I haven't blogged here in a while cause I got a new place to blog at since blogger refuses to let me fix my archives. Peace out blogger, hello Wordpress.

Thank-ilicious

I hope everyone had a decent Thanksgiving. At the least. So this week has been pretty nuts. Not in the usual "The news foretells the end of the world" type nuts that I usually start ranting about, but the busy nuts type of nuts. Haha..busy nuts. First off, the X-box 360 dropped today. That's pretty exciting stuff. Well, not for me or any of my friends really. For instance Sul and myself have been saturated with hype and given nothing of substance. Blaise is on a bent about how X-box has so much more potential (which it does). And Tim's a Nintendo fanboy. Not that it's not exciting, but..there's nothing to really cause excitement. A bump in graphics? Hmm...that can only go so far. But alas, like the original Xbox, problems have already been complained about. Perhaps from haters? Or perhaps from people that knows what a defect is? Eh, whatever they are they're all probaby hardcore gamers. Since they probably waited in line on 10PM Monday when the store closed and waited to get the 360 at the stroke of midnight. People like that? They tend to play for 72 hours straight and tend to overheat their systems. And then they tend to complain about it. It's just the reports of freezing at the menu's (like in PGR..ouch) and systems after installing the hard drive (dick) that worry me. And on that point, since this ripoff that is the core system actually went underway, I would have to wonder who the fuck would have gotten it. Other than the really naive or the really retarded. The only reason I could come up with as to why a hardcore gamer would get the core system is cause..and I'm being very kind here..they really wanted the 360 and got the shitty core version and figured they'd spend another $200 to make it respectable. Whatever the case, as with the recent batch of video game syste..excuse me..media entertainment systems, it's best to buy the second or third generation of a system's production cycle. Like the PS2 and it's faulty disc reader or Xbox with it's faulty cooling system and then faulty disc reading, the next cycle usually fixes the problems (and hopefully doesn't make any more). But I'm hating (just a tad). It's not all bad (the 360 that is). In fact, it's pretty good. Reports come in from high and low that Perfect Dark Zero (the granddaughter of Goldeneye) is actually pretty good. With an offline multiplayer that beats Halo's. Bots that you can play against instead of/when you have no friends have that affect I s'pose. Speaking of high praise, Project Gotham Racing (when it works..which is probably 99.7% of the time for most people) has become the de-facto standard of racing games. From what I've read it does everything right. And these games are played with what's considered the best gamepad...EVER. It's like the Dualshock (the current crowd favorite) but actually big enough to feel like you're holding something. As weird as that sounds. If Sony insists on using the maligned boomerang controller, then I guess we have a winner. Xbox Live has also gotten a considerable (and pretty sweet) makeover. At first I thought the idea of "Gamer Cards" was lame. From what I read I had imagined something akin to Pokemon cards, where I could trade uhh..myself for um..other..people? Ok, it wasn't really thought through, but thankfully, that's not how it turned out. In fact. It's pretty cool. If there was like...5 games I played regularly on Xbox, I'd opt for Gold (which I have since I paid for that shit back when X-box Live Gold was just X-box Live) again to truly rep myself. But as of now I play Halo2 and uhh...sometimes Burnout Revenge. Both terrific games, but...not enough to want to rep to the fullest. As for now, peep me. I'm a monster. In the making. And the graphics can only go up (since that's really the only thing that can happen now). I mean I was blown away by the original Halo's graphics, and Halo2 did it even better. So...pretty amazing stuff coming along. From everybody. Yes, if you checked that link that is a Doom port onto the iPod Nano. Pretty freakin crazy. Speaking of Amazing..are you ready people? Brace yourselves... Ladies and gentlemen...I introduce to you what could possibly be the coolest toys to ever hit the fiefdom of geekdom. Ok..relax. Be easy. Let's control ourselves. Yes, that's Star Wars figures. And they come with vehicles. Oh no..wait...they turn into vehicles. People, what you see before you are Star Wars TRANSFORMERS. Goodness gracious, I need to get water. Because I am parched. But maybe I need to maintain this excitement, so I can actually go out and drive my car. That link wasn't a real invention people, at least not one that's going to be mass produced. I don't think I've ever mentioned (to anyone really) how strange it is to have your birthday so close to Thanksgiving. Because the whole deal is about being thankful, and birthdays are usually a time people reflect about their lives. So it's like..alot going on, yanno? I mean to say that it's probably the reason why I'm optimistic at times (couldn't you tell?) because the optimism of Thanksgiving always affects the reflection that happens during my birthday. So if anything, there's this "It's not THAT bad" mentality. Just a little insight into your pal's mind. Peep that yo. Future out.

