blog 55

There are a lot of things in nature that fascinate me but my favorite is probably mountains. They are giant and for some reason people always want to climb to the top of them. I have climbed a few mountains and I love every minute I spend on them even if I am exhausted after the climb. There is always an amazing view and I always feel like I am on top of the world, probably because it’s the closest I can be to actually being on top of the world without flying. Hopefully, I will be able to climb more mountains in my life. I am not a big fan of cold mountains though so that kind of narrows my options down a little bit but walking around the California rockies again in summer would be fun. Sadly, Ohio is kind of shitty when it comes to mountains and I would have to travel pretty far to find a decent one. I also like waterfalls a lot because they look really cool and are awesome. I also like some other part of nature that gives me enough words to get to 250 so I can stop writing and move on to the rest of my homework. That one is my favorite, but seriously I gotta go do other homework now so I am going to wrap this up. Mountains and waterfalls are cool and now that I am at 250 words I am going to stop  bullshitting and post.

Blog 54 i used to like the older ladies

The first girl I ever liked was pretty amazing. She was a tad bit older than me, but apparently I fell for her pretty hard. She was born in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on February 18^th, 1957. Like I said, just a little bit older. She was pretty amazing at turning puzzle boards and spinning wheels. Ya that’s right I had a crush on Vanna White, the lady from wheel of fortune. When I was little my mom said that I would always yell “Lets watch Vanna!” whenever wheel of fortune was supposed to be on. I loved the show and would watch it any chance I got. It made some good memories for me and my mom, and made me a beast at word puzzles. I don’t remember exactly when I started watching wheel of fortune but my mom likes game shows a lot and I probably had been watching it since I got back from the hospital. I am not exactly sure what else to blog about because I can’t really write a 250 word blog off of someone I have never actually met and therefore have no experiences with. I hope everyone else has an easier time writing theirs but I am getting tired and it is getting pretty late so I am going to have to go to bed.

Blog 51

I wish I could meet just about any recent president so I could learn how they deal with stress. Being the president is supposed to be the most stressful job in the world, and if you look at pictures of many presidents before their terms and after their terms they seem to have aged much more than the four to eight years they served. Obama started getting grey hairs not too long after he became president, and I feel like I am probably starting to get some grey hair after this last god damn two weeks. Each president probably had his own way of dealing with stress and it would be pretty interesting to find out what each one used. Bill Clinton’s strategy is kind of obvious and maybe he could teach me some things, but I would like to know what some of the others did too. Also, it would be interesting to hear about all the secrets they know about. I am sure there are a lot of things that is kept very secret that only a few people including the president know, like in that book from one of the national treasure movies. They probably know what’s going on in Area 51 if there even is anything there. Well time to go study for another math fucking math midterm I have to take in about 5 hours. I can’t wait for this weekend to be able to finally relax and practice my own stress relief strategies.  

Blog 48

So tonight I pulled decided to pull an all nighter so that I could get all of my engineering 181 homework done. I just finished and remembered that I had a blog to do tonight. Hopefully 6:17 AM isn’t too late because technically I still haven’t gone to bed. If you like TV when studying, it’s very difficult to find things to watch all night. It seems like I have to switch between comedy central, adult swim, and espn all night. Unfortunately espn was on another justin beiber bender and I stayed away from there most of the night. Currently I am watching fox news because everything else is having infomercials. At least there is important potentially world changing news and I don’t have to put up with too much bullshit. I can’t believe that there are so many countries protesting their rulers in the Middle East. I hope that all of the protestors are as successful as Tunisia and Egypt at overthrowing their unjust leaders. Hopefully these countries don’t waste their chance and put a worse government in place. I can’t wait to be done with my classes for today and finally get some sleep. I am not tired now but I know I will be in a couple hours. I guess I will just have to make some more coffee and do my best to stay awake. That is about 250 words so I guess I am going to study some more and get ready for class.

