If there's one thing I hate as much as lazy people, slow people, or dumb people, it's when I tell myself not to do something and I do it anyway. I went to Gamestop yesterday afternoon and picked up two copies of KSSU. Remember when I said in my last post that I had decided not to do this? Well, that resolve lasted less than a day. My brother called me and apparently, he had the same exact idea as I had. So I picked up the games. His will be his birthday present from me (his bday is coming up soon), and I'll just pick up the bill with my first paycheck, which should cover all my recent expenses (the rest of the NJO series and this).

So how is the game? Well, I did break it in just a bit last night, and I have to say it is definitely good ol' Kirby Super Star. The music is definitely still there, which makes me real happy. The sprites look spruced up a bit. Everything's more colorful (if that's even possible in a Kirby game). My favorite new addition is that whenever you decide to ditch an ability, an item corresponding to that ability will drop to the ground. If I remember right, in the original KSS, a star appeared no matter which ability you were getting rid of. But here, a wand drops for Beam, a sword drops for Sword, a bomb drops for Bomber. I love that so much.

I do have two concerns, one legitimate and one superficial. The superficial concern is that the game is too easy. Now, since 1996 I have come to learn that all Kirby games are typically way easy compared to most other platformers. This is on purpose because Kirby games seem to have always been directed either towards rookie gamers or casual gamers. As such, KSSU is just as easy as KSS was twelve years ago. This doesn't really bode well for a 22yo who remembers playing the game to death when he was a kid and who's gotten way more platforming experience since then, but I don't really care. This game is timeless to me. I never fully completed The Great Cave Offensive or the Arena, and even so, I played every mode, co-op or not, a whole heck of a lot back in the 90's. The game has always been "pick up and play". So quite frankly, I don't care that the levels are short, the games are short, the game overall doesn't draw you in for all that long in general. Because I know that if I'm craving KSS, I'll be coming back to KSSU each time.

Now, my legitimate concern is the controls. Jump and flutter is Y or A, swallow is B, and X creates or destroys a partner. I distinctly remember KSS having these commands for Y and B reversed. Needless to say, it is messing me up big time and it's really driving me crazy. Are these the controls from Squeak Squad? Why'd they need to go and change them? Why isn't there an option for me to change them? I know I'll probably get the hang of it eventually, but in the meantime I remain annoyed.

Well, that's it for now. Oh! 100 blog posts, FTW!!!

I suppose some of you might be wondering where I've been the last eleven days. Eleven days!? It's been that long already since my last post? Sheesh. September has sure flown by. Well at any rate, be rest assured I'm still doing well and keeping myself busy.

Two weeks ago, I had two interviews. In the time since then, I've gotten two jobs! By day, I'll be a substitute teacher around the local high schools. By late afternoon, I'll be a tutor at a local learning center. I had absolutely no trouble getting the jobs. It was as though the interviews were just a means to get to know me, as opposed to a way to make a judgment about my abilities. I'm a little nervous about working the two jobs, knowing I'm going to be super tired at the end of every day, only having about two hours before I'd have to go to sleep in preparation for the next iteration of the routine. But I'm very excited about all the money that'll be coming in. I'll be putting a majority of it away in savings, but I'm still going to allow myself a biweekly "allowance" for anything I may want to buy in that time. Money I put in Savings tends to be completely forgotten by yours truly, which is a good thing. Less money out in the open equals less of a chance I'll frivolously blow it all away.

Not that I've been going crazy buying games or books lately... *conscience smacks me* Not that I've been going crazy buying games lately...

Let's see...what else... Ah! I fixed up my bike! I attacked it with a hose, getting all the bugs and bug corpses off it. I also pumped up the very flat tires. Then, I went out and bought a little cyclocomputer (speedometer/odometer) for it, something I've always wanted since I was a kid. I also bought a new helmet, since my parents were under the impression that a ten-year-old helmet was no longer effective in protecting my noggin. The thing is, I may have irrefutably believed them if I had been using the helmet consistently all this time. But, my bike, with helmet, has been suspended from the garage ceiling for most of the last eight years. I rode my bike all the time back when I lived in Jersey, but now I haven't at all, sadly. I was really broken up about getting rid of my old helmet. It's another part of my childhood, my past in Jersey, the first chapter of my life, that I've had to permanently say good-bye to. It wasn't fun. I stood there over the open garbage bin, holding it, for a good ten minutes, not wanting to let go. But I eventually did and didn't look back. Now, I hope to get back into riding again, building up the strength in my legs that I used to have and enjoying the rush of air zipping past me.

