*Cries*

Two things: I turn 32 tomorrow. And a cat followed us home tonight. :( I wanted to bring it in and pet it and called it George. But alas, it's a $150 pet deposit. And it is a stray cat...perhaps. *sigh* Mayhaps one day.

Gangbusters to trickles

Ugh...I was about to write a long boring whiny post...then I realized, who f'n cares? Yeah, I'm not feeling it lately. Getting nothing done at work then coming home and being a lazy bitch or bastard (depends your POV). *sigh* So, here you are. A shorten down whiny post. Enjoy.

Paprika - Not your everyday spice

So, being more penniless since getting my car fixed, I had to resort to finding cool and interesting things to do on the Internet. One place that I had been to a while ago is a place for Japanese media, like anime! Check it here at Crunchy Roll. It has a bunch of "unlicensed" tv shows from Japan. Typically, once it becomes licensed (I'm not sure exactly to what that means) they will remove whatever media from the site. It's a good rule I guess. Anyway...

I was cruising the anime section trying to find something I haven't seen before and is still on the site. 86 pages...wasn't looking good till I hit the P section. What did my wander eye see but Paprika, a recently released movie in the States (been out since 2006 in Japan). It was just there...aching for me to watch it. I have seen trailers for it on our copy of Dragonball Z Season 1 (and Season 2 is out if anybody wants to get it for us :P) and thought it looked really cool. So my Saturday night was sealed, with Paprika and a little something-something from the liquor cabinet (the counter next to the freezer).

I hit play and watched. It was amazing! A certain must buy once it comes out DVD here in the States. I haven't seen a realistic anime for such a long time. It was certainly a breath of fresh air. The anime is by Satoshi Kon who also did "Millennium Actress" and "Tokyo Godfathers." I wanted to see "Actress" for a while now. I will certainly be more active in trying to find it.

One of the things I really liked about the movie was the movie score. It was created by Susumu Hirasawa. The theme really stuck with me and not like a horrible jingle you can't get out of your head (you feel like chicken tonight, chicken tonight, chicken tonight!). It was electronica with just the right amount of awesome. The composer wanted to give away his music for free and here's the link to download two songs from the movie. I don't know enough Japaneses to understand but you really don't need to. Download it and find out for yourself.

I really haven't been keeping up with the latest and greatest and clearly it shows. Paprika is actually playing in a theater in Seattle which I really want to go see and you all know me as wanting to go to Seattle all the time. Tis a good movie and you all should watch it. Then buy the DVD.

Timing Issue Resolved

I picked my car up from the shop yesterday. I had the borken timing belt, water pump replaced and a new seal which is in the same area of the engine. I also got a new belt for the accessories...very chic. All in all, I departed with about $800. I also got estimates on what else needs to be done. I'll be departing with more of my monies in the future if I want to keep the car. Anyway, the car came back feeling a little better and it looks a little better. They gave it a bath which it needed badly. Hopefully it will run for a little bit longer till I can gather up more funds to get the other recommended things done up.

Comedy - It's all about timing

So today was the first time I had to kick start the ol air conditioner in the car. I turned it on, hoping it still worked. I tried it our for a few minutes when I got home from work as I would be taking Dawn to the kidney center shortly thereafter. I thought it would be good to test it out somewhere safe and sound. I pushed the button, the green light came on, and after a minute or two cold air began to circulate. Awesome! I'll be chilled like a frappuccino at Starbucks.

Anyway, lets go back a little further back in time to a place where they change oil and do other service related jobs. The local Jiffy Lube down the street. Upon finishing up, one of the techs asked me if knew about the knocking noise coming from the right side of the engine. I said I was aware of it but didn't know what it was. Since then, I let it make the noise as I did not see any thing obvious that would fly off the engine.

Now, zip on up back to today. I have picked up Dawn from the kidney center and we're on our way to Rite Aid to pick up a few things. I'm cruising along and all of the sudden, the car dies. That's right...my Toyota Camry lost power and all the good stuff that comes from it. No big explosion, no knocking noise, no nothing. The steering become real tough and various idiot lights began to pop up. It was nice enough to do this a mere block from our apartment. Also the city of Bothell was also kind enough to have the foresight to build extra space along the road where it died. Kudos to city engineers!

I whip out my cell phone and start calling friends. I get a hold of a set and thank them from the bottom of my robot heart. They roll out. They don't transform though, but anyway. Ten minutes later, assistance arrives. Dawn is whisked away to finish her trip to Rite Aid. More assistance is called for. Over the course of a few hours, we...err...they narrowed possible suspect issues. Fuses and more fuses were ruled out. Fuel pump was running. Alternator was alternating. Starter was starting. Spark plugs a sparking.

Things began to look like a worse case scenario: an issue with the computer running the joint. I have been experiencing minor electrical issues over the years so it was in the realm of possibility. Just to be sure there were fuel (I had felt 100% confident that lack of fuel was not the issue) we went and got a gallon or so of gas. On our return, the additional assistance has another idea to try out. As it turns out, not all the spark plugs were a sparking.

Now, we can come back to the knocking noise that the guy at Jiffy Lube so kindly pointed out. It was deduced that the ... wait for it ... timing belt probably broke. We're also guessing it broke due to the new load of the AC running, as it was indeed running at the time the car died. We also surmised the knocking noise was the timing belt on it's last legs. After a lot of testing and some car know-how, the problem was diagnosed probably correctly.

So you see, it was all about the timing...belt. And now it will be all about the $$$ as the timing belt in my car is not so easily accessible. So tis it was a comedy of my errors. Remember, if you hear a knocking, don't wait till your car dies. You may not be so lucky to be a mere block away from your home and having knowledgeable friends.

A little vomit...(figuratively)

Yes, gross...I wished I didn't do it, but it just came out. Not tasty at all. Why did I do it? What would cause my stomach to turn, churn, and release the burrito goodness I had earlier tonight? While looking to see where the hell this place is at, I discovered a much more horrible event. The man that one of my esteemed readers duly noted looked like an ape from my previous post will be within five miles of my home late July. His ignorance is just a boat anchor for humanity. What's worse is that his presence here will draw more ignorance here to my home. This discovery has certainly soured my stomach. Ignorance is bliss (sometimes), but this discovery gives us an edge. Now, let us pray to our holy Ball of Spaghetti in the sky, let thy noodlly appendage bless us all. ARRRRR!!!!

Your weekend nightmare

Yeah, f-ing scary.

Meebo me!

Yeah, just do it. You know you want to. Just inhale...deeply. Yeah...you got it.

Errr, yeah...Meebo is a browser based Instant Message chat application. You can put in all major IM accounts into it as well. For instance, I have my Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk accounts working in it. This is on top of the regular Meebo account. Anyway, I added a little widget to the side over there *points over there* for all my fine readers to use. I'll see if I can slip Meebo past my work firewall. Then I'll be set. lol Well, that's it for now. Chat me up if you see me online. :)

No Spring for the weary

ZOMG!! I haven't posted in about two freaking months! Yes, I've been neglecting my posting duties. I'll point out the obvious. I think it is my only natural gift.

The last months of winter were uneventful. The most notable point of interest was finally picking up a Nintendo Wii at the beginning of March. I know I have put in over 50 hours of game play (in just one game) since I got it. We initially picked up The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Rayman: Raving Rabbids. A week or two ago, Wii Play graced our presence. There's a lot of games on the horizon for the Wii. It should be a promising year.

I've been sick twice since the latter half of February. I'm just now getting over the second whatever I had. This one wasn't nearly as annoying as the one in February, it just came on pretty fast. The worst part was the constant running nose.

Not much else to say here. Other than I'm using Google Docs to write this. I thought I would try it out as I can publish directly to my blog on blogspot. Since blogspot is blocked at work whereas Google is not, I could potentially post while at work. But being the diligent employee that I am, I wouldn't do that. ^_O We shall see...we shall see.

Good News!

I've pretty much lost 20 lbs since the middle of October! And I'm going to Radcon '07! That is all.

