I Don't Get Paid Enough For This

   We've looped around to yet another Monday-not that it really matters to me, I'm on summer break. Saturday was fairly uneventful, but Sunday was amazing.
   On Sunday, I took a day trip with Nik, Tiana, and Amanda W. went to Dorney Park (an amusement park in Pennsylvania). It was about a three hour ride, and it was so much fun. Tiana's mother drove us down, which was better than me driving because:

          a.) My car doesn't even work.

          b.) That's a damn long drive.

   Now the only trouble was I am not a ride person, and neither is Nik. It's less that I'm afraid, and more that I just don't get anything at all out of them (although I am also scared). In the end, they made a deal with us. We would each get to give the two of them a dare if we went on any non-roller coaster ride they picked having two vetoes. It was difficult at times, because I don't cope too well with things like g-force. The last one was this massive freaking swing. I almost backed out, but I did it and it was awful. Tiana actually ended up feeling pretty guilty afterwards because I had a minor panic attack on the ride. Although, I only hyperventilated twice, and it was fun to spend time with my friends. We had a really great time.

   The only thing I had to do today was pull a four-hour shift at work. That was pretty easy, though other than one douche.

He does not get paid to deal with your shit.

   First of all, let me point out that every store has different policies, and every state has different laws. In New York, you cannot sell alcohol to anyone without an ID regardless of their apparent age. That being said, most of the time, I will just ask people their date of birth as long as their obviously over 40 or so. The date of birth is just because I have to punch it into the computer.
   So basically what happened is this guy came in to buy some sort of beer or something and I asked his his age. He wasn't from New York, and for some reason he got really pissed off. He stared at me for a good 10 seconds, glaring at me before saying "are you fucking kidding me? I'm 55, idiot." Thanks, bro. Thanks. That's a totally reasonable reaction you gigantic, self-centered douche.

Want want want want

   Seriously, people. We cashiers get paid minimum wage, which by the way is not even remotely close to what we get to put up with every single damn day-also not even close to livable. So please, if you can't be nice, at least try to be a little polite to your cashiers, and your baristas, and all the other poor shits that have to put up with this stuff.
   All right, now that I've vented a bit, it's time to move into a little bit of news. Still waiting on my Warlords of Draenor beta invite, and actually, while I'm on the subject, I still don't have my Heroes of the Storm beta key, either. To be honest, I think I'd rather get the latter. Odds are I wouldn't play a ton of the WoD beta, probably just enough to report some bugs. I would really prefer to wait to experience it for the first time when it launches. But with Heroes, it's more skill than seeing things, and I'd like to be at least fairly decent at it when we finally get the full game. But no, apparently I'm not allowed to have either of them. Curse you, Blizzard! Although, to be fair, I did get into the Hearthstone beta as soon as it started, which was pretty great.
   Thanks for tuning in and listening to my griping for another week.

Gimme My Key!

   We have once again reached the greatest day of the week-the promised land of the calendar, Friday! And that means...time for a blog post!
   Truth be told, I really kind of miss being busy with school. I don't like sitting around all day, and it seems like my friends are never available. I sat around all day Thursday contemplating getting in the car and driving off a bridge. So. Boring. Luckily, tomorrow is graduation, and I'm performing at that with the band. Do you know what that means? Pomp and Circumstance, Pomp and Circumstance, Pomp and goddamn Circumstance. Over and over until one by one, the entire band hangs themselves. So, yeah. Good time.
   Then Sunday I'm going with a group to an amusement park for the day. I'm not usually one for rides, but I do enjoy getting out of the house for the day, so it will certainly be a fun time.
   Speaking of fun, the Warlords of Draenor Beta went live today! This is a big step in the right direction. IT could mean that we may get the actual expansion within a fairly reasonable amount of time, possibly even in time for Christmas, which seems to be their goal.
   I'm signed up for the beta on Battle Net and I've put in for just about every beta key I could get, so with a little luck, there will be a review up within the next month or so.
   Not so much fun would be my car breaking down today. I was supposed to go up to Charlie's after work, and I ended up having to get a ride from a relative because there is something seriously wrong with my car. It sounded like it might explode, and it wouldn't start.
   As such,  have to be up early tomorrow so I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this entry a bit short. I'm going to have to be up trying to fix my car so I can get to graduation on time.
   Until Monday!

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Thanks, Geico

   Happy Wednesday, everybody. I was going to say happy hump day, but that stupid damn insurance commercial has pretty much made it a crime to use the phrase "hump day." Thanks, Geico.

