et alii*Step V.2
"That's what they all say... They all say d'oh."
Yes. I'm in deep d'oh now. Oh and the title of the last entry was yet more from that same Whose Line skit about the cat. See the last entry for an overly-verbose explanation of the whole "cat skit".
Seems I haven't blogged in a really, really long time. Lets say it was because I was studying. Yes, that sounds like a good reason absolutely.
Not all that much has happened since the 11th. I finally finished this college semester. Didn't do the greatest but still better than last semester. I finally managed to finish the new computer I spent such a long time trying to build. I bought each part one-by-one. First the case, then the motherboard, then the RAM and finally recently I bought the processor with the full knowledge that cpu's price would be going down soon. And sure enough it's been two weeks and the price has droped by about 20 or 30 dollars. Well that's just great I says.
So my new computer has 512 megs of "DDR400" RAM which is supposed to be fast, an Asus motherboard that's extremely popular right now although I bought the lesser popular editon of it and an AMD "2500+" Athlon CPU. It came with an onbaord 1 gigabit network card and 4 USB ports on the back. Unfortunately my case for some reason didn't come with USB ports on the front. I bought the case from my employer and virtually every case of that type and model come with two USB ports on the front of the case but not mine. I got it for pretty cheap though so I am not really complaining. It's a really nice case too, it has a fancy molded handle and everything. Right now I am in the process of installing a plexi-glass window-with-fan-hole on the side of it after which I will install a fancy light to illmunate the insides. I would refer to this with the proper name of "case modding" but I bought all the parts from the stupid CompUSA so I didn't think I was allowed to use such a term.
I am having problems with my Windows XP install. First of all I had already activated my copy three times so I didn't think it would even work this time around. However I set up the operating system the way I liked it and tried activating it over the Internet anyway since I thought I had read some where Microsoft increased the number of times one CD key could be activated. And to my utter delight it actually worked. My plan was to activate it and then make a Ghost image for storage. This way if I needed to install it again all I would have to do is restore the image there's a freshly activated copy of Windows XP. This has the dual advantage of only taking about 10 or 15 minutes versus an XP install which would take upwards of an hours AND I would never have to re-setup my desktop the way I want although I never get it quite the way I want so soon after an install. I wanted to ghost to my my new server which is my former computer I was using until 2 days ago but I still haven't purchased a new hard drive for that purpose. Instead I'm buying computer games I don't really need. Stupid hard drives are too damn expensive. I'm sure I'll think differently once I get a paying a job (which I hope will be soon). So I imaged my install to a couple CDs which only took about 10 or 15 minutes. If I may say so Symantic Ghost 2003 is an extremely good and slick program. It has a ton of options and is very user friendly. Well to me anyway. Couldn't speak to any newbies out there. And yes it's still necessary even with Windows XP's "System Restore" with the "restore points". After I imaged the partition I then booted the computer to make sure everything still worked and did a practice restore from the image to make sure it would actually work. I mean it would be a bit of a pain if I went through all this then a year later went to do my "re-install" and it turns out the image is currupted or something. Right?
I have been having some problems though. On my last system XP Pro was extremely stable. Stable as a rock. Well ok a few times I actually had to make it log off to successfully kill a few arrent processes and maybe once there towards the end of the last install the system would get hung up trying to shut down so I had to use the button. But that was the exception and not the rule. I only got a blue-scree-of-death maybe 3 times, tops. But on my new install several times the screen has simply got completely black and wouldn't recover for some reason. The light on the monitor was even still the familiar green "signal found" type color. And the monitor didn't make the familiar click sound like it was changing graphics modes or turning off or on either. And I couldn't get it to recover no matter what I did. And another thing was the BIOS screen. For some reason instead of print the brand and model of the mother board and type of CPU there's just a bunch of garbage characters. And this has stayed true to the "System Properties" and hardware manager screens. Under computer type and for the name of the CPU it's just garbage characters. Now when the computer crashed I was actually doing something specific. In at least 3 instances I was using this software to create a "virtual CD-ROM" so I could have access to all my CDs on my HDD instead of trying to go through all my software boxes looking for them and getting the scratched up etc. The software is called "GameDrive" by the way and there are equivalent free programs out there. So maybe this is the software that is causing the problems, I am not sure. The computer also crashed while I had Neocron running for some reason. But the thing that really confuses me is that the system didn't automattically re-start as is selected in the preferences when the system crashes. Then I think maybe this has something to do with the CPU getting too hot and trying to shutdown the system before permant damage is created. But the BIOS cpu hardware monitor says the CPU is about 47 degrees celcius (i think about 118 americano). I thought that was the operating temperature. Unless it gets hotter when there's a lot stress on the system such as when I'm scanning a CD and creating an image or running a game. Could that be it? Stupid heat sinks. No wonder so many people shun AMDs. Of course, I have a feeling this is my fault and not anyone elses.