A new cell phone is on the way, too. A black LG Rumor. It's gonna make texting a whole lot easier since it's got that QWERTY keyboard inside. Currently, it takes me so long to text. I don't like that auto-word feature cause it trips me up. With an actual mini-keyboard, I'll be able to text with my eyes closed since I know where all the letters are. So that's exciting. Can't wait.

What else, what else, what else...Ah! Little brother comes home at the end of this week for his weeklong fall break. I haven't seen him since mid-August when I stayed at his apartment for that week. It's perfect timing for say, if we were to each get a new copy of Kirby Superstar Ultra and break that in together. Unfortunately, we're both dirt poor atm. And besides, his week off will probably be my first week working. So there won't be much time to play anyway. Kirby waits til Christmas, then. But his coming home is still exciting. He gets to see the crazy collection of Star Wars books I've amassed since the last time he was home, haha! 77 at last count, btw. And the NJO series has not let me down yet, six books in. :O

Well, that's it for now. Lunch time!

This morning, I woke up at 9:11am. Seven years later, and that "clock curse" that day has inflicted me with has still not gone away. Just one of the ways I'll never be able to forget, even if I wanted to.

Below is my story of that fateful day, but before I begin, I'd like to thank tiggerboy for writing such a profoundly personal and open blog about his memory of that day. It drew tears from my eyes and inspired me to write this post of my own.

At the time, I was a sophomore in high school. My second year in Delaware was only a few weeks old. I remember it was a Tuesday, which meant there would be marching band practice after school. Marching band was awesome that year, especially for those like me lucky enough to be part of the drumline. Band morale was at an all-time high, I'd been told, because the drumline was really something to cheer about, for once. Well, it was shaping up to be a typical Tuesday at school, at least until the first hour had passed. Then everything became as atypical as I'd ever see it. I was in geometry cl@ss. The teacher was keeping us extremely busy, and I remember being annoyed about it because it was too close still to the start of the year to be getting worked so hard. At one point, the principal came on the loud speaker and said something along the lines of "let us all say a prayer for those both directly and indirectly involved in this morning's tragic events" (I went to a private Catholic school). At the time, I had no idea what he meant by "this morning's tragic events". The only tragedy I was privy to was my being overworked! But the tone of his voice told me almost immediately that it wasn't the time for juvenile frustration or jokes. Something seriously bad had happened somewhere and we were now going to pray. After the prayer, which the principal led over the loud speaker, school-wide, we resumed our work. Nobody in the cl@ssroom knew what he was referring to, so we just kept going along with the illusional normalcy.

Coming out of cl@ss, it was very easy to see that something big had hit the gossip trails. Some people clearly knew what was going on, but many people, like me, were still clueless. I'd soon be told that some teachers had been kind enough to turn their TVs onto CNN so they and their students could watch the news. As a result, in typical high school fashion, the news began to quickly make its way through the population. I had lunch after Geometry and so I was really hoping that my friends would be among those who were lucky enough to have such nice teachers. Well, I got my wish. On the way down to the cafeteria, I bumped into my two (still) best friends and got a crazed, frenetic explanation of the "tragic events". Though they hadn't been in the same cl@ss, both their teachers were among the few who had cared to turn their TVs on to CNN to watch the live coverage of what was going on in NYC. They saw the second plane hit, they saw the speechless, shocked faces of the news reporters, and they saw the buildings collapse on themselves and create the huge plumes of rushing smoke and debris that raced to devour the narrow city streets. They got to see all of this, LIVE. And this is what they told me. The World Trade Center had been attacked by intentionally crashed commercial airplanes. Holy crap, I thought. That's like, something right out of a movie! Who would think of doing something like that? You see, only in retrospect a few months later did I recall the 1993 WTC attack and the 2000 terrorist attack on USS Cole. Until 9/11, I really didn't know what a terrorist was, just like a great many people didn't know who Osama Bin Laden was. I had much learning to do. So much learning, in fact, that my friends' explanation didn't finally completely hit home for me until they told me that the WTC was another name for the Twin Towers. THAT'S when I began to freak out. My family had gone on a cruise out of NYC to Nova Scotia just a few weeks earlier. We had passed by the Twin Towers. I had always wanted to explore the towers themselves, but at the time, I was plenty satisfied just getting that close to them on the ship. Little did I know that would be the last time I'd ever see them. It is because I loved the Twin Towers so much, as a symbol of NYC and as a destination I hoped to visit more thoroughly sometime down the road, that my friends' clarification of the synonymous names hit me so hard. It was only then that I began to react exactly as everyone else in the cafeteria and the school and the state and the country was.

