Guitar Hero take me away?

Hi,

My name is Desi an I'm a Guitar Hero player. What better way to combine two of my great loves-awesome music and gaming. I know there are lots of people who diss guitar hero fans-but this is one group I don't mind be a geek for. There are so many songs I would never have listened to by their titles.
1. Beautiful disaster-311-cool reggae beat
2. No sleep till Brooklyn- beastie boys-absolutely love it
3. Jimi-slightly stoopid-another mellow beat-loved playing it.
4. I feel the pain-dinosaur Jr.-like playing it and the songs okay.

Of course there are some songs that by default I'd love. Heartbreaker-pat benetar or about a girl - nirvana or do it again -steely dan. Those were part of my set list before I began playing. Will playing guitar hero make me listen to more artist-definitely. Am I willing to go "dungeons and dragons" about guitar hero-not so much.




des

College Vs Bills

Well I've put on my financial adviser's hat and have crunched the numbers and figured out... Absolutely nothing. School starts tomorrow but I'm seriously thinking of dropping the one course I do have scheduled. I got a lovely email suggesting that I pay my tuition. I've decided I'd rather pay for my daily living expenses. While I could do the topp program-that leaves me with absolutely no safety net for the next two months. I'm daring and bold but not stupid. School will just have to wait. I'm aching to get back but I'll need some wealthy benefactor to help me in my quest for knowledge. I hate to feel like I'm giving up on my education but really-I don't see an option other than accruing another debt.

If I ran OSU I'd...

1. Let you opt out of the $82 Rpac fee if you already have a gym membership.
2. Make special allowances for commuters and non traditional students-i.e. those who actually work full time.
3. Provide more online courses
4. Take the FAFSA information and automatically put your name in for grants and scholarships.
5. Have special parking passes for commuters at a nominal fee maybe $25 a quarter.
6. Have satellite branches for commuters(do you notice the theme)
7. Make courses affordable to working adults-and not the "financial aid pay the government for the rest of my life affordable(or as my aunt would say the robbing Peter to pay Paul version of financial aide). More like bare bones education-no student activity fee(I'm not doing a keg stand in my Chaucer course)-NO RPac-(I've got planet fitness and they're much,much,much cheaper)-No COTA fee(I'm a commuter-duh-I don't need a bus pass).
8. Make getting an education a walk in the park(Instead of the Double Dare obstacle course it currently is-Physical challenge anyone?)

This being said I realize that I bear responsibility for my own future-so I'm looking at some other ways to fund my education.

1. Donating plasma
2. Putting a kidney on the black market
3. Hitting the lottery (come on 7-11 mama needs some Chaucer 515)
4. Donating my body to OSU Medical Center in lieu of payment
5. Knitting until my fingers bleed.

What am I doing in the meanwhile? I'm knitting a nice cable scarf that will hopefully thrill some avid peruser of esty(ebay for crafters) and working on paying off all bills. I hope to try school again in the fall. Hopefully my funding situation will have changed-for the better.

TTFN

Des

What's in your player?

You know sometimes I forget how much I like an artist. I'm listening to some Rock music right now. First up to bat would be my all time favorite Billy Idol





Favorite on this album?

1. Dancing with myself
2. Eyes without a Face
3. Catch my Fall
4. Hot in the City
5. To be a lover

And now for a little 90's music-I'm listening to Offspring






My picks from this album?

1. Come out and Play
2. Why don't you get a job.
3. Pretty Fly(for a white guy)
4.Self-esteem

Now for the softer side of Des-I'm also listening to the Ojays!
What can I say about them-they are just too smooth.



My Fab Five?

1. Forever Mine
2. Used to be my girl
3. Darlin' Darlin' Baby
4. I love music
5. For the love of money

So that's what I'm plugged into at the moment. What's in your player?

des

Be-Bop A Rhu-Bop A Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Hey Guys,

I've decided to make one dish a week that I've always wanted to do. This week it was Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. I've never worked with Rhubarb before but I decided to give it a go. I found this recipe simple and fun to do. I love recipes that are hands on,and by that I mean you get to use your hands. There's no pastry blender or food processor's to make the dough for you pie. You get in there with nature's own pastry blenders-i.e. your fingers. I won't go into the details of the recipe. The book "Feasting on Asphalt is available in your local library. I love that Alton Brown-he makes things seem so easy. Also I love how technical he is. He breaks things down to the molecule level on "Good Eats". So please visit your local library and pick up Feasting on Asphalt. How's it taste you say? Well Stupid Good! And I haven't had a slice yet. It's simply some of the filling that leaked on the cookie sheet I used as a catcher for the pie. So use your creativity and go boldly where no novice cook has gone before.






Des

Early in the mornin!

You all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. My cousin sent this to me and it was good for a laugh. Hope it brighten's your day

des

How much did you say that cost?

Just a heads up-if you love OSU-Work there-or know someone who does,this post may offend you. This is totally directed to the institution and it's policies and not the staff that I know and love. You know I love learning. Love everything about it. I love going from novice to expert. Love Love Love it. But try as I might I can't seem to wrap my brain around financial aid. I'm starting to think I need to fund my education another way. Did you know that it costs $1254 dollars to take one 5 credit hour course at OSU? Let me just pull that off my money tree for ya! Are you kidding me-and this is affordable education-to who Donald Trump! This is a state run school? Now if you can't afford to pay it all at one time and let's face it 95% of Americans can't,You have the option of splitting up the payment. Which seems more palatable until you find out they charge you and annual fee of $35 dollars for the privilege of paying them in installments. What a privilege it is to be living on ramen and hamburger helper so that I can pay for one class. If that $35 dollars was going to something worth while like cancer research then okay. But just charging me because you can? So sucks! I just don't have disposable income right now and I really can't see parting with two of my paychecks(whole and complete)for one class. Of Course there are always loans right!! Well there are loans for those of us who can take at least 6 credit hours a quarter. Which is hilarious because there are no 6 credit hour courses. I know there are 1 credit hour courses you can take but unfortunately I don't need them and anything that's not getting me closer to a degree is a waste of money. So I don't qualify for student loans or pell grants. Who knew I was so rich. I think I'll have to take myself on a vacation and spend some of this new found wealth I supposedly have. Maybe Gordon will take me-I hear he just got a raise.

