We haven't heard from Mike since he went to that strange old temple in Antarctica. We're going to break into his house to search for clues!

Olympix

My friend Genai is the goalee of the u.s. olympic water-polo team. I just watched the opening ceremony, but didn't see him. FUCK! I don't even know if they're gonna televise any of the games, but we'll see. GOOD LUCK BR0!

Edit: Sez USA team vs Serbia will be on regular NBC at noon on sunday? Who knows...


PPS (or FFYI): What's up with Mike Anderson??? I just saw Great Britain's team, and they were talking about some rowing shit. Mike, where u at???

Yes, quite. I nearly shit my pants this morning when I got that in my inbox. hehe..

Happy Friday the 13th, indeed!

Laundry is great... Boooo!

I have seen a variant of that before, different picture. You know even though you are expecting it, you still get the shit scared out of you.

D>M>

Examine the two photos closely and see if you can find the difference between them and click on it!

Fair Warning: the "prize" for doing so is an eye opener, but definately not for the feint of heart! It's definately an bit of a shock to the system, that's for sure.

Good luck!


http://members.home.nl/saen/Special/Zoeken.swf





Happy Friday the 13th! =]

You make me laff

Man thats some funny shit. You know I am sad about the whole movie industry sort of getting more and more base as time goes on, but on the up side it does provide me a medium for laughing more often. You know without going into Art and I had a volley of emails about a week ago on this very same topic. Hollywood just seems to be headed in the wrong direction from an artistic stand point. Unfortunately, they are also as profitable as they have been right now. People seem to eat this shit up. Bad movies.

Anyway, I heard a review of AVP on the radio this morning. Man, you could tell the guys were big Alien/Aliens fans but weren't too happy with the movie. First off, its PG-13. No aliens popping out of stomachs, no serious gore. WHat is that? I guess the plot is pretty lame. NOOOOO? Go figure. Ack.. too bad, but it isnt like I didnt see it coming. I mean Alien was great. Aliens was great. Alien3, ummm weak sauce. Alien Resurrection? Dear god, what was that all about? And then this one. Seems like a trend to me. Down hill after Aliens.

Man are we jaded.

D>M>

"Look into my eye"

Other Choice Viewer Reviews

These are best if attempted to be read aloud in coherent sentences:

Harold and Kumar:
Halirius, read this... Reviewed by ferrarisr4me23 08/12/04 Notify
If You are looking for a good movie to take your Honey on a date... this is the one... It is packed with halarious scenes. This is the funniest movie I've seen since American Wedding, of course i think we all know pretty much nothing could beat that but other then that I can't go back more the a thousand years and find a funnier movie. So if your lokking for a HALARIOUS get-away to the movies, take my advice and go to Harold& Kumar Go to White Castle. *Not a movie for Kids!* Contains serious adult nudity, brief sexuality and Strong Language.

not all that great Reviewed by hairsprayhoti247 08/08/04 Notify
The movie was ok...it wasnt that funny tho.yah i was kind of funny but it wasnt that great of a movie.

Spiderman 2:
LuVeD iT!!!!! Reviewed by soccer1007star 08/11/04 Notify
The movie wuz really good...even better than the first. It is a must see...but wut the heck is wit dat song "Raindrops are falling on my head"? That wuz really annoying and ramdom...but the rest of the movie wuz awesome!

pish posh blah bloopity bloop Reviewed by whatsthe7digits 08/11/04 Notify
it was aight, gotta give it props for all tha special effects, but the dialougue scripting was wierd and had some unnecasry s cenes, but overall id give it b+ , compared to like LOTR, i wouldn't have mind that movie if it wasn't for the random scene of "RainDrops are fallin on my head" RANDOM!!!

Napoleon Dynamite
the best movie ever Reviewed by tapitaway 08/12/04 Notify
anyolne who doesn't see the brilliance of this movie.. is an idiot. this movie is genios! and it it my favorite movie!!

Teen Review Reviewed by superstar3265 08/12/04 Notify
Napoleon Dynamite was the greatest film of the year and certainly becoming a classic as we speak. The hilarity of the movie was unheard of at this time. EVERYONE GO SEE IT,ITS SOO GREAT!

Awsome Reviewed by llbountyhunterll 08/12/04 Notify
This movie was Awsome, If you want to laugh yourself into an acomma see this movie.

Best movie I ever saw Reviewed by desertkids6 08/11/04 Notify
I loved Napoleon Dynamite I saw it 10 times and Tonight will be my 11th there was not one part where I stoped Laughing I hope there is a 2nd one I was just funny and so Just Great I loved the movie

(FYI, there has not been a negative review about the movie so far)

For all the IDIOTS Reviewed by gobigred40 08/10/04 Notify
who keep putting, "this movie blows" or "DONT go see it," stop! seriously read through some of the other more intelligent reviews, this is a great movie, but unfortunately it is not intended for 40 year old accountants! I think they are coming out with "Father of the Bride 5" just for you lame a-holes!


Okay, I have to stop now. But on a side note, I have found my new comedy fix site! No more somethingawful, no more homestarrunner, just real people giving real reviews on a real site moviefone.com!

OMGLOLSTFU AVP2 ROXXORS

#1 movie in decades!!!!!!!!!!!
Reviewed by dpfv28 08/13/04 Notify
The best movie ever

---------------

Well, there you have it. Wow. I'm going to have to go watch it back to back to back just to pay appropriate homage. Lowest common denominator, indeed.

:shock:

~O.

AVP: Not Volleyball Tour

Ryan and I were deciding if we should surf this morning. It was teh sucks so we hopped online to check out surfline, and they verified that it was teh sucks. We were angry and thought maybe a movie would be good instead of showing off our fat rippling bodies to the world in crappy surf. So we hopped on moviefone and looked at some viewers reviews to see what everyone thinks. What followed was PURE COMEDIC GENIUS!!! Here is a small blurb, but see for yourselves! Actually I am kinda sad about the whole thing because I think these reviews are somewhat representative of the majority of movie goers these days (ie LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR).

We loved it!! (as a group!) Reviewed by sargeapone9th 08/13/04
Notify Mr. paratimami2 wants he PREDS to fight as loners? Then he can fight us all alone if he wants, because We all loved AVP. Story-line was tasty enough for most movie goers to get into the mood of what the director wanted to show off and add to the 'Aliens & Preds' mistique and kept me wanting more. sOME OF THE REVIEWS HERE ARE FROM ONES THAT NEVER WATCHED THE FILMS IN DETAIL OR PAID ATTENTION . I'M A GAMING CLAN-LEADER FOR AVP2 (A MULTIPAYER CLAN FOR THE GAME AVP2) HTTP://FORUMS.9THCMD.COM/

Also, did I mention that both Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle AND Yu-Gi-Oh are both longer (88min and 90mins vs 87mins for AVP)? I think I might not see it.

By the way..

