Priyam, Inc.

Whatup hos! Dug up this old blog because I found something interesting...
A story I wrote in 6th grade:

Neo's Rival

Part 1 of the Neon Wars Saga

By Priyam Patel

Sixth Grade

Mrs. Sipelis's class

Plaza Vista School

(C) Priyam, Inc.

Company's fourth year and counting!

This was war.

Millions of men and women fighting for peace.

Thus was war.

Soldiers in different ranks using the latest technology.

This was war in the year 215 B.D.

If one can imagine humanoid fighting units battling it out on earth and in space, which is what the Neon Wars was like. The most common mobile unit was the Freelancer, a powerful bird type with long razor-sharp talons on either end.

There were many organizations taking place in this war. First, there were the G-units, the teams of rebels who sought peace through war. There were the pacifists who believed weapons would bring war closer if not removed. The Alliance was the joined forces of three enemy organizations: the Earth Federation, the Principality of the Axis, and the Lambert crew. The Alliance sought the destruction of the G-Units. They invented most of the mobile weapons including the mass-produced Freelancer and their prototype "secret weapon."

This is the story of a G-Unit team with a new ensign named Neo, and with the help of his young veteran friend, he soars up the ranks until he is a four-star general. 

"Welcome, Neo," greeted Professor Son Gohan. "So you want to join us in the war? Are you ready for the tests and interview?"

Neo went to his friend, the teenage prodigy Prof. Son, who at the age of just twelve, he went into battle alone and wiped out the enemy forces before declaring victory. Prof. Son, now only fifteen years of age, was the five-star general of the G-Units and knew Neo and his predecessors well.

"As you already know, your father was fighting at the Battle of Truce six years ago and never fought since. I promised him not to tell you this until you were old enough, so now I think your age qualifies. Your grandfather fought in two wars and saved the earth those times. Now it's time to make your ancestors proud! I have a feeling you will pass the tests."

"Test one: Maneuverability!"

Neo was taken to a room with a masterpiece. "Wow," whispered a surprised and excited Neo. "A Neon Wing-0 Custom XX! Where did you find one?"

"Made it here," answered the professor, proud of his creation. "What you will do is pilot this mobile suit through all of the tests. In this one, you will dodge the imitation enemy fire. Are one ready, Neo? Neo? Neo!"

"Way ahead of you, Doc!" exclaimed the thrilled boy as he climbed into the cockpit.

"Okay then" sighed the professor, "let's begin.

Millions of bullets shot at Neo, who dodged them, aware of the mobile suit's abilities.

"I have brought you some fish, sir," announced a man with a German accent.

"Venderkoff, what do you think of Neo?" asked the professor as he nibbled a fried fish.

"He shows some potential as a pilot," replied Venderkoff, the general's assistant and butler.

After concluding a long interview that made the young warrior very nervous, Prof. Son concluded that Neo was modest, lighthearted, unselfish, and the most perfect recruit the teenage general had ever seen. "Neo, how well are you at piloting this weapon while it is Neon?"

"In the Neo system?" the boy responded.

"Yes, in a mobile weapon while its Neo system is running."

In the final test, Neo piloted the mobile suit against "mobile dolls," computer piloted mobile suits. When the young pilot flipped the red switch, the mobile suit's colors inverted as its weapon, speed, armor, power, and fighting statistics increased tremendously. The white legs inverted to black, the blue arms reversed to yellow, and the blue and red chest became yellow and green, as the nuclear reactor changed from green to red. Neo was very good at adjusting to the system and he showed this by elminating all forty Freelancers before any of them can fire a bullet. Therefore, Neo became a member of the G-units.

After training, the rebel organization gathered to complete a mission. They were to infiltrate an Alliance military base. Professor Son Gohan explained his plan to the eager soldiers.