The true face of evil.

   Today was my first official day of summer break and it felt pretty good. It was nice, although I did have to work. They haven't scheduled me to work a Wednesday night in a while, and I forgot how freaking busy it is. I go from work, to my violin lesson, then I come home, write this blog, then there's usually an update to be done on the Nerds Under Fire site, and then there's audio editing to be done, and then I get to go to bed. Today was made even busier because I had a rehearsal before I went to work. So as you might imagine, I'm a bit drained at this point. 

   Regardless, I'm feeling pretty good. If you've been on the site during the day this week, you'll notice things will start to move around every couple minutes, and don't stop for two to three hours. I've been trying to find a layout I like, but I just can't quite seem to nail it down. I've been trying to set up a slider to show my recent posts, but Blogger has been thwarting my every attempt. So if anyone has some helpful tips, or just the code that would be great. 

   In light of the recent lull in Azeroth, I've found myself in Telara in the past few days. For those not familiar, that would be the supposed "WoW killer" Rift which went free to play within a year. 

   Now don't think that I'm slamming the game. It's an excellent game, but I don't like the term "WoW killer." At this point, I really think the only thing that will kill WoW is itself. From my point of view, the only way it will ever die is it will just slowly dwindle out over the course of the next decade or two. Moral of the story-WoW is here to stay for a long, long time.

   Back to Rift, I must say it's really quite good, and they really have an excellent free-to-play model from what I've seen so far. You can pick between two factions, each with three races. From there you can pick from the four base classes-warrior, cleric, mage, and rogue. Now that seems like a small amount to choose from, but from there you can select your "soul." This essentially determines how you play the game. There are four roles in the game-tank, DPS, healer, and support. What's really fascinating about this game, however, is any class can be any role (that is, if you purchase the expansion). Without the expansion, for example, mages can support, DPS, and heal. However, if you purchase their expansion you can tank. 

   Now I'm just going to take a break here to let that sit in.

   Yeah, you read that right.

   Mage.

   Tank.

Remember what happened last time?

   I nearly purchased the expansion right there and I hadn't even gotten into the game yet. 

   Once I was in the game, itself I was quite impressed. Everything runs very smoothly, and the art style, while a little darker than WoW's, it's quite pleasing, and the graphics are extremely good looking, even on the lower settings. 

   I haven't even leveled beyond the starting zone yet, so you can expect a lot more to come, but I certainly expect to play a lot more of this game over the summer, especially seeing as it's more accessible to my friends that can't afford the $15 a month to play WoW. I highly recommend this game.

   Hope to see everyone back for Friday!

Tacos,

Gladdstone

Time to Pull the Trigger

   Here we find ourselves at yet another Monday. These damn things seem to come around once every seven days or so.
   In all honesty, I do look forward to these posts every Monday. Even when I have a bad day, they're a great way to get me out of my slump. These past couple days have actually been really great. I had my AP English final today, and it was pretty easy. That leaves just one more final-Chemistry. And that one will be super easy. So all I have to do is get up tomorrow, nail that, and then I am officially on summer break! And judging by what we've been planning, it's going to be a good summer.Unfortunately, this will have to wait at least another week, because I'm going to have family in starting Friday or Saturday. Hopefully we'll be launching Geek Council in the next few weeks here, so keep an eye for that on iTunes.
   Now onto some some interesting news, Nintendo recently lost a lawsuit in the U.K. involving a company called Philips, a company making the claim that the company infringed on several of its patents. The judge ruled that Nintendo's Wii, Wii Remote, Nunchuk, Wii Motion Plus remote, Balance Board, and the Wii U console and Gamepad all violated patents held by the Philips company. Philips also filed lawsuits in France and Germany, making the same claims. Nintendo has gone on record as saying that it has every intention appealing the decision, as they believe the patents are invalid.
   As someone with a fairly limited knowledge of even my own country's patent laws, much less those of the international community, I'm not certain of the implications a loss has for Nintendo, although it seems they will most likely end up making some sort of monetary payment to the company. While Nintendo has been having a rough time lately, I hardly seeing this proving to be a killing blow for the company. At the same time, it can hardly be good, so we'll just have to see how this plays out.
   On another note, there's the game No Man's Sky that was recently announced at E3 so far just for the PS4. At this point I'm having a really difficult time picking between the Wii U and the PS4. But, given that I have the 3DS, I think I'm going to have to spring for the PS4 first, just to mix things up. Anyway, if you didn't see it already, here's the trailer for the new sci-fi sandbox game.

