Taking everything home on the train

Hey everyone, I'm now home and happy. But you're not here to hear me talk about how good it is to be home, you want to hear about the adventure in getting home.

Well it all started yesterday, when I started packing up all my stuff. I brought home almost everything but the kitchen sink. And since I don't have a kitchen sink in my dorm, it was everything. I rounded up all my dirty clothes and put them in my duffel, and then all the returnables, in the duffel as well, then some entertainment for when I'm home. I think it looks pretty official.

It doesn't really look like that now, a lot more stuff in it now, but I couldn't help myself. It was really heavy.

I get allergy shots every 3 weeks, and sine it's a 3 week vacation, I needed to bring my viles home. They need to keep refrigerated, but I have no cooler. I got creative and went to the local party store, got a cup full of ice, and put my viles in them. I labels it so I had no confusion.

Styrofoam. I've done all nighters with a pop with only a little ice and most of the ice survived the night. That made it perfect, and it only cost 50 cents. A lot cheaper than if I got one of those disposable coolers. It worked great. All the viles and some ice survived. Yay.

At my school we have these things called dinning dollars, for us to spend outside our meal plan. They're included with meal plan and don't carry over to the next semester. I had 2 days to spend all of them. I went to a cafe/convenience store that accepts them 4 times and bought about $40 worth of snacks and junk food over the 4 trips. On average $10 each time, and still didn't spend all of it. I took almost all of it with me on the train. Made things a little difficult.

So here's the thing, I have my duffel weighing probably somewhere around 30 pounds, my backpack with my laptop and paraphernalia and snuggie with my lap desk dangling off of the pack, my shoulder sack with all my handheld gaming and comics/manga full to capacity, and singe sack full of snacks and allergy viles. The duffel is on wheels but it was still very cumbersome. I had to take it down the 4 flights of stairs of my dorm, then walk across campus to the bus station. Once there I wait there until my bus to show. The bus takes me to the train station and I wait for the train. The train was 30 minutes late so my wait time was about 1 and 1/2 hours. Good thing I brought a lot to do.

The train comes and I get on and settle in. There wasn't much that happened. Watched darkwing duck the entire 4 hours home. It was a cross state trip. Though when driving it takes 2 1/2 hours. It's the stops that take the time. I had snacks and such that I brought. My brother came and picked me up from the station. I'm now home. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Prepairing and doing finals.

Hey everyone, miss me? Of course not, I get no views. I've been on here for about 2 years, run multiple blogs and haven't broken 1000 total views. But on the lighter side I've now made 3 whole cents with AdSense. But enough about my lack of exposure.

It's finals week and so I'd be able to keep focused, I decided I was going to more or less cut off communications with the outside world until finals were over. No google plus, no myspace, no YouTube, no blogging, no Gmail, no hotmail, no texting friends, and no facebook. I missed faebook the least. On Friday I made a post to your3minutes letting everyone know that I was doing this. I also texted all my friends since they don't read that blog letting them know.

Am I crazy because of that? No, not because of that. I'm crazy because of he research paper but that wasn't induced by that. It actually helped me stay focused. Not only that, but I felt more in controle of my life. I did check my school email and wowway because those are my professional emails. If someone emails me there, it's important.

So here's what my schedule was, Saturday: study for tech com and calc, Sunday: study for chem, Monday: make the ALLOWED note cards that I can consult during the exam. I could have 1 3X5 card for calc and 1 for chem. Unfortunately I didn't really use them. When studying chem I have some funny stories. One thing I had some trouble understanding is quantum numbers. When studying, it all made sense to me after some serious figuring out. I had a major epiphany and was shouting for joy about how it all made sense now. Since 24 hour quiet ours were mandated so people would study, I would probably feel bad and try to contain my joy, but because my neighbors are loud at the most inconvenient times, I have no shame. If they were trying to study but couldn't because of my joy, Carma. Another thing that happened was, you guessed it, song and dance. It happened so often and were so short due to conerta that I don't remember what they were. All I remember is that they happened.

