So this is just kind a word dump please excuse it if some of the ideas are repeated, also misspelling just felt like I needed to say what was on my mind.

We as a group insist that we are adults, we insist that we have a hobby that is just as acceptable as any other and that we even think of as art, yet when anyone acts in any way that we don’t like we lash out like a small child on the playground. This whole thing for me was lit off by the recent reaction to Ubisoft being sued. For those under a rock the company is being sued by a write who claims that the ideas used as the games foundation (Namely accessing ancestral memory and reliving history) are from his 2003 book “Link”. He is seeking damages of 1.05 million up to 5.25 if Ubisoft willfully infringed on his copyright, as well as prevention of release of any further assassins creed products.

Personally I don’t like that last bit, I love the AC franchise but if the concept was stolen I believe that he should be entitled to compensation. The problem is that he has almost immediately been attacked by at least a small part of the community claiming he just wants money. They immediately took the internet and posted negative reviews on his book which had been largely unreviewed until this whole thing began ( I found 1 amazon review dated before 4/18/2012). This is where I have a problem, if we want to be taken seriously and have games taken seriously we need to stop with the immature behavior. Even if it is just a small part of the community we need to make it clear that this is not something we think is acceptable, bashing on someone just for starting a suit against a company or game you like is no excuse for behavior like this. For all we know this guy has a legitimate claim against the AC franchise and if not then the courts will stop it for us. Even if his lawsuit turned out to be bogus and just be a play for cash this is still no acceptable way to respond, if we want to be taken seriously we need to earn it by behaving in an adult manner.

In the end we are moving towards more mainstream acceptance as a hobby and even perhaps a form of art, things like this will only convince people that we are not ready to be seen as such and will only set us back. The further we get into mainstream acceptance (something I’m assuming everyone myself included wants) the more light will be shone on behavior like this and the more it will hurt our reputation as a community.

If you made it down here thanks for reading my rant, I hope it wasn’t too bad.

So I have been writing a paper for my english class and I chose to go with the effects of violent video games since I figured it would be easier to write about a topic  I am passionate about. I personally came into it with the obvious bias against the effect, I believe that violent games not only do not cause an increase in violent behavior but are actually a useful way for me to vent my aggressive feelings without the need to go bare knuckle box another person.
As I began to write the paper I needed to find studies that I could gather data from so I started using my schools database utilities (I go to the University of Idaho). I was searching for violent games in the news and found a trend, although there were plenty of articles that talked about studies very few of them actually cited the source. This was made more infurating since I really just wanted the source but it made me start to think about just what these journalists had been taught. 
 Now im a science major and so for the past several weeks I have been having the idea that you always cite drivin into my head, it just made me sad to see all of these articles that failed the most basic steps, showing me where they had obtained this data so I could verify it myself.
Anyway I just felt the need to rant about that for a minute, so now that im a bit calmer back to work.

With the release of Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver I have been foreced back into a game that has already sucked far to much of my life into it. I have collected all 493 Pokemon and have them sitting in my Box in Pokemon Pearl, I have bought and played sseveral pokemon spin off games mostly for the bonus pokemon they got me and overall spent a rediculous chunk of time playing games from the Pokemon series.
With all this in mind there is one thing that I have not tried in the Pokemon series finding it just too time consuming....EV and IV training.  For the uninformed EV training is basically the way you get the best Pokemon EVER. IV training is essentialy breeding pokemon and rolling the dice for the original stats from 0-31, once you have a good set of stats which iteslf can take many hours you begin EV training.    So you know when you were a kid playing pokemon and you heard from a guy who heard that pokemon you raised were better then the ones you caught wild.....he was right. there is an invisible stat called Effort Value that can give your pokemon a boost in their abilties. This whole process intended to get you a super powerfull Lv 100. I have decided to take a foray into the reaches of Pokemania.
I am breeding and EV training a single dratini into a dragonite, I will post proof and a review of the process once I have completed. WIsh me luck GB
 Also if you are interested in IV and EV training I suggest
http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/gbadvance/file/471243/22554     for more info and
Serebii.net for overall Pokemon info
 

Since we all love videogames and videogames cost money I though I would throw out a quick job referance for any GB users who live in the US. As you may have noticed it is now 2010 and that means that the US government is conducting the 2010 census and they need people to help them. The application is easy and the requirements are low, you pretty much need to prove you are a US citizen. Unfortuantly you have to be over 18 and they also prefer people who have cars and a valid drivers license.
 Anyway the pay as far as I can tell is great (here in Oregon its $15.25 an hour, minimum wage here is $8.40)
So if you are looking for a short term well paying job I would check it out
  http://2010.census.gov/2010censusjobs/

