Modern Wareware 2 making children terrorists?

I just read an article on Kotaku that tells about Fox talking about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which was just released yesterday for multi-platforms. One of the things that they bring up is the scene in the game where you play as a CIA operative disguised as a terrorist to essentially try to infiltrate the terrorists, but you also take civilian lives. What people on Fox were trying to say was that since you get to play as a terrorist in the game, if children can somehow get a hold of the game like through their parents, it will harbor them into becoming terrorists. I don't believe this, and this made me think of something that we recently talked about in one of my journalism classes.

The point of Activision putting this mission into the game is to show all sides of the war, to show that war is ugly and that these things do happen. Maybe I'm just very liberal, but I feel that this is necessary. One thing I don't like that the US does is sugarcoats its news. They don't show all the fighting and people dying when it is clearly happening. Recently in my one class we watched a movie called "Control Room" about the Arabic-language news network, Al Jazeera. One of the things America hated that they did was show footage of dead American soldiers in Iraq. America disagreed with this saying it was inhumane of them to show this. One thing they also did though was show dead Iraqi civilians as well. They were just trying to be fair and balanced and not sugarcoat the news. They were trying to show their people how real the war is. This is what MW2 is also trying to do. They are not trying to make kids into terrorists, first of all you need to be an adult to purchase it, and also it gives you the option to skip playing the scene, warning how violent and disturbing it is.

In my opinion, this is a good thing that they put this scene in the game for adults. They are trying to show all the aspects of war, even the nasty parts. These situations are real, Activision just didn't want to sugarcoat anything by giving a real representation of all the aspects of war, including those people don't like to see (and never see in America).

(Photo courtesy of NSF from Wikimedia Commons)

Sunday Sunday Sunday

I really wanted to maintain this blog, but I've found that being a student and trying to run a blog is so hard. I have so much to do all the time that I always forget to post to my blog and I always say I'm going to post more.

but... I've started to get back to gaming again. I haven't had much time so I did next to no gaming for the past several months to the point where I don't know if I could call myself a gamer. This weekend changed that. I spent literally the whole weekend playing Section 8, Guitar Hero 5 and Beatles Rock Band and it really helped me get back into the gaming spirit.

I know I probably sound lame spending my Halloween playing Guitar Hero with a Little Caesar's pizza, taco flavored doritos and some mountain dew isn't an entirely bad thing considering I've partied the past 4 years.

I'll try to have a blog of more substance and real purpose soon, but I have just one question, why does trying to play PES2009 online with my friend in Tokyo have to be so complicated over the PSN. If it were Xbox Live it would be so simple.... something to ponder.. perhaps...

Short Post

I'll write more later if I get a chance, but today when I was on campus, I saw one of the techiest ways to get to class than I would have expected to see on a college campus. Normally when on a college campus you see people getting to class on either a bike or maybe a skateboard, but what about a segway??? This is a first in my book. This dude even had it all tricked out with different pouches and stuff to hold all of his stuff. This is a nerds dream come true to take a segway to class. I think that the person who owned it had to be a professor because one they were older and two, I don't think a student has the kind of money to buy one. Maybe one day I'll just be lucky enough to try one out. Although I can't see myself wanting to own one. Also, I didn't get a picture, I reacted to late, but this YouTube video pretty much can sum it up what it was almost like!

It's been a while... and I'm back!

I realize that the last time I posted to Tom's New Roman was back in January. I know it has been a really long time since I posted, but I have a pretty good reason for not posting until August, I was extremely busy with classes, I had class everyday with an extreme amount of French work to do every week and I was also working every other day as a busboy at a Thai restaurant when I wasn't taking classes, so it doesn't leave much time for blogging.

This summer I was also pretty busy with working for PennDoT and I also had a summer internship working for an online new site called Tonic. All of the articles that I wrote for them this summer can be viewed at the following address:

http://www.tonic.com/contributor/thomas-leskin/

Besides that, I'm finished with both my summer job and also with my summer internship. I'm currently doing something that I enjoy. I'm working at the International Student Orientation at Penn State and am getting the chance to meet hundreds of people from all over the world, a majority from China, Korea and the Middle East. I'm also working in the computer lab, helping new international students setup their PSU access accounts and also helping them setup their computers to work with the wireless network. I enjoy working with computers so it isn't too bad and it's better than my summer job. I've become a pro at installing the VPN client on computers and also setting up computers with 64-bit Vista to work on the Penn State Network. With that all said and done, I'll move on to new talk about some new toys!

