Good Morning All

[jp]

2000 posts in this muthafucka!!!!!! Woooooo!!!!!!

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Too much to go back and comment on, so I'm just going to start fresh here instead! ;) Still, I hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

So... How's life? ;) Mine has been crazy to say the least! CrAzY!!! Still, I'm surviving... So I guess that counts for SOMETHING! :p

I think pretty much everyone on here got my friend invite, but for anyone who DIDN'T know, I FINALLY got an XBox 360 and signed back up for XBox Live! My gamer tag is "HawkClay94" for anyone who needs it! My games so far are pretty much all arcade games, and the only games I've really played online have been Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Street Fighter II Turbo/Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD (started the new HD one last week)! Dang, it's SO AWESOME to play them online! It's got that feeling of being in the arcades in the early 90's! Although, I have it set to mute everyone except for friends, so I don't have to listen to some of those idiots when playing! :|

One thing that I've had issues with is my connection though. Seems my system can't detect my wireless network, and I get kicked off frequently too! :( What sucks, is I think some games say that I quit playing because of disconnects, and I've gotten some negative feedback because of it already for "quitting early!" :( I have NEVER quit early, and I'll take any loss like a man no matter HOW bad I got beat (and I've gotten beat pretty hard)... but some of them were even rounds that I was WINNING! :( Who knows what my actual win/loss ratio would be had I no connection problems. Still, I've been holding my own despite that, and it's been fun finding some REALLY good players on those games! Good to have a challenge! ;)

However, I have noticed that certain characters are used pretty much ALL the time to play a little bit "cheap." I'm not going to go off on those guys who just run in and do some infinite bug/combo, but it is frustrating when every other match you play is against Smoke or Akuma! I like to play with all the characters, so I'll rotate who I play with or just use random select for the most part... which I find more fun anyway! I think my win ratio with Guile and Sonya is pretty good though! ;) Still gotta get better with the other characters too though! :) I want to get good with ALL of them again! :)

Other than the arcade games, I have Chrome Hounds and Halo 3 now! :D If I wasn't so addicted to Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, I'd have already played those... but I'm pretty much getting home already excited for my next match! :p Still, I want everyone to get together with me on these because I haven't played EITHER of them yet!

I also ordered Mortal Kombat vs. DC and Sonic Unleashed for some "Black Friday" deals. They should be here next week, because I used the free shipping. So my total game count is up to 4 now! Oh, and my friend let me borrow Call of Duty 4 and Tony Hawk something, so I've got plenty to keep me occupied for awhile! ;) And I have to give a special shout out to CJG once more for his kind donation of the XBox Live Arcade games disc! I've really enjoyed the games on that disc too, so thanks again CJG!

Work? Yeah, still working like a slave! :p Been crazy lately as I'm sure some of y'all have noticed! I've been stuck in a rut trying to get out of some debts, and I NEED more work than I'm getting, but it's just not there like it used to be. :( I'm still managing everything well, but I'd love to be completely debt free next year! We'll see...

Anyway, that's about it for now I guess! Hope all is well with you guys (and gals)!

Y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

Glad you are enjoying the arcade disc. :)
They are old games, but there are some fun ones on there.

I of course have Halo 3, but I also have CoD4 and Chromehounds. Unfortunately with the new baby my game time online is very limited. Hopefully in a month or so she will be sleeping through the night, but whenever that does happen expect to see me online a lot more!!!!

[HawkClay]

I can certainly understand Luminous (sorry, I still think of you as CJG and referenced that in my original post)! How old is your baby now? Not sure how old they are supposed to be before you are able to get any sleep though... I've been hanging out with one who just turned 2 years old... and you can NOT get a good night's sleep because he wakes up crying in the middle of the night so much! :\ I'm thinking back trying to remember when it was that I was actually to the point of CHERISHING that whole "sleep" thing! :p It's something I still don't get enough of! ;)

[Luminous]

I know you meant me....no worries there. She is 10 weeks old and some babies start sleeping through the night at 3 months, some at 4 months, some even longer. She has been pretty good so far and has slept for 6 hours or more in a row at night.

Once she starts going 10 - 12 hours at a time I should be good to go.

[DarthArcturus]

hawk, I'm up for some halo 3 once finals are over for me (in about 2 weeks) :)

[HawkClay]

Oh, I don't think I said anything at the time, but CONGRATS on being a new Dad Luminous! :) That's awesome indeed! My friends 2 year old definitely solidifies the logic behind the term, "terrible twos!" :p He's actually a smart, funny and adorable kid when he wants to be... but those temper tantrums! :\ That and he just will NOT sleep through the night without his Momma there! Makes me happy I didn't jump the gun on having kids yet at least! I value my sleep too much right now! :p Seriously though, he's a good kid... but now I know why my Dad doesn't have any hair left after the 3 of us! ;)

Darth, that's cool! I'm up for it for sure! I haven't played it offline or online yet, so I'm excited! I'm trying to wait until I have a little time to dedicate to it since I know I'll be hooked, and it's not like Street Fighter where I can pick it up and have a few fights in just a couple of minutes as those levels take some serious time dedication sometimes! :/

Oh, and I heard that there are some extra maps available for it and they are on sale this week! I need to look at those before they go off sale at least since I'm sure I'll need them in the long run anyway! ;)

[DarthArcturus]

I haven't bought the legendary map pack yet(that's the one on sale). Your honestly okay to play most the stuff online since most of the map packs are free :D I'm pretty sure most people here have legendary map, I'll get around to it :p

[HawkClay]

Well get them now while they are on sale Darth! No use in paying more for it later if it's only going to go back up in price!

Ugh! I think I'm getting sick! My nose is running pretty bad and I'm coughing a lot! Go figure! At least I LOVE being sick! :| /sarcasm

Oh, and something else that's fun going on with me... My house seems to be falling apart! :p Yep! My toilets are both running all the time, so I've turned off the water to them and then just turn it on when I have to go. I'm not home much though, so no big deal... and if it's just #1, then I'll go outside and just paint my fence! :p Shhh! So I've got to fix those, and I'm sure it's not TOO hard, but I've never done it before. My roof also has a leak somewhere so whenever it rains I get sitting in the attic and have a little bit of water damage on the wall! And my computer monitor is going out on me too, so I can't get online at home much either! I turn on the monitor and it pretty much shuts off a minute or two later! Go figure, I FINALLY got my computer reformatted and cleaned up and smoking fast again and now the monitor goes out on me! Don't even get me started on my paper shredder either! :p

So any handymen in the Dallas area want to work on a few projects with me? ;)

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, last night I got home and had dinner while watching Johnny Bravo! :lol: Cracks me up! He's on this setup date with this super ugly "super villian" woman and he keeps putting her down with everything he says! Finally she screams, "I'VE HAD IT!!! Here I am, trying to be a model citizen..." And Johnny responds in a puzzled voice... "You're a model?" :lol: Seriously, thank goodness I didn't have food in my mouth! Yeah, I know that show is old, but I haven't gotten to watch it much over the years, so I still enjoy it!

As for games, I played the 2 different Street Fighters. Got a few matches in online and then tried to beat the original without losing. Yeah, Ken cheat! :p After that I talked on the phone a bit before heading to bed.

Today I'm feeling like crap! :( I found out that my friends son is also sick with the same thing, so I'm pretty sure we both caught it from the baby who was sick last week. And of course, we're super short at work, so I'm supposed to pick up the slack there... Not a fun time to be sick! :(

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Bruhaha69]

Sucks to be sick. Today I might go pick up PoP, but I should probably just stay home and look for a job. I haven't worked in so long, going back to any job is gonna be 100% awful.

[HawkClay]

Yeah, I feel all loopy and light headed! :p

I also totally lost track of the days and was thinking that today was Tuesday for some reason! That means that I have some temperature sensitive medicine sitting on my doorstep from last night that I forgot to put up in the fridge, so I'm going to have to run home on my lunch break and take care of that! I may just tell them I'm not coming back in either... :( I could use some more meds and a good nap, that's for sure!

Oh, this is kind of funny! I had this dream that this girl and I went to a seminar about strengthening relationships or something. It was meant for women, but men were allowed. So she asked if I would go to do the different activities with her, and I went. Well, each activity only had so many spaces available and every time she picked something, when she'd sign up, the rest of the slots would instantly fill by other women so we couldn't do any activities together. Well, determined to get something out of it, I went to a few alone, and I don't think I made a good impression on some of the women in my group! One of them got all frustrated and tried to choke me with a plastic bag! I had my hand up so it didn't work, but then she said she was going to tickle me! She tickled me, and I felt it and JUMPED out of my sleep and let out a yell! All the animals who were asleep came up to me to see why I jumped up and yelled! :p It was funny, but cute at the same time! :p

[ShinobiWan1]

lol nice dream Hawk, I like it when my dreams cause me to do something funny. Typically that happens to me in a more public setting, such as my school desk or something :p

[HawkClay]

I've had that happen before too Shinobi! ESPECIALLY when I fall asleep in class! I all of a sudden JUMP up and those around me just start laughing! :p I'm so fascinated with dreams too! Like how is it that your mind just comes up with something and puts it in a COMPLETELY RANDOM situation and plays it out in such order? I mean, it HAS order, so it's not just like random short bursts of thoughts of things. And the fact that sometimes it's about something you've NEVER thought about... and even sometimes about something that you find out about later! :o I've actually dreamed about a girl one time, and then 5 years later I MET that girl in real life! :o Crazy things those dreams!

Speaking of, did anyone ever see that episode of Batman the Animated Series where The Mad Hatter had Batman hooked up to that dream machine and put him in that "perfect world?" Yeah, that was awesome! Kind of like The Matrix or something! ;)

[Bruhaha69]

Yeah, his mom and dad were still alive. That was a great episode. He figured it out by trying to read a book and noticed that the words made no sense, haha. Something about the part of the brain you dream with not being able to make sense of letters and words.

[DarthArcturus]

I know dreams got to be one of the interesting things we experience. I'll always remember having this particular dream as a kid where I was at this completely different school and friends. Everything felt so real and the following night I had the same people and setting in my dreams and it was a continuation from the following night. Almost like an alternate reality :o

Good later afternoon. Forecast and did weather on TV yesterday as usual. I was an ass and forecasted snow for today like most other forecasts and it turns out nothing happened. Not enough moisture was present and the front moved to fast. We always end up lying :frown:

Also girlfriend and I are having a "break" right now and its been difficult. Might post more details in the sestren private board at some point.

[The Skies]

Dreams are fun indeed, i've had them recently, though I have not a clue what they where, nothing has really stuck except one I had a few weeks ago of me jumping out my first floor window, lol. I know i've had some interesting ones lately, I just don't remember. :(

I've still never had a nightmare before either. :O

w00t to this though, GMA ftw! :D

Tonight is my group thing, we are doing a gag gift exchange, so that'll be...interesting I suppose, lol.

I got my Left 4 Dead in the mail yesterday to, so i'll be looking to play that soon as well as more CoD.

[HawkClay]

My friend Odie sent me a message SWEARING by Left 4 Dead saying that I need to get it! Well, it's EA... and I'm broke... so I told him I couldn't right now, but he said he may just go out and get it for me for Christmas, so we'll see. It definitely sounds like an interesting game. Even though I hate EA, I can say that their creativity has gotten MUCH better in recent years than it used to be, so I'll give them like half a prop for that! ;)

Darth, it's interesting that you mention an alternate reality... I've thought about that before myself! :p I wonder even more about that when reading about all the different dimensions that we DON'T know about in string theory... So what if sleep opened up a portal of sorts to these various places and allowed us to visit? Especially considering some of the things I've dreamed about are things I can't even begin to fathom just randomly "coming up with" on my own! I'd LOVE to work in the scientific field in studying dreams and other interesting puzzles like that... but I'll just have to stick with the business side of things for now and read up on whatever I can in my free time! ;)

[HawkClay]

Well, I'm about outta here for the night. I'm feeling like crap too, so no fun for Hawk tonight! :( I plan on watching this preacher like I usually do on Wednesday nights, but other than that, I'll probably just rest. Probably a long shot, but anyone ever watch Jack Van Impe? His wife reminds me of one of those bobblehead things, but I like how he ties current events to prophecy, so I like watching the show! I just laugh every time I see her though! :p

Anyway, y'all have a great night! Take care, and have fun! ;)

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Wow! Triple post! :o

Oh well, that's what y'all are going to get if I'm going to be posting and y'all don't! ;)

Well, I managed to catch a few minutes of my preacher last night when I had to coax the baby to sleep! I'll catch it online though, so I'm not worried about missing it. I did manage to play a few games of Street Fighter (both versions). I swear, at match 4 round 2 it just likes to say, "Oh, you've gotten at least near perfect on every round before? We have to put an end to that!" :| I managed to beat Ken only to be taken down by Guile once and Ryu next! Whatever... In the SNES days I could beat the game without losing a round on the hardest difficulty... even if the SNES one had more of a "pattern" to beat the guys than the arcade! :p I'll beat this one! Too bad there isn't an XBox Game Genie! :p

Well, I'm still not feeling great. I haven't taken my meds this morning yet, but I just got my coffee... so that's next! Wow! I put y'all before coffee? Y'all should feel special! :p

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

Good afternoon.


Hawk, although EA published Left 4 Dead, it is made by Valve......I do have it and it is an intense experience. It's like playing through 28 Days Later, excpet with lots of bullets. :D Odie is right, it is fun. I haven't played with him online in ages....
Also go and buy the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack, they are all really good maps. Especially Avalanche!!! Don't forget to download the free ones as well. The Heroic Map pack and Cold Storage (single map). I have been itching to play more Halo 3, but I hate playing online alone. I enjoy it, just not as much as when I have a good group to play with.


Of course my online time is still very limited, but if last night is a sign of things to come hopefully my daughter is going to start sleeping longer at night.