"Freelancers are easy prey. All we need to worry about are the officials Evangelion and Genesis. What Neo and I shall do is attack them head on so they cannot provide backup to the soldiers. I will pilot the Neon Wing-0 XX Mach 12 Custom against Evangelion and the Neon Hyperpower Custom 64. Neo will pilot the Neon Ligar-0 X against Genesis's Neon Silverstriker-XX Custom."

Neo was very surprised at what he had just heard. "While we are distracting these officials, Alpha Team, you cover Delta Team. Delta Team, you act as the team to destroy the base. You are really the decoys. Gamma Team, Sigma Team, you hit the sides of the base. Gold Team, Silver Team, attack the front and back. Bronze Team, eliminate enemy base from above with your napalms. Any questions? None? Good. Let's move out, team!"

The Ligar-0 X was the secret weapon mentioned earlier in the story. Its potentials are endless as it is equipped with different weapons. For example, it has twelve pairs of ion boosters, two pairs of hybrid cannons, fifty micro-missiles, twenty homing missiles, two pairs of torpedoes, and four pairs of blades for close combat. It can even be equipped with wings if flight is necessary, or anti-aircraft missiles if the enemy takes to the skies.

At the village of Chorahs, a small town on an island southeast of the main continent, Genesis and his mobile suit were to act as bait for Prof. Son. Neo took him down by surprise. Expecting the teenage veteran, he did not expect a rookie to hit him head on. Neo fiercely hit him with his blades open, causing the enemy's shoulder armor to get sliced off in an instant.

"What?" cursed a flabbergasted Genesis. The Ligar's ion thrusters opened up as all eight blades moved from the sides to the front, delivering an extra powerful slash. "So. The Ligar-0 X has fallen into the hands of the G-Unit rebels. Is that young professor I befriended years ago the pilot?"

"No, Genesis, it's me!" cried Neo as he dodged a shot from the enemy's beam rifle.

"Neo Yuy?" Thus Genesis and Neo found out that they were on different sides in this war. Suddenly, Genesis struck with a tackle and a barrage of homing missiles. "I thought you would join the Earth Federation!"

"I never said I would! I told you that I would join the best team in the war. Evangelion has practically brainwashed you to join the Alliance! All he wants to do is destroy the earth so his space colony cluster can become the dominant colony!" Neo countered with his hybrid cannons.

"Neo, how are you doing?" asked the professor's voice in the Com-Link system.

"I'm fighting Genesis, Professor!" replied Neo, half sobbing.

"We're all done here, so can you get out of there?"

"Yes! Thanks, Prof. I'll be back, Genesis. The battle may be ours and our duel may be yours, but the Neon Wars are still going on!"

"Until the next time, Neo, my friend" announced Genesis as he watched the Ligar-0 X zoom away with the help of its ion boosters.

As a result, Neo and Genesis became locked into duels within this period of war. These two were best friends in childhood, along with Prof. Son. These warriors would be the saviors of the earth in these Neon Wars. Genesis and Neo, friends turned rivals because of war, were still friends during and after the bloody battles they fought.

My grade: A

Teacher's comments: Wow! Very interesting! You are a talented writer with great ideas.

Princess Maker 2

This is one fucking hilarious game. I was looking for a nice simulation game, maybe Harvest Moon or SimCity, but I noticed on Wikipedia this game: Princess Maker 2
The premise is intriguing. You raise your daughter into a princess, a prostitute, or 72 jobs in between. I had to try it!

So first thing I noticed in this old DOS game is the interface. It's pretty primitive, so things don't work as well as you'd hope. Also, it's an unreleased English translation, so there are several mistranslations.

Now for the story. It's really stupid. There's an unnecessarily long prologue describing who you are. Basically you're a knight who saved a corrupt king from the prince of darkness, who was under direct instruction of god, which is really weird. Anyways, you defeated the prince, he retreated, the king thanks you and promises he'll be good. NONE of this plays a role in the ACTUAL story.

