Even though this movie may or may not be good (and to be honest, i don’t care i still am going to see it) i think this is an awesome poster for the movie
Via: Term Life Insurance
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And he sucked horribly at updating his blog. And he is sorry. And And And…….. Well I’m not dead, but I am busy. Hopefully though, that will all change As in, I’ll just sit and write and not keep forgetting when I have good things to write about. So Starcraft II Comes out today. I want it, i really do. I want it just because i enjoy playing it. Do I think they did anything major as far as how the game is played? In a way, new units, new rebalancing. It’s still a solid product. So why did I not go get it and am not out playing it? Because I don’t agree with how it is being released. for $60 today I get the game, all the online play, new battle.net (which is pretty awesome) and the Terran Campaign. All that, ok pretty cool. But there will be 2 more expansions, speculated at being again $60 a pop, and one will be the Zerg campaign, and the other will be the Protoss campaign. Now if you would have said 10 or even 15 an expansion, sure, no problem. But a Full on $60 a pop for another chapter???? that’s total CRAP. Needless to say I have ranted on for hours and hours about this, and while I’m still on the fence, and I may still buy it, I won’t be happy about it. Then again, i may just wait for the collection to come out and do it that way. Who knows. Hopefully there is more info soon and a clear outline of prices. Well I gotta say, I just have a hard time Updating, Life takes over and I have alot on my plate. But I’ll try and rectify that (since work has been a little slower). The Wife and i just got back from our Honeymoon. 4 days in London, 6 days in Ireland. What a great time that was. Also, The Wife today had a job interview today. needless to say GOOD LUCK HONEY!!! even though i been saying it all day and i know she will do well, i wanted to say it again. Also, the puppy is doing well, got my backyard landscaping done (well ready for plants and some got plants planted, still need more plants) And unfortunately, that is the bulk of my update. Sorry, but it happens more later especially links to pictures. My lord all, and I apologize, I thought I would be better able to keep up with this Blog then I have been! I guess I’ll just have to set aside a specific time during the week to make at least 1 post to keep people interested Considering all 3 of you that are left reading here would like an update, probably Well life is good for the moment, just workin on the house, going on 6 months of married life and I’m not dead, that’s a bonus in my book All in all, things are just moving along. More later. Sorry this is short, but i thought i had more to write about. Guess not You know, Final Fantasy XIII Came out, and well, to say i’m geeking out is an understatement. I’ll write more later, but for now, all you need to know is i will save the l’Cie Ugh. What a couple of weeks this has been. I seriously missed my Macbook. It wasn’t anything major, i simply has a nut that was built into the lid of the Macbook give way causing the whole thing to bend and creak and not quite shut right. So since I am the geek i am, took the whole macbook apart, went on Ebay, got the lid i needed, and now i am back in business So finally got the lid today and am back in action. It’s amazing how much i hated using a foreign laptop at home. I had a spare one i was using simply because it was here, but it was smaller, ran windows, didn’t;t have anything on it hardly at all because it is just a spare, and while it did the job, every time i opened the damn thing up, i was like “for the love of pete please get me my parts soon damn it” because it was just brutal to use. So now, i am back in action and it is wonderful to be back on my old macbook again Other than that, life is good. Beat (at least one time through, definitely has re-playability) Dante’s Inferno on the PS3. Wow, amazing game. Really is one of the funnest and best games i have played in a very long time of it’s Genre. Currently i’m getting into Heavy Rain for the PS3. Now this game is amazing No, it’s not always the prettiest/slickest game. Yes it has it;s flaws, but the style of gameplay with the flowing actions and reaction, no save points to load from, and every action is reaction/gut based rather then carefully planned out makes it a joy. Main character dies? too bad! move along! you forget an important piece of the game? guess your playing it again!! regardless though, it is a fantastic game and a lot of fun and a very very deep and engaging storyline. I recommend it to anyone looking for something different. Anyways, other then that, life is normal, will report more later, hopefully. Take care internets. Hello all, this is a quick update and a quick call for help. I know most of you are already getting this form me on Facebook, but i need you to re-tweet this article, Digg it, anything you can. Here is the story. Shaun and I have been friends for many