[HawkClay]

Luminous, I downloaded the Legendary Map Pack since it was on sale... and I still haven't even put Halo 3 in my 360 yet! :p I'll get the others as well though for sure! I'm excited to play Halo 3, but at the same time, I want to accomplish a few other things before I let Halo take my life away like I know it probably will! ;)

Odie is in medical school, so he spends pretty much all his time with that. Not sure if I'm supposed to keep quiet or not, but he still gets on... he's just hidden, because he knows he can't play anything for very long. He'll send me a message when he is on though if he sees me. It's typically like 2:00 a.m. though! :\

Well as the day trudges on, I'm feeling sluggish still. I feel kind of like Dante (Clerks) because every time I think about the fact that I'm not even supposed to be here today... Well, you get the picture! ;)

"I'm HawkClay, and I'm the biggest idiot ever!" :p

[jp]

"I'm HawkClay, and I'm the biggest idiot ever!" :p

Hmmm... I can't remember if that was solely in the episode where they get locked in the freezer or if it was in the "Dante Gets Sued" episode as well. :p


Anyways, today has been... boring. Just boring. Made spaghetti for breakfast, lounged about, hit the gym at 11AM, came back, lounged about, made some chicken for lunch, then came to work. I'm working A LOT these next few days, and its really tiring me out, especially since I JUST finished finals. :dead:

In so far as finals, I've pretty much been told I made As in Foundations of Math and Complex Analysis. Hoping for Bs in Physics and Fourier Analysis though (since I wasn't really into those).

But yeah, I'm working teh old job now, so lots of evenings stuck behind a computer with jack shit to do for me!!!!!!!

[DarthArcturus]

good evening just got back from work. I finished the main quest of fallout 3 last night. I thought the last stuff you had to do felt really epic but the ending was very weak. Also hate the fact you cannot continue playing after beating the main quest. So I have a save before doing the final part of the main quest and will continue to do some stuff I missed. I can't wait for the download content to come :D

I got finals in 2 weeks can't wait for that bs to be over with. I'm a bit worried about my grade in diff Q because the professor is fucking horrible speaker and I have no motivation to go to that class. But I think if I do well on that final I should be okay.

[Luminous]

Morning.

Yesterday was an okay day, just another Thursday really. :|


I hate to sound like a bad father, but I can't wait until my little girl is sleeping through the night. My main stress relief is gaming and I have not been able to play all that much, so for obvious reasons my stress level is higher than it should be. Of course the stress of being a parent and being responsible for a life just adds to it. I will say that we are very lucky, she is a very good baby. It is crazy that she totally depends on my wife and I to live. Of course all of us were like that at one point in our lives and thankfully it seemed to work out.....lol.....

[DarthArcturus]

good morning..its been awhile since I've been awake at 9:15 am on a friday morning. I'm acutally on campus trying to find my professor so I can pick up my stupid rough draft of research paper. His door is locked and I hate sending emails to teachers :redface:

Oh I finally bought the legendary map pack the other night. Ghost town seems like a sweet map, but I have a feeling the odds of landing it on matchmaking are slim. Even during the download content matchmaking or whatever its called it would go to a nondownloaded map :|

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Jp, yeah it was in both of those episodes! In the one where he got sued, it was a part of Randall's dream. In the freezer one it's Randall imagining himself as stocking the freezer when Dante swings the cat around his head and it hits the door and closes it. :lol: That show was SO FREAKIN' FUNNY! "We get five whole dollars for breakfast? Man, I wish this trial would NEVER end!" :lol:

Good luck on your finals Darth! I'm not in school this year, so I'm HOPING I'll be in a position to get back into it next year. I tried last year, but I just had too much going on for me to have a successful semester. Calculus took too much of my time that I just needed to spend working, so that's the next class I have to get out of the way! I'm going to need a somewhat "light" work load for me to dedicate myself properly for that class! :(

Luminous, I know EXACTLY what you mean! I don't have kids, but I've been around them plenty lately! My friend has a 2 year old son who wakes up CONSTANTLY throughout the night! You can't get a good nights sleep with that going on all night, and when he's actually awake, he wants ALL your free time! I tip my hat to parents seeing what they have to go through for their kids! That's tough to say the LEAST!

Well, last night was fun! It was good getting to talk to some of you last night while I got my butt kicked in Street Fighter! :p I should really stop using the random select when I play... For some reason, it LOVES to give me Balrog (who I SUCK with)! I also don't like playing as Ryu or Fei Long much... but you can guess what my most common players are! :p I wish I could just say "Give me random, but just NOT these three characters!" Plus, I worry a little bit when I pick Ryu or Ken that people think I'm just one of those who abuse those characters (there are SO many people who play only as Ryu, Ken, or Akuma)! At least I like to mix my play up with everyone! I still want a joystick BAD though! Too many times I've lost because I just can't pull off the moves I want to pull off with the 360 controller!

Well, I'm still not feeling great. I'm all congested still and coughing up crud! Of course my colleague couldn't work today either, so I'm here again... feeling like crap... And I'm not even supposed to be here today! ;)

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[jp]

Good morning guys!


I just woke up and my boss just called saying he meant to schedule me for a morning shift. So soon as my spaghetti is done in the microwave, its off to work I go. -_- But that means I don't work tonight!


Which means I can play videogames with you guys tonight!


Yay! ^_^

[HawkClay]

Wow Jp! Your Friday night plans are pretty much the same as MY Friday night plans! :o Imagine that! :p

I got SO close to beating Street Fighter II Turbo without losing last night! Balrog of all people beat me! Grrr!!! I actually decided to try as someone else thinking I may have better luck with a new character. I tried Chun-Li and lost to Zangief. :| I think Bison is the best to try this with typically, but between him and Guile, it just depends on how well I'm doing and how bad the computer wants to cheat me! I mean, how you throw someone out of Bison's "psycho crusher" is still a mystery to me! :|

[Bruhaha69]

Man, I'd love to just sit around playing games tonight. unfortunately, Friday's have become a designated drinking night with me and my best friend who doesn't really love games. Ahhh well....there's always 2 AM gaming time.

[HawkClay]

LOL! Well Bru, you may have just changed my mind too! My friend at work told me a little bit ago that he's going out after work, and now we're thinking about getting a group together! So I may be gaming later than expected, if at all tonight... stupid work! :p Actually, I need the money, so I'm not complaining too much about working all weekend! ;)

[Frogacuda]

Good morning, all.

It's 3PM and I just woke up. Fuck me, I have work to do today, too.

[Luminous]

good morning..its been awhile since I've been awake at 9:15 am on a friday morning. I'm acutally on campus trying to find my professor so I can pick up my stupid rough draft of research paper. His door is locked and I hate sending emails to teachers :redface:

Oh I finally bought the legendary map pack the other night. Ghost town seems like a sweet map, but I have a feeling the odds of landing it on matchmaking are slim. Even during the download content matchmaking or whatever its called it would go to a nondownloaded map :|

Ghost Town works best for 4v4 slayer. Most objective games get to be a pain in the ass. I do like the map though, but Avalanche is the best of the Legendary, imo.

[Bruhaha69]

Meengya, I haven't had a 3PM sleeping day since high school. Congratulations, Frog.

[The Skies]

Morning All! (Yeah im waking up late again so quickly here)

Tonight sounds like a good gaming night as well, I think i'll finally open up Left 4 Dead and play that, as well as some more CoD with the Recon guys, again, the only reason why I got that game. I went over to play some Recon with a guy who doesn't have CoD and my oh my has CoD screwed up my Recon game, lol. But its such the better shooter, by so very far, lol.

Anyways, if anyone is up for some L4D tonight, that'd be fun!

Also, me and a buddy are planning on playing some more Over G Fighters. Thats just one of those games that if you like flight sims, or just flying around, i'd recomend you to get. That's a game me and my buddy just play and randomly fly around and do stupid stuff on. With the new Party feature on XBL, it makes playing that game even better for when its more than 2 people.

I wish I still had Halo to play with you guys on that as well.

Another episode of Atlantis tonight, can't wait to see how horrible it is! w00t! :(

[Hunter]

You suck. Atlantis >>>>>>>> YOU

[The Skies]

Tell me you haven't actually enjoyed this season? Sure it had a few episodes that where good, but a few doesn't save a season. This season has been horribly bad. :(

[DarthArcturus]

its been pretty weak. I haven't even watched the last few...

I'm ganna jump on xbox and be on until 8 pm CST then roommate and I are having a bit of a party at our place tonight..so probably no gaming till maybe way late and I'll probably be drunk w00t.

[Hunter]

Tell me you haven't actually enjoyed this season? Sure it had a few episodes that where good, but a few doesn't save a season. This season has been horribly bad. :(

I enjoy every season, every episode, every minute. YOU ARE A BLASPHEMER!!!

O'Neil curses you!!

[The Skies]

Well every season was worth enjoying, until they came out with this crap of a season. :(

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, last night didn't go EXACTLY according to plan, but oh well. I spent most of the night talking on the phone, which is funny, because I used to NEVER talk on the phone after taking a job in a call center a many years ago! Ever since then, I've pretty much avoided phone conversation whenever possible, but I've been on it much more lately since my friend lives about an hour away, so coming over isn't exactly "convenient."

So no going out after work, and while I played a little Street Fighter II and a little Pinball FX, not really much gaming either. My network connection was lost on the 360 again, so I'll have to manually input that again to connect... That's such a strange problem. :\

Oh yeah! I got my Mortal Kombat vs. DC and Sonic Unleashed yesterday too! I opened Mortal Kombat, but I wanted to play that in full immersion, so instead of playing on the phone, I held off for a better time. One complaint though is the box for it is a piece of junk! I got the Kollector's Edition, and it's just a cardboard box without a DVD case in it at all! :o I'm going to see if DVD cases will fit in it and maybe make some custom ones for it later, but it's a little "cheap" to be the "Kollector's Edition" though. The artwork is nice though! :x

So now I'm back at work, having fun again! Let the good times roll! ;)

Y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Bruhaha69]

Sucks about the LE. the Prince of Persia LE is the same deal....thanks for preordering, here's a cereal box quality slip for your normal DVD case.....frrtt! On the other hand, I think it comes with a bonus disc, so it's not a total loss.....I just expect the nice tins when I get LE's. I guess this is why it didn't cost extra.

Play any Sonic?

[HawkClay]

Not yet Bru. I was going to play Mortal Kombat first, but I didn't even play it yet! :( LOL @ the cereal box comment! :lol: That's EXACTLY what it's like! :lol:

I guess it's understandable a bit with Midway though considering the financial condition they are in right now. Gotta cut as much cost as possible to try and stay afloat! I on the other hand just hope they can hold out long enough for me to get out of debt and make some money so I can buy the rights to Mortal Kombat and NBA Showtime off of them! :p

[Luminous]

The best LE's I have in terms of cases/appearance all have very similar types of cases. The tin case that I first had with Halo 2's LE. Great case, not too big, but still different enough to warrant the extra $.

Doom 3, Lost Planet and Perfect Dark Zero all have very similar cases.

I am not a big fan of the large tin cases, they are too bulky and easy to damage. Gears of War 1, Halo 3 CE (not legendary), Prey - WORST CASE EVER all have the larger tin cases. I also have Fable II LE - just a cardboard slipcover, but the artwork in the DVD case is totally different so at least that is something besides a slip cover. The Oblivion CE is very nice, but all cardboard. Still it fits on the shelf nicely, just about twice as thick as the standard case.

I am very happy with the Gears 2 LE. Cardboard slipcover over a cardboard case, but the game and bonus DVD are in a tin case very similar to the Halo 2 one I mentioned. Also in the cardboard case is the bonus art book. I am just happy the game is in a case by itself. If you wanted just the game case on the shelf it is about the size of a normal DVD case.

[HawkClay]

I think all the best limited editions I have are imports. I can't think of a whole lot of really nice ones in the U.S. My favorite is probably Mortal Kombat Deception just because it came with the original Mortal Kombat... even if it was buggy (No music in The Palace Gates). :|

[jp]

Alabama and Florida are playing for the SEC championship right now.


I was a Florida fan as a kid, but I was raised in a HARDCORE Alabama house, so I'm pulling for Bama. They're losing though... 17-10.

Oh well, they murdered Auburn and at the end of the day, I think thats all that matters to most. :lol:

[DarthArcturus]

good late afternoon...sitting around watching my gators beating Alabama GOOO GATORS I can smell the national championship :D

Got pretty drunk last night but didn't get a chance to post any (probably a good thing :p) Overall a nice night before the last week of school and finals.
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[post updated]

Alabama and Florida are playing for the SEC championship right now.


I was a Florida fan as a kid, but I was raised in a HARDCORE Alabama house, so I'm pulling for Bama. They're losing though... 17-10.

Oh well, they murdered Auburn and at the end of the day, I think thats all that matters to most. :lol:
GOD DAMMIT JP GO FOR THE GATORS!! :mad:

[DarthArcturus]

GO GATORS :D

[jp]

:frown:


I knew it was over when Alabama got the Face mask call against them.

[DarthArcturus]

It was a good game. kinda glad since every single game florida has played after losing to Miss. St has been a blow out. I think Alabama only has a few seniors playing on their team, so they will be back for sure next year.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, I didn't have TOO eventful of an evening! I spent the whole night pretty much playing Mortal Kombat vs. DC though! I completed the story mode for both sides, and it was surprisingly MUCH better than I expected! :o The story itself ties into a LOT of different Mortal Kombat and DC mythos, so on multiple occasions I was like "WHOA!" And I've got to say, The Joker is HILARIOUS!!! Seriously, he was possibly the BEST "acted" Jokers I've EVER seen! He definitely looks more like the comic Joker, but you can still see some pretty clear Heath Ledger influences! And at first, I thought it was actually Mark Hammil back doing the voice, but it wasn't! I LOVE THE JOKER IN THIS GAME! I was left wanting even more of the story mode though, because the cinematics were just too much fun! VERY shocked that I liked that part as much as I did seeing as I was a bit skeptical being a HUGE fan of both!

And the graphics! :o That game is BEAUTIFUL! I'm not much of a graphics whore, but the character models are FANTASTIC! My "biggest" complaint is the women. They are all... ummm... HUGE! And the hair on Wonder Woman wasn't the best, but overall, a VERY nice looking game! All of the DC characters looked like actual incarnations from Alex Ross drawings, and Superman, Captain Marvel, Lex Luthor... Heck, pretty much ALL of the character art turns out it is BY FAR some of the best representations of all the characters that I've EVER seen! I love Alex Ross art though, because he has this way of making the unreal look so real! Tell me that's not a freakin' AWESOME Superman!

