Thank You, EA

I know that I had absolutely nothing to do with it, but I'll take credit anyways. In my second post ever (yeah I know there are no pictures and it's boring) I bitched about how much I did not like the defending in EA Sports most recent Fifa games. The defense system annoyed me because all a person had to do was hold down the "A" button (I play on XBOX) and the defender would relentlessly pursue you until he won the ball. I refer to this as a constant ass rape. There is no way around this constant ass rape and it pissed me off. Well, it still pisses me off to this day, but thankfully in Fifa 12 the developers have gotten rid of this shitty defense system. I still suck at playing defense, but I don't get relentlessly hounded by every man on the pitch anymore. I know there is no way in hell that EA saw my article and thought "wow, this shithead is right," and then decided to reconfigure the defending system, but I'll take credit anyway. In the newest edition, or at least what I can tell from the limited time that I have actually played it, holding "A" down will help you stay near the man with the ball, but the person playing must actually get in close and press "B" to attempt stealing the ball or tug at the possessor's shirt. Tugging on shirts, another thing that is an absolute must in soccer simulations! No one plays soccer without grabbing the oppositions' garments! I applaud EA for making this change to the defense system, I think it's the best thing they've done in years, and that's saying something considering how great the Fifa franchise is.

I guess you can pull your own uniform, too

Speaking of soccer, I am still baffled that so many Americans can watch other sports and think soccer sucks. Now that I am following/watching soccer again, I can barely watch any other sports. Soccer doesn't catch on in the United States because there is no time for commercial breaks (they play continuous halves, leaving halftime as the only time for commercials) and the players don't have to wear equipment to compensate for getting drilled. Not to mention that many sports are just a rip off of soccer with a weird spin thrown on them. Instead of using feet, we'll use hands. Instead of scoring goals, we'll score baskets/touchdowns (or you will score goals if you're playing hockey).

I'll have to dedicate more time to why sports that aren't soccer suck, I have a lot of reasons. The intolerance of soccer fueled these reasons, but I can't go back now. What a coincidence, I was going on about how much I like what the creators have done with Fifa 12, and who would have guessed, I just got it in the mail today! What a coincidence. I've only played two games thus far, but the game is great. The actual soccer game play gets refined a little bit each year making each installment more realistic than the last. I guess they have to do something like that or else no one would buy the newest edition. So far the only thing I really do not like about the game has absolutely nothing to do with the game play, graphics, or anything like that. What bothers me is that the Turkish soccer league has not been included in Fifa 12. I have played extensively as the club Fenerbahce in the past two Fifas and greatly enjoyed it. Fenerbahce has a great team and an exquisite player, Alex, on it that I love to play with. Alex, a Brazilian midfielder, is in my opinion the most underrated player in all of soccer and I can no longer play as him or his team.

Alex, the most underrated and unknown

I really don't get why Alex (de Souza) doesn't get called up to the Brazilian national team either. He was a captain at one point, then suddenly he just never gets called upon. Something is fishy there. He definitely deserves more recognition and a spot in Fifa 12. He's a goal and assist machine, if he isn't scoring the goals, then he's setting his teammates up. One year when Fenerbahce were in the Champions League, Alex led the whole tournament in assists and Fenerbahce didn't even advance very far. I don't know why he doesn't play for Brazil or get interest from big market teams. I guess no one wants an explosive attacking player, teams would rather go after pieces of shit like Fernando Torres. No one should have high hopes for Torres. If he had any potential, then Barcelona would be bidding for him just like anyone else on the Spanish national team that's worth anything.


Besides the lack of inclusion of the Turkish Super Lig, I highly recommend Fifa 12. I have yet to play an online match, I'll probably get to that tonight. I'm just guessing, but I would bet that when I do play online my opponents will choose Barcelona, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, or Real Madrid to play as. I don't need to explain myself. What I don't know is what team I will play as, there's no more Fenerbahce!


In the upcoming days, hours, months, years, who knows, I do plan on posting some more of my rants on social networking. I've had my edition about statuses sitting around in the draft box for far too long. I'll have to do some final editing and release that bad boy. I'm also planning on releasing some shit about "unfriending" "defriending," what ever you want to call it. I find the whole thing rather comical, so stay tuned for that. Lastly, check out Alex, the guy is insane!

