I decided to visit McDonalds to eat their new item that they are introducing to Southern California restaurants. The Angus Third Pounder and I decided to consume one for lunch today. For $3.99 a hamburger, similar to the Six Dollar burger from Carls Jr you get a thicker hamburger with more toppings. It pales in comparison to Carls Jr, but its a change of pace for the McDonalds chain.

There are three hamburgers:

The deluxe:
angus 1/3rd pound patty, onion, pickle, tomato, letuce and cheese

Bacon and Cheese:
Cheese, onion, pickle, bacon and the angus 1/3rd pound patty

and lastly Mushroom & swiss:
Swiss cheese, saluted mushrooms and the angus 1/3rd pound patty

I selected the Bacon and cheese, I felt the hamburger needed more toppings for it to be sufficient.

The meal was somewhat satisfying compared to consuming a 10 piece chicken nugget combo, but I felt like I would rather eat a Six Dollar Western Bacon Cheeseburger.

link: Angus Third Pounders @ McDonalds Southern California

My bulletin board is finally shut down. After 11 years my BBS system is finally turned off. I gave up one hobby, but my other hobby is just as time wasting as running a Bulletin Board System. It was great having 20 plus calls a day back in 1996, but it slowly became not as futfilling overall.

I am learning Microsoft Excel right now. In 2002 I learned the minor features of the program such as learning how to make bar graphs and other useful features at UC Riverside, but I frogot the fundamentals over the years and it is better to redisover the software instead of just trying to wing it at a workplace. If I choose to take the class for the full 16 weeks it will end in June. I will likely try to snag a spot in the second half of the class as soon as I can. I will also take either Microsoft Word or a typing class to improve my career opportunities.

On the movie watching front, I rented two dogs. American Dreamz was convoluted and a waste of time, and Sarah Silverman’s Jesus is Magic was average, but not as bad as a Margaret Cho dvd.

It seems I am becoming more reflective about the time I wasted playing the MMO Final Fantasy 11. After graduating from UC Riverside I had free time during the summer of 2003 so I signed up for the NVidia drawing for Final Fantasy 11 beta discs. Luckily then I was a winner and got hooked into the crack which became my bane for the last three years.

I was ready to quit the game to enter graduate school, but my lecturers failed to send letters of recommendation even though they promised which prevented me from entering a masters program. Because I was not able to attend graduate school I continued on my addiction. I still have the same job I had through college because I was never motivated to find a better job because I was playing Final Fantasy 11 for over 35-50 hours a week.

I have been relatively fortunate in Final Fantasy 11. I can reach the top areas from the first two expansion packs, I have attained some of the best virtual gear for my in game character. However the one thing I wanted to do the most was actively camp the three kings that hundreds of people camp religiously in game. Even if I did not annoy some particular individuals in the server I have played since December 2003, my time to actively played has been reduced. We can state that my “imperial phase” is indeed over. My twilight of playing Final Fantasy 11 is indeed coming forth.

People have indeed balanced full time professional jobs like firefighter and educator and played Final Fantasy 11. But I do need to find new pursuits of leisure.

I have figured out that I need to do something before I finally become old. I decided to attain new job skills. It is indeed honorable to earn a Bachelor’s degree in a subject, but the most important thing that should be understood is you need a degree where you can realistically get a job. Which caused my most serious mistake that ended up costing me $11,200 with me still owing $9,000.

Political Science is nice, but honestly I do not have the right political blend to get hired on with today’s California Republican legislators. I could talk a good game, but I need to reach out to the real world first before I seriously jump into the political arena. Working retail is not going to get me anywhere so that is why I am learning MS Office starting with the Excel program. I have decided that working in a office processing data would probally be a more logical type of employment for myself.

Class registration begins on Friday and I hope to order my textbook and my Office 2007 Premium program on the same day. I can not live working retail part time and playing a massively online role playing game all my life. The future is coming fowards.

New video game systems are coming out. However they are no longer the 129.99 or 199.99 price anymore.

Impulse purchases have a financial impact. My sister told me if there is not ten good reasons to buy a PS3 or a Wii, then I should not buy one.

Art Oliver Governor
Tom McClintock – Lt.governor
Gail Lightfoot – Secretary of State
John Chiang – Controller
Claude Parrish – Treasurer
Chuck Poochigian – Attorney General
Steve Poizner – Insurance Commisioner
Bill Leonard – BOE2
Richard Mountjoy – Senator (barf, but he was better than the others sadly)
Scott Folkens – (not enthusiastic but why not)
Nell Soto – Had personal issues with her opponent
Superior Court Office 4 – San Bernardino County Larry Roberts
Donald Williamson – Assessor San Bernardino COunty
Paul Leon – Ontario, CA Mayor
Tony Ballardo
Sam Crowe for Ontario City Council

I was probably a conservative idealist about the war in Iraq with my columns in the Highlander. The war in Iraq was a fraud just as much as our adventures in Vietnam. I am indeed ashamed that I never realised that the Republican party actually fails on foreign policy just as much as the Democratic Party. Former president Jimmy Carter helped give the North Koreans nuclear weapons under former President Bill Clinton’s leadership. While President W Bush and his staff wants to figure out where do we want to start aggressions on. There was complete justification for the war in Afghanistan. However Iraq, despite Saddam’s genocide of the Kurds and mismanagement of the oil for food funds was not a reason for us to attack Saddam. Of course there is a ’free’ government in Iraq now, but Iraq is so destabilized where our solders and so many innocent Iraqi civilians are dead by the day. Unless Kuwait or Israel was attacked by Iraq there should not been a reason for us to attack Iraq.

Maybe we need a Democratic congress in the next session to provide some checks and balances so stuff would have a loyal opposition so there would never be a blank check. Gridlock is a good thing, a unified government only creates chaos.  

I have a confession. I have an addiction. It is to online multiplayer games. I was given a free copy of the Final Fantasy 11 beta right after I graduated from university and it became my drug. Online games are great in moderation, however dedicating one third of my life in the last three years is a bit too much. Playing Final Fantasy 11 is distracting myself from the real world and I need to express to the world that I am here to play and I am here to stay.

Maybe I am glad I did not get into graduate school. Even if those two instructors at UC Riverside gave letters of recommendation to me at California State University Los Angeles I would of been saddled with another fifteen thousand of student loan debt. I should of channeled my energy from entering a virtual world to succeeding in the real world.

Right now my current projects will be the following:

1. The California Elections Podcast, the voter guide on the initiatives and state wide candidates.

2. Putting out my resume.

3. Studying for the subject test so I could eventually work on a secondary education credential.

The real world awaits.