Another crazy year comes to an end

2014 was surely a year to remember for me, and a lot of other people in the world.

Camera charger conundrum

Finally, an NHL Winter Classic hosted by my team

The NHL Winter Classic, an outdoor hockey game that was first played in 2008 in Buffalo, New York, is finally going to be hosted by my team, the Washington Capitals in Washington, DC. The Capitals previously appeared in the 2011 Winter Classic in Pittsburgh, where they defeated the Penguins 3-1. I won't really care about the outcome of the actual game, especially since the Capitals have won it before. The away team does have a history of winning this game. I'm just happy that Washington will finally be in the spotlight in an outdoor NHL game, since in their first Winter Classic it was all about Pittsburgh, a party we would end up spoiling. It would be even more incredible if my Capitals won a second outdoor game, this time against the Chicago Blackhawks. But overall, I'm going to enjoy the atmosphere and the honor of having attended two Winter Classic games.

NFL regular season over, playoff field set

The NFL regular season, with the exception of the AFC North matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers, has ended and all twelve playoff spots have been claimed.

Tired after Christmas

Yesterday, after all of my Christmas fun, I was very tired. I slept until 10 this morning, which actually isn't too far off from when I usually wake up.

An excellent Christmas

Today was my 20th Christmas and I have yet to be disappointed by any one of them. I always feel the holiday magic and today I certainly spent the day well. I woke up at my dad's house, ate pancakes and opened some presents. My favorite ones were a wildlife blanket with some sort of bear on it, an old Manhattan map and a plasma light. I also got candy in my stocking and a couple of trinkets. Then it was on to my mom's house and my mom had planned to drag me and my two brothers to church so that's what we did. It had been a while since I went there and in the meantime they had done some renovations. I was moved by a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer poem that one of the church people said, but otherwise I was apathetic about the service.When we left we were driving through a nearby  neighborhood and a couple of houses had huge blow-up ornaments. One of them even had Dora, SpongeBob and Yo Gabba Gabba and I had to laugh.


When we got home our mom made us get firewood so we could have a fire in the fireplace. Then we got to open more presents, a couple from our mom and some that we got for each other. Soon, we broke out some snacks and Christmas music.

No shortage of Christmas cookies

My dad has plenty of Christmas cookies in his house to mark the occasion. My mom's house has some good treats too, but my dad and his lady friend went all out with the cookies, to which I have gladly helped myself.

 These cookies are in some cool Santa bags.

 Some of these chocolate chip cookies crumbled into pieces.

These mini ones are from one of the Jewish bakeries in the northwest Baltimore area.

Last preparations for Christmas

As today was Christmas Eve, I did some last-minute things to prepare for tomorrow. I had a few presents to wrap, but my mom kept being nosy and asking them who I bought those things for, a question I refused to answer. After putting the presents under the tree I listened to a bunch of Christmas songs to really get into the holiday spirit. In the early afternoon I went over to my dad's house and noticed a lot more presents under his tree. Christmas mornings at his house aren't really as exciting but I know I'll still have a good time opening presents. I hope all will go well tomorrow.

Deadly tornado strikes Mississippi during Southern severe weather outbreak

A severe weather outbreak in the Southeast produced several tornadoes in Louisiana and Mississippi on Tuesday. One tornado in Columbia, Mississippi resulted in the deaths of at least two people. Columbia, which is situated between the larger cities of Hattiesburg and state capital Jackson, suffered significant damage from the tornado, which was estimated by one storm chaser to be about an EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. Other cities including New Orleans, Birmingham and Atlanta also took hits from the strong storms. There was also flooding along the Gulf Coast, particularly in the Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida areas as well as other portions of Mississippi. This event came just two days before Christmas, a rare time for thunderstorm and tornadic activity in much of the country.

"Thursday Night Football: Saturday Edition" annoys fans

Many football fans have derided TV network NBC showing two "Thursday Night Football" games on a Saturday. The Saturday NFL games were the result of the end of the college football regular season. College football usually has Saturday games, the day before the majority of NFL games every week.

First day of winter

Today is the first day of winter and the solstice will take place at 6:03 pm Eastern time. Although it will probably be the beginning of a long cold winter, it also means the days will start getting longer again. Also, Christmas is just four days away and everyone is in the holiday spirit. I really hope I have a much better winter than I did last year. Overall I'm really looking forward to Christmas and the whole winter of 2014/15.

Instagram deletes all fake accounts

Instagram has removed all spam and fake accounts from their website, leaving many celebrities with a huge loss in followers. Turns out spammers, trolls and bots really like to follow celebrities on social media, which isn't a surprise in today's internet climate. On Instagram, certain pictures (especially beautiful women) are a dead giveaway to a spam or fake account. I have myself been a victim of some fake followers, but they all disappeared from my Instagram account before the so-called "Instagram Purge," meaning either Instagram deleted those accounts too, they deleted their accounts themselves or they just decided to unfollow me. The number of purged accounts shockingly reached well into the millions. Hopefully this is an eye-opener to the hidden dangers of social media.

No snow for the rest of December?

Back on Thanksgiving eve, the east coast had its first winter storm of the season and first in eight months. Since it was even earlier than last year's maiden snowstorm on December 8, I thought we were in for another long winter. But since then our only other snow has been less than an inch last week, and it melted quickly. There was some snow in the forecast around December 22, and even briefly on Christmas morning, but now they're calling for just a chance of rain on Monday and Wednesday (Christmas Eve). There are currently no predictions for snow here between Christmas and New Year's. We had multiple snowstorms last December but didn't get our worst ones of the season until January and February. So maybe we're just having a slower start to our winter this year. But frankly, I'd like to see a couple more real snowstorms, because it's not winter without one, although I also don't want a repeat of last winter.

McDonald's in Japan running out of french fries

Get this: Several McDonald's fast food restaurants in Japan are running out of potatoes to make french fries. They have been forced to ration fries to customers by only offering small size fries with every meal. It is unclear what exactly has caused the shortage. Maybe it's high customer demand or just a shortage of raw materials. But for a country like Japan, they're taking it pretty seriously. Meanwhile, my homeland of 'Murica appears to still have plenty of ingredients for our McDonald's restaurants, to the relief of our fast food-obsessed population.

Where are all the Christmas lights?

Every year during the Christmas season, one of the things I enjoy seeing is all of the beautifully decorated houses with their bright, shiny, colorful lights. But this year I haven't seen as many houses with lights. Either they're waiting until a few days before Christmas day or they just decided to be less decorative this year. Most years, we're usually more modest with our decorations than a lot of our neighbors, but this year you could say we're the one's who are going all out. I do think we have slightly more of our lights inside, on the railings and our Christmas tree, than outside. Lately we've only had outside lights on our porch and around the door, and not at the top of our house all the way across the roof. But the point is, the holiday feeling just isn't complete with every house decked out in lights to some extent.

Real Racing 3 produces strange error code

The mobile game Real Racing 3 has generated a strange series of false suspensions that is apparently the result of a recent update that introduced three special Ferrari series to the game. The error code was given as 10049, which is not mentioned in game distributor Firemonkeys' page with information about RR3 suspensions. The game can suspend users for misusing game currency and cheating, playing unfairly or otherwise tampering with the game, but these suspensions are almost certainly the result of an error that many players are begging to see fixed, or else they'll be wrongly suspended for a week. Hopefully whoever is in charge of these aspects of the game are sorting it out.