So you're chilling one day and there's a shooting star that lands right in front of you or something. Inside is a 10-year old girl. Then some god/goddess comes and explains that you have to raise her. What's interesting is it first asks you what you want her birthday to be, which affects which god/goddess is her guardian (it's based on her horoscope). What's weird is it also asks for your birthday, but nothing ever happens on your birthday. It also asks for her blood type, which is more important in Japan where they consider that also. Anyways, this questionnaire takes place before the long prologue. To continue...

After you get the kid, the game starts. You have this weird demon-creature butler (this whole world is infested with magical demons, but the one working for you has no powers!!). You get a lot of options and it looks like you get a great deal of control over your kid--greater than you actually have. You can change her diet to make her gain, keep, or lose weight. You can take her to the market and buy her a meal, clothes, weapons and armor, or to donate to the church. You can talk to her (ask how she's doing, ask how her studies are, or just small talk). You can send her to the castle to socialize. And you can plan out her schedule for the month, which is the most important one.

I say that you don't get that much control because you do this at the end of every month. You interact with your daughter once a month! Anyways, planning the schedule is important for developing her skills. As Napoleon Dynamite phrased it, "Girls only date guys who have good skills!" Same works for your daughter. Each month is divided three ways and you choose what she does for each third. So she'll be in school for a little over a week if you want her to. She can also work, take an adventure, or relax.

School is the best way to raise her stats. She can take science, poetry, fencing, dance, and some other things, each raising certain stats. Some lower other stats, which is interesting. For example, the more she studies science, the more her intelligence goes up, the lower her faith goes. I actually like this, because it makes it easy for my girl to be an atheist. Unfortunately, tuition is expensive. It's about 40G per DAY. Unfortunately, you can't keep her studying.

Work is a good way to earn money, but you need good stats to get good money. Without good stats, the employer yells at her and docks her pay. Even if she fails, her stats slowly increase through work, and some of them are stats that don't increase through school, like cooking (there's no cooking school for some reason). As she gets older she can get tougher jobs like hunting or lumberjacking or cabaret dancing.

Stress is the big problem in this game. The more she works or studies, the more stressed she gets. And if her stress levels are high enough, she'll stop working and become delinquent. If it keeps getting worse, she gets sick and dies. To reduce her stress you have to let her rest by going out on the town or going on vacation to help her relax.

So I realized something really stupid. Your character is a hero who saved the kingdom, but he's in a fixed income of like 100G a month and an extra 500G a year. This really sucks because everything is fucking expensive. School averages 40G/day. When she goes to town, she'll ask for money, and if you give her, she's taking like 100G. You don't have to give her money, but her stress won't go down as much. If she's delinquent, she'll take money even if you say no. So basically it's impossible. I got so tired of this that I got bored and decided to kill her. It was actually pretty funny, because the butler kept trying to change her diet from the anorexic one I chose to the weight-gain one, and I kept changing it back. Her stress went up so much that she had to lie in bed. And when you ask her how she's feeling she says "This is the end for me... have a long life, dad" Owned. Eventually she died, just barely reaching age 12.
SO I found a cheat to give me more money, which actually allowed me to do something.

There are RPG elements to the game, which make no sense. She can go on an adventure, which means you control her in an RPG minigame, fighting monsters and looking for secrets. It's really pointless unless you can afford tons of weapons and training. In fact strength is only useful for gaining a reputation, which will cause random townsfolk to attack her, and if you win, your reputation goes up even more. It's also useful for the harvest festival, where there's a fighting tournament.

The harvest festival takes the entire month of october. She participates in one of four events: dance, cooking, art, fighting. My girl's cooking skills were maxed out but she still got only 9 points (the winner got 180 points). Apparently you can't cook with a low "sensitivity" stat. They give you useless prizes if you win.
Eventually my girl got a rival. Some girl in her dance class challenged her and my girl won. Owned.