years, i have been with him through think and thin and he is like the brother i was separated at birth from. Here’s the long and short of what i am asking. Rob Thomas has a contest going on to help pick the design for his next single. Great marketing and a great setup if you ask me. Shaun, who is very talented, entered a picture for it. Here’s the thing though, we think someone is scripting themselves to win, and maybe they will get caught, maybe they won’t (heck maybe they are just that much more popular, i dunno) But here is some background on Shaun. Besides being a good friend, he is a talented Writer and a talented Graphic Designer. He has actually been shunned form jobs in journalism because he spoke up when others just dropped their heads and followed the pack. Now, in this hectic economy, he is Jobless, going to school to finish his Masters to make him more marketable, trying to make ends meat with his wife, and soon to be born baby girl. He works Sub Teaching Jobs while his wife also works full time to make ends meat. It’s the story of that one friend who can;t seem to catch a break in this world and does need one. So here is my call for help. I want you to take this blog post and retweet it, digg it, put it up everywhere as i have and vote, daily, to help him win. He gets no money form this, but he at least can put it in his portfolio and possibly help to get him a job where he will be able to showcase his talents. So please, internets, please help. Goto this link http://bit.ly/9WNuil to vote. His design is the White on top Black on bottom mirror image cover (currently at this time in second place, thank you facebook). Please vote, pass it along, and lets see if we can help him win. If there is ever a need, this is it. thank you. We are supposed to get between 6 and 10 inches of snow over the next 2 days AND THIS HAS ME SO DAMN EXCITED!!! YAY SNOW!! That is all Ok, I’ll open with this. I love apple products. Their fit and finish is amazing, and i think they have a fantastic lineup. Even the Apple TV and Mac Mini, which many will call a bust, I think are great little machines. But the iPad, well, it falls way way short of expectations. Now, granted, I’m not sure of the target market, but let’s call it your general use/commuter market. Guys on buses and trains, mobile people, that sort of thing. Ok, so let’s look at the good parts. Pricing? 499 for the base model going up to 829 for the full blown mother of all models. Of, not bad, personally, i wish they would have just gone 499, 599, 699 and had 3G and wifi in each (especially since it is not a contract needed, cancel anytime, don’t even have to use the 3G thing) but that’s my gripe. Personally, i think by Christmas or this time next year that will be the pricing model, but I’m just speculating. Next: app store. Ok cool, it grabs my old apps, and sync’s over and blows them up. Cool, fine, i like the idea, good going there apple. Wireless sync though? really? why can’t i sync my stuff from my computer to my iPad wirelessly over my network? why do i still need a wire past initial setup? come on Apple, your better then that. So in that category, i call it a slight fail, they could have knocked it over the fence, but didn’t, and who knows why. Ok, now here is the big one for me, and if you ask me a big fail, Ebook Reader. Sure, they were not DIRECTLY going after the kindle but sure was hoping to knock it down a few pegs. As far as it being a Newspaper/Magazine reader, with it’s size, color, and in-line video application. Good deal! heck, I’d even pay for a subscription to certain things on the device if they were priced low. And i like the fact it is big enough to comfortably read books on, and using ePub as a standard, and even showing what looked like pages rendered with Graphics in them for like kiddy books, ok, that is pretty neat. But pricing? WHAT THE HELL!! So an amazon Kindle book, max i saw in their store was 9.99 for a book. Apple, they didn’t say a max, but it could be whatever. Boo to that. Also, let’s take this example from their own Demo. The book they picked was 14.95. On the amazon Kindle, same book 9.99. same publisher, not in a proprietary format like the kindle, so why can’t the price be the same? color? please!! it’s probably easier to leave the color in then to translate it to the Kindle format!! And here is my idea. HEY APPLE PEOPLE ARE YOU LISTENING!!!! IF YOU ARE AND YOU DO THIS, I WANT A FREE COUPLE OF COMPUTERS FOR THE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS I AM ABOUT TO HAND YOU!!! So let’s use whole numbers to make it easier, Hardcover books cost 20 from the store, for an extra 5 you get a digital copy at a discount (cuz you know they aren’t gunna give it away, the publishers that is) Or without buying the book a straight digital copy is 10 dollars. Now once you have read the book, you can SELL IT BACK on the iBookstore for 7 dollars. Of those 7 dollars, 5 goes back to the seller, a dollar to Apple, and a dollar to the Publisher/Writer (let them figure it out). Now why is this a good idea? publishers and