Update, 12/15: All suspensions have been lifted.

A historic date

Today is December 13, 2014 or 12-13-14, a rare sequential date on the calendar. It will be the last date of its kind for 89 years, until 2103. Most of us will probably be dead by then.

Making a pizza

My mom and I made a pizza today as part of all of our baking. We used a special kind of pizza dough and a pizza stone. The pizza was half cheese and half mushroom. Previously, I had made two smaller pizzas on my own, but this was like a "real" pizza. Also, back in January I was just making pizza bagels so it's nice that I'm finally making actual pizzas. This pizza was mostly good but could have used a little more work.

 Our dough rolling system, with flour all over it

 The rolled-out pizza dough.

 Fresh basil

 Sauce with Italian seasoning (in a liquid measuring cup)

 Putting on the cheese.

 Preparing to cook the pizza.

A finished slice of mushroom pizza.

Birthday and Christmas baking

I helped my mom with some baking today (on top of some other chores, making for a busy afternoon/early evening). My mom was making a chocolate birthday cake for her guy friend's birthday tomorrow (Saturday). We're going to have a little party and eat shrimp (which we do for almost every birthday and holiday) and a bunch of other junk.

While my mom was making the cake behind my back, she was also helping me make pumpkin loaves. I believe I used the same or almost the same recipe that is used for pumpkin roll, one of my favorite desserts ever, because of the cream cheese filling. In fact, this is what I thought we were making at first, but then my mom put the batter into six small loaf pans to make quick bread-type things. But I still got my annual pumpkin roll a couple of weeks ago during Thanksgiving week at my dad's house.

Along with the pumpkin loaves and birthday cake, my mom and I also made a homemade pizza, which I am covering in a separate post because it was a process in itself.

Pumpkin loves on cooling rack

The unfrosted chocolate cake

this stuff is awesome lol

Christmas treats

One of my favorite things of any holiday is the junk food. But that especially goes for Christmas. There's the candy canes and chocolate Santas and cookies and cakes and even Christmas-themed donuts. So it's no surprise that I like to stuff myself during the holidays. Just today I bought a box of rainbow cherry-flavored candy canes (my favorite) and a caramel-filled chocolate Santa Claus (I had a marshmallow-filled one last week).

Is Vine the new Instagram?

Vine is a social media site that displays short videos uploaded by users that play in endless loops. Like other social media sites these days, it allows users to add hashtags, continuing the trend Twitter started, and has endless scrolling, a simple like/favorite system and other generic stuff. But Vine is especially similar to Instagram, which is essentially the special effects still photo counterpart, and which established itself before Vine. Both websites have the same basic layout, which is a series of posts stacked alongside each other, which descriptions and hashtags below them. Vine's popularity is growing, though, and it could be soon regarded as "the next Instagram." But Instagram isn't going to fade anytime soon, so it looks like for now Vine will have to settle as second to Instagram.

More proof my laptop and Sony Vegas hate me

My laptop has seriously been annoying me for the past few months, and the broken keyboard is the latest thing. Now Sony Vegas has been crashing my laptop while I'm trying to render videos. I've had this issue before but usually it fixes itself after I restart my laptop. But I guess this time was a little different.

I was making a NASCAR video for my second channel with several video clips and it was 21 minutes long. I knew it would take a few hours to render, especially in HD. But I was not expecting my laptop to crash mid-render. When that happened, I decided to try a lower resolution, but that time it crashed my laptop a little further into the rendering. Then I resolved to split the video into two parts and place the second half into another project window. The first half rendered in 1080p high definition with no problems. But when the second half was rendering my laptop crashed again, so I had to split that part in half too. Finally, I was able to render those two project files without issue. I then combined all three parts in Windows Movie Maker and uploaded it to YouTube.

I'm pretty sure most of the issues on my laptop are my fault for screwing around so much. The funny thing is, this latest set of problems weren't present before I broke my laptop's keyboard while trying to fix two non-functional keys, causing me to break out an old desktop keyboard which I am typing this on. I had to do some disk checks and two startup repairs right after that happened but now I at least have a functional keyboard. But I don't think a broken keyboard is supposed to cause a video editor to crash your laptop. Who knows what's really going on, though?

AFC North race a virtual dead heat

The four teams in the AFC North of the NFL all have almost identical records after Week 14 of the season, making for a close race to the playoffs in the division. The Cincinnati Bengals just barely sit on top of the division at 8-4-1. while the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens are both at 8-5 after winning and the Cleveland Browns are at 7-6, having lost two straight. As of now, the Bengals appear to be favored to win another division title, but any of these teams could still pull off a playoff berth at this point. On a side note, my Washington Redskins continue their slump with a 24-0 loss to the St. Louis Rams, who also shut out the Oakland Raiders 52-0 last week.

I-95 Baltimore express lanes finally open

 The express toll lanes on Interstate 95 north of Baltimore, Maryland, part of what I call my "home stretch" of that highway, have finally opened to traffic after many years of planning and construction. The lanes will be free to drivers for a week, and I wonder if I can find a way to sneak a test drive onto them this week before they start charging. But after the free trial, it will still only cost $1.75 one-way for most vehicles, much less than other current tolls around here.

The express lanes are located along about eight miles of I-95 and the north end of I-895 from the Moravia Road interchanges in east Baltimore to just north of the Maryland Route 43 exit at White Marsh. There are rumors that someday they will be extended into my home turf of Harford County, which would tie in with a proposed widening of I-95 to four lanes from Maryland Route 24 in Harford to the Delaware state line.

I first heard about the express toll lanes project around April of 2006, when I started seeing signs about it along I-95 north of White Marsh. In 2007 construction started on the project, which involved the construction of a third carriageway, and around 2011 traffic from whatever direction was moved to that carriageway. The old carriageway was then turned into the express lanes, but it took a while to do the work on them. Finally, they have been cleared to open. In the meantime, other construction projects in the region have been carried out, such as the Intercounty Connector in Montgomery and Prince Goerge's counties, and the extension of the I-95 Virginia HOV lanes into Stafford County. But this is the one project I'm glad to see done after years of simply hearing about it.

My fall semester went by fast

In my fall semester of my sophomore year of college, I have taken an art class, which was "Fundamentals of 2-D Design." We have done a variety of art projects like drawings, paintings and collages, as well as some notes and paragraphs. I only had it once a week for four hours, and I think that's the reason it feels like the semester flew by. My first class was back on September 4, and our very first assignment was a line variation worksheet where we had to use just four lines for each example. I've had a really fun time learning new things about both traditional and digital art. I even used a Mac computer for the first time and also learned and used Photoshop. Next semester one of the classes I'm taking is a digital media class, which I'm looking forward to since I like uploading stuff onto DeviantArt from Paint and Paint.NET, which I could use some work on.

Arena sports have some surprisingly good teams right now

The two major arena sports, the NBA (basketball) and NHL (hockey) both have some interesting teams at the top of the standings right now. The Toronto Raptors of the NBA are the best in their league right now, alongside teams like the Washington Wizards.

