Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Blog will be back up soon
If you have or have not noticed, the blog has been sort of quiet. This is because it has been a pretty rough weekend for me and I have not really been motivated to do much of anything. That being said, I will be getting the blog going again this week, as soon as I am able to get clear of all the school work I have this week.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
40K Themed Art Photography Project
For one of my college courses I am taking an online art class. At the end of the semester, the class requires that I take a picture of something that exemplifies one of the themes we studied during the course. At a later date, I will be posting these themes for some help as to ideas for what I could do. I plan to create a diorama using 40K minis to exemplify a theme, and then take a picture of it for the project.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Minecraft Episode 1: Zombie War
Starting a new Minecraft adventure today, I managed to get several things done. I won't go into too much detail, as it is very late, and I should be sleeping right now, but I managed to set up my dwelling, which right now is just a dirt box with the necessary supplies I need to conduct my operations.
I also created an orchard of trees that i keep after, so when I need wood for charcoal or building materials I usually have a very good supply right next to my dwelling.
From there I cleared out half of a mountain, creating a flat area directly behind my dwelling for future use, as I plan to build my house there and create several other fun things in this area. After clearing it out, I bore into the mountain, and then dug down, creating myself a mine shaft.
I dug down pretty deep, but eventually I stumbled upon a pretty huge cave system. It has several branches that lead into many, many different areas. Heck there were so many I ended up crafting signs so that I knew what was contained in each area and how to find my way back to the mine shaft. I ended up finding a huge amount of obsidian, which I did not mine yet, and I also managed to come across several diamond and gold deposits. I still have plenty of digging to do to further investigate what I have found, but I look forward to amassing the supplies necessary to create a really awesome realm!
While exploring this cave system, i happened upon a monster spawner that was spitting out zombies like crazy. I mean like 3 zombies at a time. It was nuts! I must have died about 9 or 10 times trying to clear it out, as everytime I thought it was safe, another one would ambush me and in the tight quarters, there was no where to run.
What is this blog about?
After a few days of posting to this blog I found myself wondering exactly what I was gonna do with this blog. I initially decided it was going to be my own Warhammer 40k blog, hence the title. However I haven't made a single 40k related post yet. But I have decided that this blog will be mostly about games and miniature related stuff. Occasionally I will be posting about other random stuff, such as the ice article I wrote up earlier today, but the main focus will be games and miniatures. I might start up another blog eventually for the more random stuff later. I will also most likely be starting up a blog for movie and tv reviews soon, so keep an eye out for that if interested.
University Park Proves Money is More Important
The northeastern side of the US has been stricken by a pretty significant ice and snow storm over the last few days. The biggest portion of this storm is the ice. Sidewalks and roads everywhere are frozen over completely, creating a dangerous sheet of ice for everyone to walk and drive on. Clearly not what favorable conditions.
Enter Penn State University. Known for nearly never cancelling classes at their main campus, in the last 8 years it has only happened twice, Penn State refused to close down today, despite the still very icy cobditions that can be found on the campus. Sheets of ice still cover many of the roads and sidewalks, creating a huge hazard for anyone who is going to class. One must ask why? Nearly all of the branch campuses had either a delay or were closed today. Many other Big 10 schools were also closed today. Yet Penn State remains open.
The reason, as can be expected, is money. The university will lose too much money, so they claim, to close down for a day. I have often pondered this, as I always found it difficult to understand exactly how they are losing money. Unless there are some other factors and costs that i do not see, what do they pay for on a "snow day" that they dont pay for normally? Whether or not classes take place that day, professors still get paid, the buildings are still heated, and snow/ice removal will still take place. If anything, they would save money because classes would not be consuming energy. Lights would be off in the classrooms, computers remaining in sleepmode, and projectors powered off.
What does the university stand to lose by closing? Not much in my own opinion, in fact they could possibly save some money. What do they stand to lose by remaining open? A lot of money in lawsuits. I personally have fallen twice now, one of those times while wearing slip resistant footwear. While i was lucky to not be injured, many students have been reporting falls, and threatening with lawsuits if they are seriously injured. Worse still, if the roads off campus are as bad as they are on campus, accidents can be expected to occur. Even driving slowly, you will slide if you hit ice, and what happens if a car slides into someone walking to class and causes serious injury, or even kills them? How about if a serious collision occurs, and one of those involved is killed? is this a good trade off?
I say no. The risks outweight any benefit that can be thought of. The university is showing gross negligence toward student and faculty safety by their decisions today. I can only hope nothing serious happens today, as it would be a shame for someone else to have to suffer from the decisions of those in charge of Penn State University.
