Sweet Contest on Steam

I came across this awesome contest that Steam is having right now. They're giving 30 people (A DAY!) their top five games on their wish list. You have to like that eh?

These are my top five games:
1) Test Drive Unlimited 2
2) Witcher 2
3) Portal 2
4) Dead Rising 2
5) Fallout: New Vegas

I just realized my top four games are all the second sequel in the series. Neat!

If you don't have Steam, you can sign up for free and create a wishlist very easily here: http://store.steampowered.com/

By the way, if you don't know it, Steam is a game purchasing and playing client. It was pretty much the pioneer of the online game selling industry. I started using it when I found out I could purchase the same games for a lot cheaper (as low as $0.99 on some great sale weekends!)

So anyways, just go to the Steam page, find a game, and select add to wish list. Good luck to all of you! Winning would be an awesome early Christmas gift.

Talk to you guys soon!

Tweak Guides

If your computer is getting too old to fully enjoy today's games, then I pity you.

Alternatively, you can seek out guidance on how to maximize the potential of your current hardware. I've been using this site, www.TweakGuides.com for many years now.

The site has a general tune-up you can do to your computer, as well as game-specific guides. There is information for both introductory and advanced computer geeks.

Check it out! I can almost guarantee you'll get more frames per second without buying a single thing.

Alternatively, NewEgg.ca and NewEgg.com have some great deals, even after Cyber Monday.

Happy gaming!

300 Followers and a funny pic!

300 FOLLOWERS! I logged in today and I couldn't believe it! That's huge. You guys have made my day. Lots of love to all of you. <3

I don't have time for a significant update today, but I'm sure thinking about this picture will consume your thoughts for the next 5 minutes or so anyway. IT HURTS MY BRAIN! Check it out:

Mind = blown to billions of pieces.

How to Hack Facebook

So I've been trying out this little project the last couple days that I'm sure will interest you. Have you ever REALLY disliked one of your friends, or somebody in your school? I know I have. So, what did I do? I starting learning how to hack Facebook.


It's actually really easy. I have no training in any hacking, but this method does not require it. You find a Facebook friend, or somebody with an open profile, and look for their e-mail address, which is usually listed under info.

Then, go to their e-mail login screen (@hotmail and @yahoo addresses are the easiest ). Pretend you forgot your password, and then answer their secret questions. If you know the person, the questions will be easy. Last night, I was hacking complete strangers so it took a little while before I found an easy question. The accounts I broke into had questions like:

"What is your favourite food?" First answer I chose was pizza, and I got in right away

"What is your favourite colour?" I chose pink, purple, and green ended up being the right answer

"Where was your mother born?" I guessed the closet major metropolitan area, and then some surrounding cities and got in pretty easily

"Who is your favourite person/historical character?" I guessed a few obvious ones, like Gandhi, Stalin, Lenin, but the correct answer ended up being the person's name


With Hotmail, you only get 4 guesses, but with Yahoo, they seem to give you about 10. I hacked into the e-mail accounts of 4 strangers, which led me to their Facebook accounts. I might post pictures of what I did, it's actually pretty funny.

After you have access to their e-mail account, you go to Facebook and get them to send you a password reset link. After that, CONGRATULATIONS, you're into their Facebook.

Isn't that scary easy? I deleted my security questions after seeing how easy it was to hack. Now, google has to call me on my cell phone if I want to reset my password.

MAKE MONEY FROM HACKING FACEBOOKTry this site, which lets you look up all sorts of personal information in order to hack Facebook, including family info, address, telephone numbers, etc.

Very useful. You can identify your target through their e-mail address, name, or phone number.

It's pretty lulzy when you get a target's cell phone info. When you've successfully hacked their Facebook account, you can text them ransom notes to get it back!

Here's the link again. It's called Phone Detective / Email Finder.Happy hacking!

I might be a movie critic!

So this is (potentially) big news for me. I was on Twitter the other day and was following some local news feeds and such (that's really all I do on Twitter, by the way....I'm not one of THOSE loser Twitter people). Anyways, the news feed said that this major local newspaper was looking for a movie reviewer.

