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Thursday, December 10th, 2009
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1:08 am
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Explosions in the Sky is from Austin, Texas! Man, I can't wait to move there. If I get to see them play live again, I will... not sure how to finish this sentence. Pretend it's epic. They say they're not touring, but whatever, I'll break into their houses if I have to.
I still don't know what game I'm going to be working on. The lead programmer told me "it's a series you have definitely heard of, and if you don't think it's the coolest thing ever, I'm revoking your nerd card." The suspense is delicious.
LESS THAN A MONTH!
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, October 30th, 2009
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5:34 pm - The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity
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http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2009/08/bait-and-switch-of-contemporary.html
The trouble with contemporary Christianity is that a massive bait and switch is going on. "Christianity" has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed "spiritual" substitute. For example, rather than being a decent human being the following is a list of some commonly acceptable substitutes:
Going to church
Worship
Praying
Spiritual disciplines (e.g., fasting)
Bible study
Voting Republican
Going on spiritual retreats
Reading religious books
Arguing with evolutionists
Sending your child to a Christian school or providing education at home
Using religious language
Avoiding R-rated movies
Not reading Harry Potter.
The point is that one can fill a life full of spiritual activities without ever, actually, trying to become a more decent human being. Much of this activity can actually distract one from becoming a more decent human being. In fact, some of these activities make you worse, interpersonally speaking. Many churches are jerk factories.
If this article brightens your day at all, don't read the comments section. Apparently there are plenty of people who genuinely and vocally think that praying and voting Republican are more important than generosity and respect.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, October 24th, 2009
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12:41 am
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Just had a weird flashback. I'm in a weird local grocery store. They have bizarre organic cheese and Orangina. It is 2004 or 2005. My girlfriend is with me, but I don't remember which one. I am confused.
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
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5:27 pm
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| Saturday, October 10th, 2009
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5:44 pm
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I take back every critical word I said about Persona 3. I just finished it after sinking 80 hours into it, and it is INCREDIBLE. Totally on par with the previous Persona games. The beginning was a little awkward, but they turned it around quickly. Atlus, I owe you mad hugs.
current music: The New Pornographers - Execution Day
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, October 1st, 2009
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6:37 pm
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| Monday, September 28th, 2009
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12:37 am
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I hope Persona 3 gets better. I've played three game-months into it, and it seems like Atlus has tried to make it as difficult as possible for me to enjoy the game.
Let me back up for a second and say I was a huge fan of both installments of Persona 2. In 2001, I spent 60 hours on the untranslated Japanese version of Persona 2: Innocent Sin with only basic knowledge of kanji. Much of that time was spent flipping through a dictionary and counting the number of strokes in each symbol, and plugging them into Jim Breen's WWWJDIC to get an extremely rough idea of the plot. Persona 2 Innocent Sin and Persona 2 Eternal Punishment are truly masterpieces of the video game medium.
With Persona 3, they've ripped out much of the fun of the RPG format in an attempt to be innovative. The typical RPG formula is "Story scene, exploration, fight, story scene, boss fight, move on to a new area." Persona 3 has decided to use a small world, but fill it with diverse interactions with characters. Persona 3's world is contained in a small area consisting of a high school, a shopping mall, and a dormitory. At night, you have the option of exploring a tower with randomly generated floors. This means (and I could be wrong, I've only scratched the surface of the game) that for the entire game you're looking at the same scenery and listening to the same music - 15 hours in, I'm ready to kill whoever wrote the dorm music with the lyrics from DDR's "Think ya Better D". Most of the non-combat portions of the game involve you developing social links with other characters and doing menial tasks like studying and practicing Kendo. I get no sense of progression from staring at the same dorm room and hallway every single day. Sure, I know I've leveled up and gotten to a higher floor in Tartarus, but I sleep in the same bed every night. Not only that, but the plot moves at a snail's pace. Most days in-game are the same thing: wake up, go to school, choose an after-school activity to develop social links, and either explore Tartarus or go to bed. No reliable plot progression. And I rarely have control of my character. It has a bad case of telling me what I want to do, like "You decided to go back to the dorm after hanging out with Kenji" - um, excuse me, I didn't decide anything.