OK, so I had tec com first, and unfortunately, there wasn't any caffeinated black tea, only decaf. I need my little, barely noticeable to a normal human, amount of caffeine in the morning. Well we have these things called dinning dollars and can spend them at places on campus for food. They're included in the meal plan. There's this cafe at the engineering campus where tec com is and thankfully they had caffeinated black tea. I was a tad bit sceptical as to weather or  not I'd like the organic stuff they had, but it was fine, and I used some dinning dollars with that. Tea was fine and final went smoothly. Yay.

After the final, I went to get my pizza, pop, and candy from my meal plan at the cafe. I come out to find free pizza in the foyer. Oh well, I got unlimited meals and mine was hot. There's was cold. I have to commute by buss between the main campus and engineering campus and it's about a 30 minute ride. I confirmed with my calc teacher on what to do if I made it to the final late because my calc final is 15 minutes after the allotted time for the tec com final. Well it didn't take the whole time and I got to calc with no issues. I studied everything we covered. I put down almost every single formula and theorem and trig identity we covered on that note card, except for chapter 7 because we got a sheet that had all the convergence tests on it. Guess what, barely used anything on the card. It was mostly chapter 7, like my professor said it would be. Crap. Oh well I think I did fairly well.

Well today was chem. As I'm walking to class to take the final, I had the feeling I was forgetting something. I checked to make sure I had my calculator, check, I checked before I left that I had my note card, what was it? About 2 minutes in I got distracted them realized that I forgot concerta. Doah! Also realized I forgot lucky tweedy, double doah! Good thing chem is my good class. Had my note card with all these different formulas, definitions, the poly atomics, and the like. Guess what, very little that was on there was on the final. It was an easy final. I know my chem. We get 2 hours per exam, and I took just about that long with my others. Chem took me 30 minutes. I'm halfway through and I realize that it's only been 15 minutes. Wow, I don't think it should have been that easy.

Well after that I sent a text to my friends letting them know that I was done. I went to the good dinning hall and had some good food. Major yay since I only had a bowl of lucky charms for breakfast. Fun thing I did was some guys came over and we played super Mario world alternating on lives and levels. That was fun, we actually got pretty far in those couple of hours. Went from the beginning of the game all the way to the first couple of levels of forest of illusion. Fun time. I go home on Friday. No more classes though. I got some loose ends to tie up though, mainly clean up my space in our room. Get all that I want for when I'm home. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu bye.

Can you drop an egg without breaking it?

Hey everyone, my dorm put on this contest to drop an egg from the ceiling. We had to build a container to protect the egg. This wasn't the first time I've done something like this. I did it once before in 6th grade when we were learning about air resistance and in high school physics when we were learning about force equaling mass times acceleration. Though this time instead of doing it for a grade and having to do math and stuff, it was just for fun.

I'm an engineer and live in the engineer dorms. Get 20 engineers together, put them in groups, give them materials and an egg, and say "make it so I can drop the egg without breaking it." I would describe the design, but I took pictures, and a picture is worth a thousand words.

The cone holds the egg. The straws kept it rigid. The Popsicle stick base held the straws in place. There was cotton in the cone to add some padding to the eggs. The bag acted as a parachute.

Now for the moment of truth, how did we do? Here's a hind, you may want to study the parts and design. Yep, we won. Feel free to use my design, just come back and post a thank-you comment and let me know how you did. I want to help out my fellow scientists, but also want to know if I helped. First we dropped from the ceiling to the floor. We survived the first round, second, and third. The survivors all won a free piece of cold Digorno Pizza. After the ceiling, we went out to the parking garage and had it dropped from the top level onto the bottom. It's your average 4 story parking garage height wise. Probably 100 ft or something. Either way, it's quite a fall. Still survived.

Afterwards it was time to throw it out. I tried trowing it into a dumpster but failed. It hit the side and it broke. It wasn't thrown properly so it naturally broke. Oh well the contest was over. Good luck to you all, this has been pokematic, signing off and bu-bye.

