Oh! Just a Dream

A couple of days ago, me and my friends were telling tales about recent dreams and their significance, during a short ride in our white vans, heading toward our designated workout spot.

Many of us had suspicions about whether dreams had actual meaning.
Yet one of my superiors spoke of, what we can call, a bizarre dream in which he died in a violent and gruesome manner. It turns out the epic ending he suffers was a tragic blow to his neck, given to him by an unknown” man. The injury claimed his life, but not before he is tortured by watching as blood spurts from his tiny wound and spreads all over the ground.

As he spoke of his dream, the events in the story did not make much sense, although some parts where interesting. The way he had died was so dramatic it caught the attention of me and one other student.

So we quickly, whipped out the old smart phone from our pockets and began our
quest to find its meaning. A few seconds later, we found it. Thank you Google.

This is what we found,

To dream that you are bleeding or losing blood, signifies that you are suffering from exhaustion or that you are feeling emotionally drained…”       – http://www.dreammoods.com

Wooaahh there… What?

Well it turns out our Superior had been preparing for the Boston Marathon.

See where this starts to make sense?

So back to the Point. Do dreams really have a deeper meaning? Or are they just an adventure our brain goes of to do while it waits for dawn?

“Occupy Wall Street”

Currently there is a movement to protest the actions of the economic top 1% of Americans called “Occupy Wall Street.” Not just a verbal movement, an actual protest in New York.

Chances are you haven’t heard about it, and I believe there is a reason for that: News corporations don’t like covering protest unless things are on fire and the police are involved.

Now I could write a book on how much I despise the choices of most news organizations, but instead I want to focus on what Wall Street has done to this country.

It all goes back to greed. Traders on Wall Street work for companies, and at the helms of those companies are CEO’s. I have nothing against CEO’s in general, more the ideas that their job title in general seeks to accomplish.

They want power and money. They want their shares to boom and then they want to create more shares which will boom some more. Yes, there are some advantages to this system of market (Yay Capitalism!), it encourages competitive businesses and seeks to advance our markets.

But what is the cost? Well, I think we are seeing the cost right now. Wealth in America is incredibly concentrated, with the middle class shrinking at shocking rates. These trends are due to the greed that has been encouraged through our system of economics.

The whole goal for most Americans is to get rich. Children are encouraged to choose jobs that will make them wealthy when they grow up. But then we reach the problem of having such an elitist society that money passes from hand to hand, instead of from hand to hands.

Don’t get me wrong, I love money. I love the finer things in life, from food to fast cars, probably more than many people. But what I want to think about is greed and how much money we really need as individuals. Go and buy that nice car, that nice house, that perfect vacation. But in the mean time, think about what you can buy for others with what you have.

And now we come back to the Occupy Wall Street protest. Thousands of people have been protesting, not just in New York, but in major cities across America. They want the top 1% to look and listen to what is happening in America. They are not asking for the wealthy to give up their lifestyles, all they are asking for is less greed and more sympathy.

We are a country, we are supposed to look after each other (to what degree can be debated all you want). Corporations (who are not people by the way) and the CEO’s (who are people) who run them need to get their priorities in line and start supporting the country that gave them what they have today.

Nerd Rant, Part IV

Once again, I must delve into my “series” of nerd rants for another TOTALLY AWESOME nerd thing.

As previously stated, I am a Harry Potter nerd. So when I discovered J.K. Rowling was launching a new Harry Potter-based website, I had to apply for early admission right away.

AND I GOT IN.

This website is, nerdily enough, called Pottermore. In Pottermore you follow the basic storyline of the books, but there’s an added character, you. You get your own wand (mine is a 10 inch cyprus, unyielding with a phoenix feather core) and you get sorted into a house (Hufflepuff!)

You learn spells and brew potions for house points and all in all it is a very geeky, nerdy, and fantastic thing.

It’s so lame but so much fun.

I highly suggest you all go and check out Pottermore when it is released to the public on October 1!

Seriously.

Do it.

ITS A PHONE?!?!?!

I thought I saw a lot of crazy things in my life. I spent a lot of time in Philadelphia and I’ve seen people yell obscene words at cops, and people throw things at buildings. People were out of their minds and I loved it. But this is a new kind of crazy. Ladies and gentlemen, the Ice Cream Sandwich…it’s a freakin’ phone. Doesn’t that look delicious…I mean useful? Simple answer is no. It just looks like some designers decided to make the phone look like what was in their mini freezer in their office. Honestly I can’t even fathom why this was made. I love ice cream sandwiches. I don’t like putting them to my ear and talking to them.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/IceCreamSandwich.jpg/275px-IceCreamSandwich.jpg

Tasty huh? Well, now you can call your family and friends before you eat it so you can brag. Unfortunately, it can only be used/eaten once.

The SkyCoaster

I think it’s safe to assume everyone has been on a swing.  Most people have been to a fair and seen those trampolines that have harnesses and you can do flips in.

Mix those two together and add some extreme.  You might get a general idea of what the CIMI SkyCoaster is like.

This year, the camp introduced the newest edition of CIMI equipment.  The SkyCoaster is essentially, a giant swing.  It stands about 30 feet tall (same as a tyrannosaurs rex) and is located behind the rock wall in the eucalyptus grove near campus.

