Back to the Monday

Today was Monday. I didn't really do much, but I guess that is kind of par for the course. A lot of people here seem to not come in to work unless they have something specific to do at the office. I go in to study a bit, but I had office hours today, which meant I had to be there to do very little since very few people come in this early in the year, so I studied then. I don't know.

One thing I did do was play some Back to the Future for the NES, which is just as terrible as I remember it. It is such a grating game for a few reasons, which I think I will talk about for lack of anything else to say.

A lot of NES games suffer from horrible controls, which render them basically unplayable, and therefore forgettable. You try them once and give up. Back to the Future actually controls just like it is supposed to, so you are constantly under the illusion that you can succeed when you really can't, leading to much frustration.

The problems result from a few enemies/stages. The first is the bees. Why does it have to be bees? You are attacked numerous times each level by bees that are unfairly allowed to essentially home in on you, which is really unfair in what is basically a forced scrolling shooter because you can't move in a reasonable way while they can.

The next problem is the non-running stages. When I played the game almost every day on the actual NES, I managed to get past the first special stage through sheer devotion, but since then I've never been able to get past it. The perspective switches to a sideways shooter where you throw something at bullies who run at you. It looks like you are throwing sandwiches, but I can't tell. The problem is that there's no real visual indication which "slot" the enemies are in, so you sort of have to get very used to slight visual differences just to hit them, and the requirement for success is so absurdly high that only the most dedicated players will beat the stage, and it is only about 1/4 of the way through the game.

I'm not even going to bother mentioning that none of the game makes sense or has anything to do with Back to the Future in anything but the most tenuous sense. Try it on virtualnes.com if you want to see what I am talking about.

Weekend

Eric came up this weekend from D.C. and we had some fun. I don't have pictures of anything, sadly, so I'll just make a short, incomplete list.

-Saw some sort of festival in chinatown.

-Ate Peking duck.

-Drank birch beer, which is like root beer.

-Ate a cheesesteak, with Whiz, of course.

-Various general fun things.

Ambiguous Pronoun Reference

One of the drawbacks of being part of a culture instead of just on its fringes is that you are constantly exposed to it, which can become grating very quickly. What I mean is that I think the words "if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it" will never find their way out of my brain. I keep imagining what that could mean out of the intended (but not specified) context. What kind of rings would need to exist to obey this rule in every case? How does one put a ring on abstract concepts?

Monday

I have my first official office hours today. Other than that there's not much going on. There are some welcome events which I think are aimed at undergrads but I might try to get some free food out of one later. Alright, that's it.

Hairpiece

Can someone please point me to something with Kristen Wiig in which she is funny? I have only seen a few things featuring her, and she is always the weakest part. I just saw an imitation of Madonna she did and it was painfully unfunny. I have seen her in a few things that were funny, but not the parts that she did. Her main skill seems to be saying/doing something awkward and staring at the camera or otherwise holding up what we'd like to see from happening. Yet, she is being heralded as the new Tina Fey. What am I missing?

Orientation Day 4

Today was by far the most useful, and also gave me not only a free lunch, but the opportunity at another free lunch later. Today we finally got put into our departments and did some practice teaching, which I think I did pretty well at. I also found out a bit more about the class I am TA'ing for. My hotel card key stopped working today, but they did something to it and it started working again. I guess they are designed to stop working after so long, but I don't know. Seems weird to me.

Orientation Day 3

Today is basically a day off. Apparently it is commuter orientation day, so there are a bunch of local noobs running around, I guess. I had to go in to campus to talk to financial aid about why they sent a letter outlining a different package to me. It turns out that everything is cool, it's just that some stuff is run through the department or doesn't count as financial aid so much as a salary, so once they figured out what it all meant, nothing really had to be done. Other than that, I spent some time reading about eigenvectors and listening to some new freshmen (I guess) talk about the health care reform "debate." Now I'm back enjoying the wonderful hospitality of the microtel. There is a bed-like thing right under/beside the window. I am not sure if it is actually a bed, but it seems designed for people to lie on it. I'm not clear why this is included unless these rooms can be used by three people cramming in here. It is a mystery!

Update: I may be TA'ing for an upper-level stats class now? That could be bad as I only took stats one time, four years ago, and it was both my weakest and least favorite math class. We shall see, I guess.