People in general have a hard time sleeping, especially in this era.The number of people who suffer from insomnia has gone up an insane amount in the last decade or so. Here are four simple ways that I came up with to get a better night’s sleep.

• Go to bed at a consistent time each night. This is probably one of the most effective ways to get a better night’s sleep. It puts your body in a useful routine, making your sleep patterns more whole.
  
• Don’t be a night owl especially if you have to get up early. This may seem obvious, but it is very true. When I stay up into the early hours of the morning, I find it terribly hard to concentrate next day. I often find myself falling asleep thus being less productive. If being a night owl comes to be a habit, you will always be tired during the day.
• Eat or read before you go to bed. This doesn’t mean to eat a heavy dinner before you go to bed. If you avoid soda and sugary foods, a light snack will sometimes help you sleep. Reading has become part of my necessary duties before I go to bed, even if I only read a few pages in a book.
• Don’t watch television before you go to bed. It’s been proven that when you watch television or get on the computer before bed, you’re eyes and brain are tricked into thinking that it’s daytime from the bright light going into your eyes. You probably won’t be able to sleep if your body thinks that it’s not time to sleep yet.

As an avid Twilight book fan, I honestly had no expectations for this movie ever since they started publicizing it. When I walked into the theatre on the premiere night, I still was expecting nothing out of this movie. That’s exactly what I got, nothing more, and maybe a bit less. People could argue to say that I enjoyed the film at the moment – which I would agree with – but the second that movie was over, I was absolutely ashamed for paying money to see this movie. The main argument that actual Twilight book fans have against this movie is that it didn’t stay true to the books. That irritates me. The movie stayed very true to the books, corniness and all. Just because every line wasn’t in it, doesn’t mean that the movie is untrue and bad.

The movie starts in an interesting way with Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) as the narrator while events are going on, very similar to how the books started. Bella soon goes to school and immediately notices the Cullens, mostly Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Edward, actually a vampire, doesn’t show up to school for a few days and self-conscious Bella thinks that it must have something to do with her. When Edward returns, he is much apologetic. A few days later in the school parking lot, one of Bella’s friends nearly runs over her with his car and Edward jumps in between her and the car to save her, revealing the first of her powers. Bella insists that she’s fine after that, but is still taken to the hospital where she meets Edward’s “father”, Dr. Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli), who is also a vampire. In fact, all of the Cullens are secretly vampires. At the hospital, Bella is skeptical of Edward, who insists that nothing out of the ordinary happened. Bella with the help of her old childhood friend, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) eventually unravels that fact that Edward is a vampire. She is not afraid of him – in fact, she is deeply in love with him and Edward admits that he is in love with her, too. Upon meeting the rest of the Cullens, Bella finds out that they don’t drink people’s blood, only blood from animals.

Eventually, Bella comes into contact with vampires who do drink normal blood and unfortunately for her, one of them is a tracker and can find Bella from anywhere because he got her scent. Edward panics and tells Bella that he’ll keep her safe. Bella, worried about her father, Charlie Swan (Billy Burke), runs away from home with Edward. The Cullens keep Bella safe from the other vampires until Bella receives a phone call from one of the enemy vampires, James (Cam Gigandet), saying that he is holding her mother captive. Clumsy Bella, in attempts to save her mother, goes to the place where James had specified, a ballet studio that she used to take lessons at when she was little. When she arrives there, she realizes that her mother isn’t there at all, and James had played a recording to lure her into a place where he could drink her blood. James attacks Bella, only to be quickly attacked by furious Edward. After a tragic battle between Edward and James, Edward is the victor and Bella is injured. Carlisle takes Bella to the hospital, where she is treated. Edward convincingly tells Bella’s parents that she fell down two flights of stairs. After such a tragedy, Edward still takes Bella to the school prom, where Bella has a broken leg and has to dance with a cast on. At the end of the movie after some romantic dancing in the moonlight, we see Victoria (Rachelle Lefèvre), one of the enemy vampires,  looking at the two of them with dismay, leaving space for a sequel.

I enjoyed watching the movie, probably because I was with a group of people that I hadn’t seen in a long time. The movie in general was absolutely disgusting. The few things that they did leave out of the book left tremendous plot holes. If I hadn’t read Twilight before, I would have been extremely confused, even to the point of walking out of the theater. Now, I’m not going to complain about how X actor wasn’t pretty enough for Y role, like a lot of people already did, I’m going to give my opinion on relevant plot points to the movie and general things that the movie lacked.

