Our contract here has basically expired and not been renewed. We did get it extended for another 2 months, but that'll be the end.
I have nothing at all to do. MAYBE 2 hours of work a week.
We aren't going to do build 26 and we just finished build 25 so there's no dev work.
If I read another Oracle book, I'll gouge out my own eyes.
And maybe someone else's too.

On the plus side, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is fantastic!
hmmm...
we DO have a nice big LCD TV here...

One of the problems with giving notice at a job, for me at least, is that
I almost instantly become completely divested of any personal stake in the position.
In other words, I immediately stop caring and really don't feel like showing up.
Of course, in this situation, I NEED to be here until 12/31 so I don't miss out on my big old bonus.

What can ya do?

(yes, it IS a problem of luxury)

I'm not sure I can say how amaznig mass effect is. The best way is through an email conversation I've had over the past couple days:

ME:
OK, so, I got completely sucked into Mass Effect (to the point of almost forgetting about Rock Band).
First, the writing is amazing. The dialog is better than any I've ever heard before in a video game.
Second, to back up the first, the voice acting is top notch.
The plot and graphics (for the most part) rock, and the pacing is pretty good.
This really is the next step forward from KOTOR.
However,
I don't know if I was just doing something wrong with my team, went someplace too early, or just have to learn more, but the game is HARD.
The last planet I was on took hours. I had to fight for every single inch, struggle to get through every encounter.
While this was very frustrating, its also very satisfying.

A couple of items...the moon-rover vehicle is no fun to drive.
There are a couple bugs here and there, like your character just getting stuck behind a bar, or, as recently happened, in a wall.
But these are small prices to pay for what may be the best RPG out there.

I ache.

Tomorrow, I drum.


MK:
I second that: i've played (it tells me) for 13 hours this weekend,
and i'm not even remotely tired of it. The vehicle is indeed a piece
of shit to drive, but everything else is pretty damned sweet, but i
figured out yesterday how to handle it in a fight much better than
before.

honestly, i could have doubdled the time spent in game if i read
everything in the codex that i gathered, but frankly, i don't think i
can: but the fact that they built a incredibly deep universe is
awesome.

favorite bug: walking across a bridge in the Citadel, and just getting
stuck right in the middle of it. couldn't go forward, or backward,
until i crouched. and then the invisible wall was gone.

S:
Someday I will get to play.

*sigh*

Until then I will continue assassinating people.


ME:
btw
1. While I hate the moon buggy, I will say that it moves like you'd expect a moon buggy to move, and its almost indestructable due to terrain. I think I drove off a mountain top, fell for almost 10 seconds, and only hurt my front right wheel. Assuming the wheel wasn't already damaged.

2. The elevator sequences are pretty long. But I love the small talk the companions make:
A(big alien, deep voice): So, your people created the Geth, the greatest threat to the universe ever. Do you talk about that?
B (female): No. We find it to be very unpleasant conversation. Your people were steralized by the Taurians. Do you ever talk about that?
A: all the time.

As fun as the side quests have been, I finally took my first real step in the main storyline (after becoming a spectre).
And its even more fun than the side-quests.
Also, turning your squad-mates from 'use skills/talents for defense only' to 'use talents for all purposes (or w2hatever)' makes for MUCH more fun. Nothing like seeing a giant dog-beast suddenly fly into the air and get smashed to the ground


MK:
super concur about changing the AI control settings. sure, it takes
some of the finer control out of the game (no, don't make that guy fly
in ther air, dammit!), but it also allows me to not go insane issuing
command after command - pausing to do such a thing really takes some
of the flow out of the game. more importantly, it actually allows me
time to use the sniper rifle without going insane zooming in and out.

i do kinda wish, however, that the game didn't keep track of how long
i've been playing. over the course of a 4 day weekend, i apparently
logged 24 hours of game time. this is an unheatlhy ratio, but
stunningly, all i want to do is play more. it's been a *long* time
since i wanted to do that - not even KOTOR did that for me (though, of
course, now i want to re-play that).