Latest News: More Insanity

Apparently the fall is a crazy time for news, because crazyness is just happening. So crazy that I'm doing this at work! Where can I start? Riots in Paris? Scooter being indicted? Delay avoiding trial? The whole continent of South America protesting Bush? the U.S. being AUDITED by the U.N.? Why don't we start with Copernicus' body being found. Not too thrilling, but noteworthy nonetheless. It's just insane how much crap is happening. For even worse news, check out the latest TIME magazine before it leaves newstands. Apparently pensions are a scam with loopholes being exploited by companies so they won't have to pay retirees. And the government isn't doing shit to help these people. Huzzah! That's just the tip of the iceberg in that TIME though, cause there's so much bad news in that one, that I'm seriously scared to actually be living in this country. But it's not like anywhere else is safe now eh? Even idyllic France is suffering a..what was the news article I read? Oh yeah, Immigrant Riot. Because yanno, it's just the immigrants that're rioting, and not the criminals exploiting the situation and aimless/angry FRENCH youths joining in. "Damn immigrants! Stop trying to find a better life in this country! Don't you dare riot for being underpaid and mistreated...stop it...you stop! Stop right now and go home to...Immigrant land or wherever it is you came from! This is why we gave the Americans that statue that offers refuge for the unwashed and unwanted. So you can go there and than we can deride them for mistreating their immigrants also."Hahaha...you see that? I was just an angry self-righteous frenchman. It's sorta like an angry self-righeous American, but with a perky french accent. I had so much fun doing that I forgot what else I was going to say. I could go on to talking about how crappy a job Bush is doing, but the rest of the world's doing that job already. Oh, and Jimmy Carter. This season sucks for Bush. He can't get his personal lawyer appointed to the Supreme Court, his administration is under attack at all sides. Even the death penalty isn't working for the guy in his own homestate. Too bad the democrats are so mismanaged that nobody still cares. A clear message of fucking up is better than an obscure message of trying to fix things. I have a sneaky suspicion that the original President Carter doesn't like Bush. Too bad America doesn't like softies either or Carter would've beaten the original Fall of Liberal Society Ronnie Reagan. Or the America that does like softies doesn't fucking vote. So even if you do like softies or like hardasses, vote anyway. Make believe you're time traveling or something when you're in a booth. Cause you know I do. Can't vote? Fuckit, stand outside and tell people unsure with whom they're going to vote for...a person to vote for. Hahaha. Yesssss. Well, my day's almost over and I got some chillin' with La Familia to do, so I'll go off and do that. Future out.