One thing that really really bothered me is the physical growth. She starts out like 4'8" with no tits or ass, weighing like 70 pounds. Well she's 10 years old, right? Her breasts were slowly growing, so I decided to speed up the growth for when she becomes a prostitute. There are pills that increase her size 3/4 an inch. I gave her a lot so by age 12 she was size 36. I didn't realize she hadn't finished puberty, so by the time she was 18 her size was 42, which is bigger than even most porn stars. Her hip size was like 32 and her waist was 20. She weighed under 110 pounds. But she was sooo short. At age 18 she was 5 feet tall. WTF!! I guess I set her up for back problems...
Oh and I bought this really really slutty dress for her, but she couldn't fit in it because you have to weigh like 90 pounds to get in it. As soon as she could fit, she started starving.

So there's a social factor in this. The better your stats are, the easier it is to socialize with people in the castle. You have to work your way up, talking to the lowly castle guard until you're popular enough to talk to someone more important. What's funny is the first time I tried, the guard told me to find someone more important, meaning I had enough popularity points, but I still got rejected from everyone else. Anyways, it actually helps because the merchants sell you stuff for cheaper if you're popular and the judges at the harvest festival inflate your score a lot.

So I trained my daughter to win all the harvest festival competitions and I gave her huge tits and I got her to age 16. That's when I started making her work at the sleazy bar, where she flirted with drunk people. One day, some old guy is all "Would you like to be my mistress? I'll pay you 165G a month." She's all "Haha, okay, sure, nice to meet you!" Owned. What's funnier is the demon guy is all "uh oh that can't be good. Would you like to scold her?" and I'm all "Fuck you, if that's what she wants to do, who am I to say no!" Owned.

Unfortunately, I failed. She didn't become a prostitute like I hoped. Instead she ended up some sort of bandit.

Such a funny game...

Reflections on the end of high school

June 2008 was an interesting way to end my high school experience. After researching the issue for months, I finally experimented with ganja. I performed publicly on the blues harp. I was punished unjustly by an authority I lost respect for weeks prior. I helped create an interesting film project. I came, I saw, I brawled.

Four years gone by... How many highlights were there?

1. Freshman year
1. MJ's trumpet section
2. Exposure to jazz
   
3. Antenore's world studies
4. Philosophizing of reality
   
5. Smirl's stories
   
6. Jeremy, John, and Dave visiting
   
7. Keith Dunton coaching
   
8. San Francisco trip
   
9. First Scioly regionals
10. Morgan Jones at Reno
11. Making Wind Ensemble
    
12. Barry Perkins clinic
    
2. Sophomore year
1. Jacob's guitar/bass videos
   
2. Jacobs' jokes and trumpet playing
   
3. Freed's eccentricities
   
4. Peck's cynicism
   
5. Sadnik's trumpet section
6. Keith Dunton coaching and lessons
   
7. Jeremy, John, Dave visiting
   
8. Best Jazz II ever
   
3. Junior year
1. Struggling through AP Physics
   
2. Sewell's detailed lectures
   
3. My trumpet section and fuckups
   
4. Keith Dunton, Trumpet Corner coaching
5. Washington Middle School at Reno
   
6. Jeremy, Jesse, Dave visiting
   
4. Senior year
1. COSMOS
   
2. Funny Spanish class
   
3. Poker in stats class
   
4. Getting shafted in Jazz I
   
5. Jayne's trumpet section...
6. Garfield HS at Reno
7. Eisloffel's videos
8. Everything mentioned at the beginning

That's what I'll remember of high school. I'll also remember my friends and classmates of many years, people like Adrian, Andrew, Yassi, Jenny, Janine, Ryan, Kevin, Tarun, Alex, Alec, Neeraj. I'll remember people I haven't known very long, people like Andrea, Keith, Deep, Katie, MJ, Russell, Haran.
Staying in touch will be much easier now that we have internet networking like facebook. Still, it's going to be really weird not being in the same class as Jenny or Adrian, or the same band as Ryan and Alex.

