This was my Spring "Break":
Sunday - leave for Purchase, NY
Sunday Night - arrive in Purchase, NY
Monday - go check out SUNY Purchase. Get there at 8:15am. Go on tour. Mingle with faculty. Get it on with hot student. Mingle with more faculty.
Tuesday Morning - go back to SUNY, and find out where the hell my financial aid is. They explain that they fucked up, and offer like $1800.
Tuesday Afternoon - leave for Amherst, MA. In car for 5 hours on I-90. Decide that SUNY Purchase was pretty much a dank pit, but wouldn't be awful to attend, especially considering all the rich people in Westchester. And their daughters.
Tuesday Night - arrive in Amherst, MA. Pretty sweet place.
Wednesday - check out Hampshire College. Go on tour. Meet a few faculty, talk to some students. Eat food there.
Wednesday Night - Decide that Hampshire is one awesome school. Design my own course plan, no grades, take classes from any of five Amherst colleges. Sweet. Remember that I'm still wait-listed. Fuck.

So, I've pretty much narrowed it down to two schools. Do I go to Emerson, or do I go to Hampshire? I've broken down the pros and cons.

Emerson - Accepted, but still haven't heard about financial aid, and they're giving me bullshit about that. Awesome school, though. Has what I want to study, great students, faculty knows their shit. Boston freaking rules, too.

Hampshire - Still on wait-list, but it's looking good and I should get some decent financial aid. Not too sure about the courses or the school's focus, but they basically let the student design their education. Awesome. They're also really left-wing, which is nice. Seriously, some of these guys make me look like a moderate.

Oh, and I've got two weeks to decide. Man, am I fucked, or what?

The bill specifically categorizes a number of items that are said to be harmful to minors if they appear in a game. These include a character "engaging or offering to engage in sexual activity with or for another in exchange for anything of value," the showing of "uncovered, or less than opaquely covered, human genitals, pubic area, or buttocks, or the nipple or any portion of the areola of the human female breast," and any images of "covered human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state," for example.
-- GameSpot, 04/22/05, reporting on North Carolina's Senate Bill 2

Does "turgid state" mean an erection? Can't they just say that? Better yet, use "boner". I swear, they just put grey area all over these bills. Crazy-ass Senators.

Good for those Tar Heels, though. They actually understand that if these games aren't sold to minors in the first place, parents won't have anything to bitch about when their twelve-year-old takes a shiv to his best friend. Morons. At the same time, could "showing of 'uncovered, or less than opaquely covered, human genitals, pubic area, or buttocks, or the nipple or any portion of the areola of the human female breast'" be taking it too far? I saw my first non-mother boob when I was like three years old, touched one at ten, and saw the first set of testicles that weren't mine at the YMCA locker room at twelve. And I'm fine.

Suck it up, people.

Hello beautiful people,

Whew, what a weekend! I'm getting ready to launch a bunch of new websites for new clients, as well as some new stuff for SW. I haven't even launched my design officially yet, and I have one, two, three clients! One of them, [edit: I have been asked to remove the company's name from all of my blog.], is also making me an intern. Indeed, life is good (even with all the homework).

Anyway, on to my topic. In case you didn't know, the new PSP (PlayStation Portable), the sexiest machine to ever hit Earth, came out on Wednesday. For a long, long time, I thought I'd be getting it the second it was on shelves. I'm now glad I didn't. Reports coming from all over the place, including the many that have purchased one, are talking about defects. In a poll on IGN, 3/4 of the users said that their unit had defects. That is fucking insane. $250 for ten dead pixels and a scratched casing! Seriously? Ya, I think I'll hold off until at least May when the next model (hopefully) comes out. I just wanted to give everyone a head's up. Next time you walk into Best Buy and see 200 PSPs that haven't been sold, you'll know why and hold off on grabbing one.

I'm sure it's a ton of fun, and I definitely wish I had one, but this looks like something that would be a good thing to wait up for.