I played a few rounds online. I won once, lost twice. I hadn't really figured any characters out when I was playing online, so I was happy enough with that. I just wanted to check it out to see how well it worked. There was a bit of a loading time. And winning 25 ranked matches in a row is going to be QUITE the challenge! :o I figured I needed a LOT of practice with at least one or two characters before going back to the online side of things.

Tried a Kombat Challenge and made it to the 5th one for Raiden. I also beat the Arcade mode with Scorpion and Batman! Nothing to write home about, but I have to admit I enjoyed seeing some tie ins here! ;)

The kombat itself isn't completely different from the other 3-D outings, but it's not the same either. Gone are the multiple fighting styles (thank GOD), but the "built in combos" are still prominent. It seems like you are in a little bit more control about what kind of combos you want to pull off, but to get any good, you'll need to learn the "actual" combos because otherwise, you'll be getting your butt kicked. Raiden seems like a powerhouse, but I also really think Wonder Woman seems like a good choice too! Superman KICKED MY BUTT though!

The freefall thing is a pretty cool touch! That and the "Test Your Might" being worked into the stages themselves are actually really cool! There's this new "grab" where you can go into a "custom combo" system where you can hit any buttons to create your combo... but if the other player hits the same button as you for any one of the moves, that creates a "counter" and breaks the combo. It's actually pretty cool even if it's luck based.

Controls are solid, the music had it's moments, but it's not one of the most memorable of all the soundtracks. The voice acting was REALLY good, and I would LOVE to see a whole SERIES based on these models/actors! I only pulled off one "Heroic Brutality" with Batman. Not bad, but definitely tame. I saw one Fatality online with Raiden. I thought that one was actually pretty cool! Not much blood in the game, but even though I know Mortal Kombat has always been built around the "gore," it wasn't really missed either. It still felt like Mortal Kombat!

Still, I have to say that the best part is all the little humor and nods to each of the series in the story mode! For example, when Shang Tsung is watching a fight, he looks at the winner and says, "Fatality." And The Joker! HA HA HA HA HA!!! Seriously, he cracked me up!

OK, so that probably should have been a Reader Review, but whatever... It's what I did last night, so you get to deal with it! ;) Overall, I think I've seen the bulk of the game. What is there is great, but I do wish there was more. DEFINITELY worth the $35 though! And from a big fan of BOTH series, I can say that they really did the both of them justice!

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[jp]

Good morning you guys!


I just opened the building. I'm running this muthafucka solo until... um... 3PM. Then I'm going home and I'm going to try to clean my apartment to at least 50% cleanliness, then I've got to fix my computer so I can work on more music stuff. Oy, long day. I brought my DS, my favorite "new age" Calculus book (one of those with a bunch of problems and stuff, not like the old school stuff which just read like a BOOK), and my Differential Geometry book (which reads like a book), so I've certainly got enough stuff to keep me occupied until its time to go home!


Last night was pretty cool. Hopped on XBL with Newport and Cystic. We tried to play Castle Crashers but it kept... uh... crashing on us. :| So then it was on to Horde Mode in Gears of War 2, which is always a good time. But I had to open this morning so I had to bail around Wave 18 or so. Ah well.

I'm down for some gaming tonight when I get done with teh chores though. So if anyone wants to play something, lemme' know! Hawk, I know you've got Halo 3, so 4 of us could do a solid co-op run through that, or just blast some dipshits online! ;)

[HawkClay]

JP, I read that Castle Crashers has a horrible bug where it makes online play almost impossible... plus, it can corrupt your data so that you lose your character! :o They are SUPPOSED to be coming out with a patch for that, but I haven't heard of anything yet about WHEN. It's why I put Castle Crashers on the sidelines after my initial play, because THAT GAME IS AWESOME!!! When the patch comes out, we should all get online and play!

I have a lot of chores to do myself tonight, but mostly stuff that can be done WHILE I game... like laundry and dishes and stuff. So I'm getting home from work around 7:00 Central, and I'll get my stuff started and then jump online! My friend was also talking about maybe playing online tonight, so I'll see who all is on when I get online... otherwise it's more Mortal Kombat vs. DC! ;) I'm DEFINITELY up for a co-op run through on Halo 3 though! That would be AWESOME for my first time playing it! :)

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, let's see... No gaming last night for me really... Well... OK, so I did pop in some Karaoke Revolution: American Idol for Wii, but it wasn't for me to play! My friends son has the game and it keeps telling him that he can't play unless he puts in a microphone... Even though he has! It's just a USB microphone that came with the game, so I tried it on her computer, and it didn't register there either, so I figure the mic is shot. We went to Wal-Mart to see if they had any USB microphones, and you'd think we were asking for the crown jewels or something! LOL! The only thing they had even remotely possible was the microphones for some PS2 game, which included a USB converter, so I figured it was worth a shot. Well, that didn't work either, so I'll have to take it back. So I wasn't able to fix it yet, but I'll see if I can get him a replacement microphone at Gamestop or something maybe.

Other than that, I've been trying to get my old laptop computer up and running again. It's been a LONG time since I've used it, and it was running SO SLOW that it really wasn't even worth it! However, my friend is going through even tougher times than I, and she can barely afford food for her kids, let alone Christmas presents! I'm going to try and get it all working again so she can give it to her oldest son, so hopefully I can get it all cleaned up real well!

Well, so no gaming... ummm... Working today. :D Probably not late, but I'll be watching my preacher tonight if I get off at regular time. I won't be at home, so no gaming again, but I've still got some work to do outside of work, so it's all for the best! ;)

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Bruhaha69]

Working.....I haven't done that since Feb 2008.

Speaking of PC's and work, my sister called me at 1 AM for help troubleshooting her PC. Basically, it's an old PC from my mom's work. We were gonna keep it and give her this POS, but I gave that newer one to her instead. As it ends up, I think it either has a failing power supply or a failing motherboard. More likely a power supply, but I'd need to see it. Regardless, it brought back angry awful feelings from when I did customer support. I don't think I can do that kind of job ever again.

For gaming today, I think I'll play some CoD4 online with my cousin. It's been awhile and I did pay $15 for those damn maps. Might as well get my money's worth.

[Luminous]

Working.....I haven't done that since Feb 2008.

Speaking of PC's and work, my sister called me at 1 AM for help troubleshooting her PC. Basically, it's an old PC from my mom's work. We were gonna keep it and give her this POS, but I gave that newer one to her instead. As it ends up, I think it either has a failing power supply or a failing motherboard. More likely a power supply, but I'd need to see it. Regardless, it brought back angry awful feelings from when I did customer support. I don't think I can do that kind of job ever again.

For gaming today, I think I'll play some CoD4 online with my cousin. It's been awhile and I did pay $15 for those damn maps. Might as well get my money's worth.

Ouch, I never bought the maps for CoD4, I am not a huge fan of the multiplayer. It's good, but I prefer Halo 3 or Gears 2.

I played 2 matches of Halo 3 online last night just before I went to bed. It is hard to get online with the baby in the house so I take whatever time I can get. I would love to play Halo 3 in co-op with Hawk, but sadly it is hard for me to find time to get online. I was able to play some Horde mode with Atari and some non-Sestren buddies on Monday night. We started at 21 and were up to 42 when we stopped.

[HawkClay]

Luminous, just keep an eye out for me when you are online and shoot me up for some online co-op any time you are on! I'll drop whatever I'm playing to play it since I've been holding out on Halo 3 to play it co-op online anyway! :)

I was able to sign on the on the other night and I tried to play Smash T.V. online with my friend, but we kept getting kicked back to the lobby every time we made it to the level 1 boss. I am wondering if it was my network connection. I may try and change the channel on my router, because shortly after that, I got booted completely when my phone rang. Talk about a pain! :p

Bru, boy do I know THAT feeling! I had to replace a power supply in my Mom's computer like 2 years ago, and I'm the family "go to" guy for computer issues. I don't mind helping family and friends out, but you're right... Tech support SUCKS!

1LLTsSnGWMI

:p

[Bruhaha69]

Haha, that video is true in many ways. Before they (and by they, I mean I) got us hands free head sets, I used to squeeze the hand set as tightly as I could when I was getting frustrated. Must've just sounded like static to the customer, haha.

I remember once I just threw someone on hold, lifted up my desk and started slamming it.....yeah, I lost it. The screaming drew some attention as well. I do not miss that job.

[NewportStark]

Hawk..... next time I see you online we are playing Halo 3 co-op you got that son?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

The :chief: approves this post.

[The Skies]

Morning All!

Tonight I got my normal group stuff going on, so i'll be hanging out at starbucks drinking my coffee tonight with them. It's definitley gotten alot better than the first time when its just weird getting into a new group, but once you get used to it its so much more relaxed.

Only 3 days till the big meteor shower, w0000000000t! So can't wait for that, my hours are set up perfect for it that i'll be outside the entire time its dark. :D

As for gaming, I still have NOT opened up Left 4 Dead, CoD has just been taking up so much time, i can't get to it. Heck, I still have Mass Effect sitting here from GameFly and I can't even find time to play that, and in a way, I dont really feel like playing that type of a game right now so mehhh. lol.

Anyways, I got to run and get ready and all that fun stuff, see you all later!

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, last night I managed to run a few errands and then I got pretty sick to my stomach, so when I got back to my friends house, I didn't do ANYTHING except crash! Oh, wait... I take that back! I did get a new microphone from GameStop, so I tried that out on the Karaoke Revolution, and it worked, so it was just a matter of a faulty mic after all! They had a used one that was only $10, and it was the exact same style and everything, so that was much better than the other options we were looking at!

Tonight I am planning on playing some Mortal Kombat vs. DC again (yeah, I know... SHOCK)! My dog is staying at my friends house so that her toddler can play with him the next few days! Those two have such an amazing relationship! The toddler has issues with texture and eating, so he freaks out about a lot of strange things... Even though she has dogs of her own, the toddler doesn't take to them outside of wanting to "see" them periodically. However, with my dog, he wants him to follow him around the house, go to sleep with him, play with him, eat with him, and even let him ride on his back! :^O My dog is a big dog, and he's a herding breed, so he takes the "abuse" with a smile on his face! He LOVES the attention, and he LOVES the fact that they play a LOT and he gets to sneak in some "people food" whenever the toddler feeds it to him! We were worried about them meeting at first, but the therapists say that he's actually done a lot of good for the toddler because since the dog likes to get up in the face and play a lot... since the toddler likes him too, it's kind of "broken the chains of fear" for a lot of things! He still has a ways to go, but I've even seen a difference! And it's so funny, that as soon as the baby wakes up or comes in the house, the first thing he says... over and over again is, "ACE!" (My dogs name ;) )

Well, not much else exciting going on really. Work is slow again, and we're all just wondering how long we'll be able to take things at this pace! :( We'll see...

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

Afternoon people.

Another evening of watching my little one.

We put her down at 10pm and I snuck online to play a couple of Halo 3 matches. Of course during the third match she woke up screaming.....lol....so I had to stop.

I do have a free night coming up next Wednesday so I plan to be online all night. I am going to try and leave work a little early and come in a little late.....:D

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, not much interesting happened yesterday. Got cut from work early, so I worked on that computer a bit. I played a little more Mortal Kombat and finished Arcade mode with the rest of the characters! Now I have to beat it on the HARDEST difficulty level without continuing and keep working on those Kombo Challenges (GOOD LORD ARE THOSE TOUGH)! My Live wasn't running yesterday, so I never did get online though.

Today, not much else going on besides that either! :p I'm kind of at the mercy of my work schedule right now, but I've got some projects I NEED to get finished this weekend if they are to ever get done! We'll see what happens!

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

The little one slept really well last night. Let's just hope it wasn't a one night occurrence...lol.

After she went to bed I was able to get a few matches of Halo 3 in again. It is really all I can do at the moment. I play for an hour or so and then head to bed. I should be playing the multitude of single player games I have, but I still enjoy Halo 3 online too much.

[NewportStark]

Fable 2 is still good in short bursts you know riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;)

[DarthArcturus]

good late afternoon...I got wasted last night with some of my classmates in my meteorology classes. It was the first time all of us did something together outside of school so it was really fun. Everyone was tanked by the end of the night :) :drinksong:

[The Skies]

I want to see you guys do the weather when you are all like that! :p

[ngt]

buying a house soon...had to sell stuff. ps1 stuff, dc stuff :cry: , and wii stuff are all gone. Everything that has been in boxes in the closet is out the door.

[Luminous]

buying a house soon...had to sell stuff. ps1 stuff, dc stuff :cry: , and wii stuff are all gone. Everything that has been in boxes in the closet is out the door.

It happens. I have sold a lot of stuff since I bought a place. It's worth it to own a place.


Morning, I was able to play Horde mode last night with Newport, Yankee and Atari. yeah for beating level 50. It's all about finding a good spot and having those shields up!

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

NGT, I know the feeling. I'm not buying a house, but I'm going to be selling pretty much everything to try and get caught up on other bills. I sure would like a new house, but that's a few years in the works probably! We'll just have to wait and see! I'm sure even though you sold a lot, you also kept enough to have some fun time to time?

Well, I saw y'all online last night, but I don't have Gears of War, so I played Mortal Kombat online for a bit. I upgraded the firmware in my router and changed the channel of the wireless signal to see if that helps my connection any. I had my friend call me to see if it punted me offline, but it kept me on! Maybe that will do it then! *crosses fingers*

Well, I discovered that my other T.V. and my old XBox don't turn on... It HAS to be the power strip! *CROSSES FINGERS* I've got too much falling apart at my house! I think it's starting to get mad that I'm never there anymore! :p

Well, I did alright in Mortal Kombat from what I played. I played a few players that I've read people complaining about on other boards... and I did beat/almost beat most of them, so that was fun! Had a few that pulled off a win, but SO CLOSE! It was one of those that makes you want to throw your controller! :p

So I read that most people don't think Batman is a very good character, and that's enough for me to pick who I am playing with! I've practiced a little bit with the Bat, and he IS tough to play as, but I'm alright with him. The ones people complain about are the "cheap" characters... The Flash, Green Lantern, Superman and Scorpion! They all have some pretty cheap tactics, but it's "beatable" from what I've seen... I wanted to beat all of them SOOO bad, but only pulled off a few. I'll tell you who I HATED playing against, was LEX LUTHOR!!! X-( Played this guy who just keeps throwing missiles at me from afar and used his "boot push" move to make sure I couldn't ever get in for close combat! Trying to do a teleport didn't work because the missiles were too fast and caught me when trying! I wanted a few rematches, but I was playing ranked, so no options for that. Oh well... I've got more wins than losses, but still... I only have a 3 winning streak! :p Not QUITE 25! ;)

Anyway, that's about it. Another fun day at work. My boss is taking us out to lunch here in a minute, so that will be cool!

