NONOBADBLOG!

NONONEWBLOG! I'll keep the old one up for a bit, ...

2007-02-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

NONONEWBLOG!

I'll keep the old one up for a bit, just in case the new one craps out on me, but it won't be updated unless something goes horribly wrong.

The IPCC Report is out today (well the first part....

2007-02-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

The IPCC Report is out today (well the first part.) I only read the summary, that was bad enough, but basically it says humans suck. I found it to be less biased than I had expected, but while they make numerous mentions of humans spewing CO₂ into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, and humans spewing methane into the atmosphere by farming, I saw no mention of humans spewing CO₂ into the atmosphere by merely breathing hmmm ... you'd think with 6.5 billion of us panting all day and night, that'd contribute something but I guess not. I also saw no mention of data showing global warming on other planets in our solar system, but I guess I shouldn't expect that, since this report is about Earth's global warming.

They also mention this is the warmest period in Earth's history since about 125,000 years ago, but fail to mention what could have caused that previous warming, since, so far as I know, humans weren't around back then. Maybe it was those pesky dinosaurs, burning fossil fuels to run their Dino-Mobiles, and polluting the air with their flatulence. Yeah, that musta been it.

I also saw no mention of undersea erupting volcanoes in the antarctic as being a possible cause of ocean warming, but lots of mentions of melting ice raising ocean sea levels, mostly due to expansion from higher global temperatures, rather than actual melt. Which is good, because anyone who's ever put ice cubes in a glass of water, knows that the melting ice doesn't contribute significantly to the level of water in the glass. Of course, Al Gore might disagree with that.

I was pleased, however, that they did mention that a "significant fraction" of global warming was "very likely" attributable to natural phenomenon such as volcanic activity and ::gasp:: sunspots. I also found it interesting that "anthropogenic forcing" was only a "likely" cause of warming. Too bad that statement that global warming is caused more by nature than humans was one single sentence near the bottom of a 21 page report. Oh well, at least the report isn't biased.

Now, the question is, what do we do about it? I guess we'll have to wait for the other report for that. But my suggestion is simple: Plant a tree, plant a human. Just kidding! Although I have heard of companies selling "carbon credits" to companies that like to pollute. Unfortunately the "buy price" for those credits is something like $4/acre of trees. The sad thing though is that it is "very likely" that the majority of Earth's population will neither know nor care about this report's findings, and will continue to drive their SUVs, buy products manufactured in countries with no pollution controls, and continue to eat meat and manufactured foods. Global warming may be here, but unless and until it affects people directly people won't change. We're better off just learning to swim and do without our clothes. Adapt or die. Like the dinosaurs.

I'm a bit tired of politicians being the "deciders...

2007-01-31T10:10:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit tired of politicians being the "deciders." I'll just skip the whole Bush thing, but here in Los Angeles, they're tryin' to pass laws to outlaw trans fats in restaurants so we won't have to eat all that icky, unhealthy fat. There are a couple problems with this. One, is that if they ban trans fats, restaurants will likely go back to using cheap and tasty saturated fats ... which were targeted (but not banned) years ago for the exact same reasons they're going after trans fats now. And in some cases it could be argued that saturated fats are even worse than trans fats. Why don't the politicians want to ban those too? Heck, why not ban all all fats, since all fats are fattening and America is becoming obese at alarming rates! Why not ban all junk food too! And soda! Because I'd be willing to bet those are the main reasons people are so fat now! Why don't they make it a law that all parents should cook healthy, low fat, low salt, organic-only foods at home for their families! That might help! The thing that's really so stupid though about all this is that even if you ban trans fats in restaurants, people will still eat them. Just take a look at the convenience foods in the grocery store. Heck, take a look at 90% of the "food" in the grocery store, almost all of it, even the "healthy" stuff is full of junk like trans fats (as well as other crap we shouldn't eat.) The bottom line is people like to eat this stuff cuz it's cheap and it tastes good, and it's ready to eat outta the box (might need to zap it in the micro a bit, but it beats "cooking a meal.")

Why don't the politicians spend their time and money fixing some of the real problems in this country instead of worrying about what people eat. If they insist on fixing the food problem, then go after the parents who feed their kids bad food. Educate them (there's a great PSA they run here in CA that has little kids saying things like "Can I have some more diabetes." It's great. A subtle dig that yes you, bad parent, are the primary cause of your child's obesity and other health problems.) And let the adults make their own decisions, if they die young, that's one less Social Security check that'll have to go out in a few decades.

Now it might just be they're doing this in preparation of the health care for every Californian/American/person on the entire planet they're tryin' to do, and to keep the system from going bankrupt before it stops, they gotta get people healthy or it'll just cost way too damn much (especially since even Medicare covers gastric bypass now.) 'Course if they'd focus more on problems like illegal immigration and stuff like that, they might actually have enough money left over after eliminating all the perks to illegals, to provide health care for everyone, even the fat, unhealthy trans-fat eaters. But they couldn't do THAT because that would be "wrong" and would cut into their chances of being re-elected by all those illegal alien voters. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot, illegal aliens don't vote because it's ILLEGAL. ::snork::

Oh, and speaking of voting, why the hell is there a voter registration form inside the California tax form booklet? I thought it was bad enough making it easy for illegals to register to vote when they go get a Driver's License (which they also never do because it's ILLEGAL, right? ::double snork::) So if they missed their chance at the DMV, now they get another chance when they're applying for the tax refund from all that work they did last year. Oh wait, I forgot, illegal aliens don't apply for tax refunds, how could they? They can't even work, it's ILLEGAL. ::triple snork:: And the ones who actually owe taxes would never file them because, well then someone might find out they're here illegally and we can't have THAT happen can we? What with all this "racist" deportation and "ethnic cleansing" of enforcing our immigration laws recently. I can't wait for their next protest, held, of course, on Mexican Independence Day. The last one was great, no traffic, people who actually spoke OUR language (that's English for those who don't remember California is still part of the USA) at fast food places, uncrowded Emergency Rooms, and a general feeling of nostalgia for the way things were before Los Angeles became a third-world ghetto.

