It's (LAN) Party Time!!!!

Last Saturday, we had another LAN party at the Air Forc Academy. There was something like 30 people or so. We had a great couple of games of Wings of War and also alot of fun was had playing F.E.A.R. Combat and UT2K4. I would have had an easy second place in the FEAR Combat tournament, but the game crashed just as the server reset the map for the start of the tourney. About 4 minutes later, I was finally back in the game and already 20 kills behind. I still ended up 4th...but 4th means no prizes so BAH. Oddly enough, we didn't play any Counterstrike:Source this time. I wish people would play PREY and Quake 4 at the LAN.
Well good news! The UCCS Fall SPLAT fest is just around the corner! There is going to be a huge Quake 4 tournament with an ATI x1900XTX as a first place prize!! There is also going to be another x1900XTX that's going to be given away to a random gamer. How awesome is that? There's going to be around 100 people at this lan at UCCS and it's going to be held in the giant indoor arena of the college gymnasium. There are tons of sponsors providing us with food and drink. Cost to get in is only 10 bux a head and you get a T-shirt and all the food and drink you want as well as entry into the tournaments you want to play and everything. It's going to be freakin' sweet.

P.S.: I noticed that I have quite a few people who read this blog but nobody ever leaves any comments. Feel free to comment. I can always delete the stupid shit you say......hehe

Segregated Survivor. Watch out White People!!!

For those who don't know, this coming season of Survivor features teams that are separated by race. A white team, a black team, a hispanic team and an asian team. What? That's right.
Ok so I have this show all figured out. The Asians are going to do best in puzzle challenges and other things that require intelligence. The Hispanic people are going to do the best at anything that involves swimming and they will have the cleanest camp of everyone. The Black people are going to do the best at physical challenges and the White people are going to catch the most fish.
But seriously folks. People are so upset about this show being segregated. But if you watch the people who are talking out about it, it's mostly white people. Here's my theory. Blacks, asians and hispanics are used to being segregated in society. Everywhere they go, they are constantly reminded that they are whatever race they are. White people live in the world oblivious to the challenges that other races face. In this season of survivor, white people will be forced to recognize that they are white and they will have to cope with the differences and challenges that they face because they are white.
For all of the other contestants, the fact that the teams are segregated will be nothing new to them.
So good luck white people! Represent!!

Blame me for AIDS

I've been watching this show on ABC. It's a special about the epidemic of AIDS in Black America. They went over how the spread of AIDS came about and why it's not slowing down. They said it had to do with drug use, with black people being more likely to have multiple partners than white people, with men having sex with other men and then not telling their women partners, and by heterosexual sex with people who never knew they were infected. Ok ok...so if you had unprotected sex with 20 guys in the last 5 years, good luck trying to find out how you got it or how they got it.
Some of the arguments that some of the black people on the show had were that the reason HIV spreads among some black communities is because there is no federal money going to a program that supplies drug users with clean needles. What the fuck did you just say? Here's an idea: Just say no, asshole!!
This one woman went on to say that the spread of HIV/AIDS among black people was white people's fault. Come again? She said that if it were as big a problem among white people, that something would have been done about it along time ago. Maybe so. She went on to talk about these white activists back in the early 90s that organized large protests about HIV/AIDS among white gay men. She says that there have been no white activists that went out and talked about HIV/AIDS among gay black men. When asked why white people should bring up the problem of black gay men spreading HIV, they went into this long segment about how it's improper and dishonorable in the black community to admit you're a gay black man. Again...that's MY fault how?
Ok ok I get it now. There are some people that want do drugs and use dirty needles then they want to go and have unprotected sex with as many partners as they can and none of them give a goddamned shit about spreading HIV/AIDS until one of them GETS it and then they want to blame ME for it? I've seen episodes of Jerry Springer where they have a black woman on the show who brings 8 or 10 guys on the show to test them to see who the father of her kid is. Usually, NONE of those guys are the father!! You are NOT the father!! That means she had unprotected sex with so many guys in such a short time span that she can't even remember them all. Obviously this is an extreme case, but it does happen as you can see. And it's not a race specific issue. Women having sex with dozens of men and not knowing who the father could be is something that happens with women of all races.
I don't blame black people for me being fat...but I could. It's often argued by African American activists that African Americans are paid less than white people. Fast food places offer cheap food which caters to people who make very little money and the black people who make very little money buy their food thereby providing the means by which these fast food chains grew and continue to grow and are now on every street corner in American providing convenience to millions of fat white Americans. See...it's black people's fat that I'm fat. But I don't blame them. I don't have to eat fast food. I could eat healthier. Now after you just read that paragraph, do you see how absurd that arguement is?
By the same token that I could choose to eat healthier, people COULD choose to use a condom. They COULD choose to not do drugs. If they choose to use drugs, they COULD choose to not use a dirty needles. Some people argue that they can't afford clean needles. Oh but they can afford the drugs though...so shut the fuck up. They COULD choose to not have sex at all. However, the choices they have made are what have put them in the situation they are in now with having HIV/AIDS. Take some fucking responsiblity. Don't blame me for you being stupid, stupid. I'm hungry. I think I'll go to Taco Bell now and get about 10 tacos and maybe some burritos and get fatter.

