Polish Pride

So as some of you know, I am 100% Polish. And I am insanely proud of that. Last summer I went to a Polish festival that was held nearby, and it was loads of fun. There was music, people dancing, a ton of food, and then a lot of cool exhibits. I got to see a Polish sheepdog (I don't remember what they were actually called) which was cool cause they were huge and almost pure white. Well onto the subject of the post, a little after that I ended up looking for some Polish clothing articles and I came upon this site called www.polishpride.com. It's really cool and there are a lot of things on there. Well I asked for one of the sweatshirts for Christmas and I got it. Now I can show off my pride everywhere I go. (Its the PL Est. 966 Tan Hoodie) But yeah I'd say if any of you has any Polish in you, or is just interested that you should check the site out.

-- CK

(Thanks grandpa, I love the sweatshirt.) :)

Its beginning to look a lot less like Christmas!

I love Christmas. I love getting gifts, and even more I love buying gifts for people. But even though I love Christmas so much, I hate it too. Confused yet? Well work in retail during the holidays and you'll feel the same way. The holidays are a time where you have a ton of people coming to buy gifts, and expecting that they will get said gifts, even though they are trying to buy them two days before the 25th. When you think of Christmas you think of all the happy times, dancing through the snow, singing carols, and whatnot. But when you work in retail you see the Scrooge in everyone. If you don't have the particular product they want, be ready for a hailstorm of insults and accusations directed right at you. I don't understands why this happens, but that's how it works. So next time you are shopping for Christmas (most likely next year I would assume), please oh please be nicer to us. We try our hardest to make you all happy.

-- CK

Hunter

Work is insane because of the holidays and I haven't really been able to update the blog.. So I leave you with a drawing I drew awhile back. If you don't know, its a Hunter from the game Halo.

Skyrim

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I picked up a copy of Skyrim from Redbox and was playing it. I only put 6 hours into it, but I am hooked on it. The game is amazing! And this is coming from someone who isn't normally a huge fan of RPG's. Games like Mass Effect, Star Wars: KoToR, and Dragon Age I want to like because they are great games, but I have a hard time playing them because I start to lose interest quite fast. I also had played a little of both Morrowind and Oblivion, and both of them were a hard for me to get into. But Skyrim is different, it is just awesome. :P When I started the game I decided that I wanted to be an Orc tank, which is odd because I tend to like using magic more often than melee, like in Diablo 2 I always play as the Sorceress. But for once I am enjoying fighting through the lands of Tamriel with just brute strength. The feeling of pulling off finishing moves on almost all of your enemies is great. This game is a must play for anyone who likes games, or knows how to move their hands to be able to play a controller. I so wish I could actually afford to buy the game since I haven't played since the first time.

-- CK

Snowy nights

I love this weather. After it gets dark, there is no wind, you go outside and the snow is falling peacefully. Standing out there looking up at the sky, I gotta say that that may be one of the greatest feelings ever. It is just so beautiful. I've always loved when it snows.

-- CK

It was a dark and stormy night...

It was a dark and stormy night. Well not really, it was dark cause it was a quarter to midnight, but it wasn't really stormy. It was snowing though. I was driving home from my girlfriend's house and the closer to home I got, the more snow there was. I got to one point in the road where it turns right and goes down a hill, and it didn't occur to me that I should probably slow down because it hadn't been slippery at all elsewhere. Well when I got to the top of the hill I saw some tire tracks that didn't turn with the road but went straight. Oh crap... Well my car hit the turn and just like the other car didn't turn, just started sliding forward. Unluckily though, said car was still at the side of the road where it stopped and I was sliding right towards it. I started freaking out because I didn't want to hit the car so I tried to steer it away into the curb. That didn't work, but I did manage to completely turn my car sideways and my car slowed down really fast. I then slowly started going again and finished driving home. And that was my experience last night, it was both scary and kinda fun. Luckily for me it was so late so there wasn't any traffic coming the other direction.

Still need new tires...

-- CK

Schizophrenic mouse

So before I write anything I haven't done any research on this so if this already exists you should just tell me and that would be awesome!

