24 Finally!!

If Jack Bauer was Spartan in the movie 300, the movie would be called 1.

There has not been a terrorist attack in the United States since Jack Bauer first appeared on television.

Jack Bauer sleeps with a night light because the dark is afraid of Jack Bauer

Terrorists dread the day in October that Daylight Savings Time ends. Jack Bauer gets 25 hours in which to kill them.

Jack Bauer once won a game of Connect 4 in 3 moves.

Kryptonite is not really from Krypton. It is made from Jack Bauer's crap, that is why it can kill Superman.

Vin Diesel can be rearranged to say "I end lives." Jack Bauer can be rearranged to say "Jack Bauer," which means the same thing.

The only reason you're conscious right now is because Jack Bauer doesn't want to carry you.

Killing Jack Bauer doesn't make him dead. It just makes him angry.

There were originally five horsemen of the apocalypse. Jack Bauer said he would travel by foot.

When Kim Bauer lost her virginity, Jack found it and put it back.

They say you can't go a day without water, Jack Bauer has gone five seasons.

After running out of ammo, Jack stood in the line of fire, took 3 shots to the chest, and used them to reload.

Jack Bauer has been to Mars. That's why there's no life on Mars.

On Jack Bauers Tax Returns, he has to claim the entire world as his dependents.

If Jack Bauer were gay, he would be Chuck Norris

Every time you masturbate Jack Bauer kills a terrorist. Not because you masturbated, but because that is how often he kills terrorists.



 

The Clique

There's been lots of chatter lately about clans.  Who's in.  Who's out. Why?  It got me thinking about my (original) clan a little.  Actually, let me rephrase that... it got me thinking about the clan that I'm a member of.  "My Clan" sort of makes it sound like their's ownership involved and if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that no one "owns" a clan. 

I've been a member of OMM for 4+ years now.  In that time we've seen people get banned, booted, split off to form other clans, join and never post, join and never quit posting, people be very active for a while then nothing then very active again.  In other words, we've seen the same thing that virtually every clan on this site has seen over the years.  One of these situations inevitably pops up every few months or so.  I've gotten pissed about it, I've found myself not giving a shit at all and experienced every emotion in between.  I've been on the outside looking in and a few months ago when I became the clan OL, I've been the one left to make the final call.  It's taken 4 years but I've finally found some peace when these things come up.

What I've found, generally speaking, is that it comes down to cliques.

Now, when you say the word, automatically the mind tends to start attaching negative connotations to the term.  In reality though, it's not a negative thing at all.  After all, 2old2play is one giant clique of people who don't like playing with Timmy.  Within that clique are other cliques of people who like the same game or play at the same time etc.  And yes, within those cliques (clans) there are sub cliques. 

I'm in a clique.  I no longer care what people think of that.  It's just a way of saying, "I have certain handful of guys that I really prefer to play with."  It's not that I won't play with others or others aren't allowed to play with us, but over the years there's a group that have developed a friendship that goes beyond the site or the game and there's nothing wrong with that.

So, what does that mean for a clan?  Occasionally, these cliques will develop and sometimes, they'll start their own clan.  When they do, people tend to get huffy over it.  There's no reason to.  If I'm the guy in charge of a clan, and a clique splits off, then good luck to them.  If they want to stay with the original clan and can still meet whatever requirements are in place at the time, sweet.  If they want to do their own thing, don't take it as a personal assault on you.

I've had to learn this the hard way myself.  There was a time when OMM was a hardcore gaming group of casual gamers. (Yeah, see if you can follow that train of logic)  Over time our forum has become more of a coffee klatch than a game room.  Some people love it, some hated it and left or started their own thing.  It pissed me off but in time you just have to take it as the ebb and flow of a forum's life that it is.  One day 2 years from now I'm sure our clan forum will have an entirely different feel and someone will probably hate it and leave.  That's ok, as long as you leave with respect...

That means, no flaming the boards, no attacking mods and members, no pissing to other members to try and "steal" people.  If a clan is not for you anymore or doesn't provide all you need, it's not that big a deal.  That's kind of why there are 100 different clans on this site.  If you have a little clique of your own and want to start a new clan, knock yourself out.  If you need to join 2 or 3 or like JollyRoger...all of them, thats cool too as long as your clan is cool with multi-membership (and to the best of my knowledge 99% are).   Sometimes people will leave clans because they don't like the mods, don't get along with a particular member of the clan or just don't seem to "fit in" with the group at large.  That's no reason to get pissy.  Just tell the admin that you're moving on and move along.  It's a big site.

Since I joined OMM I've always thought that I'd be OMM for life.  Then a few short months ago I found myself giving serious consideration to leaving and going a totally different direction.  In the end I didn't.  That's not to say that one day I might think about it again.  If I do though I hope people don't get upset about it.  In the end, the people on my Friend's List are more important than the ones on my Clan List.  Even more important than that are the people who live in my house. ;)  After all, it's just a game.

Change That's Not Good

Sometimes you see a commercial for a product and immediately think to yourself, "why?"  Well, it happened to me recently yet I found myself in line at the CVS today thinking, "What the hell, I'll give it a shot."  After all, sometimes change can be good.  Besides, I don't want to be so rigid that I never try anything new.  Unfortunately my initial skepticism has proven to be accurate. 