2014 Atlantic hurricane season proves mostly quiet

The Atlantic hurricane season officially ended on Sunday, although there is still a small possibility for one more named storm to develop in the last month of the year. But that is highly unlikely with the below-average activity that has occurred in the Atlantic basin this year. During the official hurricane season, June 1 to November 30, just eight named storms developed in the basin, the last of which, Hanna, dissipated more than a month ago. Only one storm had a big impact, and that was category 4 Hurricane Gonzalo, which struck Bermuda in October. Also, minor Hurricane Arthur impacted the Outer Banks of North Carolina in early July, although there was no major damage. Most of the Atlantic storms this year followed a north-to-east path up the Atlantic Ocean parallel to the U.S. east coast. Two storms, Dolly and Hanna, formed in the Gulf of Mexico and brought rain to Mexico and Central America.

Last year, the Atlantic had a just about average hurricane season. The three seasons before that were all very active, with eighteen tropical storms each and powerful storms such as Igor, Irene and Sandy. The similarly below-average 2006 and 2009 seasons could be comparable to this year.

Several close games, one blowout in NFL week 13

It was an eventful, action-packed week 13 for the National Football League. Three of Sunday's games were decided by just one point. The San Diego Chargers squeezed past the Baltimore Ravens 34-33 late in the fourth quarter, while the Cincinnati Bengals edged the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 14-13, and the Jacksonville Jaguars upset the New York Giants 25-24. Meanwhile, the St. Louis Rams routed the Oakland Raiders 52-0 in a highly anticipated home game. Oddly enough, the Rams and Raiders are both rumored to be headed back to their former home of Los Angeles as soon as next year, adding another twist to that game. Before the games started on Sunday, some people were quoted as saying "the playoff might as well start right now," and with the way things turned out they just might be right.

My laptop's keyboard broke

About two months ago, I spilled some soda (root beer) on my laptop's keyboard. It's not exactly a "true" keyboard because the keys are all placed individually along the bottom half of the laptop and separated by a slab of plastic, on which the power button and speakers are also located (the touchpad and some stickers are on a separate slab). Plus the keys are really thin, so it's not as easy to pull apart and fix individual keys.

So a few hours after the soda incident my N key stopped working. I opened the on-screen keyboard so I could click on the N key in there. Then the next day my C key stopped working (soda probably reached it) so I had to use the on-screen keyboard for that key too. Strangely my V and B keys worked the whole time. But it was a little annoying having to click on two letters whose keys were broken.

Now the rest of my keyboard, except for a couple of keys are non-functional as well. I was trying to do repairs on the C and N keys but somehow I ended up breaking the rest of the keyboard. I'm looking for any possible solutions, like new drivers, but until then I pulled out an old Dell media center desktop keyboard and plugged it into one of the USB ports on my laptop. It's mostly solved the problem, but it's occasionally refused to work as well. That's why I've had to keep the on-screen keyboard open even though the C and N keys on this keyboard work fine. But maybe I should have just let the keys on my laptop stay broken? :(

Too much blogging?

I think I might have too much to blog about lately. I have two blogs here on Blogger with almost 300 combined posts, and sometimes while typing a post I get distracted. It therefore takes me a really long time to finish some posts because I get caught up in other things. With some posts, I post the title with a blank page and then take my time doing the actual post. Maybe this is a sign that I don't need to update my blog literally every day with filler stuff, and only focus on the really important things.

A good Thanksgiving

Today I celebrated Thanksgiving with family and friends. We partook in the usual turkey dinner, Macy's Day Parade, that National Dog Show thing after the parade and a little football. There was a twist to our Thanksgiving this year because there was snow on the ground. I don't ever remember seeing a white Thanksgiving firsthand before. Luckily the roads weren't bad at all. I guess one thing I have to be thankful for is that I got from my mom's to my dad's house yesterday safely despite the snow. There are a bunch of other things I can't think of off the top of my head.

Our dinner, besides the turkey, consisted of mashed potatoes, stuffing, broccoli, corn, mashed butternut squash, cranberry sauce and rolls, plus cheesecake and pumpkin pie for dessert. We also had a variety of appetizers out beforehand. Like always, I took some pictures to mark the occasion.

Thundersnow and first time driving in snow

The forecasts all week were right. Today much of the east coast, including my home state of Maryland, got a rare November snowfall. It was unfortunately timed to run alongside one of the busiest travel days of the year. Fortunately, the roads weren't too bad during most of the day. I was driving to my dad's house because I go there for Thanksgiving in even years. It was my very first time behind the wheel during snow and I did very well, since I was cautious and the roads weren't slippery at all. Also, at about 11:30 this morning there was a rumble of thunder. Yes, we had thundersnow in the Baltimore area. It was also heard in southern Pennsylvania, around the York/Lancaster area. This is why it will be another snowstorm to remember for years to come.

Here's a radar image from about the moment the thundersnow occurred, if anyone's interested. It looks like rain on this radar because it uses the same color scheme for both rain and snow., something that even confused me at first. Also, the source I got this from, an Iowa-based organization, has the time in Central time, which is one hour behind me.

Pictures from my camera:

A white Thanksgiving is coming

Something we don't usually see here is coming - snow on Thanksgiving. The forecast keeps changing and right now they're calling for less snow that originally predicted, but regardless it's still going to be a unique weather event. I just hope this goes smoothly and that I'll be able to go to my dad's house tomorrow for Thanksgiving day. I have a picture of one of the latest forecasts below, which is mainly focused on the greater Washington, DC area but applies here too.

The bliss of multiple Thanksgiving meals

One of the good parts of having divorced parents is two of everything, including Thanksgivings. This year, I am to go to my dad's house for Thanksgiving, since it's an even year. That means last night we had an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house, since it was the closest possible day to actual Thanksgiving that we were able to do it with her. Today at the store where my mom and I work, they had a potluck lunch and she brought the sweet potatoes with the mini marshmallows on top. But I was off today, meaning I missed it, and the only reason I knew about it is because yesterday someone told me to remind her to bring the sweet potatoes. Then when I got home she was making them as well as the turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and cranberry sauce we had for dinner.

Trademark infringement?

At the grocery store where I work, I recently discovered a very interesting coincidence between the names of two completely different products. Kellogg's has a chocolate cereal called Krave that has been out for a few years now. But last week, I found out that there is now a brand of gourmet beef jerky that is also called Krave, spelled the same but in a different typeface. I've heard all about lawsuits for trademark and copyright infringements, and it makes me wonder if something like that could ever happen with the two Kraves. The cereal as far as I know came first, so it would be easy to get mad at the makers of the beef jerky for "copying" the name of the cereal. But more than likely it's a complete coincidence. Still, I can't help but be a little confused at these two different foods bearing the same brand name - it's mind-boggling.

Snow-stricken Buffalo area now facing flood threat

Just a couple of days after several feet of lake-effect snow crippled the Buffalo, New York area and left people stranded, the area could now get heavy rain that would wash out large amounts of snow and cause flooding. The snow earlier this week was part of a stationary front that moved off Lake Erie and then stalled over the southern suburbs of Buffalo. This allowed foot after foot of snow to pile up in the region and create a snow emergency. The Buffalo Bills' stadium in Orchard Park is filled with snow, and since the stadium isn't as well-equipped as ones in other NFL cities like Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Bills' game against their division rivals the New York Jets has been moved to the Detroit Lions' stadium in Pontiac, Michigan.


