Felt a lot better today after yesterday's all day post-Saint Patrick's Day detox. A good thing, too, since it was gaming night. Matt64, Reibo and I got an early start on the ass-kicking on Modern Warfare 2 around 3:30 PM ET. (And I mean getting my ass kicked, not to mince any words.)
I'm amazed this AM that yesterday's leaked MW2 DLC vid hasn't been yanked! If the vid had been on YouTube, it would have been removed, fer sure.
Crash and Overgrown look largely unchanged on the low-rez vid (links go to CoD4 overheads, courtesy of the Guerrilla Warfare Society site). You can see that the gun emplacements now contain miniguns instead of the mounted SAW light machineguns found on the CoD4 versions of the two maps. The last map, Storm, looks interesting. A lot of interior spaces, vertical areas, and alleys on Storm. Watching the vid again, it has a real Downpour-like feel to it. I can't wait to play them, despite a nagging feeling that we might get another bunch of glitches/cheats found by the legion of wall-humping Timmies.
Watched TheSandyRavage livestream for a while Thursday night. He played Bad Company 2 rush for about three hours and then some MW2 FFA. The BC2 play mode was Rush, and there were some really good plays. A lot of comedy, too. In one BC2 game, SandyRavage stuck a tracer on another player's helmet, and the guy retaliated by body-blocking SandyRavage's RPG, resulting in an Epic Fail™ suicide. In another game, he creamed a guy with the skidoo by jumping off at max speed, letting the skidoo run over the guy as he crouched sniping on a small island. He eventually switched over to MW2 FFA. Some highlights: He won a FFA match on Skidrow using only the Beretta M9; playing games with the akimbo Desert Eagles and .44 Magnums; he dispensed some Booster Justice along the way, too, by targeting known boosting sites with the Javelin. He did have a couple epic MW2 Javelin fails: On Rust, he accidentally ran into the blast radius of his own missile; on Rundown, he fired the Javelin thru the 1 foot slit on the wall on the small elevated porch to the right-front of the Villa building. Instant giblets. On to the links:
It was such a beautiful day outside down here in SC. I am a bit of a shutter bug, but I'll spare you all the family portraits. Although here are a few of my daughter and her best friend and her brother. They are out crusin in her VW Beetle she got for Christmas. My daughter is the one in the pink.
If you haven't picked this game up yet for your Playstation 3 then SHAME ON YOU!
I went to the midnight release, played until 4 a.m., took a nap, got back up at 8 and finished the game just after lunch. This game is AMAZING!!!!! Now it's time to go back through it and try to get the platinum. Someone said something about a secret message after you platinum the game. Don't know much about it but, sounds good to me!
On a side note: I learned a new technique for 'reflowing' the ANA chip on xbox360's which helped with fixing the damn things.
On another side note: Metro 2033 isn't to bad. Better than MAG that's for sure (game that was traded in)
On a final side note: I was able to copy the contents of one 20G HDD to another 20GHDD! Not MOVE content, COPY! I have the same gamer profile and downloaded content now on 2 seperate HDD and seperate xbox360's!!! AND YES I can log into LIVE using either console. pretty sweet huh?
If you'll bear with me, I'll explain. If any of you have had a pet that you loved dearly and unfortunately lost to something stupid like a car wheel, disease, running away, having to be put down...whatever the case may be, then I'm sure you will understand where I am coming from. So, a little back ground, I'll be quick and spare you the sappy "i miss my dog" stuff. When I was 12, I had a mutt named Rascal, he was awesome, smarter than most people I know. Anyways, make a sad story short, He mauled my cousin out of the blue one day and had to be put down. Traumatizing for the 12yr old me. Skip ahead 5 years and I get another mutt, this one half the size and a female. Her name was Daisy. Smart as a whip, faster than sound, and could literally jump onto the trunk of a car even though she stood only 16" tall sitting down. To make another sad story short, She got out one day because a family member let her out while I was still at school. They weren't watching her and she, like any young dog, took off. I think because she was chasing something as she was prone to do. She subsequently made her way out to a busy street and was run over. Both instances sucked, incredibly bad. And I say Stupid, because they were. I would rather have lost them in a bear fight or saving someone from a burning building and was then attacked by ninjas or some such shit, that is if I had to lose them at all. NOT to such stupid things as a needle or a car wheel. Granted, however bad I feel about the first one, I feel a whole lot worse for my cousin, he has to go through life with a vicious scar on his face. He swears it gets him laid a lot, but I still feel awful.