Blog 46

So tonight I learned that my brother is and his wife are going to open a coldstones creamery in the town that they live in. unfortunately that town is about 2000 miles away and I will have absolutely no chance of getting free ice cream unless i pay a couple hundred dollars for a plane ticket, and unfortunately I don’t think that would be very cost effective. I guess next time I visit him i will have to eat as much as I can to make up for the lost time. Unfortunately, tonight I can’t go out because there is too much work to be done. I have to finish writing my English article and i need to write two other papers that are due pretty soon. The dunk contest is on too and my Canadian roommates just got back from their hockey game so I will probably have trouble finding the time. these kids are crazy after their games and usually do some pretty entertaining things. I can’t wait for their offseason so they can go out every night and not just Saturday. There are like 5 of them in the room and they only brought back one girl so I’m a little confused as to what is going to happen in a couple minutes but it should make for a good story. I still don’t know if they won or lost but I am at 250 words so I am just gunna stop and go watch the dunk contest.

Blog 45

So I am currently in class right now waiting for a paper to be passed my way. I really want to go outside and play football with my friends because of the amazing weather but sadly there is still an hour left… hopefully when I get out they will still be playing, but there is a good chance I will miss out on a lot of fun. Oh well, at least I have time to knock out this blog so I don’t have to do it tonight before I go out and all my friends get mad at me for taking so long. I looked at the forecast for the next week and it’s not looking too good. I am going to have to enjoy every moment of warm weather that I can because it is about to get pretty cold again. I can’t believe the river melted either. There was so much ice and I say people walking on it not too long ago. I went home last weekend and when I came back and looked out the window I was surprised to see no ice. There was about 2 feet of snow back at my house and the transition back to nothing was extremely weird. I used to love winter, but winter without very much snow like here in Columbus is just awful. I am used to either a lot of snow or warm weather for winter and this is the first time I have lived where it’s just cold.

Blog 44

So I could probably just bitch about lie and how many papers I have to write that are due next week, but I don’t think I am going to do that. I think I am going to try to write about something else. I am not sure what that is and I am just going to keep typing until I figure out what to write because I really need to get this done so I can get to work on my rough draft due tomorrow. I guess I will write about how ESPN is pissing me off by talking about Justin Bieber every five god damn minutes. I am getting sick of this bullshit, it’s a sports show I don’t give a fuck about justin beiber, I want to watch some guy get dunked on or see the nfl draft predictions. I could not care any less about what movie these guys and their families went to see and how much they like it. If I wanted to listen to that garbage I would go on youtube and look up one of his dumb songs. Sorry if anyone likes him but I don’t, and I don’t like my sports shows being corrupted by things that have nothing to do with sports. Having to put up with Nascar and watching lebron james highlights all day is bad enough but espn needs to get its shit together.

Is that letter grade really worth your health? Blog 43

What would you give up for good grades? Would you risk developing anorexia, sleeping disorders, hallucinations, would you be willing to increase your chances of slipping into a coma, having a seizure, or even dying just to get an A? One would think that everyone would answer no, and yet thousands of college students across the U.S. abuse prescription drugs like Adderall and Vyvance just to get better grades. These drugs may improve your memory and allow you to focus better but they can also take a serious toll on your body and should only be used as prescribed by a doctor.

Blog 42

The abuse of drugs and alcohol is extremely relevant to college students and therefore people who will be reading my article. A very large percent of college students have abused drugs or alcohol, and I am sure that the ones that haven’t, know at least one person who has. People need to realize that prescription drugs and alcohol were not meant to be abused; they were made to help people who have problems or to provide clean and safe things to drink. Drugs and alcohol are popularized in movies and television and give many people the wrong idea about their usage every day. I am not really sure how else to explain the relevance of this topic, I feel like pretty much covered it in the first couple sentences. Somehow I am supposed to turn this in to two hundred and fifty words so I am most likely going to ramble and pretty much say nothing. Maybe I should talk about my day? I think blogs should have a more complex prompt so that I do not have to waste my time and the time of whomever else decides to read this blog. Oh well, I guess as long as I get points for bullshitting my way through this blog every night I will continue to do so. These things have great potential but I don’t think they are helping me as much as they could be.

Blog: 41

I think I need to pick a more compelling topic that relates more to the lives of students. Let’s be honest, nuclear politics is not as interesting as the Jersey Shore or as visible as something that is much more directly related to their lives like substance abuse by their peers.  The only problem I have is finding an interesting topic and relating it to my analytical research paper. I think I want to find a way to relate my paper to the abuse of drugs and alcohol and the way that alcohol was originally used mostly because it was one of the only clean and safe things to drink. Either that or talk about the abuse of prescription drugs that are made to help people who need them but are very often abused by students who depending on the drug are either trying to reach a new high or get an A on an exam that is coming up. Adderall and Vyvance, are some of the most commonly abused prescription drugs in college campuses across the country. These drugs are highly addictive and have some terrible side effects and yet people still use them. I have personal experience with them, and many people can relate to the abuse of this drug, so I believe these incorporating these things can make my new idea compelling.