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, last night was fun! When I got home from work, I played 3 rounds of Mortal Kombat vs. DC before Newport and I decided it was time to pop my Halo 3 cherry! It was good too! We played for a bit before hooking up with Atari and Luminous and ended up getting through the majority of the campaign in one sitting! Yeah, we're not hooked on Halo or anything though! :p Took me some getting used to the swapping of the reload button from X to RB instead, and I was accidentally using equipment when trying to reload, but for the most part, it all came back fairly quick! I love blasting away and then running up and popping them with the butt of my gun! A few times I ran into a situation where there were MUCH more enemies than I had seen hiding out, and they overtook me when I was going after someone, but overall, we were kicking that games @$$! Definitely fun times!

Well, more work for me today. Big fun! Once I get out of here tonight I'm not going home, so no game time for me unfortunately. Hopefully it will be a relatively easy day at work at least!

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[koda]

So this morning I woke up to this....

http://www.heavybit.net/misc/snow1.jpg

http://www.heavybit.net/misc/snow2.jpg

It's still coming down like crazy. Apparently we're going 7-10 days without the temperature getting above 25. My car has just been rendered altogether useless. :o

[Frogacuda]

Teach you to live in Oregon.

[DarthArcturus]

temperature was 59 this morning very warm for this time of year for a low, but thats because a very strong cold front just passed so the temperature just dropped 30 degrees :lol: its going to be 9 degrees tonight too.

[HawkClay]

59? LOL! It's 75 here! The only problem is... I like it cold! :( Yeah, I know... I need to move out of Texas if I prefer cold! Maybe someday! ;)

[DarthArcturus]

59? LOL! It's 75 here! The only problem is... I like it cold! :( Yeah, I know... I need to move out of Texas if I prefer cold! Maybe someday! ;)
same thing is going to happen to you later today too. Whenever the wind is blowing very strong from the south, and its pretty warm be ready for it to change at some point to winds from the north and lovely cold weather ;)

[HawkClay]

Yeah, that's the problem with Texas! You just have to keep a coat and a pair of shorts in your car at all times! You should NEVER wear long sleeves any thicker than a standard button up shirt, because while it could be cold in the morning, the afternoon may be WAY too hot to be comfortable in something heavier than that! LOL! It was like 20 something degrees two days ago, and here we are back up to mid 70's! That kind of stuff just drives you crazy! I just wear a short sleeved shirt, jeans and boots pretty much year round, but I do keep a jacket with me just in case! I can "suffer" the cold for any more than I may need it past that! ;)

[Bruhaha69]

We lost power at my house on Thursday night around 11:30 PM and we still don't have power back (posting from my cousin's house). Once I get power, I'll post some pictures of the ridiculous ice that was covering the trees. That Thursday night, you could trees fall like every 5 or 10 minutes. It's hard to sleep when you're worried about a tree crashing through the roof, haha.

[HawkClay]

That will teach you to live around trees! :p

Seriously though, that is crazy! I don't have any big trees in my area of town, so if a tree fell over, it would be little more than a rake falling over! :p Now, I have had my fence blow down and part of my roof blown off my house! Damned wolf just won't cut a little piggy a break! ;)

[ngt]

crazy day today....


1: making a bid on a house (filled out the contract until 9pm last night)

2: 10 year aniv. with my girl (she's sick and has to work)

3: going to "pop the question" (had it all planned out)

4: it's raining w/ thunderstorms (so all plans are shot)

5: nothing can be easy (gotta make shit happen)

6: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! (lol)

[jp]

Good luck NGT!!!!!!! :)

[DarthArcturus]

w00000000000t finals are over, but god damn what a terrible day to have not one but TWO finals :( got about 5-6 inches of snow. Weather models were all wrong forecasting well below that. Driving around sucked ass this morning and the cold has caused my nuts to be MIA.

Now all I have left is finishing this research paper thats due by friday.

[Frogacuda]

Good luck, ngt!

[DarthArcturus]

Good luck, ngt!

indeed good luck!

[The Bastard]

Hopefully NGT's day went real smooth......

[Bruhaha69]

Man, I hope it all went well, NGT.

In my area, we finally got power back. Yes sir, after 3 hours short of a 5 day power loss, I'm back in business. Hopefully the power grid in southern NH will improve by the year 2000.

[Luminous]

There were some people not too far north of me that lost power for a couple of days. We were very lucky. It is snowing right now though.


I hope all went well NGT!!!!!

[ngt]

thanks guys! all has gone well so far...ring stuff etc. She said yes. No date yet, but now that the ring is there, I think she's ok waiting for a minute. It took 10 years for me to cough that up, lol.

As for the house, the amount of paperwork is driving me nuts!, lol. Gotta fill out all kinds of things today. I just want to go fishing, lol.

I like the house though....hope we get it. We should find out in the next day or so.

here's a picture of the kitchen :) Easily the nicest part of the house, but the rest just needs some elbow greese and tlc etc.....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/cossackred/IMG_1356.jpg

[jp]

Congrats NGT!!!!! :)

[Bruhaha69]

congratulations, man. Good luck on getting the house.

[The Bastard]

Very nice kitchen sir.... Stove islands are always a good thing. More room for kitchen appliances on the counter top...

[NewportStark]

NGT.... Holy shite man! We need an update for sure.

As for me I had an insanely hellish day at work. Held my tongue the entire day and then this director approaches me and starts to essentially apologize for this other director. Well I decide to unleash at that point... not completely but still I probably should not hav esaid some of the things I did. Nothing will get be in trouble but most of it was not helpful or constructive at all.... more like venting. This is the guy here that will make my life hell that is for certain. :(

[Luminous]

Congrats NGT.


Morning Sestren.
The wife and I were able to get some Christmas shopping done last night. My parents were nice enough to watch my little one for a few hours so we could get out and get stuff done. We were also able to have dinner alone in a restaurant. You don't appreciate that until you can't do it anymore.

Tonight the wife is taking her to my in-laws so I will be free to play games tonight. I am going to try and leave work a little early, get home as fast as possible and play as much as I can.

Edit:Newport I hope to see you online tonight. :D We can get some frustrations out with some online shooting.

[YankeeH8er]

Congrats NGT. Hopefully Katie and I will get a chance to see the new place some time. I got a second part time PE teaching job yesterday, so starting in Jan I will be maikng full time money. Yay for me. Being broke sucks. I will get my first big check just in time for Killzone 2. :)

[Wildcat]

Congrats NGT! ^_^

[Luminous]

Morning.

I was able to play a little Gears 2, Left 4 Dead and a few matches of Halo 3 last night. :D Good times.

We are supposed to be getting 6-10 inches of snow tomorrow (Friday). That is going to not be fun if I have to drive in it.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Congratulations NGT! I wish you both the best in your future together! :)

Luminous, boy do I understand the joy of driving in bad weather! I HATE DRIVING in general... Like BAD!!! I wish the whole Star Trek transporters would hurry up and get here, because I REALLY HATE DRIVING! Today we had a thick fog, and it made the drive to work hell! We went from 70's to 20's with icy roads, back to 70's with fog... and some people just DON'T need to have a drivers license! And it was a PERFECT start to my morning too, because the first thing I hear on the radio is "traffic at HawkClay's house due to a malfunction in a traffic light!" Yeah... fun doesn't even BEGIN to describe it! :p

Well, yesterday I didn't get too much fun stuff done. I played a few rounds of Joust to try and relax... and then I decided to take a few rounds of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 to blow off some steam. Won all the rounds I didn't play as Kung Lao or Kitana! I suck with them, but I tried to mix up my game a bit! ;)

Tonight is our company Christmas party, so... ummm... yea for free beer! :p Anyone here interpret dreams? I've been having some REALLY wacked out dreams lately! :\

Oh, and Luminous, have you done Santa yet? Just look at the joy Santa brought us THIS year! :p

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v225/HawkClay/Family%20and%20Friends/HolidayImage.jpg?t=1229623457

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

I actually like to drive, a lot, I just don't like dealing with bad weather. I don't have a 4x4 and when precipitation starts coming down people's drving IQ drops for some reason.


I have to admit I am a little confused with the Santa comment, although I am a little slow sometimes.

Due to the bad weather the wife will be staying at her parents' again tonight and that means more game time. Tomorrow I am going to head there after work to cut down on my drive in the shitty weather and to make the ride in Saturday even easier.

[DarthArcturus]

I actually like to drive, a lot, I just don't like dealing with bad weather. I don't have a 4x4 and when precipitation starts coming down people's drving IQ drops for some reason.


I have to admit I am a little confused with the Santa comment, although I am a little slow sometimes.

Due to the bad weather the wife will be staying at her parents' again tonight and that means more game time. Tomorrow I am going to head there after work to cut down on my drive in the shitty weather and to make the ride in Saturday even easier.
the poor kid wants off santa's lap. probably made a huge scene following that haha.

[HawkClay]

I was wondering if you had taken your little one to see Santa and if it was as much fun as it was out here! :p Darth, actually as soon as he was back in Mommy's arms, he was golden! :| He can't be apart from Mommy or else he throws an absolute FIT! Doesn't matter if it's Santa, me, or his grandparents... Anyone but Mom = TANTRUM! :|

[Luminous]

Oh.....I can't see the pic at work. Stupid job.

No she is too young to sit on Santa's lap, next year when she is a year old we will give it a shot.

[HawkClay]

Oh.....I can't see the pic at work. Stupid job.

No she is too young to sit on Santa's lap, next year when she is a year old we will give it a shot.

Well THAT explains why you couldn't see the pic! :p Believe me, I can TOTALLY understand being blocked from stuff at work! Can you see board attachments? It was too big to attach, so I cropped it so maybe this will work better?

1874

[Luminous]

Wow......that looked like a fun day Hawk...lol.

[Bruhaha69]

Good morning. Trying to convince myself to go to the gym. The power outage had the gym out through Wednesday, so I missed most this week.

I went shopping last night and finished that shit up.....Man, shopping with all those people in the stores if fucking stressful. Half the time, I'd just be walking without looking for presents, almost zombie-like, avoiding people and feeling like my head was spinning. I'm not a very social person, but the lines and crowds are just too much during this time of year. I've been doing most of my shopping online for a long time and I just wasn't ready for it, haha. Another thing to blame the power outage for.

[Luminous]

The malls are crazy this time of year no doubt. I enjoy some of the holiday rush, but I try to get stuff done on a weekday when I am off. It does get very annoying, but it can be fun if you know what you are getting into.

[ngt]

Congrats NGT. Hopefully Katie and I will get a chance to see the new place some time. I got a second part time PE teaching job yesterday, so starting in Jan I will be maikng full time money. Yay for me. Being broke sucks. I will get my first big check just in time for Killzone 2. :)


Oh man, that's great news! I still say PE teacher is the best job in the profession. Same pay, same hours, same vacations, and nowhere near as much work. You want to trade? lol


I just got word that the bank made a counter offer that we are excepting tomorrow. So, we got the house...pretty much. Pending our inspections and stuff. We might even get an interest rate below 5....which would be f'n crazy. We should have the house by mid January and move in sometime in February (if all goes well). The hardest part is going to be March, which is the last month of my apt. lease.....and the first month of our mortgage payments. So $1,238 due on the first for the apt. and about $1,750 due for the house. That's going to SUCK!!! But hey, it's only one month and I have 2 months to save. Sure would have liked to have the extra grand to fix up the new place though :(

Man I hope inspections go well.


Had my christmas show last night. I've NEVER had a kid freeze like last night, LMFAO!! He just stood there waving to his parents with a dazed look on his face while every other kid did the song and dance. He did that for like 3 minutes straight right in the middle of everything. He's a punk too..lol, I'd love to clown on him all day today, but that's mean....:lol:

[YankeeH8er]

Yeah PE teaching is the best gig ever. Most of my day is spent playing with the lower grade kids during their recess. So little prep, no homework or grades. It is almost stealing money. No way would I trade now.

[matty]

good morning everyone.

I was really looking forward to driving to St. Catherines to visit a buddy of mine today, but there is a terrible snow storm going on in Southern Ontario. In fact, it doesn't even look like I can leave my house today. :(

[The Bastard]

How many centimetres so far? That white crap is heading here real soon.... And my snowblower is fucked....

[matty]

How many centimetres so far? That white crap is heading here real soon.... And my snowblower is fucked....

It's supposed to be anywhere from 10-25 centimeters. I'd say it's around 15-17cm right now, judging by my backyard.

[The Bastard]

Yay! Late night shovelling.... I better buy some beer.

[Bruhaha69]

We're supposed to be getting 5 - 7 or so inches in NH, so it sounds about the same range you guys might get. I heard we'll get another 5 - 7 later tonight, too. Not going drinking tonight.

[YankeeH8er]

We better get some fucking snow in Langhorne when Katie and I go for our visit next week. I am really hoping that it snows in NY on Christmas eve, were are going to a broadway show and then walk around the city.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Luminous, EVERY day with him is a fun day! :p

Congrats on the house NGT! Hopefully you get that awesome interest rate because that will be a HUGE help on payments and building up equity!

No snow here... We're back in the mid 70's today! :| It's supposed to get below 30 tomorrow and below 20 on Sunday though! Dang, you just gotta love that Texas weather! Good thing I always have a jacket at work! ;)

Well, we had our company Christmas party last night. I was out until almost midnight, and boy, I was DEAD tired by the end! Lots of good food, and free beer were nice, but I too don't like REALLY crowded areas. I'm thinking it's almost worth it to just buy my own beer and stay at home with a few close friends than do those HUGE parties like that! Still, it's more the "be seen" thing than anything... and even though most of the people I used to work with are complete... Hmmm... recluses putting it in "nice" terms. It just bugs me when you say "Hi" to someone and they just completely ignore you. Boy, I'm glad to be out of there!