School let out early, obviously, and thankfully, one of my friends lived close by to me and had an older brother that could drop me off at my house. I ran in and found my mom standing in the sun-filled family room in tears and in shock with the TV on, which was replaying the crashes and the collapses and footage of the towering smoke plumes smothering the city streets over and over again. She saw me and ran to meet me at the doorway with a speed and panic-driven determination that looked to me like a reaction suitable if say, I'd just come home from having gone missing for years. We hugged, hard...and just began to cry our eyes out, for lack of any other way to release all the shock and emotion. We sobbed and stayed in that hug for a long time. It turns out that being home as a housewife (she wasn't working then), she had just been going about her daily routine, drinking her coffee while watching Good Morning America. I'll give you one guess what she watched live.

My brother came home soon after when his school bus dropped him off, and my dad got home a little later once his bosses heeded the national call for everyone to go home. My mom was just so glad to have us all home again. It didn't take me even a minute to understand why. I remember the inability to call ANYONE because the lines were so busy. I remember how even in my house in Dela-where I didn't feel safe that day, or the day after, or the day after that, or the day after that. And I remember how deceptively cheery the perfect cloudless, sunny sky made the day seem, even though it had become anything but.

To this day, anytime I see anything on TV about 9/11, it makes me tear up. I avoid watching the documentaries and such because I know it'll bring it all back. It's bad enough I have my clocks and watch showing me the time is 9:11 way more often than I remember them doing before that infamous day.
I have at least two tapes of news coverage from 9/11/01 in a drawer in my room, but I haven't watched any of it since it was on live that day. To be honest, I wasn't even going to click to read any of the 9/11-themed blog posts today for the same reason, but something inside of me wanted to click at least tiggerboy's anyway. Glad I did. I have absolutely nothing but the deepest respect and gratitude for all the other men and women in uniform that have served, have died serving, or continue to serve this great country of ours.

I will never forget...because I can't.

Has anybody out there read Vector Prime before, you know, from the New Jedi Order series? I'd like to hear your thoughts/impressions of the book. Yeah, I understand you may have read it once, eight or so years ago, but I'm interested in what you have to say.

Two days ago, I finished reading it for the first time and I believe I'm still a bit emotionally stunned from it.

School has officially started for the public schools in my area. It sucks that I'm not waking up early to go out and teach the masses...yet. It makes me feel lazy, even though there's nothing I can do except continue looking for a job. Strangely enough, it has never been so easy to apply for a job, what with open mathematics teaching positions popping up all over the place all of a sudden. I guess that's how things are down here in the First State. School gets underway and then all of a sudden, the people in charge realize they need more teachers, and while long-term subs are starting off the school year, the faculty is looking for permanent replacements. It's so messed up. I don't get it at all. But, like I said, I now have prospects. I'm currently in the process of getting together all the materials they're asking for. Hopefully, I'll have woken up by the time I'm done so that if anyone calls me in for an interview, I don't blow it. Though, I don't really know what exactly to change. I do hope honesty still counts for something.