Now, I don't have a problem with immigrants who come here legally, and assimilate (learn the language for one) and contribute to society as a whole. But the whole "oh I'm only trying to make a better life" bullcrap is just getting on my nerves, if you're really trying to make a better life, why don't you learn English for starters? Why don't you follow the law and not steal other people's IDs, stop dealing drugs, stop robbing stores, stop committing fraud, and stop doing all the other illegal things many illegal aliens do to "support their family." Oh, and don't drive broken-down, unregistered, uninsured, unsafe cars. Oh wait, I forgot, illegal aliens don't drive. ::snork snork:: You don't need a car, since you don't have a job, cuz having one would mean you're breaking the law and that would be ILLEGAL.

And if you want to protest, do it on America's Independence Day, not your native country's. And don't talk about "rights" you think you deserve, because quite frankly, if you are here illegally, you are a criminal and you have no rights to jobs, or good pay or any of the other so called "rights" you believe you have. Even American citizens don't have a right to a job or good pay. If you are here illegally, be grateful you haven't been deported yet. Don't whine when if you are, don't complain if you're sent back and your family is broken up, that's your fault because YOU made the choice to come here illegally. If the situation was reversed, and millions of Americans immigrated illegally to Mexico, do you really think the Mexican citizens would be cool with that? Do you really think the Mexican government would open the border and let them in, become a burden on society, clog the roads, the schools, the hospitals? No of course not, so don't do it to the USA. Follow the rules, take responsibility for your own situation, be grateful for what you have, and shut the hell up about your imaginary "rights", it only hurts your position politically ... remember, American citizens CAN vote, and the more whining we see/hear the less likely we are to be sympathetic to your cause, when you think you are entitled to "rights" we as Americans don't even have.

In other news, my cat went to the vet the other day for her annual shots ... and didn't poo for 3 days. I did the vaccine clinic thing cuz everything is half-price and they don't charge an office visit fee, and the poo test was 1/2 price too so I went ahead and paid for it. But the cat musta known cuz she held that poo! (Actually, she did poo Saturday night but vet is closed on Sunday so that's no good, poo must be fresh.) Anyway, she finally went yesterday morning. Yay!

Lemme see, what else, oh, WOW Burning Crusade came out last week, I still haven't bought it though cuz I'm a bit short on "gaming funds" due to my spending my whole year's budget last Xmas. Well, not quite, but I gotta go a few months without, but that's OK cuz I have plenty of games to play, a couple of which I can't talk about. I'm also renting a few games from Gamefly but that's gonna be cancelled in a couple weeks. I'm currently playing the new Phoenix Wright game, I like it better than the first one, more twisty, a bit harder, but still the same "fun" as the other one was.

OK I think that's enough blathering for now.

I did a bit of updating my sidebar, I removed GoPe...

2007-01-24T10:39:00.000-08:00

I did a bit of updating my sidebar, I removed GoPets because, well, it sucks now. They redid their UI for the game and made it ugly, buggy and a pain the *** to use, so I can't with good conscience recommend it anymore ... at least not until they fix it.

But to make up for that I've added a couple other links, to potential 2008 presidential candidates. Only two of 'em are "worthy" of referral at this time though, and just cuz their sites are linked from my blog should not be taken as support of either candidate (especially since they're pretty much diametrically opposed hehe) but cuz I think they will be fun to watch. As I "get to know" other candidates I'll put links for them up there too if I think they have something to say worth paying attention to.

In other political news, the president had his little Festival of Delusional Thinking last night ... oh sorry, I mean the "State of the Union" speech. Everything, of course, is just peachy with the USA, as it has been under every president in the history of the country ... wars, poverty, racism, unemployment, environmental disaster, taxes ... no problems here!

Bush really didn't say anything new for the most part, more war talk, more amnesty, sorry "Guest Worker" talk, something about the economy being good, then his super duper surprise announcement that he's gonna start taxing healthcare benefits provided by our employers (well those of us who HAVE employers who pay for healthcare.) Oh sorry, I musta gone delusional there on that tax thing. I meant to say "tax deduction." Yeah. I do have to say it was quite amusing seeing Hillary Clinton's face go white when Bush mentioned healthcare. Priceless! Her whole presidential campaign is based on healthcare I think.

Anyway, it was more of the same old stuff. Oh, but I do have to say that Senator John McCain was stunning in his pimp suit. What a rebel, no white shirt, dark suit, red tie for him! Disco gold tie baby! Rebel blue shirt! Yes! Get that face time!

Welp, Nintendo can finally stop makin' Wiis cuz th...