I just wanted to state openly (because I forgot to previously) that this here blogger thang is a fantastic medium for keeping in touch with you all.. and that I must say that our previous length of distance and uncommunication was absolutely stupdity incarnate. We deserve the company of our friends and we should not take such things for granted. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Thank God for Al Gore and his wonderful internet!

=]

~O.

Hey, don't apologize, beef-a-logger.

A diversity of opinion and viewpoint is essential and directly related to the quality of any given discussion. If everyone towed the company line and regurgitated the same beliefs, things would get awful boring and stale what with singing the same song every day, all day. There are always two sides to the same coin. So, I guess what I'm saying is that you should STFU and be as surly as you wanna be. (LOL)

Good points throughout, there.. although I'd say that in defense of the Libertarian model, they pretty much just want to get the FEDERAL government out of our personal business and return much of the power to govern back to the States and local governments themselves, where it really belongs. There aught to be checks and balances to keep anyone (personal, corporate or otherwise) from taking away another person's liberty, freedom or rights to property ownership.. but that's it.

Speaking of capitalism vs. socialism.. have you ever really figured out how much of your gross income is soaked up by wealth re-distribution vehicles and then compared it to a known "socialist" system's taxation rate? Federal Income Tax (~15-20%). State Income Tax (~5%). Sales Tax (harder to calculate as a percentage of gross income, but let's call it 5%). Capital Gains / Investment Income Taxes (Most folks may not eat these.. but let's call it low, around 2-3%). Social Security (A tax by any other name is still a tax.. 15% of gross here). Auto/Home/Health/Disability insurance premiums (national average is close to 20-25% of gross income)

Let's add 'em up. I get somewhere between 62% and 73% of our gross incomes being absorbed into wealth redistribution vehicles with these rough figures. Let that sink in for a bit. We are a socialist system in sheep's clothing and without the benefits usually associated thereof.

Now, what would you do if you suddenly had 10, 15 or 20 thousand more disposable dollars per year? Would you give some directly to charity? Would you put it directly back into your local economy by purchasing goods and services? Start a business?

Would you believe that a Ford Taurus, by way of being multi-taxed at every production/transporation point costs DOUBLE what it would otherwise? That $20,000 Taurus sitting on the car lot would otherwise be selling for about $10,000 if not for the rediculous federal taxation system.

You mentioned a fear of "the jungle" type industrialists vs. the impoverished masses.. but do you not see our society heading this way in modern times anyway? The division of wealth has never been greater and the chasm between the haves and the have nots has not been as large as it is for many, many decades. Largely, in my humble opinion, due to the over-regulation and "friendly" law/taxation/regulatory legislation in favor of Mr. Corporation Special Interest Donation Station Laundered Money Guy.

Ugh. All of this stuff makes me sick with all the back-scratching and good-ole-boys networking keeping real innovation and progress down (see: FDA for a healthy chunk of denial of medicines that are in regular use overseas because it would mean millions/billions of dollars lost to the domestic pharmacutical companies that are buddy buddy with their local congressman, representative or executive-branch folks.) In all honesty, I've considered more than once trying to get involved in politics to try and make a difference, but I realize that there would be a high probability of me sleeping with the fish or eating a bullet if I actually got anywhere.

Ah well, off to work so I can feed the man some more of my cash.

=]

Best,

~O.

BTW.. the meeting with the University folks went really well and I should know some more about placement and availability of classes/scholarships & whatnot in a couple of weeks. I'm thinking about going into the International Business program, which would have me learning a foreign language and even doing a small internship overseas if I get in. Rawk!

Ayn Rand Funagain

You know I do agree with a lot of your points. I guess some of the points you made are from different angles that I didn’t see. I most truly agree with the points on the apathetic and often litigious attitude people have now. This attitude of 'I don’t want to take the blame for anything' has become truly out of hand in this country. I think that is why we see so many lawsuits from people that don’t want to own up to their own short comings. Then there are the individuals who believe the world owes them something, and it doesn't. You get served a plate, and you have to make the best of it. As JP says, "Tough, but fair" hehehe. A certain level of balancing is a good idea but the expectation of it as 'the only means of support' is not a good idea. It should be icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

What drove me nuts about some of their points is what sort of bugs me about libertarianism. Libertarians believe in little or no government involvement in the business world and sparse social programs. The problem is that sort of lack of governmental regulation leads to what developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The hugely corrupt and powerful industrialists during that period did not have the environment or the workers in mind and would do anything to hide the truth. Unfortunately this is just the nature of a lot of people. Greed and power corrupt. Even worse is that corporations are even less compassionate. Not out of power or greed, but because they have no emotion, they are a machine with one goal, profit. Don't get me wrong, I am for open business and I strongly believe in the capitalist model with some social leanings. It’s just a certain level of direction and control is needed by the government. If it wasn't for the government we wouldn’t have the FDIC, FDA, EPA, SEC or other public minded protectionism, born out of necessity from the abuses by industrialists, that often seemed to be negatively targeted by Ayn Rand. I think her writing is a matter of perspective. From the perspective of her talking to the individual, a lot of points are pertinent and I strongly agree with. Meaning that telling each person how they should act for themselves and not rely on others and not become apathetic. From the social or community perspective is where I get disillusioned. She points to the removal of social safe guards and programs designed to protect the less fortunate, the environment, and corporations from themselves. I know some individuals or corporations abuse these safeguards, but better a few leaching then a lot starving or polluted upon while genuinely working their asses off. I also do see the tell tale signs of her dislike of the unions and I definitely agree. I won't universally say that all unions have brought about the demise of the American job market, but certainly a few have been know to destroy the very industry workers they were assigned to protect. Manufacturing is a good example. I know people back in Ohio that make $40K a year for taping wires together. The whole organization gets greedy and destroys itself. Socialism gone bad. A lot of this is the shock of globalization ruining the previously more isolated American market. Cheap oversees products and labor.

I guess what I am trying to say is that a lot of perspectives can be looked at. Some I like and some I don’t. I'll admit I did get a certain level of gratification from the protagonists sticking the antagonists here and their. The protracted battles and senseless actions by the antagonist just drove me nuts through the whole book that I could not wish hard enough for them to get what was coming their way. But they almost seemed too inhuman to be a real creature you could understand or empathize with. Too irrational I guess.

D>M> <--- Eric hates me! It’s cool though. Just kidding.

PS Sorry Art I didn’t mean to come off as critical of the book as I did. I guess I have been ornery and feisty lately.

Atlas Shrugged

Aaron, I agree with a lot of what you're saying there.. especially about the huge as monologue at the end that could have been its own book. I, too, was ready for that thing to end about 10 pages into it. More or less, it was like the Cliff's Notes for the rest of the book. Interesting how we'd come away with such different takes and "feel" from the book. In all honesty, you're really the first person I've ever heard that has disliked the book for philosophical reasons (unless I'm hearing you wrong?) I would genuinely be interested to hear if you have specific issues with the premise or themes because I value your opinion and hold you as a highly intellectual guy. Moreover, I always love to hear dissenting opinions on any side of an argument because I feel it lends balance and quality to the conversation. If you have the time and inclination, I'd love to hear your ideological/philisophical thoughts.