Chock Full

Hey yo. So VH1 is showing I Love the 80's 3D. This is probably the best one for me, partially because I don't really remember the last 20 hours of I Love the 80's that I've watched, and partially because it featured stuff like Rocky IV, Short Circuit, and uhh...well just those now that I think about it. And 3 Amigos. Which I always wanted to see. There's also more commentary from Chris Jericho. Huzzah for that. Check that bad boy out. Peep this, I've picked up Warriors last week for the Xbox. Pretty sweet game. It's like a more controlled, focused GTA. You can still do alot of crazy stuff, but it's more linear because you're only given about 5 blocks at most to move around. But there's definitely aspects of the game that I can see them putting into the next GTA. Like stealing car radios from parked cars. Spraying graffiti. Mugging people. Picking locks and then robbing stores. Gang (aka Squad) control. More elaborate fighting (which isn't saying much since any GTA was barely passable as a beat em up). I figure this will all be in the next GTA, because even though Rockstar has like 4 different development teams now, they still use alot of the same game mechanics. Like The graphics are straight out of GTA, for better or for worse (Stumpy hands), gameplay features stealthing features like Manhunt (which also became present in GTA: San Andreas), and the squad system/destructible elements are straight outta State of Emergency. So it's cool that all these games build upon each other. The presentation as with most Rockstar games is top notch though, and the game was better than the movie. Which when you think about it says something. I feel I've matured past chuckling everytime someone says 69. Or seeing genitalia in the clouds. Or laughing whenever someone says "Sloppy". Ok, I haven't matured past the sloppy thing. And this proves it. That looks like a penis. No ifs ands or buts about it. Sony has a bean shaped MP3 player that I would've referred to as nuzzy nuts in my youth (yes, I would've said nuzzy), but c'mon. A penis shaped device is a penis shaped device. In my blog news, I'm gonna put titles on my blogs soon. Before I just put it in the actual code OF the post, so on and so forth, but to streamline the whole thing so I don't have to put the code in (which is way I stopped blogging for a while, cause it took too much effort), I'll put code in the template to make all my titles show up. So some posts will have double titles. My bad. But the archives don't work anyway so whatever the fuck, eh? Whatever the fuck indeed. In news news I have actually become so lazy that I check my BBC World/Guardian World/NY Times/CNN and various tech and comic news via RSS feed. Yes, I would rather download my news straight to Thunderbird instead of going to various websites. Yes, a new level has been reached. But I'm always amazed how I, or anyone else, will go to such lengths to BE lazy. Anyway, what was my point? Oh yeah, so Apple's getting sued cause the Nano scratches real easily. Not just the case, but the screen. Which sucks since the screen's so small, an inch scratch is your whole display. They're fighting it, and I assume they're not going to flat out lose, but I guess they're being precautious because they've told major retailers to allow more returns on the new iPod Video if it's like..blemishes on the player. I was actually getting interested in it again but now all interest is lost. Sorta. If you use AIM you should check out their new all in one AIM Beta, called Triton. It's like a Mini AOL because you can do anything you can do in the AOL program. I'm serious. Minus keywords, this thing has everything I remember from AOL. Which was basically email and a today page. Ok, like I said, my memory...eh, pretty shoddy. But they have a spyware scanner (pretty silly considering how insane AIM used to be with linking me for free 50 hours) and other stuff. Go to the AIM website. I would link it but it was more of a chore than I thought to link the guardian newspaper and I don't feel like linking anymore. But read the guardian. They're pretty good. They were alot better last year, cause now they seem to exaggerate news regarding us, or maybe I'm just mindwiped by our media. Whatever the fuck indeed. Future out.

