Killing off the Protagonist.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to I/O Nightly News.

I was watching Law and Order this evening, and I came upon an interesting idea:

Kill the protagonists.

I'm dead serious, no pun intended. Why do they never die? Or even take a bullet? I find that interesting. They're always in danger, but never get hit. Sure, there's a few melees here and there, but no blood, outside of the victims.

But that's a given.

The closest we have is video games, where death is common and respawn points come pre-packaged with a strategy in mind. Death is to be expected in a game, but not in its plot.

The villain always dies. Even the Master Chief survives the destruction of the new Halo in Halo 3. Gordon Freeman survives just about everything, from repeated headcrabbings to striders to trans-galaxy teleportation.

Not that they should all die, I'm just suggesting that it'd be nice to see some of them die at the end of their games/movies/serials.

The only TV show I know of that removes their characters regularly is LOST.



No, he lives. In Descent 3, you never find the aliens. It's all a sham.

That's FreeSpace, the game with no clear protagonist. Everyone else is nameless and faceless.

I like it that way. I never die. I do on occasion, but I like to consider myself a great pilot. Descent, Descent II, Descent 3, Descent: FreeSpace, FreeSpace: Silent Threat, and the FS2_Open project. I've been playing them for years, and those protagonists don't die for a reason.

Because the protagonist is me.

On Schedules, Slightly Ahead Of.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to I/O Nightly News.

After spending hours working on college applications, I now have two ready to be submitted, and a third on the way. I just have to get teacher recommendations in, along with transcripts.

Georgetown has you under a microscope, though. Paper applications, mid-year reports, the works. I'm doubting if I'll get in.

Oh well. I'm ahead of schedule, this week only. We'll see how long it lasts.

Number Fifty, Triple Dose.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to I/O Nightly News.

Well, things are not great for me physically. I'm sick, of course. It all moved into a head cold with remnants of a sore throat.

So of course, I triple-dose on Tylenol (3 instead of two), assuming that this would work better overnight.

I'm hoping it is. Everything is a little fuzzy right now. I'm never doing this again.

As a side note, this happens to be my fiftieth post on this Blog.

I'll be here for 100, don't worry.



That man's hair is fake, I'm guessing. Mus tbe the Tylenol.

Sore Throats, Cause Unknown.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to I/O Nightly News.

It started with the Flu Mist, a new spray-in-nasal-cavities alternative to the shot. The bad taste, watering eyes, and worst of all, the tingle in the throat.

Urgh.

Not it feels like strep. It took six hours to get to this point, maybe less. This isn't good. I'm about to head into a long weekend, and now I've got a sore throat.

I can't stand this.

In other news, Anonymous strikes again, this time on Sarah Palin's Yahoo account, which is good news for everyone involved, except the Conservatives.

I'd also like to, on a totally unrelated note, get into Kinetic Typography. It's pretty incredible. Seems pretty tough though. Alternative was dropped in the stream. See my other blog.

Place Your Bets.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to I/O Nightly News.

This evening, I went to a lecture with none other than Chris Mathews, host of Hardball on MSNBC.

An excellent lecture, and a total liberal fest. A few facts:

--The Dow, having lost 500 points yesterday bled off more than $700 billion.

--Any uninsured bank accounts are in jeopardy of being lost. Insure them. Put them under the bed - at least you'll know it's there.

Just a few quick figures. Some RNC delegate from a neighboring town asked a stupid question about security at the RNC. She got grilled repeatedly, and Chris Mathews was finally like "Are you attacking me?" "You're attacking me, that's right!". People finally shouted at the woman to sit down and let other people take a turn with questioning.

But there were some great moments, and the lecture ended with "At the end of the day, you're deciding our future here; Obama or McCain? Place your bets."

The conservative shredding was similar to this:

On Schedules, Keeping, Falling Behind, and not Having.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to I/O Nightly News.

I hate schedules sometimes. They're so stressful, considering how big of a procrastinator I am. I always fall behind, and then get lazy and don't do what I'm supposed to.

It's the ultimate pitfall of homework, in particular.

So now I'm not doing my Calculus homework tonight. I might pick it up and do it though, if boredom sets in again.

Oh well.

I really wish I didn't have a schedule, and I could just be lazy and have fun every day. But that's not life, is it? There has to be some sort of balance.



On an unrelated note, I can make my YouTube video border purple.

Work Work Work Work Work...

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to I/O Nightly News.

It's not that I procrastinate, it's just that I find better things to do. Like watch a YouTube video. Or play a game. Or Blog.

I wrote about four college essays yesterday, and I still have one to do at some yet-to-be-determined point in the future. I've also been doing homework all day today. I really want to play Rise of Nations or TrackMania or AudioSurf (demo, but you can play the tutorial over and over with whatever song you want).

I just get bored, and I know there's always something more interesting on the 'net.

I also finished A Prayer for Owen Meany tonight. Enlightening book, and it all ties in together at the end, but the cause of the climax is totally random. It's a well-written story, but I don't see the deeper meaning yet. It's still a pretty touching novel.

If you'll excuse me, I've got an idea for Dropped Packets. And math homework.