I figured, I'm decent at writing (I'm an English minor), and I love watching movies. So I e-mailed the head editor and he sounded very interested in publishing my reviews.

So, the problem is, I've never reviewed movies before, but I usually take a critical look at every movie I watch. I figure it's only a matter of putting my thoughts into words and tada! I'm a movie reviewer.

Unfortunately, it's an unpaid position (with free movie tickets). However, I know something like this would look amazing on a resume, especially if I'm planning on working for a magazine or newspaper in the future.

I'll be typing up my first review today to send in a 'writing sample'. Please post any tips you have on reviewing movies in the comments section! Thanks guys =)

Pic unrelated, but that's what showed up when I googled 'movie reviews'

Guest Speaker on Pilgrimage

Today, we had two guest speakers come in to talk to my anthropology of religion class about pilgrimages. Now, as my avid readers know, I am not a religious person at all. However, I was very interested by the idea of a pilgrimage.


The first speaker told us about how he traveled around the Japanese island of Shikoku for 60 days visiting 88 different Buddhist temples. You can find out more about it at the the wikipedia page. Anyways, the speaker said that he and his son hiked the 1200km journey and were given places to stay, delicious food, and great company along the way by the Japanese people. It sounded like a great way to spend a summer between semesters (if I didn't have to worry about work experience or money....)

The other speaker talked about the pilgrimages of Santiago de Compostella, the Muslim Haj to Mecca, and a couple others that sounded interesting. I'm not even that spiritual, but I feel that I would really enjoy and learn a lot about myself from these sorts of pilgrimages.

So, what do you think? Would you be interested in a pilgrimage or not?

Saran Wrap

So I don't know what is wrong with me. I'm not sure if I have a lower intellect than 90% of the world, but I have severe trouble with using saran wrap.

Since a young age, I have failed to properly wrap potatoes, cover tupperware lids, or cover a sandwich for lunch. I'm left with a mess in my backpack or smelly and yucky potatoes. Today, whilst wrapping up some bacon I cooked for breakfast, I decided that I had had enough of my saran wrap disability; it was time to turn to the internet.

Once again, the Internet did not let me down. Not only did I figure out how to properly use it, this website also showed me many other uses for saran wrap.

Oh, and, for a laugh, type in saran wrap into google and look at the second suggested search term.....who knew saran wrap could prevent pregnancy? XD


I hope everybody is having a good weekend! I haven't gotten to reading all the comments from my previous post yet but I will definitely do that tomorrow. <3

Ugh - Turn it In and Chicago Manual of Style

...Are two of my not-so-favourite things in the world. Turn It In is a new website that lets professors very easily check your originality - it scans your essay and compares it to the millions of other essays in their database and gives you an "originality score". My score is usually 0%, which is good (completely original), but it's annoying having just another hoop to run through.

But what I hate MOST of all are the citation formats and how strict they are. I've lost plenty of marks for forgetting to include an indent in my footnotes here, or a semicolon after that periodical title....it's so painstakingly particular and professors love taking marks off for this crap.

Anyways, I'm currently writing a 22 page paper in Chicago MLA format, and I'm slogging through this stuff as we speak. The only thing that's saving me is an example essay I found on the internet, here

It doesn't help that the official Chicago MLA website is so annoying. You can't just view a sample paper, you have to click through multiple subheadings to find the section you want, only to do it all over again when you use a periodical instead of a book, or whatever.

TL;DR - Strict citation formats suck

God damnit Civilization V

So I have four more weeks of this semester left to go. It's the home stretch. Final papers, final exams, final debates, and other final things are all coming up around the corner.

So what did I do this weekend? I installed Civilization V. Big mistake.

I've experienced the 'just one more turn' style of game addiction in games such as Medieval II: Total War, but this doesn't even come close to how badly I want to play Civilization. There is ALWAYS something to look forward to just one turn ahead, whether it is destroying Gandhi and his capital city (I hate that prick) or just finishing a building like a university, I just can't bring myself away from this game.

I definitely don't want to turn into this chick:

So on that note, I plan on setting myself a time limit of two hours per day for Civilization time, while the rest will be spent on homework. That should at least let me to conquer the world a couple times before Christmas.

