Bloghorn

This year has, admittedly, been a mess. A mess that every executive board member this year shares equally. And while I don’t see this mess getting much better by the end of the year, I can guarantee a better future.

I am running for re-election not because I did a good job this past year and deserve it, but rather because I am the best qualified person to bring the sense of unity that was once felt in this interest House back again. I have already served as President for one year. I know the minutiae of the housing process, understand the workings of the Housing and Food Services department, work for ResCom (which gives us the ability to ask for better network conditions), re-wrote the Constitution essentially from scratch, and have the dedication necessary to ensure that our goals are met.

This last point is very important. Two Vice Presidents this year have either resigned, or come close to it, because they didn’t have the time or energy to devote to the Interest House. In fact, I was the only Executive Board member in attendance at two of the most important meetings: when the Housing process was sprung on us at the last second, and when we had to revise our Constitution or risk being in violation of University policies. The fact is that these important meetings were missed because the Vice Presidents, and in some cases other members of the board, deemed other endeavors more important than that of the betterment of the IST Interest House. And when making a decision as to who will lead this Interest House, it is important to take note of who has repeatedly shown the most interest and dedication.

For the tl;dr crowd, I will now attempt to summarize the main points of my platform in bullet point form.

This past year, I have:

• Attended every IST Interest House meeting, more point events than the remainder of the Executive Board, and devoted more time to it than any other person.
• Fought to include provisions in the constitution that would give the members more say in what the Executive Board does.
• Created the Events Advising Committee to provide a means for the members to suggest events to the Executive Board.
• Delivered on my campaign promise of last year by having more video game events and movie nights, that were discontinued only when the feedback we were receiving indicated that those events were undesirable.

This coming year, I have a few ideas that will enhance the quality of life on the floor:

•  Instead of uniting the whole floor, as we tried and failed to do this year, encouraging the diversity of the various areas of the floor is a far better approach. I believe pitting the 4 main sections of the floor against each other in IST and non-IST related challenges for points will foster smaller communities, hopefully eventually leading to the strengthening of the larger community.
• A weekly open forum meeting for all of the members to air their grievances and give the Executive Board feedback on events and policies, as well as suggest new ones.
• More casual events, not for points, but purely for fun.
• Create a calendar at the beginning of the year, instead of the “fly by the seat of your pants” method we have been using thus far.

These are only a handful of the ideas I have for the coming year. As your current and (hopefully) future President, I feel that I am the best choice to bring this floor back together, and mold it into the wonderful place to live that it has been in the past. If anyone has any questions about my ideas, platform, or any other issues, as always, I invite you to stop by my room, share a Coke, and have a chat.

As I may have mentioned, I landed a great internship at Bear Stearns for this coming summer, doing basically what I love doing: troubleshooting and fixing computers. Those with their head in the game may have heard the name before.

With Bear going to JP Morgan, I was almost sure that my job was out the window, especially with the news reporting massive layoffs of regular employees. But I asked my group at Bear, and it turns out that they are honoring all of the offer letters for this summer. And now I just got a phone call from someone at Bear wanting to update me on the situation, so hopefully more good news. I’ll give a call after PoliSci class.

Back to international trade…

Here’s what I’ve been playing recently:

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty

Avoid this game at all costs. Seriously. You would think that Nazis in New York City in an alternate WWII timeline would be awesome, but the game leaves a lot to be desired.

You play as a construction worker who narrowly escapes a bombing run on the skyscraper he was working on, knocks a Nazi paratrooper out, and then decides to grab the Nazi’s gun and go all “insurgency” on the Nazi horde now streaming into the city. A pretty thin storyline, but then again I don’t usually expect much from a 360 port.

There are three things I look for in a game. First is good graphics. This game had more semen covered weaponry than Doom 3, which I didn’t think was possible, has soldiers that look like the Grand Theft Auto crew took a break and came up with some ideas, and guns so unimaginative that it’s almost hard to look at them. Seven years and the best the Nazis could improve on the MP 40 was a flashlight? You’ve got to do better than that…

Second is good gameplay. And while sometimes I love the “long corridor” approach, with massive amounts of enemies everywhere, it doesn’t quite work without the massive amounts of enemies part. Especially when the AI isn’t smart enough to shoot through windows. And since when do you have to stop and individually place each lead onto the C4 brick, wire it together, then set the timer before it plants? Don’t you think someone would have done that before the tank rolled over the conveniently placed manhole?

Third, satisfying mission objectives are a nice idea. Running down that “long corridor” is fun, but it’s better when you have a mission to accomplish, and/or some time constraints. And while “assassinate the president” is a great mission objective, when it takes 2 clips to kill him, the game loses some of that plausibility the developers were looking for.

In short, this game sucks.

The Experiment

The concept was flawless. You start the game already at the computer terminal of some security system, never seeing your surroundings, not even knowing if you’re a character in the game, or playing as yourself (someone who stumbled across this weird system). And on the monitor is a hot redhead, who you have to guide through the ship by blinking lights, opening doors, and moving the ever-present security cameras. And the first half hour is fantastic. But then you start realizing that the hot redhead is as dumb as a brick, the doors don’t close when you want them to, and the controls are a complete horror. Perhaps a patch will fix this problem. Probably not.

Assassin’s Creed

Game delivers. Perfect.

I’ve got a week at home with almost nothing to do, it’s inevitable that I’m going to upgrade something around here. And this time, it’s the relay server.

For those who missed it the first time, here’s a better diagram of how the network looks at the moment:

http://notaserver.net/images/FoghornNet.gif 

It’s far too big to just paste in-line, so click the link to take a peek. Anyway, the server is getting sluggish (it being a Dimension 2100, it’s odd that it hasn’t before now), and so it’s time to actually build something instead of cannibalizing the computers strewn around here. I hopped on Newegg and ordered up a 3.3 GHz Pentium D processor and the applicable kit, coming to just about $200, case and all. Hopefully it’ll come before Wednesday, so I’ll have time to troubleshoot it before I go back to college and have to rely on it. This time, I’m thinking “OMNIVORE” for the server name. Fitting, isn’t it?

Meeting with the team I’ll be working with this summer at Bear Stearns on Monday, and I’m pretty excited about it. After that, nothing but R&R.

With the Democratic race seeming tighter and tighter, I finally decided to move my voter registration from New Rochelle to Pennsylvania, mostly so I don’t have to fill out those annoying absentee ballots anymore. From what I’ve seen around campus, the Barack Obama supporters are really kicking it into high gear. Every day this last week they’ve been doing voter registration somewhere on campus, with their shiny badges and life size cardboard cut-out of Barack smiling down on everyone.

The US president isn’t the only presidential election going on. The IST Interest House election season is upon us again, and it looks like me and Tom will be duking it out once again. Intent to run statements are due in my inbox by the Friday we get back from Spring Break, so we’ll know for sure by then.