So me and Dev moved back to Paris last night, the night train was cool even if it was not as good of a night as we would have had in a hostel. We got off the train early at around 7am and then hopped on the metro and went down to our Hostel which is nearby Sacre Cour and is very nice, it is kinda spendy (25 Euros a night) but tehy place is very nice and is probably at the level of a hotel. We started the day at the Eiffel Tower after a quick breakfast. We paid the high fee and went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower which was covered by a nice cloud and VERY cold at around 9 am, after the Tower we went wandered our way to the Rodin Museum and then from there we headed back to the neighborhood of our Hostel to find a lunch. We had a nice if spendy lunch of pasta and then walked around a bit more before heading back to the Hostel at around 4pm to get our rooms. We then crashed (I took a 3 hour nap) and then had a quick dinner from our groceries and some desserts we had picked up. It was a nice day but it kind of highlights that its almost over.
Expect more posts (1 maybe 2) and then a final post when I get home as a retrospective of my entire trip.    

 So my time recently has gone from very chill and laid back to a somewhat faster paced orientation, I have one again left many days un written in my blog and I must rectify the situation immediatly.

11/6
So this day was spent at Conches which is one of the prettiest towns in France (a distinction is shares with many other villages in  France). Still the town was very nice, it had a small church in th center of the town and a lot of  cute little houses. The houses were split at maybe 50/50 that were really cute and then those that were diplapidated. Overall though the place was very nice, it was on a nice hill and I could totally see having a nice little house there. After the town we ate a lunch we had packed, salami, cheese, bread and apples before we drove the hour or so back.

11/7
This was the ultimate down  day for me, I slept in in the morning and after a slow breakfast I played some games and watched a bit of TV online, I spent the whole day lazing and had a nice dinner. It was a great day.

11/8
So this day was spent at another of Frances many prettiest villages, the town was pretty small and had some nice winding streets in it, the highlight of the town was a castle at the highest point of the village which was supposed to be open but ws closed the day we went. This was unortuante since the church in the town was also closed and thus there was noting to do. We ended up going to a small restuarant in the village center and having some hot drinks before walking around a bit more and then leaving.
This was the same day we left Decazville for Tolouse, we headed out to catch our bus at around 6:40 or something and then from the bus we took a train to Tolouse. When we got to Tolouse we hopped on the metro for one stop and then got off. We were looking for out Hostel and we could not find it so we set our along the road we knew it was on. After getting to the next Metro stop (i.e. too far) we turned around and went back only to realize that the Hostel was literaly next to the Metro and we had missed it, we checked in no probs and that was that.

11/9
So I dont want to make this too long so I may skip some details, we started the day off with a breakfast at a nice resturant on the main square (the Hostel did not serve a breakfast), it was very well priced, you get a chocolate or coffee, orange juice, bread and a croissant for 5.5 Euro, we then headed out to visit a church which had an small museum of anicent Roman statues since it was part of the Roman empire at a point. After the museums we wandered around and found a nice Tea shop where we spent several hours drinking some very nice tea and doing crossword puzzles. After passing the time we met up with a freind of Devs friend (my sister also knew but not quite as well) for dinner, we went to a great crepe shp where I had a nice crepe that was very much like a crepe omelette and thena  orange chocolate crepe for dessert. After that we visited the friends apartment in Tolouse, which was very nice, cozy with some nice quirks. After that it was somewhat late so we went back to the Hostel and after a bit of reading turned in for the night.

11/10
So today was  a dissappointment, we started the day the same as the last with the ame good breakfast and then moved on. We had intended to visit a museum which housed modern art in a old slaughterhouse but it turned out to be closed, after that we ended up wandering around the neighborhood before slowly heading to another church. We were trying to find a resurant from my travel book that promised 9 Euros for a two course pasta meal, we could not find the place and had to settle on another that had meals for 11 Euro. The food turned out to be great, the deal was you could get a Appetizer and Entree or Entree and Dessert so we got one of each picking a Spaggheti carbonara and a Steak with a cheese and tomato appetizer and a tart for dessert. Both the entrees were great, the pasta was very good and it came with an egg yolk in a half egg shell to be put into the pasta which made me pause for a mintue before dumping the egg all over that pasta. The steak was also great and we split both the Entrees so we both got some of each.
After the meal we went to the nearby church and then found another Tea shop where we once again spent several hours before reutnring to the Hostel. As of now of the plan is to take a night train to Paris where we stay for our last three days before parting to go our seperate ways with me returning home.

 So I am very unhappy to announce that my computer decided to give up the ghost last night, the first the screen stopped displaying an image and then the whole computer stopped turning on. I believe the computer is completly broken and since it is old and was never a very high end laptop I am just going to ditch it and keep my hard drive. Unfortunatly this means that I cannot blog from my laptop any more. I am going to do my best to keep up the blog for the last week of my trip but it will be a bit harder so dont be suprised if there is only 1 or 2 more posts. That being said I should be posting my last few days sometime later today.