writers are now making money where they were not before from a used book store!! it’s a damn GOLDMINE of new money for these people! Now having the Bookstore setup like that would have made it a MUCH better platform and i might be salivating on when i can get my hands on one. But as it stands now, overpriced books and such, i don’t want it, I’d rather have the Barnes and Noble Nook then this thing (and that’s not even getting into how good or bad the screen might be in a park on a bright sunny day). So now mopving past that my other big gripes are: 30 Dollars for all the iWork apps? sure they are great and i am sure alot of work went into them, but let’s try 15 for the suite, or gimme Pages for free and for $20 i can buy keynote and numbers. That’s a better solution And so with Pages and stuff i can type and make things. SWEET!! what if someone wants a physical copy? can i connect to my Network printers at work? can i connect to my Domain at my job and put it on a network drive? no? WHAT THE HELL!! how do i get ti to people? Keynotes are generally too big for email!! Wait, i might be able to buy more apps for that? to me it sounds like you have hamstrung this device from getting data off it in a timely manner. Sure i can hook it up to a Mac and sync it off and then move it around, but what if that is not an option as a business traveler? As far as this unit goes, from a technology point, and from a proof of concept, it is really really awesome!! but past that, the software package, and the functionality, it loses, badly. It doesn’t do anything in my life that a iPhone and a laptop can’t already do, and to be honest, they can do more, and sure, it’s not as heavy or whatever but do i really care if i still have to carry around a bunch of extra crap to use it? Sorry apple, it’s a great product, but as far as functionality goes, either make it do more, or throw it away, cuz in it’s current setup, while cool, and you will sell them, i really don’t see a need for one, and i won’t be buying it. Sound off though, I’m curious to hear other people’s ideas. Side note: IPAD IS A DUMB NAME!!! i liked iSlate much better. Hell even iCoaster is a better name I think. So it has been a little over 2 months with my Droid. So far, quite impressed by the phone. Now, before i go all Droid happy in this post, i want to clarify some things. I am not 100% happy with this phone, there are things i DO NOT like about it. Also, i am an Apple/Mac guy at heart and i do still covet the iPhone. I refuse to leave Verizon because a: i get excellent service and b: it’s cheaper with my work discount then it would be with AT&T. That all being said, do i feel this phone is better then the iPhone? Some areas yes, some no. So it really will in the end come down to a: how you use your phone, b: our area you do use your phone, and c: your comfort level with a little learning curve. But going forward, i needed this phone to do alot, and to come close to doing everything i did with my iPod touch and also be a good phone to even consider it. And boy does it live up to my expectations Now first off, what do i do with my phone? I’ll tell you. I manage 2 Gmail account, and 4 other email accounts. I also use it as a side business phone and as a GPS unit. I use it to do a little web surfing and a little bit of downtime game play, but i also use it as a tool for doing what i do in my daily work. It does it all, and then some. Some people might say, what apps do you have and what are you missing? with the exception of Fieldrunners and a good Scorched Earth game, the only application i am missing on my new phone is the App i had for mint.com. Otherwise, this thing has been fantastic. First off, i have an exchange account on my phone and i did not have to pay extra for it. If you have more then 1 exchange account you have to pay extra but how many people really have that on their personal phone? As far as multitasking? PERFECT! I don’t know how the commercials you see get away with it, but i have been on the phone with someone using GPS or surfing the web or looking in an application for some data, i mean, it just works, flawlessly thus far. I dunno, i am super happy with the phone. I could go on and on about the phone, and if there are things you want to know about it or have questions, ask and i will answer. But for what it is worth, this is easily the second best phone on the market. Now, i have never “used” and iPhone in my daily life. I have used them before, and i had my iPod touch setup with skype and stuff to sort of act like an iPhone, but to say i used one in my daily life, i haven’t. But for me, the integration of Google Voice is the killer deal breaker. When i can use my personal cell phone for personal or business use, and not have to pay for a second line and get great functionality, i mean, sold. It’s just amazing. If only it was a little nicer on contacts and the information it takes in from it’s functionality I mean, the iPhone may be the best phone on the market, and it very well may beat my Droid, I wish i had a unit i could use daily and compare