Enter Penn State University. Known for nearly never cancelling classes at their main campus, in the last 8 years it has only happened twice, Penn State refused to close down today, despite the still very icy cobditions that can be found on the campus. Sheets of ice still cover many of the roads and sidewalks, creating a huge hazard for anyone who is going to class. One must ask why? Nearly all of the branch campuses had either a delay or were closed today. Many other Big 10 schools were also closed today. Yet Penn State remains open.
The reason, as can be expected, is money. The university will lose too much money, so they claim, to close down for a day. I have often pondered this, as I always found it difficult to understand exactly how they are losing money. Unless there are some other factors and costs that i do not see, what do they pay for on a "snow day" that they dont pay for normally? Whether or not classes take place that day, professors still get paid, the buildings are still heated, and snow/ice removal will still take place. If anything, they would save money because classes would not be consuming energy. Lights would be off in the classrooms, computers remaining in sleepmode, and projectors powered off.
What does the university stand to lose by closing? Not much in my own opinion, in fact they could possibly save some money. What do they stand to lose by remaining open? A lot of money in lawsuits. I personally have fallen twice now, one of those times while wearing slip resistant footwear. While i was lucky to not be injured, many students have been reporting falls, and threatening with lawsuits if they are seriously injured. Worse still, if the roads off campus are as bad as they are on campus, accidents can be expected to occur. Even driving slowly, you will slide if you hit ice, and what happens if a car slides into someone walking to class and causes serious injury, or even kills them? How about if a serious collision occurs, and one of those involved is killed? is this a good trade off?
I say no. The risks outweight any benefit that can be thought of. The university is showing gross negligence toward student and faculty safety by their decisions today. I can only hope nothing serious happens today, as it would be a shame for someone else to have to suffer from the decisions of those in charge of Penn State University.
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Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Minecraft Frustration, Still an Awesome Game Though
If you haven't played Minecraft yet, please stop reading and do so. It has got to be one of the most entertaining games I think I may have ever played. There is no goal. You simply find resources and build stuff. So so much fun. That being said the game is still in Beta, so it has some bugs to be worked out, but hey, the don't take too much fun out of the game.
So, on to the frustration. I spent the better part of over an hour working on a huge fortress. Walls so high I need to build more than 7 blocks up in stair to get to them. Yet somehow I found one of the green exploding penis monsters running freely throughout my complex. This lead me to wonder...WTF. So not only can the spiders just climb over my wall, which is at least understandable, but the exploding jerk just shows up as well and wrecks havoc on what I spent so much time perfecting?
Then there is the frustration with losing everything over an incredible stupid death...I had probably around 42 of the red ore dust and around 12 diamond, both fairly difficult to find. I was about to mine some more gold ore when, wouldn't you know it, a gravelanche happened and I died slowly with no way to dig myself out. I was quite angered by this, as I had been exploring this cave system I had unearthed for a significant time now, and had many, many valuables I wished to see returned to the surface. Ugh!!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the game for the gravelanche. I should have been paying more attention. I guess the excitement of finding some worthwhile stuff made me lose my judgement. I am still a little frustrated with the exploding penis monster showing up where he is forbidden, but hey, the game is a beta. Hell I found random farm animals in my house, which happens to be an underground bunker within this giant walled complex.
Anyone else have some crazy stupid things happen to them while playing?? If so, post them in the comments below!
So, on to the frustration. I spent the better part of over an hour working on a huge fortress. Walls so high I need to build more than 7 blocks up in stair to get to them. Yet somehow I found one of the green exploding penis monsters running freely throughout my complex. This lead me to wonder...WTF. So not only can the spiders just climb over my wall, which is at least understandable, but the exploding jerk just shows up as well and wrecks havoc on what I spent so much time perfecting?
Then there is the frustration with losing everything over an incredible stupid death...I had probably around 42 of the red ore dust and around 12 diamond, both fairly difficult to find. I was about to mine some more gold ore when, wouldn't you know it, a gravelanche happened and I died slowly with no way to dig myself out. I was quite angered by this, as I had been exploring this cave system I had unearthed for a significant time now, and had many, many valuables I wished to see returned to the surface. Ugh!!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the game for the gravelanche. I should have been paying more attention. I guess the excitement of finding some worthwhile stuff made me lose my judgement. I am still a little frustrated with the exploding penis monster showing up where he is forbidden, but hey, the game is a beta. Hell I found random farm animals in my house, which happens to be an underground bunker within this giant walled complex.
Anyone else have some crazy stupid things happen to them while playing?? If so, post them in the comments below!
Oh the Agony of Winter
Yes, another snow storm has hit the State College area, this one creating the worst conditions I have seen yet. Icy roads and snow everywhere, hard to drive, hard to walk, very dangerous. And yet, despite all this, Penn State University decided to remain open while closing most of its branch campuses. I guess it takes a severe accident or a death for them to realize that ice is a danger. A wonderful day of classes awaits!
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