Holiday Summary

T-Day was a great success. Everyone brought food and we have a vast assortment of delicious morsels. The turkey turned out pretty good. I think next year, I will marinate it so it's more moist and more flavorful. All in all, I would say BluPnutMM's hand roasted BBQ ribs received the warmest reception (rumor has it, she raised the pigs herself and butchered them just for this occasion).

We played loads of party games. First one was Apples to Apples. This game was a good ice breaker for people to get to know each other. After the warmups, it was on to Mafia. This was awesome since we had couples accusing each other of being Mafia and hilarity ensued. I am sure more than a few of the people had to sleep on the couch that night. For some inexplicable reason, I was always killed on the first round. Twice, I was the first victim of the Mafia in the game. During the third game, just when I thought I wouldn't die, I was lynched by the villagers as a suspected Mafia on the FIRST turn....

Last party game we played was Cranium (using booster pack). Our team started out awesome and we were at the 75% mark before any of the other teams got out of the gate. Unfortunately, after one crucial mistake (drawer not hearing the answer and thus letting other team get the question right), and 2 wrong answers in data head, our advantage was lost.

After the last game of Cranium, some of the people had to leave so we switched to Guitar Hero. Most of the poeple there were beginners and so they played most of the songs on Easy mode. On easy mode, the songs actually sounded pretty good and there was good rocking all around. Unfortunately, the ease of songs caused people to become cocky and decided to try it on hard mode. The songs did not sound so good after that....

Rock On!

Seems like MTV is going to start featuring Guitar Hero in their programming. SWEET! If you have not gotten this game yet, go get it, NOW, no excuses. If you don't have the money, get a job. If you are missing arms, get cybernetic implants. If you are actually dead, get a necromancer to make you undead. The game is just THAT good.

T-Day minus 3

It's almost T-Day. Have everything prepared. Got my roasting pan, got my baster, got the seasoning, and got the turkey. It better defrost in time!

Pwned by a Celebrity!

Repeatedly killed by snipers in BF2? Do not fret, you could merely be rubbing shoulders with celebrities!. Now we know why he hasn't made any good movies for such a long time!

BF2 1.2 Patch

Some things in store for 1.2:

- Helicopter now carry 8 missiles rather than 14
- TV-Guided missile now have a shorter range
- Hit points on all air vehicles has been reduced
- AA missile lock has been improved
- Support kits have had their primary weapons adjusted for accuracy
- Sniper kits have had their primary weapons adjusted for accuracy
- Anti-Tank kits have had their primary weapons adjusted for accuracy
- "Dolphin Diving" is no longer possible
- Players can no longer jump and shoot at the same time
- "Prone Spamming" is now fixed
- "Sprint exploit" is now fixed
- The Sa80 weapon has been improved (L85A1) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ^_^b
- The G3A3 weapon has been improved (G3)
- Reload while sprinting has been enabled
- Chinese and MEC APCs can now shoot through penetrable materials
- Damage decreased for the M134 (Blackhawk Minigun)
- Medic defibrillator paddles have been adjusted. They now reload while not in use. This is a very good fix, many times I have been killed while pulling out my defib so I can do a quick revive, only to wait to rub the paddles together!

Kudos to Patronus for relaying this info to me. Found in this post.

Conspiracy?

I always thought BF2's Global Score was Teamwork Score + Combat Score + Commander Score. Apparently this isn't true as the sum definitely does not equal the Global Score. Any ideas?

Add: General trend right now seems to be that those that played commander the most seem to have lost the most points. One person explained that the actual formula is something like:

Global Score = Combat Score + Teamwork Score + Commander Score - (Combat Score as Commander + Teamwork Score as Commander)

This is because the kills/assists/captures/etc you get as commander do show up in stats but don't actually contribute to the Global Score. So killing lots of people with artillery or reviving a bunch of people will inflate the combat and teamwork points to higher than the actual point total is. More research ongoing since I have no commander points and somehow I have 45 points more than I should.

How much is Christmas REALLY worth?

According to this study, it costs about 18k to buy all the things in 12 days of Christmas. Still where the heck do you find "Dancing Lords" these days... and somehow 4k seems kinda cheep for royalty.

Workaround

Don't want to get BF2: SF? Don't care about the new maps but still want to unlock your SF weapons? Well no worries. This amazing little trick was discovered by someone over at the gamefaq boards.

Simple steps:
1. Retrieve your account on a machine that has SF installed (friend's computer, stolen computer, etc etc)
2. Play 1 round of a SF map to trigger the unlocks.
3. Pick up your unlocks.
4. Upon logging on at your own machine, provided that you have 1.12 installed, you can now select the SF unlocks in vanilla BF2 without having to buy SF!

BF2 Unlocks Vs. BF:SF Unlocks

I am gonna try some hardcore copy/pasting to attempt to compare the different guns. New gun stats will be followed by old gun stats. Stats are all copied over from BF2s and Team RiNo. All credits for gun info go to them (don't sue me, I'm broke!)