it on Verizon. But for my money with dependability, and speed (cuz the web on this thing does fly, no doubt about it) this phone edges out the iPhone. Maybe it is because of the network, i dunno, but whatever it is, for now, this phone wins for me, hand down. This is not only going to be a negative post, but a bitching post too So we all know the economy is bad, so allow me to share a bit of a personal story. In fact, a current personal story. Now before we go much farther, yes, these are my problems, yes they are mostly the results of my actions, yes doing things differently would in turn give me a different outcome, and yes, i take full responsibility of everything in my life. Now, i bought my house a couple years ago, and being young in buying a house, and the current downward trend at the time, i got a pretty high rate of interest on my Mortgage. Now while i can afford the mortgage, that s not the problem, with all my other bills, it just makes living tight. Let me throw a little tidbit in there. Now, I’m going to give highly exaggerated (for my case) yet relevant numbers out just as a stable groundwork for this post. Let’s just say i make 80K a year, and bring home 4K a month. Let’s also say i have a 2500/month mortgage. Now so far, this is all very reasonable, and pretty good. I’m making good decisions. Now add in bills, cost of living, etc, alt let’s say that i pay out 3000 of my 4000 a month 1000 saved!! good number……except for problems. While trying to save money, let’s say i have to replace a transmission in mine, and my wife’s car. I also have some windows that leak or are broken i need to repair before winter. I also say, have a baby and have alot of medical bills i have to pay off. That 1K a month is is quickly reduced to say 100 spare a month as i have racked up say 40K in credit card bills and 900 a month is going to pay those credit cards off. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is an overnight thing, this is say, over the course of 2 years. Life happens, you need things, like a roof, car repairs, etc, and these things can happen. Too make that 40K more reasonable let’s say that 5K of that is repairs and 25K of that is financing a car after my repaired vehicle dies. So now you see where a Conundrum can begin to appear. While i had unexpected expenses happen, and also have done my best to keep things in check, life happens and now i’m in a hole. Now I’m playing catchup, if something else major happens, i obviously won’t have the liquid cash, credit cards got me to this point first because banks were not really lending, so trying to stay away from them is a priority, so you can see where this just gets bad. though 900 is being paid out, with increased APR’s, and the fact that the payment is being spread out over say 4 cards, you make very very little headway in that format. And while the classic solution is pay minimums and focus on one car at a time So let’s say your trying to fix this. how do you begin? well, like everyone does!! with a mortgage! trying to refinance though, is wretched. If your not missing payments, there really isn’t any help for you. If your being good, paying all your bills, on time, maybe even a bit extra, you can get no relief. there is NOTHING in place for you. So for being an ass and screwing over banks and other people, there is help for you, but if your doing the best to NOT be one of those people,to NOT become a statistic and a burden, your just stuck sitting there, hanging on, with little choice for change. Why is it this way? why is the guy trying to do right, but just wants a little safety net shunned?? it makes no sense to me! Ok so let’s try another approach, the credit cards!! Hrmm…… We already know traditional methods of focus, while it will work, will take FOREVER and will not work in the aspect of having some spare cash for emergencies. Now there is the whole new fad of “debt consolidation” but that rips your credit score up one side and down the other and really just messes with you long term. This is an extreme action and is really just not a good option at all. Why people do this tactic, i don;t get it, but i am sure there are some justifiable reasons or scenarios for it.So let’s look at this angle then, how can we lower the payments? well the easiest way is to get a better APR RATE! YEAH!! so how can we do this? well with the credit card companies fun new practice of just upping rates, that won;t happen. so what about a loan? well one idea that makes sense, is to take out a loan with a lesser APR, say, from a bank. Say your credit cards APR is 15% or more, and a bank can get you a personal loan for 12% APR. that is a huge savings! So let’s go try that…..wait nope, wrong again. It’s a risk. But you pay all your bills, on time, and your never late. You should be a great candidate right? Nope, because no one will see that you pay on time and more then minimal, all they will see is your Income to Debt ratio, and you get denied. Wow. Shot down again. So is it just me, or does this whole system seem flawed? i mean, how is it that a system