Centuramage

one of those beer-hats that hold two cans and have plastic straws to your mouth

firstly, the bracket listed is wrong. The Bulls are the 7 seed in the East, the Bucks are the 8 seed. Next order of business is my championship predictions...I say Pistons over Heat in 6, Spurs over Suns in 7, and Pistons over Spurs in 7. With a new coach, Detroit is allowed much more freedom than they had with Larry Brown taking the reigns. I think that allowing the incredibly talented team to play as they see fit will do wonders for them. Also, 'Sheed is a scaaaaary man. I'd be afraid to walk past him on the street.

scholarships and loans, in that order. I figure that keeping my GPA up will provide me scholarship opportunities that will surpass any money I can get through working, so I forgo working during the school year to focus on studies. The rest are loans. Also, I'm planning to graduate in 2008 (a year early) just so I don't have to pay as much. It's been hell so far, but I'm managing the load.

Eh...well, I'm almost finished with my first year at my respective university. My tenure here will be shorter than most, but I'll impart what knowledge I can - 1) Expect to walk. Alot. I walk somewhere between 3 and 5 miles a day...from class to class, to professor's office hours, uptown to pick up supplies, to dining halls, etc. 2) Expect alot of people to like Dave Matthews and/or O.A.R. For whatever reason, those two bands seem to be college staples. 3) Expect alot of binge drinking. Cheap, watery beer is the main source of nutrition for many college students. 4) Use ratemyprofessors.com. That website contains student-provided information for most professors at every school in the country. 5) Don't buy your books until you've been to every class at least once first. I've saved at least $300 worth of books because I didn't buy the ones that weren't totally necessary. 6) When you do purchase your books, use online resources, not your campus bookstore. Your campus bookstore, if it's like most, will charge you an arm, a leg, and your firstborn child for a semester's worth of books. 7) Don't be intimidated by the awkwardness of the first weekend. Remember that everyone in your dorm is in exactly the same situation you are. 8) If you decide to be a partier, do not travel to parties in an enormous pack. That's a telltale sign that you're a first-year student. Arriving in groups of 2 or 3 is much less conspicuous 9) Don't let the amount of free time deceive you into procrastinating. You'll have alot more free time than you did in high school. Use it wisely. 10) Develop a set of rules for your room between you and your roommate. You'll avoid alot of conflict if you do this early. 11) Get to know your professors. If they're anything like my professors, they're wonderfully eclectic people who are very passionate about their field and will often be very accomodating(sic?) to their students should the occasion arise. Don't be afraid to talk to them if you're having a problem in their class or meeting a deadline. They've been doing this for a while, they understand the difficulty of being in college, especially in that semester of transition. 12) Form study-groups. There's nothing that can force you to study material you don't particularly care about except for 3 or 4 of your peers nagging the snot out of you day in and day out. 13) Prepare yourself adequately for the rigors of collegiate coursework. This isn't high school. You will have to work harder and longer to achieve the same grades. Remember looking down on the kids who dropped out of high school or spent 5 or 6 years getting their diploma? Well, that's common in college. If you aren't careful, you could end up being one of those. For some classes, you will need to study 2 hours for every hour you're in lecture. Plan accordingly. 14) Regardless of your major, try to work one class into each semester that's unrelated but you really have an interest in. It helps relieve tension, really. I'm taking an Indian Philosophy course as a Mechanical Engineer and loving every minute of it. 15) Live an active lifestyle. You're going to be in your late-teens/early-twenties while in college. And while academics are your primary purpose, make sure that you don't just sit around for the rest of your time...some people join clubs, others volunteer...me personally, I play guitar all the time and occasionally play at bars near campus. Find something to do that gets you away from the stresses and strains of achieving your bachelor's degree. 16) Be friendly to everyone. It doesn't cost anything to be nice. And you never know when you're going to meet with a certain person again. You may not see them ever again...but you may have to work with them on a project...you may share a class with them...they may be the door-person at a club or a bar you're waiting in line for. How do you want them to remember you in those cases? Hm. That's about it for now. Hope I helped!

One of my favorite memories was when JaGeX was trying to create a chat filter to prevent players from swearing in-game. Now, the one in place may be a bit buggy, but the one I recall best was when they tried to change the questionable text to "Cabbage!"...somehow or other, there was a bug for a whole day where 2 out of every 3 times someone spoke, "Cabbage!" came out instead of what they meant to say. Standing in Varrock Town Square and listening to the mayhem was hilarious. When rune armor came out, I was among the chaos to nab rune items from the champ's guild. it was at least a day or two before I managed to get my hands on a rune long. The first day of fishing was mayhem, as I recall...someone had already nabbed level 36 by the time I woke up and logged on that day. I remember the laundry list of coal mules I used to have when I was trying to buy my first Addy sq shield from Bluerose. Ah, good times.