Now I'm back at work and I'm ready to go home already! I'm crossing my fingers that they'll let us go home early since there really isn't anything going on today. We'll see.

Anyway, no gaming or anything for me yesterday. Well they DID have Wii's at the party for people to do Wii Bowling and Wii Golf, but the lines were too long for me to care considering I could go home and play for free... and I know that the people playing may never touch a game controller outside of work, so best let them enjoy the little gaming they can! ;) Tonight, however is a different story! ;) I'm thinking pizza, MY beer, and late night gaming... even though I have to work tomorrow too! :\ And I still have to get a few Christmas presents too! :( Hmmm... The dilemma! :p

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[jp]

Good morning all!


I'm awake. I'm at work. I bought Morgan Disgaea DS today as part of her Christmas, and just found out that the motherfucker in Japan shipped her NiGHTS Perfect Album YESTERDAY! So I might not get it in time to give it to her before I go home.

Is JP pissed? Yes, JP is pissed. Because I bought the fucking thing A WEEK AGO. And I TOLD that motherfucker I needed it SOON! And he said he'd ship on Monday. But he shipped... yesterday. Grrrr! It better get here by Tuesday, 'sall I'm sayin'. :mad:

[Wildcat]

I know how you feel JP. I ordered my wife a gift back on November 4th, and due to something, Amazon hasn't shipped it and it won't get here til after Christmas. :rant: So I ordered her replacements on Wednesday that are coming today, so that at least works out.

I want it to snow today. I don't feel like going to work. :p

[Luminous]

It is snowing pretty heavily here right now, we are looking at a total of near a foot where I live. Luckily I am only driving to my in-laws after work and that will cut my drive into less than half, probably about a third......


Yankee I hope you have a great time in NYC. I love Manhattan during the holidays. It looks amazing.


Hawk see now that is the Wii's core audience, people that don't play games. :|

[matty]

haha, I can totally relate to what you guys are going through jp, and Wildcat. Well, not right now, but I suppose I've been in your position many a time. But I like to think I've improved on my readiness for xmas over the past couple of years.

My Christmas is basically split into two parts, and this is how it's been going down as of late:

First, I spend Christmas morning here in Toronto. For which most of my shopping for my family and friends here and surrounding area is done months prior to Christmas. In fact, it’s like that with me for almost any occasion that requires a gift. I sort of pick stuff up throughout the year, that I think people will like, and when the time comes I simply distribute to people the gifts I see fit for them.

The second part of Christmas is spent in Muskegon, Michigan with my other family and friends towards near the end of Christmas day. Now over there I’m even lazier. I rarely buy anyone anything before heading over. But fortunately for me the following day, Dec 26, is a great day to shop in the states. So we just sort of raid the mall and I buy them their gifts there. Granted it’s late, I think it’s a less hectic approach for both parties--I mean I’ve never been particularly good at picking out gifts anyway, so this way people actually get what they actually want. It’s win, win.

:)

[Frogacuda]

We better get some fucking snow in Langhorne when Katie and I go for our visit next week. I am really hoping that it snows in NY on Christmas eve, were are going to a broadway show and then walk around the city.

It's snowing here right now, and it's going to continue all week, so you might be in luck. Thought it melts fast in the city with all the people.

[DarthArcturus]

good late afternoon!


the snow finally melted today for me..glad it was gone. Last night's weather was crazy...temperatures rose to nearly 50 degrees over night (after having highs during the day in the lower 30s) now we are back to 20s :lol:


tonight, taking girlfriend out to dinner for her 23rd birthday. going to restaurant that always has live jazz every night in Kansas City. Should be a nice time :)

I hear you guys on Christmas stuff. I need to get on the ball soon, but it figures that I get paid the DAY after Christmas...

[Luminous]

Morning.

Well down where I work there is about 6 inches of snow, but where I live is about a foot and tonight there is going to be another storm starting late tonight. I just hope it sticks around so there is enough on the ground Christmas Eve and day, but it looks like there will be. :)

My Christmas has always been two days worth. When I was younger (until about 7 years ago) every Christmas Eve was at my Aunt's. Up until I was 7 Christmas Day was at my grandparent's. From then on it was at my parent's house. Since I have been with Jaime (the wifey) we had one day with her faimly and one with mine. This year it is Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with hers. We alternate which day every year.

[Bruhaha69]

Yeah, we have at least a foot out there. Can't wait to go shovel and clean all of it. I haven't even bothered to check if it's heavy or light. I hope it's light.....I really hate shoveling.

[Luminous]

Yeah, we have at least a foot out there. Can't wait to go shovel and clean all of it. I haven't even bothered to check if it's heavy or light. I hope it's light.....I really hate shoveling.


So do I. For 15 years when I lived in a house with my parents we had a long ass steep driveway that sucked. Luckily since 1995 I really haven't had to deal with it too much. My parents moved to a town house then and when I was there I didn't have to shovel. Now I live in a condo. All I have to do is dig out my car and let the plow boys handle it.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

My Christmas this year is actually going to be on Monday. My brother is in from the Army, and I have to work on both Christmas Eve AND Christmas so a traditional day just didn't quite work for us. But that's OK, because that gives everyone the FULL DAY with their significant others families, and it gives us a FULL day together without worrying about being rushed or anything!

I still don't have my Christmas shopping done. I didn't have the money for anything... but luckily I got my bonus yesterday! :D My parents I went cheap on, and my brothers are getting used games from my collection... so it's really only my friends and the kids I have to buy for. I already know what I'm getting, so it shouldn't be hard... just I hate shopping in crowds! ;)

Well, last night I played a lot of Mortal Kombat vs. DC! I completed the Batman Kombo Challenge, so that was pretty awesome! I started on Scorpions but got stuck on the third or fourth one! :\ I played a bit online, and boy do I suck online! :p Don't know what it is, but I can pull off INSANE kombos and moves OFFLINE, but when I go online, I can barely get off 3 hits if I'm lucky! I only play as Batman, so I want to learn some other characters and see if I'm any better with them. I still hold up fairly well using Batman since he's supposedly one of the weaker fighters and my wins still outweigh my losses (I THINK)... but my streak is still only 3 wins!

Oh, and this is funny! I have a friend who just could NOT beat Noob Saibot in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, so he asked if I'd login as him and do it for him! :p Took me awhile to beat the stupid endurance match that was thrown at me... and I lost my first time facing Noob (only get ONE shot to do it after you beat the game). So I had to play all the way through again and that time I did it without problem! Took about an hour I guess, but I thought it was funny! :p

Today I will probably be trying to complete another kombo challenge and will play a few online matches. Getting 25 ranked victories in a row is going to be a stretch without cheating and using some character with an infinite kombo or something! I'm not going to do that, but boy, that's going to be tough it seems! Maybe I'll get lucky... or figure out why the heck I'm not pulling off my 50% damage kombos that I can do OFFLINE WITH EASE! Grrrr!!! X-(

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[matty]

good evening/late-afternoon

God it's been a boring day and the night can't get here fast enough so I can get out. I've been literally just marking papers since I've been awake--with the exception of procrastinating by calling people, cleaning my house, eating, and posting here.

On the bright side, the roads seem pretty clear now, so that should make driving a little less hectic.

[DarthArcturus]

good later afternoon, just got home from work nice long day that started at 6:30 am for a meeting :(

Hawk, my girlfriend has to work Christmas eve and day too :( I'll be going home to Wichita next week for Christmas and I won't be having Christmas with her. But then we just went out last night for her birthday and she has a party tonight so...not to bad :p I'm so glad my work place is closed on all the major holidays.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Yeah Darth, it's funny, because not MANY functions in our company are opened on Christmas, but mine is! Good news? I get paid TRIPLE time for working it though, so I don't mind too much anyway! ;)

Well last night I spent pretty much the whole time talking on the phone! I started off trying to play some Mortal Kombat vs. DC, but first it was my girl, and then my Mom, and then my brother letting me know he's in town now ( :D )! So yeah... Sorry about that Newport! I had the game up since I was in Kombo Challenge and just never turned it off, so I didn't get your message until like 1:00 last night! :(

However, before I spent my night with an ear glued to the phone, I DID manage to complete Scorpion's Kombo Challenge! :D I ALMOST completed Sonya's too, but I just couldn't get the last one off, and I almost finished Raiden's as well but I think I had 3 left in those! It's funny, because if you nail all the kombos then it shouldn't take more than 2 minutes max to do it, but some of those are SO BRUTALLY TOUGH that I actually spent DAYS of practice before finishing all of Batman's the first time... and he and Scorpion are the only 2 I've completed so far! I have quite a ways to go! :\

See what I mean?

Batman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQZ5mYYuERI

Scorpion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8s6W3IqEpU&feature=related

Sonya:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryu-zcvUJrg&feature=related

Raiden:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBIGzwqEzqk&feature=related

Well, he makes it LOOK easy! :p

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[ngt]

:nod: BBQ'd 5 trout today...all in different sauce :)

Baja Chipotle, Lemon Pepper, Sweet Chili, Garlic and Herb, Lemon and Butter (from left to right)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/cossackred/IMG_1365.jpg

[The Bastard]

Aw man.... Why'd you have to show me that delicious looking trout? I'm still recovering from the pot luck dinner my brother organized. Ugh....

[Luminous]

Morning.

Nice day yesterday. We had my niece's Baptism during the day and I watched a great game last night as the New York Football Giants clinched home field in the playoffs. :D

I have to run some errands today and it is COLD outside.

[ngt]

Morning.

Nice day yesterday. We had my niece's Baptism during the day and I watched a great game last night as the New York Football Giants clinched home field in the playoffs. :D

I have to run some errands today and it is COLD outside.



Football is KILLING ME this year. My poor Rams...from 3-13 last year to 2-13 with one game left. I remember at the beginning of the year a Rams player said "WE ARE NOT A 3-13 TEAM!!!!" We play Atlanta next week, so it looks like he's right. We're a 2-14 team this year :cry:


as for the trout.....it was good and fun doing the little tasting test thing :) I have one marinating in the chipotle sauce in the fridge. I'm going to toss that one on the Q or in the oven today. Not sure which.

[koda]

This is really ridiculous, haha... it's still snowing here, and this is not normal for Portland. Usually we don't see a single flake of snow all year. It's been going for like a week straight.

I think they said this is the most snow we've had at once in like a hundred years... I'm like up to my knees in it just walking down the street.

http://www.heavybit.net/misc/snow4.jpg

http://www.heavybit.net/misc/snow3.jpg

http://www.heavybit.net/misc/snow6.jpg

That last one is my car. Yeahhh....

[Frogacuda]

http://www.heavybit.net/misc/snow3.jpg


X-dPUXSWoew

Literally. Yeesh.

[koda]

Literally. Yeesh.
Hah. Yeah, well it's because my phone was dying and I wanted to get a few shots off before the batteries ran out. I didn't have time to adjust the white balance.

[The Skies]

Look at all that snow, fun fun! I want lots of snow!

[DarthArcturus]

Look at all that snow, fun fun! I want lots of snow!
when was the last time you saw snow? its not that great :p

[Bruhaha69]

Went skiing the past couple days. It snowed a good 20 or so inches up there.....a lot of fun, but man am I sore.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

We haven't had any snow yet. Had some fog and drizzle that turned to ice on the streets, but not any snow. It's VERY rare we get any of that! The one day it iced over though, I had to scrape my windshields, and the oldest boy had a BLAST taking my shavings and making a few small snowballs though!

Now THAT snow is crazy though! We had a pretty big fall last year surprisingly, but NOTHING like that! I would just hope that I was at home when that kind of thing happened and not at work or something! I wonder where my dog would go to the bathroom in that? :o

Well, my Christmas was really great! My girl managed to get out of working Monday morning, so we got to spend a full day with my family! We had breakfast with everyone since my extended family all wanted to come in and see my brother while he is in town from the Army... and because this will likely be the only time they get to see my sister-in-law while she is pregnant! I did have to get my car inspected, so I did that when my Dad had to go to the bank and got that out of the way. The girls watched Christmas movies, and the guys played video games! My brother got the SNK collection, so it was mainly Metal Slug and Samurai Showdown for us until my friend came over and we played his XBox and some Mortal Kombat vs. DC. That was fun! My brothers both beat me a few times, but I won most of the time... which I should seeing as I am the one who OWNS the game! They picked up on it pretty quick though, being hardcore veterans of the series though, so I didn't feel bad about losing! ;)

After all that, we opened presents! I was forced to find ways to give good gifts at a budget price, but I think I managed OK! I gave my brothers some used games in my collection that they both wanted (NiGHTS and Sega Superstar Tennis for Wii), so that was easy. The girls got gifts from my girls store she works at... and my parents and Grandmother just got candy/Coke from me. I've got to say though, my family had a MUCH better year than I did (financially)! I got Guitar Hero Aerosmith from one of my brothers! My other brother got me some MUCH needed pants for work AND a Pac-Man ornament for my tree that I had been drooling over for WEEKS (but my girl kept talking some "spending" sense into me)! My parents... OMG, they got me a few pairs of pants AND a VERY sizable check! I actually said "HOLY CRAP" when I opened the card! I'm going to put it into an "emergency fund" and hope I don't have to use it... so hopefully volumes at work will pick up soon! :(

Yesterday was pretty hectic! Spent most of the day working on some Christmas projects for co-workers and the kids. Got them all taken care of, except for the wrapping of the presents for the kids... which we are going to get done today. Had to make a last minute trip to Wal-Mart to get batteries and a few items that were desperately needed, and my brothers came over to look at Christmas lights with us too, so that was a nice treat! We ended the night watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, so that was fun too! Hopefully today we'll be able to squeeze in The Snowman!

Well, today I'm working, but it's pretty slow (expectantly)! We'll see if they cut me early today or if I'll be able to work a full day. Whatever the case...

