So twice a year, we Americans have the distinct pleasure of partaking in a wonderfully joyous program known as Daylight Savings Time, whereby we magically make our days longer and our nights shorter so that we need to use less electricity! It's been a whole week now since we changed our clocks here, and we all just love it so much, there's nothing quite like the experience!
Like my buddy Rich would say... Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
So, I've been a zombie since the time change. I've been tired every day, gone to bed early every night, and been tired waking up every morning since then. We lose an hour of sleep every spring, and every fall we get an extra hour of sleep one night. Sure, it doesn't sound like a lot, but let's look at the numbers more closely, shall we?
First, a brief history of DST. Apparently, it was started decades ago as a way to "let us save electricity by keeping our lights off longer at night by using natural light instead of electric light." What these geniuses failed to comprehend is that, if you start your day at sunrise at 6 am, and suddenly, the sun doesn't come up for an hour later, you still need to turn on your damn lights. Yes, it not only stands up to logic, but numerous studies have confirmed no tangible or intangible benefits and no net savings of electric power since some idiot politician started the whole thing. And yet, we continue to do it every year. For the same reason.
Now, let's look at the drawbacks.
Our biorhythms, aside from being finely tuned to our environment, really fucking hate change. Seriously. Like, psycho-woman-having-PMS-mood-swings kind of hate. So while just about everyone is affected to some degree, some take it more harshly than others. I mean, it's basically giving everyone jet lag, and as everyone knows who has had jet lag, you are fucked up for at least a few days after that. Tired, worn out, messed up, and half incoherent til your body recovers.
A recent study on flight attendants, who regularly deal with jet lag, has shown extensive (possibly permanent) BRAIN DAMAGE from the frequent interruptions to their biorhythms. It's generally mild, sure, and these individuals continue to function as useful members of society in most cases... if you can call FORGETTING TO BRING ME MY FUCKING PEANUTS FOR FOUR GODDAMN HOURS continuing to function. And I'm sure any of us who have flown know how "competent" flight attendants can be. Your results may vary. But generally, the brain damage the study showed was equivalent to mild retardation in the most heavily affected.
And it's not even just a lack of sleep for one night we have to deal with. It's at least a few days, and in some cases, weeks before we adequately recover our lost sleep due to the interruption of our natural biorhythmic cycle. As I said, it's been eight days for me and I am still suffering from it. If I heard my radio correctly last monday morning, we had a record number of traffic accidents the morning after DST started this year. And that was on a SUNDAY. And there was no snow where i was.
Also, recent studies have also shown that not only do the suicide rates go up in the few weeks following a time change, but the heart-attack and stroke-related deaths go up as well. Yea, the biorhythm changes our body is hit with just CAN'T HANDLE THAT SHIT. It kills people, not just from accidents, but from heart attacks and strokes.
Now keep in mind, when we ALL have to change our clocks around, TWICE a year, we are ALL being affected by this retardation-inducing jet lag thing. Not just flight attendants... Doctors, lawyers, politicians, yea, you know, EVERYONE.
So let's see, you're driving around the day after daylight savings change and you have an accident because the guy behind you smashed into you from sleep deprivation. Then you are taken to a hospital where the jet-lagged nurses can't figure out what to do with your barely alive body. The doctor who operates on you is now a retard from having been sleep-deprived for weeks before the time change, and should you survive his clumsy efforts, you will probably be killed in your sleep by being mis-medicated by a too-sleepy nurse.
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME KILLS PEOPLE. Isn't it about time we stopped the madness?
I'm pretty sure it's also responsible for our rising obesity levels, general insanity, type 2 diabetes and corrupt politicians. I'm not sure how exactly it's responsible for those things. But I WILL FIND OUT.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Open Letter to Anal-Retentive Control Freaks
There's currently a bill before congress or something to make it a felony to copy oh, just about anything. Oh sure, it's already illegal, but they want to make it a federal crime now. because they are REALLY PISSED ABOUT IT. Or, you know, the companies found an easier way to make money by threatening normal people and extorting money from them by threatening legal action if they don't pay. So now congress wants to make that extortion legal, sounds like. At least to me, and granted, I ain't no lawyer, politician, or nothin like that there.