Now, people in western New York are bracing for potential flooding, which is bad enough when there's nothing on the ground. But heavy rain with multiple feet of snow on the ground could create a second weather disaster for the area already hard-hit by winter weather. Preparations for the rain are being made in advance, but residents are still dealing with the aftermath of the snow, and it could be a while before they're back to "normal weather" mode.

I get paid double this week

On Friday when I called for my work schedule, they told me I was working on Sunday (this past Sunday) and also this coming Saturday. Lately I've almost always worked only Sundays. Now that I work Saturday also, it means I get paid more, which means I'll have more money to blow off on junk that I don't need. But most of it always goes in my savings and I stopped using my debit card a while back (hope to use it again for online stuff) and I pay my mom ten dollars for gas every week so that leaves me with about 15 dollars to throw away, or 30 if I can cash double this week. But any way I look at it, a double paycheck in my circumstances is better even if I have to do twice the work for it.

A sudden burst of creativity

In the past few months I got into a pattern where I would only upload a handful of videos to YouTube or just a few photos to Flickr or a couple of posts on this blog every week. This was probably because I was busy with other things like school or work. But suddenly I've found a lot of things to take pictures and videos of and blog about, and I've found myself uploading multiple videos per day on YouTube like I did in 2012 and 2013, a trend that started during Christmas break in 2011. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, my photography will only increase more. I also took several pictures of CD cases and uploaded them, which is something music lovers like to do. In addition to that, I uploaded two pictures onto DeviantArt on the same day for the first time. Now I'm incredibly busy as I rush to post stuff on the internet, and on top of all of that I'm still in college. I guess this is what it's like to have a busy life, albeit not a real busy life.

19 and a half

Today, I am officially 19 and a half years old. Which means that in six months, I'll be 20 and will have experienced two full decades on this planet. That's hard for me to grasp, but at the same time I'm excited that I'm getting closer to my twenties and getting more and more life experience. By then I'll also be finishing up my second year of college, and maybe transferring to a bigger campus. I still feel like I'm barely out of high school, which I am compared to people much older than me. But I'll save all of that for my next birthday post in May. Right now I have a half birthday to "celebrate," by doing what I usually do on my off days - posting to social media and finishing up schoolwork.

The NASCAR season is over

Today marked the end of another season in NASCAR, one of my favorite sports. Every year, the "top three" series - trucks, minor league Xfinity Series and top-level Sprint Cup Series - gather in Homestead, Florida for a race weekend to decide the champions of each series. Today was the Sprint Cup finale, and that means I get a much-needed break from NASCAR for a couple of months. It means I can get other, more productive things done instead of watching cars drive in circles for three hours. But of course, the NASCAR fan in me can't wait for the Daytona 500 in February.


I have a separate blog here on Blogger for NASCAR stuff that I launched in June so I could concentrate on other things on this, my main blog. It's an unofficial fan-written news, rumors and general discussion blog, that fan being me. The link to "The Epzik8 NASCAR Blog" is here: epzik8nascar.blogspot.com.

Real Racing 3 rolls out more car and series updates

Mobile game Real Racing 3 has unveiled its latest updates to the game. These updates include a new bonus series called Marquis World Championship, in which the player goes through a series of stages to win a free Maserati without paying any money or gold. Some other Maserati models are among the new vehicles available for purchase in regular series, some of which have also been expanded with new stages, including a luxury vehicle stage with Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Maserati models. The update also brings a return of the option to watch short ads for free gold. Finally, the main menu screens have one again undergone some small tweaks. The update has already been out for about a week.

Another brutal winter?

A few days ago a polar vortex invaded the Great Plains and Great Lakes regions, dumping multiple feet of snow onto Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. There were also below average temperatures along much of the Rocky Mountains and down into the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. Now, another cold snap has struck the east coast and parts of the Gulf Coast. Of course, most of Florida and south Texas continue to enjoy fairly warm temperatures.


Here in Maryland, the temperature got down to about 35 degrees, which isn't really that cold except that last weekend it hit 66 degrees, an unseasonably warm temperature here for November. And along with the cold we even got a little snow here this evening, although I don't think it was measurable. It didn't stick to the roads and what little reached the ground probably melted already. There is a threat of some spots icing over tonight, but that should melt too since it will be mostly sunny tomorrow.


Whether or not this was legitimately our first snow of the year, it came almost a month before our first snowstorm of last year, on December 8. But that was a classic snow event with several inches on the ground and the roads completely covered. Still, this could be a lead-in to another very cold, very snowy winter. Our last snow of 2013-14 came on March 25, tying with 2012-13, and it was the last in a long line of snowstorms and ice storms that rivaled our three blizzards of the winter of 2009-10. So will the winter of 2014-15 be another historic one? Many weather sources are suggesting it, but chances are this was just a fluke autumn snow.

I am so lazy

Since I'm in that college art class, I should be concentrating on my assignments and notes for class instead of goofing off. But I just have to procrastinate and wait until the day before it's due to work on them. I have four hours of class once a week, which gives me plenty of time to spread out my work throughout the week and do it a little at a time. That way, it really looks like my best work. Instead, I mess around on my laptop and iPod Touch until I realize my assignment is due in a couple of days. This week I had two journal entries to post online, but I waited until today to do all of the reading (36 pages total, but some pictures) and then write about the important parts of the reading and any questions I had. Luckily, I did a lot of my Photoshop project that's due tomorrow in class last week, so I could take my time finishing that up on my laptop. I suppose I could have done better on it, but it was my very first time using Photoshop. I finished it on Paint.NET because I don't have Photoshop on my laptop. But if I could start my online notes in class too, that would be great with my laziness.

Pizza escapade

I decided to try my hand again today at homemade pizza. On my first attempt a few days ago, I didn't make the dough properly and just cooked it in my toaster oven, plus it was really small because I didn't make much dough. This time I made it much bigger, used more ingredients and did it in the conventional oven. It came out much better than the first one.

First I set the oven to 450 degrees. Then I mixed some flour and warm water in a bowl, added a bit of sugar, baking powder and salt, and substituted olive oil with a mixture of canola oil and melted butter. I added additional flour a number of times before I was satisfied with the dough mixture. When the dough was made I buttered a baking sheet and put the dough on it and rolled it into a circle. I was trying to produce a thin crust like the pizzas at Pizza Hut, which is my favorite pizza of any kind, restaurant or homemade.

It was time to put the toppings on so I got some tomato sauce and put several spoonfuls onto the dough and spread the sauce around the dough. Next I added a bunch of seasonings onto the sauce: Italian seasoning, sage, parsley and paprika. For the cheese I took out a block of mozzarella and grated some of it right on top of the sauce, and added more Italian seasoning and sage on top of the cheese. Finally I sliced two mushrooms (my favorite pizza topping) and put them onto the pizza. The first time, I only had a green bell pepper. With the pizza all assembled, I put it into the oven and went to do other things.