Blog 40

My argument is timely because nuclear terrorism is a very modern threat. Nuclear weapons only recently became semi-accessible to terrorists because the U.S.S.R. just recently collapsed. The United States has also become the target of many terrorist attacks recently. Terrorist will always be looking for the next biggest thing to attack the U.S. with, and a nuclear weapon is their ultimate goal because of its extremely destructive potential. These terrorists don’t just go away, they are definitely still trying to attack us and looking for the best way to do it. It is a sure thing that we are going to be attacked again in our lifetime, and we have to get our government to do its best to protect us from nukes over any other problem we could face. It doesn’t matter if we all have free healthcare if one of our major cities gets nuked. People should stop trying to get the government to cut our military budget, if anything we should be increasing it. Our safety should be our number one priority and just because we don’t see the terrorists and they haven’t attacked recently doesn’t mean we should let them lull us to sleep.  I think I might have to change what I am writing about because I am not really sure what I am arguing. I think it should be that nuclear weapons should be dismantled and made useless so that they don’t fall into the wrong hands.

Blog 39

So I am not quite sure what kind of hypothetical scenario I am supposed to make up but I’m guessing it is what could happen if a terrorist got their hands on a nuke. So anyways, if a terrorist managed to obtain a nuke somehow, probably either from stealing it or buying it from Russia, depending on who they were, they would most likely attempt to use it on either the US or Israel. Let’s just pick the USA to make things easier. Their next step would be to smuggle it in to the country. They would probably try to take it in on a boat or put it into a shipping crate. Only about 6 percent of shipping crates are actually physically inspected or x-rayed and it would not be very difficult for to smuggle a bomb into a major shipping port. Once in the US, the bomb could be detonated pretty much anywhere. Depending on the size of the bomb, an entire city could be wiped out and millions of people could die in a matter of a few violent seconds. This is a nightmare scenario for the US government. Not only could millions of people die instantly, but the nuclear fallout could kill many more people and force more millions to evacuate. The worst part would be that we would have almost no way to retaliate or prevent another similar attack without completely shutting down our borders and wasting billions of dollars checking every container that comes in.

Blog 37

I wrote this on accident a while ago and since we can blog about anything i finally found a place to use it.

In episode 10 of Dollhouse, the creators bring a crazy concept into play, eternal life. If someone important enough decides that they want to live forever and can get the Dollhouse to decide the same thing, they can get their memories scanned into the computer. When they die, they can implant them into a doll and essentially live forever. This causes me to wonder what could happen to the world if the wrong people got their hands on this technology. I don’t believe that someone with the power to make themselves live forever could turn that down. Dollhouse is already a shady business, and with this kind of power, they could do some real harm. This also made me think, what if people wanted to trade bodies but retain their memories? This could be done quite easily with dollhouse. It could also make spying quite easy as well. Whole countries could be taken over by kidnapping enough people and using them to get close to the president or leader and then putting someone else in his body. I also wonder if clones could be created, if one could copy their own thoughts and implant them into multiple bodies.  I cannot even imagine the chaos this could cause.  Obviously it could be helpful by keeping great people alive but you still have to murder someone in order to make room. Maybe their time as a doll and they were used to keep important people alive then returned to normal, I would have less of a problem. Prison already takes time away from people and this would make them more useful.

Blog 30

So I am finally done with studying for midterms this week and it is time to start working on my multiple papers that are due within the next week… I’m so excited…  Unfortunately if I want to enjoy myself this weekend and watch the superbowl which I am very disappointed about by the way, I need to get my work done tonight and tomorrow. So I guess it is going to be another long night involving a lot of coffee and frustration. I feel like if I did not have to write this blog this week, I would be able to more easily write my paper. If I didn’t have to stumble through words tonight 250 mostly bitching about the paper I should be writing, I could be improving my paper and find more time to sleep tonight. I think that instead of writing a blog every night, the rough draft should just replace the blog points for this week so I can really focus on my paper. I know I am supposed to be writing about my paper here and get help on it but so far I haven’t even had the time to work on it because of all the things I need to get done in a day. So anyways, hopefully my paper will take shape tonight and I can write about it better tomorrow night. I can’t wait to be done with this and be able to just relax and return to a normal sleep pattern.