Word of the Day: Interesting

Anyone watching The Colbert Report? The funniest thing on it is the Word. I mean it's only an half hour show and a regular feature so I feel secure in saying that it's the funniest part of his show. Anyway, that's really all I've got in that regard. I've been messing around with my template, so it should be cleaner now, code-wise anyway. On the outside there's probably no changes other than a really gaudy drop-down menu I felt like throwing in to see if it'd stand out. I guess it does. I'm trying to make my archive page better, as in (if you tried to see the archives) actually have a working one. So we'll see how that turns out. In other news, aside from the Colbert Report, I really don't have any recommendations for shows. Except Reunion. But I think I mentioned that in my last post. I wanted to mention something..what was it...what was it...oh yeah, I think Clint Eastwood's pretty kick ass as a director. So when I read about his latest project it really didn't surprise me, but the scope of it did. He's doing a films on Iwo Jima. You know, the location of perhaps the famous WWII photograph where the marines are pushing the flag up on the beach. The movie is aptly named "Flag" I think, or at least the book it's based on is. The book is an interesting story (I haven't read it but it seems fascinating) about the soldiers in that photograph. After the picture gained in popularity, the soldiers still alive (because 2 of them died days after the photo was taken) were brought back home to rally morale for the war by reenacting it. Pretty tacky, but understandable. Things had to be done. From what I read the book/movie seems to be about soldier's guilt. Because as I remember: A soldier fights for their country, but dies for the soldier beside them. Pretty deep stuff. So when people are dying overseas and you're going around the country reenacting this event that you can't even properly reenact cause your friends are dead, that must be harsh. I don't have that kind of integrity, so I won't speak more on it like I know what I'm talking about. Oh yeah, I said films. Eastwood's also directing another movie about Iwo Jima from the Japanese side. It's about the...zeal that soldier's fought for, in which an honored tradition (Bushido) was used as a tool to motivate soldiers and sow feelings of superiority. Sorta like Manifest Destiny. Except their God was the Emperor. So it was like Manifest Destiny. Pretty crazy how history works, huh? Well anyway, that should be really interesting. Final note about that flick, Steven Spielberg actually had the rights to the book Flag, so Eastwood just went and did Million Dollar Baby. When he won those Oscars he met Spielberg in the back and asked him for the rights to Flag, which obviously Spielberg gave him. Pretty interesting all around. I wanna see Jarhead too, so if you want in on that, hit me up. Future out.

Sunshine

It's been a while since I blogged, eh? Well, much like the weather here on merry old Staten, the rain has ended and the sun has finally returned. It was almost at the point where I was used to the rain everday. And enjoying it. Have you told you that I like rain? I have? Ok, just making sure. There's real no news from me, I just felt like blogging. The world's still pretty much going to hell. Can you believe Bush has like...3 more years left? He just started his term and he is on a roll! I guess compassionate conservatism or whatever the fuck he's reppin' now means shitty service. Sorta like a White Castle with waittresses. And on the natural front, nature's pretty pissed at us too. But then again it has always been. I was talking to Sul about it and nature's always been nuts. And with information being so readily available and so on and so forth and people at our age actually paying attention to news, it's not that big of a deal. Some fucked up shit happened early in the beginning of the 20th century. Like earthquakes decimating San Fran and small Pacific Islands. And hurricanes have only been recorded for the last 50 years or so. And a couple of World Wars. At the end of the day, I'm sure we don't have it that bad. I mean we probably will, but for now, it'll be alright. Not that I'm saying these disasters aren't that big of a deal, because it's terrible stuff, but don't start getting all Bush on me and start using the Lord's name in vain. But if He really wanted to fuck with us...we would be fucked. And considering things? He probably really wants to fuck with us, but it's sorta like foreshadowing. See, nature? That's just an equilibrium, there's a zen-like reasoning behind it. But people and politics? They're just so stupid that it can just get worse and worse. But enough about that. In tech news the new video iPod came out. And it's smaller than a the 4th generation iPod. Which is pretty impressive. I was actually interested in it but than I realized I don't have much of a need to watch TV on a really small screen. When my coc...uhh...postits are bigger than the screen, than I don't feel like watching a tv show on it. Speaking of tv shows, everyone should check out: 1) Arrested Development on Fox ('natch) 2) Boondocks on Adult Swim/Cartoon network One of the consistently funny comic strips in cartoon form? With creator Aaron McGruder as executive producer? Damn homie. 3) The Office on NBC that's only if you like funny stuff. If you don't...eh. Whatever. And here's some crap for you to read from Overheard, since I don't really look at Oddly Enough anymore at work: CANADA! Conductors! Conductors! The Sequel! France! Gays! Relationships! Wrong! Future out.