The first thing that makes me dislike this movie is the acting. Stewart seemed very nervous during her monologues and it was almost painful to watch her, thinking that she was going to slip up. Bella, in the books, does not portray the air that Stewart showed, uptight and not caring. This, I think, caused Pattinson to slip up, seeing as though most of his lines were directed straight from her actions, thoughts, or dialogue. Pattinson seemed to be in too much concentration on trying to perfect his American accent for this movie, which outweighed his acting a bit. Also, Jacob Black, who is supposed to be an earthy, dirty, car-working tween, is a cute, preppy, Abercrombie-wearing pretty-boy. I had no problem with this as I was watching the film, but it’s really not Jacob and will probably mess up future films. I don’t want to bash Launtner or any of the actors too much, though. I think that they tried hard and did they’re best. I won’t even get started with the characterization, but that probably has nothing to do with the actors.

Overall, the Twilight movie had a terrible effect – aftertaste if you will. I felt the theatre feeling nothing and still cringing from the terrible CGI. It’s not Summit’s fault at all – they just had a low budget. I suppose the movie left me with something to blog about, having a good time with my friends, and a hole in my wallet because I stupidly bought popcorn at the movie theatre, which cost me seven or so dollars. Really, this movie is for a Twilight fan and no one else. Even though this movie is a train wreck, it’s still fun to see a person refereed to as your favorite book characters. I saw the movie as one big project to add a page to Stephenie Meyer’s (the author of the Twilight series) website.

About six months ago, I went through a major change in my life. Like most people, change doesn’t work so well with me. I eventually went into a minor, “week-day depression”, which eventually came to be clinical depression. In my depressed state, I had no self-confidence. I thought so negatively of myself all the time and my self-talk was a complete mess. Not one positive thought went through my head. Quite a while later,  still in my miserable state, I had a light bulb moment. I thought to myself, what if I could make something that I can turn to that will force me to think positive thoughts. That night, I felt excited for the first time in a long while, and I eventually came up with the idea of making a notebook for myself with positive, influential, even somewhat forceful thoughts.

The notebook I compiled for myself is called SCAN. It doesn’t stand for anything fancy – I even tried to think of a clever acronym but gave up after a while. The name SCAN was chosen for my notebook because I wanted to make it personal and still have something to do with getting rid of sad and negative thoughts. I immediately thought of something computer related since I like to toy computers so much. The thing that I thought of immediately is how anti-virus programs scan your computer for viruses, finds them, and then terminates them. This is sort of what my SCAN notebook does for me; when I think of negative thoughts, SCAN terminates the thought and makes me feel confident.

SCAN works pretty well for me. Whenever I’m feeling sad, hopeless, heart-broken, or anything else along those lines, I just flip through the pages of this notebook and it makes me happy. I actually tabbed and organized sections of the notebooks based on what to view when I’m feeling a certain way. For example, if I’m feeling alone and left out, I usually go to the section of SCAN with things that generally cheer me up and things that my friends had said about me.

My SCAN notebook is simply a 10 cent blue 70-page college-ruled spiral-bound notebook with the word SCAN written on the front in permanent marker with a bunch of hearts around it. It’s contents are completely unique to me and probably would have no meaning to anyone other than myself. The contents of the notebook might even be confusing yet hilarious to someone else. I even wrote a letter on the back of the from cover clearly stating that “whoever you are, you won’t get this at all because it’s personal”. All of the contents in the notebook are colorful, rainbow, happiness pages. This is only because it lifts my mood to see bright colors for some reason. There are many unique pages in my notebook. Here are a few examples:

• Compliments that people have given me and positive comments that people have said about me.
• Pictures of fun past events, gatherings, and holidays with friends.
• Song lyrics that make me feel warm and fuzzy.
• Quotes from my favorite musicians, actors, and other celebrities. These usually aren’t very motivational, but they still affect me positively since they’re funny.
• Motivational quotes and sayings.
• Excerpts and pictures from my favorite books, movies, and comics.
• Happy newspaper articles and comic strips.
• Pages stating and exaggerating (in a somewhat harsh tone) what a  wonderful, talented, and beautiful person I am. You’re allowed to be arrogant – no one should see it but you.
• Pictures of landscapes.
• A page containing some form of many combined “inside jokes” expressed through words, pictures, and anything that I found to correlate it with something funny.
• Movie tickets and fun pictures.