Shattered Goals

So, it has been done. I can wear size 36 pants for the first time that I can remember (for those of you wondering why it's soo damn cold in hell these days). I'm at about 188 with a bit of muscle. I'm still going for that elusive 180. I don't think I'll make mid February but that's ok. Probably early March. At that time, I'll probably switch to a different diet and continue with the exercise to maintain the weight. I'm pretty stoke. If you include this time last year, I have probably lost about 25 pounds so far. :)

Yeah, it's been hard. In fact, just today I had to decline a donut. I wanted it, it wanted me. It would have been the perfect union. But I bested temptation and my co-workers.

There shall be more goals to overtake this year. Learning Japanese is still on my list of things to do among others. It might just be a good year.

Goals in sight

Well, about a month ago, I posted up that I was doing the diet thing again. I had posted up my goals of being at 190 by the end of December. Well, it is 12.27.2006 and I am at about 192 lbs. The last two pounds may or may not come off in time, but no matter. Deadlines are good to work to but it won't break me if I don't make it. Since I got my new driver's license in the beginning of October where I stated my weight to be 204, I have lost 12 lbs. This is all by eating less and playing DDR religiously.

Our apartment complex recently got in some spanking brand new weight/fitness machines in their fitness room. I intend in the new year to start using them. My legs have some muscle tone to them. My everything else, not so much. I still have a belly, though it's easier to conceal these days. ^_^

So, there you go. An update from the west side. Yay...

A Legend of Zelda retrospective

I really liked this. If you haven't played any of these games, go out and do it now! You may get spoiled watching this if you had plans on playing. The last segment of this video is particular geeky, organizing a timeline of the games. That is above and beyond the most geeky thing I have ever seen. Ok, it's probably not and I myself have probably done something even more geeky in my past life. *shivers* heh Enjoy and go buy yourself a Wii!

Diet, Redux

So, you all mostly know of my plight of diets over the years. I'm on and off again kind of guy. Well, I'm on again right now, since the middle of October. I'm sitting at about 199 right now. I have a goal of 190 by the end of December. It would be grand to be at 180 by the middle of February. Of course, if I don't meet these goals by my desired time frame, oh well. I'll keep on pushing for those goal weights as I think it's about time for me to fall off the growing trend in America.

Like past diets, I've only eaten less and done DDR at least 3 times a week. It seems to be doing the trick. About two weeks ago, I went from doing the light mode to the standard mode on DDR. I wanted to burn off a few more calories at each session. I think the standard mode is certainly doing its job. For eating, I decided that I would be a bit less strict on what I ate. I throw in some decent food a couple of times a week. I don't over do it on the decent food which I think is helping. I think this the meal on Thursday was the lightest Thanksgiving meal I have ever had, that I can remember at least.

I've been feeling better health wise recently. My company has a softball team that plays during the spring which I hope to get on, schedule permitting. I've always been pretty good at hitting a ball with a bat. That should be up my alley, err diamond. o_^

So, that's it for right now. As always, more later.

The God Who Wasn't There

Here's another well written documentary about my favorite subject. It's an hour long so grab your popcorn.

The Government: Doer of good

Sometimes the US government does good. 'Dr. Dino' was found guilty of Tax Fraud. Him and Richard Hatch should get to know each other well.

Kent faces up to 288 years in prison. Being a man of God, God should oblige him to face the whole sentence, touching Kent with immortality till he can finish up. hehe His wife faces up to 225 years for aiding and abetting. Yup, you God-fearing peeps out there, you best be Government-fearing when it comes to taxes.

One book down, a gazillion left to go

Would you believe that I finally finished a book of fiction? The other night, I read the final words in George R.R. Martin's book, A Game of Thrones. Yes, me! Me, the reader of sooo many tech books, I've lost count. I can almost guarantee that this is the first book that I have finished since almost 2002, maybe 2003. It's been so long that I have forgotten.

So, anyway, it was a very good book. If you like to squirm while you read. There's soo much evil things that makes you want to keep on reading to see if the evil continues. Yup, evil. Like "Meats of Evil" evil!

In other news, I will be in the Tri-Cities for the coming weekend. Grand, eh? I was going somewhere with this then...nothing. *sigh* Well, say hi if you see me. ^_^

Feeling a little blue

Beta Blogger has made it incredibly easy now to change up your blog without loosing changes you had to put into your template. If you haven't noticed, I've gone blue from that tanish looking color. I wasn't thinking well when I put that up. It easier to read, I think at least.

I also cleaned up the ol links and what not. I've added Videosift.com which I'm a heavy user of. I gots me a silver star there! ^_^ It's a site where users submit videos they think are good from around the Intertubes such as YouTube.com and Google Video. If you don't want to sift through loads of tripe, go to Videosift.com. You'll like yourself more for it.

Well, that's that for this Sunday morning.

I'm soooo converted

Like wow! The template system has gotten on overhaul! This smacks of Ajax like crazy! I love it! Kudos goes out to Blogger for something that's really customizable! Though I know this new power will be used for evil. I don't go to MySpace.com because of that evil. It's teh evil.

Oh yaay!! The spell checker has gotten an overhaul too! Blogger threw in the same looking spell checker as found in Google's toolbar and gmail client. I'm loving it! Yeah, I'm talking to you, Blogger!

The Converted

So I went ahead and done it. I converted. I converted to beta blogger. I feel the same. Nothing has changed. Weird.

Wait, what's that? Labels for this post? Woooooooo! I think I've seen the light! Beta Blogger will rock my world! Ok, not really.

The Lucky Horseshoe

Via: VideoSift

...or how prayer is superstition.

6 Months and 4 days

Yeah, it took them another 4 days to get out. They knew for a long time they had to go and it took them an extra 4 days. Oh, the idiot youth of today. Well, I guess it was the same 10-15 years ago as well. Anyway, they are finally gone. I totally expect graffiti to start showing up.

And now it's time to up the ante on the other side, the other neighbors which I know I have complained many a time on here. They had their music up tonight. It was soo nice a few weeks ago when it seemed they were on vacation or something. It was peaceful. The minute they got home, they played some loud music or movie. Fortunately, it was during office business hours. I called and complained. Their bass stopped and a little bit later, their door slammed as they left somewhere. ^_^ They also like to leave their garbage out by their door, too damn lazy to take it to the trash area. We have to smell it, look at it. It's terribly disgusting.

There is such a small percentage of idiots here that cause the majority grief. Stupid drivers, stupid neighbors, just stupid people. They all think what they are doing is better than what I'm doing. That is the problem with society. There's no community. And I place blame squarely on people like our ex-neighbors. hehe Cause I can. hehe

Six Months

Six months ago, our neighbors moved in. Tomorrow, they move out. About freaking time!

They were a bunch of punk asses. Petty criminals which the police knew about. Dressed like they were gangstas. Inconsiderate assholes who thought the world existed for them.

Much to my happiness, they are finally leaving. They have woken me up soo many times in the middle of the night over the past 6 months that I've just stopped counting. Twice this week they woke me up. Well, the second time was because of the police pounding on their door at 11pm. While I was tired, I had to listen on to what was going on. Not like I had a choice. They were on the other side of the bedroom wall.

So a chapter closes and I hope to some invisible force in the sky that the next tenants are from the swedish swimsuit team. Ok, not really cause that would be creepy. Japanese would be good. Ok, now I'm just creepy. Dressed in cosplay outfits. Really, really, really, creepy.

On another note, I will be down in the Tri-Cites at the end of October. Be scared. Or creeped out.

Pics of Old

So, I went looking through some of my old pics that I've kept around on my computer for years and found this one.

This is Raphael. My cat from when I lived at home with my parents. He was a good cat. Sometimes I miss him. He would always sleep on my water bed, knead his claws into my tummy, and be ever so relutant to give out his purrs. He was a good cat. Its funny we named him after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which were popular when we got him.

This is Calla. She was more my sister's cat. She was a good cat too. She was very hairy though. *sigh* I'm gonna have to get a cat when we get our own house.