Rockstar Supernova

So we are now down to the last 6 contestants on Rockstar Supernova. All 6 of the people left are the people I think should be in the top 6.
Dilana: Really needs to quit smoking. Her voice is very raspy. She can still sing pretty well and has a rocker singing voice. I'm not sure she doesn't have some kind of throat cancer. Her act seems a bit monotonous.
Storm: She's very hot. She could easily be a playboy playmate. She superhot. She can also sing quite well, though she seems to be a bit limited. She also seems to bring nothing new to her music each week and I think she's just riding along on her good looks at this point.
Toby: Thunder from Down Under. He looks like a rockstar. Killer good looks and great singing voice. He's a natural rocker. He could definitely win. His only flaw is that his voice gets a bit high pitched when he get louds. Maybe just his accent coming through a bit.
Ryan: Sounds great. He's got a very unique voice. Ryan is by far the most artistic of the bunch. Every song he does is not just the singing. He puts on a great show and really puts alot of though into his presentation. Great rocker. He could win. His only weakness is that his voice may not be hard enough for Supernova.
Lukas: Little punk. He seems very intelligent when he speaks. He seems like a dork when he sings. He has this little thing he does where you can't really understand the words he's singing. He closes his eyes alot and does funny things with his eye brows. He is also a pretty small guy. Could be a rocker in an underground goth band or something. I don't think he's right for Supernova.
Magni: Of course I saved the best for last. He's from Iceland. He brings great presentation to each of his performances. His voice is dynamic and piercing. Each of his performances sticks with you and he really connects with the audience each time he steps on stage. He's also got the looks and personality to go all the way. In my opinion, Magni SHOULD win. He would be the best possible choice for Rockstar Supernova.
This decision did not come lightly. For weeks on end I wasn't overly impressed with Magni. He didn't really stick out to me. I knew he was better than most but wasn't sure about his personality until recently because he's from Iceland and I just don't know very many Iclanders. For the longest time, I thought for sure that Supernova was just going through the formalities of the show while knowing all along that they wanted Toby. Toby was by far the best rocker and singer on the show for several weeks. Then everyone began to step up their game and really started bringing it. Then, I thought for sure that Ryan should win because his performances are so original and unique and he really brings the house down. However, after further consideration I realized that his intensity may be a bit much for Supernova.
Magni has it all. Everything that a great rock band front man needs to be.

Paravocabulary

A parachute is something you use when skydiving to slow down your rate of descent. In parasailing, you use a parachute to keep you aloft. A paratrooper uses a parachute and lands in a battlefield ready for battle. All these have "para" in the beginning of the word. So I think that a paramedic should be a guy that jumps out of a plane and lands at car wrecks and stuff to provide medical assistance. And a paralegal should be someone who jumps out of a plane and helps you in court. They would have to land on top of the court house I suppose. Wouldn't want to land in the street somewhere. They might get their parachutes stuck on light poles and whatnot.

What's with Concert Cancellations?

Seems that only the biggest music stars cancel concerts these days. Just recently, Guns 'n Roses has cancelled shows and so has Mariah Carey. Now I wouldn't personally go to see either of them, but they are huge stars. You never see someone like Don Williams cancelling tour dates. Basically, if you don't really care if they show up or not, they definitely will.