So I fell behind on the blogging, the past few days in France have been very fun though.

11/1

So I arrived in Paris on the 31 late in the evening so the 1 was my first day in Paris for real. Me and my sister decided that we would hit the Louvre out first day in Paris and get it out of the way. We first ran quickly through a part of the Museum to get the Mona Lisa ( not as impressive as you wold think it is) which seems to be obligatory. After the Mona Lisa we moved on to several other sections of the Museum including one section which was full of furniture and full rooms things like the old rooms of the royal palace and how they looked. We also looked at several collections of paintings around the Louvre. After the Louvre we wandered around the nearby shopping district where my sister suggested that we get me a coat for the colder temperatures that were hitting Paris, it was around 10 C (about 50) with some heavy wind chill so it felt a lot colder. I posted some photos of me in the coat on my Flickr account so you can check it out and see how I look. After the coat we went back and hung at the Hostel for the afternoon before popping out for groceries later in the evening and then eating in at the Hostel.

11/2

We decided for the day we would go to churches for the day and so we headed out to start at Saint Chapelle which is a small church that is almost entirely stained glass. The walls have large windows of stained glass and I have some photos on the Flickr account so you can get an idea of the place. Unfortunately the front of the church was having work done and so it was covered and thus one of the best views of the church was hidden. It was very impressive but not quite worth even the discounted price of 5 Euros. After Saint Chapelle we continued on to Notre Dame which was pretty empty since it was still in the morning. We went straight into the Cathedral and   looked around, you get to walk around the base level and explore the Cathedral. After the exploration we went back outside to go onto the upper level tour of Notre Dame only to find that there was a very large, slow moving line now. We had made plans to meet one of Dev's friends for lunch and we decided that we would join the line and see if we could make it to the front before we had to go to lunch. Well we did not make it to the front of the line, we didn't even quite make it to the halfway point before it was time for lunch, we decided that we would come back another day earlier in the morning so there would not be as much of a wait. We met with Devs friend and went to lunch at a small nearby cafe that we had found in our guide book. The food at the cafe was good and the location was decorated with lots of books to be like a cozy little library. The food tasted good but the service was somewhat lacking and our server was somewhat rude to us. So after our quick lunch we went back to the Hostel to recuperate before we met another one of Devs friends and after meeting up we went back to her boyfriends apartment and cooked a nice dinner with them. We had chicken, zucchini, and an apple crumble for dessert. We ended up leaving at around 11:15 so we would not be caught by the closing Metro. We hopped two trains back to the Hostel and made it back around 12 and fell into bed.

11/3

The majority of the day was spent at the Rodin Museum which is housed inside of an old train station and houses Monet's Water Lilies which are some of his most famous painting. We met with Devs friend again outside the museum and we spent the rest of the day together. we looked at a good portion of the paintings in the main exhibit and then we visited the Art Nouveau exhibit that was also in the same location. The paintings were cool and the building was very impressive, we spent several hours here before heading to our planned lunch. We decided to have out lunch at Angelina which is a restaurant if Paris that we had been recommended as it serves the best hot chocolate in the city. We ordered a double serving of the chocolate to spit between the three of us and we all ordered a dessert. I chose to get a Mont Blanc which had no description but from what I could tell it was a meringue topped with a whipped cream like topping with the whole thing covered in a sugary smooth hazelnut   paste. It was great but a little to rich to go with the chocolate. The chocolate itself was very rich and thick, I would say it was about the thickness of heavy whipping cream, maybe a bit thicker. The whole meal was great and very filling but on the expensive side (what do you expect I Paris though). After the chocolate I went back to the Hostel to take a nap while Dev and her friend went off to shop.

11/4

Our planned movement took place on the 4, we went from Paris to Decaze where Devs friend works and has a apartment she shares with several other people. The town is rather small but is in a great location near some of the nicest towns in France. The trip was pretty easy, we hopped up earlier and grabbed our bags, we had a quick breakfast at the Hostel before getting onto the Metro to get to one of the larger stations to get out train. We made it the large station with plenty of time and found our train easy enough. The first train ride was around 3 hours long and from there we transferred to another train for around 2 hours. When we arrived at the station we were picked up and driven back to the apartment. We went shopping and cooked a nice meal for dinner, chicken, carrots, rice, and a mango salsa with cake for dessert. We are planning on staying here and leaving on Sunday to go to Tullues then leaving Tullues on Wednesday and going back to Paris to finish up there and be ready for our flights.