Looking back, middle school was a complete waste of time. It somewhat influenced my freshman year, but I went in a completely different direction. My personality in high school was very much influenced by my freshman year. With inspirational leaders like MJ and Sarah, friendly upperclassmen like Sophia and Carly, and amazing talents like Keith and Johnny, band had the biggest role in shaping me. Overall, it was a total blast; I did so much more than I ever had before! Field tournaments, San Francisco trip, Reno trip, Scioly regionals, Barry Perkins. These were trips I am glad I took. And world studies with Antenore was awesome, especially since we had the best class ever--Kelly, Kevin, Brian, John, Ryan, Adrian, Tarun, Christine, Ashley, Yassi, Lynne, Vincent. That was the year I found my first epiphany, regarding perception and reality, although now it seems that this truth I realized was available and known by everybody... Still, freshman year was when life became interesting for me.

Sophomore year, in hindsight, wasn't bad at all. Sure, I found Peck a dull teacher who tested us before giving lectures. Sure, Jacobs didn't teach, just showed us notes to copy. Sure, Freed graded really strictly and gave tons of homework that didn't help our grades. But each of these was in itself fun. Peck's class was great because I was there with friends: Marc, Alex, Brian, Ranjan, Marc, and we got to watch weird movies like Gallipoli. Jacobs was hilarious, always making fun of Steven Wang with Sameer and Brian Beard. Freed had her funny moments, and it was fun being in that class with Ryan, Christine, Jennifer, Melody, Brian. Plus there was Spanish with Wexler and Rundle and math with Jacob, which were loads of fun. Unlike freshman year, most of my experiences were not derived from band, but from academics. Band was still pretty fun, but I had to deal with bob-o in wind ensemble. Our jazz band was great, though, I'd say the best Jazz II I've ever seen come out of Irvine. Good times, eh?

Junior year was alright. Harwood was the nicest teacher ever, and Sewell was the smartest teacher ever. Sacks was an interesting teacher, and although I despised that physics class, I'm glad I took it. Langevin was pretty annoying though; only Raam and Neeraj made calc a fun class. Spanish with Schram had its moments. Helping Russell with his algebra kids wasn't that bad, and Sheila and Melissa were pretty nice. Band was getting boring, espeically with bob-o leading jazz I. But wind ensemble was really fun with V and Justin and Keith.

I consider COSMOS as the beginning of senior year. It wasn't worth $2K but it was still loads of fun. I got to meet awesome people like Andrew, Brandon, Desiree, Wade, Ish, Hugo, Surya, Chris, Beau, and Griffin. I worked with Mike and Carol, who were really cool people. Band was a bust, with jayne getting all this favoritism. Bad enough that she took my section leader spot, she also took a spot in wind ensemble and won the stupid medallion, the most undeserving winner ever, worse than chrissy. The only positives from band were the newbies: Andrea, Dustin, Roy, Julian, Francisco, Katie, Rithwik. They're the only reason I'll ever return to see the band perform. Regarding classes, all my teachers were even better than last year, except maybe Sewell, who I still favor over Gray and Eisloffel. Still, it was a blast. Coupled with brawl, weed, and harmonica, it was a great year.


High school was great, and college can only get better. As long as I stay in touch with everyone I've met, and as long as we have internet networking, saying goodbye will be easier. Nevertheless, it's quite daunting that in about three years, I will never hear from most of these people again.

" This is our moment
Here at the crossroads of time
We hope our children carry our dreams down the line
They are the vintage
What kind of life will they live?
Is this a curse or a blessing that we give?

There will be miracles
After the last war is won
Science and poetry rule in the new world to come
Prophets and angels
Gave us the power to see
What an amazing future there will be"

"And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows"

"This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end"

Goodbye, my friends, and good luck.

Evil and Ignorance!!

I can post this with confidence that very few people will read this. Unless I ask them, unless they're a good friend of mine, and unless they're a troll, nobody will read it. That's how I justify my candor.