What Would You Do If You Were Going to Die?

What would you do if you only had 2 days left to live? What if someone told you that you were going to die in 2 days? What if you didn't believe them? What if they had proof?
Iran has said that it would respond to threats to sanctions and whatnot on Tuesday, the 22nd. Why August 22nd? Seems odd to pick a random day during the middle of the week eh? Well let's explore the significance of the date August 22nd.
First of all, St. Columba reported seeing the Loch Ness monster in the year 565. This is the first reported sighting of the Loch Ness monster. Not really relevant to my post here, but fascinating nontheless.
Ok so August 22nd is supposedly the date when the Prophet Muhammed asceneded to heaven. Very important festival to Islam. Perhaps they want to ALL ascend to heaven on the same day.
I don't really know what's going to happen on the 22nd, but look. All I know is that if a handful of guys can crash 4 planes with box cutters and fake bombs, then a country of nearly unlimited resources can probably figure out how to build and use a nuclear weapon. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he wants to wipe Israel off the map. A nuclear weapon would certainly do it. This whole deal with the Hezzbolah and Israel is simply a diversion I think to take the attention away from Iran while they work toward the final stages.
Now one single nuke from Iran to Israel may not end the entire world and light the entire planet on fire, but it could certainly be a catalyst. Obviously, you can build very large bombs even if they are not nukes. The federal building in Oklahoma City for example. Iran has said they have a surprise for the world on August 22nd. You think maybe it's a present? Like free persian rugs for everyone? I would really enjoy a persian rug. I hope it's a persian rug.

I'm FAT!!!

When I joined the Air Force back in 1997, I was 200 pounds. I was actually over my weight limit for my height which was 199 pounds at 5'11". They scooted me through. I was happy. I had a difficult time with the physical aspects of basic training. Make fun of me if you wish. I made it through and I was proud of myself. We had weigh-ins once per week. After the 2nd week, I thought the scale was broken. I was 182 pounds!! From 199 to 182 in two weeks? Incredible. By the end of the 6 week program, I was 163 pounds!! After I got into tech school we ran every day and I got all the way down to 155 pounds. When I got to my base at Cheyenne Mountain, we didn't have a set PT time. I got slack. I ordered alot of Pizza. 5 years later, I'm currently about 230 pounds. I did go to the gym alot in that time however. I put on alot of muscle. In the Air Force I had body fat tests done because I was over my max weight. I didn't have much fat on my body even though I was 205. Since then I've continued to put on muscle. I feel that if I didn't have any fat at all on my body, that I would probably be around 200 pounds right now. I want to lose all this extra weight. Starting today, I'm back in the gym at least 5 days a week and I'm eating better. I'm currently 230 pounds as of my weighing today. I'll post updates on my progress and maybe take pictures...hehe...

SOLVED!! ....Yeah...I'm Not So Sure...

I live in Colorado now and I lived in Colorado back when Jon Benet Ramsay was killed. I live in Colorado Springs. Don't worry...I was never a suspect. So anyway this blog post is about this John Karr guy who has come forward claiming responsibility for it. I think this guy is insane but I don't think he killed Jon Benet. For one, he said that he drugged her. Autopsy showed no drugs in her system. He had "no comment" when asked how he got into the house. His answers to questions about the case took a long time for him to come up with. He seems like one of those guys who simply wants to take responsibility for it because of the death of Patsy Ramsay and wants to make other people happy by making them feel as though they finally can have peace and lay rest to the mystery. I don't think this guy did it. I don't think it was anyone as insane as this John Karr guy if that makes sense. I think it was sick bastard but I'm not so sure that it was someone who knew that Jon Benet even lived there. I think it might have been someone who simply broke in to a rich family's house and this little girl woke up or whatever and confronted them and they had to quiet her. There are lots and lots of murders around the world that go unsolved. This one is considered "special" because it was a little girl and she was the daughter of rich white folks.