The battle system is imperfect at best. You can only control your main character, and you can only issue vague behavioral commands to the rest of your group. Of course, the AI is nothing short of idiotic. Instead of delivering the final blow on a weakened boss, they'll often try to heal themselves or cast support spells. Instead of knocking down every enemy and going for an All-Out Attack, they'll cast the same spell on the same monster twice in a row, which lets the monster stand back up. Additionally, the main character is the only character that can change his Persona, everyone else uses the same one they started with. Yukari's persona is always going to be weak against electricity, so too fucking bad if every single enemy you meet in Tartarus chains Mazio back to back.
One thing WoW has taught me is that RNG gibs are NOT fun - that being random events of bad luck that completely shred you, with no amount of skill that could possibly overcome it. Yet these are plentiful in Persona 3. I just spent two hours on the third full moon phase only to reach the second boss fight and get completely fisted by my main character getting charmed, followed by my idiot teammates deciding that it would be a better idea to boost my defense than to use an item that REMOVES THE STATUS AILMENT THAT CAUSES ME TO RUN AROUND STABBING EVERYONE IN THE FACE. And to top it off, if the main character goes unconscious, that's it. Game over, brosquito. This is the first game I've ever played where this is the case. Apparently my teammates don't know how to reach into my satchel and use one of the Revival Beads. Some of the most epic battle moments in RPGs have come from my entire party being dead except for one guy with low health pulling off an incredible maneuver that kills the boss. Not so in Persona 3. I can have a party full of people at full HP, but if the main character takes an unlucky critical hit, they pack up and go home.
Don't get me wrong, the game's not bad so far. The atmosphere is awesome and the characters are likable. Summoning your persona by shooting yourself in the fucking head is an artistic masterstroke. I just don't see why they had to try to fix crucial gameplay elements that weren't broken in the first place.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, September 21st, 2009
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10:14 am
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I'm both a supporter of Western medicine and a huge fan of Jenny McCarthy/Suzanne Somers' public medical forays. Each time they vomit stupidity on a daytime talk show, the mortality rate among people stupid enough to lap up the vomit and digest it increases just a little. After all, it has been peer-reviewed by the editors of the renowned medical journal of Oprah Magazine.
With a little luck, the fruits of their foul loins will die during their underwater home-birthing, or at least be rendered incapable of reproduction from the polio they weren't vaccinated against.
The kid that wanted to treat his lymphoma with the spice rack at Food Lion should've been encouraged. Everyone wins in this scenario. I know, many people call me an unrealistic optimist, but I'm just the type that sees the glass as half full.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, August 17th, 2009
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9:58 pm - Realm First! Death's Demise
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Alone in the Darkness (25man): Yogg-Saron with 0 watchers assisting.
This means we finished 14th Horde (US), 34th US, 79th worldwide. We also beat some famous guilds like Elitist Jerks, Drama, and Avant Garde.
Extremely awesome fight. Hella taxing on everyone involved, with almost zero room for error, and hundreds of things that can go wrong.
And I got the most baller title out of the deal: Kristoph, Death's Demise.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Firetree&n=Kristoph
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(14 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, August 15th, 2009
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11:01 pm
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Now that the show is over, and we have jointly exercised our constitutional rights, we would like to leave you with one very important thought. Sometime in the future, you may have the opportunity to serve as a juror in a censorship case, or a so-called obscenity case. It would be wise to remember that the same people who would stop you from listening to Boards of Canada may be back next year to complain about a book, or even a TV program. If you can be told what you can see or read, it follows that you can be told what to say or think. Defend your constitutionally protected rights. No one will else do it for you. Thank you.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Thursday, July 30th, 2009
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7:55 pm
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To qualify for the "cash for clunkers" program and get a $3500-$4500 rebate, you must have traded in your car and bought a new one on or after July 1.