I came back less than 20 minutes later and it was already just about done. The edge of the pizza was brown but not burnt. The cheese was fully melted and bubbling, and the mushrooms and seasonings were sticking to the cheese. So I took the pizza out of the oven and put it onto a cutting board. I then cut myself a slice and took a bite. I liked it but the only thing that bothered me was the dough was a bit soft and the sauce a little thin. So maybe it wasn't cooked all the way in the center but the rest of it was perfect. Therefore, I called my first big pizza a success, although I could use more work in the future.

Blogger's block (is that a thing?)

I've imposed some rules on my blogging that involves me posting almost every day. I don't want to make it seem like I've given up on this blog by not posting for weeks, like I did earlier this year on my Tumblr page. But I often run out of ideas, and tonight is one of those moments. There was nothing in my life that I felt worthy of blogging about today, and now that it's almost midnight I have to settle with this as my almost-daily post. I could have just not posted but I feel like I'm on a roll right now and figured I should just do this post. Hopefully this is a good interlude and I'll have some new ideas tomorrow.

Weather system to bring snow to upper midwest

A polar vortex is forecast to bring below-average cold temperatures to much of the country's middle third, as far south as the Texas panhandle. Wind chills could be as low as -10 or lower in the Dakotas. The system is also expected to bring several inches of snow from Idaho to Michigan, with most precipitation centered around the Twin Cities of Minnesota. The Weather Channel, keeping up with a system they started a couple of years ago, has accordingly named this storm "Astro." It will not be referred to as such in official reports. Snow events in November, in the middle of autumn, are somewhat rare, but in this case the conditions and geography are perfect for winter precipitation.

I hate math class

I do not like math. Unfortunately, it's one of the "basic classes" that's required for just about every college major, even ones that involve barely any math. My current major, graphic design, is one of those, because it's an art major. But my mom asked me if I was going to re-take math in the spring semester, so I looked at the recommended course sheet for the graphic design major and it did say "mathematics elective". Since I thought I wouldn't have to deal with math again, I'm now re-thinking my class choices for spring.


I've struggled with math during much of my life, although I have had some bright moments, especially in middle school and parts of high school. When I first enrolled in college last year, just before I graduated from high school, I went to a meeting to sign up for classes, and since my major at the time was undecided I initially signed up for just English and a pre-algebra class, since English and math are the two most important classes for college students. My choice for math was actually based on a pre-enrollment test I took at my high school with classmates. After a couple of months I decided on a business major and added macroeconomics and introduction to business to my schedule. Then I replaced business with human geography so I could have Tuesdays and Thursdays off from school.


My math for the first semester was actually two separate classes that were half a semester long, meaning our final for the first class was at the same time as midterms in other classes. I started the first class okay, but then started to struggle and also forgot to take the midterm (we had to go take it on our own time). As a result, I automatically failed the first class, which meant I would have to take it again during the second half of the semester. I was able to enroll in an evening session of the first class so I could still take the second class at the same time, but the evening class ended up being canceled due to low enrollment and I had to drop the second class as well. I was then unwilling to re-take math in the spring and fall semesters this year, and it looks like I'll have to give in and take it along with my next art class in next year's spring semester. After all, I probably will have to use math for something if I have a career in some art field.

The strange power of social media

It's amazing how social media and the internet in general can make someone or something famous for practically nothing, such as the "Alex from Target" craze that started last weekend. All someone has to do is make a post, usually in the form of a picture, to Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or any other popular social media site, and if enough people share it to their friends, the subject of that post is suddenly famous all over the world as a viral sensation. Sometimes, as with Alex from Target, it even evolves into a meme with people making their own versions of it, or just making fun of it, and it's not long before the whole thing gets "old" or "boring" and the search for the next viral hit begins. But this "famous for nothing" phenomenon is one of the biggest influences brought on by online social media in recent years.

A Windows user tries out a Mac

This morning in my college art class, we got to start our latest projects that involves use of Photoshop. This is our first computer project; all our other ones have been hand-drawn or cut out. We went to what they call the Mac Lab because it has Macintosh computers. This was a new experience for me because I have used Windows computers my whole life and I don't know much about Macs.


We went into the Mac Lab and sat down at the computers, which had huge flatscreen monitors and a small CPU with no buttons known as the Mac Mini. I took notice of the famous white and grey Apple keyboards with that little green light on the caps lock button. Some of the words on the keys were different ("return" on the middle-row enter key and "delete" in place of backspace, and the "command" key is in about the same spot as the Windows logo key on Windows computers). The mouse, which plugged into the keyboard via a USB port, had a very small wheel that appears to have a reverse configuration of Windows-made mice. I had no trouble logging on because the college's computer network goes through every single computer, even the majority that have Windows.


Once I logged on I clicked the Google Chrome icon in the bottom area that has the icons of various programs. Files and folders on Macs are still placed on the desktop. I did my research and chose a photo to transfer into Photoshop to edit. But I didn't know how to get it onto the computer from Google Images. There are no Windows-style right-click menus on Macs. I tried moving the cursor over the picture and pressing Command+C to copy it, then Command+V in Photoshop to paste it, but that didn't work. I tried to put the image in full screen in Chrome and drag it into Photoshop, but it would only let me drag it onto the bookmarks bar and tabs bar. Then I wondered if I could drag the image from Chrome to the desktop and that worked. I then dragged the image from the desktop to Photoshop and began editing.


I left Chrome running while I used Photoshop, and I was having some trouble with some of the editing functions in Photoshop. I looked up what I was trying to do on Google and I tried to do it in Photoshop, but I didn't see the file/edit/etc. toolbar like it said on the website I went on. Since I know all about that in Windows I thought maybe that was only a Windows thing and Macs didn't have it. Then I realized that the file/edit/whatever bar I was looking for was the same bar on top of the desktop that contains the clock and everything, and the options changed for each program, rather than each program containing it individually like in Windows. So I closed Chrome and the text next to the Apple logo (log off/sleep and other general options) changed from "Chrome" to "Photoshop". Then I clicked "Edit" and was able to make my desired edits (although not without getting the "spinning wait cursor", an indication of a program or system hang, a couple of times). I then learned that the red, yellow and green dots on the top left of each window were the Mac equivalent of Windows' close, maximize and minimize buttons. Finally, I saved my picture in Photoshop and put it in a draft in my email.


Using a Mac computer for the first time as a Windows user was definitely a learning experience. It helped me soften my views on Macs, as I previously thought they were bad compared to Windows. But I have come to realize that many of their features are the same as Windows, and I really enjoyed using an operating system that was new to me. But I plan to stick with mainly using Windows, although I'm open to continuing using Macs for certain things every once in a while.

Letting my voice be heard

Yesterday I voted for the first time in a real election. I registered to vote last year and I was finally able to use my right to vote and let it be known which candidates I supported for each office. Like most states, I got to vote for a governor (my state, Maryland, was getting a new governor no matter what) as well as a county executive, state senators and representatives, county councilman and other offices. There were also some questions about amendments to the state constitution. I was most concerned about the gubernatorial race, and even though my candidate didn't win, I still feel proud that I was finally able to have a say in a state election and that all of my votes count for something. And even though I may not agree with some political views, I should still respect them and those who support them.

YouTube likes giving me a hard time

It doesn't look like I'll be running out of complaints about YouTube soon. I still like it even after all of that new channel and new comments system and Google+ controversy, and in fact I like it much better than when I first started watching videos on it way back in the 2006-07 era. But for about the past two years they've made so many changes to their layout. I've also encountered a lot of errors on YouTube during that time, no matter which browser I access it on.