will not help those who are doing good by the letter of their agreements?how is it that it does not get setup that way? it just baffles the mind. It appears as if there is no system in place to help the good people, only the ones who screw up. Now mind you, i don’t have a huge mortgage like i talked about, i don’t have 40K in credit card debt, and my situation is not as bad as the one i laid out, it is just as frustrating, and i just needed to let it out at how i find it all so very hopeless in trying to do the right thing, but am fearing i just may become another statistic. Ok so this morning, I woke up just a little extra early to go to the Verizon Store to pick up my fancy new Motorola Droid cellphone. Granted, I am still TOTALLY geeked out about this thing and it is quite amazing. So far the phone is a joy to use. It has a nice heft to it, and a great feel. Everyone wants thinner lighter phones, but I tend to always pat down pockets/jackets looking for mine, so the slight extra weight is GREAT for me, as I have a much easier time finding my phone. Now in a few here I’ll go and just Bullet list things, but there are a few things i wanna focus on: The fit and finish of this phone is amazing! i did not know it is not a spring assisted screen to open the keyboard, and to be honest, i don;t want it to be. The extra little bit of pressure and the non-snapping open feature makes me feel like the phone is tough, and not going to break if i open it. Some people say it may not be easy to open one handed, but then again, i don’t seem to have a problem with it. So i say Kudos to that. The screen is also AMAZING, i was reading text on it all day trying to set this phone up and read random things, and it was so crisp it was amazing. I looked at the same pages on my iPod touch and it was just that much nicer and easier and comfortable to read. Also, the little things like the icons are just a nice touch. The icons not only look nice and clear but they have real nice non-uniform logos. I like the fact that not everything is square and can be moved around. And the little battery icon in the top corner, it doesn’t just show you battery status or charging status, but when you do plug it in to charge, i shows the little battery filling form the point of your current charge, so you know that your half full, or almost gone in case your thinking abotu pulling it off the charger to see how much is actually charged. It’s just a little thing like that that is a nice afterthought to the OS. Also, i love the widgets. Sure you can add icons on the desktop for applications, but some also have little widgets, like for facebook, or FML, or Pandora, giving you a little more control outside of having to open the app to use it. Also, the multiple apps thing. For instance, on the way in to work, i was using the turn by turn GPS, i had the Pandora radio going in the background just for some new music, and i wanted to take a picture of a funny bumper sticker. I was able to do al of those, without one application stopping and without much hassle switching between them. That coupled with the fact that there was virtually no lag between apps was just, well, downright freaking awesome. Now, those are the major things i wanted to point out, now, I’ll get to the fast stuff
Now for the things i am displeased with so far
Well that is all i have so far. more to come in the future i am sure, but that’s my first set of things. overall, this phone is amazing and i give it a solid 8. and to be honest, so far i love it way more then my iPod touch, and quite possibly more then the iPhone, but we shall see. As this OS matures, and i find things out both ways, I’ll keep posting more. Hell i even already have the app to post from my phone if i want Well as of tomorrow, I will be moving another facet of my life forward. My cell phone. Currently, i have a Motorola Razr2 phone on Verizon. The phone, while having some quirks and a shitty outer screen that i seem to crack within a month EVERY TIME IT IS REPLACED, it has been quite a dependable phone. Why then am i changing it? well other then it has been two years with this phone, i have a two word reason Motorola Droid Now I want to preface everything I say from this point forward with this. I want and iPhone, I STILL want an iPhone. As far as the foreseeable future goes, the Droid will not replace my want for an iPhone (but like all things, that could quickly change) HOWEVER I refuse to leave my good Verizon network for the shithole AT&T network, especially since i KNOW it does not work everywhere I go (like my mom and dad’s cottage for example) and I also refuse to have to pay an obscene amount of money for extra minutes because damn near everyone i know is on Verizon. I will not pay more for a half assed network just because they have an awesome phone. Period. That all being said, I have been like a junkie looking for a fix reading up on the Droid and the Android 2.0 software. I have been studying all of it’s capabilities and features, all of the functionality it can do. I have a checklist of things that my