Last night even though I knew and know and it was a bad idea I spent more money. I purchased a new game called Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind which has averaged 4 out of 5 stars on amazon.com via 213 user reviews. Apparently it's extremely open-ended in what you can do. Follow a main plot line or just do whatever you like leveling up your character and going on mini-quests or just adventuring on your own. I have installed this game but haven't actually played it yet. But I am very excited about it. The open-ended nature reminds me of another game...
Dubois' Lost classics in Computer Games
The classic game I am thinking of is called
Fallout. This is also a very open-ended RPG but in that classic "isometric third-person" perspective instead of first-person. It takes place in that predictable "post-apocolyptic future". You start out as a character from this fallout shelter starting out on a quest to find a replacement part for this water filter that is vital to the survival of the shelter. However shortly you find out this is really a minor sub-plot in the great scheme of things. In this game you can be smar and crafty avoiding almost all combat or big not so intelligent fighting when you have to. You can also choose to be the hero everyone loves or the villian everyone runs away from upon sight of you. There's really no limit and this is very open-ended. There's also a Fallout 2 which I never really got into mostly because of time I suppose. You can now buy both games in a jewel case for only $10 American. And truly this is very much worth it. Now this is of course a fairly old game so even if your computer is ancient you will be able to run it. I remember playing it on a Pentium 133 Mhz! I think the minimum is only 90Mhz. That's
Ninety! Oh and one note you will need to run it in "compatibility mode" under Windows XP (there's a fancy wizard some where on your programs menu). Should run without issue on the other Windows versions.This game
still has a huge cult following too. There are tons of fan sights out there that are even consistently updated. Lots of fan art and fan fiction. I mean it's incredible. If you were to write down everything you went through as you played the game you would have a very unique story every time you play. I mean this game is closer to a novel than a brain-dead computer game. It has a lot of humor in it also not to mention plot twists. As you can see I quite like this game. Kinda like a black and white movie don't let it's datedness fool you. This is still a really great game that will take many hours to complete.
"Well that was easy...Perfect!"
The running game I have going is for you to try and guess the obscure pop-culture reference of the above title, which I will reveal in the next entry. The title of the last entry ("`It was the best of times, it was the blurste of times?!` You stupid monkey!") is another reference to The Simpsons. In one episode Homer becomes the head of the union at the nuclear power plant. In the course of negotiations Mr. Burns gives Homer a tour of his mansion which includes that infamous thousand monkeys typing at a thousand type writers to produce the world's greatest novel. That's a famous reference to something, I have no idea what. Well anyway Mr. Burns picks up a piece paper one of the monkeys was working on starts reading and yells "you stupid monkey!" upon seeing the typo making the monkey freak out in classic Simpson manner. I always liked that quote, not sure why.
I finally improved my blog a little. You'll note the Times New Roman font and the vertical spacing between lines of text. I hope this makes it a little easier to read.
If this is to be a normal blog I think I should whine and complain about the normal everyday activities of my life, meaningless though they may be. First I would like to describe where I am working. I am really into computers however I have yet to actually use these skills in a practical matter professionally. So I used my local college to get an unpaid internship at this little hole-in-the-wall computer shop in the downtown portion of the city in which I live. I'm not going to give out the name of the shop or the city in which I live as it's not that important. So here I am as an unpaid intern at this little shop. I haven't actually had that many jobs and what few I have had were in this little community college "out reach center" so it wasn't exactly an accurate depiction of the world at large.
Well I still don't how well I did at the interview for the internship but not that bad I guess since I did get it after all. I get to build computers, repair, troubleshoot, install new hard ware and software, install the operating system for the umpteenth millionth time (wuhoo!). I've been working there for a whole 3 and a half months now and that still isn't all that boring to me. Even exciting stuff like building a computer from the ground up should be boring to your average person after a while I would guess. After what was probably a month I finally got a chance to go out into the field and do some real work.