That's Crap

Before Hurricane Katrina and there was plenty of oil supply, gas prices went up and OPEC said they didn't know why. They said that the prices are set by the trading world market and that the supply didn't reflect that the market value should be so high. They were "dumbfounded" they said. Plenty of oil yet price went up. They said that gas prices at the pump were going up because of the price at which the oil was trading on the world market. Ok have I made that clear enough yet?
After Katrina, gas prices went up because of the lack of supply in the U.S. Ok. Makes sense. Every single time there is any sign of any type of unrest in the middle east, the gas prices go up. Ok ok...whatever. There has been unrest in the middle east for thousands of years. Somebody says or does something today and the price goes up? Whatever. So what part of this is "crap"? Read on.
The oil pipline in Alaska is out of service yet the world market value continues to drop every day yet the gas prices continue to go up. So before when they said that supply didn't have anything to do with it and that our gas prices were determined by the world market value, when the world market value goes DOWN, the gas prices go up? THAT'S CRAP!!

The Human Element

Have you guys seen that commercial for whatever it is that says "when we figure in the human element...things change" and blah blah blah? Well they show the human element as being number 8 on the periodic table and showing the abbreviation Hu. Well number 8 on the periodic table is actually Oxygen...not human. Just wanted to clear things up... :-D

To Music, Movie and Electronics Industries: You're Welcome

Back in the early to mid 90s when nobody had broadband, you could find MIDI music files on the internet. Back then, some people who made the original songs were upset and wanted royalties and/or tried to sue. Of course the midi didn't sound much like the original song. You also had CDs which people would "rip" and put WAV files on their computers. This wasn't very viable simply because hard drives back then weren't very large. I think I had a 300 megabyte hard drive back then which was considered huge. I said 300 MEGABYTES, not GIGABYTES. You couldn't very well, over a 14.4 modem, transfer these 50 megabyte WAV files over the internet. It would take days and that's only if your connection wasn't interrupted in that time. There was no way to continue a partial download back then. Then came MP3s. MP3s took those WAV files and cut them from 50 megabytes to only 3 megabytes. Still on a 14.4 modem, it took a long time to transfer the files. Even when MP3s first came out, the first player for the computer ate up alot of resources. You had to have a high end computer just to play an MP3 song. Well I was one of the guys that would stay up on chat rooms on IRC late at night trading songs back and forth. Music that you wanted to have was not readily available so the best option was still to go out and buy it. If you wanted to download a song, you might have to find someone on the chat room with the original CD and ask them to rip it. You would in turn have to trade them a song you had or rip from a CD for them. Even then, the option to then convert the song and burn it to CD wasn't much of an option. CD burners for the common user's PC were just becoming available and they were quite expensive.
As technologies progressed and broadband internet was more prevelant, it became alot easier to transfer these MP3 files. Broadband internet is really what set it all off. Then you had new software and faster computers that could more easily convert the WAV files to MP3 and back again and could easily play them with little overhead on your computer.
Then the huge explosion came.
Millions of songs were spread throughout the internet very fast. If an album came out on a certain date, you could easily find that album in MP3 form on the internet. Nowadays, you can often find the album BEFORE it's release in the US.
Then came MP3 players for your car and home! Now, you could download albums that you wanted from the internet and burn them to regular CDs for your enjoyment or you had the option to simply burn hundreds of MP3 songs to a single CD and listen to them in your car or home stereo. Very simple process. Today, people trade MP3s as easy as text files or pictures. Music industries became very upset about this and sued alot of people for trading these MP3 files. They COULD have sued the companies that made MP3 usage so easy and popular, but they didn't because they could see how lucrative the future might be.
After trying to slow down the impending spread of music on a daily basis, companies like Apple came out with the IPOD and ITUNES. Now you can download MP3s legally for a price and now the same industry that was so upset about the development and trading of MP3s are now making a huge profit off of them. So you're welcome...from guys like me who made it all possible for you to become rich. Now stop bitching.
But...it's not over. Broadband continues to get faster and faster and computers continue to get faster and faster. In this age, not only are we trading MP3s, but movies as well. Full length motion pictures can be downloaded in a matter of a few hours at most. This is something that was only a thought 10 years ago. Connections were much too slow. Transferring a 50 megabyte WAV file on a 14.4 modem could take days. Forget about a 1.2 gigabyte movie. Plus there were no hard drives large enough to store many movies back then. These days we have 500 GIG harddrives and larger that can be used to store hundreds of movies. You could have more movies on your computer than alot of people have on tape or DVD sitting on their shelves.
It's nothing these days to download several compressed movies and convert them and burn them to a DVD with widely available and cheap DVD burners. Again, the motion picture industries could choose to sue the makers of DVD burners, but no.
Right now, companies are beginning to announce the option to download movies for a fee and burn them to DVD. Even talking about a KIOSK type setup where you choose from a library of movies and have it burned there on the spot for you.
Again...you're welcome. From guys like me that made it all possible for you to make a huge profit. I'm not asking for my cut of the take. Just a simple "thank you" will do.
As a proactive step in the right direction, there are a few places on the internet like Boonty games that allow you to download full versions of games for a price. Naturally, full version games are ripped and are available for download from several piracy sites on the internet. Peer-to-peer and Torrent downloads have made this so easy to do these days.
If I want to try out a game, I will usually download a demo of it and check it out. Alot more often now than before, companies aren't putting out demos of their games. So I have to download the full version of the game if I want to check it out. If I like it, I'll go buy it. Normally, back in the day, I wouldn't go out and buy it. However, I enjoy playing games online with my friends and in order to do this, alot of companies have come out with things like CD keys so that you have to have a unique CD key in order to play the game online, thus forcing me to buy the game. Still alot of games don't have CD keys and you can download them and play them online no problem. Again, companies like Boonty games are going in the right direction by offering them for download and charging for them. However, I would still rather have the original CDs and everything if I'm going to be paying full price for a full game. They should really offer the game at a slight discount since I don't get any of these things.
Anyway...you're all welcome.

