You Gotta Believe

Several people I know suffer from the mentally crippling disease known as low self-esteem. Its rival, egotism, is damaging but not in the same way.  Low self-esteem limits peoples’ greatness not by reducing their ability, but by reducing their will and opinion of their ability.

Low self-esteem is something that I sometimes have trouble comprehending. Even if someone is ugly or unskilled or whatever, moping about it won’t help. These people, my good friends, don’t understand that they are wonderful people! And it makes me angry because these wonderfully brilliant people are walking around the earth thinking about self-loathing when they can be thinking about changing the world or whatever they need to be thinking about. And it’s not like I can just tell these people they’re greater than they are; you see, I’m quite socially inept.

You gotta believe, yo.

Also, not sure if I’ll continue this blog. No point speaking to ears that aren’t there.

I’ve finally.

I’ve finally figured out what I’m going to do but my plan is not fully formulated in my mind so I’m going to transfer it on to here because this is what is handy.

I recently watched this video:

Which led me to thinking, perhaps I am not as insignificant as I thought. I’ve begun to think that everything is both infinitely large and infinitely small. For instance, if you compare a person to the universe, yeah, it’s going to sound insignificant. But what Tom says in his video is a great point, is that we could be the only life in the universe (Which might be kind of unlikely or likely or whatever but we’ll go with it) which makes us, in a way, significant. Another way people can be significant is to change the lives of other people. If a person changes the life of even one other person, s/he is making their life more useful by expanding its scope, doubling it,  to include more people.

What I’m trying to say is that my current philosophy on life is wrong, and I am going to change it. What I do now is ceaselessly complain and think about what’s wrong with society, without actually doing anything to improve it. I talk and speculate about why people do things, but I never have the thought to do something about it. And I can start by improving myself.

So, from now on, I am going to try and just be a better person overall, with a few core values that will be much more difficult to do than to say. I’m going to try and mope about less often, and at least speculate about things I can do to help other people, and by extension, society and mankind as a whole. I want so dearly to improve this world that I live in, and I  must start at a small scale (That is also a very large scale!) to do this. I must be kind at reach out to people more. My goal is to permanently change as many people as possible for the better, though even if it’s one person that’s good. Nothing will be good enough, however, because my motivation and my burning desire to help must continue. And I have a long way to go, but I believe this epiphany will improve my life greatly

Nanowrimo 2011

Nanowrimo was fantastic this year. I had the immense privilege to go to Hawai’i during my Thanksgiving break, which made finding time to write more difficult, but not really. I just stayed up through the night and wrote.

Writing was so magical for me this year. I felt as if Jarvis were taking me on an adventure, not the other way around. I had no clue what I was typing but I thought it was pretty decent. I think I’ll edit this one.

I like to compare editing to digging out gold nuggets from a pile of manure. The past few years, the pile of manure has been too large and the gold nugget too small. This year, however, I think it will be worth editing; the gold nuggets encased within will be worth the effort to edit. So I’m excited about that. I think that I’ll post more often, as well.

What a Wonderful World

Many people (myself included) often complain about how unfair and cruel the world is. While I think there are many valid points to this, I think I sit on the pessimistic side far too often, and in blind sadness, fail to see the beauty around us.  It’s kind of funny in a non-humorous way, people’s sadness. When we’re sad, we almost want to stay that way. We try our hardest not to be cheered up by others. It’s a frightening trend that I feel I find myself following far too often.

There are so many things in this world that have an almost magical quality to them, things that always amaze and astound me. These things such as a gust of wind, a field of clouds, and a cool autumn evening are things that I find so fascinating, as if every time I experience these things I am a small child experiencing them for the first time.  As I grow older and hopefully wiser, I hope this feeling of awe never leaves me.  I yearn to leave childhood behind, in its ignorance and immaturity, but the thing I cherish the most is wonderment.

Time

I’ve just comprehended a bit of how truly mortal I am.  Not because of some physical milestone I cannot achieve, but because of how I realize how limited my time is.  If 80 years is standard, what am I doing? Why do I not spend every infinitely long moment doing something that matters?

One thing that gets in the way of doing things is school.  So much school.  About than a quarter of most (core region) peoples’ lives are filled with school. That’s already 25% of one’s life, gone. Perhaps it is for good, but it is still passed.

I think that people choose to slack not because they don’t want to do something important, but because they simply do not comprehend how precious it is, this time that the idle within.  This is true with me, as well.  I idle, and wish that I could be doing something great, but truly I could be doing something and choose not to.  It’s an odd thing, how we convince ourselves we can’t do anything about something with the time we could be using to do that very thing. My goodness, I hope that makes sense.

My home recently has become a prison, with me being a minor that is not able to drive.  I want nothing more than to be independent, but I feel this will truly never happen. The times I am most happy are when I am alone, and I fear that this is what will bring me to ruin.  How am I supposed to help others when I am staring at the clouds?  Is that time well spent?  I feel that even leisure is a waste, because our time is most limited. Or is it the opposite, is leisure the only thing that matters? I do not think so.

I pose to myself (and the few of you) all questions, with no answers.  This is how I feel all my thoughts have been recently, unanswered questions.

I feel that the thoughts I spend so much time in have separated me from the rest of the world.  While I am still somewhat social, interaction with humans has become increasingly foreign for me. I don’t know why. I’d like to blame society, but really I know it’s me.

I apologize for the slight incoherence of this post. As fast as I type, I cannot type fast enough to express the thoughts sprinting through my trampled mind.

Pensive.

As of late, I’ve been in a very thoughtful mood.  It seems to be very productive for philosophizing, but not for doing actual work.

For instance.