I just wanted to take a couple minutes to tell everyone about something that I think is tremendous. Finally, some folks have figured out that blogs are some of the most interesting works of society around, and are publishing them old-skool style. Enter "I Blog, Therefore I Am", a definitive collection that celebrates the phenomenon of blogging. In a book. With pages. And a spine. This ain't no search engine. Here's how the organization creating the book describe it:

Hells yeah! That is so cool to me. So, do us all a favor. Go to bookofblogs.org, check it all out, and spread the word. I got a message today from a nice fella from the team assembling the book, Peter W., telling me that they need everybody to get the word out and make it a success. And if it's one thing we web entrepreneurs do best, it's just that. Once again, this is the type of thing that advances the internet and tech media and its legitimacy in mainstream culture.

"I Blog, Therefore I Am" should be out in August according to Peter, so keep your eyes peeled and your mouths open. (Hey, who knows, you might see a familiar blogger in there. Hehehe.)

HotScripts, gods of web development, recently held a competition that pegged web designers the world over to create the worst website possible. Sounds simple, right? Sure, if you know nothing about web/media development. Ask any good designer, though, and they'll tell you that it is totally backwards to force out crap. It's like asking M.J. to dive into the crowd when he's got a wide-open 3-pointer. It goes against everything you know.

Anyway, the site that won the contest is this one. By all accounts, the designer was a relatively good one, because she essentially did everything that you're not supposed to do. In the web designer's proverbial bible, there's a checklist. This site can't check a one.

I posted this to advance my campaign to make society more web-fluent. Everybody will need to know how to make a solid website in the next decade. Period. It'll be like reading and writing, and web design will be required in youth education in most states. Basically, if you ever want to be good at web design, just do the opposite of everything that this site does, and you'll be set. Everything -- the little cutesy falling smiley's, the cursor followers, the link mouseovers -- is a 100%, Grade-A no-no. Thank god she made the site like that on purpose, or I'd probably have to shoot something.

Thanks to HotScripts and the winner for showing the world what not to do.

P.S. The site is freezing, you say? Exactly my point. The pages are about 5% as complicated as SimmingWorld's, and they load 300% slower or not at all. Dayuuum.

Hello stony Show readers,

I am in the process of creating an analysis that takes a look at the current reading trends of popular literature amongst the general public. As the basis for this, I am conducting a short survey for almost anybody I can get my hands on. I would like to invite you to be a part of it.

It does not matter if you're an avid reader or someone who's completed maybe five novels in your lifetime -- you are eligible to take the survey.

I do not need very many respondants and have obviously covered a variety of mediums, but your time would certainly be appreciated!

The survey, will take between 5 and 10 minutes, and can be found here. ALL results are anonymous, but there is a brief personal background questionnaire at the end.

Who knows? You might find out something about yourself that you never knew! Thanks in advance to everyone who participates!

Uggh. January. What an all-around crappy month.

Blech.

I am giving away Gmail accounts! Remember, they are by invitation only, and you cannot get one any other way.

In order to receive one, sign up for a free iPod using this link. Register and complete one offer. Once you have done this, email me with a notice. When I see that your completion status has been updated with the free iPod site, I will send you an invitation. It's as simple as that!

As I've said many times, the free iPod deal is completely legitimate. Simply sign up for an offer, cancel it, and you pay nothing. Here's some proof of the free iPod shipment if you're still not convinced.

I have 6 invites to give out, so get crackin'!

It's Decembert 3rd, and life is good for stony.

Why? 'Cause my college applications are pretty much done. DONE. I've sent them all off to McQuaid's (the college-prep high school I attend) Guidance&nbs p;Office, and all that's left is some online stuff.

So, here's the final list of colleges I'm applying to: Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts (first choice), State University of New York at Buffalo, State University of New York College at Purchase, American University in Washington, D.C., and Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. I think that I'm going to get into all of them -- with the exception of Hampshire, which is competitive, but the real bottleneck will be financial aid more than anything. I really want to go to Emerson because it's an AMAZING place, but they're not well rated in the aid department. We'll see. So...maybe life isn't that good, but I'm an optimist.

Whew, what a busy week. College apps are nuts. Just freaking nuts. I also had a meeting in a small, semi-secret committee at McQuaid in which we had to write a skit script for our winter sports assembly. I play a bumbling parody of a former star Bball player from two seasons ago. Should be fun! Speaking of basketball, the Varsity team asked me today to be their manager this year. It's a big commitment and there's little free time for me as it is, so right now I'm just considering it, but I think I'll do it. So that was my week, as if anybody cares.

