A friend of mine turned me onto BSG just after Season 2 ended. I was aware of it running on the SciFi channel, but after four Star Trek series, ten Star Trek movies, six Episodes of Star Wars, and five seasons with three movies from Babylon 5? I was a little drained on science fiction. Also when BSG was first lurking on the airwaves I was consumed with The Sopranos and Six Feet Under.
Priorities after all…
New season starts Friday. *dROol*
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica
Even though you are told to think this everyday, we are not living the worst time in our nation’s history.
Someone had to say it…
Continue reading Which Is Better: This? or This?
KCTV: Man Shooting Hole Through Wall Kills Wife – Deepwater Man Fatally Shoots Wife While Installing Satellite TV
How can anyone like this be trusted with a weapon in the first place? Somehow I think this negates natural section, since the guy is still alive…
Revoke the right to own a gun; make it a privilege instead.
I think the storm may have passed. At least it will be in remission for a while.
Since it has been a while, lemme offer a recap.
Continue reading Round Up
*blink* Did I just lose a week somewhere?
Sorry about that, but after cramming 40 hours of work into a 72 hour period, I don’t have much to blog about… and the stuff that I would like to blog about, I can’t talk about! Such is the industry I work in.
Exciting time to be in gaming, though, I can tell you that at least.
Now that Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been out for over 24 hours, can someone tell me: how is it? Living up to the hype? A rehash of Super Smash Bros. Melee with new artworks? And if so, is that a good or bad thing?
Curious if I have reason to power up the Wii or not…
MSNBC: Addicted gambler files $20 million casino suit
Her case? Casino management “had a duty to notice her compulsive gambling problem and cut her off.” I call bullshit, just on principle alone.
True, when she went on a multi-day bender and passed out at the tables, management should have had security take her up to her room… nothing worse than trying to play a hand with someone passed out or snoring next to you. But seriously, this lawsuit feels likeis more bunk than normal. Maybe because I follow the gambling industry. Maybe because I’m still bitter that it’s because of people like this that I can play poker online in WA state: I lose a right because a subset can’t control their own actions and we – as a free society – must save them from themselves.
With this woman, though… how on earth can she expect anyone – aside from herself – to monitor her gambling and have them decide when she’s gambled too much? Is the casino supposed to know that this once-lawyer was stealing money from clients to bet? She showed up with money – that’s all they can be aware of. Add to that the fact that she’s actively suing six casinos in two states. What the fuck does she think? That there’s a registry of “problem gamblers” actively reviewed and scanned on each table in Atlantic City and Las Vegas? If she’s so convinced that she has a problem now, why didn’t she get herself help while she was obviously aware of the side effects? Beyond that, some people equate their gambling problems with drug addiction. To that I ask: if your main dealer refused to sell to you, don’t you think you’d find someone else to conduct business with?
Ridiculous. I think I’ll file this in the “American Pastime” folder: I’m convinced that shirking responsibility has replaced baseball as our most favorite hobby. What’s depressing to me is that the file folder is getting awfully full.
Wonder if I can blame someone else for that and sue…
Grif and company seem to have an on going impact on the Halo community. Speaking for myself, it was Red vs Blue that made me aware and an avid fan of Halo, long before I had even bought an Xbox. In fact, it was Halo that brought me back to console gaming, since I had originally played Halo on a PC… huh.
Anyway, the boys over at Rooster Teeth have put together a custom game in Halo 3 called Grifball. Basically, it’s Neutral Assault in a wide open arena. The ball spaws in the middle of the arena, the goals are on opposite ends, and you spawn near your own goal. No shields, health is at 10%, no grenades; you’re armed with an everlasting Gravity Hammer or sword. Ball carriers get 3x shields, 1.5x speed, and friendly kills are active. The full rules explain a lot more, but that’s the basics of the game. There’s a league, a community, blah blah blah, but I only played it for the first time today.
Why? Well, this weekend Bungie has created a new hooper in the Social class of games: Grifball. Incentives? If you with you’ll get double EXP points. Also, since spawn killing is an approved – if not encouraged – game style, you can get insane amounts of medals. Need proof? This game was a shutout: 31 kills, 13 deaths, 48 medals including 2 Exterminations, 1 Killtacular, and 4 Overkills. Another game: 15 kills, 6 deaths, 23 medals including a Killtrocity.
I’ll gladly forget this game though – Major Nelson showed up in a lobby and his team send my team packing…
Good stuff.
Exchange support? Great, but from my phone reckoning, this is a two year old feature. Plugging holes in product line ups are good, but I, for one, wouldn’t celebrate them.
SDK? Looked really good. Native code? Interesting. What really hurt J2ME is that it was a sandbox environment. All of the cool stuff came from JAR’s which weren’t support on every phone. The iPhone SDK puts that to shame. Certification process? This is good, too. Some carriers lock down their phones for applications because of the crap people can put out. I like this as well. A free certification process, if you offer your app as freeware? Sweet! That is masterful. What really hurt BREW was that they had a required-certification process joined with carrier-based distribution; expensive and ugly. You could pass Verizon and not get supported by other networks. Apple has the right idea here too: 70% of the revenue goes to the Dev and you only have to pay for certification if you charge for the product: no ties to the carrier. Sure there will be some backlog in the certification process and I’m pretty sure paying customers get top seed in any queue, but still.
Charging for the iPod touch upgrade again?
Two steps forward, one step back, and I still can’t use an iPhone to voice-dial even though I could on my piece of crap phone from 2001.
Meh.
Here’s some financial facts, tips, and hints for Americans during the coming days…
Continue reading The Economy: A Primer
*sigh*
Props to the guy for taking time to chat about the trade on KISW this morning… based off the story he tells, I’m inclined to believe it. He simply got a better deal from the Rams (and it’s a better location for him as it’s close to his family) and for that I raise an eyebrow in the direction of the Seahawks front office.
Meh.
“ugh! how many times to I have to tell my boyfriend to clean off the mouse after he masturbates! Disgusting!”
[taken from an IM conversation, in real time]
Consider this… the KKK has a legally arranged a public protest for something – whatever, it doesn’t matter. A counter-protest springs up. At some point after the protest, a hooded KKK member is isolated and beaten by one or more non-KKK people. Considering how the current batch of hate crime laws are written, the KKK would be considered a “minority group” by the courts. This means that the people that beat the KKK member would be charged with a hate crime; it would be as if the victim was gay, African-American, or a more “publicize” minority.
Thanks to the hate crime laws, a group that is known for – and proud of – discriminating, terrorizing, and intimidating people of minority groups would now given special protection or at least impact the punishment metted out… how about that for irony?
And people wonder why I think the hate crime laws are ridiculous – like a person that administers a random beating should be less accountable than someone that beats someone specifically.
I met with some people with Lenovo yesterday – they’re on campus to talk about some models that are currently shipping or planned for the future… of course, they had a bunch of existing models from the T and X series, along with an X300 in tow.
Oh. My. God.
I’m so glad that I left my credit card back at the office…
Continue reading Mini-Review: X300
Toady via MSNBC: If women ruled the world, everything would change, according to former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers. Politics would be more collegial. Businesses would be more productive. And communities would be healthier. Empowering women would make the world a better place. Blending memoir, social history and a call to action, Myers challenges us to imagine a not-too-distant future in which increasing numbers of women reach the top ranks of politics, business, science and academia.
I can’t speak for the book, but I did see her interview on Today this morning.
Sad to say that she was completely full of shit this morning.
Continue reading Uh, No, It’s Not Her Vagina