Yes, I understand the motivations and personal background that gave Rand her fundamental reasons for writing the thing and that there are some seriously polarized characters involved. But, to me, the themes were more universal and reach very far beyond solely the anti-communism angle. It seemed to be that it was more a calling out and damnation of the leech-entitlement crowd that constantly seem to want to benefit and prosper from those that are motivated, inspired and willing/able to work and achieve.. without having done anything or exerted themselves to deserve it.

A reocurring statement from the novel that I took out of it was that we should all work towards our best benefit for our own personal well being and contentment.. not because anyone tells us to or because we feel compelled to... to reach personal enlightenment and joyous exaltation of completion of a difficult task taken-on and to achieve our dreams.

Also, I took the book on the whole as perhaps a bit of a statement of warning against the loss of personal liberty, freedom and power by way of voluntary proxy to others that we feel should or might do a better job of managing them for us. Again, that perhaps sucking the enormous teets of government (or the "corporation") and resigning oursevles to such an existence because it is comfortable, safe and without fear of failure in exchange for never legitimately attempting to reach for our biggest dreams and goals can never lead us to a fufilled life of passionate existence tempered with meaningful contemplation and joyous celebration.

Moreover, a philosophy of life that holds up individual achievement and striving to be the best that we each, individually, can possibly be as the highest possible goal and aspiration in our lives. That living our lives in fear of failure or *expecting* someone else to improve our lives is a fraud. That if giving to your fellow man or providing assistance, charity and benefit IS your highest aspiration, then so be it.. but let us not be MADE to do so "at the point of a gun" nor require that those that would do are made to coddle and support those that will not. Kind of takes all the piss out of it if we are forced to be charitible and supportive, doesn't it? Is that charity or compliance?

In the end, I think it comes down to a question of free will, personal freedom and liberty.

As you suggest, perhaps this was a factor in the birth of the Libertarian party (of which I've discovered recently I share a great deal of common beliefs, actually.) I think it's time that people began taking personal responsibility for their lives instead of waiting.. no.. demanding that someone else take responsibility for their affairs and provide for them. America is the land of oppurtunity and liberty, not the land of a free lunch and a handout "at the point of a gun". The quotational phrase is important because I believe that people are inherently generous and giving. As Einstein once said, (to paraphrase), even the mighty lion, if force-fed a diet of raw meat continuously, excessively and for long enough, would lose an appetite or desire for it.

Anyhow.. without writing a doctoral thesis on the thing.. that's a little bit of what I took from it.

I think my favorite parts in the book were the courtroom rebuttle as well as the "cocktail party" speech.

Regards,

~O.

PS, forgive me if there are horrible errors in this.. it's just too damned huge to proofread this second and I gotta go eat something or I'm going to pass out. Heh..

Ummm..

Just a stupid abstraction of Deaf Mute, my [AT] name. You know the chickens.

D>M>

D>M>?

Plese explain.

Atlas Shrugged

Ah yes, many of the actionteam members have heard my comments of that one. It all starts with the whole book queue theory I used to live by. What I mean is that I used to put books in queue as I received them. I think I started this a long time ago to force myself to read all my books. To enforce this I would not change the order of the books in queue. Needless to say, this would often lead to a book at the front of the queue preventing me from reading for periods of time. So what ended up happening? Well Atlas Shrugged put a big hairy stick in my front spokes. I didn’t read for 18 months; my longest dry spell of reading ever. Jon, being the avid reader that he is, harassed me so bad I finally gave up on the queue theory. So, I set aside Atlas Shrugged for a while. I tried on many occasions to start into it and failed for a long time. Finally at my last job, I got so bored, I plowed through dozens of books while working there. Long story, I'll explain another day. Anyway, after a while I gave Atlas Shrugged a try. Even with upwards of six hours of reading a day, that beast took quite some time to complete. It is definitely a long book.

Without further ado, here are my thoughts on the book: Okay, I liked her writing structure, descriptive verbage, and general story telling skills. However, the characters in the book drove me absolutely up the wall. The unintentional antagonists in the book, aka liberal socialists, were absolute idiots. The protagonists, aka conservative entrepreneurs, were just too ridiculously opposite of the antagonists. The whole book just had an air of McCarthyism I just could not get past. As I researched more into it, it seemed more evident that there was some truth to this conclusion. Ayn Rand came out of the Soviet Union as an immigrant and had an obvious need to tear the most hated soviet regime a new asshole with her writing. Now some of her ideology I do agree with, a lot of it I find fallacious. I mean in a perfect world where all people with money can and will act for the greater good by working at maximum competition/efficiency and in a totally perfect capitalistic model. However as we see with the whole corporate scandals that are so prevalent now, I find her ideology definitely dated to the 50s at a time where such white washing of corporate and indivualistic greed was the status quo. The worst part of the book had to be the 60 page monologue where Riordan (sp?) is making his speech to the people. Dear god I got 15 pages in and wanted to cry. It was the same rhetoric that had been thrown around throughout the entire book, just lumped into one long ass repetitive monologue. Overall, I though, without the serious character flaws in every person in the story, and the country for that matter, the entire premise of the plot would unravel. There is some truth within the book; I just think she took it so far to the extreme I felt like I was talking with Rush Limbaugh the whole time. The ideas were just too centered on a perfect system that can not exist. The problem lies in that relying on perfect, infallible people. Its funny, in my speaking with other people about this book, either people love the book, or they hate it. The novel has the effect of being very polar and galvanizing to most people; it just depends on what side you are on. Do I regret reading it? No. I mean it was very interesting from a lot of stand points and had some really good points to it, but it was defiantly a bit tough to swallow some of the themes and ideologies. One thing that can be said about the book: It did set the stage for the rise to the Libertarian party. It seems to have a strong influence among certain groups. In some ways she did predict the demise of the Labor unions too. I also think she could have compressed the book down to about 500-600 pages and had the same effect to come off as being so long winded. I don’t know it seemed almost like born-again Christianity for entrepreneurship.

Sorry all for the huge comments on a topic already beat to death be me 18 months ago.

D>M>

BTW I calculated approximately how many pages I read during the 'slow' period at my work: 7900 pages in about 6 months. Most of that was at work or in public transportation.

BTW... (speaking of Ayn Rand)

Aaron, you ever get a chance to read that copy of Atlas Shrugged?

Anyone else ever read it?

It's kind of the "Editor's Cut / Collector's Edition" version of the Fountainhead.. if you've picked that one up in your literary travels.

Personally, I think it's quite possibly the best book I've ever read in terms of having a phenominal plot, a fantastic flow and crafting of words and then especially when contemplating the subsequent philosophical impact/introspection of the whole thing... nevermind that what was written back 50-60 years ago as a social commentary THEN matches up quite nicely to what is going on now with the world and this country in an all too alarming and square peg vs. square hole kind of way. Very on-point and a little discomforting.

Ahh, the age old question... Who is John Galt?