Now, before I go on, let me say that the above is the only sad part of what I am writing today.
Back at the beginning of the year, my girlfriend managed to stumble upon a sweet opportunity to get a dog, one that fit the type she was looking for, and for free. Its a Half Schnauzer, half poodle. Yeah, a friggin Schnoodle I believe they are called. Now normally I am the kind of guy who wants a dog that he can wrestle with or at least get rough with. You know, the kind of dog that can take a punch, uses truck tires as a chew toy, named Leroy and terrifies all of the neighborhood children. (see The Sandlot for reference).
There is no wrestling with the new addition to my girlfriend and I's family.
"What's a Suplex Daddy?"
Above is Ouisie (pronounced Weezey). My girlfriend named her that, after much talking out of on her original choice...Sprinkles. I swore up and down I was not ever going to walk the dog if it';s name was Sprinkles. No mutherfucking way. Ouisie isn't a terrible name and it kind of fits the dog anyway. The pup was only 3 months old when we got her, and has been a holy handful since we got her. She's easily one of the sweetest dogs I have ever met, and is actually a really good dog.
Now, back to fitting this rambling in with the title. My previous experiences, sad as they may be, have led me to be exorbitantly cautious with this little one. We were walking her the other day and she managed to dart at something as I was switching hands on the leash. She got away for a split second and I fucking panicked. The whole of the situation would have been just fine had I not freaked out and, in turn, made the puppy freak out. Luckily the girlfriend lives on the second story and the puppy is scared to go down the steps. I hope this NEVER changes. She bolted out the front door the other day, of course she stopped at the steps (4 feet away from the door), but again, I panic. At 32, and a smoker, that little bag of guilt can easily outrun me. So, basically, My fears are getting the best of me and I spend more time worrying about that little dog than I do most anything else.
Which brings me to today. She went in this morning to get Spayed. Now I know full well that this is a common procedure and not a big deal at all. But Brudda, let me tell you I have been worried about it all day, letting my imagination get the better of me. Thankfully my GF knew i would act like this and called me to keep me posted on every little move the vets made. She was picked up an hour ago and is doing just fine...except for having to wear the Cone of Shame.
I'm a grown ass man, I should have better control over this shit right? LOL
You'd worry too, right? I mean, come on...How fucking cute is this dog.
Here's the thing though, this is a dog...a puppy rather. How the hell am I gonna react when I have kids. I can't imagine what that is like and I have a new found respect for those of you have children and maintain a state of normalcy. I would be freaking out over the smallest things. God help me if I have girls...I'm pretty sure that I'll be one of those over protective parents that commercials make fun of.
My apologies for starting out with the sad shit, but I had to giver you a point of reference why this little 7lb bag of awesome makes me worry incessantly.
LAdies and Gentlemen, if you know a pregnant woman, please don't assume that she can't do simple tasks. If she lifts and moves things, it's cause she can. Don't patronize her by giving her crap. I actually got my hand slapped cause I moved a fouton out of the way so I could get behind it. I am a strong girl... and foutons on hardwood are easily moved. Yet somehow... what? I am not supposed to carry on with real life due to my knock-upedness?
I imagine people with disabilities get PO'd over this kinda stuff. You know, people assuming that they can't do stuff, when they can. We all know our own bodies and we know what we can and can't do.
Have you ever had people doubt your judgement with respect to your own body? Assumed that you couldn't do something when you know that you could?
With respect to gaming, there are many people who have disabilities, and I believe that there is a niche for accomodation. Simple example: Dragon Quest had the option to have all of the controls mapped so you could play one handed. You know what that means, huh, guys? Thats riiight.... gaming AND drinking coffee.
But in all seriousness, I loved being able to play one handed. I could.. game and drink coffee, hold the guidebook, whatever. I loved it so much I was sure that more games would do this. But no... I haven't found any. Now of course, an FPS will be harder to map to one hand... but an RPG may not be that hard. I am sure there are many ways of accomodating gamers with disabilities, and I wonder if devs see this market.
I've started playing Xbox again, and imagine my surprise to find out that Microsoft won't take my money. Actually, it's not Microsoft's fault. Its loopy third parties who publish and then rescind their content on LIVE.