Support:
MG36:
Magazine Capacity: 600
Magazines: 3
Rate of Fire: 100
Damage: 30
Fire Modes: Full Auto / Burst
Accuracy: Medium
Min Deviation: 0.75
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: 2.0 / 1.5 / 0.8
Deviation Added per Shot: 0.8
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.8
Recoil: 0.25 - 0.45
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 0.5

PKM:
Magazine Capacity: 100
Magazines: 3
Rate of Fire: 600
Damage: 45
Fire Modes: Full Auto
Accuracy: Low
Min Deviation: 0.8
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: 2/1.5/0.8
Deviation Added per Shot: 0.4(0.8)
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.8
Recoil: 0.25/0.45
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 0.50

Bottom Line: I initially thought the MG36 was a worthy weapon, but after using it for a bit, I would probably never use it over the PKM. The accuracy of both guns are nearly identical but the PKM does a whopping 15 more damage per shot than MG36. The only advantage of the MG36 is that it has a burst mode so in theory, you can conserve ammo better. But this is the support class which basically has infinite ammo anyways. PKM all the way.

Cont.

Assault:
F2000:
Magazine Capacity: 30
Magazines: 3
Rate of Fire: 600
Damage: 34
Fire Modes: Full Auto / Semi Auto
Accuracy: Medium / High
Min Deviation: 0.34
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: 1.3 / 1.2 / 1.0
Deviation Added per Shot: 2.5
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.8
Recoil: 0.4 - 0.6
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 0.8

G3:
Magazine Capacity: 20
Magazines: 5
Rate of Fire: 600
Damage: 40
Fire Modes: Single/ Full Auto
Accuracy: Medium
Min Deviation: 0.50
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: 1.5/1.3/1.0
Deviation Added per Shot: 0.25(2.5)
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.8
Recoil: 0.3-0.5
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 0.7

Bottom Line: I don't play assault too much so I don't have much familiarization with the G3. From pure stats, I would say the F2000 is a better gun than the G3. It is more accurate in all instances. The damage of 34 vs 40 isn't really that dramatic since it's a 3 shot kill for either gun from full life. The F2000 does come with a scope AND it has a grenade launcher attachment. I would probably take F2000 over G3 in all instances.

Cont..

Medic:
G36E:
Magazine Capacity: 30
Magazines: 3
Rate of Fire: 900
Damage: 32
Fire Modes: Burst / Semi Auto
Accuracy: High
Min Deviation: 0.25
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: 1.3 / 1.2 / 1.1
Deviation Added per Shot: 2.5
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.8
Recoil: 0.3
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 0.8

L85A1:
Magazine Capacity: 30
Magazines: 5
Rate of Fire: 600
Damage: 32
Fire Modes: Single/ Full Auto
Accuracy: Medium/High
Min Deviation: 0.3
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: 1.5/1.3/1.2
Deviation Added per Shot: 0.3(2.5)
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.8
Recoil: 0.3-0.5
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 0.6

Bottom Line: The G36E is more accurate in all categories except when zoomed. It has less deviation per shot as well as less recoil (except when zoomed). Major disadvantage of G36E is that it does not come with full auto mode so for close quarters, it isn't quite as effective as L85. The G36E also uses iron sights instead of a scope. I would probably use the G36E for almost all instances.

Cont...

Engineer:
MP7:
Magazine Capacity: 20
Magazines: 3
Rate of Fire: 600
Damage: 24
Fire Modes: Full Auto / Semi Auto
Accuracy: Low / Medium
Min Deviation: 0.37
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: 1.3 / 1.0 / 0.9
Deviation Added per Shot: 2.5
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.75
Recoil: 0.4 - 0.6
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 0.7

Jackhammer MK3A1:
Clip Size: 7
Magazines: 6
Damage: 15x8
Accuracy: Low
Fire Modes: Full Automatic
Accuracy: Low
Min Deviation: 1.5
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: -/-/-
Deviation Added per Shot: 0.3(3)
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.9
Recoil: 4
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 1

Bottom Line: Well these guns are vastly different since one is an auto shotgun and one is a SMG. The 20 round clip on the MP7 is somewhat of an annoyance. I would probably still take the MP7 over the Jackhammer for those medium encounters.

Cont....

Spec-Ops
SCAR-L:
Magazine Capacity: 30
Magazines: 3
Rate of Fire: 600
Damage: 27
Fire Modes: Full Auto / Semi Auto
Accuracy: High
Min Deviation: 0.22
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: 1.5 / 1.2 / 1.1
Deviation Added per Shot: 1.6
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.75
Recoil: 0.3 - 0.5
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 0.75

G36C:
Magazine Capacity: 30
Magazines: 5
Rate of Fire: 600
Damage: 25
Fire Modes: Semi/Full Auto
Accuracy: High
Min Deviation: 0.12
Deviation Standing/Crouching/Prone: 1.5/1.2/1
Deviation Added per Shot: 0.15(2.0)
Deviation Mod when Zoomed: 0.6
Recoil: 0.2-0.4
Recoil Mod when Zoomed: 0.50

Bottom Line: G36C is more accurate by all accounts. It has less/same deviation on all acounts and insanely less recoil added per shot. I would probably still take the G36C over SCAR-L even though SCAR-L does 2 more damage per shot.

