I just finished my last college paper. It was on 20th Century British Culture. I talked about the WWI poets, WWI & WWII films, the Angry Young Man movement of the '50s, the punk movement, and multiculturalism in the '90s. It was very boring and sucked a large one.

So I have one more exam on Friday and then I'm done. I get a piece of paper that I've spent $40,000 for. And what is that paper good for? Absolutely nothing. At least so far.

And you're saying, "Kevin, you didn't spend any money!" And I say to you, not yet, but in six months when I have to pay it back for several years, or at least until my children are dead from starvation and I have to go into default on my loans, I will be paying it back.

I'm also twenty-four and about to get my first car, so that's cool. I have no job, no income, but a finacee and a car and credit cards are easy to get!:)

Just kidding. Kids don't be like me. Don't take 5 and 1/2 years to get a history degree and then have no idea what you want to do, but have to pay back all your loans because you screwed around your freshman year and lost all your "free money."

It's off to play video games (one of the many reasons, with all the other reasons being beer, that I'm graduating late).

Remember on the NES (and it also transfered over to SNES a few games) the idea of you get shot once and you die. Maybe you can get shot three times and then you die, but for the most part you die with one shot. So did the enemies though, so it wasn't that horrible. But it really was.

I remember playing the Transformers' game on the NES. It was a simple side-scroller in the tradition of Mario, but with a gun and airplanes. You could take one shot and then you died. One shot. Optimus Prime was a wuss. And in the tradition of Mario, nothing is in that tradition as much as Mario Bros. That game at least wasn't too horribly evil. My largest concern with that game was the jumping. In the early days of NES, there were some people, including myself, that believed if you moved the controller in a jumping arc when you press the jump button your character would get an extra lift and cross over the gorge. It never worked, but my arms got a good work out.

And why were there gorges in the middle of the land in Mario Bros? No one ever really questions the fact that Mario land had some messed tectonic action going on. How deep can one pit be? For Mario to die, and die well, I assume the pits would need to be at least 30 feet, unless the gumbas had been to 'Nam and rigged up so freaky bamboo spike system in the bottom of the pits.

Back to the one shot and you die, remember Contra. Even on SNES, you get shot you die. If you're lucky you can find a force field to survive for a little bit, but maybe only 10-20 seconds.

There's something to be said about the completely unrealistic actions of games like GTA where someone can unload a clip on you while you attempt to find the real gun to blow their heads off. If I wanted to die in one shot, I'd join the French army.
Classic! I found a French joke in a journal entry on NES games!

I've realized that you can read some of my journal entries and maybe learn a few things about me, but in order to give you a great feel for who I am, I'll state a few facts about myself so you can wish you know me better. Feel free to ask me to be your friend, because I ask people I think are cool too.

Name: Kevin
Religious Affiliation: Christian (ARP)
College: Clemson University
College Degree: History w/ minor in Religion
Favorite Studies: Feudal Japan, Ancient Mid Eastern Religions, and 20th Century Pop Culture
Favorite Musicians/Bands: Angie Aparo, Led Zeppelin, Phil Keaggy, Damien Rice, Elliot Smith, Glen Phillips, Neil Young, Radiohead, Switchfoot, Nirvana, Live, Portishead, and Starflyer 59 to name a few.
Instruments I Play: Guitar, Bass, Mandolin, Piano, Harmonica, and I sing.
Favorite Video Game: Chrono Trigger
Favorite Books/Plays: Faustus by Marlowe, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, THGTG by Douglas Adams, and Redeeming Pop Culture by Moore
Favorite Movies: The Crow, Bravehart, Spider-Man, and Chasing Amy
Best Console Ever: SNES
Favorite Television Shows: The Simpsons, Family Guy, Nip/Tuck, MythBusters, and the Daily Show
Marital Status: Engaged to a gorgeous woman despite the fact that I am a complete geek
Geekiest Hobby: Comic Collecting (almost 1500 by now)
Favorite Car: Audi S4 (from watching Ronin too much)
Lucky Number: Despite that I'm a Calvinist and don't believe in luck, I'd have to say 42 or 74
Favorite Food: Chicken Alfredo or hash browns (scattered, covered, and chuncked)
Reason You Are Still Reading: Got no clue

