'With Cheese!'

Speaking of Zen Koans I have been pondering something.

Do you know that McDonald's commercial where the duder was supposed to go out and get snacks for a party and ends up getting about $50 worth of those new Double Quarter Pounders? The key point to that commercial is not his sticking skewers into the burgers as a solution for the party, but rather his rationale is that things will be all better because the burgers are 'With cheese!'

The cheese is catch-all, the reason that the difficult becomes the viable. This Boddhisatva is saying that the cheese melds us, spiritually as well as physically, presenting a solution to a problem. The cheese, metaphorically speaking, is the love of a Higher Being that binds us together; without the bond of the melted cheese, we are basically an anarchic pile of breads, meats, and veggies causing disharmony in the party. The simple solution ruling over the complex quandry, the unifying point that reigns in the rogue.

Oh, could it be that we in our daily lives were more 'With cheese!', then truly peace and harmony shall follow.

Namaste,

-Evil Badstar.
(Methodist)

I'm the best there is at what I do

I was working on a draft of something to post about 3 days ago, but it simply wasn't coming along like I had hoped. So I scrapped it, and plan to return to it another day. That leaves me with little to talk about, at least until i came up with this idea.

I am an avid video game player and movie watcher (less so with movies, but I have a pretty decent-sized DVD collection). I have a pretty good library of games, and my roommate and I tend to rent the latest games when they get released. So, why not review what I play?

Before I get into this, let me just say that I do not review games/movies for a living nor do I have any entity paying me for any support/endorsement I might give. I also can only speak for myself, and do not in any way guarantee that someone reading any of my reviews will get the same experience as I did. So don't come to me crying because I praised something that you hated, because I don't fucking care! Last, when it comes to games/movies I only ask for one thing: entertain me! I don't care if I'm watching something epic like The Lord of the Rings trilogy or something ridiculous like Gymkata. All I ask is that I be entertained for the amount of time I spend watching/playing so that I don't feel like i just wasted my money and time. Now, on to the reviews.

1. The Punisher: Platform - PS2. Expectations - All I am asking for is a high body count. Experience - So far (as this is our current rental), The Punisher has met my primary requirement: high body count. The game runs fairly smoothly on the PS2, and the load times are not bad in my estimation. Levels are fairly straight-forward, as most missions we have encountered seem to involve clearing out areas of local thugs and/or mafia-types. The game designers also instituted an interesting gameplay device where you can take an enemy hostage and then proceed to "interrogate" him/her. These "interrogations" basically consist of you choosing which way you will torture your victim to "break" them of their resistance, so they will give you clues for you continuing mission. There are also special zones in the surrounding environment which act as special interrogations, where the Punisher will use maybe a wood chipper or some other device to scare the victim into talking. Needless to say, this game is not for children. However, I wouldn't call it excessively gory, just that if you have ever read a Punisher comic than you can reasonably expect the same level of violence.
2. Mercenaries: Platform - PS2. Expectations - When your commercials are centered around the idea of "blowing the crap" out of everything in the game, I better damn well get exactly that. Experience - Mercenaries is exactly like they say in the commercials. You play as one of three mercs who work for a global corporation. In the game, it seems there is a new leader of North Korea, who has decided that he is going to reunify with South Korea. By force. Your job is to work for any or all of 4 factions within the game (South Korea, China, A.N.*, Russian Mafia) to stop North Korea, and to gain as much money as possible while doing so. Now, you start out being fairly neutral towards all the factions (except North Korea, who will always be your enemy), and depending on your actions your rating within each faction will raise/lower. Also, one faction may have you do a job that will be to the detriment of another faction so there is some complexity in solving missions without being branded an enemy by another group. But enough with all this talk of missions and complex faction-building. The question on everyone's mind is, "Can you really blow the crap out of everything?" With the exception of trees in the environment, the answer is a resounding "Yes, yes you can!"
3. Resident Evil 4: Platform - Gamecube. Expectations - Hmmm ... I really didn't have much in the way of expectations on this one. I had a fond memory of my experienced with the other Resident Evil games, so as long as I was given the same kind of atmosphere then I would probably be happy. Experience - Great fucking game! This may be the best Resident Evil yet, and I have played nearly all of them. My first complaint of any RE game has always been that they never give you enough ammo. I understand that I should be scared and that I need to run away from the nasty hordes of zombies that want to eat my brains, but sometimes a man wants to stand and fight. In RE4, they give you that opportunity. Ammo drops much more frequently, much to my liking. Another area that was fixed was in the orientation of the character in relation to the controls. I knew of many friends who could not play the older RE games because of the control scheme that was implemented. Simply put, in older RE games to move your character forward you have to press up on the controller, no matter which direction your character is facing on the screen. This would confound some people, because the character may be situated so he/she is looking towards the bottom of the screen, so naturally you would want to push down on the controller to move the character in that direction but you would still need to press up because that would make the character to move forward. In RE4 the viewpoint is situated just over the right-hand shoulder of the main character in the game at all times, so pressing upwards on the controller would seem natural when you want to move the character forward. Lastly, this game looks like it will take a good amount of time to play through as well as showing off incredible graphics and atmosphere. I highly recommend this to anyone with a Gamecube.

Ja matta!

Just like to offer a little welcome ...

A good friend of mine has to decided to grace my little blog with his wit and presence. I hope that everyone will give JerseyStrangler some time to develop here. I, for one, am greatly appreciative in that he has decided to take some time to impart his wisdom upon us mere mortals through my small sphere of influence here in the web.

