After wandering for over two years in the wasteland, and after looking across and away from the vast desert and the vast Blue Ocean to constantly witness how much greener the grass was on the other side, I have, after numerous fits and starts, finally resolved to relocate, and have effectively committed to it. No, I shall not be a resident of both regions, sorry to say, for in doing so, friendships and alliances on both sides would become strained. This desert and this plain through me shall not mix, though it be possible, as others before me have shown.

This person, to whom it is no simple task to cease with favored endeavors--has done the improbable: he has quit the Revolution, and he is off to join the ranks of the Evil Green Empire--enlistment occurs this summer. In this decision lie happiness and contentedness, though elven swordsmen be absent and there are no plumbers to plumb, nor are there assortments of rowdy personalities of old to do battle amongst each other. May the desert one day flourish with life and become as green as the ocean is blue. But until that day comes, prosperity is only to be had as a citizen of one of the two great empires, and I have decided to which I wish to belong.

Live long and bear fruit, Revolution. Perhaps I shall join in once more someday. But should you expire without having fought the good fight, I shall not forgive you--instead, your memory shall perish utterly.

As a last act from me to thee, I give to my most beloved friend the power I once wielded over you. May you find success in his care.

UPDATE (08/13/09): No more consoles this gen. I'm just going to upgrade my gaming PC, and have already gotten a Radeon HD 4890 video card. :D

One reason: behold, the fair and balanced (as long as you're a conservative Christian) Fox network!

For the record, and surprise surprise, not everything Beck says is correct.

And a summary of more general reasons here.

Read this.

Seriously, what is this? Militant atheists, eh? Where are they?

Here's a primer on atheism:
http://www.atheistrev.com/2008/06/militant-atheism.html

Here are a couple cartoons that illustrate the situation very well:
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2008/06/20/lake/
http://www.offendedyet.com/2008/03/same-thing.html

Here's a video that says it even better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5OEocRp2wA

And no, the term "fundamentalist atheists" isn't accurate, either:
http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismmyths/p/Fundamentalist.htm

Reread the "primer" again if you have to. Let this all sink in. These atheists that people are calling "militant", "fundamentalist", etc. are not, in general, the perpetrators of bigotry--they are the victims of it. They're being held to a double standard by hypocrites who are so accustomed to their religion being favored by the state that they don't see injustice when it happens. Tell me, what would it take for a Christian or a Muslim, for example, to be called a "militant Christian" or a "militant Muslim"? Whatever your response is, see if those requirements for militancy are being met by atheists who are being called militant. If they aren't being met, then be sure you don't use the term unless it's use is warranted. If these atheists really are militant by your requirements, then be sure you apply the term to believers who also meet the requirements. If you aren't going to be consistent, you're a hypocrite who is instituting a double standard.

Now, about Spore: I have no problem with religion being included as an option for one's creatures to practice. That would certainly make it realistic if we're talking about creatures that are mentally somewhat similar to us humans. Without further information, though, I can't say why those atheists were upset. From what Will Wright said, I suspect that it might have something to do with the player having some level of control over his/her creatures, which is not the way that evolution in the real world works, or appears to work. It is, however, the way that theistic evolutionists believe it works, and this realization opens up room for potential criticism. But also, in trying to simulate biological evolution, do it right. You can certainly be afraid of offending the religious/theists, but please don't misrepresent the way the world works for the sake of appeasing them. I hope you aren't doing this, Will.

But back to the point of this post: Think for a moment of a type of creature that you don't believe exists--for instance, a giant, invisible pair of hands (GIPoH). Let's say that everything these hands can supposedly do is or can be better-explained by the behavior of things that are confirmed to exist (i.e. there is no evidence for the GIPoH). Furthermore, let's say that there are 100 people in our society and that you and five others do not believe that the GIPoH exists (which is NOT the same thing as believing that they don't exist). Let's also suppose that the other 94 people in our society are more prone than the other 6 are to doing bad, harmful, stupid, or illegal things because of their belief in the GIPoH, and that there are many known instances of such actions being committed.

For many centuries, the GIPoH-ians have been given special privileges by the government, and they have been spreading horrible, vile, but entirely false, rumors about the a-GIPoH-ists. When the GIPoH-ians have come in conflict with other, similar (to their own), groups in the past, their interactions have consisted of violence and hatred--i.e., militancy. When the a-GIPoH-ists try to point out injustices being perpetrated in their 100-person society, via means of talking, writing, and going to court, they are given the label "militant". Doing so spreads the bigoted misconception that they are being like the GIPoH-ians were to other groups in the past.

Now, isn't there something fishy about that?

"Militant" my ass. I'm tired of all the bigotry.

Finally sold the 12" Apple PowerBook G4 that I bought in the summer of '05. I wish I'd sold it sooner, since it's depreciated a lot in the last two years. Bought it for around $1400, let it go for $490 with MS Office '04 for Mac, a sleeve + cord pouch, and a lock w/ keys. Ebay indicated that such a price was about right for the hardware.

So now, just from that sale, I almost have enough for the MGS4 PS3 bundle pre-tax. But I can use that money for so many other things, too.... :| *does not know what to do*

I apparently misplaced my XP sleeve thingy and key around the time I built my XP rig, and it's been frustrating knowing that I couldn't reinstall. So I did a Google search tonight and found just the trick. I had thought I'd need to just find a key somewhere that would work, but not so!

For anyone else who's been in such an unfortunate situation, I'm providing an important link below for your benefit.

Here ya go!