=]

Hehe.. and don't forget Ms. Sawhorse Detective! (LOL)

You're right that a lot of those photoshop offerings are fairly bleh.. but once in a while you run into those jewels that are just FUNNEH. If you go into the forums and then scroll down to the sub-forum called "comedy goldmine" there are some seriously funny threads to peruse at your leisure.

Side note: Had a meeting with the director of the Business Administration degree dept at PLU and left with very positive residue about the coming challenge of finishing my degree up. It's going to require an insane amount of money and time (in that order), either of which I do not have vast disposable quantities of unfortunately. They have a special International Business program that includes an overseas semester/summer and language courses, so I've been kicking that idea around a bit. Might be cool to take Italian and intern in Europe, or maybe even Japan.. who knows. Should know more on the education front in the next couple of weeks when I get to review my transcript with the head administrative business-dept fella.

Late,

~O.

This one is teh funniest

I was looking at all the "crazy" videogames people made for somethingawful, and of course, many were just lame. But THIS one, this one really takes the cake!

Sawhorse Detective

Ok, one more link.. because it made me laugh very hard:

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2305


On a happy note.. I've got an appointment with the director of the Business Administration department at PLU tomorrow morning to talk about getting my degree finished up. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting some positive info on how to get this all completed (man, my life is going to be NUTS with working full time, going to school full time and taking care of a baby.. wow)

Alrightie.. sorry about posting so much. =/

~O.

Oh.. and Art's link 'O the day:

www.blackpeopleloveus.com

A hilarious commentary on the stupidity of ethnic ignorance and insensitivity.

Reviews from friends and acquaintances for Doom3 have everyone raving about the "shit your pants" factor of playing at night in a dark room. Aparently the many ways in which the developers have deviously planted scary shit is the real "innovative" feature of the game, aside from really sweet graphics and sound.

The flashlight duct-tape mod has been very well received as folks found it to be a bit cumbersome and stupid to have done otherwise. I dunno.. it's probably creepy as hell to have to go around holding nothing but your flashlight and see the bad guys only by the muzzle-flash of your gun. Yikes.

Until I upgrade my computer, I don't think I'm going to be able to really enjoy this one to the full extent, so I'll probably pass until that time. Hell, I *just* bought Call of Duty.. hehe.. (which was absolutely kick-ass by the way).

Late,

~O.

Damn Jon

Phantasy Star, Diablo II for half wits version. I have to give props for popping out the old Dreamcast though. I guess some guys wrote linux for the Dreamcast. Wow talk about a lot of time on your hands.

Jon you may want to check out Doom III at someone house first. From what I understand the graphics are amazing, but the gameplay is really similar to Doom & Doom II. I mean I dig that. But some people are saying the whole running around the rooms looking for keys and fighting hordes of monsters is not the most innovative game plus the plot line is a bit weak compared to other current games. Then again you loved Serious Sam. Anyway I think Ill like the game.

I guess there is one feature everyone seems to hate. You can't hold a flashlight and a gun at the same time. Someone took it in their own hands and released a 'duct tape' mod into the wild to allow you to use the flashlight with your gun out.

Art, I watched the trailer, but what is that? A cut scene? What does the game look like?

Rudy, I read about that event at sfgate.com and it was just bad. Bush just was stumbling all over himself once he was off the scripted material and handling Q&A. The guy cant think for himself. He just puts his foot in his mouth at every oppertunity.

I have discovered a new pet peev. I have a program called Style XP. It is a commercial paid for piece of software that allows you to work with visual styles in win XP, skins, themes, login screens etc.. Well, you can download the themes and skins from their site, much like Winamp. The catch, a lot of the files you download are .exe files that when launched, ask you up to three times to install 'extra' features, aka spyware, before you can actually unpack the theme files. They don't even install the themes on your system. All the .exe does is allow you to view the zipped contents in a zip program. Fuckers. I hate sneaky spyware. These theme packages are total trojan horses. If you are not reading correctly or you accidently select yes or no, you get drilled. BTW, just because 'no' was the answer to block the install the first time, does not mean the next question won't have the Yes and No reversed. Ie, question #1 Do you want 'such and such' feature to be installed on your computer? Then question #2 Do you want to miss out on 'this or thats' valuable features? So, if you answer 'no' and 'no' you get screwed. If you answer 'yes' and 'yes', bam screwed also. So you have to go real slow and read all the questions thouroughly.

D>M>

Damn... I don't check the site for a couple days and it turns into Ars Technica around here! That's cool, though. Doom 3 has gotten me a little interested in PC hardware again. I still don't think I want the hassle of PC ownership, though. I'll either get the xobx version of Doom 3 or, if it looks like it'll suck, I'll check it out at someone's house....

I wanted to work on a project and have some coffee after work, so I went to Marie Callendar's and had a piece of pie and so. much. coffee. Four cups. Damn. I am not tired -at all- and it's almost midnight. Also, the way my pee smells, you could put cream and sugar in it and it probably wouldn't taste that bad.

Aaron: I dug out my Dreamcast and I've been playing Phantasy Star Offline again. WTF? That game is as mindless as ever.

Yeah...


But did you guys watch the onimusha3 trailer yet? SERIOUSLY.. you have to.

It's un-freaking-believable.

My friend at work actually played me the sound clip of that Bush thing this morning, and the funniest part of it is that a good portion of the audience laughs about halfway through his answer. It's pretty fuckin funny and SO embarrassing! My friend said that after bush's answer, the moderator was kinda like "o...k..?"

what a asshat

Three words for you:


Mouth breathing retard.

More Bushisms

This was at Unity, the convention of more than 6,000 minority journalists that takes place every three to five years:

The first [Bush] moment came when Mark Trahant of the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) asked him, "What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century, and how do we resolve conflicts between tribes and the federal and the state governments?"

Said the president, "Tribal sovereignty means that -- it's sovereign. You're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities."

What is this High School? It sounds like the Teacher directed a question to a student that didnt read the book. You know one of those moments when you are supar embarressed for some slacker classmate. Jezuz.

What scares me about him is not that he is malicious or has bad intentions, but that he is stupid and easy confused. Also easily led astray. Dick Cheney *Cough*. Rumsfeld *Cough*. As the leader of the most powerful country. Might as well be Emporer Claudius. I can say Clinton was a great president, but at least he was smart and charismatic, neither qualities seem to exist in Bush.

D>M>

Sorry All

Art I am pulling this topic off to email correspondences. I should have a while ago. I am sure I am boring the hell out of everyone. Art, check your email.

D>M>

More tech garbage (sorry)


Hmm.. ok.

What about the 5800 (Ultra?) it has what appear to be significant performance increases over even the Radeons.. is there some kind of internal Bortz that makes it suck that I'm not comparing or know about? Is it the 128bit vs. 256bit that makes all the difference here?