I was playing Halo 2 the other night at a friends apartment. I'd lost early in poker (went all in foolishly on a straight draw), so I turned my chair around and started Halo 2. I never played Halo, so I didn't have too much of an idea of what I was doing. It took me about ten minutes to get the controls down without any help. It was rather fun at the beginning. The enemies were stupid to kill with their force fields and crap. I also was a big fan of the double guns with the double triggers. I got to an area where I drove a hummer looking vehicle around. This was annoying to drive. I like nothing about the controls of the different vehicles. I played for less then an hour and I got to an area where I played as an alien, and I flew around some weird plane. Then I really started getting bored. It wasn't that fun of a game. I wasn't impressed with the single player missions. The weapons were okay at first, but got repetitive, just as the game play in general did. And it took way too much for me to die. The game wasn't a big challenge. I enjoyed it when I finally died because I was looking for a good reason to stop.

By that time another poker player had also gone out and so we both started playing the multi-player mode against each other. This was actually fun. It wasn't as fun as Counter Strike, but it was still fun.

After playing this I realized something: FPS games are bad on consoles. It is that simple. Besides Golden Eye, I've never been impressed with a consoles FPS. The control the mouse gives on the PC makes playing FPS games much simpler and more controllable. I've never understood the FPS on the consoles. I had Turok on N64, and that was okay. I've played all the Bond games on the GameCube, and those are fun for awhile. And I've played different war games on the console. But really Half-Life, Doom, Wolfenstien, Duke Nukem 3D, and Heretic are all great games on PC, and didn't transfer well to console.

But along with FPS off PC, and I'm not a big fan of TPS on PC. There's something to third person view on GTA, Tenchu, and similar games that aren't good on PC. Diablo (and sequels) are quality, but that is a different type of third person. Max Payne only sucked on PS2 because of the frequent load times. The only games that are really cross console and PC are RPGs. And I think some of the action based ones like Champions of Norath are more fun on PS2 than PC sometimes. Probably because my computer just sucks and they run better on consoles.

Some areas are just good for certain areas. It's like a strategy game off the PC. You have to have the mouse to play those games. I feel the same way about the mouse and FPS games.

So if you die in the game Bible Adventures does that mean that you've single handedly destroyed God's plan? Besides the fact that you are a crappy gamer, does this mean that you've re-written the Bible to have David killed by a scorpion? In Genesis now will it say that Noah was killed by a woodpecker?

And why would God give someone a great quest to do if God knew that they could be killed by a woodpecker or a scorpoin? Wouldn't God help them out alittle bit, or does the game not really take on the spiritual qualities need to be Biblical until you add the GameGenie?

And are David, Noah, and Moses now mini-Jesuses (or is the plural Jesi?) since you have multiple lives. They can all die and come back to life three times. Does Jesus have three lives? And do you think that Jesus would be a fan of this game if he had come back in the 80s? Or would he've been a fan of Pong? I personally think Jesus would've kicked some major butt at Mega Man 5 and 6 because he's God and he can do that.

On a side note, my roommate believes that Jesus has four lives.

It was an early morning for me. An 8am exam in ancient religion and now I come back to my apartment with corpses of fallen drunks covering my living room. So no Tenchu or GTA this morning. No, I have to go back, way back, because ROMs on my computer are my only option this morning. No Fallout or Arcanum or Half-Life this morning. Not even Freedom Force will do. I have to go back to Tales of Phantasia and Breath of Fire.

I had forgotten how boring and sometimes stupid Breath of Fire is. Have you ever played one of those games where there are poison animals all around that you must fight, but the developers forget one small thing in the dungeon, and that is antidote. The creatures are easy to beat. It's almost broken when one hit kills most of the creatures. But they won't give you any antidote. The graphics on the game kind of suck as well.