Until now, the only game content that I knew of being removed from LIVE was the abominable Yaris, which was a free advertisement game anyway. This week, I went to get my nostalgia on with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, but it has been removed from LIVE. The rights to it apparently changed hands and the new owners pulled it from the market. (I've head that the same thing happened on PSN with Mortal Kombat II.) Then I was going to buy all of the DLC for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, but it was pulled back on December 31, 2009 (after only 2 months of availability.) The original Marvel: Ultimate Alliance's content was also pulled, but at least they had the decency to leave the "teaser pack" up. The removals may have been because of the Disney/Marvel Comics merger on January 1, 2010.
This kind of crap really cheeses me off. The Marvel UA games are still being sold with a label that says there's DLC, and there isn't any, except that there was. It particularly hurts anyone who likes multiplayer because now there are multiple incompatible versions of each game. Players with some of the DLC from MUA and those who bought the gold edition (which is no longer available) have to play separately from consumers with the "plain jane" retail version. In MUA 1 there is at least the free "teaser pack" which lets all versions play together, though achievements and offline play as DLC characters is no longer available as an option to non-gold retail buyers.
The 2 teaser packs for MUA2 have been removed completely along with the full DLC. It was hard enough to get a multiplayer game going before, but now there are 4 versions of the game that are incompatible. They are the out-of-th-box retail version, the version with the Juggernaut DLC, the version with the multi-character DLC pack, and the version with both DLC packs. It's not fair that people who bought any of the DLC to have to erase their purchases just to find a game, and it's not fair to people who buy the retail version to be locked out of the most populous multiplayer games when MUA2 was and is being sold as a multiplayer game with DLC.
I'm merely disappointed at the lack of consistency shown by the pulling of UMK3 from LIVE Arcade. Disappointment aside, releasing and then pulling DLC that splits the multiplayer community in four removes value from the retail game.
The sniper who killed 700 Soviets in 100 days. One bad muther-f'er.
Ensconced in the snow, his white camouflage suit rendering him invisible to the invading Soviet soldiers he stalked, Simo Häyhä steadied himself to fire. During the 1939–1940 Winter War, in temperatures as low as –40 °C, the Finnish sniper undertook a killing spree that saw him single-handedly take the lives of at least 700 men in less than 100 days. Over 500 of these he shot using a standard, bolt-action rifle with non-telescopic sights. Is it any wonder he earned the nickname The White Death among his enemies? Meet the man who would take Rambo to the cleaners.
Little was the operative word. Häyhä stood just 5 ft 3 in (1.6 m) tall, which was one basis for his choice of weapon, an M/28 or M28/30 Soviet Mosin-Nagant rifle that suited his small frame. He also rejected a scoped rifle in favour of basic iron sights for other reasons: it meant he presented less of target as he could keep his head lower; it negated the risk of his position being exposed by sun glare in a telescopic lens; and lastly open sights were not prone to fogging up or breaking which was a concern in the snow and ice of the Winter War. Häyhä was a professional.
Of course an iron-sighted rifle also made aiming more difficult, but with 505 confirmed kills as a sniper – the other 200 he shot using a sub-machine gun – Häyhä clearly had a keen eye. Another tactic this greatest of gunmen used to conceal his own position from the enemy was to compact the snow before him so that his shot would not disturb the snow, and in true commando fashion he also kept his mouth was full of snow so that his breath did not give him away.
Not to long ago I purchased Nicecast by Rogue Amoeba for my Mac, which allows me to broadcast a internet radio cast to a limited audience. To increase the audience you can buy server space, etc..... etc..........., Whatever. So I have started broadcasting as of about 8:00 PM last night with 0 listeners, but that's OK. I can tune in at work through my computer to check it out. Of course I started with "Radio Clash" by the Clash. As I currently have about 50 GB of music on my Mac, I am slowly setting up playlists to broadcast, with a majority being a mix of Rock, Punk, 80's and New Brit Pop / Rock. After enjoying it at my desk this morning, it dawns on me to let other 2o2pers share in the music, if they want to check it out. My only warning is that some of the music is NSFW (for most offices), most of the music is perfectly OK. I have only tried to receive it through iTunes, but it should easily work in whatever player you are using.
The station is called (for now) Todd's Odd World Radio and you access it at:
Once you click the link it will prompt to open your player to play in iTunes, etc..... At max I believe it will only support up to 8 listeners for now, but if you want to check out some new music or something you don't normally listen to, check it out. I would also love to hear suggestions if you have them. What you like, dislike, technical input, etc.....
