The complete retro gamer‘s old magazine paradise listing. Online available freeware old magazines also include: Zero, Mean Machines, C+VG, Amiga Action, Your Sinclair, The One, Compute!, Official Saturn Magazine and many more. Some of the sites are very good and I would fully recommend taking a look at whats available if you are into gaming. It sure is fun to see how they use to think the graphics back in the day were amazing. It brings back some memories of my old magazine subscriptions to electronic gaming monthly, computer gaming world, Nintendo Power, and so on.
Yearly Archives: 2007
University Strike Confirmed for Friday
News Talk 980 is reporting that the University Strike is confirmed to begin right away Friday morning.  This follows the two hour rally that occurred on Tuesday. CUPE, the union representing the workers, says that the University refuses to go back to the bargaining table and this job action is required. School on Friday could be a whole lot more interesting. I expect it will be things as usual tomorrow but if the strike continues through next week I expect some changes at the University. Hopefully people know that everyone is on strike and clean up their messes. It’s almost daily that someone spills their drink someplace and walks away from it.
**update**Â The university has a webpage setup to show how the strike action is going to affect students.
Helpful Resources for Learning Chinese
I am taking my second Chinese course of University and I have been really enjoying it. Going to class and labs with the assignments has been really good at reinforcing the language. By attending class and participating I can really learn the material well. Right now I am feeling fairly confident in my abilities and I am continually impressed by how much I am learning. I have also benefited from a couple of online resources that allow me to further advance my knowledge as well as look up what I already know. I hope you find these resources helpful if you ever learn Chinese.
My most favorite online resource is www.xuezhongwen.net . This site is a great resource as I can look up Chinese characters that I don’t know the pinyin for or I can search using the pinyin or I can type out the characters and look up the meaning. Overall I would definitely recommend this site to anyone who is learning Chinese.
Another site I really enjoy is the Chinese Flashcards on Yellowbridge. These can be really helpful when you are trying to learn Chinese characters. I have spent many hours doing these flashcards and they have been very beneficial in making me memorize the character, pinyin, and meaning.
University of Regina Staff on Strike
Hundreds of University clerical, maintenance, custodial, and other staff were all on the picket line today at 11am. The workers are looking for higher wages, benefits among other things. The workers set up a gathering with their pickets right in the center of the University of Regina’s Academic Green. So far today it has been classes as usual. It is not expected the striking will affect classes or force any cancellations but that could change if there is any safety concerns. As always I will update with any updates as they happen. As well, people might be able to check out the webcam at the university to possibly see the strike.
**update 12am ** they have taken their marching into the building and chanting as they walk around the University.  I’m not sure how well the profs will be affected by the megaphones passing by their classrooms. Should be interesting to see what they will do next.
**update 1pm ** the striking workers aren’t on the Academic green anymore and I can’t see them in the hallways anymore. Maybe they are picketing someplace else around the University or they just went back to work instead.
Univeristy of Regina Strike
This is a what if situation I’m playing out in my head right now. What if there is the strike at the university and classes are cancelled because of it. Would the students who had classes cancelled receive reimbursement for the missed classes? I know I would want reimbursement since the students pay a lot of money to attend those classes and if they are cancelled on no part of their own doing they should be compensated.  With classes costing upwards over $500 each, class time is very valuable and this could result in a lot of compensation payments paid out by the university. Of course this is a complete what if and most likely won’t happen. The university is surely capable of running off management workers… right??
Canada Prospering and a 1% GST Cut?
The rumour from the Globeandmail going around right now is that GST will be cut back to 5% on Tuesday, October 30. The cutback comes as a fulfillment of a Conservative election promise to decrease the GST to 5% back when they were elected. The federal government has been basking in surplus recently and it has even been said by TD Bank chief economist Don Drummond that it is forecast to be $14.5 billion this year. Hmm, around 30 million people in Canada and a surplus of that amount equals out to $483 per person. Now this doesn’t sound like too much but I’m sure there would be a lot of happy people to get that kind of cheque from the government.  I’m just not sure the 1% GST cut is really what we need right now though. The economy is already heated and growing quickly, this kind of cut will increase consumer spending and will lead to more problems in the future. I’m sure there are a lot better ideas what they could use that money for. I wouldn’t mind a reduction in my tuition fees paid for by the government. In the meantime though, I will try to think of somethings to buy to make it seem like I’m getting a 1% discount.
Guitar Hero Three
I picked up Guitar Hero 3 today. I was waiting outside Bestbuy for about 10 minutes before they opened. The guy behind me in line was kind of an idiot. He thought the lineup outside the store very good for Apple OSX Leopard. Why would there be a line of 50 people outside Bestbuy for a new version of an Apple OS? Then when someone told him the lineup was actually for Guitar Hero 3 he had no clue what it was. Haha, well this guys stupidity made for an interesting story. Guitar Hero 3 doesn’t really bring much new to the table. After just beating the game already on medium I can tell that I hate the guitar battles. I can easily play through songs and do decently but the guitar battles require some strategy and plain old good luck. I have yet to play the game online but it should be fun duking it out online. So many good games right now and so little time. I have a lot more guitar hero to play and I still have Halo 3 to beat on legendary. I wonder how much my school will be suffering because of all this :)
W.A.S.P. singer orders security to take cell phones with ability to record!
“Dear fans, please DO NOT bring any cameras into the shows this fall as it is strictly prohibited to take pictures or recordings of the performance of W.A.S.P.! Security personnel at every venue will confiscate any cameras (including digital cameras and mobile phones with ability to record) from you before entering the venues.”
This sounds a lot like the Tool concert I was at in Edmonton last year. They were making everyone check in their cellphones and cameras at the coat check. You got them back after the show but it seemed silly to have to put cell phones there that had such terrible cameras on them. If I took pictures with my cellphone all I could see would be some blurry pixels and not a lot of anything. After we got into the Tool concert it seemed like security wasn’t so strict on everyone since some people had some decent cameras in and not just their cellphones. For the price of the ticket they should allow you to take whatever crappy pictures you want, so long as you aren’t selling them.
10 Great Ways to Reduce Fuel Consumption and Increase MPG
With gas prices increasing (although decreasing slightly lately), the new prices are going to affect us all in some way. While the price increase may hurt some more than others, we’re all going to have to become accustomed to the fact that the days of cheap gas (and energy in general) are in the rear view mirror. The following link shows off 10 possibly useful tips to conserving fuel, although not that many were helpful to me it doesn’t hurt to let others know in case they might find it useful.
Serj Tankian – Elect the Dead
Tomorrow, Tuesday October 23, 2007 a great new cd is being released from Serj Tankian. For those that don’t know who he is; Serj is the lead singer of System of a Down. Elect the Dead is his first solo album release and it is sure an amazing piece of work. Serj did the majority of the composition and played many of the instruments that are heard. He had some help creating the album but the overall effort is said to be his. The sound of the music is very much how I would imagine a new System of a Down CD but with some minor differences.  The music has great flow and sounds awesome. It is a very clean sounding hard rock very similar to how the later System CDs sounded. Across the cd there is an assortment of softer songs as well as the faster more furious songs. The songs all contain the political and life messages that we come to expect from Serj. I put a complete tracklisting below for fun. If you are a fan of System of a Down I would say this CD is a must buy! I will be picking it up for sure.
- Empty Walls
- The Unthinking Majority
- Money
- Feed Us
- Saving Us
- Sky Is Over
- Baby
- Honking Antelope
- Lie Lie Lie
- Praise the Lord Pass the Ammunition
- Beethovens Cunt
- Elect the Dead