Oh, and Barry Bonds: if you're reading this -- dude, who were you kidding, exactly?

Yes, I'm actually posting an entry. The past month has been quite possibly the busiest, most stressful, least relaxing, and altogether craziest one of my 18 years. No kidding. And it's getting worse. So, yeah, time for web stuff is pretty scarce.

But, given the events of the past week, I felt the need to make a post, albeit relatively short. I'm going to be blunt: the concluding events of the 2004 election signals the downfall of our modern American society. The decision that 51% of this country has made (which sure as hell does not include me) is probably the most dangerous we've ever made. If you thought the past four years were bad, you haven't seen anything yet. This election served as a referendum on the George W. Bush presidency. By re-electing him, the public has basically said that they approve of the monumental disaster that marks his office. In 2000, he saw losing the popular vote as a mandate, for god's sakes. He sees winning this one fairly as a complete and total shutdown. The next four years will not be about both sides coming together, as he suggested. President Bush is going to try to apply hardcore fundamentalist idealogies to our governmental doctrine like nothing we have ever seen before. We will watch as he tyranically brings back an era of discrimination, economic paucity, justless war, and overall destruction of our dreams as a society.

I'd like to say one thing to the fucking morons that "re"-elected this failure: You are completely out of your Bible-thumping minds. I hope that one day, through some pure instance of brilliance, your right to vote is revoked, and you're starved to death. Your decision will have turned this country into a tragedy within the next few years. The entire world is now wide-eyedly laughing at us. Your fallacious idealism is quickly turning the United States of America into a complete joke. You are blinded by an ignorant want for a "moral" leader over a competant leader, and your lack of sophistication and fear of change is a travesty.

In 2008, when this country is a mere shadow of its former self, and hundreds of thousands are on the brink of violent revolution, the provincial rednecks of this country will regret their choice. The other 48% of us, however, will be sitting back, not surprised and prepared, saying, "Don't blame us. We voted for the other guy."

Much, much, much more to come.

...and not a moment too soon.

Last night, I said that SimmingWorld's host would not be able to re-enable our account until Monday at the earliest. Well, it looks my "persuasions" worked, as they brought it back this morning in the hopes that we can hunt down the cause of our high resource usage. I plan on doing so immediately, so our users will notice slowness and things being tweaked over the next few weeks.

Nevertheless, SW is back, so go there!

For more details on our downtime, check out this announcement.

I just spoke directly with the general manager of SimmingWorld's host, and have encountered more delays. There are still several issues that I need to work out with their team. I have had to "encourage" their cooperation, and things have not been pretty.

I hate to say it, but SW will not be back up until next Monday at the earliest. :(

Man! This really, really fucking blows. This stuff just doesn't happen. Ever. At least for me. I'm not one happy guy right now.

In a shocking announcement today, EA announced that The Sims 2 has sold 1 million copies in its first 10 days on being available. I know, I was surprised too... *cough* What's really interesting is that more than 50% of the number came from Europe.

And these figures come with good reason. TS2 freaking rocks. Too bad SimmingWorld isn't around right now to celebrate. Goddammit!

I just thought that, considering many who read this blog are also visitors of my website, SimmingWorld.com, I'd give a notice as to why it is currently down.
I'll give it to you straight: our servers' account has been suspended. Why? Because although we have PLENTY of bandwidth and space to burn, we have not recently accounted for the amount of server memory we were using, which is something like 23% over our host's limit. To be honest, I'm not quite sure how this has happened, but am working with our support team on it.

I really don't know when SW will be back up, but when it is, we'll do our best to let everyone know.

Hey folks. Haven't posted in a while due to an obscene schedule.

Last night, I saw Jerry Seinfeld perform. Oh my god. I'll tell you right now, that man has more comedic talent in his pinky than 99% of comedians have in their entire bodies. It is people like Jerry that not only restore my faith in modern humor, a value that I hold in the highest degree possible, but is also the very sort of figure that makes me want to make people laugh (as I've been dabbling in quasi-regularly for some years and continue to pursue).

