I updated our template. For a long time the archive and Atom feed weren't appearing for me. That's fixed now. I'll add the icons back in soon.
Yup, we now have an Atom feed [link at the bottom of the page]. So if you use a feed reader (ex. Google Reader), you can subscribe to our semiannual updates. I encourage everyone with a blog to provide a feed subscription link. It's really convenient. Especially if you almost never update and you love DDR.
May 7, 2009
May 5, 2009
Brian, your interesting post has not gone completely unseen; some time soon I will remember to respond.
In the meantime, marvel at these 15 bizarre sea animals. Haha, Ziggy fish...
In the meantime, marvel at these 15 bizarre sea animals. Haha, Ziggy fish...
Apr 22, 2009
What do we live for and what is our purpose in life?
I remember talking with my brother a few days after he got married in Japan. He told me he was saving everything he could for this new kid that he was bringing into the world. Now, this is a wonderful thing. Don’t get me wrong. Bringing a new life into the world and actually being prepared for it? Awesome. That kid is going to be OK. He’ll teach him/her some life lessons and now has someone who will throw his ass in an assisted living home. And the cycle will repeat. (Nah, just kidding. Japanese don’t do that to each other… Right?)
It made me think – what am I doing? Is this all there is to life? Right now my fiancé and I are saving for the wedding. After that, we save for what? A vacation? Is that all I have to live for after this? You know that’s what retirement is, right? Just a long and final vacation.
OK so that is depressing. But it gets more so. Check this out: how do we amass all this money for a long vacation? We do this by working ourselves to death. I currently run with two jobs and I’m taking a test that will get me more money in the future. On the outside, people congratulate me for working so hard. But what is the opportunity cost? Life. I miss out on life events no matter how small. From little parties to birthday celebrations. Who hasn’t used work as the excuse to miss out on an experience? And what if you don’t like doing what you do? You become miserable.
Is the answer finding something you like to do? Maybe. But I think I want to explore another option…
Maybe experience is the answer to life. Maybe all these little video games got the idea wrong. In RPG’s we continually gain experience and level up. We keep leveling up because we want to be strong enough to beat the game, have bragging rights or whatnot. But guess what happened? Somewhere along the line gaining experience has become a time sink and grind. Much like work, we grind and grind hoping that the countless hours we spent killing dragons will amount to some great feat like saving the world. Guess what? In real life, we don’t have all this experience and do something really wonderful with it. Usually, we just die. Maybe we impart some of this knowledge on future generations, but at the end of it all we get no princess, no congratulations, or cake. We get dead.
Now how depressing is that? So maybe at the end of the day, we should re-think our lives. Watch “Click,” or maybe even “Yes Man.” Or maybe step back from it all and re-watch American Beauty. Think about it a little bit and maybe find an answer. Or just continue to grind away.
A mid-life crisis and I’m not even 30. Weak.
I remember talking with my brother a few days after he got married in Japan. He told me he was saving everything he could for this new kid that he was bringing into the world. Now, this is a wonderful thing. Don’t get me wrong. Bringing a new life into the world and actually being prepared for it? Awesome. That kid is going to be OK. He’ll teach him/her some life lessons and now has someone who will throw his ass in an assisted living home. And the cycle will repeat. (Nah, just kidding. Japanese don’t do that to each other… Right?)
It made me think – what am I doing? Is this all there is to life? Right now my fiancé and I are saving for the wedding. After that, we save for what? A vacation? Is that all I have to live for after this? You know that’s what retirement is, right? Just a long and final vacation.
OK so that is depressing. But it gets more so. Check this out: how do we amass all this money for a long vacation? We do this by working ourselves to death. I currently run with two jobs and I’m taking a test that will get me more money in the future. On the outside, people congratulate me for working so hard. But what is the opportunity cost? Life. I miss out on life events no matter how small. From little parties to birthday celebrations. Who hasn’t used work as the excuse to miss out on an experience? And what if you don’t like doing what you do? You become miserable.
