I've got no right to win, I'm just caught up in all the battle.

3:36PM - "Shangri-La" found?

Perhaps it has been. Article here. Apparently there will be a PBS special on tonight about it. Hopefully I'll be able to catch it. Regardless, for the Buddhists or potential Buddhists on my list, this is something that is rather important and should be at least read up on.

4:36PM - I salute you.

To all our veterans, thank you. To all those who didn't come home to be honored this Veteran's Day, may you find rest in whatever afterlife you believed in and thank you for giving everything you had...and more.


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4:29PM - *sips a cold glass of water*

Living room looks great. I'm happy.

3:48PM - Impressive.

How Few Remain, by Harry Turtledove, is quite possibly the best alternative history book I have ever read. As a person that is rather knowledgeable about the Civil War and the people that were involved in it, this was a gem of a read. Turtledove managed to stay true to all the characters he chose to include in his book. Among the notables are Lincoln, Custer, Jackson, Douglas, Clemens, Roosevelt, Geronimo, and Stuart. Among the lesser known are Blaine, Rosecrans, Longstreet, and Alexander. If you can manage to pick out five or so of the names above, chances are, you will enjoy this book and should probably read it.

There were so many story lines going, it was sometimes difficult to keep track of them all, but they were all intriguing and for the most part, necessary. Occasionally the various story lines would cross paths with each other, but as quickly as they came together, they usually parted. Every character had at least a decent background provided for them so that if a reader was unfamiliar with a particular one, he could be brought up to speed fairly quickly on their significance. Best of all, after providing the background, the reader had a good understanding why a character chose a particular path or why they didn't.

Nothing felt too artificial or out of place in this book, as it sometimes does in other alternative history stories. Everything here fit just right, from the technology in use at the time, all the way down to the various dialects that peppered the country. I think best of all, it didn't shy away from controversial topics such as racism, slavery, antisemitism, and sex. And for the record, the racism was all encompassing; blacks hating whites, whites hating blacks, Mexicans hating Indians, Indians hating everyone, whites hating Mexicans, etc, etc.

I think best of all, Turtledove set up a rather brilliant transition into a sequel which I almost positive will be set in WWI. Now I just have to find it.

Well done, sir, well done. And well played.

6:18AM - Writer's Block: Here's looking at you

From "Dune" (2000 Sci-Fi mini series); Characters, Paul Atreides(Usul, Maud'Dib) and Chani:

"He was not worthy, Usul," Chani said. "I'd not disturb your meditations
with the likes of him." She moved closer, looking at him out of the corners of
her eyes, dropping her voice so that only he might hear. "And, beloved, when
it's learned that a challenger may face me and be brought to shameful death by
Muad'Dib's woman, there'll be fewer challengers."

I'm quoting from the book quote since finding the movie quote eludes me. Regardless, the point comes across. Nothing quite says love like your woman taking out a potential challenger. :D

11:56AM - oh the lulz

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10:43AM - So stupid.

I'm getting really tired of everyone tip-toeing around the Muslim faith. Even the movie "2012" is doing it. Read about it here. Simply put, they refused to destroy the Kaaba. The Kaaba is centered in the city of Mecca, the holiest place for Muslims.

Look, it's a friggin' disaster movie that destroys the world. I wouldn't even care, except other major landmarks, namely religious landmarks, are getting the axe too. That includes the Vatican and Christ the Redeemer (Rio de Janeiro).

Do you know why the Kaaba wasn't destroyed in the movie? The producers didn't want to be targets of death threats. No other religion does this and furthermore, the world lets the Muslim faith get away with it. What would happen if Christians suddenly issued death threats against Muslims everytime they did something that offended the Christians?

All you would hear is objections from the rest of the world. You would hear people calling it another 'crusade' and then hear about how Christians have persecuted the Muslim faith for centuries. It's total bullshit, both the death threats and misinformation about how Christians have treated Muslims. I got a hint for ya, the treatment has been mutual. Get over it.

You know why the world puts up with Muslim death threats? Because they actually carry them out and no one stops them because that would just trigger more deaths. The world doesn't put up with Christian threats because Christians aren't supposed to act like that. They are supposed to turn the other cheek. They are supposed to be more civilized. They obviously didn't read the Old Testament.

You know what Muslims? If the world came to end, your pathetic little cube would be toast, just like everything else in the world. Your mosques would be flattened, your religious leaders killed, and Mecca would be in ruins. Just like the rest of the world. So how about you stop getting offended at every little thing and actually face reality once and a while. If the world was ending, Allah/God/Jehovah would not save you because according to your faith, he probably willed it to happen.

In another rant entirely, I want the Jews, Muslims, and Christians all out of the Holy Land. These three faiths have been squabbling about it for centuries, millenniums even, and they still can't get their act together. I say we just give the damn place to the Atheists and then every year in December, we allow the three faiths entrance into the Holy Land. Each faith gets three days, all separate from each other. Then they all get kicked out and once again, the Holy Land is left in the care of the Atheists.

I'm getting really tired of the Big Three monotheistic religions.