For some reason I was always real hesitant to really request anything like that or say anything outright or whatever. Also it took me a while to kind of change my mindset from where it was. Up until I got this job my recent experiences of being around lots of other computer people at once involved me showing people how to do things but in less of an instructor-like role as a cooperative mode. A lot times I would quickly take over the mouse and keyboard to show the person how to something, as in an A+ class or showing one of my family members how to do something. I had to train myself to turn off that instinct. I also had to grow accustomed to my new immediate supervisor not being at all like my last co-worker who was apparently way to permissive of my talking back and lip and feeling free to openly argue and question. This was also very difficult to over-come. But I think I finally have grown accustomed to this. For example my supervisor will have one way of performing a task, tell me to do the task that way and even though I know a superior way of doing it I will do it his way without arguing or suggesting or whatever.
This place really isn't that bad of a place to working though. I mean even though I'm an unpaid intern the company actually provides all the employees and other interns with lunch every day. Every time I mention this no one seems to be able to believe this. On person even contemplated giving up his job to work there for the free lunch. I'm assuming this was in jest. And all the people are really nice there too. Sometimes my supervisor seems grumpy or perhaps just quite stressed I'm not sure but still very nice.
Last week on Friday it was a really slow day. I got to the shop around 10:30 or so and did a little tiny bit of work but not a whole lot as there really wasn't anything to do. Sometimes on days like those I just leave as there's not much point in staying. I mean if I'm just going to sit there and use the Internet why don't I just do that at home? I was just about to start contemplating leaving when the owner of the shop comes up and says "Ready to go?" to which I say "sure". Of course I don't actually know where we're going but if we're packing up all the tools and Cat5 cable I'm assuming it's some useful work onsite! So another intern and I pile in this pickup truck and we're off. I think I heard him mention some sort of residency but I'm not sure and still have no idea where we were going.
At this point I feel the need to stop briefly and be overly analytical. Was it really right of me to get into this pick up with this owner without the slightest idea where we were going? Shouldn't I have stopped before getting into the truck and asked directly and quickly "where where we going"? I mean it's not like this owner has ever exhibited any traits to imply any untrustworthiness on his part in the whole short time I've been around him but this still would have been a good thing to do before blindly getting into a truck with someone like this. Either that or I'm paranoid.
So we go a few blocks down to this residency. Apparently this owner has a side business involving the renovation of old houses downtown and re-selling them at a profit. He was taking the two interns to this house to install the Cat5 cabling for the phone and network jacks in the house. I'm not even sure this was official company business or if he was just using us as free labor to finish work on this house of his. But I was getting more experience in the networking field and lying cabling so what am I going to do complain? Nah. He did pay for lunch after all. So I worked on this house for 2 or 3 hours. I doubt I would have found much of anything better to do had I gone home instead. Still his mentioning or asking about such an activity would have been nice.
Nothing like that had ever happened before. I remember the other places I got to go out into the field to work. I laid some cable in several buildings, when to this one place to try and troubleshoot a problem with a computer. And another few places to try and install network cabling through the ceiling and walls then setup the Cat5 jacks. The buildings I had to work with are from the 1930s and '40s so the insides of the walls are extremely old as are the basements and attics. I started to realize just how out of shape I was trying to do all that climbing and back-and-forth for hours on end. That sounds really sad doesn't it? It's a good transition though.
I just started jogging somewhat regularly about 7 or 8 weeks ago. I was running about 3 1/2 miles anywhere from twice to 4 times a week until this week. The weather wasn't cooperative and when it was I wasn't really in the mood. I have seen a dramatic improvement in my stamina and lung capacity thanks to all that jogging. I was feeling much more healthy and sleeping better too. I'm still not even close to being in what I would call good shape but at least I am improving in a few areas if nothing else.
Alright I guess this is all for today's entry. And I'm still hoping my entries are somehow improving.
"`It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times?!` You stupid monkey!"
