Last night was a long night for me. Like usual, I "played" on the street for about 12 hours. Then I came back to the station for about 6 hours worth of reports (That part isn't so usual). By the time I got home, it was about 30 minutes till I had to technically wake up again. Good thing I have the next 4 days off, though. Anyway, the night was filled with the same types of stuff. I don't need to mention all the weirdo/depressing stuff, but one incident in particular became the highlight. We had a gang member (Southsider) who was a wanted subject. One officer spotted him heading east on foot (toward a major street).

There was a house that had quite a few areas for the Southsider to hide in the same area of where the subject was last seen. Now understand, nearly every unit in the area is there. I think about 8 of us hop this wood fence, and start perimeter searches. My partner and I stray away from the pack toward a little section of sheds. My partner goes to check the first, but there's a barrel in front of it. It's pretty safe to say our Southsider didn't go in there. It works the same way as we pass these other sheds. As we make our way toward the house, I start looking at a shed on my right, that has a set of stairs leading up to the door. Because I was the closest to it, I had a better view of the door. Because of this, I could see that the latch to the door was unhinged. RED FLAG! I tell my partner to come to me. We're both at the front of the steps with my partner behind me. I go up about 2-3 steps on this staircase, and I hear on my radio "Southsider is known to be armed (We wear ear pieces)." I pull out my glock 45 and press it against my belly as I aim the light toward the door.

I get up the staircase. With my flashlight, I open the door slowly. I want nothing but concentration from my body at this point. So I set the flashlight in front of the staircase so it lights up the shed. Now I have both hands on that glock. For building searches, we have a tactic called "slicing the pie." It's how we slowly cut pieces of "view" into a room. It's one man vs the room. When done right, it can take a few minutes just to clear a small bathroom. It's designed to be slow, so you can be thorough. So, I begin slicing the pie. The entire time I do this, I'm checking everything with every intention of firing my weapon. I keep imagining what this Southsider could do from each of these edges. I'll tell you right now, that's an eye opener. I finish slicing room. No subject is seen. I grab my flashlight and walk in. There's junk everywhere. A tarp covering stuff. A table in the center, and boxes of junk surrounding the area. I ignore the table, because I can see it has long legs. So it's obvious nobody is hiding right there. I head for the tarp, and check it. Nothing. I look around all the other junk. Nothing. This room is clear! That is until....

...I shine my light on top of the table. "What the fu*$ is that?" For a brief second, I'm thinking about brocolli. Then I get out of my mental tunnel vision, and realize I'm staring at a table full of dried, chopped marijuana. I show my partner, and we exit the shed. The owner was walking up toward us already.

"This your shed?" ...."Yeah." ..."You know what you got in your shed?" ... "Yeah." So we bust this guy for possession initially (Detectives took it over 2 hours later, and drew up a LONG list of charges).

"Do you have anymore?" ..."Yeah." This guy we bust had 18 total, 12 foot marijuana plants. Inside his house, he had about 15 or so large zipper bags worth of dried and prepared pot. The total at this point is unknown, but it's obvious what his intent was (Intent to sell).

Anyway, the whole situation was just so funny. A criminal got a criminal. We never found that Southsider. Unfortunately, he managed to get away, but he accidentally nabbed someone else for us. I even told the subject this who had all this marijuana.

"I'm going to tell you right now, I appreciate your cooperation with us and I hope you continue this trend, but I gotta tell ya until I met you, I thought I had the worst luck." Subject laughs.

---One last thing I want to mention is that we can't go into just anybody's shed, home, etc. I'm sure most of you understand how warrants work, etc. Because of what we were initially looking for, we had the right to search everything in the surrounding area. It's a section of the definition of "probable cause," and we can use that against an opposing subject that didn't have any relation to the original incident that precipitated the search. I just wanted to mention that, so you understand I just can't walk up to your shed and start snooping around.