So recently I acquired a new old desktop so I decided to set it up on my desktop running Linux so I'd have a second computer.  Well today I decided to set it all up.  To do this I had to take the mouse I use on my laptop and plug it into the desktop.  The problem I kept running into then was whenever I wanted to do something on my laptop I would reach for the mouse and nothing happened.  That made me think that there should be a mouse that you can plug into two computers and then just switch in between them.  I have no idea how a mouse works, but that seems like it shouldn't be too hard of a thing to do.  I should invent it.

-- CK

Tires

**warning**  this post may be boring, and may make you want to hurt me for having you read this. I'm sorry.


So I just got off work today. It was insane today, I don't know what gets into people on the holidays, but ill get back to that later. So I was walking out to my car and I noticed that my tire was flat. Which sucked cause I really wanted to get home and play some Skyrim, ill talk about that later too (btw, the game is amazing!!) Anywho, I had to pump up my tire with a bike pump so that I could drive home. The weird thing was I think the tire actually froze in its "flat pose" cause part of it was lopsided after I pumped it up, but when I checked once I got home it was perfectly round (makes sense cause it would have warmed up due to friction.) My whole point to this post was to say that I need to get new tires...

-- CK

Need For Speed: The Run

As I am pretty poor at the moment I'm not able to purchase new video games, bit one of my friends has been waiting for the new NFS game to come out forever so he obviously pre-ordered it.  Well today the game came out and I'm over at his house watching him try it out for the first time. My first impressions? It's... Gorgeous!! The game is using the new Frostbite 2 engine (the same one used for Battlefield 3) and it makes the game look so real. He was just racing through Yosemite National Park and at one time I actually turned my head to try to look at on of the waterfalls he passed, only to find myself a little embarrassed because its just a game. I assume, and hope, that the developers actually took the time to go to these locations and create the area to be the same in real life. Because after watching this I really want to go to Yosemite and experience the beauty first hand.

As for the actual game-play of the game, I'm not playing so I can't say much on it. My friend says it has a sort of realistic feel to the handling, but then as I can see its an arcade racer because when you crash into traffic the cars just kinda fly away. At one point I actually say one of the cars he t-boned start literally float away.  I'll let you know more detail if I ever get my hands on the game, but so far the game looks much better than the "professional reviews" I've read have made it out to be.

-- CK

The secret behind Sonicare toothbrushes

It has nothing to do with the toothpaste, the brush vibrates your teeth so hard that the bacteria either dies from motion sickness or just moves away because its so annoyed. :P I mean seriously, I just got a Sonicare toothbrush because it was recommended by my doctor. I tried it out 10 minutes ago and my mouth is still numb. I also don't even know if the toothpaste was still on the brush when I started brushing, because the first time I applied the paste I accidently turned the brush on and the toothpaste when flying.  Who knows if the second time I put the toothpaste on the brush and waited to turn it on when it was in my brush of any of it actually touched my teeth. It probably just flung and hit that hanging thing in the back of my throat, well at least that's clean now, most people forget about it and neglect it. :P

-- CK

What did you wish for at 11:11 on 11/11/11

A lot of people say to make a wish anytime you see the clock read 11:11. So it only goes to say that if you make a wish on the 11th day of any month at 11:11 your wish would be more special and be more likely to come true, aka a double wish. Same thing for November 11th at 11:11, a triple wish. And then even greater on today, November 11, 2011 at 11:11, a quadruple wish. So what are you going to wish for at this great time. Of course it has to be something grand because this only happens once every century, so pretty much it only happens once every lifetime. But there is one wish that very few people know about. It's the Milleniwish.

The Milleniwish was a phenomenon that happened only twice in history and will never happen again. It was discovered in 1826 by a Welsh scientist, Dr. Andras Edmunds. He was researching the Synod of Rathbreasail, which marked the transition of the Irish church from a monastic to a diocesan structure. While Dr. Edmunds was looking through some ancient documents, he stumbled across one that described a very strange occurrence that happened near the middle of the day on November 11th, 1111. It explained that a local farmer came running through the town screaming that a miracle had just happened. The farmer told the whole town that his pig had just grown twice the size that it was right after he had thought that he wanted it to be bigger. Of course at the time nobody knew what a wish was because the Disney movie Pinocchio hadn't been made yet so nobody got to hear Jimminy Cricket sing about "wishing upon a falling star." Because of this the town suspected the farmer to be possessed and banished him from the area. After reading this, Dr. Edmunds looked into the matter some more and came up with a theory about the Milleniwish. The Milleniwish, which could only happen twice ever on November 11th, 1111 at both 11:11 AM and PM, is a wish so strong that it is granted immediately. It is such an amazing phenomenon that it is sad that nobody knew about it at the time and the only recorded account of the Milleniwish being used was with that one farmer in Ireland and his pig.