The running game I have going is for you to try and guess the obscure pop-culture reference of the above title, which I will reveal in the next entry. The title of the last entry ("The Cat!") was once again from
Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Actually the last entry I couldn't think of a good title but I know I liked that one skit...involving the cat. There was this one particular episode with "the tall guy" and "the bald guy" in which they were doing a parody of Mission Impossible entitled Mission Improbably. This time it was "the laundry". It all started when the guy in charge of coming up with the voice-over the tape describing the mission ("that one guy with glasses") said the mission was to clean a "new burnoose" for the something-something of "gruefunkuhstan". Neither bald guy nor tall guy knew what a burnoose was exactly which was obvious from the start. These two have the best comic timing and chemistry you could ask for in a comic duo and proceeded to try and make the other laugh while not losing it completely and laughing themselves. Oh and "bald guy" is Colin Mochrie, "tall guy" is Ryan Stiles and "that one guy with glasses" is Greg Proops.
First of all I'd like to mention another "milk dud" from a couple entries ago. The premium cable channel Showtime had/has this show entitled Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Only 13 episodes have been made thus far and there are no indicators on whether more will be made. I was very, very impressed with the guts of this show. Although pointing out Feng Shui (that's "fung shway") is total and complete bullshit seems rather obvious. As does the self-improvement stuff, the pet psychics and a lot of the other stuff they covered. But they also covered the bullshit of "organic" vegetables, which is basically a bunch of hippies finding a way to be greedy and scam people out of money while still maintaining the high-and-mighty attitude over everyone else beside them who are automatically greedy by definition.
Ok I think I have only one more Milk Dud. This one I'm a bit humiliated to even admit to. Why, oh why would I ever want to admit to seeing an episode to anyone never mind posting it on a blog that may or may not ever have any readers? I can think of no good reason myself but here goes anyway. Ok if we flash back to the old, simpler days of...the mid 1990s we have a show called Beavis and Butthead. But wait that's not the show I'm talking about. I am, for some odd reason, going to mention the little-known spin off of Beavis and Butthead called Daria. This show is about as far opposite from that Beavis show as you could ask for. For the record I never went out my way not to miss it nor have I tried to find and record particular episodes. I'm just impressed by the incredible amount of consistent quality to the episodes and the quality of the writing. It lasted 4 or 5 seasons on MTV and is now in re-run on one or another nameless cable channel (I think it's called "noggn" or something like that). It has a lot of sarcasm, a lot of irony, a lot of a social outcast trying to deal with the world around her. Maybe that's part of what spoke to me about it. Some how I find it ironic that as a teenager when Beavis and Butthead was targeted directly at me my sister (two years younger) would watch all the time while it never held my interest and yet Daria which I would think would be aimed more at her spoke to me and she never watched. Anybody else find that weird?
Today I was just thinking about why I started a blog and why I keep adding to it. I mean don't I have anything better to do? I guess I still make entries (and I realize this is a relatively young blog) because I more-or-less like writing and I'm more-or-less good at it. Obviously I'm not into it nearly as much as other veteran bloggers. I visited blogger.com today to try and browse some of the more popular blogs to see how I look in comparison. And I have to say this really is like some kind of "cottage industry" on the Internet.
There's this site called blog shares (sorry you'll have to google it I don't feel like typing URLs at this point) which is some sort of simu-stock market thing in which you anticipate how many incoming links any particular blog will have and earn virtual dollars accordingly. I don't actually read any blogs and it seems a bit much to me. It might be a way to attract traffic to my blog if I did it right. Another one is blog roller, which seems to be some sort of elaborate link lister scheme or system. So as I say, some are really, really into this blog thing.
I remember when I first started to notice I might be good at writing. There was this assignment in my 9th grade English class to come up with this mock-newspaper article revolving around ancient Greece or something like that. Almost without much noticing it I wrote this perfect little headline in that infamous pigeonholed headline speak and proceeded to write an article that sounded right anyway. That's what I seem to be good at. Making something look and sound right even if it may not be right. A weird thing to try to describe. Or maybe this is a description of doing an adequate job. That's one way to think about it! I think I'd better stop this entry before this paragraph starts to make sense.
"The Cat!"
The running game I have going is for you to try and guess the obscure pop-culture reference of the above title, which I will reveal in the next entry. The title of the last entry ("Milk Duds") is yet another line from one of my favorite shows ever
Whose Line Is It Anway?. I think they were coming up with unlikely names for products or something and...well it had something to do with braws is all I remember. That was the name of the braw, milk duds. Ok maybe you had to be there.