The title Aliens vs. Predator should have been changed to Awful vs. Painful, because somewhere inbetween that is the emotion I felt forcing myself to watch this dreadful film. I would have been more entertained watching an hour and a half of Tampax commercials. I'll be the first to admit that AVP was a film I was looking forward to. It seemed to me that it would be too easy not to mess this up. The commercials showed AVP as a war that was going on between two alien races, and humans were caught in the middle. Little did I know, there was just a handful of predators in a secluded area, and maybe two dozen humans.

1.) The first thing I get troubled by was right in the beginning. The year is 2004 in October. Is the audience suppose to believe we discover aliens in this year, and keep it "hush hush" until we join up with Riply in her 4 picture series? I can't remember the year that started, but I could have sworn it's somewhere in the 2100's. You could argue that something obviously happens to that information from now until then, but it just comes down to the simple fact that....I hate the idea.

2.) What happened to the history? Predators have been coming to Earth to hunt humans for hundreds of years. This was showcased in the 2nd film, where one of the leading predators throws a gun that possibly dated to the 1400's, to Danny Glover. This told the audience that predators hunted humans. Maybe as a right of passage. In AVP, their history involves them posing as God's here on Earth. Returning every 100 years. They used humans to breed Aliens as a form of warrior-hood. What the heck?

3.) Kill her!! In AVP, they made the predators seem....human. I'm not gonna lie. They've done this before. In the 2nd film, a predator put down a female police officer after gazing into her chest and stomach. That's all fine and good to do this to Bishop, but allowing a predator to team up with a human? You've got to be kidding me!! It doesn't stop there. The predator rips off the head of an alien, clean it out, and then puts it on the chick's arm. Why you ask? Because she's suppose to use it as a weapon. You can't make this stuff up, guys!! It's bad enough we've got a human teaming with a predator and fighting better than the predator, but now our human hero is a dainty woman. Call me a typical pig if you wish, but if you're going to put a woman in this kind of role, you need to pick someone who can make the audience truly believe their tough. Not to many female actors are successful at this, period. The only few I can think of might be; Linda Hamilton, Michelle Rodriquez, Sigourney, and that tough spanish girl from "Aliens." Please stop casting dainty women in these tough roles. Give us a beefed up, scarred chick. Down with the Denise Richards' of our generation. Say no to Barbie!!

4.) Stop screwing up classic one liners!! This has GOT TO STOP!! I can't stand seeing all these sequels that are using successful lines from past films in order to help push nostalgia and new fans. At the end, the music and action literally stops for the female hero to say "You're one ugly mother @*($()."

5.) Wait a second... Aren't predators hurt by cold? In the 2nd Predator movie, Gary Busey's character tries to capture the predator with some type of snow blower lookin' thing. To be fair, I'm not sure what he was spraying. What I do remember was it was some kind of cold substance that was causing pain to the predator. It basically looked like he was just spraying snow at him. If it's true that cold was hurting the predator, how can they make it in Antarctica?

6.) "Antarctica is the last place on Earth that's truly free, and owned by no one." What? PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that everything is owned whether or not we have people living in an area or not. For example, major bodies of water are considered "international waters," etc. Since when does this idea not apply to Antarctica. Antarctica being un-owned is total news to me, as I would imagined it's considered internationally owned.

7.) Hollywood has got to get over this idea of humans as being the superior race. You're telling me a tiny black woman beat up a mother alien, while that same alien beat the living tar out of a warrior predator. She did it with a friggin' shovel, no less.

8.) Where's the war? I never saw a war.

If you base everything off of scores, this one's for you: 2/10. AVP was terrible, but I'll say that it wasn't as bad as the movie "The Hulk." ...But that's really not saying much.

AVP=A Vile Pile Trust me. Stay away from this movie.

This is my boss' home. Sits right across from the kennel.

Interior of his home.

..And now for the fiction. The rest of the city I'm just building what I want to build. Here's a veiw of a Church and Hotel. The Church will actually branch again, across another street. You'll be able to tell when you see the other side, as to what I'm doing.

^^^^ Basic room in the hotel.

Hallway of the second floor.

This map is actually being based off the street I work at. The only building nearly complete is the Kennel. It's pretty bare-bones, though. No lighting or any effects.

Here's the back..

