April 18, 2015

 This morning I slept in again, which was great, and then I read an article about Abraham Lincoln in National Geographic. Not a bad way to start a Saturday.

When I did finally get up and around, I worked on my presentation. I made some changes to the References slide, and a couple other small things. I also wrote a script for the presentation. On the first read through it came out to around ten minutes. The directions say it should be around fifteen minutes but I learned during the last round of presentations in my other class that there will be people who go way over that limit. It will hopefully be appreciated that I did go that extra five minutes. Also, for my recorded presentation in this class I got 0.6 points off for going about five minutes long. Hopefully, at most, I will only be penalized that much for being five minutes under.

I sent the presentation to my partner last night and I sent her the script today but still have yet to hear from her. Part of me hopes something is wrong, not because I want bad things to happen to other people, but because at least it would be a valid excuse for why she hasn't done anything for this project.

Other than doing laundry, that was about it for my productivity today. Not bad I would say. Could have been worse. Tomorrow I'll try and nail down a research paper topic. I think that will give me three weeks to research it and write the paper. Probably should have started it earlier, to be fair, but hopefully three weeks will be more than enough time.

Tonight I decided to jump into GTA5 Online. I spent so much time designing my character trying to get it to look like me. Overall the head is too small and they didn't have the write hair and beard options, but from the right angle when I'm in my car, it kind of looks like me. I also started off trying to go for a Laurel and Hardy look with a black suit and bowler hat. It wasn't really working and it didn't help that the hat was way too big for my tiny head, so it was kind of like when Stan accidentally puts on Ollie's hat. I'm now rocking out with a bright blue suit jacket, black pants, and green Chucks. Pretty snazzy.

Online starts with a race against other people who have just started playing Online. I had no idea which car to pick so I went with one at random and thankfully it was actually decent. I was near the back of the pack for the first half of the race. When I managed to get up to the front, I gave the person plenty of room when I went to pass him but he apparently wasn't having it so he came across and rammed me, totally spinning me out and dropping me back to last place. Great sportsmanship. Rubbing is racing as they say but deliberate ramming is unnecessary. Despite that, I managed to come back and win the race, so screw you to that guy. Later on I also managed to win my first street race mission, helped by the fact that all but one guy dropped out so it was just me and him and he wasn't that good.

After coming out of the second mission I was immediately shot and killed by another player. I read that there are people who will camp out in the starting areas and kill new people. Apparently that is true. After your first death you are able to turn on passive mode, which I immediately did so I could go through all the beginning stuff without worrying about getting killed again.

I learned that you get a free car at the beginning of the game, after you steal it and take it to the mechanic. The super fancy, high-end cars and military vehicles are restricted but I think everything else is fair game. Right after getting this call there was a pretty cool looking car across the street from me so I grabbed that and then headed over to the beach because in Story mode there were some nice cars in the parking lot by the pier.

I parked there and got online to read about the car I had and it seemed to be a pretty decent car. I was a fan of the look but as I was driving it around the parking lot I saw another car, a two-door coupe, that also looked pretty cool. I had planned on driving it around the parking lot a bit to see how it handled but as soon as I turned away from my first car and then looked back, my first car had disappeared. I then had to decide whether I wanted to stick with this second car (which also seemed to be pretty good according to people on the internet) or drive around and try to find a new one. I decided to stick with the second one because according to several people it has a fairly rare spawn rate so I figured I'd be less likely to run into someone with the same car as me. I ended up painting it bright blue with yellow rims and lime green neon lights. It's pretty badass.

It is now creeping up on three o'clock in the morning and I need to go to bed. My sleep schedule is going to be so screwed up this week. And then next weekend I'll be stressing out about my presentation. But this will be my last trip down for school for awhile, which is nice, and the semester is almost over, which is also nice.