ME:
I'm a bit disappointed in the sniper rifle, the 'zoom' doesn't appear to be any different than anything else. Or am I missing something?
I am, however, VERY happy with my squad using the rifle. a couple of them become absolutely devastating with it.
Of course, having done more than a few side missions first, I may just be over-powered at this point.

I'm rapidly filling up all the skill-slots though (at least for Sheppard), so I'm curious as to what will happen when I have no more places to put skill points.

I agree with the desire to simply keep playing and playing and playing.
This is to RPGs what God Of War was to action/hackslash games.
If someone would feed and diaper me, I'm pretty sure I could play 24 hours straight.

BTW, Saren and Captain Anderson were the main characters in the Mass Effect novel.


MK:
24 hours in, i still have plenty of skill slots to go; not sure you
have to worry about that.

The sniper rifle zoom is definitely different than the zoom on the
other weapons. i don't know what you're doing to not get it - you get
the typical "black circle + fine crosshairs" zoom that you'd expect,
and it's a *big* zoom. saved my life more than once by being *far*
away and just pegging people from the top of a mountain. One shot
kills are nothing to sneeze at.

ME:
ahhhh...I wonder if its because my character doesn't have any skills in it. That would make ALOT of sense. Dragsville, daddy-o, I'm always a fan of sniper rifles. Mostly I use a pistol (which, surprisingly, does a ton of damage...).


I'm probably 75% or more through my skillslots. Of course, I might be mentally editting all this and forgetting the skills I'm not bothering with so who knows.


S:
He spent most of the weekend (up until about 8pm last night) doing side quests. So his chars may be a bit more leveled than yours.


He's finally learning to play right ;).

Democracy means hauling your opponents in for questioning.
Apparently, it also means dismantling and branch of government that disagrees with you, and, of course, sending the armed forces in to deal with your constituents who might be unhappy with your behavior.

So Says GW Bush, The Lord Our God
President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly is somebody who believes in democracy."

I honestly do feel badly for her family. THis was a horrible event made more horrible by the media and congress and all the other people who basically fed off of the misery.
Recently, Ms. Schiavo's family have taken issue with the MSM's use of the term 'brain dead' to describe Terry's condition when she died.
They may, in fact, be technically right.
But I feel like there are people out there who continue to pour salt in the wound, as it were.
People who encourage them to put up lists like this. This is a list of affidavits by physicians who claim that Terry was not in a persistent vegetative state.
I didn't look through all the affidavits, of course, but I did go through half a dozen and each affidavit states that the author did NOT ever examine Ms. Schiavo.
This was an unfortunate, sad event and people out there with their own agendas are making sure that this family never ever moves past their loss.
They want Terry's family to always be in pain and to never ever do anything else with their lives.

Democrat admits: S-CHIP is the universal health care Trojan Horse
Now, I know that Ms. Malkin is not your typical conservative.
I know that she's really just Ann Coulter without the balls.
But the logic behind their hatred for S-CHIP is just crazy-hate-filled.
It tends to break down into two parts:
1. We shouldn't have to help people who made bad decisions and so now can't afford health care. We
shouldn't reward bad behavior.
Well, forgetting how amazingly arrogant that statement is, and how it can really only be
made by people who are absolutely, stupidly, confident that they will never need ANYTHING EVER,
it truly misses the point.
The fact is that S-CHIP isn't about rewarding people for mistakes. Its about helping kids who haven't
done anything wrong. The same logic could be used to say that kids don't deserve educations if
their parents are poor.

2. People with plenty of money will get on the S-CHIP program.
Now thats just utter bullshit. Who who who wants to deal with ANYTHING the government runs?
It is simply a pain in the ass. Might some people be so cheap? Sure. Just like there
really are a couple people who 'live well' on welfare by having more and more kids.
1 in a million kind of stuff.

And, of course, this is the basis for their hatred of Universal Health care (that and their
hatred for Ms. Clinton which goes beyond all sanity...)