Used to be, back in the day, if you were listening to some music, and your buddy said "Hey, that's a great tune, can you make me a tape of that?" You would say "Yea, sure." And your buddy would enjoy the music and probably buy the album it came from. Now you can argue that was in itself piracy, or that the guy was never going to buy the actual album, or that giving him the song stole the sale price of the album from the record label's bank vault, but that's all just so much bullshit. If it's good music, people will buy it. If it's shit, they won't.
The same now applies to software, games, movies and so on. Sure, you're going to get a few hardened criminals who go around with cell phones and record movies in the movie theaters or whatever to make a few bucks off them, but generally those copies are the crappiest things you've ever seen, and I certainly wouldn't pay for them. That's just the cost of doing business. I mean, it's not like the record companies, artists, and producers of these things aren't sitting in solid gold bathtubs, snorting coke off the ass of a supermodel/hooker who costs them $10,000 a night, and laughing at you while you work your ass off in your menial labor job making 7 bucks an hour. You know they are, they know they are, and congress knows they are. In fact, congress is usually in the next room smoking crack with the whores the company executives couldn't get it up for (not that there's anything wrong with being a whore, and I think legalizing it is a good idea).
So why the hell are they making it so goddamn hard for the guy making minimum wage to get any of their so-called "art?" The era of the "starving artist" is long past us, my friends. It's a sure bet Bon Jovi isn't working a Mcjob serving fries to whiny little redneck brats while he's thinking up his next song lyrics. So why make it so goddamn difficult for guys like me, end users who actually pay for their stuff, to actually get it?
I mean seriously, I love computer games. In the past it was simple, buy the game, install it on the drive, then play it. Now it's step (1) enter the key code to install the game. (2) enter the key code to play the game. (3) register the game to qualify for updates. (4) sign up for the gaming service associated with the game to be allowed to play it (which involves giving them all your information, medical records, birth defects, current location, and sometimes what you are wearing at the time). (5) login to the gaming service and validate yourself as you, preferably by presenting three valid forms of ID. (6) play it as long as all 5 of the previous steps completed successfully. Oh and a caveat, don't install the game on more than one computer, regardless of whether the game's copy protection fries your hard drive (which the company is not legally responsible for), or forevermore, all of steps one through 5 will fail for you. Period.
Why is it so hard? I paid for the game. I have a receipt. I can prove it. Why are you making it next to impossible for me to enjoy your product once you've already got my money for it? Let's think about it. if someone pirates your game, they remove all those blockages. Let's say I get the game from someone who pirated it, since I don't have a farking clue how to pirate a game myself. Then the steps are: I get the game. I install it on my drive. I play it. There's no registering, there's no providing the company with my social security number, I don't have to fax them a copy of my dead grandmothers DNA profile, I just.. play... the game... it's a staggering concept, isn't it?
And yet every producer, game company and major corporation out there is lobbying congress to make things even harder. And you KNOW they aren't going to be harder for the pirates. The pirates are smart. They've been around for generations. No matter how big the companies get, no matter if they pass the death penalty for copying a music CD, with even more stringent penalties for removing the copyright software on a game, people are still going to do it. And you're also still going to get the companies going after innocent people and accusing them of stealing it, which, if the above bill passes, allows the FBI to wiretap you without a warrant (just for the accusation, mind you), and then why the HELL would I even bother to buy your product?
The more money I give to the major companies, the more they use it to put even more copy protection into their games, the more they use it to bribe congress to pass laws to make it even easier for them to pass off total crap for games and then, when no one buys it, they say "We've lost billions on this game due to piracy! pass more laws for us!" When in fact, the few users who did buy it couldn't get it to work because they couldn't provide the company with the name of the one-called bacteria the end user evolved from 140 billion years ago. In writing. Signed by the bacteria. In blood.
So my choice seems pretty simple, become a pirate so I can play games like I used to, or just don't buy the crappy games they are trying to pass off on us. I'm going with option B. There's a lot of smaller gaming companies out there nowadays, and they make better games. So FUCK YOU, major companies. Pass your shit laws by bribing every politician you can find and then wonder how your company went bankrupt when you spend all your money on those laws, because you sure as hell aren't going to get me to pay your way.