So Many Ways to Draw a Circle

I realize it has been quite some time since I last posted,  but this is for the best reason, I have been particularly busy lately. Now that it's Sunday afternoon and I'm just chilling watching some football, more particularly, some Tom Brady domination, I have some time to blog! Speaking of football, now that the NFL season is in full swing, maybe I'll dedicate a future post to how much I dislike field goals, and believe me, you will hate them too once you've seen my rant. Maybe I can even do a small vlog to go with it, but who knows. In my last post I mentioned the legendary Dr. K and how much I love listening to what he has to say. Well, this past week was no disappointment. I have his class two times per week, and this past Tuesday we spent the entire class watching the episode "The Suitcase" from the show Mad Men and discussing it. We got world class commentary from Dr. K throughout including insight into who on the show is an asshole and about how that episode is one of the greatest episodes of a television show ever. Then on Thursday, I was waiting outside of Dr. K's class, just waiting for him to finish up with the class he has beforehand. So I'm just standing there talking to one of my friends when all of a sudden Dr. K emerges from the classroom carrying his bag and personal belongings. He looks at us, all the students he has in his next class, and just keeps walking. To the best of my knowledge he never came back and just peaced out.

Dr. K strolled out of the building without saying a word to any of us, like a boss. We waited a little while to see if he was coming back, but eventually I figured that he was on his way home while we were standing outside the classroom. So I left. Later on that day I received an e-mail from Dr. K. When I saw it in my inbox I was certain that it was an explanation for whatever had happened earlier. Upon opening the e-mail, I found that I was incorrect. The e-mail was about how he was going to have shoulder surgery on November 17 so he would be missing class that day. That just left me thinking, what about today?! He ditched class and then e-mailed us about how he will be missing class in two months! I love this guy!

Oh yeah! In some other ground breaking news, it looks like the mobile blog is a go since there is finally an app that I can use for my mobile cellular phone! This segment new segment, Mere Minutia, should be up and running in the next few days. Mere Minutia will most likely have shorter blog posts about random things I'm contemplating when not around the computer or taking a crap.

Blog here, why not?

 I am fully aware that all my devoted subscribers were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the mobile blog. What can I say, I'm doing it for the followers. They deserve it for all the time they put into reading my stupid shit. Get it, because they would still just be reading my stupid shit. I also just joined Google+ today. I hate Facebook for approximately everything that people do on it, so let's hope for Google+ domination and make Mark the new Tom. Having looked the Google+ interface for a brief amount of time, it reminds me of Twitter on steroids. I say this because there is no way to "write on your friends' walls." You can do updates, like a status update on Facebook or a tweet on Twitter, and people can comment on them. You can upload photos and videos and supply friends with information about yourself. The best part so far, though, is the "Circles" you can create. You can assign people to circles, which they cannot see or know they are part of, and only share things with people in particular circles if you choose. That's such a great idea. As I mentioned sometime before, I can finally have a group of "Assholes!" I think it has a great chance to be a fun social networking tool since there can be some level of privacy. That's right, screw you Facebook! I really need to stop being such a dickhead and get my latest installment about why Facebook sucks up. I've had the piece on status updates sitting in my drafts for about two months now.

I know I talk a lot of shit about Facebook, and it's all justifiable, but I actually have found good use of it, especially right now. The funny thing is that I believe the only useful feature of Facebook that I use is its message application. It's one of the only things that you can keep private, which is why I use it, and it is basically sending someone an e-mail. Something so revolutionary that I could have done it years before Facebook even existed. I used the messaging function last year when I realized that one of my friends got a new phone number and I wanted it. Now I'm using messages to communicate with my friend who is studying abroad this semester. Besides using Facebook for the mentioned purposes, I can't say that it has really had any value to me personally, so it sucks.

Retentive Gibberish is struggling. It hasn't been updated since I wrote a shitty movie review of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" which has done absolutely nothing for the blog. I don't think we should give up hope yet, but it does have great potential to turn into another failed project. What wasn't a big failure was this past weekend, alumni weekend. Some good friends of mine came back to school this weekend for alumni/homecoming weekend and it was great! It felt like the old times, and I mean the past two years when I say that. Going out to dinner and spending the nights with them again was a whole lot of fun. There is a lot of cleaning up to do, but I think that is more a result of the people I live with, but either way it was totally worth it and a hell of a time!

