We watched Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on Game Show Network at work tonight.  It was an athletes episode, with several famous athletes playing for charity.  One of the Fastest Finger questions was "Place these words in order based on the number of vowels, starting with the fewest." I don't remember what the other words were, but A was Bunt.  2 people got something wrong.  Hope it wasn't where to put Bunt.

In a related story, Leila Ali didn't know that Winnie The Pooh lived in the one Hundred Acre Woods

Saw this in the Striptease archives.  I would say this explains a lot, but I was already crazy when I started writing :)

I just got back from picking up my pay check from the last couple of weeks in the deli.  aside from the obvious things like the check number and the year to date figures, everything on the stubs are the same, same number of hours, same pay before taxes, everything.

So why is one of them a penny more then the other?

On No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain was on South Carolina and joined some Civil War re-enactors.  (I'm sure Anthony, who is from New York, got teased plenty for being a Yankee)

During the segment he asked one of the re-enactors why they did what they did, and while I don't remember it word for word, I will paraphrase it because it is is something everyone needs to remember and very appropriot a day after Memorial Day.

These men gave their all for something. Whether or not you agree with what they died for, that is something that should be respected and remembered.

saw this in Sunday's paper and had to post it, simply because I thought it was cool and funny

Resident Evil 5--Racist?

originally posted on the Game Journal

Apparently some idiot...sorry, respected journalist (I love the fact that the site couldn't finish the title properly) is saying that RE5 is racist because in the trailer (posted below) has Chris Redfield killing a bunch of African-American zombies (or Le Plaga victims, but I will talk about that in the next post)  He also made it a point to mention that RE4 was racist because the game had Leon killing a bunch of Hispanic zombies.

I won't even get into the whole "It's a game" thing, but I would like to point out a couple of things. 

1.) It is set in Africa.  what type of zeds would you expect to find there, Chinese?

2.) RE4 was set in a "European" village that was probably in Spain.  See previous point for the rest.

3.) Would it still be racist if the main character was black?

4.) It's a game! (sorry, couldn't resist putting that in there)

What I find most humorous about this is the fact that it is being brought up simply because the zeds are black.  If they were Russian or Japanese, there would be no outrage by anyone.  But because they are black, all of a sudden it is an issue.  Which, when you think about it, makes him a racist himself.

warning, soap box time

That is the thing that makes me so mad about people throwing around the race card like that.  We see it a lot around here with the Native American community as well.  People get so mad any time there is a perceived or real threat of racism that they get paranoid and fail to realize that, by assuming that everyone who might not agree with you on something is obviously a racist, they are becoming racists themselves.  I don't know how many times I have been accused of being racists by natives.  My crime; being white.  As the evil white-man I am the cause of all their troubles and obviously am racist in regards to natives, but if they really knew me they would know the only people I have problems with is true stupid people, especially idiots with closed minds who are incapable of thinking for themselves.  The same is true for anyone, of any race, creed, or orientation.  I am an equal opportunity offender, but only if you deserve it.  And if you think I am a racists for that, take a look inside.  You might be surprised who the true racist is.

a man without weapons is a slave

Saw that in a news post on Penny Arcade (this post to be exact) and had to post about it, because it is so true.  Whether it is a gun, a sword, or simply a mind and the ability and desire to ask the right questions, a man with out a weapon is a slave.

This is a new post!

When I mentioned new and updated programs in the previous post, I updated messenger.  One of the things it had as an optional install is Windows Live Writer, a program designed for Bloggers!

The cool thing is that it sets stuff up for your blog (or blogs if you have more then one, like I do) and allows you to write and see how they will look when posted.  you can even post or save as drafts new posts written with it.  Which means that now I can do stuff like type SPW shows, stories, game journal entries, blog posts, and more as I think of them, take advantage of the superior Microsoft spell checking software (Blogger's sucks) and I can just post them when I get home. 

No more forgotten posts!  and that is always a good thing.

Finally got everything set back up. Well not quite, but close enough that I can work on the laptop. It's already running faster, which is very nice. there are some cool new things I added as well. I added an add-in to Firefox that makes each tab a different colors and one that makes the screen rotate when changing tabs. slows down changing tabs and takes a bit longer to load Firefox when I have previously opened tabs, but it is cool and worth it. Just need to get the themes working now.