I talk creation vs evolution for a documentary

Hey everyone. Today I did an interview for a documentary on the creationism vs evolution debate. While we're no strangers to speaking our opinion on matters similar to that, see catholiccontriversy, but this was the first time I've ever done it for a documentary.

This was quite an experience. First I got there, but didn't know which precise room, I was just told some studio in this one building. Well when I couldn't find the room, I went back to my room. Since I set up the appointment over facebook I decided to check to see if there was anything about it. My dorm and this building are on opposite sides of campus. It takes 15 minutes to walk cross campus. My appointment was 12:30, got there the first time with plenty of time. When I couldn't find the room I left and went back to my room. 15 minutes. Check, find room, and run across campus. That took 10 minutes. I'm about 25 minutes late. Turns out that it was better for the director creator.

I get there, sit down, and the bright studio lights shine on me. I got used to them quickly. I couldn't wear my vest because it reflects under light, and the yellow can screw up the color balance. Been a while since I did video production where I cared about how my video looks. Oh well, with no vest I'll probably be taken more seriously. As an Internet video producer, I'm quite used to looking directly into the camera. With those, you're talking directly to the viewer typically. Well in the world of professional video, that's only OK if you're doing like a nature show or something where you're talking to the audience. Since I wasn't speaking to the audience, I was supposed to look off camera. Hard habit to break since I do it whenever I make videos. I did it a couple of times so I was pulled back to looking off camera.

The interview was handled very well. Being interviewed for a documentary on a very political matter, I was a bit sceptical. It's for her honors thesis, so it's pretty safe to assume that there will be no BS. But then again Bowling for Columbine was an Oscar winner and that movie is full of BS. Based on my experience, I don't think there will be any BS. All the questions weren't weighted towards 1 view. There was 1 question about people saying there is no proof that god exists, but since my views are predominately creationist, and that I spoke strongly to that, that question was probably ask to see my mentality. Chances are there was probably  question about "where it all started" for pure evolutionists. My answer was "well what proof is there that god doesn't exist?" At the end of the interview I asked to not have my words twisted. She said she would never, and I said "OK, just want to be sure you won't go Michael Moore on me."

I am really interested to see how this turns out. I made references to some evolution vs creationism in pop culture, particularly futurama episode 9, season 6, a clockwork origin and the song you can't make a monkey out of me. She also said I bring up good points. This will be really cool. And here's some trivia, I was wearing my boy scout troop t-shirt during the interview. Because we aren't supposed to wear the boyscout logo when doing political stuff, it has to do with miss-representation, the logo will be blurred out. So if you're wondering, that's what that is. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

And to anyone who may jump to the conclusion that I'm a blind to the truth religious nut, you're wrong. I accept elements of both arguments and mix them to fill in the holes. Evolution explains the changing and similarities, and creationism explains where it started. If I get enough requests, or hate from closed minded evolutionists where the mere mention of intelligent design warrants "you're stupid"who don't read this section, I will explain my views with a catholiccontriversy post.

Thanks Giving Break Fun

Hey everyone. I went home over the weekend. First time home since I came up. I haven't changed much, and neither has my home town. Everyone saw the new and improved belly, particularly that I've been conscious of what I eat and drink and have lost weight. It's been great to be home, but all good things must come to an end. Like I typically do, I kept a record of all that I did over this trip. Since I have my laptop, I was able to post them all to your3minutes. It you have been paying attention, you'll already know what happened. They are all in chronological order. Occasionally I wrote them on the next day because I didn't have the time. I was super busy. WARNING: there may be continuarity mistakes. This stems from me not knowing my scedule fully. I hope you enjoy.

11/23/11 first day home

It was great. I slept on the futon last night and my mom woke me up with her text. I gathered all my stuff, and piled it into the van. Funny thing, I ran out of clean clothed when it was time to come home for a visit. The drive home was good. I reconnected with my family, well mom and brother. They're the ones who picked me up.