Ladies and Gentleman, take your uncle B1GxFOOT's advice and forgo the temptation to try one of the new Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups.  The regular Reese's Cups are just about the perfect candy and they really should not be tinkered with.

In other news....

I turned the TV on a couple of days ago and then immediately proceeded to the kitchen for a light 3 course snack.  Apparently the channel had been left on E or Lifetime or some other bandwidth wasting space on the dial and I came back to the living room to see a panel of "dudes" discussing dresses and such. 

Why exactly do women take the advice of a gay guy when it comes to what's attractive to men?  That's like asking a vegetarian the best way to cook your bacon.

One last thing...

Speaking of channels left on the TV.  At lunch today I turned on the TV to find "The Price Is Right" airing.  When did Drew Carey get so fat?

The Boogyman

If you've read my stuff at all, you know that I'm a basically conservative guy.  However, I've found myself listening to Sirius Left on satellite radio quite a bit lately.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  One, frankly I've heard all the arguments that are made on the right and it gets a bit repetitious after a while.  Second, I think it's good to hear the other side of the coin and make sure that I am diligent to see the other argument.  Sometimes, I hear something that will make me pause. Sometimes I just hear the kinds of things that reinforce my beliefs.

So the other night I'm listening to Sirius Left and I listen to a couple of guys (I forget who) make a very protracted yet coherent argument to support their position.  I can't even honestly remember what the discussion was about now.  I don't even think it probably was something that would've shaken the foundations of my position but it was at least logical and thoughtful.  I was pretty content though with the conversation and then one of the hosts screams "Yeah Yeah Yeah! It's the Military Industrial Complex!!!"

What?!

First off, while I don't remember the full context of the discussion, I do remember that that had nothing to do with it.  It was simply a trigger word to get his base audience all fired up.  And this is one of the main problems with talk radio, 24 hour news networks and the creep that comes from them and into our own personal discussions.  We want to create Boogymen.

Who is the Boogyman?  It's the military industrial complex, the religious right, the media, unions, the insurance companies, big business, Hollywood, lobbyists, and on and on.  Basically it's any nameless and faceless group of people that we can come up with to blame for anything.  Curiously no one usually stops to consider that if it's a group of people, they usually have names and faces.  That's what makes them people.

What we're really doing is transferring responsibility and sometimes guilt.  If it's some group "out there", then I can live my life however I want, and that usually means as lazily as I can, and not feel bad about the actions I do or don't take.  I don't doubt that there are times when a group abuses power, or steals, or does any number of things that are immoral or illegal.  Instead of just screaming "Military Industrial Complex!!!" in your mic though, why not name names?  If there is a company or organization that has actually committed a crime, bring it to light.  With facts. I'm guessing most of these talking heads and many of the people who throw this stuff in my face from day to day, rarely have any actual facts. In fact they probably purposely don't name names because they know they'd be held liable (or is that slander, I always forget) for making specific claims against specific people.   I don't care what side of the isle I'm on or you're on, if people are breaking the law or doing things that subvert the good of the community, I want them stopped.  Simply throwing out the Boogyman claims aren't doing anything other than keeping people's eyes closed and brains shut down.

One last note:  Big thanks to Stryker for the new blog grahics.  WOOT!

Another Sequel

The most popular games I've played this year..

• Halo 3
• Rainbow Six 2
• Forza 3
• Uncharted 2
• Rock Band 2 and Lego: RB
• Modern Warfare 2
• Left 4 Dead 2
•  

There's probably a couple more I'm forgetting but do you see the trend there? When in the hell are we finally going to get a new game that breaks through the same old same old. Game developers just keep pushing shinier versions of the same things we've been playing for 2-6 years and what's worse is we keep buying. If we're honest, there's nothing really radically different about v. 1 and v.2 of {insert AAA title here}.

If I think back over the last 4 years, the most interesting games I've played were Chromehounds and Shadowrun. Both achieved some success but there was little support for either and the longevity of both was affected by that. The problem I have now is that when "Shiny New Version of The Same Game You've Been Playing for 3 Years" comes out, it is exciting and it's fun to play......for about 2 weeks. Then it hits you that you're playing the same damn thing that's been in your machine for years.

Guess what? It's not getting any better. The list of most anticipated titles for next year....

• Bioshock 2
• God of War 3
• Mass Effect 2
• Diablo 3
• Gears of War 3
• Crackdown 2
• Halo: Reach
•  

Honestly I find myself wondering if I'll stop gaming just out of boredom before much longer. I'm sure there's games out there that are "different" and would be worth my time to look at. The real problem is this. Thanks to this site I've built a base of friends that I love to play with and there's no real chance that they will all be willing to take that leap outside the comfort zone with me. So my choice is to continue playing the same old games with guys I really enjoy, or move on to a new game on my own. Neither are all that appealing right now.

sigh.

In other news....

If you haven't checked out the new ABC comedy "Modern Family", you're missing out. It's probably one of the funniest new shows I've seen in a long time.