Centsports

Well sports fans, I've got something you're gonna love. Some people on my floor told me about centsports.com, a betting website. Advertisers are not only paying for their ad-space but their paying so that you can get a whopping 10 cents to bet on any sporting event. So little money has never had so much meaning. You can eventually cash out whatever money you win. I haven't gotten a chance to do that yet since I'm still under a dollar. Mostly because every week I put a majority of my money on the Packers and then they lose. The best part about the website is when you do lose all your money, you can just click for more, courtesy of advertisers. And you can even get a percentage bonus on top of your winnings courtesy of those same advertisers if you click on an ad or to. 

I told my parents all this and they smelled scam, I don't really blame them, but so far I haven't actually even looked at any advertisements and the spam I get to my e-mail address is still exactly the same as it was before, zero. Overall, I'd say its a good deal, one of my friends from my floor got to $10 before he lost it all. "Now I have to start all over," he said. At least he can take comfort in knowing that it wasn't actually his money anyway. 

Quantum of Solace

A few weekends ago I went and saw Quantum of Solace on opening night. Overall, the movie has received not so grand reviews. Rolling stone only gave it 2.5 stars and Roger Ebert only gave it 2 stars. But you know what I think, what do they know? 

I will say this...say goodbye to your old fashion bond movie full of fancy gadgets and throw away girls. The first 20 something Bond movies had no link at all, each was an independent movie with James Bond and a Martini "shaken not stirred" the only commonality. Quantum of Solace is basically the sequel to Casino Royale. You need to see it before you watch the newest installment or you will be lost through most of the plot. 

A change I found rather welcoming in Casino Royale, is the realization of the Director that James Bond is supposed to be a human, not a superhero. In previous movies Bond would dominate all fights and would come away as clean as he entered the fight. Daniel Craig's Bond actually bleeds, gets bruises and even has some emotional scares still given from the last movie. Overall, the movie is an extension of Casino Royale with more action. This is a welcome addition for those of you who are not poker fans. (You need to see the first movie to get that one). 

We've been introduced to a new James Bond, one who takes his occasional beatings and actually has emotions. And I have to say, I'm glad to meet the new James Bond, it's a pleasure. 

Gears of War 2

The other day I decided to spend that last of my money on buying the video game Gears of War 2 for my Xbox360. It was $60 dollars since it just came out earlier this week. This game is 100% worth the money. The plot is amazing and the combat system is just as good as the first one with many improvements made. Now you can have chainsaw duels....yes its as amazing as it sounds. Additionally, you get to hijack cretures from the other side and pretty much dominate everybody. As my roommate said it was almost too badass. My roommate and I did the campaign together and it took us about 11 hours to finish it on hardcore.  We stayed up together into the wee hours of the night, trying to get as far as we could. 

My only criticism is that the ending spent more time setting up a sequel than finalizing any points of the story line. Overall I see being able to save me money on the long term since I'll be playing the game instead of spending money on things like food and friends. Gears of War 2 is my heroin. 

UNIV

I think the University should seriously consider changing the name of UNIV100 to BS100. Almost nothing productive comes out of that class yet, I still get an unnecessary amount of work for it. Officially I am an undecided engineer, so I was required to take UNIV100 within the School of Engineering. The one productive aspect of UNIV100 is that our teacher arranges representatives from all the different departments to come in and speak with our class. In a sense, they are recruiting us, trying to convince us to come into their field. 

Besides the presentations by the departments which takes only 3 classes for all the departments to present. Nothing has come out of that class for me except for one to many zero's. I have never been a proponent of busy work and if I don't see the point behind the work I'm doing, I can't stay motivated to actually do it. Call me lazy, (I am) but I think 90% of the work done in that class is there just to have some kinds of scores in the grade book. 

Then I found out that I got a zero for something I had done. The teacher lost a homework assignment where we had to write down comments about each department and questions to ask there representative. This was actually something that made sense so I did it. And then I didn't even get credit for it. All this proves is that the teacher doesn't even care about the class. I currently have a C in that class, and it will likely stay that way. Not that I really care that much.

Metro Whoa's

I had an interesting experience with the mass transit system last sunday. I was home on sunday becuause I had to drive a friend back home since she didn't know where she was going and I only live a few miles from her house. Coming back to school wasn't a problem because there is a bus which runs from BWI Airport, which is a 15 minute drive from my house, to Greenbelt Metro Station. From there I can take the Metro rail to the College Park station, get on another bus which takes me right to stamp. The trip is not as complicated as it sounds and usually flows almost perfectly. I usually don't have to wait in one spot for anymore than 5 minutes. 

However, on Sunday night this flow was greatly interrupted at the beginning. My dad drove me to the stop for bus B30, which runs from BWI to Greenbelt. It was somewhat late at night when I was boarding the bus, approximately 10:30 at night. However, there were about 3 more buses that were scheduled to come by that night. We got the to station about 5 minutes early and  I waited in the car with my dad. I told him he could just drop me off since the bus would be here shortly, but he said he didn't mind waiting. So we waited......and waited.....and waited. It was 20 minutes past the schedule time and no bus had even passed us. I then called the phone number posted at each metro stop, to find out if another bus was coming. But customer services was closed. This is was really made me angry about the whole situation. Customer services closes before the buses stop running. What if my dad simply dropped me off and left. My phone's battery was very low and there was no payphone in the area. The station is close by car ride but walking I might as well be stranded in another state. If I didn't have parents that cared about me I would have been stuck at that station all night. So just a warning for all of my fellow travelers. 

DON'T TRUST THE METRO!!!!