2007-01-21T09:09:00.000-08:00

Welp, Nintendo can finally stop makin' Wiis cuz the last of my pals finally got one this morning, after finally taking my advice and waiting in line in the wee erm wii hours of the morning. I'd been tellin' 'em, wait in line, wait in line, wait in line, the Wii gods know whether you've paid homage by waiting in line, and those who doth not partake of suffering, shall not receiveth the glory of the glowy blue light o'love. Anyway, they finally got one yay!

I do wonder though, why so many people are still selling them on ebay ... is it really still profitable? Are there that many faithless people still out there? Or is it all just artificial hype? Or maybe all those people who mistakenly bought a PS3 realized the error of their ways and converted. Who knows. All I can say is finally all my pals have one so we can now share miis and play online wii games ... oh wait, there are no online games yet, grrr. Well, we can share miis.

Speaking of Wii, I rented Wario Smooth Moves, it's pretty much like the DS game Wario uhm ... uhm ... I forget the name, but it's the same kinda game, very fast, very wacky mini-games, gauntlet style. Some of 'em I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do though, added to the different ways to use the remote, well it gets pretty hectic. No thinking allowed!

I also rented Tony Hawk, but haven't played yet. These are the last of the Wii games in my queue (the last that are OUT anyway) so from here on out it's PS2 games and DS games or GBA games until my subscription runs out mid-February, then I won't renew. So far, of all the Wii games I've rented (which is almost all the games that are out yet), the only one I'd consider buying is Elebits, but not for $50. Oh and Zelda, but I haven't played that yet, but it's an RPG and RPGs are almost always worth buying, eventually anyway.

Speaking of which, one of the PS2 games I rented was Rule of Rose. Wow, what an "interesting" game. Very cool atmosphere, very twisted storyline, I only played through the first 3 books though. I dunno if I'd buy it, the controls were truly horrible, the camera even worse, but it was oddly intriguing. And it was banned in Europe and I think Australia. That alone might make it buyable. I did buy Okami though, wow, what an incredibly beautiful game. And, being an artist-type I can appreciate the "Japanese woodprint" style too, having studied quite a bit of it in Art History in college, that was one of my instructor's area of expertise. The gameplay is great too, this would make a fantastic Wii game, too bad it came out for PS2, the whole "paintbrush" concept woulda worked perfectly with the wiimote. Haven't heard anything about a port, but if they do, I'll buy it, full retail, no problem.

I was doin' some thinkin' last night, and realized...

2007-01-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

I was doin' some thinkin' last night, and realized a couple things.

First, I'm thinkin' Gov. Arnie has ulterior motives with his little health plan thing ... it's a roundabout way to get driver's licenses for illegal aliens! Because how else is he gonna tell who's a resident of California and who's not? Since his health plan covers all Californians. His true colors are finally coming out, Republican my ass. He's a liberal whacknut socialist like the rest of 'em.

And I was also thinkin' about Apple Computer, erm Apple Inc. and their little name change thing. Made me wonder if this is the first step in them abandoning the computer hardware market. Maybe switching to offering only the operating system. I mean, there's gotta be a reason why they switched to Intel (PC chips) after decades of insisting their chips were better than PC chips. And Windows runs on the Intel Mac. And they didn't release any new computer hardware or redesigns at MacWorld yesterday. So what gives? Well here's my theory: Sell the "Mac" tech to a PC maker (sorta like the 80's only this time sell for real, not "license",) to dump that expensive not-so-profitable sector of the company. Tweak MacOS so it runs outta the box on a PC (should be possible, rewrite the boot code, a la Boot Camp.) Directly compete against Windows Vista by offering a "stable, secure operating system" that's easy to use, outta the box, and that doesn't require hefty upgrades to your existing hardware. Then, once people have Mac OS on their computer, they'll get hooked (theoretically) and since they can still run Windows XP, they won't have to dump all their existing software. Apple sells lots of OS software, doesn't have all that hardware overhead, and can focus on their iPod/iTunes stuff and their new iPhone. Microsoft said in the 80's they wanted to put a "computer on every desktop." Apple can put a "computer in your pants" (and an OS X on your desktop.) Hasta la Vista, Microsoft!

Governor Arnie announced his dopey health insuranc...

2007-01-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

Governor Arnie announced his dopey health insurance for every cahl-ee-fohn-ya plan yesterday, making it mandatory that ALL Calfornians have health insurance, whether they want it or not, whether they can afford it or not, whether they don't want to pay for it or not. And of course, those who can't afford it will get help if their income is low enough ... which means working Californians will have to pay their full share while unemployed leeches or immigrants or lazy people will get it cheap (or free, not sure how it works exactly.) Oh, and doctors and hospitals get to pay a portion of the cost too! I know the doctors will be thrilled with that! And the hospitals ... is that an additional cost beyond the already budget breaking costs they already pay? Who knows. Oh, and insurance companies will HAVE to insure people ... which is good in theory until you realize that will just make them change their policies to exclude anyone in California altogether, or take their business elsewhere, thereby driving up insurance costs even more. Which means more costs to Californians/tax payers/etc.

I for one will refuse to pay a penny toward any mandatory health insurance plan. Z E R O. Health insurance is not a right, it's a convenience. A luxury. And if you choose to not have it, you can pay your own way if you get sick. I know people abuse the ER law thing by fraudulently using emergency room services for non-emergencies and that ERs can't legally refuse to treat people who come to an ER, but they sure as hell don't have to PAY for 'em. I think there should be a new law that if you go to an ER with a non-emergency, and you don't pay for the services you receive there, they will come after you for fraud. Now this will cost money to find/prosecute people at first but once word gets around you can go to JAIL for "cheating the system" my guess is abuse will stop real quick. And overall long term cost will be way less than covering every Calfornian.