I'm fairly certain it did have to do with what I wrote about though. I mean the shows I mentioned could be described as duds since they're hardly watched although very, very good. And they're like milk also. Because you know. Milk is good, and the shows are good. Do I have to explain eveything? What am I, "connections guy"?
Tonight although it's already kinda late I thought I would talk about my Video CD collection. Video CD, for those who don't know, was briefly a standard right before DVD started to get wide acceptance. It was a popular format in Asia also I believe. And now adays, the time before DVD burners and recorders become wide and affordable people like who are really into that sort of thing use it to record shows and put on a format some home TV-type DVD players will actually understand.
More specifically I have been using the follow-up superior format called Super Video CD (SVCD). The difference is Super Video CD has superior video and sound quality but obviously that takes up more space so it will be fewer minutes of video and not all DVD players will play SVCD.
To get even more specific I actually use a sort-of rogue, unofficial much higher resolution version that's a staggering 480x720 (that's good).
So here's what I did. I recorded Cowboy bebop every night using my cheap little TV input card on my computer. I then imported this file into my video editing software I bought for $50 called Video Deluxe 2.0. Which by the way, isn't really all that good but if you can get to do what you want it to without it crashing it actually does what it is supposed to rather well. Using Video Deluxe I edit out all the commercials and tell it to convert formats or "encode" into the appropriate SVCD format and resolution and then burn onto a CD for me. Which usually takes around two hours on my punny little 650Mhz computer. Only I ran into a hickup. It was a while before I realized this high resolution feature built into Video Deluxe and that my DVD player actually supported it. So after I had recorded the entire 26 episodes on CD in regular VCD format I then re-recorded all 26 episodes and put them on CD in the SVCD format. It took forever to finally get all those episodes on SVCD. But I did it.
"Milk Duds"
The running game I have going is for you to try and guess the obscure pop-culture reference of the above title, which I will reveal in the next entry. The title of the last entry ("Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys") is actually a line from a little-known cable show on Comedy Central called
The Daily Show. It is a satirical, sarcastic almost always insightful as far as commentary on journalism and the culture in general. In one of the skits this one "reporter" is talking to this one guy about the anti-French rhetoric going on. This was one of the epithets he came up with. He also had one that was something about beday hugging something-something. All right so I didn't actually see the whole skit only bits and pieces of it. But I have noticed the line has sort-of caught on in other pop-culture. And besides...it's accurate :-)
Mentioning little-known cable shows has given me an idea. How about I cover a bunch of hardly-known pop culture. Most to all of these I can guarantee you have never heard of. Or I should say I would be surprised if you have heard of any of them.
First, I will cover Cowboy Bebop. If you've never heard of it try not to feel to bad...few to none have. Currently the only place to can find on TV is the cable channel Cartoon Network, at 1:00 in the morning. It was on at 1:30 but recently got "upgraded" to the this "earlier" time.
First off let me do a little introduction. This is originally a Japanese show, an animated Japanese show. Yes, that is right, I am watching Anime or "Japanimation" whatever you prefer. And no, it's not X-rated or otherwise objectionable. I know for you old people (you've had you're 30th birthday, haven't you?) this may be hard to believe, but it's true.
I'm not sure I can fully describe why it is this show so appeals to me. There's the fantastic artwork, the terrific animation, the soundtrack nothing short of incredible, the amazing story lines and the decent (for once) English acting in the new character voices (called the "English dub" for those into this sort of thing). Ok I guess I was capable of expressing the appeal of the show. Now this isn't to say I loved every single episode. There is at least one or two I didn't like that much. But one or two out of 26 episodes is a pretty good track record. There was this one episode involving a she-male ya see and...lets just say you should skip that one ok? And there's one, which has a really poor dub job for some reason. But good episodes, well like I say. Just fantastic.
The next show is another cable show called Tough Crowd. This one is definitely one-of-a-kind. You can find it on Comedy Central weekdays at 11:30pm. These celebrities, ya see, all sit around on these couches and talk about controversial issues this-and-that. But not the way you're thinking though. Oh don't get me wrong, they still don't know what the fuck the they're talking about. But in this show they all talk as if they were in their private homes in the Bronx or whatever. I get the feeling this show is legit by the number of jokes that completely bomb out. Oh man, the politically incorrect lines those guys come up with. But they always laugh and brush it off. As opposed to jumping over the table and beating the shit out of somebody. Finally a show that really isn't afraid to tell it like it is. Although I should mention I don't watch this show every night. After all that.