About 7 months have passed and in that time I've had the chance to get my hands on a couple new toys. First thing, I've finally had the chance to upgrade my iPhone. My plan was getting renewed this summer so I was able to upgrade to the iPhone 3Gs. I actually ended up buying the 3G, but then the new iPhone came out a week later so I was able to return it for the newest model. And the only other new thing I can think of that I got was something that I've been wanting for years, but was finally able to get this summer before my vacation to the beach, the classic Bose around-ear headphones. They are exactly what I wanted offering comfort, style and exceptional sound. That's about it.

One last thing, lately I've really been wanting a netbook. That's all I can think about. Taking how much money I have and the features I want into consideration, I've decided that I really want the MSI Wind U100 Netbook. It's this one right here and in white (white is sexy, lol):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152092

I have enough birthday money and I just got paid for like the whole summer since I haven't gotten any checks from PennDoT until now because of the budget not being signed until last week. If I decide to buy one, I'll let you know. But...

For now, I'm back... happy reading!

What is this world coming to?

This morning my friend Adam messaged me on AIM and was like 

quick turn on Nickelodeon. 

This is what we saw....

Yo Gabba Gabba (elijah wood)

What is this world coming to? lol

Why are little kids watching such stupid shows like this, that 

now have celebrities involved? It is great for a good laugh 

though. Check out this video, it's the same thing, but to the 

"Numa Numa" song. It's probably the best thing 

I've seen today. Except for the second generation G1 

phone, but that's another story.

Music/Gundam

If you know me well, you probably know that I'm a little bit of a geek. I also love Japan and just about everything about it, also having traveled there.

I don't like tons of anime, but I do like Gundam. I really love the newest series Gundam 00 which is being shown on Sci-Fi Channel every Monday night at 11 p.m. till 12 a.m. This series is interesting because it's like the future of the world that we live in, having depleted all our natural resources and have had to find a new source of energy. Also in the series they have a space elevator, which is actually being built in real life. Crazy.

One thing I love most are the opening songs. The first one is great by a japanese band L'Arc-en-Ciel and is titled Daybreak's Bell. It's a great song, probably one of my favorite songs in a Gundam opening.

Youtube Opening 1

Halfway through the season they usually change the opening and add a new song. The new song is called Ash Like Snow by The Brilliant Green. I especially love this song, so I thought I would share it with you all.

YouTube Opening 2

Also here is a download I found for the song.

Enjoy!

+Tom+

It's a great day!

I know its been a little while since I've posted, but I've been really busy. It's a great day. It's sunny outside and a new President is being sworn in today (not everyone is probably happy about this, but I'm pretty excited, everyone is entitled to their own opinion). So, as I'm sitting here at my desk, waiting for the Inauguration to start, with a cup of joe, I thought it would be a good time to review one of my newest toys. 

One of the newest things I picked up last week was a new HD monitor. It's not exactly a gadget, but it is a new piece of tech. I picked it up from New Egg (newegg.com) for about $209. It's an Asus 21.5'' LCD Widescreen Monitor. 

I had been wanting to get a new monitor for a while. One thing I learned is never buy electronics in a store like Best Buy. Always check online, you can always get a better deal. When I first found this monitor I was reading the customer reviews and a bunch said they had one dead pixel when they received their monitor. Luckily, when I opened the box and hooked it up, I had no dead pixels.

After using it for a week, I've been able to get a good handle on this product. The colors are great, they are much more vibrant than the screen on my Macbook. Because of this, I'm using my 'Book as a desktop right now with the monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. Also, I am using my JBL Creature Speakers, if I wanted to, another feature that I like that I could use is the monitor's built-in speakers. It came with an audio cord that you can easily connect from the monitor to your computer. 

Another feature that I love about the Asus monitor is that since it is an HD monitor it has an HDMI port in addition to VGA and DVI. This is great if you computer has an HDMI out or as I like to use it, for gaming. My Playstation 3 looks great hooked up to this monitor with 1080p resolution. It also doesn't sound too bad as well, although I will admit the speakers are not the greatest, but again I can easily connect my JBL speakers. 