This is a picture of perch. I believe we got these at Potholes. The one in the middle is the one I caught. I tell the truth. The big one did not get away that day. I haven't been fishing in years. I'm probably out of practice now.

Well, them are the pics I want to show. Cats and fish. *sigh*

God should be an atheist?

In news, in the Journal of Religion & Society, a new study was published saying there's a strong correlation between religion and anti-social behavior. In other news, there's a journal covering religion and society.

Seriously though, this study is just more evidence for Richard Dawkins to eat up and give out in one if his documentaries and/or books. I'd read/watch it, if I had the time. Of course, according to the study, the japanese are rank one with the most atheists vs the least amount of violent crime. You wouldn't believe that watching their TV shows. hah Of course, the US is near the bottom of this list too, as well as this other survey about evolution belief. We, I mean the crazies probably in the south who among other things voted for Taylor Hicks (I'm sure this is a fallacy but it's funny to think there's a relationship there), just barely beat out Turkey. *sigh*

Star Wars: The Musical, One Season More

Sometimes, there's fan written crap that's well...crap. Then there is actual cream of the crop, rising to the top fan material that's just screams to be watched. Here is one such instance. One Season More. Please watch. I'm not one for musicals but I thought this was pretty good.

State Transition

It seems I haven't posted anything with substance for a long time. So I'll take a few minutes out of my not so busy Sunday night to post something.

Well, where do I begin. I guess I'll start with my job. This week will see my first full month as a full time employee anniversary. I'm stoked. Not really but I'm happy that I have a job which could last a long time. So far it has been all reading with little actually doing anything. That's cool though. The only thing I would change about the position would be the inclusion of more of my peers. I'm pretty much one of a kind there. Again, it's all good. I'll deal and make it into something positive.

We actually left the house this weekend. We went to this park along the Sound in Edmonds. Someone at work let me know about it. He called it a beach and in a technical definition of the word, it was a beach. However, it was really rocky. Very little in the way of sand. And it smelled but it was low tide and seaweed was all over the place close to the water. I took some video of our time there. It wasn't terribly exciting so I think I will collect some more footage of stuff and then make a "super video."

Last weekend I spent some time to get some better cooling in my computer. I found that when I was making that first video I had posted, it would lock after about 3 or 4 minutes into creating the final video. I tracked it down to my CPU overheating, getting above 70 degree Celsius which is bad. The plan was to cannibalize another computer I had for the case (it had a fan port on the back) and an extra fan. I spent that Saturday morning doing it all and it only cost my one dollar to get the CPU temp down by about 4 or 5 degrees. That's enough to where I haven't seen any more locking problems. The one dollar was for the screws to attach the fan to the case. I just walked around the corner to a local computer shop to get them. I think I will buy systems from them should I ever get to that point of doing so.

I haven't really been playing any kind of games lately. I have been playing several hours of Guild Wars a week with Dave, though. My character is weak and dies alot. Without Dave's fighter character, I would die a lot more. It's pretty good for the most part. Though he has this thing for the PvP area of the game while I prefer the RPG side. Is my age showing?

Speaking of age, yet another birthday for me is in sight. The end of the month and I'll be turning 31. Yay. Yay for me. Probably not going to do anything. No party, no gifts, no nothing. Just another day for government statical information. Yay.

Ack, I seem I could be going on forever here so I'll cut myself here and save the rest for another day. Sayonara...

Hate for the FSM

Yeah, it's late, pass my bedtime, but I had to post this now or I would forget. Anyway, y'all know about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, right? RIGHT?! I mean ARRRR?! Ok, good. Here's a nice blog about the hate mail directed to the fine gentleman who created the fictitious character. Some people just aren't rational. Well, here it is. Enjoy!

Presenting: North Creek Park

My YouTube.com directorial debut. After a 13 year long hiatus, I decided to come back to making videos. Here it is, in all it's dull glory. After I get my computer up to snuff, expect some more. ^_^

The Suffering

Because I like to see my readers suffer and I just haven't posted anything in a long while, I present this fine video from YouTube.

The Working Man

Yup, I'm working. My last contract ended just last Friday. But I'll be working again starting on this Thursday. This new gig isn't a contract. It's a full on full time job. teehee! There's a lot of good things that comes along with this new job. First of all, it's along my career path, software engineer. Second, it's closer as it's in Everett. Along with that one is that I probably won't have to worry about traffic as I'll be going into Everett at 7:30 in the morning and not into Seattle or Redmond. I'll also get vacation. :) Man, vacation!! Paid even! That's just a few things that drew me to this position. I'm gonna learn a butt load but it's gonna be worth it. ^_^

Another youtube video

God is a DJ. This was pretty good. Have yourself a look.

Richard Dawkins and the non-thinking

I haven't seen all of this but Richard Dawkins is a man that needs to be heard. I want to bookmark this so I can watch it later. You all can see it at your leisure as well. Here are parts one and two courtesy of Google Video: Part 1 and Part 2.

Feel free to watch and comment.

Stuff and crap

Uno has made it to XBox live for the Xbox 360. I find I'm addicted to it. We currently have two 360 games, Kameo and Ghost Recon (borrowing both), and I'd rather play Uno. It has some problems like I wait 30 or more mins to play a game and when it starts a game, it hangs. Both are annoying specially when they are combined into I wait 30 mins to find other players and then it doesn't start. That angers me. >_<

Dawn is currently ranked high teens while I'm around 560 or something. I strive to beat her at ranked games, but alas I don't think I'm destined to do it. I'm currently ahead of her in the TrueSkill ranking. I'm 26 and she's 25. I have mad l33t skillz. ha

In other news, I finally got a USB cable to connect our camcorder to my computer. I can now transfer video and edit it and crap. The free tools that came with the camcorder sucks major ass but that's all I got to use right now. I'm planning to shoot a very short film with Dave and myself as the stars. It's gonna suck. hahaha Look for it later on youtube or maybe even google video.

Finally, I noticed that I stopped getting hits from search engines. My last one I got was from 5.18. What up with that? My blog isn't a spam blog. It's not! I'm not selling enlargement pills! I'm not! Really!! You gots to believe me!

Ok, this is finally. Remember the Indy 500 is tomorrow. Watch it! Watch it for the kids sake!

Ian McKellen is my hero!

Oh snap is right! I'm gonna go see this movie just for Ian! I love you man!

The best Star Wars/Lord of the Rings mashup you'll see...Today!

Just wait it out. You'll like me more for it. ^_^

E3 Trailers

For those of you unlucky enough to not have an Xbox 360, here's a link to the teaser trailer for Halo 3. For those of you unlucky enough to live under a rock, here's the link to Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii (pronounced 'we'). And because good things comes in three's, here are some links to Spore: Here and here. Thanks E3! See ya again next year!

Double your Star Wars Pleasure

Woooo! I can link to youtube!! Fresh on the heals of some good news, some better stuff comes out! Dave will like this one feerrrr surreeee! o_O

Presenting...

...My new blog! Check it out if you're worthy...or bored. It's on the sidebar just in case you seem to have misplaced this post. Be prepared for more wordy posts.

Weeee! err I mean Wii!

The Revolution is over! Bring on the Wii!

WTF?! Wii? Yes, Wii. The Nintendo Wii. It sounds freaking sweet though! Backward compatible with Gamecube titles and 20 years of older Nintendo, Sega, and Turbo Graphix-16 titles will be available for download. Holy freaking Christ! I can relive my childhood once more! hahahhaha But no school!! hahahhahahhaha!!!!

So, I think I will certainly be getting one of these things long before an Xbox 360. Yeah, all you xbox fan boys can suck it! Ahem...sorry for the fanboyism. But anyway, I'm totally looking forward to Nintendo's new console. The new controller has a lot more going than the stuff from MS or Sony. Some say it will hit in September. We shall see though. I think I will pre-order one though. I'm not gonna be left out in the cold come this fall. ^_^

Klaus - Forklift Maniac

So, I was over at wikipedia, looking at a list of movies where people get killed in. I was surprised to see Agent Cody Banks on that list. I guess Dave won't be watching that one. Anyway, looking down the list, I found this gem called Forklift Driver Klaus - The First Day On the Job. It's German, gory, and full of dark humor. I want to see the whole thing now.