Just yesterday I was trying to upload a video to my second channel, but I kept getting an error message saying "this upload has failed." I tried again today and it worked. I had an error like that on my second channel a few months ago when I was trying to upload a video late at night. Then there are the interruptions I sometimes get while watching videos (probably a slow connection), and last month the page would hang when I tried to post a comment on a video, as well as when I tried to open my Google+ inbox. I think that was a problem on the part of Google+. But even though some of this is due to Google connecting YouTube to Google+, I still have nothing against YouTube, it's just that sometimes it really frustrates me with their bugs and layout changes.

"Falling back" means more darkness

We turned out clock an hour back last night for daylight saving time. Now sunset will be an hour earlier as we continue through autumn and head toward winter. Where I live, sunset now is at about 5:00 due to the time change. That's one of my favorite things about this time of the year - it feels like 10 pm when it's only 6:30. Some people think we don't need daylight saving time anymore, but I personally think it's a nice tradition. Only at the beginning of November do we have a day that's 25 hours long. Of course, Arizona and Hawaii never reset their clocks twice a year like the other 48 states, so opponents of daylight saving time could be happy to live there. But like I said, I'm all for keeping it.

Looking back on a memorable World Series

The 2014 World Series will surely be remembered for years to come. It featured the Kansas City Royals appearing in their first Series in 29 years after defeating the Oakland Athletics and the Baltimore Orioles, and the San Francisco Giants in their third Series in five seasons following wins over the Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals. The Royals and Giants traded the series lead, and the Royals' 10-0 Game 6 win forced a Game 7, which the Giants ultimately won to end the Royals' otherwise magnificent season. It was one of the most competitive series in recent years, and even the parade in San Francisco on Friday was memorable in itself. So there was little to be disappointed about in this World Series.

Halloween

To me, Halloween is mostly just candy and pumpkins. And that's what it's been like this year. In fact, stores were selling Halloween stuff at the end of August, two months in advance. Now that stuff will be replaced by Christmas stuff. In the days leading up to Halloween, I ate some candy corn, a caramel pumpkin and Halloween Tic Tacs as well as some homemade Halloween cookies.

This evening I was supposed to go to a Halloween party about 20 miles from my house, but this morning it was canceled for unknown reasons. That was a bummer because I was going to eat even more junk and take pictures for this blog post and Flickr. But this meant I could relax at home. I got to listen to trick-or-treaters come and go, and eat some candy out of the bowl that my mom was giving to kids from. We had a lot of leftover candy, as we do every year. That enabled me to continue the sugar rush I started the day before. Yesterday and today I ate some Skittles, Starburst, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Kit Kats and Snickers. I'll admit that the candy is why Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year. But that's not to say that I don't like the pumpkins and ghosts and all of that stuff.

This year we just set out some smaller pumpkins on the porch instead of carving and lighting one or two bigger ones.

I went through two big bags of candy corn in three days.

This is supposed to be a ghost hanging from above the porch but it looks more like some sort of angel.

On my latest pack of Starbursts I decided to eat one flavor at a time. These are the lemon and orange Starbursts after I had eaten the strawberry and cherry ones.

My mom was giving out chocolate candies like Milky Ways and 3 Musketeers. These were among the leftovers.

Weather radar picks up Wallops Island rocket explosion

The explosion of the Antares rocket seconds after takeoff from the Wallops Island base on Virginia's eastern shore was strong enough to show up on several weather radars centered on the area. A series of radar images from Tuesday evening shows what looks like a thunderstorm, but is actually a plume of smoke moving northeast toward Maryland and over the Atlantic Ocean. Some weather radars can pick up things other than precipitation through the use of dual-polarization, which sends out both a signal for precipitation and one for non-precipitation, and this was the case with the Wallops Island radar site.

NFL showcases classic rivalry on Monday night

This week's edition of Monday Night Football featured one of the National Football League's best-known rivalries, that of the Dallas Cowboys and my favorite team, the Washington Redskins. It was the first of their two annual meetings and was played in Dallas, meaning their second game against each other this season will be in Washington.

The Cowboys and Redskins traded the lead throughout the game, whose highlight was arguably a touchdown by Washington's Colt McCoy, who passed for a total of 299 yards. and the fourth quarter ended in a 17-17 tie. Washington then took a 20-17 lead with 9:43 left in overtime courtesy of a field goal by Kai Forbath, and Dallas's final possession yielded nothing special, clinching the win for Washington. Ater the game, McCoy was denied an interview by an agent, who remarked "no means no", and also tried to high-five coach Jay Gruden but ended up just hugging him.

This game didn't change things much. Dallas still leads the NFC East division, and Robert Griffin III of Washington is still out with an injury that he got during Week 2 against the Jacksonville Jaguars. But I'm just glad that the Redskins defeated their biggest rival in that team's stadium on a Monday night in a nationally televised game. It's not often that I'm happy about a football game.

I'm increasing my social media presence

I used to shy away from major social media sites, and for a few years all I really cared about as far as top websites was YouTube. Then in the fall of 2012, I joined Tumblr and Twitter. This was followed by Flickr the following April and Pinterest in May. I made this blog last July and my NASCAR blog this June. And this month I've started to go all out.

A few days ago I uploaded three pictures to my Instagram account that I made in March; in the past I've done just one picture per day. I've also started posting regularly on Facebook, which I first joined in 2010 with an alternate email address, then re-registered with my primary email, but never used until just recently. I also took a hiatus from Tumblr to concentrate on my two Blogger blogs but today I went back there as well. And I do the occasional Google+ posts, mainly pictures for Google Maps and sometimes my Blogger posts. I also started posting to my second YouTube channel in May, although I created it last fall, but didn't have any use for it at first. I guess it would be good if I got out this much in real life.

It feels like autumn

The Northern Hemisphere is one month into the season of autumn and it is truly in full swing here in Maryland. A couple of weeks ago there were a few remnants of summer left. Now we're in classic fall mode with leaves changing color and falling, days getting shorter, temperatures no higher than 55 degrees and Halloween and Thanksgiving stuff along with "fall-flavored" foods and drinks like pumpkin spice in stores. Some people say that autumn is that slow downward spiral from the joy of summer to the bitter cold of winter, and that is pretty much true. But it's also a season in its own right with things that make it special, like the aforementioned Halloween and Thanksgiving and colorful leaves.

It should be noted that at this time last year, some major stores were already selling Christmas stuff (I even saw one store start in late September), and this year I've noticed that the Halloween stuff is already starting to go away and get replaced by Thanksgiving items, despite there still being just over a week before Halloween. Or maybe everyone just decided to get their Halloween stuff early so they didn't miss out on anything good. But I don't think that takes away from the charm of autumn.

Ketchapp setting a new mobile game standard?

Ketchapp is a developer of mobile games best known for acquiring the popular game 2048, which was first released back in March. Their other titles include Don't Step on the White Tile, Swipe the Arrows and Stay in the Line, among other puzzle-challenge games, which are known to produce a "can't stop playing" mentality in players. The popularity of Ketchapp's games on mobile devices from top companies like Apple and Samsung have led to other game developers making their own versions of these games. This is why it's probably safe to say that Ketchapp is setting a new industry standard in mobile gaming with their unique brand of apps.

