The Happy Mondays Theory

I have a theory. The theory goes like this:
“If Monday rocks, the rest of the week will too.” I tried implementing this little idea this week. So far, its 100% correct. I’m pretty busy, but I got some VERY good responses to my “Asian Invasion and the Jesus Cock Block” blog. I will need to go out more and find more crazy, varied situations to make people laugh and smile.

My happy Monday theory doesn’t involve drinking vodka and taking thorazine shots and rolling into class looking like a Moose in the middle of a partisan electoral debate… its more like, throwing a bag of activities into the air and hope they fall in a meadow that isn’t littered with the droppings of over-sexed rabbits.  (sometimes I feel I have the metabolism of an oversexed rabbit, minus the multitudes of progeny left in the wake of my furry sexercise.)

Its more like a transference of energy. If I start the week on a good high. I smile at the toothless man giving me flyers for a political rally, I say hello to people I recognize but barely know, or I take a power-nap during the middle of the day in between classes. I do things that engineer so called “happy” feelings. This week, I went to my friend’s house, which i have labeled, the “Kentagon”. Let’s just say I had a few stilted moments trying to discuss Asian politics with a Chinese native, stuttering in my rusty Japanese with a freshman from Georgetown who’s fluent in Japanese (which drew interesting stares from Native Speakers seeing a Jamaican and a Staten Island native chatting phonetically) and downing beers while complaining about how horrible my Sony Cybershot t5 is.

But all in all, it was a good start to my week. I semi-tipsy skateboard ride back home, and listening to “This Ain’t a Scene its and Arms Race” by Fallout by 12 times pretty much set me up for a week laced with high energy activity, and a poppy-nasal earworm to keep me company. But, the Happy Mondays theory is really put to the test on Friday, as a Happy Monday, must naturally lead to an extremely interesting and even wilder Friday. If i’m downing beers, eating Jerk chicken pizza (which I helped to make) and skateboarding on Monday (all the while doing school related activities), then Imagine if I unleash myself on a Friday! Ho ho!

So, we shall see how the happy Monday theory works out. I’m watching the first episode of Heroes Season two, and i’m worried about budget cuts because so many characters have been conveniently incinerated, divorced, or relegated to one-liners. All in all, Happy Mondays to everyone!

I must go now, a paper beckons. I shall return anon.

Half-life 2 got Pwned: Enter “The Piccard”

Okay, my title really has nothing to do with anything. I’m just trying to get more subscribers with catchy title headings. The demands of my day to day have been starting to get to me already. I have scripts to write, papers to hand in and i’m always up and down as the cartoonist trying to get something done. Add to that some design work, several books to read and the “bachelor” life and you have a recipe for burnout. So i’ve been using what little free time trying to get back into my gaming.

Gaming has always been a fun enterprise for me, and now with my new computer, I think I can start feeling that nice squishy feeling inside I used to feel when I was 18. In my Freshman year, I had no computer for the entire first semester, and I was envious, because all the guys in my dorm were playing Counterstrike till the wee hours of the morning. For those who don’t know what Counterstrike is, is was a “mod” (meaning modification) based on the original Half-life game engine. Half-life is one of the most successful video games in history, and Counterstrike is certainly the most successful Mod ever. Either way, the game works on a Agents versus Terrorists split. Either you are a terrorist, using Ak-47s and other weapons worthy of a cell, or you are a counter terrorist, meaning your guns and armour are better …sort of. Either way, coming from the stilted internet in Jamaica at the time (we had a measly 56K at the time), I was fascinated. Not only could I play online at blazing speeds, but with SIXTEEN people at once! It was amazing. Needless to say, when I got my computer in Spring of 2001, I didn’t sleep. Actually at the time I was suffering from severe insomnia, but Counterstrike was there to keep me company. I can’t describe how it feels for a guy who existed in a non-broadband society to jump into the bosom of super-fast downloads and ridiculous bandwidth. It was like a drug.

So flash forward seven or so years, and i’ve gone through a few gaming evolutions. My game of choice since day one has always been ID software games, since Wolfenstein and Quake are tattooed on my left butt cheek. (kiddding). As these games got more awesome, my sucky system couldn’t play them. It reached a point where all I did on my machine was write, and do graphic design because I couldn’t play any video games properly. I had a Gateway, which was a 1.2 gHz machine with I 512 megs of RAM and a 30 gig harddrive for two years. The harddrive died a few times, and then I upgraded to a bigger drive, same machine. Then one day I felt my computer crashed (actually it didn’t ) and rushed and bought what would be dubbed ” THE BEAST”.

Here’s where the story gets interesting. Currently i’m on “BEAST” number four, but I think that name is jinxed, so I’ve dubbed my new machine, “The Piccard”. Beast number one was a cool Pentium 4 with a gig of SDRAM (really really good ram). It worked great for a few months, but the started making noises like the kid in The Grudge when I was playing and then it died. Enter beast number two. This I actually bought from a friend of mine when he upgraded. This was a better machine, with a 64 bit chip, 1 gig of RAM and a bigger harddrive. I could play heavy hitters like Doom 3 and Half-life 2 on this one. Not maxed out (meaning all settings put to high) but I could run them. Then that died a mysterious death. Then my most recent machine ( you can check an earlier blog relating to my computer woes with that one) started acting funny and now… THE PICCARD is here.

This machine is a beast. It PWNED halflife on max settings. it PWNED Bioshock two and Quake Wars. If I wasn’t tired from school, jaded from lost love and a little bit hungry right now, I would be playing games into the wee hours of the morning. I thought it fit that I devote a blog to my new computer. A cool, dual-core “beast-esque” machine with Windows Vista (gay…) and enough bells and whistles to keep me well into next year. Like Piccard, I will go where no one has gone before.

Into the max-out-everything-verse. :p