Can't procrastinate this!

I think I've seen one too many lame jokes about how I will post about this later (d'oh! I still got one in) so I won't, or try not to. Here's an article about a few tools you can use to beat procrastination. I haven't tried any but to a thinking person, they seem logical. There's certainly lots I can delay doing just because they are my own personal projects with no real meaning other than for learning purposes. However, the time boxing and "begin it" tools seems like they would help me the most. I'll see what they can do.

A new round

Well, it would seem that I managed to get me another contract up here. Just a 2-3 month jobber ( O RLY? ) where I'll be doing testing for a company in Seattle. Should be fun. Their office is all brightly colored. ^_^

I had submitted my resume to a position at Microsoft which I could have had a phone interview had I not accepted the offer today. It would have been with the SQL Server group which seemed interesting. But I figured that having a job now is worth more than only having a phone interview. This way I have a job and getting 3 more months of EXP. I just may go up to level 2! lol

So, that's me right now. I start on Monday. So, here's to working...again!

Staged Dance

Well, I'm not sure what to call this guy, but looking at his videos, he seems really fake. He's Shawn Seamus and he seems like he's trying to audition to get on to a show like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or some other fake thing. I found him off of Kotaku where they had a link to a video showing how he doesn't know how to play DDR at all. Youtube is still down so I haven't been able to see the video but from the description, he seems really lame. More lame than Michael Flatley.

On a related note, does Chris Pirillo like DDR? I don't know. ^_^

More Later

Well, later has happened. Dawn is home now. She's feeling a lot better now. I think on Tuesday, she begins out-paitent dialysis some where here local. The plan is for her to go down to the Tri-Cities here soon to live with her parents while I try to find a job. Not fun times, I'll tell you. We'll get though it I guess.

Well, that's all I got right now.

A Tough Time

As some of you know already, Dawn was admitted into the hospital late Monday night. Her kidney's don't work so good no more. I apologize for not calling everybody, I find it difficult to keep up with just our family.

She's doing better as of today. She has started dialysis treatments yesterday and will probably continue on till Saturday. After that it will be 3 times a week until a kidney transplant. I would like to thank George W. Bush for limiting stem cell research to hardly anything useful in the United States. But that's an aside for a later time...

She's kind of in good spirits. If anybody would like to send a message to her via email, I'd be happy to print them out for her. She'd be happy to hear from you all. Feel free to send her c/o invadersil at gmail dot com. I will be sure to get all messages to her.

I love her very much...and right now, I miss her just as much. Anyway...more later I guess...

Math it up!

Do you like math? Find school had totally killed whatever thrill math brought you? Do you want to feel like your best nerd friend who can recited 3000 digits of pi? Well, now you can! With this amazing link!

It slices! It dices! It gives you why schools suck at math!

Ok, the informercial is over. Seriously though, trek over to that link to see one man's opinion on how math should be learned. Here's one thing that made me go "duh!!":

...You could figure it out because you know that division is just repeated subtraction.

WTF?! It is!!! Thanks to the web, I'm getting wiser in my old age. ^_^

Kennewick Man...

...has made the front page of CNN.com! Hurry quickly before they move it off! Here's the link to the full story just in case you missed.

Wil Wright

*sigh* Wil Wright...Spore...*drool*...see the demo via Google Video.

You will buy this game. If your computer is too wussy to play it, you will buy a new gaming machine. You will play this game.

Memory Wipe

So, shortly after my last post, I went a poking around in my mobo manual to see what I could find out about my memory. There was nothing concrete about it really. There was a paragraph describing SDRAM and there was a number for voltage, 2.5 volts. So, being curious, I popped open the old BIOS to see what my voltage was set at. It was auto setting to 2.7. I thought that was odd it would autoset to 2.7. After some trial and let sees action, I decided to bite the bullet and manually set the voltage to 2.5, knowing full well that things could come a crashing down upon my head.

I changed the setting to 2.5, saved it, and rebooted. I sat there, half-expecting fire and brimstone spewing from my computer case. Fortunately, the familiar boot up screen came up, with it's ever so long RAM checking spiel going. I normally skip the whole checking part but I was paranoid and let it run to completion. Diablo himself did not roar to life, dragging me to pits of fiery inferno, disco even. Windows XP booted normally. I was frankly surprised that it worked.

Anyway, since then, I have not experienced any locking and I've been trying my damnest to get it to. The first thing I tried was run a demo of Star Wars: Empire at War which had some intense processing going on. Next, I had winamp streaming music, iTunes playing music, and two instances of youtube.com playing videos all at the same time. All of the multimedia instances would normally have locked at some point running by themselves. Having them all going at the same time should have caused a BSOD and reboot. Much to my happiness, it has not. So, now I ask myself, is my RAM damaged from running at 2.7 volts ever since it sat foot in my case? The obvious fact that I am typing this from my keyboard still connected to the same case I have had for two upgrades is saying that there is no damage. Time shall tell. Though it would be nice to have 1 Gig of RAM. During this whole thing, I noticed that I use up quite a bit of RAM just by using Firefox and other dinky apps.

For the time being, my RAM issue has been fixed, so says Poop Dog! The Gangsta Spectre of Defeat! Err...nevermind. I've had this particular set up for about two years as well. To bad I never got more annoyed with this issue before.

A time for Remembrance

Actually it's more like a time for new memory...RAM to be precise. Stupid computer locked twice tonight. Both times watching Fullmetal Alchemist on youtube.com I'm pretty sure it's my RAM. It could be a heat issue as well. While looking at RAM tonight, I discovered that some RAM comes with heat spreaders. I have never seen these before and I'm sure mine do not have them. Generally my machine will lock up randomly, even when I'm not using it. Most of the time, it's when I'm listening to music or watching videos of stuff. Considering that my machine is fine after a reboot, heat probably isn't the issue. I had issue with Win98 dieing all the time and the same with WinXP. I've had the same pieces of RAM for several years. I've gotten a new hard drive as well so that probably isn't it either. The Mobo might be at issue as well. Though again, my machine is hunky dory after a reboot. I'm really leaning towards the RAM.

So, I'm looking at buying some RAM. I'll probably bump it up to around 1GB this time around. Try to pump out a little more performance before I take it out to pasture.

In other news, I had an interview with a web app company in downtown Seattle on the 25th floor of this tall building. It had at least 30 floors. The elevator was super quick! Going down, if it had gone any faster, it probably would have felt like you were weightless. Anyway, the position sounds good as there's room for lots of growth which would be really nice. ^_^

In other-other news, Radcon was fun. Boring during the day though. I didn't even play Munchkin at all. *cries* I also got slightly sick. Sore throat for the last couple of days. I'm waiting for it to go into my nose.

Well, everybody Wang Chung tonight!

*vomits*

So, debate over ID and Evolution at Radcon. News at 11.

WTF?! Last year they get a table and records our doings suspiciously. Now they get floor time? I truly want to vomit.

Releasing the anger safely

*sigh* I had soo much hope for Seattle. But they shot themselves in the foot. Fumbles, interceptions, and most damning of all, fouls. Three drives were cut short because of fouls. Three drives that were scoring opportunities. I stopped watching with about 8 mins left in the fourth. If they win, haha on me for not watching the whole thing. I won't feel bad about it though. I can only watch things self-destruct so long before I red-out due to anger.

So yeah, what good came out of this? Seattle got to the Super Bowl for the first time in their 30 year history. Congrats are in order for that I suppose. But the way they played today, it was a different shade they showed during the regular season. Oh well. What am I going to do about it? Wait another years I guess. It did take Denver 3 or 4 trips to the big game before they won. The Colts haven't been there recently and they play well every season only to choke in the playoffs. So yeah, kudos to Seattle for at least making it to the end. Maybe next year, huh?

Seattle Sucks?