phone, especially a smartphone, MUST do, and not just do, but do WELL. So far, with the exception of 2 things that seem kinda flaky, this is the first phone since the iPhone that I can easily say completes that list. Needless to say, this has me excited. So if all goes well tomorrow, perhaps I will even be updating this blog from my new phone. Granted, most likely they will be sold out by the time I get to the store, but if that does happen I will just order it and have the phone shipped to me, and have it early next week. Like I said, I want the phone, but it’s not a life or death thing if I don’t get it tomorrow, as long as I get it soon So far though, from everything I have read about the phone, it will do everything I want and keep me quite happy. There are ways it can be made to Sync with iTunes (which the only major reason for that, at least for me, is podcasts, and I am very happy it will now do that, as it was a question mark on my list). I love the Turn By Turn GPS for free, and I think the car and home dock are great ideas, especially since I will probably use it at the office as my Podcast player, I just leave the dock on my desk, my phone stays charged, and i get my podcasts. Does this replace my iPod touch? yes and no. I will still use my touch I’m sure for alot of things, there are alot of fun cool things i do with my touch that I don’t see my phone doing. However, if it does eventually do everything I do on my touch, yes, it will replace it. So we shall see, after tomorrow (or soon thereafter) I will keep posting things about this new phone, and what it can or cannot do, and hopefully help answer questions for everyone. Oh, and if you do have questions about the phone, post them, i’ll see what I can do to help you answer them WHEW!!!! Ok!! Hello everyone, I’m back, relatively, and the wedding is over and we are married and now MOVING ON!!! For those of you unmarried (uninitiated? unwashed? whatever) it is everything people say it is. Fun, exciting, makes you weak at the knees, beautiful, joyous, a blast, and it goes by so fast that when it’s over it leaves you reeling. Biggest news form the wedding, our wonderful friends all pitched in and bought us a gorgeous red Siberian Husky whose name is Bandit. He really does make the house more fun for both of us (if not a bit more hair pulling at times) and all in all is a great pet. He is getting quite big to be honest, it’s fun to think of how he was just this tiny little hairball who flopped over alot, now he is a much bugger hairball that flops, slides, and nibbles. All in all life is getting back to normal. The bathroom in the basement is damn near done, so close we can taste it. Granted when it is all done we will pretty much immediately be moving on to the next project, however the next projects won’t be nearly as intensive, thankfully. Well i really wish i had more to talk about, but i just don’t right now. Hopefully more soon though. So to speak. I guess it really finally sets in on this whole wedding thing when you have your Bachelor party. It is, in many ways, the last Hurrah. Yes there will be bar nights out with the guys, yes there will still be parties, but somehow now they are different. It’s not about talking to people in the bar so much anymore. Making friends with the cute waitress, seeing if the girls at the bar wanna flirt or just look at you funny, or making asses of yourselves just because you can. It’s different now. Now it’s about seeing friends and bullshitting, just being out of the house for a time, hell it may even be about getting together with couples you don’t get to see as much as you wanted to. It does change the whole perspective on the Bar Night Out mentality, and also flowing off of that, it now seems that the only times you get to “relive” that oldest of memories, is someone else’s bachelor party. It is an interesting thought, and maybe it’s just me delving to much into the social side of it. Regardless, it is how i feel and percieve things,and it also has struck home the idea of being married. It also made me realize how happy i am, and how silly i was. Before we go much further, this is not about regret. I did things, silly or not, but all of that has helped me to become the innovative, introspective person i am today. It has shaped many things in my life, not just my decision making process. Friends have come and gone, but their conversations still resonate within. Names and faces are but a blur, but the emotional or mental impact is still alive and well. All of these things make me who i am today, better or worse, and i would not trade them for anything. So moving along, it makes the wedding seem more real, more finite. It also in many ways hardens my resolve to make it through the tough times, because who wants to go back into the world of the unknown? Which brings me to my final revelation for the day. People have forgotten how to try and work for things. People (and by this i am making a generality, don;t get bitchy) are used to having things handed to them. People are used to having a quick answer or an easy