Elections

Yesterday I was elected Sci-Fi Club President which is exciting. I know a lot of people wanted me to be the next president. I also have a great officer team for next year as well. I'm excited to see what will happen and I look forward to leading the club.

Today we had ACM elections and honestly, I'm glad I didn't win. This semester I have been running low on time constantly and I basically fail at being the Secretary. Also, I'm no longer in the major and I feel that the majors should be the ones taking initiative.

Tomorrow I have no class so I may sneak into Sioux City and get the next Ultimate Spider-Man volume before the Haunted House brainstorming session at 6:00pm in the gag.

Star Wars Risk

We had an ACM social tonight (which turned into more of a Sci-fi social) in I finally got to play my Star Wars Risk game. There are certain variants such as building ships that change the rules slightly. One of these changes is Order 66. In the game, a Darth Sidious pawn moves down a track that represents the amount of successful d8 amounts to convert a Republic planet into a Separatist/Sith/Imperial planet and Sidious moves to a planet that the Republic can instantly win if captured. It goes to 11 rounds and it moves every Separatist player round. In a game there is usually 2 of each faction so it would move twice. We decided that would be too fast and too killer for the Republic so we decided every round it would move. Unfortunately the Republic does have its advantages while it lasts. There are tokens the Separatist player places each round that grants card bonuses. These are removed by Order 66 but until then it gives the Republic player a goal that is too easy to get to. We decided halfway through the second round that we would adjust for every turn. Of course, near death, Roger the Separatist executed Order 66. He wasn't able to take the big forces away from Dan and I. We were in position to attempt to take the Darth Sidious planet. Then Gardner kicked us out.

ACM Farewell Party

We had our farewell party for our graduating seniors. It started at 5 and I brought Miniatures, Risk, and my external. Nick and Sam played Miniatures and Erik, Randy, and Warner brought an Xbox and played Madden. We provided pop, cake, and a party sub. After a while, Roger, Dan, and I started Risk. Dan never played. After a while people got bored and soon they left and it was just us. I was bored so I started the new episode of Family Guy, an Enterprise episode, and two episodes of South Park. During the game, we each had taken over most of the map, but spread ourselves too thin. In the end, Dan won by finally conquering my Australia. That's OK, it was fun.

ACM Wristbands

Time for another fundraising shout-out. ACM is selling wristbands to support our Computers for Uganda cause.



They cost $5 and you can get them from me. For more information, click here.

ACM Meeting Minutes 01/19/2005

ACM Meeting Minutes
01/19/05

Meeting began at 5:06pm.
10 members were present.

Tuesday, February 8, at 5:00pm - Leah Manzer will be coming to speak to us.
Chad and Jesse want to introduce her. She is a WSC grad and may talk about CIS careers, or the market potential. There will be pizza.

Fundraising
ACM will be working on computers, and one wil be coming soon. Spread the word...
Rates: $5/hr for students, $10-15 for non-students
I will make flyers for this as well as post on the WSC Underground and place an ad in the Stater.

I will also be making "Join ACM" posters because people have been asking questions. I will also send emails the Monday before the meeting.

Sunbeam training - 2 days in February on Saturday mornings or some evening.

Roger will be preparing the systems for Computers for Uganda.
We'd like to send 2 systems in the next semester.
Future ideas: going to Uganda (not right now) for training, African bracelet sales...

Leadership seminar sponsored by Circle K, Student Senate, and SAB will be January 29th, next weekend. Nick would like people to go to this. Email him if you can attend.

Dan brought a financial report, contact him for details if interested.

Roger talked to Dr. Garvin about speakers. He gave a long list. Nick suggested a 3-person panel with speeches and an open forum for questions. We plan on doing this sometime in late March.