So don't waste this quadruple wish today, you still have one more chance tonight.

I'm dreaming of a green Thanksgiving

We had our first snowfall of the season yesterday night. Which I love snow, but it just seems a little early to me this year. It's not uncommon at all for it to snow at this time every year, but I wish it would hold off a little this year. We didn't get enough Fall this year... Oh well. Looks like shoveling is in my future. :P

-- CK

Mafia 2: 2K's GTA

I just recently picked up a copy of Mafia 2 for my Xbox and started playing it, and so far I haven't wanted to put down the controller because I am so engrossed in the game. I had originally been told that the game wasn't very good and I shouldn't buy it until it is in the cheap bin at Gamestop. But I had been playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto IV and Mafia 2 looked similar so I was curious. First off, no it isn't as "sandboxy" as GTA is, there are very little games that can compare to that aspect of the game. But Mafia 2 is still a sandbox game. 2K Czech did a very good job at linking together the story and the time period in a way that you are satisfied with playing the game without driving a car off of a building into the ocean. The game takes realism to a new level, and you start to actually want to drive carefully during it because if you accidently hit a parked car going 50 MPH it's quite possible you could die, and have to restart whatever mission you were on. I've always been a fan of driving carelessly in video games, people are always cautious when I want to take the steering wheel of a warthog in Halo; but in Mafia 2 I think I've mastered how to drive. The AI even encourages safe driving by telling you to slow down, and yelling at you when you drive through red lights. After writing that last sentence I just realized that it makes the game sound kinda lame, but don't worry it all works together.

Mafia 2 takes place in the 1940's in a city called Empire Bay, a city inspired by many cities in the US. You play as an Italian immigrant who ended up getting involved in crime with his best friend, and eventually with the Mafia. The story-line brings you through all of the difficulties he runs into being in the crime business, and also takes place in a numerous amount of places; once even back in Italy. Like I said earlier while playing this game I don't want to put down my controller. I say that I am going to go to bed, but then I am driving back to the restaurant to see what the next mission is. The story is where I would say that Mafia 2 beats out GTA IV because the story in that game is extremely boring and identical to itself throughout the whole game. I am struggling to even want to finish that game, which I do because I like collecting achievements. All in all even though I love just fooling around in GTA I believe that Mafia 2 is a better game, and I'm glad I now own it.

-- CK

Star Fox!!

I decided I wanted to take the weekend off from writing any blog posts because I also had most of it off from work.  I got a couple things ill talk about later, but yesterday I found out something amazing. I'm sure a lot of people already know this, but I'll tell you about it anyway. A lot of people remember the awesome n64 game Star Fox. In that game you had the ability to do a barrel roll to dodge attacks. Well Google decided to give homage to this epic game by showing off a new thing they are working on. If you go to Google and type "do a barrel roll", something cool happens. You should check it out.  Sorry to all you internet explorer users but this does not work for you.

-- CK

The customer is always right, except when they're wrong.

If you work at any job where you have to deal with customers, and you probably also get your fair share of interesting or annoying people.  Well I've found this amazing site where you can go read other people's work "horror stories", and also share your own if you so choose to.  I have quite a few stories that I'm planning on posting on the site, I just haven't got around to it yet.  If want check out the site, go here at notalwaysright.com.

Blogaway

I'm currently testing an Android app called Blogaway (hence the title).  It's an application that let's me create and manage my blog posts on my phone. It's a cool idea, but given that I'm trying to write a full blog post on a phone I don't know how much I'll actually be using it.  It's not hard to do, it just isn't as fast as using the full keyboard on my laptop.  And with that said I'm going to end the post.  My review of this app is that it is great.  It synched to the blog very fast, and it is very simple to use.  So it you have a blog, and an Android phone I'd recomend downloading this, if anything just to manage everything.