Fruit Ninja gets a Halloween makeover

Fruit Ninja has a completely new look for Halloween inspired by the 1984 hit film Ghostbusters, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. This version of Fruit Ninja has a predominantly green, purple and blue color scheme. It also has a modified points and rewards system, and additional screens for each mode (Classic, Arcade and Zen) providing game tips. There is also a new bonus in the form of a proton pack which, when sliced, spews out a pile of fruit. You can also cross knife streams to allow fruit to "explode" without having to slice them. This update is built on the rollout of version 2.0 of the game earlier this month. Although it looks dramatically different, this is still the same Fruit Ninja we know and love, but possibly even better.

Bermuda, Hawaii facing tropical threats

Major islands in both the Atlantic and central Pacific basins are in the potential path of tropical cyclones. In the Atlantic currently is major Hurricane Gonzalo, the strongest in that basin since Hurricane Ophelia three years ago. Gonzalo is on a path parallel to the U.S. East Coast, the same as every other named storm thus far in the basin this year except Dolly, a short-lived Gulf of Mexico storm. However, unlike the other storms, Gonzalo is threatening to directly hit the island of Bermuda possibly as a category 4 storm. The last hurricane to affect Bermuda was one-time category 5 storm Igor in 2010. The island is under a hurricane warning and Gonzalo is being taken as a serious threat there.

In the Pacific is Tropical Storm Ana, so named because it formed in the ocean's central basin, as opposed to the eastern basin. Like the eastern-central crossover storms Iselle and Julio in August, Ana is eyeing the Hawaiian Islands, although at this time it is expected to bypass the Big Island and have a greater effect on the western islands. Possibly as an act of preparation, a state of emergency has been declared in the state of Hawaii.

Peak tropical cyclone activity in these regions of the world usually occur during the month of September, although two landfalling storms in different basins is still entirely possible in October. While the eastern Pacific peaked in tropical cyclone formation to an extent last month, the Atlantic was surprisingly quiet at that time, presumably because conditions in that basin have "calmed down" after three straight above-average seasons followed by an average one.

So much for that Baltimore-Washington World Series

The wishes of some baseball fans in the Baltimore-Washington area to see an Orioles-Nationals World Series this year are over. The Nationals, the team I root for despite living closer to Baltimore, were eliminated last week in a National League Divisional Series loss to the San Francisco Giants, three games to one. The Orioles, after sweeping the Detroit Tigers in the American League Divisional Series, found themselves in the exact opposite position in the American League Championship Series against the Kansas City Royals. The Royals completed their sweep of the Orioles in Kansas City on Wednesday to win the American League pennant.

The Nationals and Orioles both won their respective divisions (NL East and AL East) this year. Both teams also went to the playoffs in 2012, when the Nationals also won their division, but the Orioles got in on a wild card berth. Both teams were ultimately eliminated after the divisional round. This time, even though the O's and Nats were both division champions, the hopes of a World Series featuring the two teams was probably just wishful thinking by fans whose expectations were too high. But the 2014 MLB postseason is still one to remember for Baltimore and D.C. fans, because it's not often that both of these cities have teams make the playoffs and win their divisions in the same year.

The original Charlotte Hornets are back

The NBA's Charlotte Bobcats, established in 2004, changed their name this offseason to the Charlotte Hornets, like the city's original NBA team was called. That team moved to New Orleans in 2002 and changed their name last year to the New Orleans Pelicans, leaving the Hornets name available to use. With Charlotte's name change, the history books have been rewritten a bit.

The new story behind the Charlotte and New Orleans NBA teams is that the former and current Charlotte Hornets are now the same team, which was established in 1988, then was "deactivated" for two years in 2002, came back in 2004 as the Bobcats and is now known as the Hornets once again. Meanwhile, the Pelicans are now considered to have been established in 2002 as an expansion team known as the Hornets, and then changed their name last year. In other words, the 1988-2002 Charlotte Hornets are now officially the same team that was established in 2004 as the Charlotte Bobcats, even though those Hornets are really the team that has evolved into the Pelicans. It's all pretty confusing, but the end result is that the people of Charlotte are happy to have their Hornets back.

Orioles in a different series dynamic

The Baltimore Orioles, whose home city I live near, easily swept the Detroit Tigers in the American League Divisional Series. Now, they are halfway to a potential sweep in the other direction, that being a loss to the Kansas City Royals in the race for the American League Pennant and a World Series berth. The first two games were played in Baltimore and now the series is heading to Kansas City, meaning the Orioles will be without the support of their hometown crowd for at least two days in a row. The Royals also appear to have improved their game since their series with the Angels, who they also swept to get paired with the Orioles in the ALCS. Since I root for the eliminated Washington Nationals rather than the Orioles, this playoff series doesn't affect me, but it does affect many of my fellow Marylanders.

No food in the house

Whenever there's nothing good to eat in my house, I always like to complain that there's "no food in the house". My mom always says there's plenty of food, but I tell her there's never anything good. This is exactly the situation I'm in right now. I can't find any food in my house that I'm willing to eat. I keep repeatedly looking in the kitchen cupboards and refrigerator and freezer, which is pointless since nothing will just appear out of thin air for me to eat. So I will just have to settle with some boring, bland food.

Discovery Kids coming back - sort of

Discovery Kids was a television channel from 1996 to 2010 that a lot of so-called "'90s kids" have fond memories of. It was replaced by The Hub, a joint venture between Discovery and Hasbro, in October of 2010. Currently officially known as Hub Network, it may be best known as the home of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a show popular among not just its young girl target demographic but also with teenage/young adult viewers called bronies (or, in the case of some older females, pegasisters). One of these bronies is me, which is why I am doing this post.

Now, the Hub is being rebranded as Discovery Family effective on Monday. The reasoning behind this is that Discovery has taken over the channel's majority stake from Hasbro. Some of Hasbro's shows, like My Little Pony, will still be airing, but there will be more Discovery shows in the mix. This could be seen as a bit of a return to the Discovery Kids days, although it's not exactly the same channel it once was, especially with all of the pony stuff nowadays.

The "Arizona Coyotes"?

I was looking on the National Hockey League's website today to find out when the regular season starts and the first few games are tomorrow, although my Washington Capitals don't play until Thursday. But one thing that caught my eye is that the Coyotes, a team in Phoenix, Arizona, were referred to as "Arizona" rather than "Phoenix". I wondered if they had changed their name so I looked it up and sure enough, they are now the Arizona Coyotes. The name change became official in June, after the playoffs ended, but I missed the news on it.

The Coyotes had been known as the Phoenix Coyotes since 1996, when they moved to Phoenix from the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba. It seems like they want to be like other sports teams in the area, who are named after the state rather than the city. The only major league team that still has "Phoenix" in their name is the NBA's Phoenix Suns. The NFL's Arizona Cardinals came to the city from Saint Louis, Missouri in 1988 as the Phoenix Cardinals, and changed their name in 1994. Baseball's Arizona Diamonbacks have always used that name since the team's establishment in 1998.