Man, Steeler fans are really jerks. Someone keeps on looking up "Seattle Seahawks Sucks" and finding my blog. Yes, I wrote that two years ago but on the exact same subject. Someone found my blog looking for those terms. So, I really don't know about you all. Anyway, the Hawks play on Sunday in the Super Bowl! :) Watch....for the kids!

A stormy time

It was a dark and stormy night...

Well, tonight it will be and probably into tomorrow afternoon. Might get some power outages. I went out and bought a mini-lantern and some more batteries. The power has only gone out here once since we've lived here. The last time we had to use this tool that had a light at the end of it and our cell phone for light. Talking about not being prepared. I'm thinking of getting a hand-cranked light so we're not dependent on batteries. I didn't have a lot of money to spare right now as I had to pay for a few things that I don't normally pay every month like an eye doctor exam and utility (we actually pay that once every two months). *sigh* I will probably get some supplies with some of that tax refund. I can probably wait on new tires for a bit.

Oh yeah...SEAHAWKS PLAY ON SUNDAY!!! Please watch...for my sake. ^_^

Fear of Girls

Care of Digg.com and Google Video: Fear of Girls. Thanks. :)

*BG*

Radcon, I'll be seeing you in three weeks!

Two Things

One: THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111!!!!!!!!111

Two: I've lost just about 9 pounds on me diet. And I can touch me toes a lot. And DDR is about to be funner when I bump it up to standard. ^_^

My Toes!

I can now do a stretch where I can touch me toes! Yay! Only took a couple weeks of DDR and stretching to get me there. So all is good on the diet front. Lost just about 6 pounds since I started. Though I think E-Diets is trying to starve me.

So they provide me with a menu and shopping list. Both will list the number a calories in a certain frozen food. However, the menu is saying a certain amount of cals while the actual product is saying something lower. Lies!! I tell you!!!

Ok, I'm not really complaining...that much. It's just like I don't like the hungry feeling when I approach the next meal. But oh well. It's all good. By the time Radcon comes about, I should be lighter than I was last year. And if I don't get to go to Radcon...I'll cry...I'll still be a "sexy beast". hahaha I mean really!

1600x1200 Resolution

Pixels has nothing to do with this post.

So, I guess I should update on the weight loss res-oh-lution for 2 Oh Oh 6. Yeah, I don't know what I'm typing either. But anyway, I've lost about 3 to 4 pounds already. I'm feeling a little hungry each day. I think I'm not getting my full diet as dictacted by E-Diets. I'm also doing DDR for at least 30 mins 3 days a week which isn't in my diet plans. So I could be messing myself all up. But who cares!! I'll be light and prancy(?) for Radcon...Oh yeah, there's a good chance I'm going to Radcon this year. :)

Happy New Years!!

On the East Coast. 15 Minutes ago. haha We still have 2.75 hours left to midnight.

So Dave finally got a Nintendo DS. He got quite a bit of holiday money which popped him close enough to get a DS and a game. He's been wanting one for a while now because of the game Nintendogs. Actually there's a whole slew of games for the DS that's awesome! I need a better job just to buy them all! heh

Dawn's family came up today bearing gifts and stuff. They got Dawn and I a new blender. It'w freaking awesome! Like 16 speeds and a glass jar/container...thingey. Our last one was plastic and would choke when it tried to chop up ice. So it's all good! ^_^

So I probably won't post for the rest of the evening. Happy New Years and stuff!

And So It Begins

Why wait for New Years when you can do resolutions whenever the hell you want to!!

So, here's my list, some of which I've already started:

• lose weight - I joined up with EDiets again. I liked it last time and it worked. I suspect I will see the same results.


• Learn Japanese - So I've been off and on over the course of last year trying to learn this. I've picked up some stuff here and there, but nothing to where I could lead a nice conversation with someone else. I hate doing stuff just to learn it. If I can't use it, I'll lose it. So I need to find ways to use it other than going to Japan, though that would be fun.


• Get a full time job - I could be happy in the short time just to have a contract position, but working straight 40s seems limiting to me. Also being a contract seems not as cool.

So that's what I have right now. I have other things I want to do, but these are the most important. Each one has it's hurdles and time needed to invest. About the only thing I resolve to do is to do my best.

Crap

I was writing a posting about Nova the other day and my computer thought it was a good time to give me the BSOD. I need new memory me thinks. I'm getting tired of the random BSOD. *sigh*

So I started up DDR again. I'm doing about 3 times a week. Tomorrow will be a week of doing that. I'm also trying to stay late at work to read and or do stuff that I can't do at home due to distractions the other days of the week. Damn, I also sense my monitor about to go color blind again at this very moment. Anyway, I've been reading up on C#. I got a new book a month back on C# 2005. It's pretty cool. I need to learn it better. I need a full time to make all this time I spent in school and stuff worth while.

I'm currently drinking this organic apple juice stuff mixed with Vodka at the suggestion of Dawn's dad. It's odd tasting. Fortunately, we bought some Sierra Mist tonight so I can fall back on that. :)

Well, happy secular holidays and stuff. May all your holiday dreams become reality. ^_^

Happy Holidays!

My monitor is beginning to die a slow death. One of the colors keep on flickering in and out. I guess it's time for me to go flat. :) I'm sad though. I like my 19 inch monitor. I hope I don't have to put it out its misery. Oh well.

Seahawks!!! NFC West Division Title Holders

How about them apples! The Rams lost today. Before the Seahawks play tomorrow night in Philly, they already know that they have the NFC West Division title. What's cool about this is Seattle still has 5 games left. 5!! And they are the first team to clinch their division title. And now, Seattle will be playing for home field advantage through out the playoffs. I don't ever recall even thinking that before. Seattle and home field advantage were always polar opposites. The mere thought of it makes my head swim. :D

*Has a heart attack*

Why? Cause the Seahawks pulled a win out of their ass today! Holy Crap!! The Giants could have won three times but their field goal kicker missed each time! Holy freaking crap!!! Seattle finally managed to get enough offense to get within Josh Brown's range and with about 5 mins left in overtime, Seattle won by a field goal. Holy freaking macha macha hi crap!!!

*cries*

Fake crying, I can assure you. Anyway, some of you might have played Dugeon Siege. Some of you might remember that I went to visit Gas Powered Games a few years back. I liked Gas Powered Games. Lots of intelligent people there headed by a guy that knows what he wants. However, I think he's off his rocker. If you travel over to here, you'll find the trailer for the movie they are making based on it. And now, let me bring up Dungeon & Dragons. Why do I bring it up? Because, looking at the trailer, the Dungeon Siege movie will be worse than that D&D crap. Watch the trailer and you'll see what I mean.

First up, Burt Reynolds is in it. WTF?! Burt Reynolds in a fantasy movie? As the King character?! Next up, that Jason Statham guy who's been in such flops as The Transporter and The Transporter 2. He was mildly interesting in Snatch. He's as B-action star as they come. No offense to Bruce Cambell though. And then there's poor John Rhys-Davies who is now forever typecast into fantasy movies. You might remember him from Lord of the Rings movies.

So, I really don't know. I really can't judge the movie by the trailer, ala Star Wars prequal trailers, but it's sooooo terrible!!!

Penn & Teller: Bullshit

I love Penn & Teller. Penn is soo loud. I can't believe how loud he is. Anyway, though a new site I found,Digg.com, I found one of their episodes of Bullshit on Showtime. I'm really really happy. It's the show where they call Bullshit on the Bible. Since it is Penn & Teller, the language is mature, but the subject matter is what is important. It's just about 30 minutes long and funny as all hell. Please give it a watch. Please...for the children.

Ajax - What is it really?

So, when people first hear about AJAX, what do they really think it is? Well, currently it's the latest buzzword in the tech world. It's stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML2. But what if you didn't know that? What would you think about?