I came home, popped in bad fur day to see if it worked, and it did. Then my grandparents took my brother and I out to lunch. We were going to go to this Chinese buffet that my brother and I went to nearly every single weekend, but unfortunately it was closed. We went to Big Boy instead.
I was going to have my hair cut, but the line was to long. So I'm going to get it cut on Friday. I did run into some old high school friends there. That was cool. We chatted some but then I left because I had a prior engagement. Well after I left I saw a scout mom drive by, and also saw a guy I know from scouts. As I was walking home, I couldn't help but feel like I'm home. It feels so good to be home.

I had the chiropractor. My back has been causing me some issues, so I saw our family chiropractor. Apparently my back isn't all that messed up. Oh well, had it aligned anyway. I feel better after it.

For dinner my grandparents came over and we had really good roast beef. But not just beef, broccoli, how I like it. Then we celebrated my mom's birthday.

Now for the really fun part. My best friend zeldamaster93 came over. Me, him, and max were going to hang out on Saturday, but I'll explain why we couldn't on Saturday. Well he came over and we played Bad Fur Day. It was quite fun. Until tomorrow.

11/24/11 thanks giving

I slept in my own bed. That felt so good. I slept in silence. Oh how I missed silence. I ate a chocolate muffin, 3 strips of premade Bacon, and whole milk. That was so good.

So here's what happened. We had thanks giving at my aunts house with my grandparents. On the way there my brother and I watched An American Carol. He isn't familiar with Michael Moore but he laughed at the joke at the far left. It was really fun to see my grandparents and aunt again. I don't get to see those grandparents a lot because my grandpa tires easily. So it was really nice to see and visit with them. I showed them my comedy routine, and they thought it was funny.

Now for the fun dinner, or should I say liner. The turkey was done early. We ate early because of that. I am not a fan of turkey, so I had B Beef. I call it B beef because our last name starts with a B and we call her Grandma B. Her beef is amazing. I loved it, and it was good home cooked food. I then dipped my grandpa's home made bread in the gravy, so amazing.

Here's something that was funny that happened. My grandma has a hearing aid, and it was giving her feed back. Well at that moment I sneezed. She told her hearing aid to "shut up." I knew she was talking to her hearing aid, but I couldn't help myself in saying "it's not my fault I sneezed." That got a laugh.

Once I got home, I looked through the black Friday circulars for black Friday. For the full story, read up on my blog on it at the Pokematic's blog. (It's the post below it). Later

11/25/11 black Friday

I slept until maybe 11. I dreamed something about my right calf hurting. Turns out it is hurting in real life. I got up and had a muffin and 3 strips of bacon. I used to have that every morning. It was so good to finally have it again.

I went and got my hair cut. That was good seeing as how it was getting long and a hassle. There's a barber near my college, but they just aren't my barber. I talked with him college and how good it is to be home. I still have most of the pink.

When I was walking home from the barber, I ran into one of my neighbors who was out in his yard. My home town is an old school, "white picket fence," everyone knows each other kind of neighborhood. I talked with him and it was cool catching up with him and talking about college. It's great being home.

I went to the chiropractor. Got my back cracked.

So this was fun. I hung out with one of my old high school friends. We went to see the Muppets movie. We had time to catch up on the way there and waiting for the movie to start. This was cool, I ran into some guys I know from high school working at the theater. One of them, whom I know better than the other, was working the tickets. While he was taking my money and waiting for the ticket to print, I asked him how life was and he asked me how life was. There wasn't a whole lot of time to catch up, so it wasn't a long reunion. My friend I went to see the Muppet movie with found it funny, but she thought it was cheesy. I told her, "but that's the Muppets." I might do a full review on it when I have some free time, but here's a short. It's the Muppets, need I say more. There was jokes to the original movie and the TV show that people who were familiar with them would find funny. In fact there were a bunch of older adults, like my mom's age, that went to see it because they remember the original, I assume.

My friends dad bought a signal switch for RCA signals. I was the one that told him about it so he came to me when I dropped my friend off when he couldn't figure it out. I set it up and told him how to use it. All I have to say is "it felt good to fix someone else's tech problem since my grandpa doesn't have the troubles he used to have with his TV. I wrote him a troubleshooting guide, but it made me feel needed, not just wanted. My family always wants me, but it feels good to feel needed.