Basically, my SCAN notebook is a montage scrapbook of things that make me happy, even if it’s for a very short period of time. I would defiantly making something similar to SCAN for yourself, even if you think it’s useless. I look at SCAN a lot and it makes me feel good about myself.

I have been blogging for a while now – at least a few years in total. Over the years, I’ve found some pretty strange ways that people get linked to my blog. The strangest ways are always things that people type into  search engines. The search engine somehow finds something seemingly relevant in my blog and puts it up as a result. Some of the keywords people have typed in and then found my blog in the search results are ridiculous.

1. karikatur inflation - Now, I have no idea what this means, nor do I want to know. Shockingly, these keywords somehow led to my blog and apparently, a good chunk of my traffic came from this search term. I might just be out of touch with the world and missing some obvious slang here, but I think it’s just gibberish. Please correct me if I’m wrong and enlighten me on this new slang. I considered the fact that a couple people misspelled ‘caricature’ and randomly put inflation at the end of it, but I still don’t see why and more importantly, how in the world this led to my blog.
2. doing the splits flexible – I must have done a blog post on gymnastics or something way back when, but I really can’t recall writing anything like that. I suppose that I occationaly blog about figure skating, but isn’t this oddly specific?
3. fantastic contraption walk cow - Yeah, I have no idea how this one got up in the rankings of getting traffic to my blog. I know that I recently blogged about games. I think that’s where the ‘fantastic contraption’ keyword came in, but seriously, ‘walk cow’?
4. cow inflation art - I think this is supposed to be a combination of the blog title, Cow Print, a blog rant that I posted a while ago with the topic of art, and a recent post about inflation. Why multipule people decided to Google the three terms together? – I have no idea.
5. roller coasters games – Again, this probably traces back to my Top 10 Games For The Non-Gamer post.
6. nice thing about the person who sent this - I honestly have no idea where this might have come from. It’s possible that this was part of a direct post that I made, but one would think that none of those words would be very attractive to search engines.
7. brainage for pc - I can assure you that this isn’t one of those trick tags to get traffic to a blog, seeing as though I’m not a very big fan of BrainAge in the first place. Someone who got eventually linked to my blog thought of something pretty interesting, there. If you didn’t know already, BrainAge is a puzzle video game for the Nintendo DS system.
8. cartoon inflation feed anime – The word ‘inflation’ must be a popular search term. It at least brings a bit of traffic to my blog, I suppose. One of my blog posts is titled Cartoon Inflation, but it isn’t all that relevent to anime, even though it is a video post. I don’t know where the ‘feed’ came from.
9. download computer games – I’m actually not surprised at all by the search terms – I’m just wondering how in the world they led to my blog.
10. things that go up then down – I did write a list poem with this very same title a while back, but again, I didn’t think that these terms strung together even gave you search engine results.
    

The video you just saw was from a cartoon called Duck Tales. Althought the clip was a bit childish, I thought it represented inflation in an excellent way. Besides, we all need a cartoon every once in a while. It sometimes is frusterating when it seems like the government thinks they can solve all of the economy problems by giving everyone more money, when in reality, it’s making the economy way worse in the near furture.

Last Movie you Saw in a Theater:
That was a long time ago… I believe I saw the Dark Knight.

Favorite Board Game:
Dungeons & Dragons and Burning Wheel.

Favorite Smells:
Cologne, books, paper, office supplies, cardboard boxes, new packaging, glossy comic book pages, and rubber.

Favorite Sound:
Music.

Worst Feeling In The World:
Loneliness.

Favorite Fast Food Place:
Jack in the Box.

Finish This Statement: “If I Had A Lot Of Money I’d…”
If I had a lot of money, I’d be rich.

Do You Sleep With a Stuffed Animal?
No.

Storms-Cool Or Scary:
It depends on what kind of storm and the intensity of it.

Favorite drink:
Water.

Finish This Statement, “If I Had The Time I Would …..”
If I had the time I would learn how to do an extreme sport.

If You Could Dye Your Hair Any Color, What Would Be Your Choice?
I’m torn between platinum blond and red.

One Nice Thing About The Person Who Sent This To You:
I actually snagged it from Rose. She’s a wonderful blogger.

