ACII was a great game because the story kept you interested. Normally I can only play games for 15 minutes before I get bored with them and want to turn them off. ACII wasn’t like that, but even if I did want to quit after a short amount of time there were plenty of checkpoints to make sure I didn’t lose my progress. The scenery was amazing and the game play was smooth. The building looked almost real and the scenes where the city would erect before you were awesome. I can only imagine how great it looks on an HD TV. The cut scenes that helped move the story along were great, if not long at points. The only time in the game where I questioned the makers’ choice was when I was forced to go all around Italy to gather Codex pages in order to progress the story. It was almost as if the developers said, “We need to make this game longer, how do we do it? Let’s send the player on a long scavenger hunt.” Besides that point in the story, everything else was great.  There were missions that you had to do and several others that you could skip.  And it doesn’t matter if you skip them because once you beat the game you still have free reign to go about the other missions, which I’m currently doing now. The final level snuck up on me fast and I was surprised at how easy it was to beat the final level, but I wasn’t disappointed. I’d have to say this should probably be up there as one of the top games of the year, but since I don’t game that much I can’t really make that call. All I can do is tell you that the game was fun and beautiful with a great story and great graphics. If you have a PS3 (or XBOX 360) you should buy this game.

The New Rules of Blogging
This post is quite old and not many people will understand it. It was basically an inside joke with some members of the WordPress and Habari communities. The post was inspired by someone that we all found completely annoying and we hated her blogging style. This post was created as a joke.

The Game
I really love this post, but not as much as I love baseball. I was excited about baseball season starting and was bored when I was working in the computer labs in college, so I wrote this. It was even featured on StLToday when the season began a couple seasons later.

The Best Hip Hop Albums
Everyone knows that I love music, especially hip hop. In 2006 I put together some of my favorite albums of all time. 3 years later and I’d still say this list is the same. Maybe that’s because I’m still waiting for the sure-to-be-a-classic Chico and the Man album.

Three Generations of Cardinals Fans
This isn’t so much a post as an image. One of my favorites. My nephew, my dad, and me.

The World Can be Saved by the Bell
Last, but certainly not least, is my favorite post of all time. Anyone who really knows me knows I am a freak when it comes to Saved by the Bell. I think it’s the best show in the world (only slightly kidding here) and have seen every episode too many times to count. Heck, if I could get away with having the theme song as my ringtone without looking like a total geek I would.

So there you have it, my favorite 5 posts from the past 5 years. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them as much as I have writing them.

Because this month is my Blogiversary, I will (hopefully) be posting a bit more, including one that features some of my favorite posts of the past 5 years. I find it hard to categorize my blog other than personal. I write about technology, music, TV, and rant about pretty much everything. This of course makes my blog limited in exposure. When you visit and read a post you really are getting a piece of me. Most of my readers are people I know in real life or from the internet. I’d like to thank all my readers for continuing to read and look forward to what the future brings.

The funniest moment was last night. One of my favorite so-bad-it’s-good movies, Congo, was on. I turned it on right at a scene where Amy the gorilla had a close up. She instantly became curious and watched the TV. She then started getting excited, like she wanted to play with the gorilla. She moved closer and closer to the TV and then even stood on her hind legs and put her face inches from the screen. The scene changed and she sat back down, but not before watching another 5 minutes of the movie. My dog is weird.

Here are some pictures of her if you haven’t seen her yet.

Whenever I have to go somewhere I’ve never been I stress about it non-stop. What time do I need to leave? How do I get there? Do I take this exit or the next? I could have the whole route memorized and still stress about it. I don’t know why. I’ve never gotten lost and I generally have a great sense of direction. In fact, I used to deliver pizzas and found myself to have a great sense of direction and never stressed about going on a delivery to a place I didn’t know. I don’t know what makes me stress out now, but I do.

Whenever I’m going to a place where there is a set of procedures that I’ve never preformed before, I stress, going over every possible scenario in my head over and over. This could be anything from a trip to the doctor’s office to a trip to the DMV. If I’ve never been there, I stress. Do I have everything I’m supposed to have? What do I do next? Are other people judging my actions because I don’t know what I’m doing?

At the end of all the stressing, when whatever action I wanted to complete has been completed, I always relax. I think to myself, that wasn’t bad, why was I stressing? I know I’m weird and I have really no reason to stress, but I do. I sweat the small stuff, but I’m trying to change that.

The only catch is I will not do a full beard (come on, it’s going to be summer in St. Louis. That’s just cruel!) and the Super Mario looks pretty much impossible. You can vote by commenting here or sending me a reply on twitter

UPDATE:There’s now a poll, so submit your vote!