So far, I have seen no problems with the monitor. The only thing that I could find to point out is that the monitor is really bright. This can be easily fixed by turning the brightness down. Not a big deal. Also I noticed other people said that they thought the controls on the side were a bit confusing. I've had no problems. It's fairly easy to switch between HDMI, VGA and DVI. I could see how adjusting the monitor could be a little confusing at first though. 

Overall, I think this is a great product and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a big LCD widescreen monitor at a great price with HDMI and built-in speakers. One thing that I was disappointed in is that New Egg's prices seem to drop randomly. The day after I purchased it, they dropped the price to $199, which isn't a bad thing for you. I guess $10 isn't that big of a deal, plus you do get free shipping. The shipping was also surprisingly fast. I ordered it last Monday, it shipped out on Tuesday and I received it around 10 a.m. Wednesday morning. Also the day after it went down, I noticed it went back up to $209, but as of right now, it's back at $199. Just to let you all know, I was checking the monitors on there today, and until 1/31, you can get the next model up, 22" widescreen monitor, for $169 with free shipping after a $20 mail-in rebate. The only thing this doesn't have is HDMI but does have the built-in speakers. Not a bad deal at all, but I would still prefer to have the HDMI. For some reason when I looked earlier it was $199. They are always changing their prices. 

Check it out my monitor on New Egg here.

I found this one as well, which is $10 cheaper, and is nearly the same except for it has SPDIF out, which is also for audio. Also has HDMI out. Check that out here.

Also one final thought. If you all were just watching, President Obama gave a great speech, extremely heartfelt and inspiring. Well, that's all for now.

+Tom+

oops

I had something wrong, which is not very good journalism, I should be more careful.

The Sony Vaio P is only 1.4 pounds and I've heard that the price is between $899 and $1499 depending on the configuration.

My Thoughts CES 2009

I realize that I wasn't there and that my view of the show is from other media outlets, but I have been looking at some of the products that were shown there and there are a couple electronics that seem very promising to me, which I wouldn't mind getting my hands on.

There first I want to talk about is the Palm Pre. I was ecstatic when Apple's iPhone came out since I'm an avid Mac user. I swore that I would stick with Apple and their iPhone for a long time. Lately I've been feeling differently with the now many options, offering the same, if not more features. For my next phone I'm looking into maybe getting the Palm Pre or G1 Android phone. If you don't know anything about this phone, here's a short YouTube video about it.

Palm Pre

One of the coolest features about this phone, I think, is how you can have multiple applications open at once. It has this "Cards" feature which sorts your apps. A cool feature with this is that you just "flick" the application off the screen when you are done using it and it will put the app on the side, keeping them very organized and easy to open back up. To me this phone definitely seems like an iPhone killer. Other companies are definitely starting to catch up with Apple.

One of the other products that I really liked, although I probably won't get one, if I did not for a long time, but the Sony Vaio P. Its a Netbook. What is a netbook, you may ask? It's basically just a small notebook. It has 2 gb of ram and runs Vista (I'm not sure if Vista is a good thing or not). It has WIFI capabilities as well as GPS and a 3G modem. This all for a price of around $974 and weighing in around 3 pounds. Crazy. The future is finally here where you can carry around a fully functional computer which could fit in your pocket. I love it. If I have the money, I would definitely pick up one of these in the future. It would be a great way for me to blog or write while on the go. I'll put a link to a short video as well.

Sony Vaio P

These are what I thought to be the some of the best products at CES 2009. Just wanted to give you guys a little insight in case you have never seen these before.

First Post! Welcome to Tom's New Roman!

Hello world! I know that pretty much nobody knows anything about this yet except for a couple of my friends  that helped me start this blog. Thanks to PK for coming up with the name, and AdamWill for the header picture. I'm starting this blog because video games, music, electronics and basically anything that deals with computers is my passion. This is the industry that I want to work in after I complete my journalism degree at Penn State. In this blog I plan to talk about different electronics which I acquire or notice online or about games that I play (pretty much reviews). It seems hard to get started since around here pretty much the only writing I can do that people will see is with a newspaper and not really relating to technology. You have to start somewhere. Hopefully, my blog will eventually get noticed, who knows.

Also hopefully I will start to pick up more readers as time goes on. I'm also going to try to update this and post just about everyday or every other day. If you are reading this please forward my link to all your friends. Also bookmark the blog and check back often. 

Well, that's all I got for now. I'm really excited about this blog and what it could eventually amount to. Thanks and welcome to my new blog "Tom's New Roman"!

+Tom+