Regardless of my personal concerns, Civilization V is a masterpiece of a game. I highly recommend it (if you don't have anything important to do in the next 3 months).

Dropbox

So I've been hearing about this 'Dropbox' thing for a little while. Last night, I took a look at what it actually is and I realized it's going to REALLY help me with university and life in general.

Dropbox lets you put a special folder on each of your computers that you can access anywhere you have internet. For example, I use a netbook for school and a desktop for home and video games. However, I do homework on both computers. I've been caught a couple of times at school when I forgot to bring my homework because I had done it on my desktop and had forgotten to copy it to a USB drive.

So this is going to save me A LOT of hassle, and possibly recover some lost marks. And guess what? If you sign up for Dropbox from my referral link, I get additional space. I already have about 3 gigs without referring anyone, so any additional space is just icing on the cake, especially since it's primarily for school work, but what the hell, right?

Sign up! It's sweet: here's my link!

Halloween!

Well tonight is my big party night. I'm really pumped. Starting the drinking early, and the clubs close at four. I bought a 26 of Sailor Jerry's for the occasion, and it even came with a little thing of Gibson's whisky. I haven't tried either of these liquors, but I've heard good things.
Sometime this weekend, I assume I'll be carving up a pumpkin. On my browsing I came upon this awesome find.....video game pumpkins!

My favourite is the Link pumpkin, but the above Big Daddy pumpkin is just as delightful. I sometimes wish I was fruito-artistically inclined? Whatever that means. Talk to you guys soon! I'll try to post pictures of my awesome slave Leia costume =)

A useful page to help you get through life

Check out this website. It's a page provided by my university, UBC, but it has information that can apply to any university student.

Go to the website, click on your area of study, and find out what the best jobs for your degree are. I find it really helpful because I'm still unsure of my direction in life. Some of the career paths suggested for my major, international relations, are surprising to me, such as working in international banking or as a international business manager.

I'm definitely planning on researching this further, so check the website out if you're as unsure as I am.

I'll try to focus my blog more on general life tips for young people, such as students, in the future. You'll hopefully get more useful information out of my blog than 'Jackass 3d' reviews ;-)

Jackass 3d

My friends and I went to see Jackass 3d last night. Let me just start off by saying that, like most movies, it wasn't as good as the book.

Sorry, I stole that joke from Conan. But Jackass was hilarious. I'd never seen one of those movies in the theatre, but it's a pretty unique experience because EVERYBODY is making sounds like "ewwwwwww" at the same time or "awww nooooo" at other times. There were some nasty pranks involving shit and puke - the usual Jackass that we know and love.

My favourite prank by far was the one involving 10 midgets in a bar fight. That's all I'm going to say. 

Anyway, for people my age, I recommend it. If you're looking for a movie to see with your mom and dad, don't go to this one.

Thanks for reading! Talk to you guys soon.

Those Crazy Europeans

 I just heard of a tradition from Europe called Bastuloppet. The idea is that college girls and boys strip down and race through downtown city streets. Some people get naked, others leave their underwear on.

I was doing some 'research' on Youtube for this and it looks crazy haha. I can't see myself ever taking off my clothes in front of like 2,000 watching people. But, knowing Europe, I'm sure there was copious amounts of alcohol involved. It still looks damn cold though.

For example, Boobs in a youtube video?

What a crazy, nudity-loving continent. Good for them I guess. It's just pretty strange to my North American mind.

Who should pay on a date?

Well, what do you think?

I've always been a fan of offering to pay for my date's meal one out of every two or three times. I always at least offer, and my date has usually been generous enough to insist on paying.

My girl friend is mad tonight because she was out for dinner with her boyfriend and they ended up getting in a little fight over the bill. The guy didn't want to pay, and eventually he said something along the lines of "If you want me the guy to pay for EVERY date, ALL the time, then I think you should start doing my cooking and laundry, because the first idea is just as antiquated as the second"

I thought that was so good! Serves greedy girls right haha.