What’s Under Your Bed?
Boxes, dust, cat hair, various pieces of fabrics and cloth, and something I can’t identify.

Would You Like To Be Born As Yourself Again?
No, not really.

Morning Person Or Night Owl?
Most of the time I’m unwillingly both.

Over Easy Or Sunny Side Up?
Neither, but sunny side up.

Favorite Place To Relax:
In my bed.

Favorite Pie:
Pumpkin pie, mmm.

Favorite Ice Cream Flavor:
Chocolate fudge.

1. Make accelerating race car sounds.
2. Pretend that your driving the race car.
3. Repeat a random word to yourself until it becomes a meaningless sound.
4. Stare at something until you can see something else in it.
5. Find animal shapes in plastered walls.
6. See how many times you can rip a piece of paper.
7. Swat at atoms.
8. Try out new and funny laughs. Start them quiet and then get louder.
9. See if you can make yourself twitch.
10. Do laundry in a new and creative way.
11. Pretend that you’re in a jungle.
12. Act like a little frolicking deer.
13. Imitate a complete Star Trek scene.
14. Pretend to be an actor in an epic horror film.
15. Be paranoid while staring out a window at the neighbors.
16. Throw tiny pieces of paper into a fan.
17. Run around and scream like crazy.
18. Put a char in front of a mirror, sit on it and stare at yourself.
19. Correlate weird sounds with weird faces.
20. Draw on your skin in pen.
21. Write something continuously on a lined piece of paper until you can’t see any white spaces.
22. Do the Macarina and sing.
23. Even better, do the Drill Sergent.
24. Watch the news.
25. Imitate the news reporter.
26. Pretend like you know what he’s going to say next.
27. See if lemons really conduct electricity.
28. Pretend to climb a mountain.
29. Act like a sled dog.
30. Move things around and then put them back or hide them.
31. Talk to yourself.
32. Talk to yourself in complete gibberish and pretend to understand.
33. Talk to yourself in the mirror using only over-exaggerated hand gestures.
34. Make up a story and tell it to yourself. Pretend to be interested.
35. See how many times you can say a certain word.
36. Check your pulse.
37. Build a tower out of food and then eat it.
38. Organize the refrigerator.
39. Do the arm wave. Try doing it with your legs.
40. See how loud you can belch.
41. Learn Japanese or insist that you know it.
42. Create wind waves by shaking out rugs.
43. Clean.
44. See if nail polish is permanent when it’s not on nails.
45. Paint your hardware nails with nail polish.
46. Go into a random room and have a party with random objects.
47. Pretend to be a vampire.
48. Try to do funny walks.
49. Smell random things and compare the scents.
50. Memorize the scents and track them.
51. See if your double-jointed.
52. Play indoor football with no football.
53. Pretend your a celebrity.
54. Take pictures of everything you can see.
55. Patrol your house with a flashlight.
56. Change your clothes.
57. See how flexible you are by doing the splits.
58. Look really closely at things you see everyday.
59. Stare at something that you see everyday and analyze every curve of it.
60. Make a light show with the light switches.
61. Inspect the back side of a CD.
62. Pretend to be a chicken.
63. Go on a quest for nothing in particular.
64. Stick sticky notes in places where people will least expect them.
65. Write notes in hard-to-reach/find places saying, “You found me!”
66. Find new ways to wear hats.
67. Experiment with new facial expressions.
68. See if you have any scares on your tongue.
69. If so, figure out why.
70. Spin in a chair that can spin.
71. Spin in a chair that cannot spin.
72. Sit there and silently cheer.
73. See if you can actually chew like a cow.
74. Read a newspaper, word for word and analyze every single word.
75. Karate chop the newspaper in half.
76. Eat pudding.
77. Watch music videos and imitate the singer.
78. Imitate an actress/actor on television.
79. Try out a new accent. Talk to yourself with the accent.
80. See if you can do funny things with your eyebrows.
81. If you have a pet, teach it algebra.
82. See if you can get a spinney chair to only move side to side without using your feet.
83. Make goose calls.
84. Do the worm.
85. Call telemarketers to have a nice afternoon chat.
86. Freak out when the phone rings.
87. Walk out of pace and inrapidly.
88. Test Newton’s laws.
89. See if you can fit under your furniture.
90. Find things that you can use as makeshift drum sets.
91. Rabidly pelt objects at something else.
92. Rant to yourself about politics in a funny voice.
93. Try to figure out the temperature with noting.
94. Drink water by taking in as little as possible with every sip.
95. Make a movie.
96. Dramatically out a childrens’ book.
97. Create a new gasp for yourself in the mirror.
98. Get dressed up for nothing and act like a queen.
99. Clap at the most unrapid rate as you possibly can.
100. Flex your lip muscles.
101. Talk to yourself in a mirror using sign language.