Here are a few things that might have come up:

• Ajax was a Greek hero from the Trojan War stories -


• AJAX is a vehicle type from Robotech -


• The Nike Ajax surface-to-air missile -


• Ajax, the cleaner -


• Ajax, the video game from Konami -

Wow, I hope you get down here. =) The Ajax I'm interested in is the one I first mentioned above. This a relatively new technology that have spawn quite a few of cool web applications. Do you use Gmail? Perhaps you've seen Google Maps. I've also heard of companies developing simple MSOffice-like web applications. It looks like this is taking off. While it's not the best because of it's dependences on JavaScript which is a security problem and not all browsers support it, it is still getting the job done.

A while back, I mentioned that I would start looking at making a MUD. I think the second part of that is to create a client application using Ajax. Now that would be cool. That would be cool. :) All I need now is a swift kick in the ass to put me down this path.

Working hard for my money

I'm working this weekend to make sure I don't get underpaid for having no holiday pay. It's a drag but I'll actually get stuff done.

Well, that's all I got. Tootles.

Crack and a pipe

Two totally unrelated items in my life...or are they?

I just posted up another link to some music I like to listen to. Japan-A-Radio features the latest Norwegian Viking music. Umm...no, more like J-pop and anime. For those of you who like streaming music, both di.fm and Japan-a-Radio use a newer technology called aacPlus. This streams out awesome quality sounding music at a bit-rate that people still on Dial-up *cough*AOL*cough* can enjoy. I like it because in theory it will have less drop outs and it's less bandwidth the hosts needs to pay out for.

So, it's all good. Oh yeah, you'll need to download Winamp 5.1 in order for you to use the aacPlus technology. I think it's worth it. In fact I'll probably download it at work tomorrow. Of course they may block the port after they discover a competing product is being used on their network. *smile*

And other topic, Seahawks are playing Sunday at one vs their division rival Rams, probalby their only compeition in the division this year. It should be a good time. Be sure to watch. And be happy I'm hundreds of miles away.

A long time

So a few things. The Seahawks won again last week. Barely in the last 40 seconds of the game, but it was a win all the same. Bye this week and they're off to Arizona for probably another whipping session next week. It shall be fun.

Second, I finally found a game type that I should have started to make a long time ago. The world of MUDs. I played a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) or two back in the day when BBSes were all the rage. However, that thing called the Web killed off the BBS and I didn't really play them any more. One could say that Everquest and World of Warcraft could be considered a MUD. I'm thinking more along the lines of the pure text version. This recently came back to me as I had thought of an idea that could lead to a more pleasurable MMO experience. Of course building your own MMO from scratch is ludicrous. I was discussing the idea with a co-worker and he mentioned that MUDs would be a good area to test the idea out. That was quite the idea.

So, now I'm on a quest to see about building my own MUD. Giving there's probably won't be any graphics involved or physics, I can be confident that I could do a large majority of building said software by myself. There's a lot of good things that can come about this and I'm thinking it's quite workable. So, wish me luck and pray to His Noodly Appendage.

Seahawks Won! <eom>

*sigh*

I'm bored. I'm seriously considering getting me some Code Red and doing some coding. I can't believe how bored I am. I haven't been this bored in ages.

Bored, bored, bored. On a scale of 1 to 10, i'm a 10 bored. Bored.

Ok, enough being bored. I'll just be boring now.

It's no use

Seattle lost today. It's seemed like they would after on their first play ended with a fumble. Opening kickoff and they screw up right from the beginning. I wonder if it's worth watching any more.

It's certainly beginning to look like watching sports is something I should grow out of. Sure, not everybody in the NFL sucks, but when your home team continues to drain whatever hope of sports happiness, it's not cool anymore. I can now feel what the fans of the Boston Red Sox have felt for decades before their team finally won last year.

I have to say that I enjoy watching tennis still and the occasional golf match.

I dunno...I gots other things on my mind right now. Being 30 and barely in a better spot than I was last year. Yeah, "boo-hoo" you say. *sigh*...more later...maybe

YESS!!!

One of my friends that I have known the longest on the Internet is ok!! She had lived in New Orleans. It would appear that her and her family got out on Sunday and managed to get to Little Rock, AK. I always thought of Arkansas indifferently, but they go up a notch today. =D

Konban wa

That's 'Good Evening' in Japanese.

I'm finally feeling like I'm progressing with my Japanese skills. I'm finally seeing some silent vowels which I was trying to pronounce but yet the speaker on the CD was skipping. I didn't understand for a long time and it was frustrating. Tonight I sat down for I think over two hours(!) and read through the first seven lessons. Several lessons I would repeat certain clips over and over till I could understand what was going on. By the way, I'm using the Living Language: Japanese Complete Course. The link goes to a newer version, but I'm sure it's about the same as the one that I have which I got very late 90's or very early 2000's.

I'm far from being able to watch anime without subtitles, but I think I'm on my way. Now the trick is to stick to studying a few times a week otherwise I'll stay in this deep, deep, deep rut that I've been in since...I dunno...forever? I think after I learn some more, I'll need to search out a native speaker to help me out. I had attended a Japanese group once in the Bellevue area which was pretty cool. They only meet once a month but I work a shift where I leave work around 3pm. They meet at 7pm. It's pretty inconvenient to go home then come back then go home again. That's at least an hour of additional travel. On good days. I guess I'll figure something out.

Well, that's enough for right now. Talk at y'all later.

A Quicky

Over here is an article about them crazy bible people thinking that dinosaurs walked with man. haha You need to register for that article by the way. But here's the little quote that I must show:

"Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden, and Noah's Ark? Give me a break," said Kevin Padian, curator at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley and president of National Center for Science Education, an Oakland group that supports teaching evolution. "For them, 'The Flintstones' is a documentary."

hahhahahahhahahhahhaahahaha The Flintstones....a documentary!!! That's great!

So you just turned 30. What are you going to do now?

Not go to Disneyland, that's for sure. :P

Yeah, so today is my 30th birthday. I have finally transcended into my 30somethings. I can finally relate to the show of the same name from the 90s or whenever it was. I can't say that I actually watched that show so I'm not sure how I could relate, but I'll try my best. Maybe it's on DVD now.

So last night to celebrate, we all went bowling for what else? Bowling!! and beer!! heh Amy went with us to be sure I drank enough. I think I did. I was pleasantly liquored up. The bowling was fun. It was the first time that Dave has been too. He did pretty good on the first game. Got frustrated on the second game. I ended up doing most of his frames much to the sadness of my thumb. Though we were using the bumpers so it wasn't as bad. I managed to get two strikes that would have been gutter balls had the bumpers been down. I thought that was fairly comical. We ended up at the small arcade they had where I played some DDR with Dawn. I beat her but I think it's because the pad I was using was better. I played again on the one she used and I was sucking. What was cool about it though was that it was a Japanese machine. And it was actually loud!

Today I mainly just relaxed. Watched some TV, read the Sunday paper, did some laundry, and cooked myself some pancakes. So it was an ok day. We'll see how the rest of my 30s will turn out. =D

Ack, it's a blackout!

Damn it to all hell. Blackout for Seattle's game tonight. If you live within 75 miles of the game, you're screwed. Though I understand that the Seahawks lost. Probably not an interesting game. heh It's only preseason. But I continue to get blackout games for the regular season, I'm gonna be pissed! I can't live without my Seahawks! I'm much to cheap to actually go to the games. *sigh* Oh well. We shall see.

One of a kind

Yeah, my first attempt at a color manga-like thing. Certainly lots of room for improvement, but I'm happy with it. I actually found that to be fun. I hope I didn't miss my calling. :/

Goodbye 20's....It's was real

*sigh* So, as some of you know, my birthday is here in 12 days. So 12 days left of my 20's. I'm not sure what to say about it. Yay, another birthday down. Hopefully lots to come.

Thought I still feel like I haven't gone anywhere. Sure, I moved away from the Tri-Cities. Yay, I guess. But I still have four things laying around my desk that I've been wanting to do for ages. So yeah, I feel like that I been no where.

Eh, I'll come back later.