I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A VERY SAFE AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! :)

[Luminous]

I'm at work, but I am leaving in a few minutes.

It will be a hectic couple of days, but a lot of fun. I have to work on Friday so it will be back to the grind real fast. Still I am really looking forward to tonight and tomorrow just to have two big dinners with the families.

You had a nice haul there Hawk!

We are cutting back a lot on gifts this year, but we still spent a nice chunk of change between my nieces, nephews, and parents. As for myself my parents bought us a camcorder, my in-laws got us a kitchen table and that is about it. I think I am getting a gift card and a couple of small things. Still, I am happy enough to have a beautiful baby girl. :)

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Christmas! I spent most of the day at work, but I managed to make it feel like Christmas still! ;) I woke up early in the morning to do Christmas with the kids. They were so cute! After work, I went straight to my girls so we could have Christmas with her family. Her mom mad a TON of food, and I got sick eating Oreo Truffles (OMG THEY ARE GOOD! I'll have to post the recipe!)! It was of course mostly for the kids, but her sister got me a Sonic gift card as a joke because when I came to the baby's birthday, I walked in with a Sonic drink... They have the BEST drink selection though and I'm addicted to cherry limeades! :p Joke or not, it was very much appreciated, and will certainly be used before the end of the year even! ;) Her parents gave me a gift card to Wal-Mart which is cool! I will probably have that gone by year end too! After the party, we went back to her place and after I brought in all the stuff from her parents, I played with the kids while she put everything in it's place. We played lightsabers which was REALLY funny, because even the baby had a BLAST with "killing" me with his lightsaber! He'd "hit" me and I'd melodramatically go down, and he just thought it was SO funny! He was a little jealous of his big brothers lightsaber that lit up and made noises, but we had fun!

After that, she put the baby to bed, while I played a Star Wars board game with the oldest. He BARELY beat me, but it was pretty fun! Short, easy to learn, and enjoyable! Great board game for a quick "pick up and play" type thing... unlike Monopoly or something that takes a week to finish! :p

Anyway, after that, we got the oldest to bed, and then she and I exchanged our "gifts." We just gave each other a card detailing what 2008 meant to us, and it was SO AWESOME! It was special, heart felt, and meant more to me than any gift she could have bought me! I read my card three times before I was "done!" It was so sweet! :x

After that, I head home being SUPER tired... I was kind of worried, but luckily, they had a 14 hour session of Metallica going on the radio, so that helped me stay awake! When I got home, I gave my cats their presents (little catnip toys and hair ties :p )! And while they were playing, I CRASHED HARD!!!

I did have this weird dream about The Dark Knight! It was like watching a "director's cut" version of the movie, because it was all different... but it was strange because it showed a little of the origins of The Joker, and had a little bit more "humor" to his character like in the animated series. It was actually a pretty cool dream, and I woke up before the "movie" finished unfortunately though! :p Oh well!

Anyway, I hope y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[DarthArcturus]

that's funny I watched the Dark Knight with my family last night on the new 5.1 system my brother got for Christmas. Movie still rocks hard :cool:


Also enjoyed the 100 years of gator football dvd. They did an awesome job with it and the stuff in the 1910s-1940s was really interesting! The only issue i had with the program was they pretty much skipped the 1970s and 80s. There was not a lot of good teams in the 70s but the 80s had some good ones. I guess they wanted to skip when Florida went on probation. Favorite part of the whole thing though was 1996 championship team...so many great childhood memories. :x GO GATORS!

other than that just messed with my GPS, which actually was a pain in the ass when I updated it through the computer. Somehow it automatcailly updated my map with a version that costs 75 bucks :| And there was no easy way to undo that...so finaly after a few hours I got the original map back on there...

[HawkClay]

Darth, I know what you mean. I'm sick of all these "sucker" purchases that I've been noticing as of late! I have run into so many of them, that it's just all blurring together, but things where you buy an item for a specific purpose, and then get into it and find that they want you to spend MORE money to get feature "x" that you wanted to begin with, or feature "y" that you don't want and were just tricked into getting like what you got there! I mean, batteries not included, I can understand, but I want to be able to buy ONE item, get EVERYTHING I bought it for, and that's IT!

I think all these companies who have computer based products have really figured out that they can milk us, or at least the common consumer for all we are worth by nickel and diming us for "upgrades," "features," and other downloadable content!

[DarthArcturus]

well I would not mind if 2-3 years down the road (no pun intended :p) I need to upgrade the maps on there. However I just bought the damn thing, and I think when you buy it you should be able to atleast upgrade your map once!

[Luminous]

Afternoon. I hate coming to work the day after Christmas, but whatever.

It looks like the wife is heading to her parents' today and might be staying there tonight. That means I get to game after work! WOOT!

[Luminous]

Double post. :o

Good Morning.
I was able to play some games last night, I played a little Madden and a few songs on Rock Band 2. Whenever I don't play the music games for a while I lose my timing for it. The first few songs are so easy (and I only play on Medium - I am not good), but I still missed a few real easy notes.

Anyway I might be working alone today, that means a quiet day.


Have a good day everyone.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, last night I was DEAD tired, so I was just going to go home and crash, but I had ordered a pizza, so I decided to watch T.V. while I ate. There wasn't anything on, so I got on the XBox and did that Netflix thing... but wasn't into watching a whole movie, so I flipped back to the T.V. and saw that the movie "The Family Man" was going to be on... Hmmm... The commercial had this familiar ring to it, and seeing as how that's kind of Guile's quote there, I decided that I HAD to watch it! Sure enough, that movie sure did ring familiar! Successful guy in business sees what would have happened if he had taken the chance with the love of his life in the past... Hmmm...

Anyway, so I was up WAY later than I planned on being, but oh well... Now I'm just tired today! HawkClay needs sleep badly!

Tonight I'm babysitting, and actually... that's my plan for the next 4 days! No game time for me unless I play the Wii with the kids. We'll just have to see how that plays out. I've got a lot of stuff I still need to get taken care of, but I'm going to try and work all that in sometime tomorrow while I have a few hours in the afternoon to do it. *crosses fingers*

Well, it's freakin' HOT here today! 70's, and tornado watch! M2D and Darth would probably have fun! ;) We just had a blast thunderstorm roll through. It was quick though, but maybe we'll get some more rain today. My car is SO DIRTY after the past couple of weeks of this! I need to wash it BAD, but I just don't see a letup in this drizzly weather that causes it to just cake on! Oh well, as long as I can still see a little bit, I guess I'll be OK.

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

Family Man was a good movie, at least I thought it was.

My car is filthy as well, but between the snow last week, rain this week and not much time I am not sure when I will wash it. Spekaing of weather it is going to be 60 up here tomorrow, that is way too warm for the end of December. I do not like that at all.

Turns out I am working alone so it will be a nice quieet day (at least I hope so)

*knocks on wood*

[HawkClay]

Global warming man! Thanks for Al Gore's "profound" revelation! But if it's because of our carbon emissions... then why are the other planets heating up too? ;)

*waits for tax on carbon emissions due to "global warming"*

:|

Speaking of, I read earlier in the year that there had not been any solar flares in an almost record number of days. Anyone hear about that? Typically after a massive downtime, comes MASSIVE flare ups! Wonder if that streak ended... Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[DarthArcturus]

hawk, we had thunderstorm hit us about 4 am last night..pretty damn good storm especially on December 26th! Oh and just about every weather station in Kansas received new record highs yesterday too :D Now another cold front has moved in bring in normal temperatures to the 30s and snow is about here :lol: I love when this stuff happens :happyhappy:

I haven't heard anything about solar flares but I can tell you these huge temparture differences that we have had this season could possibilty due to the ocean waters being warmer due to global warming. This is just something I thought about though so its nothing tested or anything but it makes sense when the average ocean waters are warmer, and the only way to get these warm temperatures in the winter is for winds to come from the south bring that warmer air over the ocean into Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and other states.

/ends scicence talk :p

well last night I came back up here to Lawrence. My girlfriend didn't get to have any christmas at all, so we exchanged gifts and had a nice dinner at a Japan's steakhouse (love those places) Other than that unpacked everything and setup my new printer.

[ngt]

home sick....been sick for a week. Bored out of my mind....lol, started cooking fish.


baked trout :)


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on another note, I find out if we got the house or not tomorrow....the most recent house. It's freakin awesome! lol....would be a dream come true!!!

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

My bad Darth, it was Sunspots, not Solar Flares... but still related I guess. Interesting for sure though! Here's the article I read about it earlier this year, and a follow up in November about the increase in activity:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609124551.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081111230341.htm

NGT, sorry to hear you are sick. I hope you get to feeling better soon! That fish looks good though! I'm sure that will help pick up your spirits some! ;) And my brother told me last night that he's likely getting a house too, so that's definitely exciting news!

Well, the past few days I've been babysitting. I had a lot of things I had to get done, but sadly, none of it was even started. :( The kid did manage to COMPLETELY reorganize and clean up his room (it looks a LOT better). He enjoyed playing Zelda for the first time, as I let him borrow Twilight Princess! He's used to playing licensed junk and sports games aimed at kids and other drivel for the most part, so it was fun to see his reaction to a game series that is generally lauded as the "best of the best!" He couldn't get enough of it!

I actually took him to my house for the first time yesterday, and we played a few games. He helped me finish Golden Axe in offline co-op. We were GOING to beat Double Dragon too, but the 360 froze on us on the last level! :| We played some baseball and he looked through my old baseball card collection, toys, games and movies. I got a lot of "can I have" yesterday, but the only things I "gave" him were a pack of Animal Crossing cards and a Yoshi toy from McDonald's back from September 2006... :( I sold him one of my Monkey Ball Hot Wheels cars because I had 2 of them... but I didn't want him to think he can just come over and say "I want" to everything (because he's already spoiled rotten as is :p ), so I charged him $5 for it since it was still in the box. He complained to his Mom that I wouldn't let him have all my stuff, and I told him the story of the rich man who was so tied to his possessions that he couldn't stand to part with them from The Bible. I told him that I didn't want him to get to be so materialistic that he is bound to his "stuff" as he already shows signs of (and he already expects everyone to give him EVERYTHING he wants). I think he actually understood too, so I was happy about that!

I still took him and his Mom to Dave & Busters last night, because my brothers and I were going to meet up there to make sure we had a chance to hang out one more time before my middle brother left for the Army again. We had fun, but I got an earful when I didn't spend much time with him at those ticket games, and instead played things like House of the Dead 4 and Ghost Squad with my brothers most of the time. Not that I was down on ALL the ticket games, because I won a few here and there. I already had a card, and when I found that you can get XBox 360 games for 8000 tickets, I actually tried to win a few! I can pretty much nail the "jackpot" on this one game with circular lights going around the table, and I frustrated quite a few people playing the game by walking up, swiping my card and then NAILING it after they had been sitting there trying to win it for some time! :p I didn't quite have 8000 tickets by the end of the night though, but I did have enough to get my brother a stuffed Cookie Monster toy to give his soon to be baby when he/she is born from me and my other brother! Since we won't be there when the baby is born, and we won't be able to see him or his wife before then either, that will be our first toy for the baby! :)

Well, after that, we went home, showered up and went to bed! I was pretty freakin' tired this morning, but the coffee is starting to kick in now! THANK GOD! I was about ready to fall asleep at my desk! :p

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting, and enjoy the rest of 2008! ;)

[Bruhaha69]

Man, I miss playing light gun games. Are there any well done home consoles games of that type since the LCD and Plasma days came around? The Wii and sensor based shooter games just don't compete with the old light guns.

Today I'm gonna try to apply for some jobs. I've been out of work for a little over 10 months and I think it's time I got back into reality. It's been a nice vacation, but I need to get my own place, move out of my parent's house and become some semblance of a grown person. I should probably wait until tomorrow to start since this is New Year's Eve and people likely won't be around to review resume;s for a week or two, but I've already waited long enough....so fuck it.

[YankeeH8er]

Time Crisis 4 on the PS3 is a great light gun game Bru.

[Luminous]

Not so good morning.

I was supposed to have a cat-scan on my abdomen this morning. Most people know I had surgery back in Oct. 2007 so anytime something is going on in my stomach area I get a little paranoid. I am having some pain so my doctor is just being cautious. So anyway I was up at 5:30am to be at the hospital early enough and of course I forgot the prescription. I was so tired this morning. Now I have to re-schedule it.

I am exhausted and for no good reason now. :|

[ngt]

Not so good morning.

I was supposed to have a cat-scan on my abdomen this morning. Most people know I had surgery back in Oct. 2007 so anytime something is going on in my stomach area I get a little paranoid. I am having some pain so my doctor is just being cautious. So anyway I was up at 5:30am to be at the hospital early enough and of course I forgot the prescription. I was so tired this morning. Now I have to re-schedule it.

I am exhausted and for no good reason now. :|

Damn, that sucks. The whole thing..not just today. Hope your stomach feels better and good luck with your cat-scan results.

[Luminous]

Damn, that sucks. The whole thing..not just today. Hope your stomach feels better and good luck with your cat-scan results.

Luckily I was able to get an appointment tomorrow, which is great as I work Saturdays. I will just go before work. Hopefully nothing is wrong, but with my digestive system who knows. Thanks for the well wishes.

[DarthArcturus]

hope all is well CJ.

Just got back from work (haven't work since December 21st felt good) Now I will be working the next few days. 40 hours a week training in the kitchen to move on up in the ladder.

[matty]

Morning everybody!

I expect everyone enjoyed their holiday :D

With the exception of one of our family dogs dying; Christmas, the New Year and my birthday were for the most part pleasant. I specially enjoyed my time at Blue Mountain. That is, apart from skiing, all I really did was sit back, drink and catch up with some old friends--nothing exciting--yet it was perfect.

What's more, for the first time in a long time I was actually blown away by some of the gifts I received. Namely two items: a bottle of 1969 Glenlivet Cellar Collection (from my mom and sis) and a bottle of Hennessy Paradis (purchased collectively by my girlfriend and a couple of friends). I'm sort of a novice collector; I've been collecting alcohol for the past three years or so, so I'm extremely happy for the gifts, especially for the Glenlivet.