Lindrielle

Lindrielle is really growing fast. She's 3 months old today and is already outgrowing her onesies. It's nearly time to go up to the next diaper size. She's very interactive with people. This past weekend, my parents and my grandmother came into town to see her. For my parents this is their first grandchild other than my son John Ethan who was stillborn in 2000. They were very excited to see her. She smiles alot and makes her baby squeels and noises. She really enjoys being here on this Earth. Once, just by chance, I set her in her swing and Blues Clues came on the TV and she was glued to it. She was talking to the host of the show, Steve, and telling him what for. She would get an upset look and start to cry when Blue the dog would lose something. She would get happy again when Steve would start singing. She laughs and squeels in excitement as she watches the show. It's quite entertaining just to sit and watch her reactions to the TV. I don't plan to keep her in front of the TV too much as she gets older. It's simply fascinating to see how interactive she gets with it. She also enjoys watching some cartoons. She wasn't very happy about watching Star Trek the other day, though.
For my birthday on the 11th last Friday, my dad bought me a camcorder. I can hook it up to my computer and stream the videos and save movies there. It's a good thing. I have already taken many videos of her.

The Following is FICTION!!

I've been contacted by distinguished members of the United States government and told to change my title for this blog entry to "The Following is FICTION" even though it is not.
On July 31st, 2006, 12 solid gold tablets were discovered under the right front paw of the Sphinx in Egypt. These tablets have been estimated to be 30,000 years old. These tablets are highly classified for one really good reason. These tablets have engravings in them that are written in PLAIN ENGLISH!!. 30,000 year old tablets written in modern english. As I've said, the tablets were discovered on July 31st. The top of the first tablet says in the first sentence "These tablets will be discovered July 31st, 2006. Now that we have your attention, please continue to read." The tablets go on to describe world events in our immediate future. Most importantly, they talk about a nuclear strike by Iran on Israel on August 22nd of this year. This will be the trigger point that begins World War III. The tablets go on to say that they were actually written in the year 2037 and were sent back in time to when they were sent because the time difference convergance at the time they sent them was chaotic and extreme. Normally they would have sent them back in time only until 2006, however they lacked the control.
Neither here nor there. The important factor of these tablets is the revelation of the beginning of World War III on August 22nd.

Don't Play Violent Video Games!! Warning!!