I mean, even my game cheating site (I'm allowed to cheat at single player games, I bought, them, I own them, and I'm going to cheat at them, so FU too, Blizzard) wants an extra layer of protection just to log into their site now. And Steam, my goddamn gaming platform, is now offering extra security. I haven't really looked into it, but I can only guess it's a ploy for more money, because that's what these companies are all about. They don't care if someone steals our account, as long as we keep paying them. So this new security feature will eventually become something they can charge us for and make money off of.
And I'm not even going to mention wunderground.com's new policy of not letting me save their weather pictures for my desktop. Wtf. Seriously? Pictures of the weather, I can't have now? How the fuck is that hurting someone who uploaded them for free to begin with? Fuckin hell.
You know what else we used to have in the old days? COMMON FUCKING SENSE. it was called common sense because just about everyone had it. Not all, no. That's why it was called common sense and not just sense. But nowadays, it's not even RARE sense, it's more like NONEXISTENT sense, because congress doesn't have it, politicians don't have it, gaming companies don't have it, and movie producers don't have it.
I'm starting to think the loss of common sense is a side effect of having too much money, because that's the only things those people have in common. Either that or it's all the drugs that money buys, because there's a lot of poor, stupid, drug-addicted people too. I wonder how much money I'd make if I bet that every rich asshole who lacks common sense was actually a heavy drug user with an addled mind? I think it's a sure bet.
Used to be, back in the day, if you were listening to some music, and your buddy said "Hey, that's a great tune, can you make me a tape of that?" You would say "Yea, sure." And your buddy would enjoy the music and probably buy the album it came from. Now you can argue that was in itself piracy, or that the guy was never going to buy the actual album, or that giving him the song stole the sale price of the album from the record label's bank vault, but that's all just so much bullshit. If it's good music, people will buy it. If it's shit, they won't.
The same now applies to software, games, movies and so on. Sure, you're going to get a few hardened criminals who go around with cell phones and record movies in the movie theaters or whatever to make a few bucks off them, but generally those copies are the crappiest things you've ever seen, and I certainly wouldn't pay for them. That's just the cost of doing business. I mean, it's not like the record companies, artists, and producers of these things aren't sitting in solid gold bathtubs, snorting coke off the ass of a supermodel/hooker who costs them $10,000 a night, and laughing at you while you work your ass off in your menial labor job making 7 bucks an hour. You know they are, they know they are, and congress knows they are. In fact, congress is usually in the next room smoking crack with the whores the company executives couldn't get it up for (not that there's anything wrong with being a whore, and I think legalizing it is a good idea).
So why the hell are they making it so goddamn hard for the guy making minimum wage to get any of their so-called "art?" The era of the "starving artist" is long past us, my friends. It's a sure bet Bon Jovi isn't working a Mcjob serving fries to whiny little redneck brats while he's thinking up his next song lyrics. So why make it so goddamn difficult for guys like me, end users who actually pay for their stuff, to actually get it?
I mean seriously, I love computer games. In the past it was simple, buy the game, install it on the drive, then play it. Now it's step (1) enter the key code to install the game. (2) enter the key code to play the game. (3) register the game to qualify for updates. (4) sign up for the gaming service associated with the game to be allowed to play it (which involves giving them all your information, medical records, birth defects, current location, and sometimes what you are wearing at the time). (5) login to the gaming service and validate yourself as you, preferably by presenting three valid forms of ID. (6) play it as long as all 5 of the previous steps completed successfully. Oh and a caveat, don't install the game on more than one computer, regardless of whether the game's copy protection fries your hard drive (which the company is not legally responsible for), or forevermore, all of steps one through 5 will fail for you. Period.
Why is it so hard? I paid for the game. I have a receipt. I can prove it. Why are you making it next to impossible for me to enjoy your product once you've already got my money for it? Let's think about it. if someone pirates your game, they remove all those blockages. Let's say I get the game from someone who pirated it, since I don't have a farking clue how to pirate a game myself. Then the steps are: I get the game. I install it on my drive. I play it. There's no registering, there's no providing the company with my social security number, I don't have to fax them a copy of my dead grandmothers DNA profile, I just.. play... the game... it's a staggering concept, isn't it?