Another problem is how are they gonna know who is a "Californian"? If they're gonna allow everyone, even illegal aliens to be eligible, what's to stop someone from a neighboring state or country from opening a PO Box in California to establish "residency"? And are they even gonna check that? You could just put down a fake CA address and bam yer in. Checking/verifying addresses/residency will just add more costs. So essentially Arnie is proposing Californians pay for health insurance for the whole damn world. I think it would be hilarious if 20 million "Californians" apply for coverage, bankrupting the system before it even starts. And I hope every legal resident and citizen of California refuses to pay a dime toward any subsidy, or to pay any more than they already pay (if any) toward health insurance. I'll move to another state or go to jail before I'll contribute to being forced into violating federal law by "aiding and abetting" illegal aliens receiving "services."

In more cheerful news, Apple, Inc. finally announced the iPhone today after, what, two, three, four years of rumors? And the best part is it's such a bargain! As cheap as a PS3! And Apple gets to sucker people into buying yet another iPod they don't need! Because everyone who wants an iPhone doesn't already have 4 iPods already!

It is a pretty cool device, though, smartphone, touch screen, motion sensing, internet browser, pong ... oh no wait not that last part. Damn. Too bad, that woulda sold it for me. My guess though is they're using this as a "test" to see how many people would go the touch screen route ... I can see Apple laptops having the same kinda tech in a few years, touch screens are the most intuitive way to navigate, but they're freakin' expensive right now, even for dinky ones. But alas, Apple likes to be bleeding edge, and is very good at planting seeds of need in the minds of early adopters who then spread the meme to everyone they know. Viral marketing at its best.

'Tis a New Year (well almost, for me) and it's tim...

2006-12-31T21:46:00.000-08:00

'Tis a New Year (well almost, for me) and it's time for my predictions for 2007:

2007 will be a very boring year, nothing too terrible or horrible will happen, the media will have trouble coming up with "news" and will recycle old stories and present things like "giant turnip gives birth" as news.

There might be a lot of rain. I hope. I love rain. Lots. Lots of rain.

Sunspot activity will be fun and exciting but not dangerous.

Osama bin Laden will not be found ... that'll happen in late 2008, silly!

George Bush will not die. Neither will Hillary Clinton. Neither will run for president either. Not this year anyway.

Cloned beef will make it on store shelves but no one will know until 2008. And in 2012 there will be an epidemic of cancer traced back to eating cloned beef.

Daisies will continue to bloom the world over! Let us all rejoice!

My cat will catch more bugs.

I will play more video games.

Elves will be evil once again. Hurray!

Virtual cooking will be all the rage.

The Nintendo Wii will be easy to find and available in white, red AND blue. And black in Japan only. Sorry.

The Playstation 3 will quietly discontinue Blu-Ray, which will be renamed Beta Ray and quickly become obsolete. Sony will file bankruptcy and re-organize under its new corporate name Solong Newtech.

Amnesty for illegal aliens will become a "twice done" deal not a "one time only" thing. You know, like they promised 20 years ago.

The Federal Government will ban trans fats in foods and beef producers will once again rejoice as lard sales go through the roof and drug companies make record profits off cholesterol-lowering drug sales.

Gas prices will be $5/gallon by year's end and no one will notice.

The war in Iran will be over rather quickly while the war in Iraq will continue to rack up more national debt.

Cindy Sheehan will shut up. Finally.

And last but not least, cupcakes will ~~once again~~ be considered gourmet food!

Happy Festivus! This is my Festivus Pole. I mad...

2006-12-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

Happy Festivus!

This is my Festivus Pole.

I made it from found objects, in keeping with the anti-consumerism of Festivus. And it doubles as a cat toy! It's a Festivus Miracle!

I would have posted sooner but Blogger ate my account ... well not quite, but apparently I am now FORCED to use the new Google-enhanced version of Blogger which means they had to merge all my posts ... all 70,000 or so of them into their new thingie. Needless to say this took awhile ... a couple hours in fact. Maybe more. I don't know exactly I got tired of waiting. And the new version is painfully slow, I think it runs in Java or something cuz even my typing is slower than usual.

Wii, what a wiik! First the weather channel, now t...

2006-12-22T01:32:00.000-08:00

Wii, what a wiik! First the weather channel, now this! Feel the love of the blue blinky light.

So much to do, so little time. Thank goodness I don't have a huge wall-sized LCD monitor or I'd probably never use my computer again! The web is a bit of a pain on a 19" screen, you gotta zoom in to read stuff (until people make Wii-friendly huge font sites) and you gotta scroll around a lot, but it's pretty damn cool. It even supports flash and videos. You Tube on your Wii!

Wii! Weather! A day early no less! It's kind of...

2006-12-19T16:39:00.000-08:00

Wii! Weather!

A day early no less! It's kind of limited, can't put in my town, had to settle for the nearest "major" city with a weather station I guess ... I'm pretty sure the city I live in is bigger than Anaheim though but maybe not.

It does have a cool "Google Earth" kinda dealie though where you can spin the globe around and click on cities around the world. The weather stats themselves are pretty limited too ... temperature, moon phase, conditions, and UV index for some cities. No humidity? I think it might show wind speed and/or direction too sometimes cuz it asks in the options what format you want (mph or kph.)