way out. But that is not true with marriage. Marriage is a combining of life, and within the complex nature of that, it is a breeding ground for problems. Some small, some large, but all a factor. What i am talking about though is the mentality of quitting. You guys argue alot? find a common reason why. You don’t like to be int eh same room? well why is that? do you communicate? do you compromise? are you thinking you’re compromising but is your partner? There are so many things people don’t think about when they propose to a person that, in many ways i have. Granted i have had my fair share of troubles with my mate, but we have worked long and hard to get into a better position of understanding with each other to lessen those times. Yes stress is always there, but it’s the openness, and the ability to communicate and work through that is the winner int eh end. Not all couples can do that, and i do understand that. But most who split, can, but just didn’t want to. By doing it they also test themselves up for it to happen again and again. Granted this is not always true, but more often then not it is. They think that the reasons or stressors of the first relationship are the limit, and when they are reached again, they need to leave again. But what are they really learning? what are they really doing to make their relationships better? nothing! So the next time you have a spat, argument, discussion, whatever with your mate, remember these two things. In the end, we came to compromise that made us both happy, and also that now, we are a better stronger couple for it. Here is to putting in work and not being a statistic, here is to going the long distance and not taking the shortcut, and lastly, here is to doing things old fashioned and being proud of the labor and intensity, even if it is not understood by everyone. That my friends is life, and the reality of things, and is all the more reason you need to instill a good work ethic and a no-quit attitude in each new generation, just like it was attempted to be instilled in ours. HaHa!! Take that you fiends!! Oh wait? what am I talking about? My latest little fun obsession online. Evony is one of the bazillion little addictive online games in the world today. If your not sure what it is, I’ll give a brief explanation. Evony is a Real time strategy game. The mechanics of the game follow real world time, so when it says it takes 1 hour to upgrade a building it will take one hour (unless you have items, but we will get to that in a few). You start out as just a guy in a random plot of land. They give you a small town hall and a whole lot of space and in a very omnipotent way say “Go forth! Be a king and rule over this land! And don’t forget to make friends in the process.” Being a browser based game, the mechanics are simple. You get your land, and you get to build in 2 areas, your city, and your town. Your town is your direct structures within your walls. Things like your cottages to house your people, your barracks for training an army, your marketplace for trading resources, etc etc. Then you have your city, which is like the meat and potatoes of your land, literally. Out here you can build Farms for food, Sawmills for wood, Quarry’s for stone, and Ironmines for, you guessed it, iron. All of these give you a set amount per hour, in which you then use them to upgrade your basics resource facilities (like your farm) to higher levels for more per hour resources, or you use them in your town to build and upgrade the buildings and walls within. I began playing about 5 days ago on a whim, and let me tell you, this game is addictive. You get 7 days from when you setup your account wherein you have Beginner Protection, and no one can attack you, but then after that, your out int he wild, like everyone else, fending for yourself and hoping your city can take a beating, because oh yes, it will come. One of the greatest aspects of the game, so far from a beginners standpoint, is their Quest List. What this does is when you create an account, it gives you a list of “Quests” they think you should complete. As you complete the quests you get rewards (usually a nice amount of resources) and the theory is, by the time your done with the quests they have given you, you should be about 7 days into the game and have a good enough starting point that you’re not just going to be swallowed up immediately, although it can happen. What’s a good way for it to not happen? Join an alliance! There are plenty of alliances in Evony, and don;t just join the first one who asks your or the one that spams the small world chat the most, do a bit of research, see if they have a website and some established goals, and go from there. On my server (65) i joined up with a great group of guys and they have been super helpful in the small nuances of the game i am slowly coming to understand. So far this game has a great balance between you as the overall king needing to manage time and resources, but also gives you the ability to send out 5 or 6 or more armies at a time to run around and crush your foes