And yet every producer, game company and major corporation out there is lobbying congress to make things even harder. And you KNOW they aren't going to be harder for the pirates. The pirates are smart. They've been around for generations. No matter how big the companies get, no matter if they pass the death penalty for copying a music CD, with even more stringent penalties for removing the copyright software on a game, people are still going to do it. And you're also still going to get the companies going after innocent people and accusing them of stealing it, which, if the above bill passes, allows the FBI to wiretap you without a warrant (just for the accusation, mind you), and then why the HELL would I even bother to buy your product?
The more money I give to the major companies, the more they use it to put even more copy protection into their games, the more they use it to bribe congress to pass laws to make it even easier for them to pass off total crap for games and then, when no one buys it, they say "We've lost billions on this game due to piracy! pass more laws for us!" When in fact, the few users who did buy it couldn't get it to work because they couldn't provide the company with the name of the one-called bacteria the end user evolved from 140 billion years ago. In writing. Signed by the bacteria. In blood.
So my choice seems pretty simple, become a pirate so I can play games like I used to, or just don't buy the crappy games they are trying to pass off on us. I'm going with option B. There's a lot of smaller gaming companies out there nowadays, and they make better games. So FUCK YOU, major companies. Pass your shit laws by bribing every politician you can find and then wonder how your company went bankrupt when you spend all your money on those laws, because you sure as hell aren't going to get me to pay your way.
I mean, even my game cheating site (I'm allowed to cheat at single player games, I bought, them, I own them, and I'm going to cheat at them, so FU too, Blizzard) wants an extra layer of protection just to log into their site now. And Steam, my goddamn gaming platform, is now offering extra security. I haven't really looked into it, but I can only guess it's a ploy for more money, because that's what these companies are all about. They don't care if someone steals our account, as long as we keep paying them. So this new security feature will eventually become something they can charge us for and make money off of.
And I'm not even going to mention wunderground.com's new policy of not letting me save their weather pictures for my desktop. Wtf. Seriously? Pictures of the weather, I can't have now? How the fuck is that hurting someone who uploaded them for free to begin with? Fuckin hell.
You know what else we used to have in the old days? COMMON FUCKING SENSE. it was called common sense because just about everyone had it. Not all, no. That's why it was called common sense and not just sense. But nowadays, it's not even RARE sense, it's more like NONEXISTENT sense, because congress doesn't have it, politicians don't have it, gaming companies don't have it, and movie producers don't have it.
I'm starting to think the loss of common sense is a side effect of having too much money, because that's the only things those people have in common. Either that or it's all the drugs that money buys, because there's a lot of poor, stupid, drug-addicted people too. I wonder how much money I'd make if I bet that every rich asshole who lacks common sense was actually a heavy drug user with an addled mind? I think it's a sure bet.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Survivng a Bear Attack
Okay, so I'm at work, reading news articles on my break, and I come across this story.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/how-to-survive-a-bear-attack
And I'm like, wow, this really breaks it down for you, depending on where you live and what kind of bear you run into. Except basically, aside from bear spray, you really don't have a defense against bears. If they want to charge you and eat your face off, your new nickname, should you actually survive the attack, is Skeletor for the rest of your life. And the bear spray not only doesn't always work, but how many campers carry around bear spray?
Now wait a minute. If you're like me, you've seen a few nature shows in your lifetime, even if it was only accidentally tuning into a National Geographic Special hoping to see native girl boobies. I've seen Wolverines fight off bears, and wolverines are a lot smaller than people. I've even seen a video on the internet of a cat chasing a bear up a tree. True story. So why can't humans do the same thing?
And don't give me that, well, we don't have any claws or anything, BULLSHIT. We have teeth! We have fists! Even better, we can pick up pointy objects like branches, kitchen knives, ninja swords and oh, you know, GUNS, and use those to defend ourselves with. I think I see the problem here. When attacked by bears, we focus on SURVIVING and DEFENDING ourselves. We're such panzies. No wonder bears eat us. We should be focused on KILLING THE SHIT OUT OF THE BEARS UNTIL THEY DIE FROM IT. I mean come on, think about it. You've heard of rape cases. When the woman beats the shit out of the attackers, she never gets raped. When she tries to "defend herself," she's always taking it up the ass a few minutes later. It's all about attitude, I'm telling you!