There  is a pull crew and a catcher on the ground.  The camper straps into a full body harness, climbs a ladder, and is hooked in to a towline; the pull crew wear climbing harnesses with carabiners secured to the towline and pull the camper up 30 feet in the air.

A ripcord is attached to a pulley system and the camper counts to 3, out loud, so the pull crew can brace themselves before the drop jerks the towline. After pulling the cord, the camper falls 3 feet and swings 26 feet out and up into the air.

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How about those…BILLS?!?!?!

As I’m sitting in my hotel room in Los Angeles this past weekend with my NFL-addicted family. Football games are on and emotions fly. It was a sad sight to watch the flightless Eagles perish against the equally as ineffective Giants. But, as I have known, anything can happen on any given day in the NFL. That includes the AFC East powerhouse New England Patriots falling to the usually pathetic Buffalo Bills. The New York misfit franchise came back from a score of 21-10 to defeat the Patriots by a score of 34-31. This brings the Bills’ record to 3-0. Wait, WHAT?! THE BILLS?!?! I’m not going to complain. I am tired, as I’m sure many others are, of the Patriots winning everything year after year after year. I’m glad a team finally put them in their place. However, I never thought for one second that this team would be the Buffalo Bills. Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick graduated from the football “powerhouse” known as Harvard University, has led the Bills through the first part of the season with perfection. However, Harvard grads rarely opt to enter the NFL. In fact, to my knowledge, only one other player in NFL history has graduated from Harvard and played for at least 7 seasons (Matt Birk). Maybe teams should add Harvard as a college of interest when they recruit players pre-draft. Certainly seems to have worked out well for the Bills. Will it last? I don’t know. Like I said, anything can happen.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Just when you thought this obvious debate was over, IT’S BACK!

Rick Santorum felt the need to answer a gay soldier’s question about the policy by saying he would reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Santorum: ‘I condemn’ booing of gay soldier, didn’t hear it

Now his opinion is one thing, he has every right to that. But really was that necessary? I thought we were getting over this as a country, but now with the Republican debates the whole thing is coming back strong.

Personally, I feel that this is a RIDICULOUS issue. Just the other day I was talking to a veteran who had served in Iraq and he put it very well. He had a friend who came out to him after they had received their honorable discharge. This friend was an incredible soldier and man, speaking multiple languages and very trustworthy in combat. The C.I.A. is trying to recruit him now.

Now the fact that he is gay has absolutely nothing to do with his abilities, neither positively or negatively. He is defending his country, putting his life on the line for all of us who enjoy the luxuries that are provided by our military. The very least we could do is allow him to be open about his sexuality.

If his fellow soldiers have a problem with that then maybe it is time to talk it out. For to long we have pretended like homosexuality is a disease, it is no such thing. Gays and lesbians are not a danger to have in the military. If it is going to cause issues then the homophobes need to deal with their issues, not make someone change their sexuality (which is not possible) or make them hide it.

I see no difference between don’t ask, don’t tell and racially recruiting. Would the military not allow Blacks, Asian Americans, Latinos if they could hide the color of their skin.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is so unconstitutional that it makes me want to scream. But lovely people like Presidential un-hopeful Rick Santorum will continue to spread their charming opinions about their homophobia.

I would like to ask Rick Santorum a question; if your life was on the line, a gun to your head, would you care about the sexuality of the man or woman who saved you? Sexuality aside, these men and women are heroes and they deserve the rights of heroes.

Blogging on an iPhone…not fun. (It also doesn’t allow tagging)

I’m going to keep this short simply because after the OVS football game on Saturday, my thumbs are killing me and, being that the school has no internet, I am forced to write on my phone. I remember last year when I still hadn’t received my computer and was forced to use my phone to write papers and access moodle. Those were the days; the days of inefficiency maybe.

Realistic Games

More and more we are being exposed to the visual creations that at times thousands of people work on to create video games such as Call Of Duty Black Ops, Fifa Soccer 11, God Of War III, and Dirt 3. Those four games I mentioned are the ones I strongly believe possess the greatest graphics and are the most realistic. I have played them all, I have passed them all, I have liked them all.

These games take a player into the world they are trying to depict. The gamer feels like he/she is a part of that world, like he/she is the driver of that race car, even like he/she is a soccer player playing with a team like Manchester United (which is a truly great team btw).

Graphics are a feature which gamers seek when purchasing a game. Great graphics equal a great gaming experience, for example in Call Of Duty Black Ops,

COD B.O.
The clarity in this image is lifelike, it makes you want to see more of the creators work. It is truly amazing what these game makers can create.

I never thought that characters in games would look as realistic as a real person, but damn does it amaze me.

A near miss.

GOD

Ok so I have nearly been driving for one month. Yes I know you can’t believe it, trust me I can’t either. After reading my previous driving blogs I’m sure many believed that I one: wouldn’t survive my lessons on the road and two: definitely wouldn’t make it through the test. I guess the gods had mercy and looked upon my small Ford Fiesta with pity and smiled at the Santa Paula DMV on September the 1st. Whatever the case, I miraculously past and now I have been unleashed on the roads of Ventura county. Watch Out.

Oxnard has already witnessed some of my skilled driving as I visited the local fish and chip shop and a supermarket known as Vons. Vons is a great supermarket but it’s car parks are a nightmare. Now I’m guessing you’re thinking “oh no what did she do?” No I did not run over anyone, or an animal or scratch a car. In fact a rather large red Chevy truck nearly hit me.

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