Signed
Underfunded in Columbus

Weird Dreams

Sometimes a dream is nothing but the bean burrito you had for dinner and the last show you watched dancing around in your subconscious and making bad B movies. However sometimes a dream is so vivid and affects you so strongly that you have to write it down. I've decided to talk about dreams that seem weird to me. Just random stuff you can't explain. In my last weird dream I was a white man(strange I know-picture the "can you here me now" guy from the Verizon wireless commercials-but with a bald pate). I was at a meeting where all these people were standing lined up around a long board room table. I got chairs for them all smiling graciously as I went along,but when I went to sit down-there wasn't a chair left for me. The meeting started without me and I felt that I had to find my own chair and no one was going to help me. I felt a little bit left out and unappreciated. I then went into a dark closet where I found a bag with a zipper. Here's the thing-I turned back into myself in the closet(cue twilight zone music) I open the bag and all these knitting needles with odd shaped heads fell out. They heads all looked like a hex screws on top
and an Awl tool on the bottom

I remember thinking that I could knit a lot of garments with these even if they are sharp. I didn't go back to the meeting-I just walked out knowing I had to do something more important with my life. Then I woke up.

What I took from the dream:
Sometimes you have to take care of yourself first. I noticed in the dream how everyone expected me to seat them-actually waited for me to do it-when they had been seated they took no more notice of me. Sometimes people can use you as stop gap measure-they have not interest in you as a person-you're simply there to fulfill a need. Find something you love to do and do it. Don't be like me in my dream-plan a seat/and or life for yourself. Be more than a seat filler.

des

Perkins Observatory...Go there!

I took my niece and nephew to the Perkin's Observatory on Friday night. Although it was cloudy we still had a wonderful time looking at all the exhibits and playing around on the computers in the library.

I have always liked science and experiments but I like a good show even more. Tom Burns does an amazing job of making astronomy entertaining and informative. His funny delivery and interesting facts made me want to learn more about our universe. I came away with a new appreciation of just how tiny we all are. Once you see where you exist in relation to the rest of the galaxy it kind of messes with your head a bit. I not only learned about earth but some of the other planets in our solar system. Tom explained the many reasons why it doesn't pay to visit Venus. Here they are in no particular order.



1. Venus's air is made of hydrochloric acid.
2. The weight of air pressing down on you would squash you into a thin pancake.
3. You would then be fried into a crispy pancake because the temperature on Venus is a balmy 900 degrees. I guess that gives new meaning to a hunk of burnin' love.

But the worst part would be the acid rain that would dissolve you into a lovely mist.

We also learned that Saturn:



1. Doesn't really have rings. The "rings" are actually the many orbiting moons of Saturn with some other particles thrown in here and there.
2. Saturn is a liquid planet composed of hydrogen. Because it is liquid it rotates more quickly than earth. Saturn takes 10 hours to make one revolution as opposed to the earth which of course takes 24 hours.
3. Because Saturn rotates so quickly and it made of liquid the planet bulges out at the center.

Beside the cool library computers they have wonderful displays in the basement. Hands down the winner for me and my niece and nephew was a dark room with a red button console. You press a button and a galaxy would light up . I liked our galaxy they best.

We then got a tour of the observatory by Jay Elkes. He had this really high pitch voice and wonderful comedic timing. The observatory was built in the 1930's and is still using the same pulley system to operate the dome. My nephew got to push the button's to turn the dome(how cool was that). He also got hit in the head with the flashlight-he was standing to close to our tour guide-total accident.

What Kaylin thought about the Observatory:
I liked the dome of the observatory. The microscope itself. I like the teacher-you know the guy who was talking about the stars(Tom Burns). Then I liked the computers-they were really high tech. I didn't like the smell, it smelled like strong sweaty science-it just didn't smell good if you know what I mean. It smelled old. I like the dark star room with all the galaxies.

What Eddie III thought about the Observatory:

I liked the way you could see the moon and the crater's on it. uhmmm The good thing about the dude that was talking aka Jay Elkes when he talked he had Lot's of humor. I felt nervous when I was asked to push the button that turns the dome. The telescope was cool to see but I thought it would show this really red beam that would shoot out the sky and hit the moon and make a piece fall to earth or something. I would probably go again if I had V.I.P access.


What I liked about the Observatory
It was an affordable outing for you and the kids. I paid $14.00 for my nephew,niece and I. You can't got to the movies for that now during matinee prices. If you have any interest in space or astronomy please visit the Perkins observatory. You won't be sorry. Just a little drive down 23(or high st) in Delaware and you'll get to see something out of this world.

Des

Hold on to your hats

Well ladies and gentlemen,

I've been so busy that I haven't had time to write. So this will kind of be like a drive by post. I'll explore them in depth later. So what have I been doing? I went to a Gaelic storm concert, talked to a former soccer player from another country,visited with old co-workers,danced and taught my friend's daughter a Jim gill song i learned from our puppet show. I've been trying to find one more class to make school funding a reality.

So that's the short list.

More tomorrow,

des