Ok, this post isn't quite what you probably thought it would be upon reading the title. I just downloaded Bioshock off of Steam and tried it for a bit. DAYAMN! What great graphics! But Bioshock, I hate you. I hate you not because of what you are, but because you've shown me the inadequacy of my computer to run you respectably. :evil: *kick*

I bought the parts and put my computer together in summer of '06. At the time, it was probably a middle-weight gaming monster, if you will,with regard to graphical power. I was a bit naive and told my roommate at the time that all I wanted was something that could run Oblivion well. Well, here I am a year and a half later complaining. I mean, it wasn't as if I could have afforded a better card--I couldn't really; and it wasn't as if the card I got wasn'treally good. It's just that I didn't think I'd be wanting to upgrade so soon. Then again, I think my thoughts were that I wouldn't get deep enough into PC gaming to be tempted to keep up technologically.

Anyway, I probably won't be upgrading from my GeForce 7900GT yet. Most games, as far as I'm aware,don't yet look as good as Bioshock, and nothing will get close to Crysis for a while. Still, I have to marvel at how much graphics technology has progressed since Oblivion, and I feel like kicking myself, if only because I hadn't anticipated that I would want to get more into PC gaming.

My former roommate, who I thank for helping me build my computer, said that my card probably won't be good for anything after the first wave of DX10 games....

Damn Bioshock....

EDIT: I have just been informed that my card was the second best option at the time of purchase. :| Graphics tech advances too fast. :cry:

There are a few issues I have with this game that would preclude my giving it a 10:

1. The camera: It's pretty good most of the time, but when it's not, it really irritated me. You can't even control it as well as SM64's. And why can't I pan it around or even go first-person all the time? It also likes to shove a land mass between itself and Mario so I can't see what I'm doing or where I'm going. When it switches position on places where you go from one orientation to the opposite (like in Dusty Dune's donut areas where you go on the opposite side), I sometimes find myself going in and out, in and out, just because of control and camera issues. The camera doesn't function well for swimming or red-star-flying, either. I went for "completion" last night (i.e. I got 120 stars) and I came to hate the camera. But like I said, it works fine MOST of the time.

2. Acrobatics: Thankfully, wall jumping is easier to perform. However, I find it harder to do triple jumps and the backflip is less precise in a way, as someone else already mentioned. In SM64 a backflip would let you grab onto a ledge if you reached the ledge's height with it. Not so here. Here you have to go a bit higher, and many times when I do a backflip and I'm trying to get up to some place, I don't know if I made it until I see Mario sliding down the wall, ready to do a wall jump... which, needless to say, I was not wanting to do.

3. Control: This may just be my own personal problem, but I find it difficult to control Mario when he's not oriented normally, and especially when I switch orientations. As I already stated, the camera gives me problems here, too, which just compounds my own control problems.

Those are really the only complaints I can come up with. I don't score my games, but if I did, I'd give this a 9.5, easily. But these problems make it impossible for me to give it a 10.

I'm a Bleach fan, so I decided to get both the DS and Wii Bleach games. Blade of Fate (DS) is absolutely superb... I wish it were the one on the Wii instead, because Shattered Blade (Wii) is supposedly a barebones, so-so fighting game. I don't play the latter much, but I bought it after reading one or two reviews from other sites (I think). GameSpot says it absolutely, flat-out sucks, giving it a 3.5/10, which is by far the lowest score it's received. I agree that it's not really a good fighter (I'm not even sure if it can be considered better than the original DBZ: Budokai), but I think GS's score is overkill. Granted, I don't owna typical 3D fighter, so perhaps I disagree with them simply because I'm a n00b to the genre. But that wouldn't explain other sites' scores. Anyway, I'm not really happy with Shattered Blade, but I'm gonna keep it. These two games are the only licensed ones I've bought new, BTW, so it's not like I'm accustomed to supporting the development of actual crap (which Blade of Fate definitely is not).

The other thing I'm wondering about is RE: UC. GameSpot's score is on the low end for that, even though the complaints weren't huge (IIRC). It looks like maybe the light gun genre is just disliked here. I'm thinkin' about picking this game up, but I've gleaned from people on the GGD that the RE story gets messed up or something.

Anyone have any opinions about the scores on these games, and/or about GS's more recent scoring in general?

This is a prayed-for advertisement from thy god Angry_Beaver:

The Crux Succor Army Union.

Thou shalt not think it to be "The Crotch Sucker Army Union", as GodModeEnabled hath.

Thou shalt check out this new union, or else face the wrath of the angry beaver god!

When thou this new union out checketh, thou shalt read with thine Angry_Beaver-crafted eyes the stickied threads that thy pantheon hath created. Thy list of commandments from Dencore the Most Unholy shalt thou read, and thou shalt read thy list of commandments from Dencore the Most Unholy.

Shouldst thou not with thy god Angry_Beaver complieth, thou shalt be as a shaven beaver (oh, I'm bad :P):

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6173525.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;1

*examines article, notices incorrect spelling of "casual", pet peeve alarm goes off*

WOW... when my family says I spend too much time gaming, they don't realize that I have NOTHING on these "heavy gamers". I don't game 39 hours per week and I'm just sitting at home doing nothing so far this summer, without a job (I'm lazily trying to remedy this and get employed)! Geez! Will these stats be enough for us to divide the gaming populace into hardcore and casual? :P Yes? No? Maybe we need some new categories, something like the ones in this article.

I'm not sure where I fit. Funny thing... I was thinking about this as I was reading the article: the reason I can get easily bored with gaming sometimes is because my desire heavily outweighs my ability to fork out the greenbacks (I just reread the latter part of that statement and have to say that it does NOT indicate the use of prostitutes :P). I probably buy an average of fewer than 3 games per quarter, maybe even between 1 and 2 some quarters, if even that.

What does everyone think of these numbers, and under what category do you fall?