Hookah for All

Today is a busy day, at least for me. We, the ISU Hookah Circle have been asked by the president of the SSDP, Gary Sawyer, has asked us to be present on the quad for Hemp Fest. This really marks a turning point in the way Hookah Smokers are perceived, at least I think it is. Where as before we were the hippies that sat around and smoked out of what appear to be colorful bongs, now we are representing in a relatively big celebration at the request of someone who might be able to help a problem we have encountered. You see, there's been a policy change that goes into affect (effect?) next semester that will ban all smoking on the quad. While the intended targets of this were the cigarette smokers who leave their buds, stubs, or whatever the hell you call them everywhere on the ground, we hookah smokers, who don't litter or dirty the quad by smoking, have been caught up in this as collateral damage. We are a social and unique culture that I haven't found anything similar to in all my years of moving from base to base. That should count for something. We are not malevolent or malcontent people. If any of you have walked by us while we were smoking, we probably invited you over and had a good laugh with you if you accepted, or wished you a pleasant evening if you didn't. That's another thing, even though we are a unique culture, so far as my experience goes, we are very welcoming and more then happy to let whoever smoke with us, whether it's just once, or you keep coming back for more. We're just that kind of friendly people. So why don't you come on out and see us later? Stay for a puff, a bowl, or the afternoon. Meet some new people, have a new experience, and just have a good time. I'll be there, and I hope you will be to.

Word count --340

Topics

Todays topic is the topic of our proposal paper. As some of you may know,I have had a week of living hell so I might be changing the stance I take on this but only because I don't feel like arguing the losing side. As of right now, my topic is that video games do not cause violent tendencies in gamers outside of the games any more then a violent game of football or comparable activities. The reason I'm taking this stance is I'm absolutely sick and tired of seeing the way older generations shy away from me when they ask what I like to do in my free time because I game. I've actually lost a job interview because “ it is the opinion of the owner of this establishment that the applicants activities outside of work may make him a danger to the store and other employees.” I am not a violent person. It takes me a great deal more to get truly angry then many of my other non gamer friends actually. Among my gamer friends, very few of them exibit overtly violent behaviors. There are the occasional “I'm going to fucking kill you!”s but that's because we're passionate about what we do. You'll get similar reactions with a hardcore football fan watching his team losing while a fan of the opposing team laughs or anything that one is truly passionate about, that is competitive, and really get's the blood pumping. That's actually the source of the reason so many people think video games make people violent. There isn't that much you can compare it to that's as...action packed, adrenaline inducing, and competitive so it's difficult to compare it to. That being said, it does compare to other pass times, it is no worse then other activities that people participate in. It might actually be viewed as better because while a soccer game in some countries would incite a riot, all a gamer can do is curse into the headset and make derisive comments about one anothers mothers. Fewer people get hurt because of that.

Word count 353

Mass Effect 3 Review

   Mass Effect 3, where do I begin? First off let's start off with my history with this mind blowingly awesome trilogy. I started five years ago, sitting in my room in O'fallon Illinois, wondering what in the hell my friends on xbox live had just talked me into buying but as I started playing I got more and more into it I started devoting more and more time to it. I couldn't put the controller down. I think after a month of just exploring the universe, as I was approaching the end, I only left my room to eat dinner and use the rest room. I was really drawn into this universe and have been with it ever since. The second game came out and I camped out for three hours for my copy. I didn't care for the dumbed down inventory system or the removal of any customization in the weapons but I played it anyway. Still a good story and an excellent ending. So you can understand how I was really psyched for the third one once it was announced. I read up on every bit of information and speculation on the game, pre-ordered it as soon as it was announced, and not only drove back too my home town from college (two hour drive both ways), but also had class at 9:00 a.m. the next day and waited outside for 5 hours.

   Finally having my copy I imported my first character, a fem Shepard named Rachel, and began an epic conclusion. The game was amazingly comprehensive and seeing the results of what I did (the Rachni, Wrex being alive, not saving Chambers in time) really showed through. I really felt the amount of time they put into it. I cried when Thane died and damn near yelled with pride when Mordin sacrificed himself. I loved it. Even the moments when I hated it I loved it because it was just put together so well. I finally came to the ending, fought my way through hell and back, and was faced with my decision. I didn't get enough points so synthesis wasn't an option for me. I proudly limped up to the Renegade option and pulling a trigger has never felt so damn good. Then came the final cut scene. I watched it and I was so sad. I watched the relays blow and knew that I was the source of the end of intergalactic travel. I didn't think anything of how short it was because I thought because I didn't get enough galactic readiness is the reason I didn't get a good ending. So I did it again. Loaded a male Shepard named Vasilli and played through the game again. I did everything and got my point well above the 5000 limit so imagine my surprise when the ending came and sucked just as badly. It was so short and gave so little closure it just left me feeling dirty as a gamer. Getting ripped off so hard when I had such high hopes for the game. I ranted and raved until the police actually came up to my friends dorm where we were playing to see what the hell was going on. I refuse to play it until they come out with that new ending. I even liked the online play and I’m usually completely opposed to adding multiplayer to single player games.

My ratings of the game:
6 out of 5 stars without the ending
3 out of 5 with the ending.
It was that bad.


word count 579

Mass Effect 3

I have waited years for this, the conclusion to an epic that has changed the gaming industry. I drove home and waited in the cold in shorts in a t-shirt for hours on the hope that they would have a spare copy of the collectors addition. Many jokes, and a minor case of pneumonia later, I finally had it. The item I have spoken so kindly about.