   If that doesn't make you want a Playstation 4, I don't think anything ever will. Each player will start on their very own unique, and undiscovered planet. From there you can discover and scan new forms of planets and life throughout this universe, along with the other players.
   This sounds incredibly fun to me, as I love exploration in games, and yet, this has been described by the game's creator as "the most boring way to play the game." What it seems to be, is that enemies will randomly appear throughout the game, and you can either stay and fight, or make an attempt to outrun them. Very little seems to be known about most of the features of the game, as it's team seems fairly intent on keeping most of the features hidden. This mystery is a pretty big draw, and even with the Hoen remakes announced for the 3DS, this is quite easily my most anticipated game from this year's E3. No release date has been pinned down as of this moment.
   That's a lot to look forward to, on top of all the other amazing games that came out of this year's conference.
   Until Wednesday.


Tacos,
Gladdstone

Netflix Screws Me Again

   First week of summer down, several more to go. 

   To be honest, I'm not super big on summer break. I just don't have a lot of stuff to do. Today I went for a walk with a girl I know from school. We did about four miles, which is pretty good. It was a fun time, my dog got some exercise, and she's fun to spend time with. Tomorrow, my copy of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is supposed to come in the mail from Amazon, at long last. Take that, Netflix! Take my Joss Whedon away from me, will you? Well I'll just take my business elsewhere!

Aw, yeah.

   While we're on the subject of Netflix, I want to vent a little about their new UI. It. Is. Disgusting. First of all, I don't see what was wrong with the old red and black motif. It was sleek, modern, and functional. The new interface didn't lose any functionality, but what it did lose was the sleek, modern look of the old Netflix. 

   The red and black had a very modern, polished look to it. This new white/red style basically just looks like some 7th grader learned the basics of CSS and pissed all over their website. And the new logo is just weird. Something about it is just generally off-putting. Maybe if they put it back with the old color-scheme it would look decent, but I really don't like it as is. Now that I think of it, that old interface was still worse than the one from even earlier. I don't like the self scrolling bits. It feels really slow. So, I guess the moral of the story here is that every time Netflix updates, they get a little bit worse. Pretty soon, they'll be the Myspace of video streaming. Or maybe a better allusion would be just another Daily Motion or Vimeo. Basically, all right, but no one really cares. 

   I finished season one of Once Upon a Time and I'm closing in on the halfway mark in season two. Seeing as season three isn't due on Netflix until September, I may have to bite the bullet for a while on Hulu Plus, which I personally despise because of the ads, but I think it's worth it for the third season. If I don't, then you can probably expect a review of the series up through season two to be up on here by Monday. I'll do what I can to avoid spoilers, but as always, I'm not perfect, so if you absolutely do not want any spoilers, I recommend you don't read on Monday. 

   This weekend, I'll be recording the third episode of Geek Council, this time featuring my friend Nate as co-host, so watch for that. Be sure to check out last week's episode with my friend Tiana as we discuss the possibility of a real-life USS Enterprise, the new Legend of Zelda game Hyrule Warriors, and dissect-can you guess? That's right-Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

   Enjoy your weekend!

Tacos,

Gladdstone

Because I Can

   So summer is more or less here for me. I'm halfway through my finals-I've only got AP English and Chemistry left to take next week and then I'm a full-fledged senior.

Break out the allergy nasal-spray, bitches!

   This should be a fun summer for me. Nik and I both have cars and licenses now so we can take the whole group basically wherever we want. I'm thinking of getting everyone up to Ithaca to do some hiking. If you aren't familiar with the area, it's a town in upstate New York with some of the most beautiful waterfalls and hiking trails within reasonable distance of where I live. Of course, we also have the Adirondacks and Catskills, but those are a bit out of our way.
   Just yesterday we got out of our AP United States History exam and ended up spending the rest of the day up at the mall-because we're apparently stereotypical 90's teens now. Regardless, I may or may not have purchased a belt featuring the three Kanto starters and a Pokeball on the buckle. Spoilers: I totally did. And it is totally. Freaking. Awesome.

Aw, yeah.