-- CK

One red ear

Back in elementary school I had this weird thing where my right ear would all of a sudden turn bright red and become very very hot. From what I can remember it always seemed to happen at night, or at least later in the day. People would always comment on it because my left ear would look completely normal, but my right ear would be bright red. I hadn't thought of this in forever because sometime around Jr. High it stopped doing it. Then all of a sudden last night at work my ear started getting hot again. Not having a mirror to look at I asked my co-worker if my ear was red, and sure enough it was bright red just like when I was younger. This made me think about it because I don't I ever figured out why this happened then, so now I really want to know what is up with me. :P I did a lot of Google searches and so far this happens to a lot of people, but nobody knows what it is. If there is actually anyone reading this, does anyone know anything about this? Or does this happen to anyone else?

Ipad 3

Working in Electronics I get a lot of questions about the IPad 3. Everyone wants to know if they should buy the IPad 2, or wait for the new one and when we are getting it in stock. I had not heard anything about it at all so I did some research. Nowhere does Apple actually say that they are going to release an IPad 3, it is all just rumors. It is rumored to release in March next year because that's around the time when the last two were released. It's also rumored to have a faster processor, also because the second IPad was faster than the first. That just makes sense. They wouldn't release a new product if it was the same as before, right? Other things like having more colors than black and white for the frame, taking out the wall between the AT&T and Verizon 3G networks, and have a retina display (which I still haven't fully figured out but it seems like its supposed to make the display look more real? I think) All of this stuff seems awesome but a lot of it just seems like dreams and assumptions from consumers. And even if there were what Apple was saying it was doing right now I still wouldn't want to get my hopes up with how much they promised with the IPhone 5 that was supposed to release this fall, but all of a sudden Apple just released a dumbed down version of it and called it the IPhone 4s. What says they aren't going to do that with the IPad too. I'm just saying I'm not looking forward to the IPad 3 until I actually see some real evidence that it exists.

-- CK

UFTs

"I embrace the abnormal and create a normality around it, thus syndicating the illusion of an intricately delicate truth."

This quote may initially sound completely confusing and crazy, but once you think about it a little bit it will give you a sense of how my brain works. Which makes even more sense because I made the quote up. I have no idea where it came from because I rarely use that many big words in a full day, but I was tired one night and that just popped into my head. This quote also explains the basis of the title of this post; UFT's. Anyone that knows me knows that I like to make up random stuff on the spot, and in most cases I am really good at it. But I never had a name for my random "rants". Well one day I was watching an episode of Psych (awesome show) and Shawn and Gus were talking and they said this.

Shawn - *random thing* (sorry I don't actually remember what Shawn said, It was something about Alfred Hitchcock)
Gus - "That's not true!"
Shawn - "Not it's not. Part of a new bit I'm working on called completely random untrue trivia."

Right after I heard that line I knew I needed to name my "completely random untrue trivia." And just like the quote I made up, I have no idea how I came up with the name UFTs; which stands for Unequivocally Fabricated Truths. I had to look up what "unequivocally" meant right after I thought of it, but basically the whole thing translates to "one of a kind made up facts." So if I ever mention one of my UFT's in a post, now you know what I am talking about, and where it came from.

-- CK

I'm back!!

I highly doubt anyone is going to actually see this because I quit writing on here about a year and a half ago, but I kinda wanted to try keeping a blog again and I really like the name of this one, so . . . what the heck. Here I am. :P I would say not a lot has changed since last time I was on here, but that wouldn't be true. First off I got a new job right after I started posting. I work in the Electronics department of the local retail store (still haven't decided how much of my true identity I want to reveal, makes me feel more like a super hero :D ) So far I'm loving the job, obviously since I'm still there. Minus the random stuff that I don't like; keeping the store looking clean, being bored out of my mind on slow days, and some of my bosses, I love being there to help people figure out what they want to buy, or even with just questions on things they already have. Its a perfect mix of my love for helping people and my love of electronics. On the other side of new news, I have a girlfriend! :D She's awesome, pretty, smart, amazing, and did I mention awesome? We've been dating for 9 and a half months now. Probably the happiest time of my life. So ... work, girlfriend, that pretty much covers the whole year (not going to talk about school cause I'm kinda at the crossroads of trying to figure stuff out again). So that's about it for this post, fingers crossed that I won't fail miserably at this like last time.

-- CK