Sometimes, after school, I should go somewhere and do my homework before practice, so I don’t have much to do when I get home. But I feel such a lack of motivation; all I want to do is sit on a bench and look at the clouds. It’s probably really good for my mental development, but not for my grades. They’ve been not up to my usual standards. Part of this is because I am taking harder classes, but it doesn’t help that my motivation for studying is nil. In fact, I’m doing it right now.  I have a chemistry test in two days.

In other news, Nanowrimo is gon’ be fun this year.

To escape the monotony, we must…

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Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection Review

Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection is a collection of more than 40 first-party Sega Genesis games, available on disc for your venerable PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

It is described as thus:

Take a trip back in time with over 40 titles from the SEGA Genesis era, including your Sonic The Hedgehog favorites. In classic single-player and multiplayer battles, you’ll take down a huge variety of enemies, including Sonic’s nemesis Dr. Eggman (AKA Dr. Robotnik), shuriken-flinging ninjas, hordes of altered beasts and the world’s greatest fighting champions.

Features

• THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF CLASSIC SEGA TITLES. All the favorites are here including Sonic The Hedgehog, titles from the Phantasy Star series, as well as three titles from the Streets of Rage series, to name a few.
• UNLOCKABLE CONTENT. Unlock arcade games and interviews with the original game developers as you earn Achievements on the Xbox 360 and Trophies on the PLAYSTATION3.
• ALL TITLES UPGRADED TO HI-DEF. The classic 2D style never looked so good! Each of the titles has been converted to hi-def (720p) and will be a blast to play using the intuitive controls of the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION3 systems.
• MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER OPTIONS. Play these classics together with a friend from the same console at home.

Before you hear what I have to say, we’ll grab 2 positive reviews and 2 negative reviews from our dear community at the Gamestop website.

First review: 1/10:

This game is terrible. It is probably the worst game Ive ever played and Ive played a lot of games. This game is only for people who were alive when the sega genesis was around or people that have no idea what a good game is. For any body other than those people it will most likely have no appeal. DONT BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Second review:10/10

I know these graphics cant compare to games now and days, but back for its day, these gragics were amazing! I grew up playing this game! I own this game for the XBox 360 and I must say it was one of my best purchases EVER in gaming. I also love the classic music! It gets stuck in my head all the time lol! GREAT GAME! EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE A CHANCE TO PLAY IT!!!!

I agree with him. The gragics were amazing.

Third review:4/10:

Serioulsy PS3??? I mean this was a great idea but why not improve the graphics? All PS3 gamers would be willing to pay more if you enhanced the graphics on all these games to at least 64bit— and change the gameplay in a few of these classics. I mean if I wanted to play the old games in old game style I’ll just buy a sega genesis….. Anyway I’m sorry I bought it and can’t wait to take it back today.

Fourth review:9/10:

Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection known as Genesis 20th Anniversery! This game rocks, perfect for Sega Genesis fans!
It has classic games like Altered Beast,Sonic The Hedgehog (1,2, and 3), Ristar, Vectorman (1 and 2), Alienstorm, Alex Kidd, and much more!
I gave the videogame a 10/10

I’m sure that after those sophisticated reviews you may be worried that grammar may be disregarded in the upcoming generation be thinking that you won’t need my review, but I implore you to continue to read.

I own the PS3 version of this game, and I have not played all of the games, but most of them that I have played have been above average games. As there are more than forty games, it would take quite a long time to beat them all. Click here for the list of all of the games.

As always, soundtracks from first party games are excellent.  The numbered Sonic games have great music, as well as the Streets of Rage titles. Decap Attack has some pretty neat music too.  That’s a funky game. You’re a mummy with a head in your torso and you shoot your face out to hit enemies… I’ll probably put up a review of that eventually.

The graphics are vibrant and colorful.  But, as some (one) complain, it “could have been 64 bit.” Nope. Everything looks great in 720p, and if you have an HDTV and choose to run it in 4:3, there’s a special background around the game’s screen that is personalized for each game.

My only complaint is that many of the Genesis’s most well known games are not on there, simply because they are not first party titles.  This makes sense, but it would have been nice to see Road Rash or Revenge of the Shinobi on there.

As previously stated, most of these games are of very high quality, and one could very easily squeeze more than 100 hours out of this game.  Even if you’re not into retro gaming, I would suggest picking up this title if possible.  It is less than twenty dollars, and it’s very well worth it.

Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection gets 5/5 Afro-stars

Gamers Against Racism

I don’t mean to get up on my soapbox and get all self-righteous about stuff, but this is something I just had to post.  For one thing, it’s hilarious, and it supports a good cause.

It’s a group called “Gamers Against Racism” and it is a group of gamers… you guessed it… that are against racism.  As they put it, “We fight against orcs, zombies, Sephiroth, and racism on a daily basis. We stomp on Koopa Paratroopers, but we also stomp on racist ideas.”

Also their posters are hilarious.

The website is here and I encorage you to check it out.

NaNoBOA

Wow.

Marching band is over.  Not completely over, but practically over.

Bands Of America.

All of our work, hundreds of hours of practice, the destruction of the concept of “free time”, all led up to this event.  And good God, was it amazing.

I walked on the field at the Georgia Dome, and I saw the few hundred people spectating, and I felt at home.  This was BOA. Nothing to get nervous about, nothing to get hyped about, but I needed to do the best I could.

I did freak out a bit at the beginning because I thought I was on the wrong yard line.  I was on the right yard line.   The whole event passed so quickly.  By the 11th set (Of ~60 total) I was thinking, “Wow, this is taking a while”, but before I knew it we were at the end of our show.

 

Also, I’m embarking on another long, laborious journey starting in a few minutes.
National Novel Writing Month.

A month long challenge to write a novel, this is going to take up just as much time as marching band.  After November, I’m just going to be some lazy slob with too much free time.

Anywho.  Haven’t posted in a while, thought I might.