I hope it shows rainfall amounts too if it rains. It'd also be nice if it kept the history, so you could go back and see what the weather was on a certain date. Sorta like you can on Weather Underground ... man I love that site.

Anyway, it was a nice surprise when I turned on my Wii today and found a message from Nintendo waiting to tell me the weather channel was up. AND the Opera browser supposedly comes out this Friday ... beta ... but free! Final version slated for March of next year ... free through June! Yay! Oh man I may never use my computer again ....

I have added a spanking new link to the sidebar, a...

2006-12-19T15:20:00.000-08:00

I have added a spanking new link to the sidebar, a link to my Animal Crossing (Gamecube) villager yep, it's true, I have succombed to yet more Animal Crossing madness. I won't be playing either as much though, so updates might not be as frequent, since I have so many other things to do ::Final Fantasy X:: but it'll be fun (maybe) to sorta compare the way the two villages develop.

I am also happy to say that my Gamecube village has STARS in the snow yay! My DS town has no stars at all, winter or otherwise, so I'm glad I got that pattern and I'm glad it's in winter cuz it looks just awesome on snow. Unfortunately my native fruit is the peach, the ugliest fruit of all, but that's OK. I was kinda hopin' for cherries, but since I got starry snow I'm not gonna restart until I get both. I can always replant ... I obliterated almost all the native oranges in my DS town in favor of cherries and apples and coconuts. I can do the same here.

Time to replace those wiimpy straps kiddies. I gue...

2006-12-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

Time to replace those wiimpy straps kiddies. I guess I'm lucky mine hasn't broken yet, but Nintendo is replacing them all free well ... free after you shell out the $250 for a Wii.

When I first got my Wii it seemed like the strap was much like the one on my DS but looking more closely I can see it's quite a bit thinner, in fact, about 1/2 the thickness. Egads. And I barely trust my DS strap for carefully carrying my DS around, forget about forcefully flinging it through the air. Of course, my DS is quite a bit heavier than a wiimote but still.

I also fired up my Gamefly account again to rent me some Wii games, got Elebits and Spongebob today. I must be really bad at games cuz I am having a lotta trouble with Spongebob, a game aimed at what, 10 year olds? It's a "3D platformer" though but my main problem is stuff like jumping over stuff and steering a bed hehe. Oh and some "boss" guy I can't figure out how to kill ... game says to dash at him then hit him but I'm like how do I dash? Where's the tutorial? I had trouble figuring out how to finish the very first stage too cuz it's a timed "car" race where the remote seemed VERY sensitive, I could not do it until I figured out if I jiggle the remote back and forth real fast it seems to stabilize the vehicle. Go figure. Oh and don't get me started on winches.

Elebits is kinda fun but it too is timed. Grrr. And the movement controls are kinda hard to get used to, it takes both the wiimote and the nunchuk to move/look around and constant CONSTANT tapping the A button to shoot man I wish I had a turbo button. It's kinda cute though, especially when you scare them they scream. Oh, and I found a pink one! If I find 2 more then it unlocks an "eternal" mode where there is no time limit! But of course I gotta finish the stage first. I played a couple hours so far and have only managed to clear the first 3 stages how pathetic is that?

My next rentals are gonna be less action oriented: fishing and football. Yes! Although I have a feeling football will be hard too.

You do not have a Constitutional right not to be o...

2006-12-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

You do not have a Constitutional right not to be offended in the USA. That said, I find this story amusing. What the hell is that guy thinking? Does he honestly think they'd ADD a religious symbol rather than remove the trees? I mean, come on, think about it, if they add a menorah, which is, I believe, only used by Jewish people to celebrate their winter holiday, then they'd have to add all those other offensive symbols of the season: Nativity scenes with plastic Jesus, wreaths, Festivus poles ... plus then people might be tempted to add ornaments to the trees in support of their religion ... crosses, pentagrams, Bacchus, pornaments ... it could get really ugly. I think Seattle made the right decision by removing the Yule trees, erm sorry CHRISTMAS trees, but I have no doubt they'll be back ... maybe not this year but sooner or later. Why you ask? Because the trees are not "religious" symbols, they're secular symbols for a (now) secular holiday. Yes, it's true, Christmas in this country no longer belongs only to Christians ... I know Jews who celebrate it (some even use a Christmas tree!), Pagans, Buddhists, even atheists! The "heathens" hath co-opted their symbol back from the Christians, let us all rejoice! Now for some naked dancing around the Yule tree with blessings for fertility come this spring when we dance naked and hide eggs while chasing bunnies through the heath. Yeah.

Wow I actually finally got a decent score on Wii F...

2006-12-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

Wow I actually finally got a decent score on Wii Fitness:

Took me what, 4 days, to figure out you gotta do the "training" part before those challenges show up in the "test" part. Doh! No wonder all I was getting was tennis, baseball and bowling. All of which I pretty much suck at. Well the "first" challenges anyway, I found baseball easier to do the batting practice test than the home runs test. And I'm pretty decent at the golf but had not had it in the test before but I played through a few practices last night and today they showed up. I have yet to see boxing though cuz I've not done the training for that yet.

Anyway I'm happy I'm not in my 60's anymore hehe.