If you play violent video games, you will be desenitized to real world violence! That's what the Carnagey at Iowa State University says anyway. Go read the story at Yahoo. They said they had a bunch of adult college student play "violent video games" and another bunch play non violent video games. Then they have them watch real world violent video and they monitor their reactions.
Ok now where do I start?
1) The "violent video games" they had the people play were Mortal Kombat 1 (yes the original one with graphics you could barely make out), Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, and Future Cop. hahaha!! I just listed the most violent video games in video game history, did I not? Even if you are just going to do old ass games, where's Splatterhouse? So basically they think that going around with make believe 16 bit guns and shooting alien pig monsters from space is in some way equivalent to real world beheadings and other forms of real world violence of people upon people and car crashes 'n things like that; at least in the eyes of college students. College students I said...not 1st graders. Please...whatever...please...
2) They say they did this test on adult college students. They go on to talk about the serious effect on children. They didn't do the study on children. They assume that a test they do on fully developed adult college students has some bearing on how children might react in the same situations. This test was clearly faulty. Nobody is going to be less sensitive to someone shooting themselves in the head in real life if they see a video game of a guy made out of ice shooting an ice beam and freezing someone. This story is retarded.
You know what...I'm all worked up now. I'm done with this blog entry...

Worst TV Shows

Worst TV Shows

5) Extra/The Insider. I couldn’t give a goddamned shit less about the private lives of celebrities. I enjoy TV and I enjoy movies. I don’t enjoy hearing about their hobbies or goings on about town. Click.


4) Sex in the City. I was fine with this show when it was only on HBO and I didn’t have HBO so it had no effect on me at all. Now it’s syndicated on national TV and it’s gotta go. How do you take a woman whose face looks like a foot (thanks Peter Griffin) and give her a TV show about middle aged hookers and have millions of lonely women fall in love with the show? This show is simply outright crap. Click

3) Any show that has that girl Raven in it. You weren’t cute when you were a little kid. You’re at an age now where you hang out on TV sets with younger kids and that makes you feel like a grown up but you’re fat and you’re ugly. Go get a job doing something else and stop making my TV screen ugly. Click.

2) America’s Got Talent. No they don’t. David Hasselhoff was cool when he was Michael Knight and he drove around in Kitt. Well actually just Kitt was cool. Brandy. You suck. You’ve always sucked. I think you were on a TV show that sucked and in some movies that sucked. Your music sucks. Then there’s some Brit guy that’s in all of these judging shows nowadays. How the FUCK do you take 3 no talent ass clowns that have no idea where they are or what they are doing and then actually have them JUDGE talent of other people? What the hell is going on here? Anyway…Click.

1) Desperate Housewives. I can’t in all good conscience devote more than a single sentence to my review of this show. Click.

Awww....Poor Lieberman...

I hate him. Let's just get that out of the way. Well, perhaps "hate" is a strong term... No...it's not strong ENOUGH. Ok ok so everyone knows he's a republican in democrat's clothing. Alot of people are tired of republicans being in charge and screwing everything up in congress, the senate and the presidency. We are in ALOT worse shape now than before Bush was elected. His policies and decisions have been proven wrong, misjudged and misguided. He pays no attention to the people who know what they're talking about. He only listens to the people who tell him what he wants to hear. Ok so for this reason, I would like a change of command. Another democratic president. However, Joe Lieberman is obviously not the guy we want to be in charge of the country. He's the kind of guy who has his underwear drawer organized in perfect color coded harmony. He's a sniveling little twerp that has no business in ANY politican position. Thank god, he's probably not going to win the democratic nomination tonight. I don't know much about the guy running against him. All I know is that he's better than Lieberman. Lieberman is a publicity stunt. He wants all the TV time he can get. He loves going in front of crowds of a certain demographic and talking them from his speech that he has written and orchestrated and is perfectly catered to what THEY want to hear. For example, after the school shootings in Columbine, Lieberman said that it was because of music like Marilyn Manson. Yeah that's your big solution to the problem of crime in America, huh? Just because you didn't have the balls to stand up for yourself in school when you got your lunch money stolen and you got the shit beat out of you, don't denounce everyone who has ever done it. Yeah...shooting people was an extreme retribution. But it wasn't caused by music.
This idea alone is the sole source of my hatred for Lieberman. He's obviously an idiot. If he were to ever become president (he's wasting ALOT of money thinking this will ever happen), I wonder why he would say that Osama Bin Laden guy is so hateful and angry. They must listen to alot of rock and roll music in the middle east because they have alot of people over there blowing shit up and shooting people.
Lieberman: Please...come up with some original thoughts. Don't put blame where nothing can be done about it unless you have a viable solution for the problem at hand.