On a more mundane and depressing note, classes start tomorrow (hence why I'm up so early trying to get my stuff in order) and I really, really, really, really, don't feel like going back yet lol =/

Anyhow, how's everybody else doing?


P.S all the best Luminous, hope everything works out.

[Luminous]

Morning.
We have some ice here this morning so I will be going to work late, my daughter has her first day of daycare and they are not opening until 10am. Hopefully by then the roads are clearer so I can get here there and get to work.

[Bruhaha69]

Yeah, we're getting the ice around here right now. I'm hoping it doesn't go all day.

[NewportStark]

Luminous - Take care of yourself yo. Can't have one of my best co-op partna's outta action. Good to hear your getting it checked out. Too many people will sit idly by while they are sick and dying... heck even for regular check ups and preventative care.

On a different note.... I'm back at home with my GF Kim officially living with me. Its a bit nuts and after the drama we shared over the holidays it flares up a bit now and again. We'll have to wait and see how this chapter turns out but I am trying my damndest to make sure she's comfortable and happy.

I'd also love to get some live gaming in if any of you are up for that. Things like Rockband and soem Halo 3 come to mind. Partially becuase I love those games and partially because the chica can play too. She has a live account now by the way.... Xena Warri0r. So if you see an invite from her you'll know why. ;)

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Luminous, I hope all is well... both for you and your daughter in her first day of daycare!

Matty, I'm sorry to hear about your family dog! :( I love my dog too much to even think about what I'm going to be like when that happens... as I remember how hard it was for me with my first dog, and that was one who had to stay outside because of my Dad... I'm so close with my dog now, that he goes everywhere with me, sleeps in my bed, and heck, if they would let me take him to work with me, then I would! I won't think about it since he's almost 6 years old now... and that's how old my first dog was when he died! :(

Well, my "weekend" didn't go exactly as planned. I am getting over what I am told is a virus of some sort. My girl had HORRIBLE stomach pains the other night, and she spent pretty much the whole night losing the contents of her stomach to her porcelain friend. She was sore all over, and the next morning, the "other end" was having a fit as well, so she didn't work, but went to the doctor instead. Well, I felt fine, and while she was at the doctor, I had a bowl of cereal with blackberries and did some stuff around the house. One of her dogs made a mess in her garage, so I had to clean that up, and I don't know if it just "triggered" something or what, but I was nauseous all morning after that. My body went in "reverse order" from hers though, so I spent 3 or 4 trips to el bano, and lying down in between (because I was getting hot). And then of course, as soon as she calls me to tell me she's on her way home, I felt it. :( She asked what I was doing, and I paused a moment to make sure. She asked if I was there, and I was like, "I've gotta go!" and hung up on her as my blackberry cereal wanted to show me that it doesn't taste NEARLY as good the second time around! :(

So I had a LOT I had planned on getting done yesterday, and I only managed to get one or two things done before all this hit. She got home, and she was in horrible pain (something that I didn't have... at least so far! *crosses fingers* ). I just felt bad, so it was pretty much stay in bed for the most part, and take a hot bath for the rest of the part... And since I was the one who felt the "best" out of the two of us, I ran to pick up her prescription and get some Ginger Ale and Crackers from the store. I spent plenty of other trips to the bathroom too, but I just kept a DS in there so I could play something as I "enjoyed" my time there...

And it seems I will no longer be enjoying my time with an EGM! :( It's been quite a ride for over 15 years with me and EGM, and I'm kind of sad to see it go, even though I don't have a current subscription. I'm kind of glad I don't now, because I've been burned on that in the past with GameGo and Game Fan. Still, R.I.P. EGM! :(

Well, tonight I WOULD jump on Live, but I won't be home again because it's Wednesday night, so that means church night! I also started working out again on Sunday, and I'm pretty sore today. I am going to work out again tonight though as long as I feel up to it. I'm at work now because I didn't want to burn a sick day, but If I have to run to the bathroom 30 times before lunch, then I probably won't stick around. I don't think there is anything left in my system to have me running in there though, so we'll see what happens AFTER lunch I guess! ;)

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

I actually have to call the Dr. to check out the results and make sure everything is okay. Hopefully all is good.

It looks like I will be gaming early on in the evenings (at least for me) and probably not staying on too much past 10pm EST as the little one has to get up at 6am. That means we have to get up earlier on work days and on my days off I still have to be up. On a positive note, she is pretty much sleeping through the night so soon enough I will be able to get on around 7pm EST and play for a few hours. As it is now I try to get on around 8pm EST and play a little.

Hawk, I know the feeling with having it flowing from both ends. It happened about 4 months before I was in the hospital and it SUCKED. Bucket in hand while on the toilet. Bad, very bad. I hope everyone is feeling better.

Well I am at work and the little one is at her first day of daycare. The people are real nice there and the place is very secure. Each famly has their own code and you have to punch it in to gain entrance. Plus they have security cameras for their outdoor play areas.

[HawkClay]

Luminous, that's good that you'll be able to start gaming again! While it is SUPPOSED to be tax season and BUSY at work, it's been unusually slow, which means I may not be working the inhuman hours I have worked in previous years! That's good and bad... because I REALLY need the money, but time off is always cherished, so I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I guess as long as I am able to stay on top of paying the bills, I am happy. However, I'm so close to that line it's scary! Well, time off I guess will give me time to go through all my stuff and get it hopefully sold so I can get my bills paid off that way too, so it's just more fun in the future for me it seems! ;)

One of my resolutions this year was to COMPLETELY eliminate the credit cards! I only have one "active" card at the moment, as I consolidated the rest into lower interest loans, but it was how I was able to pay the bills and still buy gas/groceries the past few months! Now I'm trying to figure out how much cash will be needed to wipe out using that one too, because I don't like the idea of the card balance going up every month while I'm struggling to pay the other bills! Gas I can't really control, but the grocery budget is looking more like beans & rice for the time being unless work picks up! Good thing I like beans & rice I guess! :p

[YankeeH8er]

Damn Hawk I would definitely chose live over church. :p

[HawkClay]

Damn Hawk I would definitely chose live over church. :p

I figure you're probably not alone on that one! :p Heck, I did too for a LONG time before really looking at my life and analyzing what all I thought was wrong. Besides, it's more like "personal study time" for me anyway, because we watch a sermon online and it gives me the opportunity to try and "stay on track" with personal goals and such.

Not so much a religious rant or anything, because those who know me know that I don't try and force religion down anyone's throats! I figure, to each their own, and that's the way it SHOULD be! Even from a religious perspective, there is such a thing as "free will," and I'm sure as heck not going to try and force anything on anyone, but from a personal point of view, while I have always been "religious," I haven't always been what I would consider to be a "strong follower" and one that was more passive... Which of course according to The Bible itself is worse than doing nothing at all!

So after my "massive crash" of 2007, I spent a LOT of time soul searching, and felt drawn to really try to better myself, which I later hoped my actions would rub off on others without "preaching" to them... because I KNOW how annoying it is to be preached to! :\

Hey, if I'm completely wrong, then I look at it this way... HOPEFULLY I can make the world a little bit better by staying strong to some solid ethics and ideals, and rather than live for myself, hopefully at least a few people can live better lives instead. The church itself just kind of keeps me reminded of what I would REALLY like to see happen through my life, because it's easy to get caught up with other things! With all the corruptness in government, corporate America, and heck, even the churches themselves, I just feel that it's that much MORE important for me to try and live my life by what I feel is a "good" standard! I know it may sound kind of corny, or "New Agish," but I really do want to try and get rid of any negative thoughts, feelings or things of that nature, so that my life is a contribution to others instead of just being a part of the general system that most people see as going downhill... FAST!

So, in saying all that, I just want to say...

I LOVE YOU GUYS! :hearts: (In a completely hetero sort of way :p )

[YankeeH8er]

That is great sir. I have no problem at all with people trying to better themselves, or others, as long as they dont try and force it on others. Katie and I spoke the other night about hopefully getting on and playing some L4D with you at some point in the near future. I have my CSET exam this saturday, but after that I should have some more free time.

[HawkClay]

I completely agree Yankee! It bugs me to no end when people tell everyone "YOU ARE WRONG AND GOING TO HELL IF YOU DON'T CONVERT!" Especially when those are the same people who go to church on Sundays and act all "saint like," while during the regular week those same people are lower on any kind of "ethics" standards out there! I'm by no means perfect, but the hypocrisy I've seen from WITHIN the church makes me absolutely sick, and is a lot of why I got out to begin with. Hopefully the world will one day wake up and realize that people... EVERYONE out there, are so much more than lemmings just waiting to be led to their ultimate demise! If everyone were to try and just better themselves or the rest of the world through giving, kindness and the "golden rule," I just think the people who are running things now wouldn't stand a chance at running things like that any longer! So many cliche phrases that could be said, but you know... Why can't we all just get along? Seriously though, it's a good question when you look at all the crap that's been going on lately!

And we DEFINITELY need to play some L4D soon! I take it you found your disc? Since I haven't really been home much lately, I haven't been playing online, but since you have the CSET on Saturday, I'd hate to be a distraction for you! I remember having to take my license exams back in 2000 and they KILLED my gaming life! I didn't do anything but sleep and study... with a few eating/bathroom breaks in between! Speaking of, I need to do my continuing ed soon! :|

[DarthArcturus]

right on hawk, I've always felt religion was a more personal journey with whatever God or gods you believe in. I've grown away from the Catholic Church, which is what I grown up with, because of how much my parents forced me to do stuff. I also thought giving a confession to a human priest that is suppose to symbolize God is a bunch of nonsense. Praying and asking for God's forgiveness is enough.

I've tired out some protestant churches, but everytime I go to one I end up having to interact too much with others and trying to express stuff that I rather keep to myself. Now I just don't know what to think about any religions and really don't like the idea of following any of them. I believe there is a God out there but not sure if any religion can satisfy me.

[YankeeH8er]

Yeah I found the disks so we are good to go. Yeah this test is annoying me big time, on top of studying for it, I start my new job tomorrow, so I have to plan an introductory lesson plan for kids that have never done PE before. It is at an all Spanish school as well, and I dont speak no mexican :p , so that is going to be interesting. I will be so fucking happy once this stupid test is done and I am setteled into this other job. Making full time money to teach PE is going to be crazy.

[Frogacuda]

Hey, if I'm completely wrong, then I look at it this way... HOPEFULLY I can make the world a little bit better by staying strong to some solid ethics and ideals, and rather than live for myself, hopefully at least a few people can live better lives instead. The church itself just kind of keeps me reminded of what I would REALLY like to see happen through my life, because it's easy to get caught up with other things! With all the corruptness in government, corporate America, and heck, even the churches themselves, I just feel that it's that much MORE important for me to try and live my life by what I feel is a "good" standard! I know it may sound kind of corny, or "New Agish," but I really do want to try and get rid of any negative thoughts, feelings or things of that nature, so that my life is a contribution to others instead of just being a part of the general system that most people see as going downhill... FAST!
I totally agree with this. I'm not religious as you know, and I think all those things you mentioned can be had without religion (ethics are not the exclusive domain of God), but the important thing is that you have a grounding of some sort, whatever it is.

Similarly to how you feel that even if you turn out to be metaphysically "wrong" that you're still happy with how you live your life, I believe that any God that does exist would surely not punish me for searching to the best of my abilities for the truth and doing what I could best reason to be the right thing.

But then I know some people's world view falls apart without a concept of God and they slip into nihilism. Meanwhile some people use religion to inflate their egos and justify wrongdoing. It's a matter of perspective, and I say whatever works for you. That's why it's important not to force anybody into anything other than the path that works for them.

[HawkClay]

Frog, one of the most interesting things about religion that I've found is that the "big 3" of Christianity, Islam and Judaism all have the same God... and yet each believe that the other is completely wrong and "going to hell" because they aren't a part of "their" religion! One of the biggest questions I have is, if in the Christian Bible, it even says that Jews were chosen by God, then why would God completely write them off in the end? And Islam from my understanding is very similar in their beliefs to what the others are, just they spun from Ishmael in The Bible... who was said in The Bible that the SAME God would make a nation through Ishmael! So now the beginnings are the same, the core fundamentals are basically the same (be good, not bad), and yet two would be "written out," because of some key difference? So if I had three sons, and they all loved me and wanted to do good by me, if they all performed different acts, but thought that there was only ONE key to my acceptance of them, even though I love them all and could spread my goodness in different ways through each of them... Seems harsh to say the least if I were to say that only one did good by me because he did one thing different, while the other two still loved me and TRIED to do right by me!

And with the way that "churches" seem so many times to have this other "agenda" when it comes to spreading the word/conversion or whatever. Like the crusades or holy wars that are fought against the heathen, or the acts or violence from one to another because it is "pre-destiny." It just seems that looking back on a lot of this you can see with clearer eyes on what was really trying to be accomplished by this... and even with the wars today, I just think sometimes, "What is this REALLY about?"

So, is it that the things talked about in Revelation are unavoidable no matter what and our minds have to be conditioned properly for us to get there by turning one religion into three? Is it a matter of self fulfilling prophecy by people who know that you can manipulate a whole LOT of people by fear simply by doing the evil spoken of within? Are there greater pieces of the puzzle either removed from play or not yet known that could answer all of these questions? Whatever the case, I believe what I believe because I feel as a whole it promotes goodness and well being for the world through my own self betterment. If I can make myself better, make the world better, and hopefully get a few people to follow suit and better themselves and the world, then it just feels too good in seeing what kind of chain reaction that would cause... and I don't need a specific "church" to do that, even if I use church as a reminder as to why I'm doing it. If I'm wrong in my beliefs, then I would ask that my punishment bears the punishment of all, because it pains me to think if there is only one group that is right, all those people who believed in the same principles and God, it just hurts me to see them all cast away if they WERE good people who tried to follow a good life!

And if the church wants to hunt me down and condemn me for saying all that, then let them! I've got my own issues with many churches today! Not all, but plenty of them I feel have lost sight of the purpose of church! Sure, everyone is "just human," but it's like Darth said, putting in someone as a representative of God on Earth? Uhhh, wasn't that supposedly Jesus? And preachers in other branches, while not seen as "God," they still have plenty of hypocrisy of their own to account for! Nobody is perfect, and I know they aren't either, but to see what some of these people try and do in the name of God... I'm surprised lightning hasn't already struck them down! And if they want to get in my face about saying that about them, then let them! I'll just remind them that even Jesus called out those who turned His house of prayer into a den of thieves!