I’m one of those people who have never really been afraid of bugs. I don’t like them one bit, I just don’t mind when they’re everywhere; I just ignore and tolerate them. Just yesterday when I was going down the steps into my basement, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a mosquito on  the wall. It didn’t look like a normal mosquito, so I back-tracked and looked at it closely. This is probably the first time I’ve actually closely observed a bug, and it was pretty interesting. I don’t know much about bugs, but I think that this bug was a mosquito.

The bug on my wall was about the size of a quarter and had a oddly slim, jet-black body, with little antennas feeling around on the wall. I’m assuming it was a mosquito because it also had wings. The way the wings worked was fascinating – one big wing would unfold from it’s tiny body on on side and when it folded that wing back, another wing unfolded. The wings on this bug were yellow-ish and translucent with thick tan lines on them, that eventually merged with the black on the rest of it’s body. The mosquito critter had about seven long, tiny legs and seemed to be eating my wall. The motions were fascinating and completely inexplicable. The little bug awed me.

After I had inspected it for a while, I crushed it.

One time, I was sitting outside enjoying the autumn weather when I noticed a really think spider web in a corner by my house. I was curious to see if there were any spider’s in it, so I looked. There were about 3 little tiny completely black spiders with small pincers on their mouths. There were sort of round in shape and so dark that it was easy to see where they were on their thick and white web. Although the spiders were moving around a bit, I did notice a bigger movement coming from the nest. When I inspected further, I noticed that an inch worm was stuck in the spider web and was struggling to escape. It was huge compared to the tiny spiders.

Upon it’s miserable attempt to escape the strong web, the inch worm just got itself in a bigger mess and could barely move and then flipped over, still struggling. It was now doing a weird squirming motion while trying to get the web off of its body. Quite frankly, it was disgusting to watch. I’m not exactly sure what triggered the next event, but suddenly, the little spiders scurried over to the inch worm and starting pecking and nibbling on it like little vultures. They would take a nibble, retreat, and then come back for more. At this point, the little inch worm was going nuts trying to escape the web. This made me get queasy, so I just shuttered it off and went back inside.

If anyone can identify what type of spider this is, or if you possibly know what the little mosquito-like bug was, please tell me. I’m curious to know – bugs are really quite fascinating creatures.

10. Croc: Legend of the Gobbos – If you have an old computer or an outdated video system, you need to hunt for this epic video game. It’s probably hard to find now, but it runs pretty cheap these days. Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, better known as Croc, is what really got me into video games. You barely need to memorize any controls to play it and it is very entertaining.

You play a crocodile named Croc as he journeys through the land, looking for diamonds and rescuing cute little fluffy puff-balls called Gobbos from the wrath of Baron Dante and his evil minions. This platform game is very unique and has an essence of a Mario game, only with more adventure. The animation is way beyond it’s time and the characters in the game are original and memorable. The reason I would recommend this to a non-gamer is because the game doesn’t get technically ‘video-game deep’. The plot just comes and does and it’s a very at the moment game.

The only problem would be finding the actual game and a video game system that it would run on. Sadly, I don’t think a modern video game system would run Croc.

Platforms: PlayStation, Microsoft Windows, Sega Saturn, Game Boy Color
Year: 1997
Rating: KA
Cost: $12.55 USD

9. Fantastic Contraption – I always have like puzzle games that truly make you think, such as this browser-based physics game, Fantastic Contraption. It is a fairly new flash game with bright and vibrate colors and graphics. The game really makes you think. In the game, you have several parts and you have to build a working machine with these parts in order to complete the objective. The goal is to get a little pink shape into the indicated gray area of each level. As the levels go on, the game gets more and more difficult. More levels and options can be purchased for $10 USD.

Platforms: Internet browser (flash game)
Year: 2007
Rating: E
Cost: Free

8. Brain Age – Brain Age is another puzzle game only portable. It’s extremely well done and very addictive. The game itself is a series of questions in academic areas of your choice, testing speed, reaction time, and so on. If you play Brain Age a lot, it shows you statistics.