I traded in my Ford Explorer and bought my 2009 Accord on June 26.
FML.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Monday, June 1st, 2009
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12:25 am
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| Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
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8:44 pm
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| Monday, May 25th, 2009
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12:52 am
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| Friday, April 24th, 2009
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12:32 am
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Whassup fags,
Me and my girl Maria are gettin married this Sunday, I'm gonna surprise her on the honeymoon with this sweet tat I just got. It's her name in Chinese.
What do you think?
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(18 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, April 12th, 2009
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12:00 pm
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Nerd points GET
Highlights of last night on WoW:
-Naxx10 in 1 hour, 30 minutes
-Loatheb with no spores killed faster than most guilds kill it normally
-Gluth dead before Decimate
-Thaddius down in 1 minute 46 seconds
-Noth and Heigan both dead before their teleports
-Pulling 26 abominations on Kel'thuzad
-Healer disconnecting on Kel'thuzad forcing the other healer to solo heal it, surviving 3 frost tombs
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, March 30th, 2009
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6:58 pm
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Stuff White People Like
This blog is excruciatingly painful for me to read. It must be similar to the feeling a black person has upon witnessing another black person buying chicken and malt liquor with food stamps. Whoever wrote this blog has white people's fucking number.
Multilingual children - "All white people want their children to speak another language. There are no exceptions. They dream about the children drifting in between French and English sentences as they bustle about the kitchen while they read the New York Times and listen to Jazz."
Being offended - "Naturally, white people do not get offended by statements directed at white people. In fact, they don’t even have a problem making offensive statements about other white people (ask a white person about “flyover states”). As a rule, white people strongly prefer to get offended on behalf of other people."
Knowing what's best for poor people - "It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things."
Graduate School - "Being in graduate school satisfies many white requirements for happiness. They can believe they are helping the world, complain that the government/university doesn’t support them enough, claim they are poor, feel as though are getting smarter, act superior to other people, enjoy perpetual three day weekends, and sleep in every day of the week!"
Awareness - "An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.” Meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, and then magically someone else like the government will fix it. This belief allows them to feel that sweet self-satisfaction without actually having to solve anything or face any difficult challenges."
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, March 29th, 2009
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11:47 pm
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I checked Neko Case's Myspace on a whim, and she's playing a show in Birmingham on Saturday!
Oh man, Neko Case. She has three qualities I admire in a musician that rarely present themselves all at once - she's extraordinarily talented, fiercely independent, and completely unpretentious. Generally I fit those three traits into the same schema of a service being fast, high-quality, and inexpensive, where you can only pick two. Not the case with Neko. She's a classy person.
Not only that, but Mogwai is playing at the same venue two weeks later! I don't think I'd be able to live with myself had I missed these shows.
Wonderful things are happening to me. Still have the same old job, and it's not so bad, but I'm actively trying to keep from falling into the trap of getting so comfortable that I stop taking chances. As I sat outside today with a cold beer, I realized that for the first time in my life, my list of goals is basically empty. The carrot on the stick that has motivated me throughout my life was the idea of being a video game programmer, and I've actually accomplished that goal. So, what now? The only improvement I can make is to make more and more money. What were the other goals I had as a child? Be a surgeon, write for Saturday Night Live, be a rock star... certainly they'd be cool, but there's tens of thousands of other people who want it more than me, and at the end of the day, idle boredom isn't the reason to pursue a goal like that.
I turned 24 a few days ago. Things keep changing, bit by bit, and I'm trying not to get lost in the flow of time like I have before.
current music: The New Pornographers - Sing Me Spanish Techno
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
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11:26 pm
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I fuckin hate Twitter, man. No one even bothers to write real, thorough LJ entries anymore, it's just an automatic feed of tiny, vapid chunks of random thoughts.
Maybe I should've Twittered this post.
This isn't directed at anyone in particular - I'm pretty sure 143 of my 144 friends are just using LJ as a Twitter dump now.
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(19 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, March 14th, 2009
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1:31 pm - HAHAHAHA OH GOD
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