Great time was had by all!

Thankgiving was great this year. We had the usual gathering of massive amount of friends. We all had a nice dinner on the friday after Thanksgiving (at this Wolfgang Puck's) and about 12 people came to my house for a nice jam session with Guitar Heroes. I was able to procure a second guitar from Red Octane just in time for this. Everyone had lots of fun, but the highlight of the day was watching two brothers (both of whom play guitar in real life) duel it out. The younger brother was able to hit the insane solo to near perfection on "Bark at the Moon"

Speaking of Guitar Hero, I cannot say enough about how incredibly fun this game is. The SG controller just feels right in your hands. The 30 core songs are not played by their original artists, but the programmers did an astounding job replicating the song. So well in fact that the brothers couldn't even tell they were replicas!

I have been playing this game like a maniac the past couple of days. Playing to the point that whenever I hear guitar music, I see multitudes of greens, reds, yellows, blues, and the cursed oranges. So far, I have been able to to get 5 stars on almost all the songs (1 song with 4) on medium. I am having trouble on the last couple of songs on the 6th venue on hard difficulty. I just cannot shift that fast.

Saturday was bowling night. Using my awesome spin technique, I was able to consistantly place the ball at the same location every toss. It's just unfortunate that this particular place was always the far left 3 pins. We had a friendly competition going between "my" gang and "BlupnutMM's" gang. We thoroughly crushed them the first game despite my doing my best to drag the team down. We lost the second game on a technicality (They bowled better scores...).

Seems like a fun time was had by all since I have gotten 2 person's laments about having to go back to school/work in distant locales. Hopefully everyone can gather at Christmas time for more fun!

A New Hope

There might be some spectre of hope left for Kansas as the intellectual community is finally taking a stand against Intelligent Design (which claims that because of their own gross stupidity and failure to do well in 6th grade science classes, believers claim that God must have created the universe.)

I find this an amusing argument. A scientist once proposed a question: "Can God create a rock that he himself could not lift" If he can, then he wasn't all powerful since he couldn't lift the rock. If he cannot, then he wasn't all-knowing since he couldn't create something.

The religious type people's argument against this was that "God is beyond logical reasoning so the argument is invalid". However, Intelligent Design tries to portray God as creating the universe in a logical manner thereby assuming that God IS NOT beyond logical reasoning.

You know, if you are gonna make something up, at least have the logic to make them agree with each other.

Gold Star!

Grapes and I were spewing out BF2 quotes with a holiday twist. Some include:

Enemy pumpkin pie spotted!!
Attack this Ham!!
I need gravy!! STAT!!
I am bingo on napkins!!

Now these weren't the best, but some of them were decently clever... then Grapes unleashed his entire repetoire....

"you're the finest squash I've ever laid eyes on"

I admit defeat.....I cannot handle the punishment.....

Possible Changes?

In keeping with the overall BF2 theme, some possible changes to BF2 are currently being considered.

Highlights:

-Remove TK penalty from claymores/AT Mines/C4
(C4 jeep is better than ever, not only do I get the kills, but I can now indiscriminately kill Catnipped and GrapesOfWrath! /thumbsup)

-Longer reload time for jets/choppers
(Don't fly, so no real opinion)

-Better implemented points system based on the "Difficulty Rating" for the kill. i.e. Tank killing infantry gets less points than infantry killing tanks
(Makes sense, sooo since I shot KiraTomato's jet down with a FAV machine gun, I should get like 23452352353 points right? =)

For all the AT fans..

Seems like this blog is becoming more and more like a BF2 commentary page. Meh, for those of you who love to play AT, here are some very important resources on just how much damage hits do on different vehicles at different locations. It's on a 20 HP scale so a 9 is roughly half damage.

Amazing Comeback

The setting: Daqing Oilfields
The sides: Team Veggies for USMC, random Infidels on PLA
Previous Round: 110-0 defeat @ Dalian Plant

We start the round well, immediately capping several points. However, they had air superiority and the game quickly turned into a lopsided affair. We were constantly down by over 50 points.

Then came the turning point: as the score was 84-30, miraculously, our team started to mount a comeback. All of a sudden, their airpower was no longer as obvious. They lost point after point, and pretty soon we controlled almost the entire map. Soon it was 70-24, then 36-14. Our tickets continued to dwindle but their tickets plunged. At the end, we pulled out an amazing 6-0 victory. Definitely the greatest game Team Veggie ever played!

This game broke the morale of the opposing side as many of them left. The next round was a complete rout as we won 179-0.

TKers beware!

Luckily killCatnipped and killGrapesOfWrath aren't needed since we have Cucumbernator!

More awards for BF2

Most people agree that BF2's awards system is a great motivational system to encourage players to play well. However, like any award system, some soldiers are always left out. Well, fear no more, as these new awards will surely fill in that hole for all those unrecognized heroes. Hoo-ra!