A change of heart

So a good chunk of people who read my site regularly know my plight versus religion. It makes no sense to me. The whole creation thing is just some kind of mythology, as mythological as the Greek and Roman kind. However, I may have to do an about-face on Intelligent Design. The answers were always there, right in front of me. In my cupboard to be exact. It took this site to bring it all in focus. From now on, every Sunday, I will worship my creator. Maybe with some garlic bread, too.

What if..

Ghenghis Khan formed his own disco band....this is what. Catchy, no? Thanks to Blue's News for the link.

'nother small update

Just changed up the links on the side. That's it. Nothing more. Now go outside...enjoy the sun.

Slight update

Geee, I noticed the other day my entertainment links were broken. I fixed them. Now go listen to hot European dance grooves and/or play games.

And now for something a little less political

Ahh yes...the non-political post. You gots to love them.

Today I got to watch the second volume from Full Metal Alchemist. How have I never seen this gem before? Oh yeah, my lack of Cartoon Network did the trick. In the past I have exalted Vision of Escaflowne (until I saw the end), Neon Genesis Evangelion (until I saw the end...uh oh, a pattern is forming), and Cowboy Bebop (until...wait, I loved them all!). But I can safely say that Full Metal Alchemist is my favorite anime at the moment. I understand that there's quite a few of them made. I'm only on episode 9. I'm sad I can't waste a week and watch them all. *cries* *gets a hanky* But I'll live with just watching four episodes at a time a month apart.

Oh yeah, I tried my hand at drawing today. I have natural talent. Let me show you what I did!

My manga beginnings!

hmm..odd..I need to play with the picture thingey some more. Well, that's all I got right now. I hope you all are enjoying the hot weather over on the east side. *snicker* *maniacal laugh* *ha ha laugh ala Nelson*

Make no mistake about it, your president is...

I dunno...what is he? A rock? Some sludge at the bottom of one of the waste tanks at Hanford? The stuff that the huge slugs that we have here leave behind? I dunno, take you pic. Come up with something better, more creative. I really just want to go straight to the awesome words of four letter goodness.

So, if you keep up in the news, one of the things floating about is how President "Plant Matter" (not very creative, I know) endorses teaching other theories of life in science class. I read the article in the Seattle Times here. And yer in luck, I managed to find it on their website. Again, he proves his self-worth to the rest of the world. As with his mysterious cache of WMD in Iraq, he's very clueless on how the world works. He pretty much directly contradicts what his science advisor had said back in March. Seriously..when is someone going to start the process to impeach him? There's a petition over at Petition Online that asks for deeper investigation of the memo leaked in the UK about how he wanted to do the whole Iraq thing from the beginning. This is a beginning. This needs to grow or I'm sure more stupidity will befall our country.

NASA and their lies!

I tell you it's true! Google Says So! With the advent of awesome map technology, Google has finally discovered the truth that NASA has hidden since 1969! Be sure to zoom in all the way.

In other news, James Doohan has pass on. While Star Trek was never a favorite with me, Scotty was one of the few likeable characters. It was James that brought that character to life. This non-Trekkie gives a few moments of silence.

To know your church is to know love

Damn those Texans! So arrogant and full of themselves. People who leave Texas, whom I know one, have good reasons to not go back. I'm not if it was a good idea to have them taken in by the union way back when. Anyway...

So, some church in Texas has soo many sheep that they need a freaking coliseum to "teach" its doctrine has actually bought a coliseum for their sheep. Check this out over at CNN.com. The former playing ground for the Houston Rockets is now a training ground for the weak minded. Does this bother me at all? Not in the least. They're in Texas while I'm still here in Washington. We're not part of Jesusland, remember? What bugs the hell out of me is a quote from their ignorant governor, you know the same state that gave us <sarcasm>wonderful President Dubya</sarcasm>. So, here it is if you haven't skipped right there to read it:

As lawmakers we do a lot of things, but only the church can teach people to love. - Texas Gov. Rick Perry

That's right Rick. Only the church can teach people to love. I guess I have live my whole life as a lie. The love I know is fake. And of course we all know this to mean only the Christian church can do this. If you're Muslim, you're SOL. If you have Buddha in your life, kiss your love for him goodbye.

I just don't get it. Why is it always with Christians that it's their way or they'll beat the snot out of you until you agree? I'm almost certain that not everybody in Texas are brainwashed. There are a few that actually think before speaking. Their governor just dropped his drawers over the minority, which include the above thinkers, and said "Like it!" He doesn't care. He'll get whatever next term they vote for. If I were one those poor souls in Texas who were just told that one of their basic human emotions doesn't exist, I would certainly up and leave. Go anywhere. Leave Middle-Jesusland and come to Canada...err I mean Western Washington.

I really don't know. Will critical thinking ever come to the majority in the US? It might not come about in my life time. I can only hope it comes in my son's.

Friday was too good

Eh, so work on Friday was ok as work goes. Nothing really going on that would cause unneeded stress. On my way to work, I saw a cop had pulled over a motorcyclist! That marked a good day! I finished up with getting some much needed items for Dawn's computer.

However, that good stuff didn't last to the late afternoon of today. I installed the rest of Dawn's hardware and finally put on XP. I'm telling ya, it's a hassle! I'm buying a whole computer next time! :P So, the pieces left over from my computer and Dawn's was going into Dave's. But alas, that was not meant to be.

My intention was to use my old MoBo which included a somewhat faster processor than what he had already. It already included 512MB of RAM so he'd be set. Unfortunately, it locked one too many times when I was trying to install Win98 on it. I had other problems as well which leads me to believe that the mobo is shot. That's pretty crappy. I could go buy the same stuff I stuck into Dawn's machine but with a lower end processor as he really doesn't need it.

Anyway, this has been two weekends in a row messing with computers. Time for a rest. I need to do something else. I need to design a game. *sigh*

l33t n33d nat app1y h3r3

So, I got Guild Wars for my updated computer last Saturday. It's pretty cool as MMO goes. But there's just one problem: There be elitist ass wipes in yonder game.

That's right. The same dumbasses that inhabit the space of Halo and Xbox Live also exist within the MMOs that garner high praise. I'm surprised that "they" actually know how to type. Some of them don't know how to talk, that's for damn sure. This is unfortunately as I was growing to like Guild Wars. No subscription fees was a bonus. But now that the people who suck the fun out of playing get randomly teamed up with me on my first outing beyond the main area, it's not so much fun. I wonder if I should even make games for the those types.

So, I dunno really. It's depressing that I shell out $50 for a game and it turns out it filled with more than just bugs. I guess I should have seen it coming. But what if...there was a way to make games fun again? What if? Yeah, I know. It's a pipe dream. *sigh*

The Joy of new computer parts

But first, Voltron gets served.

So, this last check was nice. It is one of three this month. And you know what that means? New computer parts!! And what's cooler is I'm getting parts for two computers! I would have liked to spend it all on me. After all, my computer is a development platform for games. :P

So, what I got for my computer is:

• 80GB SATA hard drive


• Asus nVidia 6600 video card with a whooping 128 megs of ram!


• DVD writer

Here's what I got for Dawn's computer:

• my old 40GB IDE hard drive up from two ~10GB drives


• Asus nVidia 5200 video card with a whooping 128 megs of ram!(which is a lot compared to what was in there before)


• A new motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP 2700+ processor and associated CPU fan


• 512MB of PC3200 RAM up from 256MB of PC133


• my old DVD-ROM drive (once I find some rails for the case)

While installing her pieces yesterday, I found that one of her cooling fans was dead. I decided to take it out. Probably a good thing I did that as it felt hot to the touch. I can't believe it didn't burn up. Earlier in the day I had bought a new fan that I was going to use in the back of the case. The bad one was in the front. I still put the new fan in back as I think it will benefit the cooling of the case better.

I'm going to get her WinXP here this week and install the hard drive later in the week. It was a pain reinstalling winxp on my computer as I guess enough pieces changed to warrant them forcing me to call their upgrade center. I was annoyed. I don't have that issue when installing stuff at work. LOL

Whatever pieces left over are probably going to go into Dave's computer. Or I'll be lazy and just bye him a low end computer. Installing computer parts takes all day. geeze.