I presented a Gaming Night Summary as follows:
Improvements to make:
- Have a completed flyer done the meeting before the event
- Provide a third Xbox
- Turn on a TV or play some music in 214 during eating to make it not so quiet
- Provide better flow through rooms
- Disable welcome screen return after screensaver
- Include other games such as NCAA Football
- Signs directing to 214
- Have digital camera ready
- Other games for computers such as demos or Age of Empires II
- Make "free pizza and pop" bigger on flyer

What we did well:
- Posting on the Underground (26 views)
- Posting in dorms
- Using the Halo font on flyer
- Having enough controllers
- Good word of mouth
- Remembering the digital camera
-Talking to Phil and Jeff about LAN setup

Meeting adjourned at 5:45pm
Next meeting: February 2, 2005 - Scheduling will be discussed.

Kevin Rasmussen
ACM Secretary

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Jimmy's Random Rants

Gaming Night Results

The ACM Gaming Night was fun. There was a large turnout that we didn't really expect. Considering that the flyers were put out 3 hours before the event, and the only other publicity was an email message and a post on the Underground.

I have to give props to Viper, Mamba, and Weber. They donated the use of their Xbox and controllers and made the game much more fun. I rocked at Galaxian on the Atari 2600 emulator. I haven't played that in forever. It was fun to see Lori Nicholson play Halo 2. She was trying to figure out if she had any of the people killing her in her classes.

There is one thing I must address that really has nothing to do with the gaming Night. There is a person on the campus network named Chloe. This person (and maybe others) have be utturing racial slurs using the Xbox Communicators in the lobby, not ingame. I assume it's being/been taken care of. It's great that people are starting to buy the communicators, but we need to be more responsible with the things we say. It is never funny. You never know when something you say may offend someone

Gaming Night Tonight

Want to have some fun before finals? Come on over to the ACM Gaming Night in Gardner Hall from 6-11pm tonight.

We will have Halo 2 on the big screens
There will also be vintage emulators games with tons of ROMs including:
Atari 2600, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, GameBoy and GameBoy Advance, Nintendo 64, and Arcade Games

There will also be free pizza and pop.
Everyone is welcome to attend, even for just a little bit.

ACM Meeting Minutes 12/01/2004

ACM Meeting Minutes
12/01/04

Meeting began at 5:03pm.
8 members were present.

Gaming Night will be this upcoming Monday, December 6 from 6-11pm

I figure we'll need only 2 Xboxes for Halo 2, my reasoning is this:
In Halo, the game would only allow matches with 4 boxes, so the LANs were devised to maximize the amount of people in those boxes, 4 boxes x 4 people per box = 16 people. In Halo 2, the game only has a maximum of 16 people in a match, but doesn't limit the number of boxes involved. This has sorta killed the LANs because now people tend to stay in thier rooms.

With 2 boxes, we can connect 8 people to the network to play others on campus. The draw to come will be based on the fact that it will be big screen projected and there will be free food. If demand increases, we will try to find more boxes and games.

Dan and Randy reported that the emulators from last year have been installed. They are emulators for Nintendo 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, Arcade, GameBoy and GameBoy Advance, Super Nintendo, and Atari 2600.

Pizza Hut vs. Godfather's? Godfathers won out, so it will be served.

Meeting adjourned at 5:09pm
Meeting re-opened at 5:10pm due to food.

We'll try to get posters out on Friday.

Nick's hyping people to go to "Walking in Someone Else's Shoes" at the Library.

This is the last meeting of 2004.

Because of a relatively low turnout, we encourage those who were unable to attend to email any other thoughts they may have about the gaming night.

Meeting adjourned for-real at 5:28pm.
Next Meeting: January 19, 2005

Kevin Rasmussen
ACM Secretary

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Jimmy's Random Rants

ACM Meeting Minutes 11/10/2004

ACM Meeting Minutes
11/10/04

Meeting began at 5:02 pm in Gardner Hall 115
12 members were present.

Does anyone have any good fundraising ideas?
Lori has suggested a split-the-pot
We do have a DVD burner
We could also fix student's computers, provide a free diagnosis and then ask if they are willing to pay to fix it.
Or we could do a bake sale.

Website updates have been sent, they are not up yet.
I need pictures for the picture page as well.