First Impressions... again!

Today was the first day of classes for my senior year and I must say, wow, I had a fabulous time. If today was an omen of how this year is going to play out, then I'm all in and can't wait for the ride! Initially I was disappointed because when I got up this morning the sky was gray, it was raining, and it was 57 degrees. I thought it was still supposed to be nice in September. Anyways, I went to class and was entertained. I was most surprised by the auditing class, how the hell can that be fun? Well, it was! The professor was awesome, he has found a way to interact with the class throughout the entire duration without making it feel like a nightmare. He asked us questions that we could reasonably answer, not the typical dick way when professors try to find out who isn't paying attention or who didn't read some piece of shit by a credible source most of us have never heard of. Respect goes a long way with me, and in my estimation, this professor gives it, hopefully this keeps up for the rest of the semester.

Probably better than some classes

I'm also taking a drama course this semester just so I can have Dr. K again. Dr. K is one of my all time favorite people, I say that without hesitation and he did not disappoint me today. As soon as I sat down in class he started rambling about how something was bullshit. I don't even recall what subject he was speaking on, but it was bullshit. This guy is so great that I seriously wish he was related to me, he's definitely old enough to be my grandfather, but I would love to see this guy at family gatherings and on a regular basis. He gave us a syllabus with a schedule of what we will be doing over the semester, but after having this guy twice already in my college career, I highly doubt we'll do what it says because he'll be too busy talking about Genesis I.1.26 and how that line is proof that nothing has ever been read. I've heard this view three times now, but it's interesting each time. What was great about the syllabus was the attendance section which I recreated below for your amusement, compliments of Dr. K:

Attendance: Please attend my classes. I will schedule you as a failure (and have alerted the Dean's Office) if you miss more than three classes. Important: Please remain seated during our 90-minute class--unless, of course, you are called upon to give testimony in Washington, D.C. (N.B. No texting, sexting, laptops or lap dancing. Please.

No lap dancing! Is this guy serious? I guess I understand why he keeps us late after every class now, the class is supposed to be 75 minutes, not 90, but I honestly don't care because all time spent listening to Dr. K is time very well spent. I really enjoy listening to this guy because he speaks his mind and doesn't hold back. He was talking about the creation of man today and made up some dialogue for Adam when he got lonely. He had Adam say something about wanting a woman to have sex with and when God asked him what he wanted the woman to look like, Adam responded that he wanted a serious piece of ass. This class is seriously like a stand up comedy act and I love it.

This should be Dr. K's classroom

On another note, just like Chase I am relying on myself for food this year. While I am still living on campus, I am in a townhouse and have no meal plan anymore. The first three days in the townhouse have been great. It's way better than living in a dorm building and I have a single this year, so we all know what that means (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). However, it has been quite expensive these first few days. Yesterday we got a bunch of groceries and we bought a grill which is absolutely essential. Hamburgers and practically anything cooked on a grill is phenomenal. One funny note from all this buying. We live with a Jew. I could just end the thought right there and it would be funny and understandable, but I will not. We ended up going to buy more food once we bought the grill because we wanted to have some hamburgers and hot dogs after we finished setting up the grill. We went to the self-checkout and as soon as we started running the bar codes over the scanner, the Jew walked away. He walked toward the exit and left my suitemate and I to pay for the food. A nice little anecdote from yesterday. Putting the grill together was way more time consuming that we had imagined, too. We built most of it with the normal annoyances and minor problems, but we hit a larger problem near the end. We couldn't fit the actual part of the grill where all the grilling takes place onto the legs. We managed to sort of force it on, so hopefully that works out without something horrible happening. One of my suitemates said that we'll "(insert racial slur that looks a lot like nagger) rig" it so that it works.

Do I look like I'm paying for food?

I hope that tomorrow's classes are as delightfully entertaining as today's, if that's the case, I think this will be an enjoyable semester. I'm also anxious for track to start up, which it will soon, because I'm very intrigued to experience practice under a new sprints coach. Hopefully that will work out very well, too, but I'm sure it will. I'm excited for the upcoming track seasons because they could very well be my last and I want to perform well. I have the same goal for track as I did when entering senior year of high school: I want to go out with a bang.

I'm starving, so I'm going to make myself some dinner now! No more waiting in line for food at the dining hall. To the kitchen!