Quasi Return to Form

If you asked me a few months back how my writing was coming along lately, my response would likely have been a lie. "It's going smoothly," or "I'm taking my time." But honestly, that's not the case, it isn't nearly as smooth as one would want it to be, especially if they want to be a writer like me.

Despite my recent shortcomings, I returned to my writing today. Did a few pages in a new project. Something I've been milling around in my head, rather than trying to get back at an old project like I have been doing my last few attempts at returning to the page. Hopefully I can keep the ball rolling so to speak with this project, and write... something... every day. Be that a blog post or more of this story I'm working on.

It's not some mind blowing story with a premise that will change the storytelling world. But it is something that I care about that I hope will turn into something that other people will care about too. Just hopefully not enough to fan fiction. I hate that crap. But that's another story. To put it short it has to do with a lack of creativity so to speak. You can't create your own characters, or your own world so you steal other writers creations and bastardize it. So yeah, I dislike fan fiction.

I can't really lie, and say I haven't dabbled in borrowing ideas or concepts. Hell, a lot of my early writing, when I was a young'n I wrote a lot of Digimon (topical I know) stories. They were also picture books, existed in worlds I created, with characters I created. The only thing I used that already existed was the concept of Digimon. For those unfamiliar with Digimon it's on the internet somewhere, but here is the original intro for your nostalgic viewing pleasure:

In more personal news, my two year anniversary is right around the corner. November 20th to be exact. I made a reservation at the Bad Apples Bistro nearby in Spencerport, I hear it's amazing, so I hope people weren't lying. My love life depends on it you potential liars! Not really, but you're still potential liars.

In other, other news, I still work at Walmart, but now I'm an Electronics Sales Associate. So I don't dislike going to work as much as I used to.

In other, other, other news TV has been GREAT, especially Netflix, HBO, and Showtime. But you can read more on that on my film review blog soon. Probably within a week or so. Movies have been... movies... I haven't seen any phenomenally great one's this year, yet. Being that it's the end of the year though, I'm kind of disappointed in that. But hey, Star Wars is like a month away right?

I also got like three new games lately, well, one collection of old games and two new games, and I have no time to play them. Not that that's really a bad thing, it's more of a, sad thing, for me. But yeah, the Nathan Drake Collection, Battlefront, and Fallout 4. Then Uncharted 4 comes out early next year, so I at least have to finish off the collection before then, but that would mean not touching the other two for ages. My days off consist of catching up on the shows I'm back logged on, I'm genuinely lucky if I get any time to game. Especially considering that my girlfriend doesn't let me!

Well, she does, but she doesn't like it when I do. I plowed through Assassin's Creed Syndicate's main campaign in a few days and she complained every second of it. All in all, worth it.

That's it for today I think, there'll be more in the future, so stay tuned.

TL;DR I'm writing again and other stuff happened.

I'm back!

And...

God, it's been a while hasn't it? What's it been, three months? It's been so long I've forgotten how to do this properly. So allow me to be awkward for a while until I figure things out again.

I'm in (hopefully - to be explained momentarily) the final stretch of my college experience. The classes are pretty much going how I had expected them to go; with one minor exception. I've been accused of academic dishonesty - so as of this moment I am typing this I do not know if I am passing or failing that class. For those unaware of what exactly that means, he (the accusing professor) believes I have plagiarized one of my essays. The kicker is that he thinks I plagiarized Sparknotes of all places. As if I'd be stupid enough to do that. But once again, I have to digress before I stress myself out about the situation, more than I already have. I was supposed to find out more about the situation sometime yesterday (April 4), as apparently there was a hearing on the matter - students not welcome for whatever bullshit reason - but I have heard literally nothing about it as of 2:16PM this afternoon (April 5).

I do not like the way the college has handled (or seems to handle all of them from conversation with others) the situation at all. I'm not sure how it works at other schools. But let me tell you how it works here.

STORY TIME!

the teacher see's that the student may have committed academic dishonesty and may contact the student informally to investigate (this did not happen). Within five business days the instructor gives the student the notice of the claim or it is mailed to them, and then must decide to dispute the claim within ten business days. At the same time the instructor notices the possibility of academic dishonesty (before notifying the student via form) the professor notifies the department chair, who then within three business days (still before the student must have the form), reviews the form and forwards it to the school dean. So, in many cases, before the student even knows things are happening, the school dean may already be looking at the claim and making a decision on the matter. In other words you could be kicked out of the school before knowing any of this was going on. If the student chooses to dispute the claim to the school dean (before a decision has been reached) the school dean then determines the appeal's worth, and without meeting with the student, may dismiss the claim immediately without question within the next three business days, penalties standing. Either that, or they accept the appeal and hold a formal hearing (which is what I believe just happened), and then within three more business days the student is informed of the hearings decision. In the mean time, the student still has to go to this Pavlov's class, that they are failing or not failing, and deal with this professor that is not allowed to discuss the issue with them whatsoever. 