For the BF2 fans..

Lots of useful information about the US military is here. The attack helicopter in BF2 for USMC is a Cobra not an Apache!

BF2 Expansion

Here is some very good information about the kits and changes in the coming Special Forces expansion for BF2. The ziplines seem especially cool since you can have whole squads zipping down a line. Of course, I would love to just cut that line mid zip so everyone on the line falls to their inevitable demise. Or better yet, C4 the end of the line, wait for them all to land, and BOOM. Support gets some Tear Gas and Assault gets Flash Bangs.

One thing of note is that they actually point out what RPG originally stood for. (Hint: It's not Rocket Propelled Grenade)

The new vehicles seem pretty cool. The ATV and Jet Skis in particular. Those transport boats in BF2 suck so much as they have no armor and seem to have innate C4 capability as they explode quite easily.

Addendum: Think before you reload! Apparently, ammo in BF2 is loaded in discrete amounts equal to the clip size. This means that if you have a 30 round magazine, shoot 1 bullet, then reload, you lose the remaining 29 bullets. This was probably implemented to make the support class more viable.

The End

Well, it's over. A brilliant pitching performance by Backe, wasted again by Lidge. Of course, we had all the opportunities in the world to score, and didn't. But nonetheless, congradulations on the Astros for a great season!

ugh....

Well, Astros down 3-0 now. It will probably take some kinda miracle now....sigh. GO 'STROS!

Moderation!!

Well, I finally got moderated on a forum. I posted the following message in response to a person asking for "cheats, unlimited ammo, etc" for BF2 in rather broken English.

I think if you hold down Alt + K key, then release K and while still holding Alt, press F4, you get the unlimited everything cheat.

On a serious note, the game really isn't that hard vs bots. Just get a bit more practice in and get used to how the individual weapons function.

Now, perhaps I was a bit too convincing, or perhaps this particular person just wasn't familiar with Windows. Apparently, this person tried it and I assume it exited BF2 for him. He wasn't too happy and marked this post for "trolling." I should have posted that he needed to send me money too. I could have been rich!

For the record, if anyone needs "cheats, unlimited ammo, etc" for BF2, please send $500 US in small unmarked bills to me.

Tricks of the Trade

Think you know all there is to know about Strike at Karkand? Well, Think again! Spots #1, #2, and #5 look particularly promising.

Roy!!!

Roy Oswalt-INSANE, OMG. 4-2, Astros, World Series!

For the inquiring mind.

In case anyone is curious, here are the stats for the #1 ranked BF2 player in the world. A kill streak of 57!!! Geez....

Minor Irritation

Okay, I don't understand. Why even pitch to Pujols when first base is open? I mean okay you are up by 2 with 2 outs. One of the best hitters in the league is up. Why not just walk him and face the guy with the injured neck? Pujols has the speed of a crippled hippo so he's no threat on the bases anyways. But Astros will win the next game and erase this minor annoyance. GO 'STROS!!

1 more

Astros up 3-1, Pettitte for the win!!!! GO 'STROS

I like Swords!

For those of you who have seen FFVII: Advent Children. Have you ever wondered just how exactly Cloud's Captain Planet Sword worked? Well, wonder no longer!

The Return of the Beacon

Another reason why one should NEVER, EVER light the beacons....

And you thought YOU have bad hair days....

Words escape me....

Lucy, meet Frodo

This is conclusive evidence that I have way too much time on my hands during lunch.

It takes 2..

Game 4, what a spectacular game. 2 Grand Slams, tying homer with 2 outs in the 9th, homerun to win it in the botton of the 18th!!!. The Astros will Win it ALL!

For my own personal benefit.... Part II.

According to this article, top tier professional gamers make about $130,000 a year. Getting paid for blogging, getting paid to be addicted to a game... Maybe I'll be a professional disaster experiencer. $200k for an earthquake, $150k for a Hurricane, $500k for a airplane forced landing, I would be rich!

For my own person benefit...

Because of recent events,
I have decided that my normal life is not worth living. It's time to turn this blog into a hulking machine of capitalism and dedicated to the public good. (I am part of public..)

Priestly Volcabulary

Sooooo, apparently some priests feel very strongly about Harry Potter....

BF2 1.03 is out!

The Battlefield 2 1.03 patch is out. It drastically reduced the amount of points needed for rank ups and weapon unlocks. Here is the table for the updated Rank information.

Okay, this is crazy....

I can deal with extra fingers, or ears growing on a mouse's back, but this is just a little too creepy for me.....

I thought this was interesting

I found this over at a post on gamefaqs. It's the phonetic alphabet used by NATO.

A Alpha
B Bravo
C Charlie
D Delta
E Echo
F Foxtrot
G Golf
H Hotel
I India
J Juliet
K Kilo
L Lima
M Mike
N November
O Oscar
P Papa
Q Quebec
R Romeo
S Sierra
T Tango
U Uniform
V Victor
W Whiskey
X X-ray
Y Yankee
Z Zulu

UAV Online!