Blog 29

                So I went to the writing center today and I was told a couple of things. One thing I learned was that my topic is too specific. I went through like 50 topics trying to get one that was specific enough and now it is too specific. Luckily before I tore apart my laptop, I was told that my argument would work but I would have to make it much more complicated and detailed. I am not exactly sure on how I am supposed to do this, but I was told that I should talk about both sides of the argument and really dive into the details. I am a mechanical engineer and unfortunately not used to bullshitting my way through an argument to talk about every little detail and every aspect about my argument. I am being taught to say what I need to say in order to get the point across in the least amount of words in a class more pertaining to my major while learning how to turn one sentence into a seven page paper in another which I will be done with after this quarter. I see the value of being able to communicate ideas in the form of persuasive papers but I am frustrated by the lack of material I must use to do this. There are only so many facts about any one topic that pertain to an argument being made by the creators of Dollhouse. Sorry about the rant but I am extremely tired and need sleep. Goodnight

Blog 28

I chose to use another quote from the article that I discovered last night, as it is full of helpful information and projections. In this quote the two authors talk about the consequences of a nuclear weapon going off somewhere in the Middle East. They explain that even if the blast was contained to only the targeted country, the nuclear fallout could very easily fall in an important oil-producing country more than likely causing a shutdown of their oil production. Some of the Middle East oil is very important to many countries and could cause a lot of economic problems. The authors of the article used England as one example; if England were to lose its Middle Eastern oil, it would hinder their ability to cheaply transport food into their country. Therefore not only the price of oil, but the price of most food would rise significantly if a nuke was blown up near an oil-rich country. The article also mentions that using a nuke in to help protect a country from its neighbor would probably cause more harm than good.  A country like Israel which has nukes and is surrounded by potential enemies has a very good chance of harming themselves if they choose to use their nuclear arsenal. Nuclear weapons are out of control, there are very few cases in which they could be used to the benefit of anyone with good intentions. The weaponization of nuclear technology and its future dangers should have been thought about when the first atom was split.

Blog 27 Maybe wrote a bit much...

The quotes I originally picked were not sufficient for my purposes since I had to limit the scope of my modern day argument significantly. I will no longer be able to include examples about gunpowder or internet issues. Thank you to anyone who suggested that, they are good ideas but I found more information about nuclear technology and its issues, and chose to stick with it. As a result, I found a new article which caters more towards my needs.

Babst, Dean, and David Krieger. “Consequences of Using Nuclear Weapons.”  Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 1997. 1 February 2011.  www.wagingpeace.org/articles/1997/00/00_babst_consequences.php.

Nuclear technology has gotten out of control. This excerpt from an article by Dean Babst and David Krieger called “Consequences of Using Nuclear Weapons,” helps to prove my point.

The United States has a total nuclear weapons destructive force of 1,800 megatons, which is an ability to destroy humanity 18 times. While struggling mightily to reduce deficit spending, the U.S. is spending some $27 billion annually to maintain far more strategic nuclear warheads (7,250) than it can use without destroying itself.(16)

The United States itself has enough nuclear weapons to cause a nuclear holocaust 18 times over. One would think that as soon as a country could destroy the world twice at the most, it would stop wasting its money accomplishing nothing but making nuclear warheads more accessible to terrorists, yet Russia has done the same thing. It’s as if they believe having more nukes will make their enemies “more dead.” The money being wasted to maintain these excessive amounts of nuclear warheads could be used for more helpful things and can be looked at in the same light as Alpha in relation to Dollhouse.
            Dollhouse was created to help people enjoy themselves and better their lives. Unfortunately, a doll named Alpha went crazy and killed people then caused many problems for Dollhouse. So was the technology of splitting an atom. It was supposed to be used for benevolent things like producing cheap limitless energy and making many lives easier and happier. Unfortunately an “Alpha” developed and went out of control. Instead of plutonium being used to build better lives, it has been used to build weapons of mass destruction to hold the threat of the end of the world over our heads and throw our country into debt.