Look, I'll simplify my plan for you. From now on, every human, every where, every time we even SEE a goddamn bear, we RUN SCREAMING AT THE THING AND TRY TO KILL IT. And don't give me that "animal conservation" bullshit. They always tell you bears are faster than you, stronger than you, and half of them can climb trees. I don't think even half of humans can climb trees. You really think we're going to hurt the bears by running at them, screaming obscenities and trying to kill them? No. They are either going to do one of two things. (1) Flee, or (2) swat us down like babies and laugh while they eat our brains with a little white wine. Sure, we may lose a few people along the way. But in 10, 20 years, tops, every time even a goddamn polar bear sees a human, he will turn and RUN FOR HIS FUCKING LIFE.
Because let's face it... people not only taste bad, but we hunt in packs. I'm sure an armed mob will easily take down a polar bear, I don't HOW big the fucker is. You give me about 20 or 30 rednecks armed with baseball bats, lead pipes, chainsaws, nooses, axes and a gun or two, then that damn bear is going down in a bloody mess.
Ten or twenty years, I'm telling you. By then, either the Bear Network will get the message out to leave humans the fuck alone, or every bear on the damn planet will end up a cozy rug by the fireplace. EITHER WAY BEARS!! EITHER FUCKING WAY!!!! WE'RE SICK OF YOUR BULLSHIT!!! IT'S ON!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/how-to-survive-a-bear-attack
And I'm like, wow, this really breaks it down for you, depending on where you live and what kind of bear you run into. Except basically, aside from bear spray, you really don't have a defense against bears. If they want to charge you and eat your face off, your new nickname, should you actually survive the attack, is Skeletor for the rest of your life. And the bear spray not only doesn't always work, but how many campers carry around bear spray?
Now wait a minute. If you're like me, you've seen a few nature shows in your lifetime, even if it was only accidentally tuning into a National Geographic Special hoping to see native girl boobies. I've seen Wolverines fight off bears, and wolverines are a lot smaller than people. I've even seen a video on the internet of a cat chasing a bear up a tree. True story. So why can't humans do the same thing?
And don't give me that, well, we don't have any claws or anything, BULLSHIT. We have teeth! We have fists! Even better, we can pick up pointy objects like branches, kitchen knives, ninja swords and oh, you know, GUNS, and use those to defend ourselves with. I think I see the problem here. When attacked by bears, we focus on SURVIVING and DEFENDING ourselves. We're such panzies. No wonder bears eat us. We should be focused on KILLING THE SHIT OUT OF THE BEARS UNTIL THEY DIE FROM IT. I mean come on, think about it. You've heard of rape cases. When the woman beats the shit out of the attackers, she never gets raped. When she tries to "defend herself," she's always taking it up the ass a few minutes later. It's all about attitude, I'm telling you!
Look, I'll simplify my plan for you. From now on, every human, every where, every time we even SEE a goddamn bear, we RUN SCREAMING AT THE THING AND TRY TO KILL IT. And don't give me that "animal conservation" bullshit. They always tell you bears are faster than you, stronger than you, and half of them can climb trees. I don't think even half of humans can climb trees. You really think we're going to hurt the bears by running at them, screaming obscenities and trying to kill them? No. They are either going to do one of two things. (1) Flee, or (2) swat us down like babies and laugh while they eat our brains with a little white wine. Sure, we may lose a few people along the way. But in 10, 20 years, tops, every time even a goddamn polar bear sees a human, he will turn and RUN FOR HIS FUCKING LIFE.
Because let's face it... people not only taste bad, but we hunt in packs. I'm sure an armed mob will easily take down a polar bear, I don't HOW big the fucker is. You give me about 20 or 30 rednecks armed with baseball bats, lead pipes, chainsaws, nooses, axes and a gun or two, then that damn bear is going down in a bloody mess.
Ten or twenty years, I'm telling you. By then, either the Bear Network will get the message out to leave humans the fuck alone, or every bear on the damn planet will end up a cozy rug by the fireplace. EITHER WAY BEARS!! EITHER FUCKING WAY!!!! WE'RE SICK OF YOUR BULLSHIT!!! IT'S ON!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
March Madness!
And no, I'm not talking about baseball. Or basketball. Or whatever sport it's referring to.
I'm talking about Games. Yes. The core of every intelligent, activity-hungry brain on this planet thrives on GAMES. Because honestly, what else is there to keep you occupied? What is that? Women, you say? Pfft. Too easy.