As a ‘hardcore’ gamer, it’s odd to say that whenever I start playing Brain Age, I can’t put it down. It may not seem like fun to do math problems on a DS, but it’s actually quite entertaining. This is perfect for when you have ten or so minutes to kill and just so happen to have your DS with you. I can say this, it’s a wonderful time and boredom killer. Brain Age has pretty descent graphics and is an over all well-designed game.

Platforms: Nintendo DS, DSiWare
Year: 2005
Rating: E (A, 3+, G)
Cost: $19.99 USD

7. Mario Kart Wii – This is Nintendo’s latest edition off the on-going Mario Kart series. Personally, I have played and enjoyed every single Mario Kart game since the very first one. I primarily play the Nintendo 64 version. Mario Kart Wii is just as good, maybe even better than the version’s before it.

If you don’t really like racing games, you’ll probably still enjoy Mario Kart Wii. The fun, colorful, love-able, Mario characters and outstanding graphical scenery was enough to draw my into the game. You can also choose a motorcycle if you’re too cool for a kart. Also, a new feature in the Wii version of this game is the Wii-wheel, which is a piece of plastic that you put on your Wii-mote. This is what primarily draws in the non-gamers. You don’t have to use any crazy remotes and buttons – you can simply drive it with the unattached steering wheel.

Overall, this game is a blast, especially if you play it with friends. You can play with up to four players or you can play with 15 other people across the globe within seconds if you have your Wii hooked up to the internet. Although, I would recommend the online parts of the game to people with a little more Mario Kart experience.

Platforms: Nintendo Wii
Year: 2008
Rating: E (G, 3+)
Cost: $49.99 USD

6. Wii Sports – What can I say? Wii Sports is the perfect non-gamer video game. I would only play Wii sports when you have friends over though – it makes it way more enjoyable since the game was meant to be played with other people.

Wii Sports has you playing tennis, baseball, bowling, and golf right in your living room. I’m going to flat out say that I generally hate all sports games and avoid them at all costs. Wii Sports is way different. This is probably the easiest game to use based on the controls, since all you really have to do is the physical motions as if you were actually playing the sport.

Have fun playing this and try not to break anything!

Platforms: Nintendo Wii
Year: 2006
Rating: E (A, G, 6+)
Cost: (Comes with Wii)

5. Zoo Tycoon – This was my favorite game of all time for a number of years. Zoo Tycoon, much like the other ‘Tycoon’ games, lets you build your own zoo. It is pretty easy to play once you figure out the interface. Don’t be discouraged by the messy interface, though, it’s a wonderful game. There is an in-game tutorial that guides you through the interface.

To make the game play more enjoyable, I always play in the free mode with a lot of money to start out with. I would recommend doing this if you’re new at the game and just want to mess around instead of having a serious game ahead of you. Of course, Zoo Tycoon isn’t the most serious game in the world, but you can play on the campaign mode and try to build your zoo in differnent conditions or standards or try to earn a certain amount of money in a certain amount of time.

There are also some nifty expansion packs for this game. You can also download content from the internet while still in the game. Those features make the game even better. The sequel to Zoo Tycoon is a bit more complicated, but still pretty fun once you figure it out. I would recommend the first version.

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, Nintendo DS
Year: 2001
Rating: E
Cost: $19.99 USD

4. Midtown Madness – Midtown Madness is an old free-roaming racing game that I used to play when I was younger. I’m pretty sure that there were no other free-roaming, meaning that you can go anywhere, racing games at the time. The free-roaming part is only one of many options of play.

In this game, you start with a few old cars that you can race with in the streets of famous cities. The goal is to unlock as many cars as possible by finishing all of the check-point races. This gamme is pretty loose and you don’t have to beat the intended mode at all for it to be fun. In fact, I only got about a quarter through the campagn mode before completely abandoming it for the other fun features.

Again, I don’t like racing games, but still highly enjoyed the PC version of this game. The sequel is actually better than the original if you’re looking to buy it. Another fun thing you can do with this is to put a joystick steering wheel on the game, but those are pretty pricey these days.

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Xbox
Year: 1999
Rating: E
Cost: $15.75 USD

3. The Sims – The Sims is a very famous video game that some people say started a new evolution of gaming, which is true in a way. The Sims is a very unique and simple video game in which you basically control people’s every day lives. It sounds pretty boring, but haven’t you always wanted to manipulate people and be in control of everything the person does?