   If I'm being completely honest though, it doesn't really feel like summer. More of like a spring break. Seems like this year totally flew by, despite being completely awful. I can't help but think things like "better not sleep in too late tomorrow, you don't want to start a bad habit for when you have to go back to school mon-oh wait." I'ts kind of nice at the same time though, because then I get to remember I have the next couple of months to do basically whatever I like, such as drag my friends out to go hiking for no good reason other than I can.
   In other news, tragedy struck the other day when I turned on Netflix only to find that one of Joss Whedon's greatest masterpieces-Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog-had been removed from the site. Words cannot express the fury I feel at this both loss and betrayal. Anyway, the moral of the story is, after a long and fruitless hunt at the stores in my area (always try to buy local first, folks!) I found it on Amazon. Unsurprisingly, those geniuses had it on sale for $5.00. Now that is knowing the market. They knew people would want to go buy it now that Netflix dumped it. Well played, Amazon. Well played.
   I'll see you lot Friday. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elder berries. Now go away before I taunt you a second time!

Tacos,
Gladdstone

That's a Wrap!

   So today was my last day of school, and personally, I am so glad to finally be putting this year behind me. There were a lot of great things that happened this year (one of those being this blog), but all in all it was pretty crappy. Junior year is a really tough year. Will senior year be easier? I doubt it, but it will be a bit more relaxed, at least.
   I think all of the firsts this year was the problem. On top of some fairly difficult classes, I had no lunch most of the year, and then pair that with still getting used to balancing work and school,  add in the stress of having expenses (private lessons, insurance, gas) and buying my first car, it has been a tough year. Next year I will definitely be a little more used to all of this, and hopefully, a little bit better at balancing everything.
   If I could give some advice to people coming towards this age, I'd say be very careful about overloading yourself. I wasn't, and I spent most of the year just bairly keeping my head above water-financially, academically, and mentally. Keep in mind that if you want to get a job, it will interfere with your schoolwork, and if you're not prepared for this it will affect your grades. Also bear in mind that people are going to start hounding you about college and you have to be ready for it. Even if you don't know what you want to do when you graduate, you're going to need some sort of answer. Maybe you don't have a career in mind, but you know you're going to attend college? I'd say take the time to look at a few colleges, community colleges especially as they're just chock full of students trying to figure out where they want to go from here. Basically, it's cheap and it will buy you time.
   Have you ever sat at your keyboard, looking at that little blinking line, and it just taunts you? I'm not sure why, but I've got a thousand thoughtsa whirling through my head right now and I just can't seem to focus enough to write.
   I need a vacation.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Socially Awkward

   Guess I missed my Monday post this week, all well. I was kinda busy, you guys understand, right? Life's gotta come first. As soon as I start making money from this, it can become first priority. Until then, we'll have to cope.

   I thought today I'd talk about one of my slightly more severe quirks, and I thought of this because I know of a lot of people that have the same issue. People familiar with me will know that I have fairly severe social anxiety. Sometimes, it makes me look like a bit of an ass, because someone I'm acquainted with will say hi to me when we pass on the street, or in the store, and I'll try to say something, but nothing comes out. It's a little hard to describe, but basically my mind starts to go a mile a minute as I try to figure out how a normal person would respond, and that results in either a really delayed response, or no response. Either way, I end up super embarrassed and walking in the opposite direction very fast.
   Recently-at least since I started working as a cashier-it has gotten slightly better because I'm interacting with a lot more people daily. What's odd, is I don't have a fear of public speaking (ie, to a group or crowd) but the idea of one-on-one conversation terrifies me. Does anyone else have this? I think what it is, is that when I'm presenting something to a crowd, I've got something prepared, or at the very least, I know what I need to mention., and I can work from there. In conversation, I tend to get jumbled and say things completely out of nowhere. And then while the other person responds, I'll be so wrapped up in figuring out what the next thing I'll say is, I completely miss their response. As you might imagine, the situation tends to dissolve from there.

Behold: the portal to hell

   I bring this up because earlier, I finally renounced public restrooms for good. This all came about because, as I do every 9th period, I mustered up the courage to use the school restrooms (actually one in particular, I use it exclusively), and after the bathroom was finally empty, I went to put toilet paper over the seat, only to find it damp.
   That's right. And yes, it was all of the toilet paper. After dry heaving a bit, I washed my hands three times, and then went home to take a shower and wash my hands again. Having had this experience, now coupled with a thousand other horror stories, I have chosen I will only use private bathrooms going forward, using public restrooms only in the most dire situations. As for how well this goes, I'm out of the house often.
   Wish me luck.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Maleficient the Passable

   Whoops, guess I missed Wednesday again. Sorry everybody! My bad! Let's all just move along, nothing to see here.
   Moving on, it has been a pretty slow week in terms on interesting-ness, but it was still fairly busy. Like I said, I had Tuesday off and I went to see Maleficient with some friends. On the docket tonight will be a brief review (spoiler free, I promise). But first, let's get everybody caught up.
   Tuesday was a nice day off, and then Wednesday was fairly relaxed other than a practice Chemistry regents. Honestly, it wasn't too difficult. I really expected to do poorly and I did quite well. I didn't go to my lesson that night because of schedule conflicts, and I finished the office later that night (either then or