So, I could have been kicked out three business days after the claim was issued, but that didn't happen, I got my appeal to the school dean out in time. But if the hearing happened on Friday, I have to wait until at most, fucking Wednesday (April 9), which means one more class with the accusing professor, to hear anything about the situation. I think the biggest issue with the whole thing is that the student has no place in the process other than the initial appeal. I cannot do jack shit other than say, "yeah, uh, I didn't do that." The other big issue with it, is that it takes way too fucking long, and it stresses the students out to the point where they don't care about their other classes at all, and all they care about is fixing this problem. But they can't fix the problem, because they are not allowed to do anything other than submit an appeal against the claim. Basically, all of this has made me just, not want to be in this school. But thankfully I have three other professors this semester and an amazing girlfriend who all keep me sane. Further, if I am failing this class, meaning the appeal failed, I have to come back for another semester to graduate, which I do not want to do in the slightest. I mean, it would allow me to take at least one class in the new Liberal Arts building, but if I have to do that because of this bull shit, I'd rather just drop out - and I mean that, I'll finish this semester, and not come back. I will willingly not graduate, I will not give this school another fucking dime, just for a slip of paper that says I'm "smart" and I achieved something that half the fucking population receives. 

End of Story!

I feel like the use of "brah" is what makes this superior to other .GIFs

It takes time to write like this, more than it used to, and I'm not entirely sure why. I feel like writing personal stuff is harder  - yet I don't know exactly why it's more difficult. All of that being said, I'd like to take a minute (just sit right there) to talk about my life, now and after college.

As you could probably guess from the situation I spelled out not too long ago life isn't exactly going according to plan. But I honestly couldn't care less, because I still have, what I assume (more of a hope, really) to be, a rather bright future ahead of me. Most of those thoughts come from my lovely girlfriend, and my plans to move in with her and stuff. And the puppy I'm totally going to get. Puppies, even future puppies, make everything better. Everything.

It'll be a Labrador, likely of the chocolate variety.

 

So yeah, aside from the school issues, life is going pretty good though - and to my fellow friends, who may be reading this, we might need a roommate - so if you're interested... call me! As my last bit of business I will now do a review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Enjoy.

The Trailers:

Expendables 3

 

Lucy

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Maleficent

 

Blended

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Review:

This is, in my opinion, the best of the Phase 2 Marvel movies so far. Phase 2 includes Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World, and will continue for Guardians of The Galaxy on August 1, 2014 and The Avengers: Age of Ultron on May 1, 2015. The movie is a lot darker than it's predecessor, Captain America: The First Avenger, though still light at heart as most of Marvel's movies tend to be. Cap is faced with many issues that are both personal and impersonal. As is the case with most movies, it's the personal that is of intrigue. Something's going down at SHIELD, and The Winter Soldier is out on the loose, and it's up to Cap to save the day with the help of Black Widow, and the newly introduced Falcon.

The Winter Soldier's identity reveal was handled quite well, anyone who wasn't expecting it, like my girlfriend, was in for quite the surprise.

Though, as it seemed apparent for one kid, children may not be able to follow or make the connection as to who he is, regardless of him being named in the film and the kid being told who he is. Hearing "who is that guy" every time he appeared on screen was initially annoying, but became quite humorous by the time it happened in the film's climax.

There's a lot of twists and turns in the film, and a hell of a lot of ups and downs. The pace slows and picks up, then slows back down again. If the first film was made to be a World War II movie first and a super hero movie second, this one is a political thriller first. Dr. Strange is apparently referenced, I missed it so I wasn't able to mark out and confuse the hell out of my girlfriend and suite mate, but here's my (don't read if you don't want spoilers) source. So it looks like Dr. Strange at least exists in this universe, so a future movie, likely in Phase 3 (Ant-man and Captain America 3 being the only two in that phase as of now) is entirely possible.

 
The film was fairly par for the course as far as superhero cinematography goes. The action, though quick cut, was fairly simple to follow. And the explosions, as many other than myself would greatly appreciate, are all done in wide shot so you can enjoy them in all of their glory - no obscured explosions here.Though this doesn't serve to jumble or confuse the audience, as is the goal - or at least, the result - of many-o-mediocre directors of photography.

With this being the set up to the next Avengers film, and Guardians likely having nothing to do with the aforementioned sequel, I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what Joss Whedon does with it. I know he can pull it off, because it's Joss Whedon, but here's to hoping for Thanos in Avengers 3 when the Guardians finally team up with them, along with Dr. Strange and Ant-Man, hopefully.

Post Credits Tease:

Like with Thor: The Dark World, there were two scenes in the credits sequence. One teasing The Avengers: Age of Ultron. The other teasing, I'm assuming, the recently announced Captain America 3 slated for a May 2016 release.

The Score:

9 Captain America shields out of 10

So, yeah, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, turned out to be a pretty fun ride. Well worth the watch, though I'm assuming most people will be doing so without my approval.

I plan on keeping this going on a weekly basis, with a new post every Friday or Saturday night, potentially missing a week or so. Later bitches, it's good to be back. Watch the video to tie you over until next time!