Now, I am sure this is a fairly important issue, but wouldn't you think the Chinese government could find a better use for their UAV? On the subject of BF2, Patronus and I had a great time last night on the 101st Clan Server. It was a very long match that lasted over an hour on the same map (I cannot remember off the top of my head) but we ended up pulling out the victory. Unfortunately, I think Patronus suffered some permanent trauma and will be having nightmares about Black Hawks for the rest of her life.

Home!

Finally came home. After a prolonged power outage here, it's good to be back in the old chair...staring at the good ole computer screen. Wait, that's exactly what I was doing at Norm's house, except I was starring at the wall courtesy of his projector. I need a projector.

Direct Miss

Rita missed Houston almost entirely so the damage was minimal. We never really had too much wind nor did we get much rain. The people in Louisiana got hit hard again though

Winds

Sustained winds of about 25 mph now. The real heavy stuff will start in about 4-5 hours.

Ummm....

Well, the people I was staying with decided at 4 am that evacuating was the best idea. Why they feel this way, I have no clue. I certainly did not want to move now since the storm was so close. Now I am at someone else's home.... and waiting out the storm again.

The Mice love Rice Song

For your listening (dis)pleasure courtesy of Patronus' mad google skillz

Well....

Seems like I am staying after all. Thanks to good old chinese indecision, I am going to be here during the storm. What sucks is some people want to evac tomorrow morning....That's such a good idea considering that they will be on the road still when the hurricane hits. Smart....

I swear, if it wasn't for the indecisive attitude towards matters, the Chinese race would have taken over the world long ago...there's always BF2 I suppose

Evacuation

Last post for a while. Hearing horror stories of people spending 6 hours to travel 2 miles is not very comforting. On the plus side, there is still about 24 hours before the first storm bands hit so hopefully I'll be in Austin by then. They did open all southbound lanes to northbound traffic, so they essentially doubled the number of lanes. So instead of 2 miles in 6 hours, it's gonna be 4 miles....I am pretty much expecting all my windows to be completely destroyed. I might lose the roof in which case the entire second floor would also be destroyed. The expectation is a loss of power for 12-14 days. Wish us luck!

Over from Kabitzin's Quiz..

You Are A: Duck!

Found in many lakes and ponds, ducks are a common site the world over. Known for their famous quack, ducks tend to congregate in flocks or go off on their own in pairs. As a duck, you may seem friendly at times but will not hesitate to bite if someone is bothering you. Your love for travel and your ability to swim are some reasons why you are a duck.

You were almost a: Bear Cub or a Pony
You are least like a: Groundhog or a ChipmunkCute Animals Quiz

*Quack *Quack

Looks like I am headed to Austin

As fun as being in a Category 5 Hurricane seems, I will most likely be going to Austin to spend this weekend. Should be fun all around!

Hurricane

Well so far, I have experienced firsthand: a deadly earthquake, being in a flaming plane, and pretty soon a major hurricane. Any suggestions for the next disaster I should experience? So far, Patronus' suggesting going to Seattle with the possible hopes of being in a volcanic eruption is the front runner.

15k Armor

Courtesy of Patronus. I present the Female Ranger 15k Druid Armor dyed Tan.**

**Disclaimer: Not responsible for burst retinas or self inflicted eye injuries. Side effects include: Nausea, Permanent Blindness, Headache, Death, and Dry Mouth.

The Guild Wars storyline

Here is the epic Guild Wars Storyline. Enjoy!

Tidbits of knowledge

For some reason, the topic drifted to elves in the daily conversations that Patronus and I have on AIM. Some tidbits:

"Elves go to sleep around two hours before sunrise and wake up at noon (just like modern teenagers!)"

Elven pregnancies last for 1 year

Elves start talking at age 2 and don't walk until 3.

Elves suddenly become archery masters at age 3 and have mastered dual shot and penetrating shot by age 3.5 (okay, I made this one up)

On a completely random note: Patronus has been complaining about a uber popular chinese pop song. This song has famous lyrics that go something like "I love you, I love you so much just like a mouse loves rice" I never knew mice enjoyed rice THAT much.....but hey, it rhymes so it must be true.

Emmys

David Shore won the Emmy for best writing in a drama for "Three Stories" (The Obvious choice) Hugh should have won the Emmy for best actor in a drama instead of that lunatic lawyer from Boston Legal. It's okay though, because we all know doctors save lives while lawyers ruin them.

So what makes a Sidekick Sing?

My drive to work in the morning is usually very short but I often times still get to listen in on bits and pieces of the Morning Show on 104.1 KRBE. This radio station has one of the more popular morning shows and usually have good guests. Maybe I was groggy in the morning from just waking up, but when they introduced the guest today, I swear they said "Today, we welcome the Singing Sidekick." This perked my interest because I was curious as to what exactly makes a sidekick sing.