I'm also happy to report I am no longer sore from playing. The day after my first day I was a wee bit sore in my shoulder (not really "pain" but just "oh a muscle I've not used in forever") and the next day it was more of a muscle "overuse" kinda thing, hurted but not enough to stop me from bowling for 5 hours. But today there is no pain at all hurray! I havne't been getting quite as "into it" either, you really don't need to swing full force in baseball and stuff, you can just kinda swing and flick instead. Not quite as intuitive but a lot less dangerous both to you and your TV.

I do have to say though that I absolutely love this system, the only flaw I've found so far is the blue glowy light doesn't stay on unless you email your wii everyday. I know a few people are irked you can't "back up" games on SD cards and transfer them to your "other" system (hehe) but for me that's not an issue. Oh, one thing I do wish for though is support for those little USB thumbdrives, I have one sitting around unused (got it for school stuff) that would be nice for additional backup space if/when I download stuff from the VC. But my Wii still has over 2000 "blocks" of internal memory so I don't think that'll be an issue soon. Still would be kinda nice cuz that way I wouldn't have to buy a "memory card".

Speaking of which I was playing a Gamecube game or should I say trying to and it said when I started it not enough memory available on the Gamecube memory card and I was like WTF? This is a new card. So I look and it turns out Animal Crossing uses up fifty-freakin' seven of the 59 blocks on the card. Good grief. This was the card that came with the game, so I guess that's why they include it cuz the game sucks up an ENTIRE memory card.

So, now I gotta buy another memory card for my other GC game and of course the memory card costs more than the game did. Grrr. I already had that problem with the PS2, card is $25 and the games I have were I think $10 or so in the bargain bin. Ah well at least my PS2 memory card is a "big" one. I'll look around and see if I can find a good price for a GC one, Amazon had one for $20 that was 1000+ blocks and was white (like a Wii!) but I'm kinda pissed at Amazon right now cuz of the whole Wii launch botching. We'll see though.

The quest has been completed: Wiiiiiiii! I hav...

2006-12-03T12:43:00.000-08:00

The quest has been completed:

Wiiiiiiii!

I have to say though, I can completely understand how people have been tossing their remotes across the room and breaking things. It's very easy to really get "into it" playing Wii Sports, and the remote itself is a bit small, light and slippery if you have sweaty palms of excitement.

I got up at 4:30am (couldn't sleep, gee, I wonder why?) and logged onto the 'net to check out the Amazon boards to see if people were having success (nice to be on the west coast) and it seemed most Targets looked good, so I checked and yes, the Target ad was up and it has Wii in it! So I figured that, along with the fact an employee had told me they'd have them Sunday early last week, made a safe bet. I debated if I should rush right out or not, didn't really wanna get there too early, decided to wait till 5am-ish, did a drive by of my "usual" Target, looked like about 5 people in line there but I wasn't "sure" of that one, so I went to the other, bigger (safer neighborhood) Target and there were about 10 people there, almost all mom-types. Plus a security guard. OK good. AND they had benches to sit on woot! Got there about 5:30am, they handed out tickets about 7:30am (they had about 50, I was #11) and we all went into the store in an orderly line back to Electronics and bought our Wiis, games, accessories, etc. They even had remotes in stock, I didn't get any though cuz I know they're hard to find (they had no classics either which is the only one I'll "need") and I don't really need extras right now as I have no friends. Haha. Most games it seems you CAN play using one remote tho at least Wii Sports.

So a happy "camper" am I and I'm glad I dragged my butt outta bed, I was seriously thinking of not bothering cuz I didn't wanna be disappointed again. I did have a bit of trouble setting up the internet though, it was like my DS I had to do it "stupid" first then I can "secure" it after. (IOW I had to turn on SSID and turn off MAC address filtering till it "found" the connection.) I also noticed I have FOUR neighbors now with WiFi not just one now haha. No wonder it was confused it couldn't decide who it wanted to play with. Oh, and it seems my Wii updated the firmware OK without bricking. Whew!

Well it's been a week and a half and I still have ...

2006-11-30T11:40:00.000-08:00

Well it's been a week and a half and I still have yet to complete the Quest for a Wii ::sigh:: Last Friday (Black Friday) I bought a PS2 cuz I was so annoyed at the lack of Wii for normal people (haha me normal?) so I've been playing that (Final Fantasy X woot! I got that game in the bargain bin what, 2-3 years ago cuz I knew I'd be buying a PS2 soon.) It's quite lovely and small, smaller in fact than the Wii I think! And shiny! Well not really shiny, just kinda sheeny shiny silver. And it plays DVDs! In fact the built in DVD player is better than my (old, cheap) standalone DVD player! So, I'm not hurting so bad now for a Wii, I returned my Wii games to Amazon cuz well, I don't have any use for 'em and I know game prices usually drop pretty quick. Plus games are in abundance, so I'll have no trouble nabbing the same ones again if I do somehow miraculously snag a Wii. But for now, the hunt is off, if I see one while shopping at Target or Walmart I'll nab one, but I'm not gonna call, camp, visit, etc to get one. I even heard Target and a few other stores are gonna have 'em this Sunday again ... but I'm really not even tempted to get there early, cuz I have a feeling they'll only have a few and the lines will be longer than launch cuz it seems demand is higher now than it was then. Oh well, in a way it's better, the PS2 is way cheaper, the games are way cheaper (got a fishing game for less than $4 and Dragon Quest VIII for less than $20) and the graphics are gorgeous (this is coming from someone with a dopey old "standard" TV and who hasn't bought a console since the PSOne.)