I think I actually had more shows in mind but they escape me at the moment. I'm still wondering if this blog is any good. I think my title almost have something to do with the actual content now, which is a plus. I think it's getting better.
"Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys"
The running game I have going is to try and guess the obscure pop-culture reference of the above title which I will reveal in the next entry. The title of the last entry ("But I am a girlie!") actually shouldn't count in this little game as only a small number people were actually there at the time to hear it. In the last couple entries I attempted to summarize my beta test experiences with this online RPG called Neocron and my rag-tag (whatever that means) group of players I played with. Only one of the 5 to 25 members depending on when you're talking about and who you're talking to was actually a girl (the running the joke being she was the only real girl in the whole game at the time). Perminator, as she is known in the game, was heard to have said this in reference to some various suggestions about a naming convention for our clan, KIR. Someone responded to a suggestion, calling it "too girlie" to which "Permicans" as the popular vernacular goes responded with this famous line. And with this way-to-verbose explanation out of the way...
I'd like to take a moment to talk about the French
Let me first say this entry will not be pretty, so prepare to excuse my French (that's your subtle clue to not read further if you're not into vulgarity or harbor any sympathy towards the French).
I just don't get the French. Or a larger part of the world for that matter. But especially the French. Wasn't the French president one of the first ones to say "today we are all Americans" right after September 11th? What was that just bullshit? Apparently. So here we are 18 months later and they want to not only not let the Americans take down Suddam who was apparently a threat to us but they actually go out of their way to block the efforts? What the fuck, may I say? So let me get this straight. The French in a matter of speaking and/or in a round-about-way say "Americans: eat shit and die" and then wonder why we seem so suddenly hostile. Is that about the gist of the situation here?
Now lemme just say I realize the weren't always so bad. The French have been helping America for many centuries now. I mean not to get off on a tangent here or anything but social studies was one of my strongest subject in school and I seem to retain history rather well for some reason. The French helped in both revolutionary war and the American civil war. Not to mention the Statue of Liberty. Alright, I get that. And besides all that there was at least one really great famous economist that came of France before it became today's socialist utopia (I'm also somewhat interested in economics but that will have to be saved for another blog entry). And I realize probably not all French people are bad. But right now the French would be rather low on a list labeled "friends" in between the proctologist with cold hands and the English teacher that talks like Ozzy Osborn (don't ask).
But what I still can't figure out is why they're surprised us Americans are responding the way we are to them after the indirect "eat shit and die" line. Would not a hostile reaction be expected from the recipient of such a line? Would the French respond positively to "eat shit and die"? It's not like I would expect them to whole-heartedly endorse the war in Iraq but could they at least step aside and shut-the-fuck-up a month or two? I guess that would be too much to ask.
Of course I may be going to easy on these French. Everybody's favorite Dennis Miller told them (paraphrasing to my memory as best I can) "fire up the dingy, because you are dead to me". I gathered he was feeling rather hostile towards them also.
Of course I'm not feeling too fond of Germany, Russia or the rest of Europe either right now. What was all that stuff about being behind us and offering support after September the 11th? Was all that bullshit?! Did any of them actually mean a word of it? Will I never be able to trust a word out of any of their mouths ever again? And now after the war these countries want a piece of it all? Does the phrase "got to hell" mean anything to these people I wonder...
I would also like to mention Canada. Aren't they supposed to be friends of ours? What's with the hostility? If you're only going to pretend to sympathetic towards a friend and long time ally after a traumatic terrorist attack then don't bother acting friendly at all. I am of course referring to a wide range of action or inaction on the part of the Canadian government and populace including an extremely loose policy concerning immigration from hostile countries, not kicking out diplomats from Iraq despite obvious evidence these diplomats could be operatives only there to stir-up decent and gather intelligence, and of course the audience of a sports event booing during the American national anthem. I mean talk about a kick to the groin. Holey crap. So apparently this is how it will go for the ultimate irony. I mean come on folks. If you didn't mean any of that nice shit to begin with don't bother with it at all.