After a few moments of intent listening, I realized they actually meant the Singing Psychic. This person actually "sang" her "prophecies." At this point, I quickly turned off the radio because I had no intention of hearing some off pitch singing of some lunatic's prophetic visions (the basis of her powers was that she got into a car accident which caused her some brain damage and now she sees visions).

After a short while however, the silence eventually got to me and I turned it back on to the following exchange:
DJ: So, many of us in Houston are wondering if the Astros will make it into the playoffs
Singing Charlatan: I see, what color are the teams colors?
DJ: Well, Red, Black, White, Blue.
Singing Charlatan: Okay, who is the quarterback?
DJ: Umm, the Astros are a BASEBALL team....
:Silence:
:Crickets Chirping:

At this point, I turned it off for good..

House Premiere

The House premiere is tonight. There really is no excuse to miss it. I would go so far to say that death is the only valid excuse. Even then, one could always come back as an undead minion and still catch it. The jokes won't make nearly as much sense since.... well undead don't really have a functional brain, but still.

The Big-Time

Most of my friends already know that I am a pretty big House fan. Many of them have also experienced my constant bombardment of trying to persuade them to watch it. It was always a sleeper hit, but when ESPN created an award category for it, I knew it has hit the Big Time!

Guild Wars in real life

Sooo, THIS is what Guild Wars would be like in real life! I always suspected as much.

Result from Quiz

I took a Quiz linked from Kolaap's Blog. Results are:


Test Results

Extroversion |||||||||||||||| 70%
Emotional Stability |||||||||||||||||| 76%
Orderliness |||| 16%
Accommodation |||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Inquisitiveness |||||||||||||||||| 73%

Your sloan type is SCUAI
Your primary type is Accommodating

You are social, calm, unstructured, accommodating, and intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.

The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: Providence, Austin, Denver, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, San Antonio, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Portland/Salem, Nashville, Louisville and these international countries/regions Turkey, Croatia, Slovenia, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Iceland, Norway, Ukraine, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Netherlands, Russia, Japan, India

For some reason, the pasted link they suggested keeps giving an error, oh well. Strange how Japan has the largest of "Calm" and "Accommodating" Personally, I think it's all just a bunch of bologne

Kittens!!!

Some friends of mine have been trying to pressure me into getting kittens. While I am not exactly 100% swayed by this notion, I do feel that perhaps some kitties would be kinda cute to have around. Since they do eat grass to help them digest food and prevent hairballs (read this somewhere), maybe if I get 2 kitties, then they can just take care of the yard for me!! If anyone has some kinda good reading material on cats, feel free to lemme know.

Backstroke of the West

Weep.. I do... ~Yoda

*Contains lots of pictures so there might be long loading times...

Yaosers!

This is how you know Yao Ming has had an influence far beyond that of the NBA...

Office Culture

This is an actual exchange that occurred in the office today:

Boss: "Ahh Sh*t!!"
Guy next door: "Did you call for me??"
Girl next to guy: "No, it wasn't you, there wasn't a 'dip' in front"

Needless to say, this cracked me up for a good while.

New Laptop

I recently got a new laptop from ASUS. Not many people know about this manufacturer, but the machines they make are quite nice. The company I work for is a subsriber to this Microsoft partnership program. This means we pay ludicrously large amounts of annual fee in return for plastic coasters from Microsoft every couple of months. I found this out to be particularly true when I tried to install Windows XP Pro on it last night. The installation went perfectly until it asked for the product key. Even though I typed it in exactly as it was printed, the program refused to recognize the key.

I called up Microsoft and a customer service agent confirmed that the key was correct and promptly whisked me to technical support. After talking with technical support, he then promply whisked me back to costumer service, which then told me that because the key is valid (duh....) that they cannot help me and that only technical support can help me....

At this point, I am assuming the tech support agent had no clue what to do, as he asked for a "few minutes" to look it up (in other words, "I have no clue what to do and am hoping I can find some sucker to take this phone call off my back"). Apparently his search was frivolous and he came back on the line to tell me that it was because the CD was defective and that the only way to solve it was to get it sent back to Microsoft to get a replacement CD.

I just decided at this point to give up on Windows XP pro and instead, installed Windows XP Media edition.

Captain Planet!!

Kabitzin and I had an interesting conversation today about elementalists in GW. We decided that the elements they use are strangely similar to those of the planeteers. This was our final analysis based on primary elements they used:

Alice - Kwame (EARTH!!)
Regi - Wheeler (FIRE!!)
Gjiintari - Linka (WIND!!)
Felis - Gi (WATER!!)
Kajira - Ma-Ti (Worthless, I mean HEART!!) (Since Ma-Ti can talk to animals and all, we felt a beastmaster was appropriate.)

By your powers combined, I am CAPTAIN PLANET (to be decided)!!!

All Together: GOOOOO PLANET!!

cue theme song:

Captain Planet.., He's a Hero, gonna take pollution down to zero...