I came home that mourning, too tired to play, and slept for an hour or two. Most sleep I’ve gotten since I got this game. I dove into it with a passion, rivaled only by a starving man upon a buffet line, or an outcast chancing upon a new town. We ate little, my friend and I, determined to finish our digital quests before spring break. Slept little as well. The game brought out the best and worse in us, parading images of cooperation, allegiance against a common foe, and hope if done correctly. Deaths of old friends or entire races lost if we failed. I cried and laughed as the story drove closer and closer to a close, sharing jokes with characters I feel I’d known for years, and mourning the ones I could not save. We took breaks only for classes, surviving off the subway one would purchase one the way back or some instant ramen. Sleep was inconsequential to us in comparison to the goal, finish the battle years in the making.

                The battle finally dwindled to an end as once more you are faced with a choice. A choice that would shape the galaxy forever. I made my choice and sat and watched as the shock wave tore through the mass relays that link the systems, destroying not only the Reaper threat, but all means of interstellar travel. My Commander Shepard will never see her friends again. Asari, Quarian, Turian, Salarian, Krogan, all stranded, unable to communicate with each other. My Shepard will never hold his loved ones again, never see the white picket fence they talked so endearingly about, never build the house. I cried realizing there was no other option, not for me anyways. I’ve always brought my morals to the table when I play. It turned Mass Effect 3 into an epic for the ages and by far the best game I’ve ever played. Keela Sal’ai

Word count -  395

My Rental Experience

                I chose to rent a movie instead of going to the theater.  It’s not that I don’t like going to the theater, it’s that I have no time. I’m writing this at 7:22 3/2 for Petes sake. Regardless, here is how it went. Now, I’ve been into the video rental place before, me and a friend of mine were hoping they would sell games as well, but I was still a little intimidated by the amount of movies looking back at me. Over twelve thousand titles the store clerk had said and I believe him. Finally, we decided to finally watch a movie that we had heard a lot of good things about. Nothing but good things actually. The movie is called Boondock Saints and is about these two Irishmen who, with the blessing of the lord, wipe out the entire Russian crime syndicate in their town. We watch it and we loved it. We wanted to watch the second one but we looked at the clock and there was no way in hell anywhere was open, mso, as always, we turned to the internet. The reason I mention this is without the helpful store clerk, and especially since the SOPA scare, it is so much more difficult to find movies on the internet. We looked for hours, couldn’t find anything. So instead we turned to more legal ways, setting up a netflicks account. Even there we couldn’t find what we were looking for. They only had it on dvd that would have to ship, not available for streaming. A lot of cursing and a few cigarettes later, we finally just gave up and watched Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift to waste the rest of the night away. Then I came home, laid down for 15 minutes, and got up and wrote this. Funny thing is, you know what I’m doing later today? I’m going back into that store, and I’m doing it again.

Word Count -- 331

Mass Effect 3

                So today, I figured I would tell everyone a little more about my topic for project 1. Maybe it will help me with the paper portion of the assignment. Here’s what I ended up with.

                Mass Effect 1, released in 2007, promised to be the beginning of a very interesting trilogy. Interesting for pretty much one reason; the choices you make will not only directly impact what happens in this game, but the second as well. Then your choices for both one and two will accumulate for the third and final installment, making each game truly unique to the gamers. It was an interesting concept but no one really knew how they were going to pull it off. Creating an interactive story had been tried before, but never on this scale, and never came out to be very good. Felt like a first person shooter dressed up in a costume for Halloween. Mass Effect however, has come through with flying colors, creating deep characters that you really miss when they die, and who many would actually die for (which is, in a round about way, an option on Mass Effect 2. Yes, you can DIE before you even get to the conclusion of the series, and it still flows together without a hitch). Another thing is the designers actually sat down and created culture, a history, and previous confrontations in the galactic species long before your character was even born, which is fairly important, especially in the third game. You are introduced to a species that has been systematically wiping out all intelligent life for several million years. You figure this out slowly through the first game, culminating in a battle between you and one of these giant machines that is here to signal the others that it’s time for another harvest. Long story short, you blow him up in a fairly epic battle and the aliens are stopped. WOOT! Then it turns out they’re not but no one else will believe you and here’s where we spill into the second game. In this one, you spend the game hunting some of the servants of the machines, all the while knowing that a galactic fleet of these things is coming. Enter the third game. They are here, earth is all but conquered, humanity can’t stand on its own against this onslaught, and no one is coming to help. You escape earth and go to unite the races that you have been interacting with, for better or worse, through the entire series. The developers made one point very clear however. You will stand together, or you will fall alone. Mass Effect 3 comes out March 6^th, 2012. I hope some of you at least, will give it a try.

word count -- 461

Pictures

                Describe a time when you were reading a text with pictures and the pictures changed the experience.  How about this morning?  I woke up way to early and decided to read web comics to pass the time. This isn’t overly unusual as I follow around twenty to twenty five comics daily, but back to this mourning.  Reading text with pictures seems to have both a positive and negative effect.  Positively, the artist and author can defiantly be sure they are communicating the right message with facial expressions, color and shape of the eyes, the color filter of the background, the fact that there is a constant background, and it all just seems to flow together to form a cohesive story.  It’s amazing and I’d imagine it to be quite difficult depending on the level of detail. But that is how I read into web comics; the images let me see exactly what the author/artist wanted me to see. That is also the negative though.  That is the negative in that I only see what the author/artist wants me to see.  There is no imagination on my part, no “everyone sees the characters in a different and unique way.” For people that do not have very active imaginations, I can see why that might be a plus but I personally have a very active imagination. Always have and I consider myself lucky that I got to keep it after my childhood.  It seems a lot of people seem to lose their imagination when they get introduced into the world, at least that’s how it seems to me. But I’ve always enjoyed imagining what characters look like in novels and what the back ground might look like. I might miss an emotional inflection on those dry colorless pages but I think that it is more than compensated for with the colorful images that fill my head when I read.

Word count -- 321