Zelda 2 and a ton of other games that haven't seen the light of day in much longer lengths of time). I'll probably go a few missions into Eliwood's story later tonight after I finish writing this. Either that or play a bit more Brawl, I may try to get in a few more online matches tonight, who knows.

Ate dinner after Fire Emblem but it wasn't that good. I'm not a big fan of chicken in general, and there were some nasty Betty Crocker Sweet Potatoes that smelled like French Toast but tasted like garbage, so I made myself a tuna sandwich instead. After dinner I went back and watched two more episodes of Lost. It's still good and I'm liking the background I get on everyone that's on the island, but I'd like to see the central story start to move forward soon. Perhaps a quick inequality to help boost the word count here? Hurley > Jack > Locke > Charlie > Sawyer > Kate. None of the other characters are really that exciting in my mind, Syeed is alright, Boone is kinda boring, and his sister sucks. I'm sure they'll all become more relevant as the show continues, though.

And that's about it for today. Pretty boring, once again, but aren't they all? Like I said, I might play some more Fire Emblem after I post this, but I'm thinking I might go back to Lost instead. I won't do either before getting something to eat, though, because I'm starving right now. I'm also almost out of time, so hopefully this is long enough and I won't have to add any more to meet the character limit!

March 18, 2008
Evening of the Final Day

Glad this challenge is almost over, I was getting tired of writing the same thing every day. I woke up a bit earlier than usual today - around 1:00 or so. Shocking, I know, but I've got no real reason for it, I still went to be bed just as late as I normally do. Played some online Brawl with transience and AKJ last night which was fun. Josh's Pikachu is pretty good. tranny's Toon Link was uh...ok. <_< It was fun regardless because I didn't have to deal with lag, aside from the controller delay which I actually got used to fairly quickly. Anyway, today was the normal morning schedule, breakfast, shower, blah blah. There really isn't much more to say about it aside from what I've already said the past six days. After all that I gave one of my friends a call just to finalize what's going on tomorrow (for real this time). Looks like a trip to the mall and catching a movie. What movie, I have no idea. Not even sure that's playing right now. I'm sure we'll find something, though.

After that got all settled I fired up Brawl and played Cokes for a little bit. The lag was horrendous and after two matches we decided it was unplayable and gave up. That'll team me to have online matches during the day. (I would have totally beaten him in a lag-free match, don't let him tell you otherwise! He's good, though) So, I aborted that idea fairly quickly and decided to surf the board for a while. That didn't go over as well either because it just doesn't interest me that much anymore. I still enjoy the social aspect and I follow a contest or two, but I just feel out of touch with what everyone else around here seems to be into (aside from Brawl, apparently). My AMP has dropped significantly over the past month or two - down to like 200 and half of those are secret board posts. Ah well, not biggie. Instead I decided to fire up Fire Emblem 7 and made some good progress on that. Up to chapter 18x, I believe. The game is still pretty easy, but it's nice to be at a point where it doesn't hold your hand all the time anymore. And Hector is awesome - I can see why everyone likes him so much. I see myself finishing the game within the next few days or so, I've been making good progress on it since I've been on Spring Break. I'm hoping I can find some time to finish up a few more games over the break, too. I'd at least like to get through Lunar Knights and maybe Donkey Kong Country 3. Depends on how lazy I am. At least it's not as bad as last year...I think I only finished like 10 games. only 850 more until i beated 1000 watch out

After I was done with Fire Emblem, I just decided to chill and watch some TV for a while. Of course there was nothing on, but I flipped through the channels for about an hour or so before dinner. Dinner was just leftovers from the other day, but it's still better than school food, so I can't complain too much. After dinner I was forced to suffer through American Idol as my family watched it and I was all augh, but I managed to survive thankfully. After that was over I grabbed some snacks and watched another episode of Lost. Still nothing really bad to say about the show, but I'm hoping it picks up soon. I have been assured that it will, though, so I'm not too worried. My sources are reliable for the most part !! I'll probably try to get in another episode tonight, but I've also got a Brawl match with cro_ lined up, so we'll see how that goes. Apparently his router's been giving him trouble, so this could end up being as bad as it was against Cokes. Hopefully not, though.

And I do believe that is all! I hope you all enjoyed listening to what exciting things I've been doing all week (all two of you), because I know I sure as hell haven't. Maybe next week I'll try to do something exciting like leave the house or rob a bank and take over the world. Running out of time, so it's time to wrap this up. And no, I am totally not trying to stall for time here. Not really time I suppose, but words. Characters, even. Ok, I'm done.

[Category:WWYD]]