I never found cheerleading to be of any help in writing other than to inflate egos, perhaps. There is ALWAYS room for improvement...so I'll do my best to stray from aforementioned cheerleading. "great vantage point"...that's a bit vague and doesn't tell much...particularly the word "great"...be more specific there. "A voice inside"...a bit cliche, perhaps. good verb choice with "urged" though. The touch of alliteration in the 3rd paragraph is effective. Why are the commander's words not in quotes? Also, that might be a spelling error with "nocking"? I think the disdain with missing a note can be better expressed than by swearing in the piece. It takes away from the maturity to resort to vulgarities, I think. "This time" appears to allude to an aforementioned parallel that..doesn't exist? At least not verbally. Not the strongest choice. "The sky grew dark and it was getting cold", that could've been better crafted. Also, another spelling error at "errupted". I think that's about it...aside from those minor details, it was good :) The lack of real criticisms to this piece makes me wonder how carefully it was read by others and whether or not they appreciate it's art. But i think that's enough out of me ;) Keep writing

I wrote these a few months ago very early in the morning or very late at night, depending on your perspective. I recently discovered that these two poems won my school's writing competition, which gives you an idea of the quality of writing dispersed through the student body I'm a part of :roll: . At any rate, because they merited some local recognition, I deemed them worthy of being shared publicly among the users here. Enjoy. Torn Pull me along the perforations; Skin pops and snaps Bone fractures and separates Blood pours into rivers and streams As an effervescent, boiling froth. The nerves stretch for a bit Before the synapses finally stop firing And the new endings emerge, retracting back To separate halves like rubber bands Visceral pieces lay, floats in a crimson vinaigrette Dual entities lay crumpled. Broken. Incomplete. Complete me. Sleepless Some nights, rest is hard to come by I lay exhausted in the wee hours, My mind fighting and writhing Futilely hoping to comprehend. Some nights, a dry eye is hard to come by. Biting back angst-filled streams never fulfills. But the drums beating in my head wonÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t cease And refuse to be contained. Some nights I sit and churn out countless words Countless hollow words, silent words Evoking nothing, because only such words exist Words who speak for me knowing neither the language nor the concept. Some nights as I fall asleep, I tremble With fear and anxiety of the coming day I close my eyes with solemn hope Of my breath, taken away. **edited for a spelling error**

I'm a bit of a guitarzan...as you can guess by my sig...some who've had the misfortune of hearing me play will attest to the fact that i'm not worth the 5 years i've dedicated to the instrument, but i'm always getting better...i don't like sharing my music except with the person i wrote the music *for*...so very few people get to hear me "shred", lol... I'd like it to be more than a hobby, but i'm simply not good enough...i like playing blues, blues-rock, funk, acoustic bits, Hendrix rhythms, everything under the sun, really...even some neoclassical and punk stuff, occasionally ;)

Is teh sig there? **edit** w00tage!

I am 16, will be turning 17 2 months from today.

to give a bit of anecdotal evidence... When I 1st started my newest character, Centuramage, I decided to raise my mining 1st and keep my level a bit low so i could mine in the wildy without fear of being pked...So i created a tankmage that was level 22 and raised my mining up to 85...i was often called "n00b" and such even though not only was it my 4th character, it was also not quite a n00b character, just had a low combat level. By choice. We do put alot of emphasis on combat level and though that angers me, i think it's because it's the 1st impression we get of the RS character. When we scroll a mouse over a character, we see their name and their level. A higher combat level clearly indicates some kind of work having being done on that character whereas a lower combat level does not indicate anything. Unfortunately, it seems that users associate low combat levels with the antithesis of high combat levels, assuming they've done no work at all, and this is simply not the case. Today i am level 81, nearly 82 in combat, and though this is not phenomenal by any stretch of the word, i do get my fair share of begging from people who assume that as a high level, i should be rich, even though i am in relatively poor financial standing for my level. Some also assume that with a high level comes maturity, and let me assure you, i've found mature players in single digit levels and mature players in triple digit levels and i've found "n00bs" in both as well. It takes no maturity, age, or skill at all to actually play RS, just an amount of time and a finger to click the mouse. Unfortunately, i'm sure my plea falls on deaf ears as this one post will not change the RS community at all. there are simply too many people and it has gone on for simply too long to be worth it to most to make a difference in this behavior. so i'll stop this post here.

There once was a girl from Antarctica who loved to explore the discount store in the penguin's backyard for some new socks and shoes but she had no money on her so she decided it would make sense to rob the bank. After thinking about it she decided to get some mischief powder to instead make the people eat food and not to watch the bank. The Haunted bank was built by...

a girl from