Here's the inside hallway. Like I said, no lights or anything uber fancy to enhance the look of the map...

Front...

The map itself is going to be pretty excellent for all weapons. I would compare the gameplay to my Mogadishu map. This is basically one completed building out of a possible 8-9 buildings. As you can see, one building spans for quite a large amount of space. That's not to say all of them will be this wide. Early stages. I would call this 9 percent complete.

NO!! NO!! NO!!

Let me first start by saying the film was incredible. Very fantastic. Excellent imagery. Definitely worth owning, and I'm quite glad that I do. However, I read the Iliad 3 years ago when I first started college. There were so many noticable changes, that it literally broke my heart to see such a great story get miffed in translation. I say miffed, because it wasn't totally lost at all. The initial story is there, and it's great. The problem lies in missing pieces that were important to the original story, and the few remaps of characters and their endings.

The first problem I had with the movie was first noticed when you see Achilles' dead Mother. Dead mother you say? That's right. She's suppose to be a ghost. In the original Iliad, she appears to him numerous times through out the story. In the movie TROY, she's seen only once. There's no inidication that she's a spirit. Anyone seeing this story for the first time has no idea that she's suppose to be a ghost. In fact, by her being dead, she's actually able to pull sway with the Gods that watch over them. The second half of this issue, is the importance of that relationship between Achilles and his Mother. In the Iliad, Achilles appears as a "momma's boy." He constantly begs and weeps to her for help. Apparently, Hollywood thought this would make Brad Pitt's character look weak, since they omitted out of "Troy."

The second problem I had with the movie, once again involves Achilles. Those that have read and looked closely at the Iliad, know there appeared to a little more of a "relationship" between Achilles and Patroclus. Most of you have probably picked up the hint that I'm getting at here. There's a common belief that Achilles may have actually been a gay character in the Iliad. There are absolutely NO hints to this in the movie "TROY," which is really a shame. To me, that's totally trashing a character. Instead they chose to go into a great elaboration of a relationship between him and "some chick," that only existed as a stagnant one in the book. You know Hollywood. Can't be having gay heros or foils. Kinda surprising to me since Hollywood is notorious for being liberal.

The third problem I had with the movie, involved Hector's character in the end battle with Achilles. In the movie, they portray Hector as nearly fearless in the end battle. Either or that, or his courage is suppose to completely overshadow it during the battle. In the book, Hector literally runs away. He runs around the walls of Troy, as Achilles chases after him with the Greek army alongside him. Even that was omitted in the movie. In the movie, they have it so Achilles shows up at the walls alone. I guess Hollywood wanted to pull a typical John Wayne moment, where we have a one on one draw to the death. The other thing about Hector's character that I'll quickly mention is that he resented Paris quite a bit more than what was shown in the movie. So much of a resentment, that you could almost call it a hate. Paris was tremendously much weaker than he was portrayed in the movie. He was basically a total wimp and coward.

The fourth problem is actually the most MASSIVE problem of the whole movie. Where the hell are the Gods? They don't appear to exist in the movie, other than what the people believe by mouth or worship. Lets first start with the battle between Achilles and Hector. In the book, two Gods interfer in the battle to help give each one a slight upperhand (If I remember correctly, Apollo and Poseidon are those two Gods). They are absent in the movie "TROY," as well as all other Gods that make appearances in the book. I think what the director might have been doing, is possibly giving an example of how during this period people really did start to question whether the Gods actually existed. You can see this in how they portray Achilles in the movie. He seems to rebel against the existence of Gods, which wasn't the case in the book. I'm trying to give credit here, because many believe that the Iliad was created for two reasons (In other words, I'm trying to excuse the director for taking such an important part of the book out.):

1.) A way to record history
2.) A way to restore faith in the Gods in a time of question.