Is the answer finding something you like to do? Maybe. But I think I want to explore another option…
Maybe experience is the answer to life. Maybe all these little video games got the idea wrong. In RPG’s we continually gain experience and level up. We keep leveling up because we want to be strong enough to beat the game, have bragging rights or whatnot. But guess what happened? Somewhere along the line gaining experience has become a time sink and grind. Much like work, we grind and grind hoping that the countless hours we spent killing dragons will amount to some great feat like saving the world. Guess what? In real life, we don’t have all this experience and do something really wonderful with it. Usually, we just die. Maybe we impart some of this knowledge on future generations, but at the end of it all we get no princess, no congratulations, or cake. We get dead.
Now how depressing is that? So maybe at the end of the day, we should re-think our lives. Watch “Click,” or maybe even “Yes Man.” Or maybe step back from it all and re-watch American Beauty. Think about it a little bit and maybe find an answer. Or just continue to grind away.
A mid-life crisis and I’m not even 30. Weak.
Jan 29, 2009
Latest picture of Soundwave from Transformers:
http://www.superherohype.com/news/transformersnews.php?id=8024
Why does every key decepticon need to be some funky jet thingy? In the movie, when the autobots came to Earth they are "normal" robots who take shape of Earth like items and it looked to be the same with most decepticons except Megatron and now Soundwave. Where did those two mimic those jets / spaceships?
I actually liked the movie, but I'm not thrilled that Bay moved away from some key items from the cartoon. Especially with some very key characters.
http://www.superherohype.com/news/transformersnews.php?id=8024
Why does every key decepticon need to be some funky jet thingy? In the movie, when the autobots came to Earth they are "normal" robots who take shape of Earth like items and it looked to be the same with most decepticons except Megatron and now Soundwave. Where did those two mimic those jets / spaceships?
I actually liked the movie, but I'm not thrilled that Bay moved away from some key items from the cartoon. Especially with some very key characters.
Jan 7, 2009
I was on a shitty session of playing shorthanded holdem and that video made everything all better. Congrats for easing me back from that little thing I was inching toward, tilt.
And Bryant those books I heard are awesome. I got fucking screwed because I wiki'd a bunch of Star Wars shit when I heard Lucas might start writing something about the future of Star Wars...way after the Skywalkers passed. And my thirst for knowledge ruined all those stories. Besides...who likes to read? I'm all about Twilight. I'm kidding. Seriously.
And Bryant those books I heard are awesome. I got fucking screwed because I wiki'd a bunch of Star Wars shit when I heard Lucas might start writing something about the future of Star Wars...way after the Skywalkers passed. And my thirst for knowledge ruined all those stories. Besides...who likes to read? I'm all about Twilight. I'm kidding. Seriously.
Speaking of Star Wars, I've seen a few things lately.
1. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
The movie was so-so, but entertaining. The cartoon on Cartoon Network is also pretty good. It can be kiddie at times and you get sick of hearing "I have a bad feeling about this," but I do keep watching it. The one thing I notice is that the guy who voices Anakin is 100 million times better then Hayden Christiansen. He sounds tougher, less whiny, and more in control which is the way Anakin should've been. Though what reminded me on why Star Wars can be stupid is that they had a whole episode on how Jar-Jar Binks needed to save Padme. Hearing that guys voice is like scratching nails across a chalkboard.
2. Star Wars: Legacy
So this is a pretty entertaining graphic novel. It's about another rising of the Sith, years after Return of the Jedi. The main character is Cade Skywalker who is a descendent of Luke. He starts off as a pirate (Han Solo style) who does not embrace his destiny up front. He's a kick ass Jedi, but also has the power to heal people too. I like the artwork and the storyline so far. If anyone is interested in reading any of these, I have the first 3 volumes and I just got the fourth to read as well.
I'm not a huge Star Wars nerd as well, but I find the storylines intriguing and how someone can come up with such a mass universe is beyond my imagination.
1. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
The movie was so-so, but entertaining. The cartoon on Cartoon Network is also pretty good. It can be kiddie at times and you get sick of hearing "I have a bad feeling about this," but I do keep watching it. The one thing I notice is that the guy who voices Anakin is 100 million times better then Hayden Christiansen. He sounds tougher, less whiny, and more in control which is the way Anakin should've been. Though what reminded me on why Star Wars can be stupid is that they had a whole episode on how Jar-Jar Binks needed to save Padme. Hearing that guys voice is like scratching nails across a chalkboard.
2. Star Wars: Legacy
So this is a pretty entertaining graphic novel. It's about another rising of the Sith, years after Return of the Jedi. The main character is Cade Skywalker who is a descendent of Luke. He starts off as a pirate (Han Solo style) who does not embrace his destiny up front. He's a kick ass Jedi, but also has the power to heal people too. I like the artwork and the storyline so far. If anyone is interested in reading any of these, I have the first 3 volumes and I just got the fourth to read as well.
I'm not a huge Star Wars nerd as well, but I find the storylines intriguing and how someone can come up with such a mass universe is beyond my imagination.
Jan 6, 2009
More on that last video and Star Wars
I read a few of the comments, including fanboys jumping to Qui-Gon's defense. One that I saw attributed his embarrassing post-saber-battle exhaustion and goofy impalement mishap to his preference of "Ataru style". Curious, I looked up Ataru on Wookieepedia. This is like looking up the meaning of the Klingon gibberish Worf barked out in anger when his honor came into question for hesitating to take Picard into the neutral system. Which I did not do. Because I already knew. Just kidding.
I always liked Star Wars, but never geeked out hardcore on it. But for some reason I couldn't help but read about the seven forms of lightsaber combat. The philosophies, stances, strengths, weaknesses, and main users are given for each one. Since any boy growing up in the 80s would be demented not to love Star Wars, I figured at least a couple of you might want to look this up too. I also found the Galen Marek/Starkiller story interesting.
Even mo' fo' yo' inner Star Wars geek
It just so happened that immediately after I unearthed this critical information, my brothers and I each received Star Wars Heroes & Villains playing cards. This set consists of two 55-card decks of normal playing cards (3 jokers), one for heroes and one for villains. We had a good time (a) guessing who the jokers, aces, kings, queens and jacks were, and (b) laughing at all the other random characters thrown in to complete the deck, which only a true hardcore would know about (like my younger brother, who was able to verify information with his library of Star Wars reference books). So feel free to take a guess at which were the top characters in each deck, and then I can post the answers later on.
I read a few of the comments, including fanboys jumping to Qui-Gon's defense. One that I saw attributed his embarrassing post-saber-battle exhaustion and goofy impalement mishap to his preference of "Ataru style". Curious, I looked up Ataru on Wookieepedia. This is like looking up the meaning of the Klingon gibberish Worf barked out in anger when his honor came into question for hesitating to take Picard into the neutral system. Which I did not do. Because I already knew. Just kidding.
I always liked Star Wars, but never geeked out hardcore on it. But for some reason I couldn't help but read about the seven forms of lightsaber combat. The philosophies, stances, strengths, weaknesses, and main users are given for each one. Since any boy growing up in the 80s would be demented not to love Star Wars, I figured at least a couple of you might want to look this up too. I also found the Galen Marek/Starkiller story interesting.
Even mo' fo' yo' inner Star Wars geek
It just so happened that immediately after I unearthed this critical information, my brothers and I each received Star Wars Heroes & Villains playing cards. This set consists of two 55-card decks of normal playing cards (3 jokers), one for heroes and one for villains. We had a good time (a) guessing who the jokers, aces, kings, queens and jacks were, and (b) laughing at all the other random characters thrown in to complete the deck, which only a true hardcore would know about (like my younger brother, who was able to verify information with his library of Star Wars reference books). So feel free to take a guess at which were the top characters in each deck, and then I can post the answers later on.
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