GeForce FX 5800 U NVIDIA NV30 DX 9 500 1000 128-bit 8x1

Radeon 9800 Pro 256 ATI R350 DX 9 380 700 256-bit 8x1
Radeon 9800 Pro ATI R350 DX 9 380 680 256-bit 8x1

I'm really leaning towards the 256mb card because I need it to carry me through at least another 12-18 months and there are a few games on the horizon that I know I'm going to want the juice for (Pacific Fighters add-on and the impending monster of them all.. a new "Battle of Britain" title being produced by the same developers as IL2.. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!)

More Tech garbage

Well the 9800XT is the same generation, just pushed a little harder. You'll get about 5% more bandwidth over a 9800 pro for a $200 premium. Lame. So instead of $200, it will be $400+. On the other hand if you go to the next Gen, the Radeon X800 Pro or the Nvidia Geforce 6800, you will see a performance delta change that is pretty significant (~25-40%), but you will also pay about $400+. The Nvidia 6800 plain vanilla (128 MB) about $300+. Forget about the 5950's. They are slower than the Nvidia 6800 and more expensive. The 256 MB version of the Nvidia 6800 is $400-450. Way too much. I believe the Radeon X800 series all come with 256 MB. I really dont know if 128 MB is going to be a hinderence with games in the future. RIght now, it doesnt do much for you, but it may in the future.

Verdict:

Buy one of these @ these price points:

Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB @ ~$200 ~80-120% faster than your 4200
Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB @ ~$250 ~85-125% faster than your 4200*
Nvidia 6800 128 MB @ ~$300 ~100-160% faster than your 4200

*The 256 meg memory give more benefits to DX 9.0 games like Doom III

Anything pricier, I would sit for a few months to see some more Direct X 9.0 games to come out to see who is the price/performance leader. Right now the Nvidia 6800 Ultra and GT lines are faster than ATi's X800 XT line for Doom III (The only DX 9.0 game), but both are really expensive. $400-550 and there is only one game out there that uses them to their potential.

D>M>

PS I hate Reality TV Shows. I haved The Real World from day one. I still hate it.

Ho-lee-shit.. you MUST watch this game-intro video. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. This is absolutely mind blowing.

Wow.

WOW.

http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_onimusha3_gi.html



P.S.. sorry about writing so much. Heh.. Eric made me do it!

=]

Best,

~O.

Card Chip DX Generation Chipclock Memoryclock Buswidth Pipes

GeForce4 Ti 4200 128 NVIDIA NV25 DX 8.1 250 444 128-bit 4x2

Radeon 9800 XT ATI R360 DX 9 412 730 256-bit 8x1
Radeon 9800 Pro 256 ATI R350 DX 9 380 700 256-bit 8x1
Radeon 9800 Pro ATI R350 DX 9 380 680 256-bit 8x1


I'm guessing the big increase in performance is gained in the Buswidth, and a bit in the memory clock departments. I'm not sure what the difference between 8x1 or 4x2 means or if it really even matters. Moreover, will the 9800XT be a significant enough increase to buy? I did see some other cards on that list that seemed to be comparable to the 9800 series.. is there something in your opinion that would prevent me from buying one of these? Are the that much more expensive?

GeForce FX 5800 U NVIDIA NV30 DX 9 500 1000 128-bit 8x1
GeForce FX 5950 U NVIDIA NV38 DX 9 475 950 256-bit 8x1

These are all below the latest generation of cards, aren't they?

=/

I hate being tech stoopid.

Edit: Ok.. got to looking through all the performance charts and Jesus H.. does my card suck. OMG.. "F BUCKS" LOL! That's pretty funneh. I did notice the tests were all done last December.. so I'm hoping that the corresponding prices for all these cards is nearly halved.

As for IL2.. it is pretty much cheat free. There are built in safeguards against it including some extremely stiff speed-hack sensitivities (being the most useful in a flight sim) that actually monitor and track relative time-speed measurements. About the only lame-ness you get online (very seldomly in the non-arcade servers) is when people pump the screen print button to induce lag.

If you get involved, I strongly recommend picking up the free "Hyperlobby" client (do a google search) and flying there.. seems to be a more upstanding and mature crowd. The entire game is scalable from completely arcade mode with cockpit off, no stalls, etc etc.. all the way to full difficulty that includes no map icons or digital readouts whatsoever. Generally, I think that a few of these realism concessions actually make things MORE realistic by way of substituting for knowledge/experience that we, the armchair pilots, just don't have access to. As in, extensive knowledge of local landmarks and navigation points for lack of hours flying around the countryside as well as the "speedbar" readout that gives you compass heading, rough speed and rough altitude to substitute for visual acuity and peripheral vision lost by playing on a 19" screen.

As for reality TV, I'm complete with you there. Largely, a big fat waste of time to sit there and suspend your disbelief that what you're really watching is totally "sculputred reality". There's not much "reality" about these "reality" shows. I'd SO take the one mil and get the hell out of dodge. Their relationship is predicated and built upon a rediculous fantasy-island set of circumstances and interactions. Tell me how much you love one another when you've got to pay a mortgage, listen to your significant other snore, fart or get toothpaste all over the bathroom counter. A million dollars doesn't care if you scratch yourself or lay on the beach all day.

Now, if I had to chose between my wife/kid and a million dollars? Couldn't give them up.

Aaron, is there another step between the 9800 pro and the latest greatest shit on the market? I think you mentioned the 9800pro 256mb card.. which would probably do ok for the next generation of games coming out for the next 6-12 months I'd hope.

Also, I have the 4200, not the 4400... does that make the difference considerably larger between the 9800pro and my card?

Will I need a better powersupply if I get the 9800pro? I've only got the stock Gateway supply that came with the rig (dunno the wattage offhand).


Best,

~O.

That depends.

A lot of factors play into frame rate performance. The great thing about the 9800 pro is that you can turn on Anti-Aliasing and Ansitropic filtering to get rid of jaggies and other 3D artifacts, although at a performance cost. Check out this article on filter applications. There are a few comparisons of games with and without filtering. Also, some games the filter results are better than others. Anyway, with the 9800 and strong filters on, it is still a bit faster than the 4400 without. But with out those filters on or if both have the filters on (Apples to Apples), the card will range from 33% to 200% faster (averaging around 100%), depending on the game. Really the best way to look at it is to look at some benchmarks. Check out this article at Tom's Hardware, it is pretty extensive. They test a lot of games with a lot of cards. You can probably pass over the pages and pages of intro text if you dont want to get into the techincalities.

BTW dont feel like a Noobie on this. To keep track of the enormous number of chipsets, versions and revisions is impossible. I have trouble and I have a lot of time on my hands these days.

D>M>

IL2: How bad is the multiplayer hacking in this game? I'm pretty hesitant to buy games solely for the online gaming purposes. Sounds like a bunch of fun and I love online games. But I've found that playing online is really frustrating especially with FPS games where you seem to run into cheaters and hackers with Aimbots, wallhacks, skins and all that shit. Kinda ruins the online playing fun.

On other highlights, tonight was the concluding episode of For Love or Money II. It's just one of the many lame reality shows on TV these days. Most of the running episodes are just time fillers but the final episode of these shows, when things unravel, are quite fascinating to watch. Still time wasters but...