Recently, the topic came up at the state level here in Maryland. They had a clip of a rally
in my county.
State Senator: Do you pay for your own health insurance?
Mindless Mob: YES!!!
State Senator: Do you want to pay for someone else's?
Mindless Mob: NO!!!

Amazing.
I make good money.
I mean, seriously.
I have a good job in a good field.
Am I sure I'll never be unemployed?
Am I sure I'll always have health care?
No.
Only an idiot assumes that things being good today means they'll always be good.
Look at the airlines, look at farmers, look at the auto industry.
But hey, if things are good for ME now, fuck'em all.

*sigh*
This angers me to no end.
And confuses me.
The more money I make, the more happy I am to pay my taxes.
Yet it seems that the more some people make, the more hatefilled and self-centered they become.
Its almost as if money drains compassion and IQ.

Lets see...
First off, I'm totally married! AIEEE!!!
The wedding went really well, though due to noise and my bad ear, I couldn't actually enjoy the reception. What I did get to enjoy was the week before and week after while we were living in this massive house right on the beach along the Outer Banks in NC. And we had lots of friends staying with us the whole time, people I never get to see anymore.
So that was great.
I've also learned that what people call BBQ in New England is really just grilling and that real bbq is amazing

What else...
I'm currently hating my job (pure boredom) and I've been made an offer to work at APG again but the contract is currently up for rebid/rfp/rfq and keeps getting put off. They'd let me start tomorrow, but can't guarantee me work much past the end date of the contract (if they don't get renewed).
Risking my house, car, cats, etc. on that seems unwise.
So here I sit and wait.

On the plus side, Rock Band and Mass Effect will be here tomorrow, I think!

w00t!!

hi!

what the fuck.
I'm on page 11 and she's just been raped by 4 people.
Look, I'm not a fan of Ms Dworkin (while some of her words may have been taken out of context, the woman was deeply angry and closed minded), nor do I think that porn is some sort of sickness, nor am I opposed to violence in porn.
But jeez...
Of course these women submit and surrender.
If I wanted to turn an average woman into an obediant slave or whatever, thats exactly how I'd start.
I'd isolate them, do horrible, violent things to them (like rape, say...), create a system of rewards and punishments, with both being random at times, and then create a person that she could turn to and trust.
Of course, I'm not the first person to come up with this sort of idea...its just that, usually, its seen as unspeakable evil.


Using rape as a metaphor for dominance and submission in sex isn't clever (at least not anymore). Its just sad.

So, I'm reading The Claiming Of Sleeping Beauty.
And yeah...it is, in fact, an exploration of power, control, submission, etc.
And I am not one to shy away from taboo subjects, but am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that the entire story is based on rape?
While you might be able to argue that as things go forward, Beauty willingly submits and surrenders, that wouldn't have ever happened if the Prince hadn't raped her on page 2.
Further, surrender and submission only have meaning if they are given freely.
Beauty's surrender is forced and coerced. Saying that she gave control to The Prince willingly is like saying that a criminal in prison has willingly given up his freedom.

Some of my issues here may be due to my personal feelings about Ms. Rice (in that I find her pompous, arrogant, and self-indulgent...all good qualities for her new lifestyle), and probably aggrevated by the fact that I've heard how amazing this book is, but nothing about the rape.

but still...I can't be alone in thinking that this is actually a worst case scenario for a D/s relationship.
(oh, and yes, I do understand that this is a 'fairy tale' and not meant to be taken as anything other than a good story...but isn't it a little...I dunno...distasteful? Like, say, having sex with children?

Muslim Kids Hate Pigs, School

A school in Amsterdam will no longer be teaching students about farm living, after Muslim pupils began trashing the classroom when the subject of pigs came up

its pretty rare that I agree with anything the hate-mongering-muslim-fearing LGF says, BUT...
this is nuts.
It seems to me that these kids have learned that, if something offends their (apparently) delicate sensibilities, violence is the immediate answer.
Of course, this doesn't strike me as markedly different than some of the responses to being taught evolution so...
(for the record, Jews have been anti-porcine for much longer...)