N+ came out yesterday, or today, or tomorrow, depending on which store you're talking about. Gamestop didn't have it in yesterday when I went. And now, at the end of the day after, I'm rather glad they didn't. I have decided not to get the game. You see, for a while now, the game has fallen into my "bargain bin" category. That is, pending positive enough reviews, I would wait until the game got cheap enough before I sought out a copy. Since Soul Bubbles is currently a TRU exclusive, it also resides under this category for the time being (though I do still very much intend on getting that game). Getting back to N+, I was never planning on getting it at launch. But then I found out its price had gone down ten bucks. Now it was totally worth getting right off the bat if it turned out to be good. Unfortunately, I don't feel I've been convinced all that well that it is good. Sure, it's gotten 80's and A-/B+'s and even a 90 from IGN, but certain little things have turned me off. First off, I've read that it's apparently easier than the original flash game. I've also noticed from trailers that the levels are smaller. Furthermore, there is a significantly small amount of memory space for downloaded or created levels and the levels themselves do not have names - an amusing feature I was much looking forward to. For these reasons, I have decided against getting the game. And while if I had a ton of money, I would probably still get it, I don't have a ton of money. It all comes down to money. I don't have enough to burn, so I have to pick my "want" purchases wisely. My DS collection would be at least twice its current size if I bought every game I was ever interested in. But then I'd have at least twenty games that I never completed or barely played or lost interest in. As I've said before, I don't regret buying any of the games I currently own. They passed my screening test, haha. Unfortunately for N+, it did not. Oh well, we move on.

Whatever pompous opinions you've read or seen from critics about the new Clone Wars movie, ignore them. If you're a Star Wars fan, you'll enjoy the movie. End of story. Besides, as a Star Wars fan, you should know the mainstream critics aren't going to get the movies anyway.

I think what the problem is, even with some fans of the franchise, is that perfection is expected and when perfection isn't received, the material is automatically deemed substandard and not worth anyone's time. The thing to remember here is that George Lucas approves every bit of Star Wars anything that is released, be it novels, comics, movies, or shows. If characters die, he knew about it and was okay with it. If certain things happen, he knew about it and was okay with it. When new stuff comes into play, he knew about it and was okay with it. Just because you don't like it, doesn't make the whole thing bad. Just because you disagree with it, doesn't mean it should never have happened. If George Lucas approves of it, we should approve of it, too. After all, it's his universe. Now, if it is the case that you don't approve, you can just choose to forget it even exists, like I have chosen to do with the events of The Crystal Star. I guess it just depends on how each fan chooses to treat Star Wars. I treat SW like a sweeping tale of fictional history. I'm always eager to learn and discover more, and I take all of it in stride. With the exception of the aforementioned novel, I have never had a strong objection to anything I've read or seen. I love all the films and I've enjoyed every book I've read. Sure, some are better than others - and that is the result of personal preference and the author(s) that wrote each book - but that is the case anywhere. Maybe these people just need to learn to lighten up a bit about the whole thing. Remember why you love Star Wars and just go with the flow.

That being said, the Clone Wars movie tells the tale of one particular crisis. I enjoyed it because like the cartoon that came before it, it opens a window into what the Clone Wars were like. Since it would be incredibly time-consuming to capture every battle and every nuance of the wars on paper or film, these little windows are perfectly acceptable. So here's my advice: If you choose to go see the movie, don't go in expecting anything. If you do, you probably will be disappointed. Just go in hoping to be entertained with some Star Wars fare. I believe then you'd come out happy.

The current time is 1pm. It's Friday. I still haven't gotten a call. Not even to say "sorry, but we decided to hire another candidate. Best of luck." Is this the new way of doing that? Instead of calling to say you didn't get the job, they don't call you at all and figure you'll put 2 and 2i together and understand on your own that you didn't get the job? I mean, what is this crap? Even my dad was getting annoyed last night. Whatever. I'm already over it. After all, I did think soon after that I'd blown the interview. Maybe I'm just not a great interviewer, similar to how some people aren't great testtakers. But then again, it shouldn't matter if I'm not a master wordsmith or speaker or don't say exactly what they want to hear. I gave them completely honest answers to each of their questions. And that's all they should expect. I mean, they had my resume and it fleshed out a lot of other details. I don't know... What bothers me the most about this whole thing is the limbo I had to endure all week. I mean, I had plans for this week! At some point, my good friend Steve from HS was going to call me and we were going to go see the new Clone Wars movie. With me in limbo however, we couldn't. We're going this afternoon, but still. He's leaving to go back to college (he's doing five years) tomorrow and we could have made more of us meeting up than just seeing the movie, had we gone earlier in the week.

Maybe I'm just unhirable. If the school that I student taught at for an entire semester won't hire me, who will.