So in the end of this show, first the lady chooses her bachelor from 16 men whom she feels she is in love with. Then the bachelor gets a choice of whether to take money (the amount unbeknowst to him) or her. Then the woman has a choice of choosing love or money.

In this episode, the man chooses the woman over the money, which makes sense because the amount of money he recieves is 1 dollar or 1 million (50/50). By choosing her, it's 100%.

Now... her on the other hand, has a choice of a guaranteed million vs him. This raises my point. Why the heck wouldn't you choose the money? I understand this love deal, but is it really worth a million dollars? You will always have a million dollars lost hanging over the relationship, and that in itself could be the catalyst of a breakup in the making. That's just my thought. Silly girl.

How big of a difference should I expect from a ti-4200 128mb card to the 9800 pro 128mb card?

(forgive the tech noob)

First in the Pool

Well I have installed the Windows Service Pack 2 on my machine. I guess that makes me the group guinea pig. So far no issues. Tomarrow it should be widely available via The XP Auto Update utility and Windows Update. SP2 adds a lot of security to XP. Unfortunately some programs may have issues. So Ill keep an eye out.

D>M>

Oh yeah, for all you anti-mozilla users, IE now blocks Pop-Ups natively with SP 2 as well as other security blocks.

Video Cards

I have the original IL-2. I didnt want to get Forgotten Battles until I tried the first one.

Best card right now at the 200 price point is: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB. Its one generation back, so it is not $400+ or some bullshit, but it has a lot of power to it. If you want you can go for the 256 MB version, but its a bit more pricy. The 256 MB version probably won't help much with current games, but games like Doom 3 and HL 2 will make use of the extra 128 megs and speed up the system and increase image qaulity by using less compression on textures. I used to be die hard Nvidia, but the 9800/9600 generation (Back one gen from bleeding edge) and the 9700/9500 generations (Back two gen) both trounced Nvidia. The most recent generation is actually pretty even though. Anyway a 9800 Pro w/ 128 MB will set you back about $195-205, depending where you order it from. The 256 MB version is $235-280. Don't be afraid to order a Sapphire, Crucial, Powercolor version of the Radeon. ATI, like Nvidia, uses third party fabricators to make ATi chipset vid cards. Although, unlike Nvidia, they also make their own cards. Be careful when buying, there is a lot of versions out there. Dont get an SE, XT, or other versions. Make sure it is Pro.

Great OEM places to buy from that I trust:

www.zipzoomfly.com
www.mwave.com
www.allstarshop.com
www.newegg.com

All of these offer good whitebox prices and some have free shipping. Most are in California I think, so you wont have to pay tax either. You can also go to www.pricewatch.com for a very good computer hardware price search engine. If you go to Blurst Buy or ChumpUSA, they will rake you over the coals. They sell retail versions AND they charge a premium on top. Something like $50 on the 128 MB version.

D>M>

You'd be suprised how large the RAM footprint is on WWIIOL and IL2/FB. 512mb is now considered to be near the minimum requirement for quality gameplay in either, with 1+gb being optimal for huge maps and hi-res skins!

I'm pretty sure that my video card is my largest bottleneck, but right now it plays IL2FB at high resolution with little to no stutter unless some knob loads up a frigging huge map and with tons of objects. For WWIIOL, the footprint hovers right around 512mb so while you don't NEED to have that much, you'll have some wicked stutters/pauses and frame rate hits if you have less.

I've kind of got a little bit confused as to what card is modern or not these days. There's too many varying nomeclatures and brands to keep up with it all. I've had good luck with Nvidia, like their driver support and have really never had any problems with them.. so I'd be most likely to stick with them unless you've got a very compelling argument for switching to ATI.

Specifically, which card were you thinking of for around $200?

Regarding CoD.. the best part about it for me was that you aren't just a one man Rambo army killing thousands of bad guys.. you nearly always have a squad of friends with you that help out, lay covering fire and move the plot along. VERY FREAKING COOL! You can pick up weapons (which I find I *must* do in many missions because I run out of ammo for my guns often) There are a few missions that are just absolutely insanely crazy with withering machine gun fire riccocheting (sp) off of everything and guys getting seriously mowed down or blown into the air by grenades and mortars and whatnot.

Only problem is that now I'm done and I'm wanting more action.. been having trouble finding more single-player maps. Mostly, there's a ton of multiplayer maps.

Which IL2 do you have, anyway.. the first one or the "Forgotten Battles" version? Online play with IL2/FB is unbelievably fun. Scripted servers establish mission objectives for each side and offer up to 64 live players simultaneously (although most limit to 32 for bandwidth issues).

Late,

~O.

RDRAM sucks nuts

RDRAM is damn expensive. Id pass on a RAM upgrade. Even with Doom III, which is the game with the most need for resources, they tested memory and found an increase in FPS of less than 1 FPS with an increase from 512 MB to 1024 MB in the same rig. Really right now the only time you need more than 512 MB is if you are working with memory intensive programs. Ie CAD, applying filters on huge Photoshop files, 3D Rendering. Those sorts of programs really have limitless memory requirements. The biggest boost for you would come from a Video Card upgrade. You can pick up a really sweet card for $200 right now and have about as fast a rig as you need. And since the Doom 3 or HL 3 engines will soon be the next engine of choice for development, you will be safe for a while I should think.

I played the Demo of Call of Duty and I really liked it. I am going to pick it up next time I have disposable income.

Diapers? Saran Wrap? Forget that. Too much money. Just do as Tim Allen used to say, "...Spackle that fucker shut". Ouch.

D>M>

I *just* bought Call of Duty and let me say.. holy shit! It is hands down the absolute coolest WWII FPS I've ever played. The anti-tank rifle sections are incredlibly lame. But, the rest of it is SO FARGING GOOD. I finished the game last night, actually. Wow. Just.. wow. I bought mine used for $24 or so and thoguht it was worth every penny. Before I get into Doom3 (which I hear is just unbelievable), Farcry and some of the new uber-graphics games I'm going to need a serious hardware upgrade, I'm sure. The nice thing about being a generation (or two) behind the curve is that I get to pick up old games like CoD on the cheap and get to play them with modern tech.

Right now I've got:

P4 2.53
512mb RD-RAM
ti-4200 128mb
7200rpm HD

I'm thinking that I'd like to get another 512mb of RAM but the RD shit is just rediculously expensive and I've discovered that I'd more or less have to ditch my two sticks of 256mb and buy TWO sticks of 512mb instead... UGH! Outside of the RAM situation, I'm thinking maybe a new video card this fall but I haven't quite decided which is going to be the best of the second-generation cards just yet.

Mainly, my rig runs the latest flight sims (granted, which runs on a 2 year old engine) with 90% of the eye candy on, so that's cool and the gang. Everything else is peripheral for meh. I recognize that my once powerful rig is now falling behind (ain't computers a bitch that way?) and so I've got to start thinking whether I want to completely rebuild a new one or upgrade piecemeal. With the impending mini-me, I'm thinking that upgrade is going to have to be the choice for monetary concerns.