Further Updates: Two more good friends of mine are going to be joining me in this little endeavor. That brings my currnet count of blog contributors up to 3. I probably won't get anymore people onboard, unless someone really wants to help out. Anyway, please keep an eye out for posts from Ammy and X. I have known JerseyStrangler, X and Ammy for over 10 years now, and I expect them to all contribute things of interest over the course of this blogs life.

Also, I would like to make a correction about my Lazy Saturday post. X has informed me that the pictures of deep sea fish are not those of creatures that washed onshore due to the tsunami. According to his sources, they were captured during a deep sea excursion that scientists made a few weeks before the tsunami occurred. It sucks to have your facts wrong, but the pictures themselves are cool so it is still worth a look.


Auf Wiedersehen!

Memorable Quotes

Neil Patrick Harris: [to Kumar] I know it's a dick move. That's why I'm paying for your meal.
[looks down to count money]
Neil Patrick Harris: [quietly] Prick.

Lazy Saturday ...

Not much to report today. Been a pretty lazy Saturday, even here at work. Raining outside to, so there's been less to do. Anyway, saw these two items earlier today. I originally saw these stories on the site, Slashdot, which is a great site for us techies.

The first one is a classic example of why I need to go take a vacation to Japan. Cause I know I need this product. Oh! Super Toaster!

Secondly, we have a bunch of posts on what looks to be a Russian diving message board. In a lot of the posts there are pictures of various fish that have washed ashore because of the terrible tsunami that hit SE Asia. Some of these fish look like they were pulled from the deeper parts of the ocean. This page takes a while to load, due to all the images but I think it is worth it just to see what kinds of creatures there are in our oceans.

Ja matta!

Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Children of all ages! Welcome ...

I love the news. I try to keep up-to-date on what is happening in the world, if for nothing more than to use later in conversation. Sometimes you can find real gems when looking at stories across various sites. Here are two such stories I enjoyed reading today:

1. This first story was linked off the Drudge Report, which I don't go to often. So, I cannot verify the authenticity of this story.

2. I have seen this second story reported on many of the various major news sites (CNN, MSNBC, etc.).

I plan on adding some extra stuff to this blog soon. Mainly just a listing of links I frequent, so you'll have a better understanding of some of my interests. Those will probably be up in the next few days.

Adios.

... quick update on life ...

Well, just a quick update since my last post. At work, our NOC is complete and we have all moved up into the new area. It is not as bad as I feared, but we'll see as time develops how this all affects our group dynamic.

Gotta get back to work, but I may be posting some site links and stuff later for your amusement.

"Have you paid your dues, Jack?"

For a little over 4 years now, I have worked as a tech support rep for a non-profit organization here in St. Petersburg, FL. Coming out of college, my grades were OK (nothing spectacular, as I seemed to suffer from acute senioritis) but what I found out during many interviews was that to get a foot into the IT world one needs to have practical job experience. School work is nice to look at and it was nice that I had a degree, but it wouldn't get me a job. So, I figured that to get where I want to be in the industry I needed to "pay my dues" and work up the ladder. I was offered a job in the local Tampa Bay area, and to this day I am thankful to the man that hired me for believing in a young kid that was fresh out of college.

Honestly, I have been surprised that I have stayed at my job for as long as I have. If you've never done it or do not know people who have, technical support wears you down. And I feel like I've been ground down to the bone. The only reason I have stayed with it this long is two-fold. First, I work with a great group of people. We all get along, joke around with each other, and generally have a good comraderie. Secondly, it's simply been easier to stay with the familiar then venture into the unknown.

Now, my company has just about finished a "NOC", or Network Operations Center. A NOC is generally a command post, where techs like me monitor the various systems that the company is running so we can prevent or respond to any problems that might occur. When I first heard that they were building a NOC, I was excited because I thought it signalled that my company is trying to be more proactive in regards to preventing problems. I also looked towards this as an opportunity for advancement within the company becuase it seemed we would be working more closely with some of our upper-level engineers. But as the project has been finishing up, I have become less and less optimistic. The more I've watched, the more it seems that this whole setup is just a cosmetic change. It looks like we'll be doing our same job as always, just in a "nicer" area with some upgraded equipment (mainly new desks and monitors). We have a meeting today where the rumor is that we will be told how we are now supposed to conduct ourselves. Previously, we have been given a lot of leeway in how we act because we are generally out of the public's eye. This has helped because it allowed all of us techs to develop a great chemistry. Now I am worried that will all be changed. I honestly can't imagine coming to work and not joking around with some of the guys between calls, as that helps to take the edge and frustration out of the job.

As the time for this whole change draws nearer, I've thought more and more about the line Jack Burton gave to that 8-foot tall maniac. "Have you paid your dues, Jack? Yes sir, the check is in the mail."

On to the boring stuff ...

I was born in Sanford, NC back on December 5, 1977. Shortly thereafter, my family moved down to Tampa, FL where we have lived ever since. I attended K-12 public schools here, and after graduating from Chamberlain High School I went to the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. I attended that institution for 4 years, and I graduated in May of 2000 with a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science. From there, I moved back to Tampa where I was eventually hired by a local non-profit organization to join their technical support team. I have been working there ever since.

Real boring life, eh? I will say that I am blessed to have a great group of friends in this town, and that I also am working with probably the best group of people I could have hoped for. I will honestly say that I would have left Tampa long ago if it weren't for the friends I have here, as well as the coworkers at my job.

Regardless, I am beginning to wonder if it may be time to move on. I'm still young, and I'm starting to think that 3 years in one place may be a bit too long especially with opportunities that I might find elsewhere. I can't say I will be leaving anytime soon, as I have been planning for the last year to take a vacation this coming March or April (more on that later). But I think it's time for me to look into moving on to further my career ...