EPIC PC VIDEO GAME GIVEAWAY!!!

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-Eli

Choices

Choices. Any choice we make in life can turn your life on a dime. The choices we make now, whether we can see it or not, will affect our life down the road. Even the smallest of choices will affect your life in some way. These choices can be good but they can also be bad. Sometimes a choice might seem good but end up turning out to be a terrible choice. That's what happened to me, I made a choice that [at the time] seemed like a great idea but now looking back was a terrible idea. I hope you can learn from my mistakes and make better choices when you're given the opportunity.

In school, cheating is a big "no-no". But what exactly is considered cheating? Wikipedia defines cheating as "an immoral way of achieving a goal. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation. Cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means." So an immoral way of achieving a goal. But what if someone doesn't have morals...well, I wouldn't want to be around them. Anyways, what could this goal be? In school cheating is when you write the answers to a test on your hand/desk or text your friend the answers during the test. Those are some of the more common cliche's of cheating. When I was younger, a common way that I remember kids cheating was taking the answer book and just memorizing the answers. I never wanted to do any of that kind of stuff, and never thought I would.

Yes, I cheated. But in a weird way. I am obviously going to keep the names of the people involved anonymous but here's the story. In one of my classes, we knew we had a test coming up and it was planned to be the next week. That day the teacher said it would be the next day. Nobody liked the idea and everyone seemed really stressed out. The teacher also mentioned making a "Jeopardy" review but wasn't going to give it out because it too closely resembled the test. After class the teacher was showing a couple students the Jeopardy because they really wanted to see what they were missing out on. Now at my school there are projectors in every room and at this point the teacher had the Jeopardy up on the projector screen and I happened to see the URL where it was posted.

At that moment I remembered how stressed out everyone was and thought to myself, "Wow. Here's my chance to help out my fellow classmates who are really stressed out." So I copied down the URL and went on with my day.

As most of you probably know, I'm pretty good with computers. So, I made a fake email using a proxy web browser and sent the email to my classmates. Side-note: The email took me literally 2 hours to send, because the email kept kicking me out for using a proxy. I should've taken this as a sign saying "YO IDIOT! STOP TRYING TO SEND THIS FREAKING EMAIL BECAUSE IT'S GOING TO BITE YOU IN THE A$$ IN THE LONG RUN!!" Yeah...I'm not too good at the subliminal message thing...

Anyways, the email went out and I didn't think much about it because I legitimately thought I was helping my fellow students. The next day after the test the teacher finds out and obviously brings it up in front of the class and asked someone to fess up. I wasn't gonna fess up! I thought I did something good! Fast forward a couple days.

Everything settled down but I had this huge weight on my shoulders. Just that thought of, "I did something wrong and now the whole class is getting in trouble, when I tried to do something good...crap." Then something that I learned, in school, came into my head "Own it". Own your mistakes like a man, grow a pair and take what's coming to you, because if you tell the truth now, it will be a lot easier in the long run.

And holy sh!t, did it take A LOT to walk into my teachers office and tell them what I did. I was never so scared/ashamed in my life. I just about crapped my pants. I thought I was going to get kicked out of school and be completely f*cked (but I did realize it was my and only my fault). Not the case at all. My teacher actually applauded me (figuratively) for being mature about the whole situation and "owning" it.

They said there will be consequences but since I was mature about it and "owned" it, they would be less harsh. I will be able to stay in school with this incident not harming my pristine "record", if you will.

What about my parents? Well, my mom was OK with it mainly because I "owned" it and told the truth. My dad? Well...let's just say it's still sinking in...

If there's one thing I hope you can take away from this is: just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. Another thing to take away is telling the truth will set you free. Literally. I feel so much better now that I told the truth and it's over. Back to the doing something because you can...just because you have certain "talents", if you will, doesn't mean you should use them in the wrong ways. Just because you can shoot a .22 doesn't mean you should become a serial killer. Use your talents in the right ways! Use your skills to help others, go into the marines or something and become a sniper and help your country or something! Just because you're given some information that you shouldn't have, doesn't mean you should share it with anyone and everyone. If you know you're not supposed to have it, just forget it from your memory and move on. Trust me, it will help you in the long run.

Thanks for reading and happy holidays!

~Eli

Carpe diem.

New Pokemon Game [idea]!!!

ok hear me out on this. I'm not sure if anyone else has had this idea so maybe this isn't original but still...ok here's my idea:

The Name would be "Pokemon Origins". The game starts off where you get to fully customize your little avatar, because seriously it's not like we're all gonna look alike. Next you can either have your "rival" as a CPU or as another real life person (i.e. your friend or just a random person).

In this game however there isn't a professor that just gives you a Pokemon. There will be one pokeball in the starting town and you have to find it, then the little girl or whomever won't stop you from going into the grass. Everyone encounters a different first pokemon but nonetheless it is a level 2 and you catch it on your first try.