7:59AM - *purr*

Its a gray, crisp morning. I have waffles and a big glass of cold milk. The furnace is on, giving off that somehow comforting smell and noise of winter. And I have a warm cat on my feet. Does it get much better than this? Well, only if my mate was home too, but this is pretty darn close to perfect.

3:13PM - grr

These rapid air pressure changes really need to stop.

8:26PM - Writer's Block: Forgive and forget?

I might forgive. I don't ever forget. And I can hold life long grudges.

There is very little, if anything, anyone could say or do to win back my friendship and trust once it is lost.

4:08PM - Hurrah.

Sweat Lodge Retreat deaths being investigated as homicides.

Good. Anytime you pack 50+ people into a sweat lodge that is only about 450 sq feet, it is obvious whoever was leading the sweat didn't know what the hell they were doing. I'm pretty sure whoever it was leading the sweat didn't intend to kill the people (after all, that would cut into profits /eyeball roll), but the negligence factor here is extremely high. A murder charge might be excessive, but man slaughter should certainly be on there.

5:12AM - Oh the lulz

So I guess Pepsi has come out with an iPhone App that lets men track their conquests and helps them conquer other women they may not usually have much luck with tips and tricks provided by the app and other men. The App is a promotion for their energy drink Amp, which is usually drank by young, college age males. What do young, college age males like to do? Well, lots of things, but sex usually ranks pretty high on the list at any given time. This App is designed to help them get it.

This obviously has women in an uproar. They say it objectifies women. They say it simplifies them down into stereotypes. News flash ladies, men have been doing this for decades. It's called among other things poker night, guy's night out, little black book, and 'My Diary'. Furthermore, you can find things like this in bookstores, all over the internet, music, and even in movies. Pepsi has merely taken this concept and pushed it further into the digital age. Rather than getting tips just from buddies on how to score with that hottie at the bar, you can get tips from thousands of men.

Honestly, yes Pepsi probably crossed a line here, but that is only because they are a major corporation. If this had been one of those 3rd party, independent Apps that the iPhone is becoming famous for, I doubt the controversy would be this high. Furthermore, it is amazing it took this long for an App like this to come out. So while the Pepsi App may fold under the pressure, the idea has already been put into people's heads and I guarantee that if this one goes under, more will rise up to take its place.

Sorry ladies, but if you didn't know that guys did this, it was high time for a dose of reality. Is it right that we do? Not by a long shot, but it is something that won't change over night either. That is unless all women make themselves available anytime we want them. Which has about as much chance as happening as me getting struck by lightning, getting eaten by a shark, hit by a meteor, and winning the lottery all at the same time.

3:20PM - For my mate :D

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7:25PM - *squish*

I got to hold a chicken! It was awesome! I got to squish it! (gently of course) I'm happy :)

6:13AM - Wonderful.

Obama has managed to weaken our strength in the world even further. He has managed to bow to the Muslim world unnecessarily. He has apologized for our 'arrogance' to the world. And they give him an award for it. Not just any award. A fucking Nobel Peace Prize. I don't have the proper vocabulary to insult this.

8:51AM - Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Review

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Review

Graphics: 8
Overall, I was pretty impressed with the level of detail they managed to squeeze into the game. The effects from various powers were well implemented and when your superhero leveled them up enough, they looked down right frightening. The environments were well detailed, with plenty of things to destroy. The lip syncing during cut scenes however definitely needed work, especially compared to games like Metal Gear Solid.

The only downside (and downside isn't the right word, controversy is) is that the XBox 360 got 1080p graphics while the Playstation 3 got stuck with 720p. What most people fail to understand is that the game was 720p for both systems. The XBox 360 however possesses the ability to bump up 720p graphics to 1080p. It is a built in capability it has. That is the only reason why the 360 version looks better.

Sound: 7.5
Everything pretty much sounded like it should. Some of the random superhero taunts did wear on my nerves a bit, but most of the time, they were appropriate. It was pretty cool though that depending on what side you picked, your heroes got different taunts than if they had picked the other side. Was a nice little touch I appreciated. The voice acting was overall pretty well done and despite many complaints others have had, I loved Thor's voice. The music was appropriate, but nothing to write home about. It did what it should for this type of game, it set the appropriate tone and then let you go about your business.

Control: 9
If this game gave you any more control of what to do with your heroes, it would probably have an adult rating. You can level them up how you want and even downgrade some of their abilities to put points into a different one. They did what you told them to do and really that's the best you can hope for. The computer controlled heroes were also fairly intelligent, though unavoidably you would have a few times where they stood around and watched you fight or got stuck on a wall. The only other gripe I have is the autospend function that auto distributes points to your heroes when you level up. For some reason, it just doesn't seem to remember that I turned it off for some heroes. This has been acknowledged as a bug and a patch is being worked on for it though.

Gameplay: 8
This game is fun, no question about it. If you want to riddle someone full of holes, ice them, flame them, electrocute them, pulverize them, eviscerate them, or vaporize them, this game is for you. Plus you have the ability to fuse your powers with another superhero and truly unleash devastating results. Ever wonder what would happen if Storm summoned a tornado and Gambit tossed explosive cards into it? You'll be able to do that. Plus, there is tons of stuff to destroy or throw at enemies. Even better is that 4 people can play this game either locally or online together. Having computer controlled comrades is fun, but having them controlled by humans? It is more fun than a barrel of monkeys who throw explosive poo if I do say so myself.