Shot Online's Newest Semi-Pro!! :-D

I made semi pro in Shot Online Golf!! You may have read my review of the game...if not...go here and read it. I took the semi-pro test this past Saturday. I shot a -4 at a course called Gladsheim. That is the minimum score for passing the test. I barely squeeked by. Whatever...bottom line is that I made it... w00t!! :D
Myself and a couple other clan members from NFBS have made Semi-Pro from taking the test this past weekend. Congrats to us all! For those of you who didn't make it, don't stress. Two weeks and you'll be good to go.
For me, I had extremely bad weather in my test. 6 holes in a row I had rain. I had strong wind in several of my holes. In practice, I shot a -9 so I thought I was golden. In the test, I started off birdie, birdie, par, eagle. Thought I was great. Then because of rain and winds, I hit a couple bunkers. Not flat either. Funky edges of bunkers which made for hard shots. I had mostly pars on these holes but I got a triple bogey on hole 15! Aaaarrrgh! Ok so anyway I ended up with a -4 which is the minimum to make the cut. I had to make a 17 yard put on hole 17 for a birdie to even have a chance. W00t!!

Game Review : Flatout 2

I thought the first Flatout game was alot better than alot of reviewers did. I mean yeah you had to mod the hell out of it to get it to play good over the internet. Flatout 1 didn't even come with online play included. Some genius homegrown programmers came up with a little utility that would allow you to play online. Then a bunch of guys came up a bunch of mods that allowed you to race tracks different directions, use new cars, and play demolition derby online in any track we wanted. Imagine a huge ice rink with 8 cars running around and slamming into each other at 100mph. Great fun! The game makers would have gotten alot more kudos if they had included all of this stuff in the game themselves. They saw what people did with the original game and how much better it was after people modified it. They took this all into account and put it all in Flatout 2. You have online multiplayer gaming. You can even do the stunt mode online with your friends. You have racing on all of a bunch of great tracks. You have dirt tracks, city tracks, race tracks, woodland tracks...some other tracks. You have tons of cars you can choose from to drive. You can take a school bus or a semi truck into a demolition derby arena and crunch the hell out of other cars. Check out this video. I recorded it in fraps. I'm in a shoving match with a guy in an SUV then suddenly someone comes full bore from the left and takes him out. hahaha!
Demolition Derby is by far my favorite part of this game. The hits are great. The damage models in this game kick ass. Plus, I usually win. That's what makes it fun...hehe

New Baby Pictures

I posted three new pictures on my baby pictures page! Yay!!

The Way I Think

I'm a very open minded kind of guy. Unless someone disagrees with me. Just kidding...maybe. For example. I work 10 hours a day and I am bringing in the only income in my family. For this reason, I feel that on my time off from work, I should be able to have some time to myself away from everything and just spend some time to myself. However, I work swing shift from 2 to midnight so I don't spend much time with my family except on my days off. If I were to take ALL of that time for myself, I wouldn't have any time with my family. A year ago, I would have been alot more selfish and wanted more time to myself to do whatever I wanted. Now that I have a baby daughter at home, I've come to realize that while I work 10 hours per day and I make the money in my family, Juanita works 24 hours per day every day of the week and never gets a day off unless of course I take over her duties take care of the kids so she can go and spend time doing something she would like to do. She also brings in food money and provides most of the food for the family. She also cook and cleans sometimes and does laundry and other things. She's a very busy person and really deserves time off more than I do. That having been said, I would myself go crazy if I didn't get any time to pursue my hobbies. I don't spend an enormous amount of time on them, but I do enjoy spending a few hours per week doing them either before work, after work, or on my days off. Fortunately, I can usually do them while I'm watching the kids.
I also understand that with the money I make, I cannot provide Juanita with everything she might like to have. I can pay all the bills and usually have a bit left over for going out and having a good time once in awhile. Maybe I can buy a new video game. Maybe she can buy a pair of shoes. Recently, I've spent noticeably more money no things I wanted than on things she wanted. It's a problem that I have that I tend to think more of what I want or need or think I need than what she wants or needs. This obviously needs to change. Both of use should have equal consideration. If I have 100 dollars to spend on something and I have something I would like to buy, I should take into consideration what she would like. She needs new clothes, new shoes. My next thing to spend money on is definitely something for her. I did buy a car for her back in May. She was and continues to be very grateful for that. I did get her Sirius radio that she really wanted. She enjoys it and often tells me how much she loves it. Those gifts were for Mother's day and our for the anniversary of our first date and coincidentaly the first time we did it. heheehehe...
I realize now that there things she needs and things that the baby needs or is going to need that I'm going to have to provide money for.
I love her and the baby very much. Even though I know that money is not the way to show her how much I love her, I realize that providing the things she needs is indeed one way of many to do it. I feel we have grown so much and that every time we get into a heated discussion about the way things are and the way things should be, we both learn from them and continue to let our relationship to grow. We have come so far and she is such a great person that I feel that to lose what we have gained would be a tragedy and would be far more of a loss than to have never known each other at all.
I have an internal dilema in that if I millions of dollars, I would give her everything she ever dreamed of in terms of material things. However, I've come to realize that even though I haven't got millions of dollars, I can still provide SOME things where as before I would tend to provide nothing at all. I thought "if I can't provide EVERYTHING then why even try". I know now that all that's really important is that I do the best I can.