Every joke he told during the show truly demonstrated his uncanny ability to take the simplest thing -- LIFE cereal, for instance -- and turn it into a side-splitting joke. I almost tore a ligament I laughed so hard, and if it had not been for the two chubby patrons seated on both sides of me, I probably would've ended up rolling in the aisle. My ticket cost $90 altogether, so I had to go without any comrades, but it was worth every goddamn cent. If I had missed Jerry coming to town (again), I certainly would've regretted it for some time, as missing out on a man with his amazing humoristic prowess is always hard to take.

I'd list for you some of the jokes he told, but I would not want to take them out of his mouth like that. You really need to hear it from Jerry himself or else it loses most of its attitude in delivery, of which his isn't easily replicated. I will tell you something he said that showed his humility and I found particularly memorable even though it wasn't really a bit. Opening the performance, he stated confidently, "This is the greatest night of my life", which of course is probably not factually correct, but really opened a great connection with the crowd and got a huge laugh, along with his several references to some local stuff. It was a packed, sold-out show, by the way, and he did two shows. He added a 9:30 performance because the first sold out so quickly. Anyway, though you could tell that he was experimenting with some of his bits (most comedians are always testing new material) due to their "errr...funny...but not Seinfeld funny" reactions, every single joke pretty much slayed. Think about that. The guy performed for two straight hours, and did probably close to 75 bits, and every one got a great laugh. That is HARD to do. Trust me, I know (boy do I). Even Mark Schiff, another fantastic comic and good friend of Jerry's, who did the show's roughly ten-minute warm-up, was great. I walked out of the theatre over-joyed with the whole show.

So here's the bottom line: If Jerry Seinfeld makes his way to your city or somewhere close by, snatch up a seat if you're any kind of warm-blooded human being, no matter the cost. It is a show you won't soon forget.

I work my ass off for you people.

Now hop to it and help me get my iPod! I need 5 refferals!
Don't think it's legit? Think it's a scam? Uhh, no! Read this. And this. And then this, which is photographic proof. It's the real deal, folks.

Okay, so I'm whoring my link. Can you blame me?

P.S. To those of you have signed up but haven't actually completed the offer, do so why don'tcha? The beauty of it is that once you do it, you're that much closer to getting yours.

Get me my iPod!

I was in New York City, the greatest city in the world, over the weekend. Since reluctantly returning late Tuesday night (10:45 arrival, supposed to be 8:30 -- remind me never to ride Amtrak again), I've been sleeping mostly, and this afternoon had to go to school for our yearly orientation. So, while I'm not really going back to school until Monday, it's comin' soon.
But back to my trip. As is my traditional travel fashion, I shot almost an hour of video of the place, thanks to my trusty JVC. I think it'd be fun to edit and post some or all of it for all to see, as it's hard for many to travel to places like NYC. Think of it as a "thank you" for reading The stony Show. A warning -- much of the video was shot while I was walking or moving/being jostled, so a lot of it is kinda shaky, but I will try to lift out only the better bits. Let me sum up NYC for everyone right now, though. New York City rules you, yo' mamma, and your entire block. Submit or die, bitch. Man, it rocks...never gets old.

Anyway, unless I can't take it anymore and am forced to leave again for NYC tomorrow or am unable to pull myself away from Burnout 3, expect some crap this weekend. Stay tuna.

My web compadre Jason just landed me a Gmail account. I probably won't use it much as I already have a ton of email addresses, including a 3 gigabyte account with AventureMail, but Gmail is such as status symbol these days.

Help me try it out by sending me stuff: stony48@gmail.com.

For those of you wondering about Aventure, they're Gmail's only rival and will give you 2 gigs of space without an invite -- anybody can sign-up. The trade-off is that they can be pretty strict with their policies. I got lucky because they gave me an extra gig since I use their hosting service. Nice deal.

If anybody wants a Gmail invite...too bad. You're gonna have to know me pretty well to snag one, so there. :P

Man, is there anything Google can't do? Well...who knows how well their IPO will do...

Thanks again to Jason!