I HATE THAT WHINY BITCH SO MUCH
I want to smack jayne with a hammer, and not the cartoonish kind, but the real kind you get in a hardware store

My reason for hating her so much: she is CORRUPTING andrea into her OWN image
Andrea used to be my favorite freshman and I wanted her to become my protege. I wanted to train her and mold her into my image, except I wanted her to be better than me at everything she does.
TOO LATE
jayne beat me to it. Andrea is becoming a jayne clone. She was always better than jayne. But at this rate she's going to decline.

Reasons jayne is a terrible influence:

• She whines more than anyone over the age 9. I seriously haven't seen anyone whine so much since 4th grade. Whenever I tell her to shut up, she cries to V, "MR V PRIYAM IS BEING MEAN TO ME" Fuck, bitch, shut up! Stop being immature.
  
• She's judgmental. She will groan the most at others' errors.
• She's a hypocrite. She groans at others' errors but she makes more errors than anyone. She yells at people who complain about rehearsal, when she doesn't like jazz any more than they do, she just wants to show off her leadership position.
  
• She's pretentious. She acts like since she's studying music, she has a better ear than anyone and she has more expertise than anyone. She acts like she's superior when in fact she sucks.
• She's too fucking loud
• She thinks she's the funniest person ever. She makes vulgar references to almost everything and often spits out interjections like "PISS!" and "BALLS!" She thinks she's funnier than Eddie Izzard.
• She sucks at trumpet. She's terrible, absolutely terrible. Tim Song fucking owns her.
• She kisses ass so much she rivals chrissy petty.
• She's an attention whore and can't stand when someone isn't looking at or listening to her.

That's all I have for now because, thank god, she's only in wind ensemble with me. I feel terrible for Alex for having to deal with that nonsense every day.
So here are examples of Andrea being corrupted:

• She tags along with jayne
• Katy C tags along with Andrea and by transitive property tags along with jayne
• this is bad because Katy C is another of my favorite freshmen and she shows more potential than even Andrea, and if she gets corrupted, it'll be a TRAGEDY
• She thinks jayne is funny
• Anyone who thinks she's funny can't be in the right mind
• She's groaning as much as jayne
• Annoying and wrong
• She doesn't give the music the respect it deserves
• She was snickering with jayne through the Roy Haynes concert, which is just terrible.
  
• She doesn't like Alex for trying to convince her that jayne is a bad influence
• This REALLY pisses me off. My former favorite freshman dislikes one of my best friends just because he was trying to show her the truth. UNACCEPTABLE.

This must be stopped. Justin is leaving and we're graduating. Adam is the only competent one left, and as soon as he's gone, a clone of jayne will be in charge of the trumpet section. The glory that we saw as freshmen will be no more. The section will have nothing to aspire to. Their best musician and section leader will be an obnoxious douche. This cannot continue.

Some ways to maybe whittle at her influence:

• Convince Andrea that jayne is evil
• Didn't work when Alex tried it, and that's the easiest way. If I can just get some other people to agree, like Ryan and Mark...
  
• Train Francisco so he's better than andrea by junior year
• This will be fucking hard and damn near impossible.
• Get other trumpet players to challenge her.
• Unfortunately, the one who's in the best position to challenge jayne is andrea, which will not happen. Maybe Dustin?

That's all I have so far.
God help us.

Typecasting

As of April 6, I started a boycott of the music industry.

I don't think I will boycott, but I will definitely be skeptical towards another industry I despise: Hollywood.

I saw The Forbidden Kingdom last weekend, an action film starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li. I expected them to be the protagonists, but instead it was some dumb white kid. He ruined the movie for me! The action sequences were great, because he got owned and the Chinese people owned, but the story revolved around him. This was a problem since he's a dick. Another movie that I haven't seen because I'm boycotting is 21. It's the story of Chinese American MIT student Jeff Ma, but they hired a white British guy. The story of a mostly-Asian blackjack team became the story of a white-dominated team. "There are Asians in the movie," people tell me. Fair enough, there are two Asians, even though neither has a serious role in the movie.