Maybe I'll just make it a habit of buying late, I got a Playstation around the time the PS2 came out 5-6 years ago (man has it been that long?) I just got my PS2 when the PS3 came out, I bought a NES when the N64 came out (I already had a SNES though.) Never had a Gamecube, Xbox, Xbox360, Dreamcast, etc. So maybe Wii will wait for my birthday, by then the "hot" games today might be sellin' for $29.99 instead of $49.99, there will be more good ones out (Final Fantasy!) and maybe they'll have new colors too! Or a DVD drive! Haha like I need another one of THOSE.

I do have to say though I'm quite angry at how the retailers have been handling the Wii release though, especially the online retailers who have completely and totally botched the whole thing. And I've also become aware that B&M stores are hoarding Wiis too so they can make people camp for "sales" only to find out they only have 3 or so units in stock, WTF is up with that?

Seems the only ones getting anything outta this whole Wii thing are the Ebayers and the campers. The rest of us have only found frustration. I have better things to do with my time than camp in line for a game console ... like play games! Hehe. Or gee, uhm ... work or something. Yeah.

I watched the Madonna concert tonight on TV and I ...

2006-11-22T22:21:00.000-08:00

I watched the Madonna concert tonight on TV and I gotta say she looks damn good for a girl pushin' 50. I'm not really into Madonna's music but I appreciate her "voice" as in point of view, although her singing voice is OK too albeit a bit off-key sometimes. ;)

I also found it amusing NBC cut the crucifix scene out of the concert but left in the numerous sexually suggestive songs. I guess religious commentary is a bad thing cuz it makes you think, but sex is OK cuz it brings in ratings/money. Maybe NBC didn't want to offend the Catholics, who didn't like that cross thing, and probably didn't want to bring up the whole religion and sex thing again. Anyway, I enjoyed the concert even without the crucifix.

I embarked upon an arduous quest to find a Wii, bu...

2006-11-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

I embarked upon an arduous quest to find a Wii, but alas, all I got for my troubles was this dopey flyer for waiting in line at Target for over an hour:

That was right before they handed out tickets for Wiis ... 60 systems ... one per person (shoulda been one per household) and I missed getting one by about 10 people, but I only got in line about 6:45am and they handed out tickets about 7:30 (was supposed to be about 7am.)

I also checked other stores in the 'hood, some people at Circuit City were picking theirs up, they had vouchers or something from having waited last night, CompUSA and Sears said they had none yet (for customers anyway) and EBGames and Gamestop both had lines and didn't open till 11am, and I figured they were all pre-orders anyway.

Oh, and K-Mart had about 6 systems that'd they'd given tickets out for by the time I got there.

Oh, and I won't even bother to mention Amazon.com who totally botched this whole launch by doing "mistake" preorders and bundles that drained all their systems from inventory but they failed to tell anyone that, instead they sent out emails saying Wii would be on sale online Sunday morning. Oh oops, I mentioned it. Too bad it's too late to cancel my game pre-orders which "shipped" the 15th but are still sitting in Amazon's warehouse waiting to be picked up by the "carrier". I'm really starting to hate Amazon, they used to rock but now they've gone all to hell in a leaky stinky handbasket.

Anyway, I'm off to BED since I only got about 4 hours sleep last night. More Wii shipments later this week, Wiiiii! And I don't have to work so I can camp the whole damn day if I have to.

I scoped out my Wii buying strategy today, swung b...

2006-11-18T09:57:00.000-08:00

I scoped out my Wii buying strategy today, swung by the major stores in my area to see if there were any lines, checked out hours, how they're doin' it, etc. The only store that had any campers was the local 24 hour Wal*Mart, which had a whopping EIGHT campers. Yes! At 9am, so I think maybe the line will grow a bit maybe. I was planning to avoid Wal*Mart at all costs cuz it's doing a midnight launch so I figure all the hardcore people will be there and by morning they'll all be gone, and I'm not so desperate for a Wii I'd wait in a line more than an hour, let alone camp out all day or night.

I had also read that somewhere a Sears store had broken street date on the Wii so I swung by there too but to no avail, no breakers there. In fact, no evidence whatsoever they'd even have any Wiis ... they did have a sign up saying sorry no PS3's here losers though. It's a small dopey Sears though, even today at their super duper 7am save-o-rama "sale" there were only about 5 shoppers in the entire store.

None of the places I went had any accessories or games for sale though. All I need is a "classic" controller though, I already pre-ordered my games.

I'm a girl but today I played with my Wii. OK, not...

2006-11-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

I'm a girl but today I played with my Wii. OK, not MY Wii, someone else's Wii. Uhm that sounded kinda bad. I went to EB Games to buy Final Fantasy III for the DS and noticed they had finally gotten their Wii demo unit in, so I asked the guy if I could try it out, given no one, not a single soul was playing it, so he said sure, I need your ID. Mmmm ... OK ... afraid people are gonna walk off with a useless remote are we? He said it was only cuz I had shifty eyes hehe. Then they guy carried the remote over to the unit and yes, gave me a safety lesson. You must put the wrist strap on or you can't play. Mmm ... OK. Then he showed me how it works with the 1 and 2 buttons (where's A and B?) and explained that in Excite Truck (the only demo they had apparently, bummer) how you sorta look uncoordinated with the remote and twist it around and sideways and up and down like a dork to make it steer. OK. So, that's what I do, and promptly crash into a bunch of trees. YES! Exciting!