College art

I am currently in an art class at my college which focuses on 2D design. I'm taking that class because it is the first class in the recommended course sequence for graphic design majors. I guess I'm doing okay in it but I could use work on some things. I have realized that I have a very abstract style in my works, and in this class I am for the most part encouraged to use this style, especially since some of our assignments are based on abstraction. Our last assignment was a monochromatic painting that was supposed to be a visual representation of a song of our choice. We had to mix black, white and the random color we got in our kits (mine was magenta) and use different shades and shapes that complemented the overall tone of the song. Our project this week is to create a self-portrait using holes punched from cyan, magenta, yellow and black paper, giving it a so-called CMYK scheme. I am looking forward to our other assignments for the year.

Maple bacon is a thing now

The latest trend in food right now appears to be maple bacon flavor. I was at work at my grocery store today and I noticed a number of maple bacon things, including maple bacon-flavored sugar cookies that had a fall leaf thing. The fusion of maple and bacon flavors in food is nothing new, especially in breakfast. But it looks like the flavor is only just now becoming popular in the commercial culinary world, for reasons I don't exactly know.

Severe weather strikes parts of Great Plains, South

An autumn severe weather event has produced several strong storms in the midsection of the United States, most notably in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, where significant damage took place. Close to one thousand flights in major airports in the region were delayed or canceled, some well in advance of the storms. In addition, an earthquake struck in parts of Kansas and Oklahoma, with a magnitude of 4.4. This was less than 24 hours after they got their round of severe weather watches and warnings. The storms are now moving into Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri.

Windows 10, not Windows 9, will be the successor to Windows 8

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that the next version of the Windows operating system will not be called Windows 9, as it has been widely speculated since the last two versions are Windows 7 and Windows 8, but rather Windows 10. They are quoted as saying that calling it Windows 9 "just wouldn't be right." Microsoft also says that the successor to Windows 8, which many people had a hard time getting used to due to its new smartphone/tablet-inspired graphical interface, will mark the beginning of an all-new generation of Windows, like earlier versions with dramatic changes have been marketed as. Windows 10 is tentatively expected to drop in late 2015.

Google celebrates 16th birthday

Google celebrated 16 years on Saturday with a special doodle on their homepage depicting a birthday party with the Google letters. Google was a relative latecomer to the commercial Internet, not going online until September 27, 1998, a few years after most of today's major websites. Some argue, though, that Google's real birthday is September 7, the date it was incorporated as a company. But aside from that, it has developed a powerful online influence. What started as a simple search engine has gone on to become an Internet giant with features such as maps and news, along with its own email provider, social network and Web browser.

Atlantic hurricane season less active than in previous years

The Atlantic tropical cyclone basin has only seen five named storms so far this year, a departure from recent years which have seen periods of high activity. The season usually has its peak during the month of September, but it didn't seem to happen this year. At this point in 2008, the last time the current Atlantic naming list was used, we were up to the K storm, Kyle. This year, we are only up to Edouard, which formed in early August in 2008. This decrease in tropical activity is probably due to changing weather patterns, which are known to cycle through every few years. Meanwhile, the eastern Pacific basin is up to the R storm, Rachel, and it looks like the Pacific is more active, as it usually is.

My dad's birthday

Today is my dad's birthday and he is 56 years old. On Sunday, we went to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner (which I've been to countless times) and then ate an ice cream cake. He's never been very open about celebrating his birthday though, at least not in recent years. But he still made sure we remembered it today.

Autumn is starting

The season of autumn will start with the September equinox at 10:29 pm Eastern time this evening, and the first full day of autumn will be tomorrow. In the area where I live, most of the corn and other plants have been harvested, and the leaves on the deciduous trees are starting to change from green to red, yellow, orange and brown. Also, the temperatures are getting cooler (although it did briefly hit 80 degrees yesterday) and sunset will soon come before 7:00. This will all lead to the cold months of winter.

iOS 8 released to Apple mobile devices

Apple has released iOS 8, the successor to iOS 7, to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The mobile operating system was first announced a week and a half ago along with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. iOS 8 contains many improvements, including new camera features that are said to enhance the quality of pictures and videos, better hacking protection and network sharing, and better management of text and voice messages. There are also new features like QuickType and a more adaptive user interface. Of course, some people are unhappy with these changes, just like all previous versions of iOS. But others think it's another great improvement to Apple's mobile software.

A Baltimore-Washington World Series?

The Baltimore Orioles of the American League and the Washington Nationals of the National League have both clinched their respective Major League Baseball divisions, AL East and NL East, putting them in the playoffs. This is the Orioles' first division title since 1997, their last playoff berth for 15 years. The Nationals also won the NL East title two years ago, when they made the playoffs for the first time since their move from Montreal in the 2004-05 offseason. The Orioles and Nationals are both better than they were in 2012, when they both suffered divisional round losses. Some fans are even predicting that they might end up playing each other in the World Series. It would be the Orioles' first since their 1983 championship and the Nationals' first ever.

Although I live closer to Baltimore, I have been a Nationals fan since they came to Washington (but I did root for the Orioles before that). I have to go through Baltimore on my way to Washington, which involves passing by Camden Yards, home of the Orioles and football Baltimore Ravens. So it could feel awkward to me if the Nationals face the Orioles in the World Series. But I wouldn't really care who won, since I would get to be part of a championship celebration no matter what.

Hurricane Odile hits Baja California peninsula

Hurricane Odile, an eastern Pacific basin storm, struck the Mexican state of Baja California Sur Sunday night into Monday morning, bringing high winds and flooding rains to cities in the area such as the resort town of Cabo San Lucas. Vacationers in the area were forced to move to makeshift shelters set up in hotels, many of which were at higher levels in attempts to escape flooding. Odile made landfall on the southern part of the Baja California peninsula as a category 3 major hurricane, the strongest in the region's history. The eastern Pacific has unusually received a lot more attention than the Atlantic basin for its tropical cyclones this year. The Atlantic usually sees more landfalling storms, although the Pacific basins often have more activity with fewer impacts on land due to different conditions.

My teeth are going to fall out

I really like candy, soda and other sweets and I eat and drink them a lot. I also have a tendency to forget to brush my teeth. This is bad because it can and has caused major effects to my teeth. I have had three cavities in the past two years, two of which occurred simultaneously last summer. I have also been told during my last two visits to the dentist that I had gingivitis, although the last time I went it was less serious. I've been trying to remember to brush my teeth and rinse with mouthwash but I just don't do it most days. And today I ate some candy, and also drank most of a 1-liter bottle of soda. I did brush my teeth this evening, though. So I'm treating this situation like I want my teeth to fall out, but I don't want that to happen, so I need to get better with my dental hygiene.

One year working at ShopRite

On this day last year, I had my very first shift at the ShopRite grocery store somewhat close to my house. I started out as a cashier but now I am a porter (the guys who take the carts back). I also do other things like taking trash to the back and returning items that people don't want and the cashiers take back to customer service. Lately I've been working weekends (Sundays only for the past three weeks) in the morning and early afternoon, and getting about $40 per week. I could use some work on doing things properly in my job and I can't say I always enjoy it. Also there's a possibility that I could get moved to yet another department but that's another story. I don't know yet if I'll be working at ShopRite and I don't expect to, but it just might turn out that way.