Nothing Going on at Work. It's Vacation Time!!

That's what Bush thinks apparently. Nothing going on in the world. No unfinished business. Nothing he really needs to be doing. Might as well take a 10 day vacation. Good a time as any really.
For me personally, I can't and haven't been able to take vacation because the manning where I work (In Cheyenne Mountain AFS, the NORAD facility) is at minimum. Four years ago we had 6 people per shift. We currently have 3 people per shift. That's a total of 9 people manning a 24 hour military facility that monitors message traffic and circuits around the world. Uhhhh...yeah that's smart. Why do we only have 3 people? Because of funding. Our government contract was recently cut by FIFTY percent. Manning cuts throughout the facilities that are covered under the contract have been drastic. People are in constant fear of losing their jobs. Why was all this funding cut? It was already agreed that a certain amount of funding would be provided through 2012. Then the government can just turn around and through some loophole decide to cut it by 50 percent? Holy shit! Again, why was it cut? To divert more money to taking care of children in Iraq. It's not the job of the U.S. to go around the world liberating countries. Bush seems to think it is. So while everyone here working for the goddamned MILITARY IN THE UNITED STATES is in fear of their jobs BECAUSE OF HIM, he is taking a relaxing VACATION. Get this motherfucker out of office already.

Ok I Bought a Car. Now Go Away.

I hate it when I buy a car at a dealership and then like a month later they call me with "special offers" to get me to come in and look at buying another car. Why in the hell would you think that I would need another car after owning my new car for only a month? Do you know something about this car that I don't know? When you sold it did you think to yourself "yeah he'll be back in a month..I better get his number so I can call him with our special offers"? Then, if I have a problem or any questions about the car, the guy who sold it to me is nowhere to be found. He's "on vacation" or "out on the sales floor" constantly. NO I don't want to buy another car a month after owning my new one. Stop being an idiot and leave me alone. Don't call me. I'll call you. Even if you won't be there.

My Thoughts on Politicians and Homosexuality

There is a guy that is running for Congress for Colorado named Jeff Crank. His big thing he advertises in his new commercial is that he has a "5 year plan" for eliminating the nation's debt. Funny how all these politicians running for their first term in anything all have "5 year plans" when they know darn well that their term is only 4 years if elected. That leaves them with the option of saying "Well now you have to re-elect me so I can continue my 5 year plan". Otherwise, they'll say "well the plan didn't work because you guys didn't re-elect me and my successor didn't continue with it". Nevermind that the first 4 years of their "5 year plan" yielded no results whatesoever. They just needed that last final 5th year to get 'er done. Shut up. Then if they DO get elected, they start focusing everyone's attention on other things or the claim that their ideas were grand but they had nobody backing them up. Shut up. I'm tired of these politicians. I will NEVER vote for anyone who claims to have a "5 year plan" for anything.
On homosexuals now: They are gay.