Well, time to break out the next Star Wars novel in line, I suppose. I'll be starting the First Corellian Insurrection trilogy.

One last thing. If you love or have always wanted to try your hand at making custom ringtones for your cell, check out www.myxer.com . Somebody in the off-topic forums mentioned it to me last night, and I checked it out this morning to awesome results. Now whenever my brother calls, the first 30 seconds from Funky's Fugue from DKC2 will play and whenever my friend Steve calls, the first 25 seconds of the Cantina Band song from Episode IV will play (if you couldn't already tell, he likes SW a lot too). It's completely free, save for the text messages you receive, and there are no catches. If you click Customize, you can even choose which part of the song to use, the ringtone's length, and its volume. Such fun. :)

Still no call. They said Thursday at the latest, maybe even Friday, so there's still a chance, but this really stinks. I can't stand this waiting. I just want to know! I've started prepping anyway. It doesn't hurt to get started just in case.

The more I think about it though, the more I think I probably blew the interview. I didn't say a lot of things I think I should have, and these things may have made the difference.

I just wish they'd call so I don't have to live like this, going crazy. I could be teaching up to six cIasses starting next Monday and right now I have next to nothing ready and I'm laying in my pajamas wasting time on this site, haha! Ahhh, craptastic.

This morning, I woke up around 8am and immediately called the school. An appointment for an interview was set up for 3pm this afternoon. I should have figured that with not much time remaining before the start of the school year, they'd want to meet with me ASAP. I was only too happy to oblige.

The interview was relatively short, lasting for only about a half hour (the last interview I had was back in May and that one last for almost three hours!). I was so nervous my mouth was as dry as a desert. I can't remember a time my mouth has gotten so dry. I could barely talk. It was almost uncomfortable. It didn't help that the whole setup was rather awkward. I was sitting with the principal and two assistant principals and even though I knew all of them from the spring, they were acting as though they only knew me by name, from my resume, forgetting that I'd been hanging out in their school for three and a half months. I'm sure it was to be professional and not make it seem like I was getting preferential treatment, but it didn't help my anxiety any. The questions they asked were kinda tough and I had to give lots of "hypothetical" responses. The last two minutes were the best part. We got to talking briefly about the school itself and I talked about how I remembered much of the inner workings. I also failed to notice the little sign on the door on the way out that said to push up instead of down to open the door. With everyone walking out the same way behind me, it was kinda embarassing. But not to worry. The principal said he still has the same problem from time to time, and I turned the situation into a funny moment by turning around and responding in an assuring tone that "I can read English."

They'll probably be getting back to me real soon. It isn't as if they have all summer to make up their minds. And the more time they take to make their decision, hypothetically the less time I'd have to prepare. I'm not getting my hopes up, not just because I feel this interview was not as smooth and did not go as well as the last one, but also because I don't want to become as depressed as I was after the last interview resulted in no job offer. So, we'll see.

You won't believe what I'm about to tell you. I still don't believe it. I think some pinching is necessary. I may have a job offer waiting for me tomorrow, and the best part is...it practically fell right into my lap.

Someone from the high school that I student taught at in the spring called my house on behalf of the principal asking if I was still interested in holding a teaching position at the school. They left a number for me to call if I was interested. I found this out yesterday when my parents got back home from their vacation to the Bahamas (reason why I was with my brother in VA). I just hope the offer still stands, given that it's been three days - even if it was a weekend.

This is super awesome, except for the fact that I checked the school's academic calendar and the first day of school is next freakin' Monday. That gives me, a brand spankin new teacher, one week to buy all the necessary supplies and prepare all that needs to be prepared for at least the first week of school, but most importantly, that first day. ONE. WEEK. Cue the mass hysteria.

I will of course be giving the school a call tomorrow. I have no idea how it came to be that they called me directly (though I have my own speculations), but this is pretty much exactly what I've been hoping for all summer. What's funny is that the situation could not have looked any bleaker just three days ago. The middle of August, with no local school districts having posted any open HS math positions. But then this comes along, and everything changes. I have no idea if they're going to conduct a full-out interview or if they want me to show up and start prepping right away. I have absolutely no idea. I suppose I'm ready for either case or anything in between. Still, I am almost afraid to go to sleep tonight because I have no clue what tomorrow will bring.

Wish me luck.