-SF <3

Tell me what to buy with my Amazon gift cards

I've recently come into possession of $20 worth of Amazon.ca gift cards. I don't have time to read any books around school, so I need to buy something else. Tell me what you think I should buy, and I'll choose the best comment and order it!

Ideas: discount video games, good headphones, other random cool stuff.

Let's hear your best ideas! Thanks guys.

Country and Western Club

I hate country music.

Every time it comes on I feel like my IQ drops fifty points. Sure, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and the older country stars are great.....but I don't want to debase those people by comparing them to the country of today. It's BRUTAL.

Anyways, tonight I'm being dragged out to a country and western club in town by some friends. The worst part are the guys that are there....either sad, older guys dressed in hats and cowboy boots that have never been worn on a farm, or the young, stupid farmboys who think they're hot shit.

They better have some damn good drink specials. What's your stance on country music?

New Dream Job

So I've been starting to think of what to do after university. I've heard so many horror stories of people working their asses off for yeaaaars of education only to have it amount to nothing when they go back to living with their parents and working at Best Buy for 10 bucks an hour. I think that would really suck, so I figure I should start looking around at jobs now.

CSIS is Canada's version of the CIA. I could be a super cool intelligent officer / spy girl there. I love travelling and James Bond movies, and work in a cool looking building like this, so what's not to love?

Option two is working for this motherfucker:

Just kidding. I have lots of other options (I hope). What do all my student readers want to do when they graduate? Do you guys have a good career planned out yet or are you just winging it like I am?

Halloween

What is everybody being for Halloween? I just ordered a delightful 'Slave Leia' costume....you know, from Star Wars? Am I the coolest nerdy girl ever or what? It was only like 40 bucks too.

So aside from fighting off waves of sweaty, pimply guys all night, I will also be searching for my Han Solo. I'm thinking out of the thousands of people on campus, there's bound to be one guy dressed up as Han Solo. I just hope he's cute.

What are you guys being for Halloween and where are you partying?

Hyundai Sante Fe

I test drove a Sante Fe with my dad today. It's such a smooth car! I know it's automatic, but there is literally no sensation between gearing up and down. It's decent looking. I can see it fitting our family's lifestyle pretty well. We're going to take the Honda CRV and the Ford whatever-SUV for a test drive tomorrow.

I always assumed Hyundai was a pretty cheap car, but it looks like they've made great strides at erasing that image. I also toyed around with the car below when I was on the lot today. It's slick, but pretty damn expensive. I didn't even know Hyundai had a luxury sedan. It's called the Hyundai Genesis.

Anyways, I don't work for Hyundai or anything. I've always been a Honda girl. I was just impressed with everything I saw today.


Have a great day, followers! And a happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends =)

Mesothelioma

Have you guys heard of mesothelioma? It's a type of cancer that you get from exposure to asbestos. Anyways, one of my dad's friends just found out that he has it. I think he can get a big court settlement if he plays his cards right, because these types of cases seem to be all over the news.

Anyways, he's very close to me so I'm sincerely hoping for the best for him, and I hope you guys do too.

Note-Taker Position

So I got offered a job as a note-taker at my university. I know I'm already crazy busy with my other job and school, but hear me out.

All I have to do for this job is go to class and take notes from my English professor's lecture. What's that, you say? I already do that for free? Oh yeah. So now, for the extra 5 seconds it takes to e-mail an attached message, I get paid $9/hour for all my in-class hours. AND it's retroactive.

Rollin in mad chedda yo

Hilarious

Being the Lord of the Rings fan that I am, I laughed so hard at this. Next time I see a notice like this at school I'm doing this haha.

ING Direct

So I've come into a tiny bit of money and I need a safe place to put it. I've been considering the online banks ING and Ally because they have the highest interest rates (at a whopping 2%!!).

Then I noticed that ING has a bonus for saving $100 with them. They will pay you $25 just for signing up, and then another $25 for every family/friend you refer! I thought that was sweet.

I might have to deposit a little money with them. I don't know if this offer is available in the States. Check it out if you're interested.