Some advice to people who might be thinking about resetting their computers. It should probably be done every 6 months or so, or at least once a year. It is a good idea to do this because over time a bunch of crap builds up on your hard drive. Programs you forgot about, files from uninstalled programs that are left behind, cookies, assorted graphics files, ect. Resetting your system clears those out and sets it back to the way it ran when you first got it.

The easiest way to do this is with the reset disks that ship with pretty much every factory-built system sold in the last 5 years or so. As for stuff you want to keep, burn them onto a disk or place on an external drive. Placing everything you know (or think) you will most likely keep makes it easier to prepare the system for resets since you don't have to search for them.

It takes a little time, and it might be a hassle, but it is worth it. Not only do you get a faster system, but you might even get some new/updated programs when you install old ones that you might not have updated.

In a few minutes I am pulling the plug on Teletran-1 Delta. i will finally be resetting the system. it's needed it for a while, and I should have reset it when I installed the new RAM back in November, but I didn't. Unfortunately there are some hardware and software issues that are really only fixable by resetting everything.

The best part is it will run much better with out all the crap that has built up over the last year or so since I did this last. All the stuff I wanted to keep was in a hand full of folders, which I just copied to the external drive, so it will be easy to get stuff back on the newly renamed Teletran-1 Epsilon

Green Hill Zone

This story is part 2 of The Final Level, an 8 part series that started in Mushroom Kingdom.

Green Hill Zone

Mark Lopez blinked. He rubbed his eyes and blinked again, but nothing changed. There was no mistaking what he saw before him. The brightly colored tropical setting was familiar, as were the golden rings scattered over the landscape. Somehow, someway, he was in his favorite video game of all time.

It was Green Hill Zone from Sonic The Hedgehog.

Act One if he wasn’t mistaken. He had no idea how he got there. The last thing he remembered was walking out of the theater with Jill. They had been at the movies. The Spiderwick Chronicles. Good movie. Not as good as the books, but still good. Of course they had to cram six books and several months of story into a two-hour movie, so there was a lot of stuff they had to cut out, but in the end, it was good.

As hey walked down the street to a near by coffee shop, the conversation changed to their friend Peter Davidson. Jill was concerned about him. Since Helen’s death he had spent all his time working on that game he was making. She wondered why he didn’t grieve for her like the rest of her friends had. Mark just laughed. He had known Peter for a long time and knew that this is how he deals with things. He buries himself in his work for a while, even the death of his girlfriend. In a week or two he would go through the grieving process just like they all had.

And so they walked in silence for a bit. He remembered walking own the street, seeing people walk by, cars pass, avoiding the piece of gum on the sidewalk. Then he blinked and the next thing he saw was the Green Hill Zone. Mark looked around, wondering where all the enemies were. He remembered there being plenty of Badniks, even in the early levels of the game when it was relatively easy, but he didn’t see anything.

Shrugging, Mark began walking, hoping he could find out what was going on. As he went, he realized he was going faster and faster. Soon he was running faster then he ever had before. He hadn’t made a conscious effort to run, he just was.

The landscape flew by around him, his feet a blur. As he flew through the level, Mark marveled at the speed he was traveling at. He figured he was running at about 150 miles per hour and accelerating. He remembered reading that Sonic’s top speed was over 750 miles per hour and wondered if he would go that fast.

Mark jumped over a pit and continued to run, his feet a blur beneath him. He looked up in time to see the wall and his eyes grew wide with fear as he saw the razor sharp spikes. He didn’t remember anything like that in this level. He tried to slow down but he couldn’t. The spikes grew bigger as the sped closer. They were to high to jump over and no matter what he tried, he couldn’t stop. He once again wondered how he got here as he felt the spikes pierce his skin.



Jill screamed as Mark fell to the ground, several wounds opening up, staining the sidewalk red with blood. Some onlookers stared, others ran for help. If any had tired to help, they would have seen something odd on his forehead. Something that had terrified Pine Creek for over a year. Something carved into his skin.

The Ullrich family crest.

CRAP!

I forgot that Saturday was Free Comics Day.

I know I had to work, but at least then I could have been disappointed and complained because I was missing it. Or taken the guys on a trip to Marshell so I could get some free comics.

HOLY CRAP!

I just checked Helium, and yesterday when I went to bed, I was already up to the third best article for that Captain America article I posted below. It jumped up 2 places, from 6 to 4, in the first hour or two, but that was it. I just checked. I'm #1!!!!!!!