Pictured: the UEHS Orchestra 2014-15 year

Thursday night, I honestly can't remember). Either way, wow. Just a fantastic end to a fantastic show. If you read Monday's post, you'll see I was getting pissed off, but I love the direction they ended up taking it in the end. It really was perfect. Thursday night I had the end of the year concert for orchestra. That's always fun, but sad. Each senior picks a song for the group to play, and unfortunately, we had 16 seniors this year. So yeah, long concert. But anyway, it was sad to think of all the people I'll probably never have the opportunity to perform alongside again. Rivenburg cried, of course, and that just made it sadder. It's crazy to think I'll be sitting in the concert master seat next year. Horrifying thought. On the bright side, I got a chance to catch up with an old cellist friend of mine, Michelle, who told me to start an 11th Doctor roleplay blog on Tumblr. So that's a thing now. Anyone who is interested in reading or participating can find it at www.mybowtiebringsallthegirls.tumblr.com. Not much there, at the moment, but it should be getting off the ground in the next couple of days. Today was fairly dull, went to school, went to work, came home, blogged, and went to bed (not yet, but soon. Soon.). With that, I think we'll move on to my Maleficient review.

Truly the face of evil

   So, Maleficient. Have I ever said how horrifying Angelina Jolie is? Her face is a train wreck. Somewhere along the line she just ended up with so much plastic in her face that she no longer appeared alive. As of right now, she looks about 4 months dead, and I honestly just don't see how people find her attractive. But regardless of her nightmarish looks, she honestly did fairly well as Maleficient. Not the best performance I've seen recently, but it certainly could have been worse. The musical score was good, but again, nothing wholly remarkable. The only thing that really leapt out at me was the CGI, which I thought was extremely good, with some exceptions such as a couple parts of the flying scenes where it just looked awful. Honestly, the CGI either looked fabulous, or dreadful, with no in between. The story I found fairly lacking. It felt very dragged out in the beginning, when it discussed Maleficient's childhood (not a spoiler), and then rushed through the rest of the movie to get to the Sleeping Beauty crap. The actress who played Aurora was Ellie Fanning. She's a very cute girl, and she performed very well. I can't say it was the best performance I've ever seen, but it was certainly some of the best in the movie, and I really hope we get to see more of her as she grows up and matures. All in all, I'd give the movie 6.5/10. I wouldn't say not to go see it, but if you have to choose between this and, say Guardians of the Galaxy, pick Guardians. If you do happen to like the idea of this extra character development, this movie may be for you. There isn't a lot, but enough.
   Before I go, I should mention the Geek Council will be available on iTunes soon, I promise. We've hit some logistical problems, but the recordings are still happening. The episodes are being developed, we just need to get it up and running. Promise.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Just Checking In

   All right, Monday is over. Thank God, hahaha. I've finally reached season 9 of The Office and I'm starting to get really pissed off at the story line and what's happening with the relationships. I won't spoil anything, but suffice it to say that I'm pretty angry. They're screwing up my perfect couple.
   My weekend was pretty quiet. I got some yard work down, I sat around, finished off the ice cream in the freezer, and, oh yeah, I recorded the pilot for a brand new podcast!
   That's right, Geek Council recorded it's first ever episode was recorded on Saturday with my dear friend Nik. We discussed several things, including a fascinating Florida Man story (for those unfamiliar with the meme, Florida is a really messed up place. Let's just leave it at that). It also features a review segment as well as a segment designed by Nik that he will do each time he's on the show. It should be up on her, and the Nerds Under Fire website soon. Keep checking back!
   No school for this guy tomorrow, thanks to the Common Core testing. If one good thing that comes out of it, it's that AP students don't have to take the test. So, yeah! Whoo! Day off! We're going to go see Maleficient in the afternoon. I really love these kinds of stories that take a look at a villain, and really sort of humanize them, for lack of a better word. Can you guess what my favorite musical is?
   Duh, West Side Story.
   Hahaha, just kidding. It's Wicked, obviously. As you know, I just went to see it in NYC last week and the music is still stuck in my head. Not a bad thing, though. That music is the shit.
   So it should be a good day. Not much else to report on.
   I'll see you all Wednesday.

Tacos,
Gladdstone