So after a year (or two) of crappy games releases, we have a TON of games coming out in march this year. After going through a few, I already have some you can scrape off your "to-get" list.
Dragon Age 2. Dragon Age 1 was a wonderful game. I'm not saying it was perfect, and it wasn't necessarily my cup of tea, but it was well crafted, gory, and sometimes fun to play. I never actually finished the game, because all my mage spells were just variations on damage spells and nothing actually useful, and I eventually began to pout about it and stopped playing altogether. Dragon Age 2, after playing the demo, feels completely different. It doesn't even seem like the same game. Nothing works the same, none of the icons are the same, everything looks and feels different. I've heard it's much like "devil may cry." I believe that's a console game. If you like console games, you might enjoy Dragon age 2. If you are a PC gaming purist like me, who absolutely refuses to play something that was dumbed down for people who can't figure out how to use a keyboard and mouse, you probably won't like this game.
Rift. The MMORPG market is pretty quiet lately. I don't know why. I'm waiting for Guild Wars 2. I've heard Rift was like Warhammer with all the problems fixed. I've heard it was fun. I've heard millions of people love it. I've heard nothing but positive reviews. They are all LIES. Don't give me that "it's on the internet, it must be true!" shit. I'm telling you the game sucks, at least as far as I am concerned. First, all of the "races" are basically just different colored humans. None of which are any fun to play. You get one attack at first level. And that's AFTER you do a quest to get attack abilities. That's right, you can't even fight when the game starts, you are USELESS. Aside from that, there's only two sides in this MMO. One is devoutly religious, and all the backgrounds show christian/catholic themes. As an agnostic/atheist type individual, this offends me. The other side is technological in origin, basically, you're a bio-negineered clone and why is there cloning technology mixed in with swords and magic? I don't like machines in my MMO's. So that background offends me as well. This game has already lost all appeal, and I hadn't even got a chance to fight something yet! Not that the comabt system is any good. I got one spell to cast, and I had chosen a summoning class because i am basically a lazy person and if I can get my pet to fight for me, I will. So, I set my pet to Aggressive, and wandered into the newbie area, waiting for the kills to rack up! Alas, my pet did nothing, just stood there like a funny looking rock. Okay, so maybe i had to initiate the combat? Seems odd for a lazy person, I mean, a summoning class to have to do that much work, but ok. My pet immediately attacked, and was summarily beaten and destroyed. Oh dear. Now i had to fight the newbie critter myself. That's just not working. Well, that game just lost even more appeal. I think i had it on my hard drive for 12 hours before i canceled my account and deleted it. I have heard since then that they added more servers to keep up with the demand for new players. HAH what new players? Please. Don't kid yourself. This game will fold in 6 months.
Also coming out in march is Shogun 2. Now this game might be worth a buy. I played the demo and it was fairly decent. Pretty much like the first Shogun but with much improved graphics, and of course it would be, so if you liked the first game, the second should be just as good. Personally, there's nothing i like more than commanding a province and making it's people war for me! MUA HA HA HA HAAAA! Which brings me to my next suggestion...
Stronghold 3. I loved the original stronghold crusader game. Well, technically, the crusader part was an expansion to the original stronghold game, but it still played wonderfully well. I didn't take it off my hard drive til late last year, and the game is easily 5+ years old. The new version has obviously better graphics, but also a day/night cycle, possibly a weather cycle, and darkness will play a role in unit visibility as well. I really can't wait for it. Really. No, really, I can't. I want it right now. But I can't have it now. And this MAKES HULK ANGRY.
I always thought how dangerous it would have been if the person who became the hulk had actually been a teenager, child or a person with poor impulse control instead of a restrained scientist with a keen mind. I can only imagine how the hulk would have just smashed up all the storefronts along a street because he couldn't have a piece of candy RIGHT THEN AND THERE. But that's really just a random train of thought. Then again, you are probably used to that by now.
That's it for today! Still playing minecraft. Yes, unbelievable, isn't it? It's been like 6 months now. This thing could have the staying power to beat starcraft! Of course, that lasted 3 years, and there wasn't much else to play at the time, but we'll see! :-D
I'm talking about Games. Yes. The core of every intelligent, activity-hungry brain on this planet thrives on GAMES. Because honestly, what else is there to keep you occupied? What is that? Women, you say? Pfft. Too easy.