Since it's still black Friday, my brother and I decided to go to game stop because we weren't able to make it at 5 am today when it opened. I wasn't sure if they'd still have it, but they still had the promotional, $20 off sonic generations. I love sonic, like the original sonics, which this has with modern graphics, and then there's the modern, like the day levels of unleashed, and the wii version of colors. I am so looking forward to Christmas. I'm glad they still had them. Later.

11/26/11 Bar Mitzvah

Mavel Tov. I went to my first ever Bar Mitzvah. Because it was my first, I was able to use it for a cultural event. As an honors student I need to get these cultural events. It was quite fun.
For starters, I didn't understand anything. It's all in Hebrew, and I don't speak Hebrew. I picked up that we need to stand when the ark is open and sit when it's closed. Their chanting is cool as well. I wonder if it's comparable to our singing. They had books that gave the Hebrew words in roman characters. I think they're kind of equivalent to Hymnals. It was cool seeing my scout friends up there saying the prayers and reading, even though I had no idea what they were saying.

Now for the really fun part. I had to wear a kippah, or yarmulke in Yiddish. It had musical notes on it and my friend's name on the inside. It kept falling off, and so did my dad's and brother's. My brother kept making jokes about how our family was a bunch of gentiles. Yeah it was funny. There was the fun thing where we throw candy at the new man to wish him sweet future, or sweet something good. It was fun pelting the new man with Hershey kisses. I also ran into an old friend from high school. He's a year older than me, so I haven't seen him in a real long time. It was cool seeing him. We did some catch up, but weren't able to do much.

After the ceremony, I went to zeldamaster93's house and we watched X2 - X-Men United. We watched it on VHS. VHS is cool. It was great being home.

Before I went to the party after the ceremony, I saw my god father, his family, and camping friends. We didn't stay long because we had to get to the bar mitzvah party. I caught up with some scout friends and tried rock climbing. It was fun, but since I have no upper body strength, I didn't get up far. They had peperoni pizza and other things, but the really surprising thing for me was the peperoni pizza at a bar mitzvah. Something about mixing a Jewish boy becoming a man, and pork just doesn't seem to match up. There is this candle lighting ceremony for all the Bar Mitzvah man's family and organizations to be there with him lighting candles. I asked his brother in a joking matter "I thought there were 8 candles" as a joke to Hanukkah. He said something like "it changes with seasons, sometimes there's 8 sometimes there's 12." I didn't expect to be a part of the ceremony, but they called up all scouts. I them went up to say congratulations.

Now for the really fun part, the chair dance to Hava Nagila, as is customary. The new man was a bit scared, but it was really fun. I asked his parents, and him "so when are we going to do the chair dance?" The new man was nervous, his mom was indifferent, and his dad said "we need to get on that." Well we put him on a folding chair, and all his friends picked him up all to Hava Nagila. The chair collapsed on our hands once, but we all turned out fine. The guy almost fell off, so then I took it on myself to make sure I pushed him back onto the chair. We left shortly after that. They had a picture to sign, so I said, "Mazeltov ya Schmuck, JK [Pokematic]."

My god father and his family staid over at our house. More about that in tomorrow's blog. Later.

11/27/11 Back to the Grind Stone

Well it's over, vacation is over. Before I get into the unpacking and whatnot, let me talk aut the fun I had on my last morning home.

My brother woke me up so I could spend some time with my god father and his family. It was nice to spend some time with them. I watched Olive the Other Reindeer with my god brother. It's a cute movie. I call him my god brother because he's the son of my god father, thus my god brother. Mom had fun by pulling out toys and books that they would have fun with. We had fun.They didn't stay long, but we had fun while we did.

I packed up, loaded up, and went on my way. Darkenedoptomist was going to see me off, but she was unable to. Oh well, said by to my brother and mom, and was on my way. My dad drove me up. I worked on my oral report the entire way up. I did almost all of it in that 3 hour car ride. I'll practice and revise it tomorrow. Today I'll put in the video and pictures. Hopefully I can get the clip I need from spongebob... I tried but can't. If I have time I'll pull up the full video and find it.