That's the problem, apparently. American people don't want to see minorities taking on serious roles. Another, less reasonable, argument is that there aren't enough minorities in Hollywood to cast serious roles. That's total bullshit, and it's a terrible way to justify racist casting.

Look at it this way. 30 Rock is a great show, and in it, Tina Fey satirizes show business. One recurring issue is that, as a brunette, she can't be an actress. Only blondes can.

The problem is you need serious actors in order to establish a precedent. You need a precedent in order to disrupt racist casting. But you need to disrupt racist casting in order to hire serious actors. What Hollywood is doing right now is refusing to give the minority actors their opportunity. They subsequently get roles that hardly anyone can take seriously, thus perpetuating the cycle.

I don't know what can be done. But I do know that I would love to see some casting with a hero that's NOT white, or a black guy that does NOT die or go to jail.

FIGHT TYPECASTING AND RACISM

More fair comparison

I can't go to HMC prefrosh because it's the first two days back from school, and that'd suck. I wish they planned it better...
Still, I feel compelled to, in light of more information, reconsider yet again.
Pros of Caltech:

• The name--I'll get better jobs and grad school opportunities
• The location--Pasadena has lots of character, very unique
• The housing--Houses instead of dorms, lots and lots of character, strong unity
• The research--research programs encouraged for literally all students
• The size--small so I'll know almost everyone
• The pranks--fun stuff
• The building--even more fun stuff

Pros of HMC:

• The location--Claremont is gorgeous and HMC is adjacent to other schools
• The consortium--great classes in pure sciences and liberal arts at other schools
• The profs--Mudd profs are education-driven
  
• The housing--guaranteed, with some of culture in each
• The music--CS prof Keller owns at trumpet
• The research--research programs encouraged for upperclassmen
• The name--HMC is recognized as a serious undergrad school
• The bread--College would be $40K cheaper

Cons of Caltech:

• The chicks--they really weren't exaggerating
• The difficulty--I can't get below a 3.0!!!!
• The music--the director is better than A but still...
• The profs--except for FEYNMAN, they're mostly research-oriented and not really that helpful
  

Cons of HMC:

• The name--nobody knows it outside of jobs and stuff
  
• The peers--half of them have the merit scholarship, but nearly all Techers qualified
  
• The pranks--not as many
  

That's all for now... Goddamn I hate being indecisive

Unfair Comparison

To be fair, I won't decide between HMC and Caltech for a little while longer; maybe I'll do an overnight at HMC.
But since prefrosh weekend was an intense orientation, I feel compelled to write a comparison.
Pros of Caltech:

• The name--I'll get better jobs and grad school opportunities
• The location--Pasadena has lots of character, very unique
• The housing--Houses instead of dorms, lots and lots of character, strong unity
• The profs--more research-driven profs can be helpful
• The research--research programs encouraged for literally all students
• The size--small so I'll know almost everyone
• The pranks--fun stuff
• The building--even more fun stuff
• FEYNMAN IS GOD!!
  

Pros of HMC:

• The location--Claremont is gorgeous and HMC is adjacent to other schools
• The consortium--great classes in pure sciences and liberal arts at other schools
  
• The housing--guaranteed, with a bit of culture to each
• The music--CS prof Keller owns at trumpet
• The research--research programs encouraged for upperclassmen
• The name--HMC is recognized as a serious undergrad school
• The bread--College would be $40K cheaper

Cons of Caltech:

• The chicks--they really weren't exaggerating
• The difficulty--I can't get below a 3.0!!!!
• Music program is sort of weak
  

Cons of HMC:

• No respect
• Peers not as crazy geniuses
• Not as much pranks or fun stuff

That's all for now... I should do an overnight at HMC but after Caltech's prefrosh, I don't think it could change my mind...