A member of my website (SW owns your soul) posted this Flash clip in her signature. It doesn't really make much sense, but I'll be damned if I didn't laugh my ass off at it. It also makes fun of Bush, which is never a bad thing.
Dig it:

Okay, so I went to get my wisdom teeth yanked out of my mouth yesterday. The actual procedure went perfectly as I'm quite a heavyweight, so I had them drug me beyond reality. It made me realize that I wish we could give ourselves NOX at home whenever we want. Man that shit is nice! So they pulled four teeth out, and I didn't feel a damn thing. I was loopy on the way home, so much that I couldn't drive myself, so ma and pop both came with me. The novicane didn't wear off for a few hours, so I couldn't feel my lips or tongue and couldn't talk correctly...so just like normal really.

Once everything wore off is when the pain came on in. Jesus, I have to down Bodine pills like there's no tomorrow, as well as keep ice on my cheecks all day long. Luckily, the Olympics and the Patriots vs. NC game were on today, so I just chilled. Still, it's a bitch, and my mouth has become so swollen that I look like a chipmunk that's stuffed its cheecks with nuts. Here's a little comparison, thanks to The Sims 2 Body Shop (though the hair is still way off...a work-in-progress Sim version of me):

So yeah, you can definitely see that my head is workin' overtime. I guess that's what you get for $300 per tooth...god damn.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to swallow pasta without chewing...

What a game!! I almost had a stroke towards the end...

My hometown of Rochester's own Abby Wambach scored the last goal, at which point we all started running up the walls and screaming our lungs out. Brazil put up one hell of a game, so my throat is pretty damn hoarse.
And what was up with the ref leaving at halftime?

All in all, kick-ass game indeed.

I went out and picked up Viewtiful Joe for PS2 this morning ($17.52, thanks to a value price and gift card -- a friggin' steal). I'd played it on GameCube when it originally came out last year, which is what sparked my purchase. Needless to say, the game goes over much better with a PS2 controller in your hands and not that misshapen tragedy Nintendo wanted me to use.

The game is just so amazingly frantic. I only played for maybe 90 minutes this afternoon, but that didn't stop me from persperating profusely, something which usually only happens while mountain biking for 3 hours or working out. I mean, geez, I was physically tired after stopping! Seriously? A game can do that?
Viewtiful Joe also has an awesome art style. The technical aspects of the graphics don't exactly push any boundaries or even use much of the rendering resources available, though the explosions are great. It's mostly just how everything looks like it's been torn from the pages of a comic book, with a smattering of blackened lines outlining everything on-screen, and a pseudo-3D look pervading all of the objects. It's really like nothing you've ever seen: a side-scroller (think Mario Bros. or Contra) in a 3D world, allowing for depth-of-field complexities while maintaining simplicity. Sort of Klonoa-esque, but used more fully.
As far as I can tell, the PS2 port hasn't taken any technical hits in its development. There isn't as much transparency on some of the objects to keep everything running smoothly, but it rarely gets in your way. I've heard of some slowdown in the later levels from some of IGN's editors, but I haven't experienced anything like that so far. Oh, and Dante from the Devil May Cry series is an extra character added for the PS2, but I haven't unlocked him yet obviously. I can tell you that he still looks as badass as ever.

All in all, VJ is still a stunning, AAA game. If you don't have a Cube and couldn't get it last year, grab the PS2 version ASAP. It's only $30 and is worth every goddamn penny (you probably won't get lucky with the $17 like I did). Buy it.

I ran across this Kerry ad today that I think everybody should see. Even John McCain, a fellow Pub, doesn't like Bush.

Watch as the man tries to find an excuse and is smashed to the floor in the process. How anybody in their right mind could vote for this shameless scumbag is beyond me...

I'm about as excited as Courtney Love out on bail today, as The Sims 2, a game that I've devoted countless hours to already for the past 15 months, is done!! So, as of September 17th, here's my weekday routine:

1) Get up
2) Shower (...if I feel like it)
3) Go to school (again, if I feel like it)
4) Come home
5) Play Sims 2 all night
6) Repeat Step 5

Living christ, do you people have any CLUE how much this game will OWN and devour the living souls from our clocks and prevent anything productive from ever happening again?? I mean, have you seen this game? Heeellooo!

Ah well, Viewtiful Joe comes out tomorrow for PS2, so that will keep me occuppied for the next 3 weeks at least. School shopping? Screw that!

P.S. Visit SimmingWorld.com for more on The Sims 2. Why? 'Cause I run it and it owns your soul. So there.