The really fun part of this game is the content that people have put on the internet that you can download. If you download it, you could have a Sim of your favorite celebrity or movie star. In my Sims’ game, I have a Simpson’s household.

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, Nintendo DS
Year: 2000
Rating: T
Cost: $19.99 USD

2. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 – This game is absolutely amazing. It is much like Zoo Tycoon, which I mentioned earlier, only you build an amusement park. The roller coaster builder is extremely fun and easy to use and being a big roller coaster fan, I try to re-create real roller coasters.

This game is very easy to play and has amazing graphics. The newest feature in the third edition is the Coaster Cam, which lets you ride your own, or the pre-made roller coasters. Let me tell you, if you have your volume up and only look at your moniter, you get that thrill knot in your stomach like your actaully riding the roller coaster.

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X
Year: 2004
Rating: E (3+)
Cost: $19.99 USD

Spore

1. Spore – Spore is the curiously new game with a completely original concept. The game play changes a lot and the game itself is very self-explanatory and simple. The controls are pretty straight forward to. Basically in Spore, you create your own little species that will eventually be the dominate race of the world. The goal of the game is to become the dominate race. There are five different stages of the game which involve doing something very different – cell stage, creature stage, tribal stage, civilization stage, and space stage. The game is extremely customizable and no two creatures, vehicles, or buildings that you create will be the same.

There is also an free online feature that comes with Spore. You can see what kind of creatures other people are making and explore their world. The online feature is completely optional and the game is still extremely fun by itself. The reason I like Spore so much is because I could play it once and month and it would still have the same effect of me playing it constantly every day. The graphics are crisp and the game play is ever changing, therefore never gets old. I know I’m going to be playing Spore for a long time.

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Nintendo DS, Mobile, Wii
Year: 2008
Rating: E10+ (PG, 12+)
Cost: $49.95 USD

After obtaining the social status of “bandie”, I’ve noticed a few things. In short, marching band is taking over every aspect of my life. The fact is very true and a bit frightening, but I suppose it could be taken as positive, depending on how you look at it.

First of all, I’ve noticed that I now walk in step with everyone no matter where I am or who they are. If I’m walking down the street, I automatically avert my gaze to their heel and copy the way they’re walking and mimic their foot movements, even if they are walking at an annoyingly unsteady pace. I’ll hop a little to get in step with the person. It doesn’t matter if they’re running either – I’ll just subconsciously walk in step with them. While I walk in step with people, I often catch myself actually marching instead of normal walking. I of course am not doing the high step marching where you bring your leg all the way up, just the marching where you point your toes up and walk on the back of your heel.

I am a high-level figure skater and I’m on a synchronized skating team. Part of out practice involves doing the our show routines off of the ice, usually in a gym or ballet room. Since we do this in a tiny room compared to the actual ice rink, we get to our designated formation spots much faster than we would on the ice because of the proportions. When we hit a wall during off-ice practice, we usually just hold still and wait until it’s time to move to the next formation, leaving time to actually get there on the actual huge ice rink. In marching band, you barely ever stand still. This has been beaten into my head and I now subconsciously never hold my feet still. During my off-ice skating practices, when the rest of the team stops and waits because of the room size limitations, I sometimes catch myself still moving my feet and counting in my head. In the marching band universe, this is called marking time, which I now do whenever I stand still. It’s inexplicably embarrassing to catch yourself still moving your feet after you’ve long stopped.

You know how when you go to pretty much any store, they have music playing in the background? Sometimes it’s pretty loud and annoying, but I now can pick up the quietest sound waves of music in a store. In department stores when I’m walking down those particularly long isles, I find myself walking up to tempo and in step with the song that’s currently playing. I sometimes tune out everything but that song and pass the isle I was originally going to stop at, or I just march loudly down the store in a straight line. When the music suddenly stops and someone suddenly starts talking on the public address system, I stumble and come to a halt. I also loose my balance and have to stop when there’s a dramatically different song change. Sometimes, I even mark time.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the grand entrance that most bands make before the football games while they enter the stadium. The band marches on their way in to an only-drum cadence. Naturally, whenever I start walking, the cadence that we use starts playing in my head and I march to it – in step, of course. It will also be stuck in my head when I’m doing nothing in particular and I tap the melody.