Tales of Phanasia is a fun game. I'd forgotten about it. I'm not big of action RPGs, but this is okay. It is weird going from a top down RPG into a side scrolling action game (like ActRaiser). ActRaiser is a little better though. Not much, but still better.

They aren't Chrono Trigger though, and I scared to start playing that during exam week because I'll need to study once or twice and that is an all consuming game.

If humans are totally depraved and have free will, then the idea of an external evil spiritual force ends up being a crutch and a deflection of responsibility. The Devil/Satan/Lucifer may exist, but the idea that he is an evil force bent for total human depravity is really unnecessary. In Christianity, humans are responsibly for their own actions and decisions, and the "devil made me do it" line should only get you laughed straight to Hell by God. Satan becomes a "physical" manifestation of our sinful experience, and someone to shift the blame on. The whole line "the greatest trick that the devil ever played was making people think he doesn't exist" doesn't really matter. Most people who say that aren't in a position where Satan would probably know or care who they are.

But this raises all sorts of questions of where does evil come from, was the serpent (it never says Satan) in the Garden of Eden working for God or against God, and can we believe in the idea of a "fortunate fall"/predestined attitude so that God created evil so we would understand his goodness?

Our idea of Satan comes from some post-Dualistic/Milton explanation that isn't in the Bible anywhere, and especially no where in Old Testament. Aside from Job, where is Satan mentioned in the Old Testament? And in Job he's more of a heavenly D.A. working against humanity, but not against God.

Ask yourself these questions sometime and don't rely on tradition, but only on the source text to answer your questions. You'll probably end up with more questions, but questions are not a sin in the Bible.

I was playing Tenchu last night and on the third level I stealthily killed how many ever guys you need to kill and I received "Ninja Vision"! This sounds really cool, and I thought so at first too. It the kind of phrase you say in a deep voice very quickly while slurring the two words together. Try it, it's fun. "NINJAVISION!" See, a very cool word. You can really do that with any word following "ninja" though. Then, as I was trying "Ninja Vision," I realized that Rikimaru has a really great head of hair. And so "Ninja Vision" involves looking at the back of Rikimaru's head very intently hoping that the object you are wanting to look at is not in his direct line of sight. If it is then you are just screwed. I'm sure it's not too different for the chick, but she's just not as much fun to play as Rikimaru.

I'm not saying Tenchu is a bad game. I love it. It's a really amazing game. I love sneaking up behind someone, jumping of their shoulders and running my sword through the top of the skull and out their chin. Life doesn't get much greater than that.

This game is so much better too after I've played Manhunt, which was kind of stupid. I never got the feeling of stealth or the patience that I have in Tenchu. I felt pressed to completely the levels quickly, which when you're wanting to kill people without being seen, time is only your friend.

Tenchu is a great game. The "Ninja Vision" is disappointing, but the only perfect game I've ever played is Chrono Trigger, and we can't expect every game to be Chrono Trigger can we?

I've been playing GTA:SA for several weeks now. I'm back in Los Santos for what I assume is the final missions in the game. I've completely close to 60% of the game and most of it seems fun and challenging at times, but not really difficult.

But then there are Zero's damn missions. They are stupidly hard to me. I'm saying they are stupidly hard because they probably aren't that hard, I just really suck at the fps in GTA games. Give me a target lock and the suckers are dead, just don't ask me to actually aim or have any real skill apart from driving bikes and picking up hookers. Picking up hookers is a skill in my opinion since it is a stat in the game.

So I still have not passed Zero's first damn mission. I wonder if the missions are some joke that David Cross put into the game so he could laugh at all the people complaining about how hard they are. No other missions are really horribly difficult in the game to me but this damn mission. The finding four police bikes and driving them to a warehouse in a certain amount of time was a hard mission, but not stupidly hard like these.

Maybe I just suck though. Probably not, but I recognize that there is a chance for everything.