Bball

It's been a long time since I played basketball. Since Attilarius came back, we set up a basketball game for tonight. Essentially, I overslept and woke up about 45 minutes late. I go to my car to discover that my new father-in-law decided to park his 5 MPG (Highway) Ford Behemoth Truck of no bumperness directly behind my car. After a few minutes of tight maneuvering, I was able to free my car from the body block. Well, as for the game, since I got there late, no chance to warm up. We played 3 games of 6v6 (omgwtfbbq!). The first game was rather intense since most people hussled up and down. After that, it soon degenerated into a 3v3 since half the people were kinda walking. Our team was 1-2. A good time indeed. I can already feel the soreness...

Why Video Games > Sports....

At least video games haven't quite degraded to this.

My Evil Plan

Useful for when I take over the world.

Return of the Bluesky

Got a MSN messenger message from bluesky today. I guess you can really say it was "out of the blue" (gonggggggggg). Anyways, haven't heard from bluesky in over a year so this was a pleasant surprise. Apparently, blue is now in California (lucky bastard..) and is doing quite well. Hooray!

Lies...

BluPnutMM said "The March of the Penguins" stated when penguins mate, they stay together for the rest of their lives. I have learned that after reading the plot synopsis here that that statment is false. It flatly states "The pairs are monogamous for the season, though after the season is over the pairings dissolve." I thought I would just point this out.

March of the Penguins

BluPnutMM recently watched March of the Penguins. Today, during bowling, she was telling us about how the male penguin watches the egg for 4 long months while the mommy just sorta goes off and feasts to her hearts content. She suggested that the human race should be the same and that her significant other should watch over the newborn for the first 4 months. This is good and all... if humans layed eggs. We then went into an interesting debate about the size of a human egg.

"Stealth"

When I first saw the previews, I thought: Hmm, this movie sure has a lot of things blowing up. Well, it blows alright, it blows a lot. This review is great, it's funny but does contain adult language.

What the heck???!!

It seems that Apple has switched from IBM based chips to Intel!!!!!OMGWTFBBQ based chips for their Desktops and Notebooks. That's like asking a Charr for heart surgery...

Half Full

According to "Real Fact: 100" under this Snapple Cap: "In a year, the average person walks four miles making his or her bed." This is interesting because I haven't actually "made" my bed since oh... 3rd grade. While some may say that I am lazy, I prefer to think that I am still in the "process of making my bed" and that as an overachiever, I am just walking above and beyond the number of average miles required. ^^b

Random GW pictures

Maybe I should go out and kick a squirrel, that's probably enough to lvl me...




I hope he has a good Dentist..

How many livestock are you worth?

After reading this article, I got to thinking: How much livestock would you be worth? For me, I would say probably 20 chickens and 5 cows. If I could cook better, maybe bump it up to 6 cows or so...

Computer Geek Calender

Patronus got me a Computer Geek Calender last Christmas. It contains some amusing and otherwise very true sayings dealing with all things Geeky. I figure, I might as well share them here everyday. (In other words, nothing interesting happened today)

Microsoft Joke
I had a fortune cookie the other day and it said: "Outlook not so good." I said, "Sure, but Microsoft ships it anyway."

Something new

Yesterday, I went bowling with some friends. Usually, I just use the "straight" method where you hold the ball and just sorta toss it casually at the pins. However, this time I wanted to try something different so after the first game (121) I decided to try to spin the ball like the pros do it. This was quite a painful learning process. First, I thought they didn't use the holes at all, this led to several memorable tosses where the ball nearly flew into the next lane over since I had absolutely no control over where the ball went. It was then that I learned they actually DID use the holes!

It turns out that they only use the index and middle fingers to control the ball as it spins. This went better and I tried this method for 2 more games (67, 78). The problem is that when I throw it right, I get a strike, but then I would waste it with several bad attempts to imitate the throwing motion of the strike and end up with double gutters. With more practice, I know I can toss it with more consistency. Expectedly, my score took a dive, but even at less than 50% ability, I bet I still doubled Kabitzin's score ^^b.

During this whole time, we had other people (mostly parents and little kids) bowling with their training rails up next to us. One time, this little kid next to us literally threw a ball so slowly that after going almost halfway, it actually stopped, then slowly started coming back. I wonder how you would score this.

This girl 2 lanes down had a very unique throwing motion. She was tossing the ball with both hands onto the rails on purpose and hoping the rails would somehow make her get a strike. The only thing that can describe her throwing motion would be Ha-dou-ken (down, down-towards, towards + punch). Of course, she had absolutely no accuracy and even managed to toss the ball so violently against the rail that it bounced off, and landed in the area between two lanes. Ryu and Ken have nothing on her.

Wedding Bells

Today's wedding was an interesting affair. It was not held in a church, instead if was a nice small wedding taking place at a residence. The priest did a good job overall, however, while he was reading the vows, he made the groom repeat after him. This sounded strange as the priest spoke in third person... as a result we have the following exchange:

Priest: Do you Jane Doe take John Doe as your wife?
John Doe: Do you Jane Doe take John Doe as your wife?
Priest: Do you John Doe promise to be faithful, love her forever, random other mushy stuff.
John Doe: Do you John Doe promise to be faithful, love her forever, random other mushy stuff.