Speaker Time Change
Dr. Garvin was orignally slated to speak on November 17, he is too busy.
We are looking into a time early in next semester, preferably after break.

No one wants to change the meeting time for next semester.

Gaming Night:
Monday, December 6; first day of study week. 6pm-11?, we'll try for later
We will have emulators and/or Halo/Halo 2 LAN through all of Gardner using the Proximas.

Gaming Night committee:
Nick - flyers, Xbox donations for LAN use
Dan F - install emulators on computers
Randy
Kevin - talk to Halo LAN
Roger - food

Elevators are dangerous

Meeting adjourned at 5:27pm
NO Meeting on November 24 due to Thanksgiving Break
Next Meeting: December 1, Gardner 115, 5:00pm

Kevin Rasmussen
ACM Secretary

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Jimmy's Random Rants

ACM Meeting Minutes 10/13/04

ACM Meeting Minutes
10/13/04

Meeting began at 5:05pm in Gardner Hall 115.
7 Members were present.

Lori brought cookies, they were awesome.
Nick handed out schedules from now until January.

PR (i.e., me) needs to go talk to the Wayne Stater, TV station, and Radio station. Something like:
- ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, meets every other Wednesday at 5:00pm in Gardner Hall 115. Everyone is welcome to attend. Next meeting is...
- Cable flyer

Upcoming Events:
- Coming soon - Hazing the President Day
- October 27 - ACM Meeting
- End of October - Meteorologist Dan predicts snow
- November 7 - Sunbeam Activity, 6:00pm, BankFirst
- November 10 - ACM Meeting
- November 17 - Speaker? Dr. Garvin on Virus Protection
- November 24 - NO Meeting
- December 1 - ACM Meeting
- December 6 - Gaming Night during Study Week, 6:00pm, pizza and pop will be served
- January 19 - First ACM Meeting of 2005

Dan broke his pen, but fixed it.

Meeting adjourned at 5:22pm
Next Meeting: October 27, Gardner Hall 115, 5:00pm

Kevin Rasmussen
ACM Secretary

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Jimmy's Random Rants

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Rock, jazz, country, soul & more. Find the music you love on MSN Music!

ACM Meeting tomorrow

Anyone who's interested can come to the ACM meeting tommorrow, 10/13.
It's in Gardner Hall Room 115 at 5:00pm.

ACM Meeting Minutes 9/29/04

ACM Meeting Minutes
9/29/04

Meeting began at 5:00 pm in Gardner Hall 115
11 members were present.
I will be posting these and future minutes on my blog in case they get lost or whatever.

Nick brought in 4 Dell laptops to be set up after the meeting.

Dues are $30 and are due ASAP to Dan.
(Dan loves reciepts)

Student Senate:
Roger submitted a new constitution for student senate.
We asked for $500 and were allocated $200.
We were planning on having two speakers come in but with such little funds, we most likely will have to reduce that.

Speakers:
We can have either a virus protection or identity theft speaker come in.
We could also have someone local, i.e. Dr. Garvin, come in as well.
It was suggested to do a speaker per semester.

Gaming Night:
We are currently thinking of times for gaming nights.
Does anyone have any emulator ROMs?
Lori has a CD of 2000+ ROMs.
It was suggested that with 100 of the $200 allocated for gaming nights to do two per semester as well.

Homecoming Banner:
Where do we want it? North lawn?
The Homecoming theme is: Cats Explore in 2004.  Any good ideas?
Keep in mind, we will be rated on color, theme, originality, and neatness.

We hope that will will hear from the Service Learning Program next week to see if we have the grant.

Sunday at 5:00 pm, we will be speaking to the 4-H club about the laptops and possibly networking them.  Anyone is welcome to assist.

Nick started mumbling again.

Meeting adjourned at 5:25 pm.
Next meeting: October 13, Gardner Hall 115, 5:00 pm

Kevin Rasmussen
ACM Secretary

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Jimmy's Random Rants

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