ING

Another useful site

Check this site out and save it in your bookmarks. I guarantee that there will be at least one time in the near future that you will need to use it. How's that for a sales pitch.

http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/


Say you're trying to find my blog, but it just won't load. You type in my URL into the website and it tells you whether it's a problem just for you, or for the rest of the internet as well.

P.S. I got up early enough today to watch the sun rise over my campus! I'm not a fan of these 8am classes.

Fuck the RIAA and MPAA

 So on my wanderings through the internet today I came across this picture, which has the front page of Yahoo's news site. Take a look at the picture and tell me what you think.

Isn't that sick? My stance on 'illegal' downloading is that sharing is good for almost everybody. I love music. I have over 4000 songs in my iTunes. I probably paid for maybe 50 of them. In terms of music, I like to support the artists I like by going out to their concerts rather than paying for their CDs. At least then, the band can visibly see my contribution to them, rather than all of my money going to the record labels.

That's another thing....record labels claim they need this money to find new bands, but there is no way that is true in our day and age. If you're talented, upload some songs to Youtube, post it to Facebook or whatever. Your skill will (hopefully) let you rise to the top. Who needs a record label to get your name out there?

Sorry to get a little rant-y on you guys. Thanks for the support, as usual!

Canadian Club

So I'm a big fan of the tv show Mad Men. I notice they always drink a whiskey called Canadian Club, usually multiple times during the day (why can't my work day be like that, anyway?).

So last night, at my liquor store, we were having a big sale on it. I bought some of it and drank it on the rocks while watching Mad Men last night. I felt pretty manly....lol. After the first one I had to mix it with Coke. But I think I'll be buying it again, because it is very delicious. That is all for today.

P.S. do you guys like Mad Men? I love that show!

Look at this fucking hipster

I know one of my earlier posts was already about hipsters....but now I found a great site that's dedicated to disliking people like that! Check it out

It's called 'look at this fucking hipster' and I've been clicking through the first 20 pages for the last little while. The comments below the pictures are hilarious! Definitely a good way to unwind after a day of walking around my campus seeing all sorts of these tools.

Contests

So I'm sitting in an empty classroom right now, Tim Horton's double double in hand, waiting for class to start. I thought this was as good a time as any to make a blog post. Once again, I've been super busy lately. But anyways, I found a cool forum that I've been using for a little while that you guys will definitely like too.

It's the contests section at RedFlagDeals.com.....they post contests available to Canadians from all over the Internet and other places, and then you just go down the list and enter any one you want. I figure it's only a matter of time before probability works in my favour and I win some cool stuff.

Here's the link! You guys should check it out. I want to win a car so bad haha.

Going to church tonight!

So you guys may know by now, but for those who don't, I'm not religious at all. However, I'm taking an anthropology of religion class. Our assignment for September is to observe a ritual, whether it be a religious event or somebody practicing yoga.


I was thinking of observing an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but it didn't fit around work. So tonight I'm going to Catholic Saturday night mass. Hopefully it's not too long.....I've never been to church before lol. It will be interesting to see though. Hopefully I'll come away with a more positive view of religion, but I don't have high hopes.



Oh....I almost forgot.
HOCKEY'S STARTING SOON CHYEEAAAAAAAA
Huge hit by Willie Mitchell

Anthropology of Religion

I'm sitting in my anthropology class right now. The topic of discussion is religion. In my opinion, religion has caused nearly every conflict in human history. I think it is an outdated, medieval concept that doesn't really have a place as humans continue to evolve.

I understand this is a very touchy subject for a lot of people, so I don't mean offense by this. I just thought I'd get my atheistic viewpoint out there.

Filthy dubstep song

Dubstep seems to be all the rage on the internet nowadays. I'm starting to get hooked on it too. The only problem is that I live in a shared townhouse, and I can't turn my speakers up as loud as I'd like, especially not the subwoofer.

Fortunately for me, they're all religious and I'm not. So Sunday before noon is MY time to blast my music. Lately I've been obsessed with this song. See if you like it. I've listened to it about 10 times a day since I found it a week ago haha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp7JL41Qo4M

Can't stop laughing

At this stupid duck. I know it's dumb but everytime I see it I start giggling uncontrollably.