So after a year (or two) of crappy games releases, we have a TON of games coming out in march this year. After going through a few, I already have some you can scrape off your "to-get" list.
Dragon Age 2. Dragon Age 1 was a wonderful game. I'm not saying it was perfect, and it wasn't necessarily my cup of tea, but it was well crafted, gory, and sometimes fun to play. I never actually finished the game, because all my mage spells were just variations on damage spells and nothing actually useful, and I eventually began to pout about it and stopped playing altogether. Dragon Age 2, after playing the demo, feels completely different. It doesn't even seem like the same game. Nothing works the same, none of the icons are the same, everything looks and feels different. I've heard it's much like "devil may cry." I believe that's a console game. If you like console games, you might enjoy Dragon age 2. If you are a PC gaming purist like me, who absolutely refuses to play something that was dumbed down for people who can't figure out how to use a keyboard and mouse, you probably won't like this game.
Rift. The MMORPG market is pretty quiet lately. I don't know why. I'm waiting for Guild Wars 2. I've heard Rift was like Warhammer with all the problems fixed. I've heard it was fun. I've heard millions of people love it. I've heard nothing but positive reviews. They are all LIES. Don't give me that "it's on the internet, it must be true!" shit. I'm telling you the game sucks, at least as far as I am concerned. First, all of the "races" are basically just different colored humans. None of which are any fun to play. You get one attack at first level. And that's AFTER you do a quest to get attack abilities. That's right, you can't even fight when the game starts, you are USELESS. Aside from that, there's only two sides in this MMO. One is devoutly religious, and all the backgrounds show christian/catholic themes. As an agnostic/atheist type individual, this offends me. The other side is technological in origin, basically, you're a bio-negineered clone and why is there cloning technology mixed in with swords and magic? I don't like machines in my MMO's. So that background offends me as well. This game has already lost all appeal, and I hadn't even got a chance to fight something yet! Not that the comabt system is any good. I got one spell to cast, and I had chosen a summoning class because i am basically a lazy person and if I can get my pet to fight for me, I will. So, I set my pet to Aggressive, and wandered into the newbie area, waiting for the kills to rack up! Alas, my pet did nothing, just stood there like a funny looking rock. Okay, so maybe i had to initiate the combat? Seems odd for a lazy person, I mean, a summoning class to have to do that much work, but ok. My pet immediately attacked, and was summarily beaten and destroyed. Oh dear. Now i had to fight the newbie critter myself. That's just not working. Well, that game just lost even more appeal. I think i had it on my hard drive for 12 hours before i canceled my account and deleted it. I have heard since then that they added more servers to keep up with the demand for new players. HAH what new players? Please. Don't kid yourself. This game will fold in 6 months.
Also coming out in march is Shogun 2. Now this game might be worth a buy. I played the demo and it was fairly decent. Pretty much like the first Shogun but with much improved graphics, and of course it would be, so if you liked the first game, the second should be just as good. Personally, there's nothing i like more than commanding a province and making it's people war for me! MUA HA HA HA HAAAA! Which brings me to my next suggestion...
Stronghold 3. I loved the original stronghold crusader game. Well, technically, the crusader part was an expansion to the original stronghold game, but it still played wonderfully well. I didn't take it off my hard drive til late last year, and the game is easily 5+ years old. The new version has obviously better graphics, but also a day/night cycle, possibly a weather cycle, and darkness will play a role in unit visibility as well. I really can't wait for it. Really. No, really, I can't. I want it right now. But I can't have it now. And this MAKES HULK ANGRY.
I always thought how dangerous it would have been if the person who became the hulk had actually been a teenager, child or a person with poor impulse control instead of a restrained scientist with a keen mind. I can only imagine how the hulk would have just smashed up all the storefronts along a street because he couldn't have a piece of candy RIGHT THEN AND THERE. But that's really just a random train of thought. Then again, you are probably used to that by now.
That's it for today! Still playing minecraft. Yes, unbelievable, isn't it? It's been like 6 months now. This thing could have the staying power to beat starcraft! Of course, that lasted 3 years, and there wasn't much else to play at the time, but we'll see! :-D
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