What generation of pokemon? :) Generation One...to begin with. Once you capture that pokemon you go on exploring the Kanto region. However there aren't any gym leaders. Because you are one of the first pokemon trainers, ever (thus the name "pokemon origins"). After you finish exploring the Kanto region, you learn from someone that there are actually more regions...so you go explore those regions (generation 2 - present). Again there aren't any gym leaders yet, because you are one of the first trainers. However there are pokemon "gangs" that you encounter who are very similar to gym leaders. There are also other trainers that you encounter.

So basically this game is all the other games combined. All the regions in one huge map, every single pokemon able to be caught, and in the end you become the first pokemon professor.

So...any thoughts, ideas, comments, etc?

originally posted by me on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/13o68t/new_pokemon_game_idea/

-Eli

I made a panda. (PNG)

I made this panda head all by myself in photoshop. It took about 5 minutes. Enjoy.

It's a PNG so it has transparency. Feel free to use this for whatever you want!

-ELI

Music Nostalgia

Hey guys I started an Indiegogo campaign to make modern versions of old TV show theme songs. Check out the campaign here (http://igg.me/p/259367?a=797243) and the explanation video below:




If you can't donate any money, please spread the word about this. It would really mean a lot to me!

Thanks and stay awesome!

~Eli

Reparative Therapy (aka Conversion Therapy)

                Reparative therapy hinders minors from forming their identity.  Governor Jerry Brown recently passed a law that makes reparative therapy illegal in California; the law takes effect in January.  This is not without opposition; David Pickup and his fellow therapists will be filing a lawsuit against this law.  Pickup says that the therapy helps, “…these children resolve their homosexual feelings and maximize their heterosexual potential…”  However, the American Psychiatric Association has “determined, in fact, that reparative therapy poses a great risk, including increasing the likelihood or severity of depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior for those undergoing therapy.”

                Pickup says that the children that come into his office are “’…crying, depressed, lonely, gender-identity confused and sexually confused’ ask for help voluntarily, because they are "distressed."  Why are they going to a reparative therapist, whose goal is to repair them, when they could go to a regular therapist to get help with these problems?  When searching “reparative therapy” on Google, a common search result comes up: “Conversion Therapy”.  Reparative therapy and conversion therapy is the same thing but reparative therapy sounds less harsh than conversion therapy, and lesser amount of people will know what reparative therapy is.  The definition from the American Psychological Association is “A pseudo-scientific therapy that aims to change sexual orientation.”  Whether you go to reparative therapy by force or by choice, they will try their hardest to change your sexual orientation.

                What Pickup and other reparative therapists do is wrong.  They try to change a person’s sexuality to how the therapist wants it, not how the person wants it.  What is so wrong about a person being gay or lesbian or just plain different?  Is there reparative therapy for football fans?  If someone’s family was die-hard U of M fans but one of the children is an MSU fan; would some therapist try to fix that child to make them a U of M fan?  Of course not, this example is kind of silly but so is reparative therapy, why can’t someone be themselves?  And why can’t the world just accept who they are?  Reparative therapy most definitely hinders minors from forming their identity.

The RIGHT choice for president! (2012)

The right candidate to win the 2012 presidential election is neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama.  It is obvious it will be one of them though.  Obama has helped make 4.6 million new private sector jobs since his election in 2008.  He also rescued the auto industry, saving over one million jobs.  He also supports same-sex marriage unlike Mitt Romney.  Obama repealed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” act which was keeping brave service members from telling the truth about who they really were.  On the other hand, Mitt Romney wants to take away a freedom from the constitution and make same-sex marriage illegal, everywhere.  Obama gave the order to raid Osama bin Laden’s compound where bin Laden was killed.  We know what Obama does, and how he is as a president.  We have no idea how or what Mitt Romney will do if he becomes president.  Mitt Romney’s website is very vague and confusing when giving “supporting” statistics to help him and against Obama.  There is no perfect candidate to win the 2012 presidential election. Each candidate has their own flaws as well as their own advantages.  The saying “pick your poison” really applies to this situation.  Neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama is the right candidate to win, but overall Barack Obama is outright with his facts and opinions on the various issues.  We also know what Barack Obama does as a president whereas with Mitt Romney we don’t really know what he will do once he gets that power.  Barack Obama should get another term to prove himself, if he doesn’t we’ll know he wasn’t the right choice and learn from it.

---------------------------------------------------Afterward-----------------------------------------------

I had to write this for my English class and thought I might as well post this on here since, this is where I can post my thoughts and feelings.  If you don't agree with me, great! Tell me why. If you do agree with me, awesome! Tell me why! I tried to touch all the issues that I felt affected me. Thanks for reading!

~Eli