Well, this post is losing focus so. Until next time.

Us Yanks are smart..yup

So, Canadians are finally realizing what us northern people in the ummm..north part of the States have known for about a century and a half. Please read this here that I yoinked off of Fark.com. I find it funny. Now, I can only guess about the truth here as my mom came from that part of the States and she was one the smartest people I knew. But let us throw in NASCAR into the mix. I don't think my mom could have offset the average enough. But again, another generalization about the South. Some bright college graduate from the North should do a study on that for his/her master/doctorate.

Halo 2, Xbox Live, and You

So, I enjoy to play a game or two of Halo 2. I also enjoy playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live. However, I don't like playing with you. Well, probably not you, my dear readers, just the collective "you" that represents the a good portion of the players on Xbox Live. Let me explain why.

For those of you who do not know what Xbox Live is, it is Microsoft's own online system to allow people with broadband connections from all over the world to play together. Which is kind of cool. When I play in the wee hours of mornings, I will typically hear the English accents from the UK and occasional will hear people talk in another language all together. It's always fun to be called an "American Wanker" by those on the other side of the Atlantic. And from this is where I don't like playing with you.

I don't know how many times I have been called names for doing something wrong, just not performing at my typical ability, or by winning. I hear it everyday. It's a very rare day indeed when someone will comment on the excellent move or tactics performed. I generally don't include the "Good Game" comments as that is expected. For instance, I was playing in a team slayer game, where the first team who gets to 50 points wins, and the team we were playing against just barely edged us out by one kill. Oh well, I thought. But at the end where you can review the game stats, the leader(with most kills) of the other team decided it would be cool to start saying I could "suck his balls" or some such crap. If you really wanted to break the game down, I had one more point than him (for reference). There are very few players I have encountered that are sore winners, but this guy was the worst of them. I left him two negative feedback thingies though really I have no idea if Bungie pays attention to those things.

The worst is when you are playing on a team and you aren't playing at your best and they start to bitch at you. "You Suck" and other worth while comments fling from their mouths. I remember playing a two-on-two game where my partner got like a 3 or 4 kills before I got my first and he started to say I should just quit. Well, I stayed in the game and we lost. I started to just get myself killed on purpose. In fact that's what I do when my teammates starts saying crap like that. In the case of Capture the Flag and Assault, I do my best to keep the flag or ball away from the target without killing my teammates. If you kill a teammate, then they can boot ya from the game...I don't want that, now do I.

Other times, mostly on team games, the losing team are sore losers. On the maps, there are certain weapons or points that make the player seem invincible. However, all players can be killed. For instance, on the map Ascension (for reference), there's a very high point that can only be gotten there with a flying vehicle, the Banshee. For whatever reason, I have not seen the Banshee on this level for a week or two. But on that game, it was back. Dave was playing on this game and he enjoys to snipe. So he managed to get a banshee and a sniper rifle and flew up to the high point. He managed to kill three guys while up there and never managed to get back to it. However, lots of people frown upon doing this. Some people consider this as "n00bish". Dave was just having fun. And this was a training ground game which basically means that it doesn't count against your ranking. The other team were being pricks, mainly FenderMan92186 and Loki60. They first ripped on one of my other team mates for using snipers for most of the game. Next the started to rip on Dave for snipping from the high point. I was soo fucking pissed.

I can't get away from these immature assholes. They are everywhere on Xbox Live. I also can't tell you how many times I listen to pre-game conservation about being high or drunk or how they "fucked my mom" (this particular comment angers me to no end). I don't like playing with these fucktards. They really have no idea that Halo 2 is merely a game. Win or lose, the world isn't going to end. Hell, if they stopped playing, they might get laid. Some of them seemed that they need it more than Rosy Palm.

I am really beginning to see the real reason why Halo 2 is marked as a M rated game. It's not to keep the innocence away from all the shooting, blood and other violent things. It's to keep the immature away until they realize that Halo 2 is only but a game for entertainment. There's soo much teen angst flowing in Halo 2 that I'm surprised that Xbox Live just doesn't become an evil alive entity and starts to take over the world. Ok, I really don't wonder that. But the hatred is there and it puts a damper on what is normally a good game.

Cherry Popping Goodness

*watches hits go up*

Yeah, I'm a whore for cheap hits. So, Seattle. It's been ok up here. What's actually pretty cool is I'm at a job where a lot of people share some of my interests. I can laugh at some geeky joke and not get weird looks. I feel enthused when I talk or listen to technology stuff. The others seem to feel the same way, if only more so as they seem more competent than me. It just nice to be surrounded again by those type of people. I can't see myself ever going back to "normal".

This past week I've been learning a programming language called C#. Now, I have heard other people call pieces of technology as sexy. I never knew why they did. I know now. C# is soo damn smooth, silky almost. I want to learn this so bad. There's a lot of potential behind it. I want it all. I know it, to dream about it, to think about it all day. I know now what sexy is.

I didn't see Star Wars on opening night. The first time I've missed a Star Wars on opening day since the re-releases of the original three. Yes, I'm really quite sad. I won't see it until Monday. For free, but still, I have to wait a whole freaking weekend. Oh well.

Now, to my title. A few weeks back, Katie and fam came up to visit. I thought it was a good idea to buy hard alcohol. I got some rum, vanilla vodka and Irish cream. We didn't have much stuff at the house as for mixing things. But we did have some left over Cherry 7up. So, on a whim I decided to mix Cherry 7up and the vanilla Vodka together. Holy crap! That's the best drink every!!! I nicknamed it "Cherry Popper" because I like drinks with perverted names. It's really good! I highly recommend it. So does Katie. heh

All I can say....wow!

I just discovered the best feature I have ever seen on a music player on a computer: A rewind/seek of streaming music!! RealPlayer for Windows XP has this feature and now I'm in love with it!

I listen to a lot of streaming music and sometimes there's music that plays that I would love to listen to again, but I can't when I had crappy ass Win98 version of RealPlayer. Tonight, while peering at the seek bar which would normally allow you to seek on a regular MP3 or Ogg Vorbis file (if you don't know what Ogg Vorbis, google is your friend), I moused over it and it showed me the time playing and what not and a thing called perfect play which was enabled. Not thinking anything would happened, I clicked on the slider, dragged it to the left and all of the sudden I was listening to music I had listened to about a half hour ago!! I was like DUDE!! cause I had just listen to this really awesome mix that I'm still listening to now, again. heh

Not only has it not crashed playing the music, it buffers the music for quite a while so I can listen to whatever I want...within reason. Something else I just noticed that it marks where the different songs are on it. hehehehhehehe Man, I'm sooo in love!!

Ok, that's it. Need sleep for my job tomorrow. Goodnight.

oi!

Oi! I just had to say that.

Well, so, I be looking a lot. Working a lot puts a damper on me posting 3 or 4 times a day. Oh well. I don't really have much to say. Oh yeah. I got to say this:
Dear 1% of Seattle drivers who screw it up for everybody else on the roads: Thanks a big whole lot. Sincerely, Pissed in Bothell.

Man, I really gots nothing. Oh well. Maybe later...

Some Time

That's all I ask for. Some time.

So, Seattle, errr well, Bothell. Actually, according to the post office we live in Bothell. We live more like in Lynnwood or Mill Creek. But whatever. Whatever city we live in, it takes a good 30 to 40 minutes to get to Redmond on a good day. The commute has been ok. I haven't want to do anything rash...yet. heh Bad days it takes about an hour to get to and from work. I listen to the radio the whole way there and it doesn't bother me at all. But this is only the end of the fourth week. We shall see what I feel like in 5 months.

The job itself it good. I'm learning a whole bunch of stuff. There's still a whole bunch of stuff to learn as well. It's kind of like school, but I'm actually doing and learning something. Go figure.

Well, that's it for now. See ya on the east side. :P

Food

Yes, yes. My first post on the west side and all I can post about is food. But hungry...so hungry....I come back later.