The only reason this doesn't get a higher grade is that all this destruction is rendered using the Havok physics engine. It is an awesome engine, but if something goes wrong, it generally crashes your system. Plus, with all this destruction, comes tons of on the fly calculations coupled with your system having to render it on screen. This really strains the graphics card to the limits. Simply put, the more destruction that is happening on screen, the higher the chance your system is going crash and crash it does. While mine has only crashed three times, I've seen accounts were people have reported crashing three times on just one level. However, the system saves often enough where if you do happen to crash, you generally don't have to replay much of the level you were on. Hopefully these crashes will be fixed in some later patches.

Final Grade: 8/10

7:35AM - Ahh

It is a nice cool day.
It is moderately gray.
All the hoodlums are in school.
I have a nice, hot cup of orange-tangerine tea.

It's the simple things in life.

6:22AM - More ramblings yay!

So I'm awake at this rather early time in the morning with a rather crazy idea stuck in my head that I'm sure has been thought of before, but I've yet to come across it in anyway that made sense to me. I'll try to organize my thoughts into some sort of main point, but they may come out only as ramblings. You've been warned. I also apologize for the length. While most people would put this in a LJ cut, I don't post often and when I do it is usually a tiny snippet. So when I post something like this, they are mostly for me and I'm lazy and don't like clicking additional links just to see something I already wrote.

It has been theorized that some dreams are actually glimpses into alternate realities. While true that some dreams are manifestations of fears, desires, or that bad piece of cheese you ate last night, some dreams have no basis for being whatsoever in your subconsciousness. Scientists theorize that those sort of dreams are merely the brain reorganizing information while you sleep so that it can better store it and access it. I tend to believe that some dreams fall into this category as well. I also believe that there are some dreams that have worlds that are just so vivid and detailed that the brain just isn't responsible for them.

Many cultures have theorized that when we dream, our consciousness is no longer forced to stay within our bodies and we are free to roam. We are not tethered down by constrictive barriers or scientific laws. To put it simply, we have freed our minds Thus, we are completely free to roam alternative universes or the waves of time themselves. We can journey into these alternate stages of being and just kinda observe. We can even find our alternative selves and see what we might be like in the universe we are visiting. We may even hop inside our alternative selves to find out what our alternate self is thinking or even communicate with it.

Minor digression here as this triggers another thought, what if schizophrenics are really just people with multiple, alternative, traveling selves from different realities stuck in their head? Could it be simply that the other selves just haven't woken up from sleep yet? After all, I have had dreams where I saw myself for an entire lifetime, maybe the alternative selves are having a similar dream. Or could it be that the other selves trapped in that person's mind, died in their sleep and have no place to return to, so they live out their remaining days in alternative self's mind? Anyway, these are thoughts best saved for another post.

So while I believe that we can certainly travel to alternative states of being within our dreams, let me go further out on the crazy branch and propose this; what if our dreams actually form the alternative universes we are visiting?

We as humans to tend to believe that if enough people believe in something, it makes it real even though we can't sense it in anyway. I personally believe that even if but a single person believes in something, it is real. After all, it is real enough to that person's view of reality, so therefore it must exist, even if it is only in their head. It still exists. Which leads me to my point based on my belief of this. If I dream a dream that is so vivid and detailed that I have no choice but to believe it may be an alternative reality, does my believing so ultimately create this alternative reality simply because I believe it exists?

I know, I know, I mentioned above that I didn't think the brain is responsible for something like this. To put it simply, I still don't think it is. I think this manifestation is the creation of a bored or curious soul, not the brain. I think the soul that lives within us picks apart our brain to get ideas and then taps into a little used thing called imagination for the inspiration needed to make the dream happen. Thus, when we dream, we have entered a reality that our soul has created. When we wake, we remember the dream being so real and vivid. All of that is not important, the important part is that we remembered the dream. So thus, since we remember the dream, we believe it existed and thus this makes it real, if only to us.

Nearly every culture on earth that exists or has existed believes/d that we were created in a god's own image, namely human. What if that image was merely a human in another reality dreaming us and therefore, creating us? More importantly, nearly every religion worships a creator of some sort. So if what I said up above is true, shouldn't we all be worshiping ourselves since we all have the power to create other universes? Basically put, we all have the potential to be gods, if only in another reality than our own. Why not gods in this reality? Because we were dreamed to be only humans, not gods.

However, we should remind ourselves to remain humble. After all, we may only exist thanks to a five year's old vivid dream in another reality.

7:24AM - Completely useless humor.

Enjoy.

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10:13AM - Game on.

Excellent spaghetti leftovers? Check
Nice, cool apartment? Check
Curtains drawn? Check
Volume up needlessly high? Check
Chilled beverages ready for consumption? Check
Snacks? Check
Chores done? Check
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 in PS3 and installing? Check
Fully charged wireless controller with a fully charged wireless backup? Check
Juggernaut code? Nope, still waiting, but not important.


Time to get my geek on. Let's do this.