The 2 hours mentally and physically exhausted me. The two boys I had, both in 5th grade, would not stop talking to each other or to the table behind me. Typically I have great table management skills, teaching ISS for a year will do that for you, but it’s hard to have table management when they don’t listen at all.

One of the girls I had was frustrating as well, but that wasn’t her fault. The work she had she could not comprehend. It was an independent practice activity and she needed to be guided through the entire thing, and she still couldn’t find the answers. I feel bad for not being able to help her more, especially since the two boys I had required the majority of my attention. The other girl required me teaching a new math lesson, while trying to deal with the two boys who seemed to be even worse the second hour. I hope Saturday goes smoother.

Barack Obama taking the Oath of Office

I guess I should say something about the inauguration. The thing is, I do not have much to say on the topic. I’m speechless. It’s almost like a dream. Whether or not you voted for him or agree with his policies, it was a momentous occasion. The country is forever changed, for the better, from this day forward. I will never forget this election. I will never forget this day. I wish I could have been there. Heck, I wish I could have watched it live on TV instead of listening to it on NPR. At least I experienced it. His speech I think was perfect for the occasion and I think he handled expectations well. He warned America that the road to prosperity will be a difficult one but if we take responsibility for ourselves and work hard, we will get there. The whole day was just amazing. Again, it’s almost like a dream.

Last night I finally voiced my concerns with a couple of people. My friend Trix told me to make an appointment with a doctor right away. My friend Brittney reacted a bit differently. I told her what I was feeling via IM and her response was one of shock. She was feeling the exact same thing I was. I thought this was very odd but didn’t really think anything of it. I decided to tell my mom what I was feeling and that I may need to see a doctor. As I’m telling her, her eyes get wide and she tells me she has felt the exact same thing. This was really starting to get weird. What was causing this feeling in people? Especially Brittney, who lives in Wisconsin. This is too much to be a coincidence. My mom then goes on to explain how it freaked her out at first as well but then she overheard two ladies talking about having the same exact feeling. What is going on here? Why are all these people feeling this and why haven’t I heard something about this from others? It turns out one of the ladies my mom overheard, and her husband, were feeling this and went to the doctor. The doctor told them that because St. Louis has had such a warm winter with temperatures well above the norm, our bodies didn’t know how to react last week when the temperature dropped to zero. I mean, we’ve had weather in the 50’s, 60’s and even 70’s when it should be in the 20’s and 30’s. As it so happens, the feeling started when the cold hit, but I would have never attributed it to the weather. My friend that lives in Wisconsin hasn’t had a warm winter. But the temperatures have been record lows, so I would assume it can do the same as it did to me.

I’m going to keep monitoring just to make sure it’s nothing else, but a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders when I found out others were having the feeling and that it was all caused by the weather. Very strange.

I collect the board game Monopoly.  I’ve done this for several years.  I have only purchased 1 of the 20+ versions of the board game I have.  I didn’t intend to start collecting them.  It is my favorite game and one year for Christmas I received 3 or 4 versions from various family members.  Since then, I’ve been getting them on a regular basis as gifts.  My favorite has to be the St. Louis Cardinals version or the Classic version that comes in a wood box.  The only one I purchased for myself was an edition from 1935, which is the first year they were mass-produced by a game manufacturing company.

I have a BSEd in History but I work as a web developer.  Finding a job teaching high school social studies is hard as it is an overpopulated field.  Will I go back to teaching?  I’m not quite sure yet.  I also work part time as a teacher for Sylvan Learning Center.

The worst job I ever had was working at my family’s restaurant. It was the summer before my freshman year of high school.  Most of the time I did maintenance jobs around the building.  This was not an easy task on a building that was built before the Civil War.  When I wasn’t in the blistering heat (that was a hot summer!) doing maintenance, I was in the kitchen either cutting strawberries or wrapping potatoes in foil.  Fun stuff, I know.

I love the TV show Saved by the Bell.  Yeah, if you read this blog, you already know that.  It’s a guilty pleasure of mine and reminds me of a much simpler time.

The only movie to ever scare me as a kid was The Exorcist.  That movie was ahead of its time.

I wish I was still in college.  I love the college environment and would love to go back.  I also love learning and would love to take all the classes I wanted to while I was in school but didn’t have the time to take them.  I would also love to teach at the collegiate level.  I’d need to get my PhD in order to be a professor in history though, and I don’t have the time or the money for that right now.  I don’t even have the time or money to start my Master’s.  Some day…

Well, there you have it.  Some things about me you might not have known.  I hope you learned a little more about me and now realize I’m more awesome than you once thought. ;)