Diapers? Diapers! Who needs em? We'll cover our rugs and furnature in saran-wrap and let the kid go wild. Daddy needs a new computer, damnit! (LOL)

Navel Bean

I used to be a real navel battle nut, but I think I am mostly over it. I really like land based combat. Elrock help fire that along with some of the miniture games we occaionally play. That and quality WWII FPS. You know, I never picked up WWII online because it was so bad in the begining and then I never heard anything about it until when you came down to LA. I should pick up a copy though. I still need Call of Duty too.

You know I bought IL-2 and forgot I even had it for a long time. I should bust it out and start playing it.

D>M>

Rewinding a little bit.. and just to throw this out there:

If anyone wants to try the cutting-edge flight simulator out there right now, I'd strongly recommend the whole IL-2 "Forgotten Battles" series with the Aces Expansion Pack. It is simply dumfounding as far as quality of graphics AND simulation are concerned. The added bonus is that they're coming out with the Pacific Fighters add-on this fall which will introduce pitching carriers, Corsairs, Hellcats, numerous other fighter/bombers and all kinds of torpedo planes too! Weeeee!

=]

BTW, Aaron, I'm kind of suprised that you've never picked up WWIIOL for the naval-action. For some reason I always remembered your fascination with battleships and destroyers and whatnot. If nothing else, you should download the full version of the game without a membership and fart around with the destroyer and river patrol boats offline. Firing salvos of 5 inch guns, torpedoes and/or triple-A barages is a hoot.

~O.

O Rugs...

You don't know the story behind the Oriental Rugs? Now, I thought you knew that one. That was a true Rich-ism if ever there was one. Rich and I were on our way down from PV from a bike ride on the GTE trail. We were on Hawthorne Boulevard south of PCH and we ran by a store called "Art, Oriental Rugs". Well of course Rich just made it stick. Now there was a third person on the trip, but I do not remember who it was. It was either Art or Eric.

You know that guy who gave us all that pirated software, I don't know what happened to him. After our sophomore year I think you and I sort of drifted from him. I would be surprised if he didn't end up getting caught in the credit card fraud FBI dragnet in 1993. He was always a wanna-be though. He could get his hands on warez and hot computer equipment, but he would always get schooled by the real crackers that took his BBS down all the time. The rad part was Mike O'shea was on the other end. I mean he was good friends with the guys taking down the BBS. I never forwarded that info on to him. I think his name was Jason.

You know the whole condom thing was a misnomer. For some reason, the first time Eric hung out with us at our house, he swore he saw a condom in our room and instantly got the brilliant notion that we were "studs" and were hooking up all the time. I don't even know where he saw a condom. Weird. So anyway, until he got to know us shortly after, he had that idea stuck in his head. One of those ironies in life. As far as Yoli was concerned, I knew the truth of the matter, but you know Ryan. He would hear nothing of the truth. I think it was one part living vicariously through you and two parts looking for proof that us nerds could score; therefore, he would have a chance too.

Ja -El: be glad you didn't go with us shopping on Sunday. We shopped for Francis for 7 hours non-stop. He pretty much needed all new clothes for his trip. There is a great nerd story to it all though. He has a lot of old ratty clothes that I told him he needs to get rid of or use only around the house, but not for going out. He was unaware that clothes need to be replaced as they fade and wear out. Especially nice clothes. And somehow to explain the necessity to buy new clothes periodically I used the software upgrade cycle as an example of how you should 'upgrade' clothes every few years for compatibility, new features, and stability. Explained as only computer geeks can.

Yawn

Oh, and this made me about piss my pants laughing this morning:

http://www.boreme.com/bm/OCT03/a/m_pinky/jump_fr.htm

Yeah, dad was rediculously fast. I don't know exactly how fast, but I know that he'd come home from the library with a stack of like 6-7 books and have them all done a day or two before we went back the next week, and he only had a handful of hours to read at night and the weekend. I think the bulk of it was done on Sunday, but still. That's rediculous. Too bad he couldn't put that kind of energy into cleaning his alcoholic, drug-addled ass up and being a real father. Ah, the joys of childhood.

It's true about school work. Man, did I HATE the constant assignments that were only work-for-the-sake-of-working bullshit. I do recall more than one night where me and Aaron would be up all night at the 11th hour trying to bang out a paper due the next day. Not a smart way to do it, true, but our lethargy and procrastination was legendary and we had an image to uphold, damnit! (LOL)

As for condoms on our bedroom floor.. eh.. what? This is a new one on me! Wha..? As for chicks.. We weren't exactly casanovas. I think I made out with one chick the entire time I was there in highschool who was REAL close to being my "first" but it didn't quite get to that point. She disappeared a couple of weeks later and no one ever heard from her again, not even her friends at Redondo! (WTF was that all about anyway?) Very strange. BTW.. contrary to popular belief (I think?), nothing ever happened with me and Yoli in the back of her limo except some laughs and a back rub. I probably could have got a little somethin' somethin', but I was too clueless to realize it nor to know what the hell to do about it. Chalk that one up on the "man, if I only had THAT one to do over again" wish list. Unfortunately for me, that list is a long and painful walk through my mid-teen years of missed and squandered opportunities.

I did see mom's book collection downstairs and specifically the shelves dedicated to vampire-related writing. I kind of lost my taste for Anne Rice with the violin book. Too much focus on the semi-homosexual boy-love fest and not enough meat to the plot in my humble opinion. Not that we don't all crave a good semi-homosexual boy-love book now and then, mind you.. but it just couldn't hold my attention.

On Douglas Adams, I got through So Long but also thought it was the weakest of the books and haven't ever read anything beyond that. I did enjoy the bit about the taxi cab driver fellow that hated the rain though.. (won't ruin it for those waiting to read it!)

The Indy Car pile-up extravaganzas! Those were always high quality. Man, I forgot exactly how poor the graphics were back then. Aaron, didn't we get that game from the guy who used to pirate people's credit card numbers and buy tons of computer shit? The guy that traded our crap modem for his super-duper one for no aparent reason? I don't remember his name but I'd guess that he's probably serving some time.

On a happy note, Michelle just had her baby shower and we have all kinds of cutsie clothes, blankets and outfits for our daughter-to-be. Now, we get to go buy the heavy-hitting stuff.. cradle, strollers, carseats, etc. Weeeee! Man, how very strange to contemplate actually being "Dad" to a little person. It's funny how the two things in life I feared worse than death are now my biggest reasons to be happy. I love being married and I'm incredibly excited to be a Dad. Funny how our perspective changes as the river of life moves us downstream a bit.

Late,

~O.

P.S. ~ It's always vexed me for a looooong time about the whole "Oriental Rugs" and no one ever seemed to want to explain it to me, but I remembered the other day about a time elsewhere where someone told me they thought my last name was Nishiki, like the bicycle manufacturer.. and it clicked. One of life's little mysteries solved?