This went on until the very end. Many people were kinda puzzled as to why exactly the groom was speaking of himself in third person (all hail Atlantia! my brotherans....). The priest caught on quickly though, and did not ask the bride to repeat after him.

Prestigious Award

Seems like the good folks down at Forbes magazine ranked the 10 most overpriced cities to live in inside the United States. Seattle was again number 1 on this list. $320,000 for a average sized home...ouch. I am guessing they pay for the weather and trees as much as they do for the house.

False Advertising

I recently purchased some new headphones that were advertised as being the "most comfortable headset ever". It was designed for sessions of long gaming using TS or Ventrilo. Some reviews raved that "It felt like I wasn't even wearing a headset!" Well, I tried them on last night and apparently, by "most comfortable," they meant most comfortable compared to duct-taping speakers to your ears. In under 30 min, I could already feel the pressure this headset exerted on my ears. I'll give it a couple more days and see if the plastic band expands or something to fit better. If not, then they will become "the most comfortable headset" ever returned.

The early wurm gets the bird

Last night's venture into Dreadnought's Rift was certainly an amusing one. Our goal was to capture the elite skill "Feast of Corruption" for Patronus. Little did we know the evil that the programmers had in mind. We went into Dreadnoughts with a fairly high morale boost. Soon all that changed as groups of Hill Giants and Dwarves made short work of us and quickly reduced our Morale Boost to a 60% Death Penalty. Things kept popping out of nowhere and we found ourselves dying repeatedly. Luckily, we could still kill at least some of the enemies so through repeated deaths, we were able to make slow but somewhat steady progress. Eventually when we reached the spawn area, we realized that whoever designed this level must have a grudge on all society as the spawn area was surrounded by about 20+ giants. Through some stroke of luck though, we managed to isolate the wurm, but it still killed us 2 more times. Finally, the wurm decided he had lived long enough and decided to get stuck on a rock and only attack the warriors. We killed it quickly thereafter and Patronus got the skill. Overall, I think the moral of the story is that wurms suck, there is just nothing you can do about it.

Algerian Figs!

Congratulations to Hugh Laurie for his recent Emmy Nomination. Since I hardly ever watch TV, I actually have no clue what categories or how the criteria is judged for this prestigious award. For those of you interested, here is a exerpt from his post nomination interview.

Contagion

Recently a good friend returned home from California. I haven't seen him for over a year and am probably gonna head on over to his place. Not only is this catch up time on how he's been, it's also time to spread the House epidemic. For those of you who don't know, House is a TV show featuring Hugh Laurie as a cocky, narcissistic doctor who relentlessly torments his team of specialist doctors, boss, and best friend. He gets all the cases that other doctors cannot solve and manages to not only cure the patient, but does so in a brilliant and dramatic way. The dialog is excellent and the pace is great. I recommend everyone check it out.

New Headphones!

Recently, because of severe trauma, my headphone integrity has been compromised. I can only hear from the left speaker. To remedy this situation, I have decided to purchase this. Yes, it's a bit pricy, but what sold me was it is designed for prolonged use and is supposed to be "ultra comfortable." Maybe it will be so comfortable that it will become an extension of my head.

GW Capes

For those of you who don't know, I am a huge guildwars player enthusiast addict maniac. Recently, we decided to merge guilds with another group of friends. Here are 5 images that a fellow guild member suggested for the new capes.

Blog

Yep yep, this will be (hopefully) a blog that I keep updated on a regular basis. It's just for random thoughts and conversations that occur during the course of a day. Hope you all find it interesting and please, don't call the insane asylum, I have already been rejected as "untreatable"

Dragon Fist

During my visit to Seattle, many interesting topics were brought up during casual conversation with Patronus. One of the most interesting involved her brilliant plan of a movie.

We were having dinner at a local chinese place and the topic drifted to movies. Patronus decided that she wanted to make a movie about Chinese food because it has never been done before. This being a completely original idea, I started to ask about the specifics. Sooo, apparently, this ancient (emphasis on ancient) chinese Taichi master had a secret chinese food recipe that would allow girls to magically become younger. Because of the ramifications of this recipe, this master hid the recipe in an ancient forgotten tomb surrounded by the most deadly traps known to man.

As with all forgotten tombs, it doesn't remain forgotten for long as some bumbling person (who happens to know kung fu and is a master chef) stumbles upon the tomb and despite the deadly traps that have killed hundreds of highly skilled adventurers, manages to secure the recipe.

Of course, the government finds out and a conspiracy to kill him occurs. We stopped discussion at this point about the plot and the topic shifted to a title for this movie. Obviously, because of the very original topic, very little hype would be needed to guarantee a blockbuster; but a catchy title would still be helpful. Little did I know she already had a name planned out: Dragon Fist.

Addendum: Because we happened to be discussing Tom Cruise that day and how awful "The War of Worlds" was, we decided to cast him as the Kung fu Master Chef. We also cast Mr. Miyagi as the Taichi Master.