At this point I would like to say some nice things about a few other countries. I would like to express my gratitude towards the UK who, albeit seemingly kicking and screaming, did join the US in liberating Iraq. The populace seemed none-to-pleased about it at the time but now seems a little more warmed up to the idea now that it's over.
I would also like to thank Australia. Now this is in my opinion is a very classy country. Without much coaxing the Australians were whole-heartedly behind us Americans the whole way through. It is so nice to have at least one friend in the world who seems to genuinely have our backs even when doing so seems so lacking in popularity. If I were in charge there would be some sort of Day of Australian Recognition as an observed holiday. This is truly one of our friends.
Some times I start to think about things perhaps no sane 24 year old should be thinking about. For example this animosity towards French people. I was just thinking about some World War II veterans who still hold hostility towards Japanese or German people more than 50 or 60 years after the fact. And so I wonder will my generation remember things like this well into our senior years and long after the respective countries relationships have shifted one way or another? And what September 11th? Anyone having a child today will go quite far out of their way to explain this event to the child, but at what point will the message start to be lost on the next generation? Will a child born today really comprehend this event as a 20 year old? Of course a lot of today's 20 year olds don't seem to comprehend it so I would guess not. The same sort of thing happened after World War II and Vietnam as far as passing the lessons learned on to the next generation. My father was that age of the Vietnam vets but didn't go. And he lived through how the populace treated the vets upon returning home from the war. So consequently he has instilled very well in his children how much respect should be exhibited towards Vietnam vets. And yet not everyone my age has learned such a lesson. What will happen to the next generation. Will they learn any of the lessons of September 11th?
I guess that's all for this edition. Right now I'm just hoping I am actually getting better at this. Maybe someday someone will read this (wuhoo!). Of course it's not like it would be easy to leave comments on it anyway.
"But I am a girlie!"
The running game I have going is to try and guess the obscure pop-culture reference of the above title which I will reveal in the next entry. The answer to the last entry ("You're not the time Kent, you're not the time!") is once again a reference to the Simpsons. I can't actually remember what was going on in the episode at the time, this quote just popped into my mind for no apparent reason one day. I do remember there was a conversation between the atypical generic reporter/anchorman Kent Brochman (which is probably spelled incorrectly) and the "news-chopper" guy "Ardie". I think it was one of those Halloween episodes and Ardie's chopper was going down or maybe it was Ardie yelling something at Kent and Kent telling him it wasn't the time to which Ardie replies with this line. Like I say I don't remember. The line was memorable though, if not the episode.
And for part two of my-experience-with-Neocron....
Where last we left off a group of us Neocron players were trying to keep track of each other despite the client of this online-only computer game in its beta stage. And, incidentally, my character name started out as Sgt. Dubois. Eventually (I won't try to remember when) we gave our quasi-clan the name Knights in Red, or KIR. It was supposed to a play on that movie Men in Black or MIB for short. Our matching uniforms reflected this in the black pants and red shirts of us all. At this time in the game the most fun to be had by the small dedicated group of testers was an event involving the developers of the game miraculously "spawning" various monsters in various numbers for all the players to kill commonly called a "spawn event". I'm fairly certain this was also some-what utilitarian as far as load testing the servers, troubleshooting and related functions. One or more devs would some times spawn about 20 or so copies of one monster or another and a whole group of 50 or more players would all sit there and kill them all which was great for those of us still trying to make our characters strong. Other players at these events would notice the group of us in matching clothes and ask us questions and some even had the bright idea to rip the matching clothes scheme. Even though the game wasn't really that good at the time this is one of my more fondly remembered experiences from this period.
Eventually that beta stage was coming to a close. This would be about June of 2002. At this point we all decided we really wanted to keep up with each other while the in between betas (stage four was supposed to be starting soon). So I suggested we use the Yahoo's group feature as it provided an easy and free facility for a forum, java-based chat room, little web page and a little place for keeping images and other files. Well this worked out pretty well because we were able to keep up with each other until we could play again. This is the point at which I renamed my character "Col. Dubois" to both reflects my more matured knowledge of the game and in an effort to sort of playing along with the book that I had used to get the name Dubois.
Well that's about it for the most part. There's actually a lot more to be told. Not to mention actually talking about the individual characters and mentioning which ones of them are from Canada (which he's now sensitive about I've brought up so many times *wink*). But for now this is good. I can't believe it has alread been a year since that beta!