The last problem I'll mention, has to do with how Agamemnon dies in the movie. He doesn't die in the Iliad story. He dies at a later point. It's actually a seperate story, and is an incredibly amazing story at that. For those that don't know the story, I'll give a quick summary because I think many of you would probably enjoy reading the real thing. Agamemnon actually comes home with a second "war prize." A very beautiful woman who can see the future, but her curse is that she can't speak of that future. If she tries, it'll come out as "mumble-jumble." Agamemnon already has a woman who's actually cheating on him. She's plotted a murder for Agamemnon. She stops Agamemnon from getting out of his ride, and tells him that a great warrior should walk amongst a series of tapestries into the house. This is a huge no-no to the Gods. She finally talks him into doing so, only to seal his doom once she's killed him. Once inside, Agamemnon's war prize tries to warn a guard outside what's about to happen. Obviously do to her curse, she's unsuccessful. While inside, Agamemnon's wife murders him, which is the ultimate insult during this period. No man of this time can think of anything worse than to be killed by a woman. It's suppose to be the ultimate name destroyer, and the most terrible insult that could happen to man. This is also an idea that's absent in the film when Chryseis kills Agamemnon.

Judging the film on it's own, I must say I was impressed. I thought it was way up there in the top films I've seen. At least the top 150. It's the translation that leaves me a little bummed out. Because I can excuse some of the issues, I can honestly say with two thumbs up, that his film gets and deserves a 5 out of 5 stars. It's just another one of those movies where Hollywood gets ahold of it, and suddenely we have to change things to get the general public interested. It's not anything new to us. We've seen it in "Pearl Harbor," "Titanic," "Gladiator," "The Untouchables," etc. The list can literally go on and on. Despite the changes, I definitely love the movie. Good job!!

I had always wanted internet upstairs, being that my gaming machine lived up there. I figured it was time I bucked up and went for a router. I wanted to get wireless so I wouldn't have some big ugly cord going through the hallway. So, I set myself up with a big brand name and a top of the line Wi-Fi card to pick up the signal. Seemed simple enough. Install the card and plug in the wireless router. After that, all I have to do is setup the networks. Easy enough, right? Boy, was I wrong. I haven't had this much trouble with anything electronically since I shorted out two motherboards due to sheer bad luck.

I got the router and card hooked up just fine. It even picked up the signal after only a few attempts. Viola!! I had the cable internet in my room. I tested the upload and download speeds and they were spectacular. Within two minutes of being online, I was disconnected. I figured it was just bad timing. Maybe the service had just gone out? Well, it connected itself once again after only 2 seconds, but then it disconnected after about 45 seconds. It would repeat this over and over. After trying troubleshooting it on my own, I finally had to admit to myself that whatever was wrong was beyond my knowledge. So I contacted the online tech support. They gave me a large list of things to try, and if the problem still persisted, I was to call tech support for live help. I tried the entire list of "things to do," and no dice. Unfortunately, this posed another problem. I don't own a cordless phone and the computers for the wireless connection are upstairs. I had no choice but to go out and purchase a cordless phone, which I did later that evening. I ended up being on the phone with tech support for about an hour. Some guy with a thick Spanish accent helped me. As you can imagine, it wasn't much fun asking him constantly: "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

After an hour, he started to realize that he too could not offer any help. He recommended that I returned the router back to newegg.com. I believe his exact words before that were, "You'll need to find out their return policy." I should have not even bothered with wireless, period. There's a reason I don't purchase wireless mice or keyboards. I just don't trust that kind of stuff. Why should it be any different for something like an online connection? So, the next day I bought a regular router with a 50ft ethernet cord. That's right. A 50ft ethernet cord. I mainly got that length so I could weave over a couple door ways. Now, everything is perfect. I have perfect upload and download, and most important, I'm not getting disconnected every 45 seconds.

No Purpose

My patience is gone.
My innocense is lost.
My youth is stolen.
My heros are few.
But the lightbulb in my room still flickers on.

I have no T.V.
I have no clothes.
I have no chance.
I have no purpose.
But the lightbulb in my room still flickers on.

This wall begins to crack.
This room grows dim.
This room is empty.
This soul is stale.
And the lightbulb in my room stops flickering on.

I sit.
Alone in the dark.
I bury my head into my hands.
I begin to cry.
For my lightbulb flickers on no more.