The remote is totally different than normal controllers, and it's especially hard if you're used to driving games with a standard controller where you use the directional pad to steer which direction you go, I kept hitting the damn thing and it didn't do anything! Grrr.

Needless to say I crashed a lot, and when I finally sorta got the hang of it, and managed to finally catch the tube right when I started to go through it ... sorry game over time's up! Grrrr. Oh well, I got quite a few bonuses for tearing up trees and flying sideways through the air hehe.

Anyway, Wii is fun but will take a lot of getting used to, the graphics looked good (was on a HDTV though, it will look like crap on my old piece of junk normal TV) but this is no PS3 or Xbox 360, it's a FUN system. Wiiii! It's OK though, cuz the last console I bought was a PSOne and so any "current" console graphics will look fantastic to me, and I'm more interested in playing fun and engaging games than looking at eye candy anyway. That's why I play World of Warcraft on low graphics settings! Oh, no, wait I play that way cuz my computer is a piece of junk.

I got a Wii! What is this you say? That's not ...

2006-11-11T10:03:00.000-08:00

I got a Wii!

What is this you say? That's not a Wii!?!!????!!! Yeah I know but hey it's white, it's cute, it's small and it glows, that's good enough for mii ... erm me ... for now.

I'd heard these things were "rare" and "sold out" at Target a few weeks ago but either Target got a bunch more in or I got lucky. The store I went to had a bunch up on the Wii accessories display rack and they'd never had any before. I also know people claim they had been buying them with only $1 on them (the cards are essentially free, you just pay for the "value" of the card.) But they told me I had to put a minimum of $10 on it so maybe that's why they still had some, people are cheap!

Anyway it's kinda cool and you can keep it once the value is used, and this way my first Wii game will be $10 cheaper (well actually I already pre-ordered Zelda, which is a good thing, BTW, cuz Amazon stopped taking preorders on it a couple days ago.)

Welp, yesterday was election day and the brilliant...

2006-11-08T18:52:00.000-08:00

Welp, yesterday was election day and the brilliant voters of America showed their distaste with Bushy and friends, and voted in favor of handing the country over to illegal aliens and terrorists. Yay! But the upside is we'll likely get an increase to the federal minimum wage soon so it's so totally worth it! AND if when the Democrats screw up then 2008 is a guaranteed win again for a Republican president. And if the Democrats do a good job, then Hillary will be our queen. What interesting times we live in. Either way we're screwed. But hey, at least Rumsfeld is gone now so we can fight this "war" in Iraq the "right" way. Which means pull out and let those Iraqis fend for themselves, hey we tried, but we've got other more important "wars" to get ready for now.

Went to the store today, saw a shopping cart stu...

2006-11-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

Went to the store today, saw a shopping cart stuck back in the corner by the dairy department, full of leftover Halloween junk marked down 75% ... dug through looking for snacks, nothing good but wait, what is this? Why, it's a GHOSTLY GLOW POP! Yes! Actually, a bunch of them! For only 50 cents each! I try to restrain myself to just one but alas, there were two colors, so I got one of each ... green and pink. Yeah. Nice Halloween colors those. Anyway, I opened up the green one (gonna save the pink one for a special occasion! Like Easter! You know, Easter, that spring holiday where we pay homage to some dead guy and cute pink fluffy bunnies ... so PINK GHOST POP would be perfect!) I tasted the pop too, can't tell what flavor it is, tastes like sugar to me ... 165 calories of lumpy ghostly sugar. Yeah. Maybe I should stick it in a green apple alcoholic beverage and stir it with my green glowy stick!

Lemme see, been awhile since I posted anything, nothing has really happened except I've been working, yes I know, shocking isn't it? I just love it there, I get to drive through the ghetto of COMPTON dodging potholes, big rig trucks and unlicensed drivers in dumpy cars with no brakes. But wait, there's more! But I can't disclose it lest I be beaten with a dilapidated computer keyboard from 1975! It is nice to have an income though, just not sure I like risking my LIFE daily to have one. I'm gonna try to find something better once my "commitment" runs out (job was supposed to last 8 weeks which I "had to" commit to but that's almost up.)

I'm tempted to get a temporary job at a game store for the holidays so I can snag myself a Wii on wiilease. Erm release. I already succombed and pre-ordered a game on Amazon even though I know I'll not get it until a week or so after it comes out, cuz I'm too cheap to pay for shipping. But the games (well the GOOD ones like Zelda TP ... not toilet paper, Twilight Princess) seem to be running out at some stores. Now, if I can just find a place that is offering Wii preorders that aren't $700.

Got home today to find a notice from the city: "N...

2006-10-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

Got home today to find a notice from the city:

"Notification of Intended Filming with Pyrotechnics and Helicopter Activity"

it went on to say that "There will be a LARGE EXPLOSION AND FIREBALL"(emphasis theirs not mine) on Wednesday in the park nearby. Apparently CSI Miami is in town again. Too bad I have to work during the scheduled time, it would be fun to watch, not often you see a huge fireball in your town.

I guess they passed out the notices so neighbors don't panic and think North Korea has nuked the park, although my guess is they'll still get a few panicked calls to 911.

They do quite a bit of movie/TV filming in the park around here, the last one I noticed was The Omen about a year ago but I know there's been a lot, especially commercials, and CSI Miami filmed an episode awhile back at one of my old colleges too. I guess suburbian southern California looks a lot like Miami. Who knew?

Oh, and in even bigger news, I have added a Wii countdown to my blog, hurray!