One crazy surprise...

Art, if there was one totally ironic part of your Father, it was his reading habits. Looking at him and hanging with him briefly, you would never guess. But once you were around him enough, you noticed he was often knee deep in the books. If I remember correctly, he was fucking fast too. Watching you and him read, I felt a bit inadequate. I am still a slow reader. Back then I was excruciatingly slow. Something like 20 pages/hr. Brutal.

Elrock, behind that lack luster outer crust of academic lethargy, Art was prodigious in his High school extracurricular reading accomplishments. Although, when it came to class assigned reading, well, lets just say 2 out of every 3 books wasn't bad. Art is perhaps nearly as avid of a reader as my Mother. Speaking of which, I don't know if you noticed Art, but she now has an entire shelving system dedicated just to vampire books. What a nut. Anyway, my Mom is where I got my reading thirst. Then there is Art's writing, man did you ever have the ability to write in school, but only when the gun was pointed at your head at 3am Monday morning for a paper due at 10am Monday. Eric, in between all the condoms we supposedly, allegedly had laying about on the floor (according to some unidentified, misguided youth), Art and I actually managed to do more than chicks in high school. In fact we did nearly zero chicks and a lot of papers. Damn Honors/AP classes were relentless.

Rudy, I concur with Art on the Hitchhiker books. They are awesome and damn hilarious past The first book. However, once I got to So Long and Thanks for All the Fish I just lost interest. That was definitely a weak point in his writing career. Art, were his post-So Long and Thanks for all the Fish books any good? You know I really liked the Dragonlance chronicles too. In fact I almost bought the trilogy to reread a few weeks ago, but I just wasn't quite in the mood for fantasy at the time. I went with Get in the Van by Rollins at the suggestion of Elrock. Anyway, I know there are others that don't like Dragonlance as much as other fantasy series. They don't follow the more generic world setups such as Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk novels.

You know Art I like that you have been writing a lot in the blog. It inspires us lazy arses to write more. Three Cheers. Also, if you you have not already done so Art, read Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Its a fat book at some 1200 pages, but it purss like a kitten. Very good book, and I think more than a few at the Actionteam would agree.

Has anyone noticed that The Actionteam webserver has been very sporadic lately in its ability to serve webpages up. It seems to go down in fits every so often for just a couple of minutes. I know Johnny experienced it with me when I was over his house this weekend, so I am not totally crazy. Nexpoint jagg-ovvs.

Yee Ha Jesters Dead

PS Oh yeah and Indy pile ups were the best. The object of the game: 33 car pile up! How many wasted hours...

PPS Elrock, when is The Actionteam anniversary? I'll need to start compiling year two.

Uncle El.. I've even been trying to keep the posts a bit short as I have a tendency to rattle on if you can believe it! Heh.. You know, though we lived as unclean heathens for those few high school years (especially me), there's always been a thirst for knowing and seeking the truth of things in all of us, I believe. We are not a group of dimwits and ignorant fools, in fact, I would say that the truth is indeed quite the opposite.

One of the very few lasting and positive things my biological father ever did for me was to sign me up for a library card and take me down to the library every week for a new book or two. In an otherwise unpleasant childhood, those books were an oasis and a window into other people's thoughts and posibilities. That, and the whole being grounded to one's bed for a few weeks at a clip during summer break were equally fantastic motivators for finding creative outlets to otherwise take a mental vacation.

(where's my :roll: emoticon when I need it?)

Anyway.. for fear of rambling some more.. I'll cut this short.

Nite,

~O.

El Turo = El Nerdo

You know what Art? I am impressed by your skills as a writer, and even your penchant for writing large quantities. Maybe you are typing a lot out of nervous, new-guy on the block feelings of not belonging, or not, but you type a lot, and I like it! It's weird, while you were living here I never took you for very much of a writer guy, infact based on your (and Aaron's, and my) study habits and GPA's, I never took you for much of an academic thinker, a thinker yes, one who would tear through MORE THAN ONE Ayn Rand book, no. Strange how you think you know someone.... Kudos! Keep it up!

Also, those articles are chock full of heady goodness, no wonder they have had 2000 hits so far, they offer some great insight and theory behind flight sims. Makes sense coming from a pilot! Now, when are we going to get the articles on how to most efficiently create the largest accident while racing the Indy 500?

Firefly = teh shit

just watched the 1st firefly dvd - sooo good. a friend went to the comiccon down in sd recently and the WHOLE firefly cast was there talking about some movie. coolage!

congrats on them articles dude - whats your screenname tho - i couldnt figure out which ones were yours. i suck donkey-ass at flight sims. i always go through stages where i wanna get into them, but i fuckin suck SO BAD, i always go back to fire emblem. i beat that shit today! feels goood... although i kinda cheated. i saved every fuckin few minutes, so i could go back if someone died, and i looked at some stradegy guides to get me through the last few chapters. awesome shit tho.

I would absolutely read the rest of the Hitchhiker's series and maybe even So Long and Thanks For All The Fish as well (sometimes that gets included, sometimes not).

What else I'd strongly recommend (speaking of little books that carry a big stick), "Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" by Richard Bach (short read but one of my all time favorites. I re-read it ever few years for a recharge.

Also:

"Anthem" by Ayn Rand.. if you want a HUGE book that is in my top 3 books of all time.. give Atlas Shrugged a look-see! Very, very good.

"The Alchemist" (author's name is escaping me right this second) Another short, fast, fantastic read.

For a longer and more "fantasy" based read.. one of the all time best reads EVER has to be the Dragonlance Chronicles (books 1-3). Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night and Dragons of Spring Dawning. If you've never read them.. DO IT.



Oh, if anyone cares to check it out, I've written a series of air-combat articles for an online flight simulation website inspired by the IL2-Stormovik series including "Forgotten Battles" and "Aces Expansion Pack". It's only been up for about a week and already getting close to 2000 hits.. which suprised the hell out of me. You can check it out at:

http://www.il2flying.com

Click on the "Knowledge of Aces" section and I'm in there. Weeee!

Late,

~O Rugs.

200 page book?!?

Just read Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy for the first time. It was pretty awesome. It's so weird nowadays to read a book thats just over 200 pages. Everything seeems like it is in the 600-1000+ pages range these days. Ya mon- it was funny and good. I vaguely remember Jon or someone telling me some of the other books in the series weren't that good. Should I bother reading the rest?

I also got from the library a couple of harry potter books - not feelin the 2nd book, but I'd seen the movie, so it's not all that exciting to me. Looking forward to the 3rd book though. Checked out a Concrete graphic novel - "the 1st 10 issue series." I dunno - it's helllluv dated - too 80's for me. Pretty boring too. Maybe at the time it was the shit, but I don't really like it. Probably won't finish it. Was trying to get some Hellboy tradepaperbacks, but they were all checked out. Again, I highly recommend the dvd. Not only is the movie pretty damn good, the dvd extras are nice.

-Mostly Harmless