in a smiting manner. The gameplay is very simplistic, but in it’s simplicity is the fact of why it is s o much fun. This is a browser game that even the uninitiated can sink their teeth into and have just as good a chance as anyone else. As always there are little quirks with this game that i personally would wish would change. For instance, it is not unheard of for buildings to take 20 minutes to upgrade. Now while this is a browser game and accessible for anywhere, not everyone has the ability to check in with that level of frequency. What i would like to see is a queuing system. Allow each player to queue their next two buildings up, so they don;t have to constantly check in, and make that queue expandable to say, 5 or 6, with time or research in your academy. In all honesty, that is my biggest gripe about the game, there are small User Interface things that can be annoying or seem like they were put in without much thought, but overall, the game is quite phenomenal. You can tell that the development phase up to this point has really listened to the community for input and ideas and really took them to heart, which can only speak well for the future of this game. All in all, if your bored, and would like something to try, at the price-tag of free, you really can’t beat this game. You will be addicted, i can almost guarantee it, and if you want to fight me, just find me, I’m always up for a little armies at noon showdown So go and join Server 65, look for Garaxiel, and good luck, i think i have a few more buildings to go upgrade now As of this morning, the blog is now more mobile friendly. I can only tell you what it looks like on the iPhone/iPod but it is pretty cool with this nifty plug-in i installed. You can actually go and see everything in a nice convenient layout, easy to read and comment on. Now if you don’t like the layout, you can turn it off on your ipod screen and you will see the website as defaulted by the web browser, but if you want a neat alternative, take a peek of this site on a buddies smartphone and tell me what you think. Personally, the iPod/iPhone layout is sharp in my opinion. and kudos to the developer of the plug-in. Here is the site if you want to look into it more http://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/ First of all, I want to with my mom a happy birthday. She may never read this site, and that is fine by me, because I know if she did I would constantly be asked about it’s name. Ah well, I guess my humor will never quite extend into the realm of what my parents get. But moving on here soon, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM I LOVE YOU Moving along, wedding plans are….well….aggravating. So many little things that require you to run all over god’s creation to finish up. Ugh. But it’s moving along day by day, and we are getting closer and closer. So apart from that, had my cousins in from Italy for the last couple of weeks. It was real nice and i was glad to see them. I enjoy speaking to them in Italian and working on my ability to speak Italian. I am a pretty good basic speaker, and I understand it alot better then I can speak it, but talking to them made me realize exactly how much i still need to learn to be more fluent in it. Ah well, I guess Rosetta Stone and a podcast on Italian are in my future Well I think that is all I have for today, especially since it took me from 10 am til now just to write this. Hopefully I can get more updated later, but there really isn’t much else to write about at the moment. Of course you are, because you all love me Between a small speedup at work, Wedding stuff (also taking up some work time) and trying to work on the basement, i apologize that everything has taken a back seat. So it may be like this till Mid-October, then it should be better. I hope. Ah yes……….wine…..nectar of the gods. Drink of the world. Considered by many to be refined and a good moniker of social status. AND I HAVE FLIPPING GOBS OF IT As of Saturday, with the help of some friends, my father and I bottled not only all of the wedding wine, but all of the wine we made for ourselves The numbers are as follows…. 180 Bottles of Lambrusco (for the wedding). 30 Bottles of Petit Syrah. 28 bottles of Pinot Grigio. 27 bottles of Johanneburg Reisling. .28 bottles of Merlot with Oak Chips (obviously not in the bottle, but added for flavor). 36 bottles of Merlot (no oak). 29 bottles of White Merlot. Oh sweet goodness!! And if i do say so myself, everything turned out FANTASTIC! Everything tastes just nummy, the flavor is a bit sweet but still very nice. Some of the wines are maybe a bit stronger then i anticipated, but I’m not sure that is a bad thing So after an entire day of bottling wine, we also went yesterday to watch some local fireworks with friends. That was a real nice show and very glad i got to see some people wandering around the park. Well it’s now Monday, a work day, but i wanted to let everyone know the Wine status And now I go back to work, but dream for Wine this evening |
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