Sorry about the latest posts

My posts have been pretty lacking in good content lately. I've been really busy with homework and partying and going to the gym....the usual.

Anyways, I found a pretty cool site that should keep you guys interested my awesome blog. I used it a few months ago to send a silly letter to myself....in the future. I just got it the other day, which made me remember, which made me want to post the link here!

http://futureme.org/


It's pretty cool!
I'll try to keep content more interesting in the future....thanks guys =)

Liquor Store job!

I just got a job at my local liquor store. The best part? My employee discount is cost+8%. I see much drinking in my future ;-)

Anyways, that's where I've been the last couple nights. No partying for me. Looks like I'm booked next Friday and Saturday nights as well. So I guess I can either be a good student and not party or just go out during the week. What do you think?

Off to the gym

I just got a YMCA membership so I've been trying to go to the gym as often as I can. Those memberships aren't cheap!

I'm just heading out for another workout. I'm even incorporating a little bit of weightlifting into my routine. Hopefully that will make me better at soccer intramurals this year. Today I'm going to do a lot of running and a few leg press type workouts. Gotta build up those leg muscles! ;)

Student's Union

So at my university, like most schools, we have a student's union. I've never liked unions. I never really use the stuff they seem to offer, such as health and dental benefits or other random stuff. I used to work at a grocery store and didn't use the union once, but I still payed $20 a paycheck in Union Dues and about twice that in pension.

So the other day I got a letter from the grocery store union saying that my pension is available to me as a lump sum, but due to the recession the amount of money that I paid into the union was sliced in half. I could have put that money into a savings account and made more than twice as much as contributing to the stupid pension fund. Argh makes me so mad.

And then the student's union forces you to manually opt-out of their health and dental insurance every year BUT only if you have valid proof that you have additional coverage. Plus, they make you renew it every year but they don't tell you that you need to renew annually. So last year I ended up paying $400 for health care I didn't know I had. Not that I would have used it because it's so much shittier than my parents' plan. Anyways, this year I hope I can get the paperwork in time to opt out of this shit.

TL;DR I hate unions. Anybody else had similar experiences with unions?

First party

I had a great time last night! I probably won't put up pictures after a kind suggestion from one of my followers that pictures like that follow me around. Sooooo suffice to say I won a couple rounds of beer pong and had a few too many drinks but al around it was a good night.

More importantly, speaking of followers, I can't believe I have so many of them! It's amazing what a little link dropping around the internet can do. Hopefully you guys are enjoying reading my posts and a BIG thank you to all of you =)

EDIT: Can you tell I'm a little hungover? Such poor grammar and sentence structure....

So excited!

It's Monday night and I'm about to head off to my first party of university life! I'm so excited. Some friends are having a little get together at their house on campus. I'm bringing a bottle of gin and, I know what they say, gin makes a girl's clothes fall off, but I'm N OT one of those girls. I'm just going to have a good time with all my friends. I'll try to post pics of the beer pong action tomorrow.

Talk to you guys later ;-)

Xbox 360

Soooooo breaking news. But not really. My brother's Xbox 360 died last night. It was flashing three red lights, which I guess is bad. He got so serious about it though! I think he cried more than he would have if I had died. Anyways, today he's "taking it into surgery", as he calls it: he's going to try to fix it himself. He's following this youtube video. Apparently if you stick pennies in your Xbox, it can soak up the heat and fix the problem.

Anyways, since most of my followers seem to be guys, I thought you'd find this interesting. Check it out if you have the red lights problem too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsz0lNJ6JrQ

School!

Just got my books from Amazon today. Saved so much money from the stupid canpus bookstore. I got like 8 textbooks for under $200. Some used, some new, but all of them are in perfect condition. I'm pumped! =)

Running

Went for a 40 minute run today. Clears your head. Made me think about life and stuff BUT, more importantly, made me think a lot about stuff I'm going to post on my blog. School starts next week. It's going to get interesting! Stay tuned =)

I can't be the only one

Who can't stand stupid hipsters? They're trying to be different, but they end up being exactly the same as all their friends. Furthermore, they think they're so hot for doing that. ARgghhh. Sorry random thought haha.