11/5

Devs friend had work today so she was up early in the morning to be ready for her early class and she was back very soon after I got up at around 9 or so. Me and Dev had a nice breakfast of some Nutella toast and yogurt, I also had a piece of cake. The breakfast was good and we decided we would go down to a town nearby where the guy who translated the Rosetta stone was born. There was a small museum there with artifacts about both ancient Egypt and how the stone was finally figured out. Aftert he Museum we returned to the apartment and had a nice cal afternoon lounging before cooking up a nice dinner of Mac and Cheese

Well my blog has not been updated in a while somewhat due to the fact that I have been having some slower days. So I will begin with my time on Olympia the home city of the Olympics. I explored the city for most of a day and the city was not too great. It was not to pretty but it was kind of a cool place to say you have been. The city was not too awesome and I soon found myself once again in Athens to be ready for my flight. I spent an enjoyable night near the Acropolis and I found a nice little cafe to print out my boarding pass and the next morning I went to the airport and got to my gate nice and easy and for maybe the first time flying in Europe. The plane was very nice, I had Aegean Airlines again and the plane ride was great. Unfortunately the plane was about an hour late and I was forced to wait at the gate before we boarded and the plane seemed to take longer then it should have. I got into Charles De Gaul airport at around 7:30ish and I grabbed a train into Paris and then walked from a stop to my Hostel near the Louvre. I found the place nice and easy and when I got in I found my sister waiting for me at the Hostel just as planned. This was my first time that a planned meeting worked out for me. We went out for a nice dinner where I had a duck dish that was a nice dish with a sort of mashed potatoes that had pieces of duck in it. It was great and we had a nice glass of wine with the meal. It was really good to see my sister after such a long time and we got a great chance to discuss our respective lives and what had been happening.
 
 Today we went to the Louvre which was a short walk from the Hostel and it was good luck since the Louvre is free on the first Sunday of the month so we were able to avoid the 9 Euro entrance fee. The museum was cool, we went through several exhibits as well as seeing the Mona Lisa which was packed. After the Louvre we wandered through the neighborhood before finding a small Asian restaurant that was decently priced for lunch. After the quick lunch we hopped over to the grocery store to grab some stuff to take back to the Hostel and then walked through a light rain to the Hostel.

 Well as you may have noticed I have not blogged in a while, I fell of the wagon when I arrived in Athens and I spent several days in a city that really should be 2 days at the max. I have to say I am much more inclined to blog on days that I have spent a bunch of time exploring a city, I guess I have more stories that I want to write down after days like that.
In the interest of sanity I am going to cut down what I write here so I do not end up with another 3 page blog entry.
Athens
I spent the first day exploring the ruins around the city, my Hostel (Athens Backpackers) is a five minute walk from the Acropolis and most of the ruins centred around there. I started the day at the Acropolis and moved onto several nearby temples. This took about half the day and provided great photos of Athens although my camera was not really good enough to do the view justice. In the afternoon I visited the Acropolis Museum where most of the artefacts from the Acropolis are housed. Not surprisingly they had tons of sculptures in varying levels of completeness as well a lots of carved walls and roof pieces that were the remains of several temples that existed on top of the Acropolis.
The second day was spent at the other varying museums of Athens the most notable being the Architecture Museum, the museum was within walking distance of the Hostel as well and contained some really amazing pieces. Mostly what you would expect from the place though, pretty extensive collection of statues. Very good, easily a must see if you visit Athens.

So I spent he next two days in Athens, the first day being planned and the second being me trying to plan what to do in Greece since my original plan fell though as did my second plan. I had wanted to visit the islands but was warned against it and the ferries to Crete which I wanted to visit were at prohibitive times (I would arrive at like 3 am) so I had to scrap that plan.
Anyway I finally got a plan together that looked to work, I would spend two days in Delphi and two day in Olympia then return to Athens on the 31st for my flight to Paris.

Anyway I spent yesterday going from Athens to Delphi where I checked into my new Hostel, The place is fantastic and so is my room....which it should be I had to get a Private Single for 40 Euros. My usual accommodation is a shared room with up to 11 other people and they cost around 16-24 Euros a night. The costs for Olympia are going to be about the same so I am dropping a bit more cash then I would like to in these cities.I spent today seeing the famous site of Delphi which was somewhat of a let down. The hazards of off season traveling struck when about half the site was closed for some sort of renovation or something. What I saw of the site was fantastic though,once omiting detail for the sake of space, I have been really impressed by what the ancient people could build, between Greece and Italy it has been crazy to see all these old structures and how amazing they look even in there dilapidated state.

Tomorrow I make the move to Olympia and then spend the next day there before heading back to Athens to be ready for my flight. Also keep an eye on the Flick account since I am putting up new photos soon.