Well we pulled everything up and it took 2 trips. I had to make 2 trips. We got all my stuff in my room. I said bye to Dad and started unpacking. I started at about 2 and finished at about 5, and my dad got home at about 6. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to drive home normally, but took us about 3 hours on the way up and dad about 4 hours to get home. Crazy weather and traffic. Well now I'm all settled in. I got my laptop all docked and food properly unpacked. Well I better post all of this in a long, pokematic's blog post. Later

Black Friday Fun

Hey everyone, it's that day of the year again, Black Friday. Sorry, unlike last time I don't have pictures or video. But then again, there wasn't a whole lot to record or photograph. I do have some stories though.

First I went to walmart. Walmart is cool at black Friday. If you get there early enough, they let you in early. All the sale stuff on sale is shrink wrapped and is opened at the time of the sale. This year they had cardboard covering up the DVDs so we couldn't see the titles. We were alowed to peek though, but it barely helped. It just let us know if they were blu ray or dvd, or movie or tv series. I was after the big bang theory, seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4. I was waiting infront of the box, ready to strike. When the shrink came off, I pounced. I dove onto the cardboard and slid down onto the ground to the seasons of Big Bang. I thought there was just 4, but to my suprise, they had 1, 2, and 3. I grabbed the 4 box sets, and then helped a woman by grabbing a season 1 for her. Hey, I'm already on the ground by them so why not help. I then went to movies. I got Green Lantern: Emerald Knights and The Incredible Hulk (Widescreen Edition). I'm glad I wasn't after the videogames. That was a giant mob. One of my moms friends went to videogames, and she was only able to grab 1 game. Being my brother's first time, I had to teach him what to do. I had him steak out this watch. They had only 1, and he had to be sure he got it. He did.

I had my 1 friend come with me, but he was going to be dropped off by his dad. His dad didn't undersand that at walmart they let you in early if you get there early enough. I told him to get there early enough, but no. Oh well, he had to wait outside. We were done soon, so then we picked him up, and went to best buy.

Best buy made us wait outside. It was a really long line. It was aslo cold, really cold. We kept entertained by doing really weird things. We kept warm by bobing in a circle. It was kind of like these guys.



Yeah it was fun. I didn't buy anything at best buy, but my brother and friend did. I was going to do kmart, but I fell asleep at home. Oh well. This has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Happy Gamer's Good Game Day

Words cannot explain the joy I'm feeling right now.

Here's the story, there's this video game store near my college. They have a bunch of old games, and some really rare ones as well. I don't have my N64 with me here at college. I have my snes 2 here because it's the only console I don't have connected to my TV at home. I have my snes 1 connected to my rats nest of cables. Well, today I went there, with $70 in my pocket an bought, well look at the title and figure it out. It's a big hint.

I walked in, and went over to the case it was in. Waited for the guy to ask if I needed help with something, to which I said "yes I'd like (Name Reviled at End)." His store is not just a store, it's also a hang out. I can say that because I would be there myself if it weren't for my work. Well one of the guys there saw that I was buying it. He asked "how much you got that listed for?" "$59.99." Those of us who knew the history educated the guy who didn't know. I'll cover the history when I make a review.

The short, not many copies were sold because Nintendo wouldn't advertise it to make it a success, only allowing ads to be in adult magazines like Playboy and late night television. The couple of people who were lucky enough to get it when it came out really enjoyed it and it gained a cult following. Because of that, it is now the Rarest and most sought after game for the N64.

The guy who owns the store appreciates a good game. He says he hates losing good games like this. Just recently he sold the in box final fantasy 3. I told him that this is the crown jewel of my collection. He had me inspect the game cartridge, make sure it was clean and all. I have 7 days to make sure it works. Even if it doesn't work, I don't know if I'll return it. It's the rarest game on the n64 for crying out loud.

Can't wait to go home and try it out. Well this has been happy gamer saying game on and have fun.

OK if you don't know what I'm talking about, I don't blame you, it is rare and obscure. It's Conker's Bad Fur Day. Here's me happy.