And I think THAT verse speaks VOLUMES about all the problems we see today! We take something inherently good, and corrupt it through greed and personal gain... only to label it as "good" still without giving any accountability for ones own actions! *sigh*

[Frogacuda]

Frog, one of the most interesting things about religion that I've found is that the "big 3" of Christianity, Islam and Judaism all have the same God... and yet each believe that the other is completely wrong and "going to hell" because they aren't a part of "their" religion!
In fairness to the Jews, they don't believe that. The Jews don't convert people, don't believe that others have any obligation to Jewish laws, and don't believe in Hell (afterlife in general is seldom discussed, and teachings on the matter are supposed to be the domain of the very learned only, which is why a lot of people don't know this).

But yeah, it's absolutely silly to see the hatred between Jews and Muslims (and it's totally mutual, hell or no) when the two religions are stunningly similar. I studied Islam in school and it's about an 80% overlap with Judaism if not more.



And I think THAT verse speaks VOLUMES about all the problems we see today! We take something inherently good, and corrupt it through greed and personal gain... only to label it as "good" still without giving any accountability for ones own actions! *sigh*
Yeah, ultimately religion has to serve the quest for truth and justice and not the other way around. When it does, I generally think it's a good thing.

I actually think religion shouldn't be taught to small kids precisely because they're not mentally or emotionally in the right place to handle it. I think a lot of people that abuse religion had it drilled into them since they were kids and built up a superiority complex around it. And even if I'm wrong in that, I still don't think kids can really "get it" at a young age.

[matty]

I figure, to each their own, and that's the way it SHOULD be!

If this were about any other domain of thought, I would be in agreement with you. However, I think it's absolutely ludicrous to allow those who have immense amount of influence in global politics and economics to exert their religious beliefs on to others via laws and regulations--as it often is the case. An example of this is the 'national' celebration of Christmas--that is to say, we have put forth laws and customs which govern an entire country to suit a particular belief system. Albeit this is a trivial example, it illustrates the power of public figures, who happen to be religious, in imposing their views on to others. For this reason, and many others I can mention, I cannot agree with the ‘to each their own' principle; because not only is it absolutely relative to time and culture, it is an impossible principle to uphold and practice on a global scale. Thus there will always be exploitation, even if we do proceed under such a noble ideology.


Hey, if I'm completely wrong, then I look at it this way... HOPEFULLY I can make the world a little bit better by staying strong to some solid ethics and ideals, and rather than live for myself

American Geneticist Francis Collins makes his entire argument in defense of God based on two things: the counterintuitiveness of altruism in evolution via natural selection and the ambiguity and the origins of Moral Law. He argues that due to discrepancies in behavior in species, the current limitations of science, coupled with the assumption that altruism is counter-productive to evolution, God must be the figure who is responsible for our moral sense; or else he argues, we could not explain why species tend to be good--altruistic.

What Collins fails to recognize, and indeed the majority of religious people, is that, first it is fallacious to invoke God simply because we have not yet found out how a particular principle or species operates. Secondly, there are brilliant alternatives that have an immense amount of evidence and consensus in the academic community. One alternative is kin selection. In short, kin selection displays how altruism and the evolutionary premise of propagating the species are complimentary principles. An example of this would be if one brother was to sacrifice himself in order to save his other brother--in this case, not only is one being altruistic but more importantly the genes which the brothers share are going to be passed on, therefore it is absolutely beneficial.

In respects to moral law and ethics, likewise there are dozens of alternatives which are in practice and theory far more sound than the answers advocated by any faith based system. In particular Memetics theory--put forth by evolutionary biologist and renowned public intellectual Prof Richard Dawkins. Meme theory illustrates how culture and faith principles are biologically passed down from one generation to the next--a sort of advanced mechanism of heredity. Additionally, if you're not merely convinced by the evidence, then I'd say, (to borrow from Christopher Hitches,) that how insulting is it for people to tell you that the only reason you are doing good is because your actions are divinely governed? This is an absolute insult and complete disregard of our own, very much developed faculty of reason.


(ethics are not the exclusive domain of God)

This is even too generous. There is no shred of evidence to suggest that any faith based system has contributed to our moral sense--although the distinction should be made that by simply reinforcing a principle is not the same as originally contributing it.

Further, once you actually study the anthropological, coupled with the biology behind the issue, it becomes self-evident that ethics predated any sort of faith based system--religion is simply our application and understanding of ethical principles. And it can't even do a good job at that!

Also consider what I have said above, in respond to Hawk.


But then I know some people's world view falls apart without a concept of God and they slip into nihilism

First, Nihilism is in practice impossible, to the extent which faith, culture, morals, and pretty much anything intrinsic to humans is completely disregarded. So while the prospect of a Nihilist Sage is appealing, I don't think that’s the category people fall into when their faith is shaken. I think they simple replace one bad habit with another. By that I mean, once you've examined the evidence against the probability of the existence of a personal God, and you choose still to ignore it, even if you are not religious to the extend of mainstream religion, you are still continuing under a fallacy. An example of this, and something that people who do depart from their mainstream church and move toward another more "secular" church like to use as justification, is Stephan Jay Goul's Nonoverlapping Magisteria (NOMA). NOMA suggests that the faith is concerned with specific fields as is science, and simply put: they cannot interfere with each other--for instance; science cannot interfere and attempt to answer a faith based question scientifically. While this all sounds great and all, again, in practice it is absolutely useless and impossible to attain, never mind maintain. As I've already mentioned, religions do in fact step-into scientific turfs, so to speak, in attempting to answer questions which belong to physics, biology and chemistry. So while there are degrees of conviction, it is safe to say that an invalid principle is still a wrong principle regardless of the degree of invalidness.

Whereas there is nothing to fear for someone who has studied the evidence to come the conclusion that are is no God, indeed no life after death. As Mark Twin put it: "I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." So, no, people who assume that life without a supreme being is a completely empty are merely uneducated. One of my favorite openings in a book, and a passage that will explain my point here more vividly than I can ever, is the opening of Dawkin's book Unweaving The Rainbow:

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."


one of the most interesting things about religion that I've found is that the "big 3" of Christianity, Islam and Judaism all have the same God

It has always been the same. There is no reason to pick on the Gods of the Abrahamic religions.

People are born into their religion by mere chance, mere happenstance--hell the process is even more stochastic than evolution!

More importantly, people seem to ignore the fact that for thousands and thousands of years other civilizations prayed, sacrificed, and ask forgiveness, and did all the things modern religious people do now, with older Gods who we now regard as myths. There is absolutely no difference in the name you decide to give a God—this illogical circle has been perpetuating for ages--it's always been the same.



Yeah,ultimately religion has to serve the quest for truth and justice and not the other way around. When it does, I generally think it's a good thing.

It's never been the case, as Francis Collins himself said it, we cannot understand God via evidence and logic, but via faith. Which is of course laughable; that is to say, is truth for Collins different than truth for everyone else? Is absolutely should not be--something is either true or false, for everyone. (Note that I don’t want to get into semantics, this is examining the issue by use of elementary logic.)


I actually think religion shouldn't be taught to small kids precisely because they're not mentally or emotionally in the right place to handle it. I think a lot of people that abuse religion had it drilled into them since they were kids and built up a superiority complex around it. And even if I'm wrong in that, I still don't think kids can really "get it" at a young age.

I could not agree more.

How ridiculous would it be if we were to name a child a Marxist child, a communist child, or a post-modernist child? But for some reason...it seems less ridiculous to name it a Muslim child or a Christian child.

Unfortunately I got to get to class so I can't map out the logic behind some of the topics, so for another time.

Have a good day everyone.

[YankeeH8er]

Great post matty. Glad to see some more scientific minded people around.

[Luminous]

So matty, you are an atheist?

Being brought up Catholic, an altar boy for four years, 9 years of Catholic school I have been around religion for a while. My faith in humans is more shaken than religion itself. Of course humans created religion, but then peverted it to a giant extent. I still believe in God, but I don't go to church every week and I am not a creationist by any means. I fully believe in evolution and I do love science, but I like having some faith. It makes living on this world a little easier, IMO. Being too scientific all of the time can get boring. It's nice not being able to explain everything. However, I do laugh at people that completely disregard science in favor of religion and I can't stand when people shove their beliefs down your throat.

I am sure in the future explainations for just about everything will be found, but that will not be a fun day. I am sure I won't be around to see it though. The only TV show I watch on a fairly regular basis is Ghost Hunters. They use electronic equipment to prove/disprove stories about ghosts, unexplained occurrences, etc. Now whether it is real or not one of the coolest things is the disembodied voices they catch. It sends a chill up your spine. Of course if you think it is fake or have a reason to explain it that goes out the door. A little mystery is good in life, IMO.

As for Christmas, I love the holiday and enjoy the season every year. Decorations, movies, great meals and most importantly great times with my family are all something I look forward to each year. Of course there are negatives (commercialization and whatnot), but I am happier that time of year and have many fond memories of past holiday seasons.


On a personal note, my test came out all clear. Everything seems to be normal, I am just going to follow up with the doctor when I have time. So that is good. :)

[NewportStark]

YEAH for Luminous and good test results!

On another positive note my GF is going down south to hang out with friends and surf.... leaving me the entire night (mostly) for gaming. So you know I will be on Live and gaming like a crazy fool.

So mount up homies.... and GAME ON!!!!!!!!

[Luminous]

Yes, always good to hear things are okay after a test.

If I can get on Live it is usually around 8pm EST or a little later. I can only play for a couple of hours (or so) as I need to get up earlier than I used to. Also I am a lot quieter than I used to be.....lol....I have no choice.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Luminous, I'm glad to hear that all came out alright! It sounds like you and I are in similar situations with our beliefs and church. I was brought up in a Southern Baptist church... Yeah, go ahead and stone me if you want, but just to say in my defense, while I do believe in the fundamentals, but as mentioned, I DO have issues with the church itself and what many of them have become for the sake of "God's work." I could go on about that for awhile, but the basics still come back to what I was saying about it should be a personal thing, and not forced upon anyone...

Matty, in response to your first response, the problem I have with that is that it then becomes an issue of it is NOT for each his own, but rather one person/group pushing their beliefs into everyone else and the way things are run. However, I do completely agree that not only is it improbable, but impossible to NOT push some sort of influence to others, even if you try and stay out of their beliefs system as much as possible. And the belief system itself then comes into a moral or ethical question, where I think it is best to just ask yourself if your action is going to negatively affect others outside of family. I do think that the individual has the responsibility to their children to raise them ethically and morally, but that leads to your other comment about genes...

I completely agree that your genetic information is passed on from generation to generation. The "moral code" being passed on from generation to generation though still, I think stems back to what I was originally saying about putting others before self, which religious beliefs do not hinder until they are forcibly put on someone else. With pretty much everything you mentioned, the religious understandings and followings have no negative implications until someone decides that someone else is wrong and needs to go about things THEIR way instead. I definitely think that trying to separate science, politics, religion, history, etc. is impossible, because they are all fundamentally bound together through science! There is a set of rules that governs the way things work in the universe, and that is no different for us or for a ray of light passing through space! The science behind it shows us how it works and is accomplished, while religion does kind of play on the mystery of what is still not understood. And I agree that doing something simply for the sake of "divine government" is something that SHOULD be left to individual conviction instead. Trying to go through that route is what starts all the wars and interfering with others that I have problems with.

But I won't argue any points of original conception of our ethics/principles, as I can only say how I believe my own actions should be, and I do base them off Biblical structure personally. The issue of faith vs. logic to me is more about the mysteries that have been solved through science vs. that of the unsolved. There are still MANY things we don't understand about the universe in general, and until we do, it will never be fully realized how certain activities may affect the "inner self." Still, with the things that we DO know, I still fail to see how "religion" on any personal level is a bad thing! And even though science may be able to explain many of the "mysteries" of religion, that does not mean that they still can not work together! With the possibilities of other dimensions and things we can not see with our own eyes (like "ghosts" :) ), it does feel a bit like The Matrix or something... Where it is quite possible that our universe as a whole is simply a part of a MUCH GREATER picture that we can not understand. However, that doesn't mean that all of this was not created, and completely understood by God in a "higher dimension" just like a programmer may understand completely something like The Sims or whatnot.

Overall, I think we agree for the most part, just I think I think that having religion and God as part of the equation does not negate science and logic. Speaking of on an unrelated, but similar note, did you see the Japanese (?) scientist who ran tests on the affects of certain words spoken on water and the patterns the water froze into? It was cool!

Frog, those are good points! To be completely honest, I am not very familiar with Judaism much other than some of the origins and beliefs. Like the afterlife thing is completely new to me! Definitely interesting! And for your comments about teaching religion to a child, I agree to an extent. I think inherent "goodness" and the differences between right and wrong (which are taught religiously) should be demonstrated to the child through the actions of the parents. I think giving children an understanding of religion and the principles falls solely on the parents though, and in the end, it will be left to the "adult child" to determine what is right for his or herself. But I do understand that by bringing up a child in "church" will likely influence their decision as an adult, but I feel it is a parents responsibility to raise the child by providing for them as well as showing them what the parent believes and why, all while teaching that certain behaviors will warrant certain reactions, as this is true in society, it HAS to be taught at home! Otherwise, how would a kid know that it's not appropriate to just walk around naked without parenting of right/wrong in our society (not that I agree with society, just an example). Kids rely on parents to get to the point where they can act, think and maintain their own life without assistance, so showing them how good actions yields the results that they do is vital in their upbringing (I think). Still, I don't think the parent has the right to FORCE religion or beliefs on the child per say... Just that it is their option to familiarize the child with the parents beliefs and why, so that when the child is old enough to make their own decision, they can do so on their own whether they decide to "follow" in their parents footsteps or if they decide to stray down a different path.

As mentioned, I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, but as I got older, there were certain aspects I did not agree with, and I kind of broke away myself. I don't disagree with EVERYTHING, nor do I disagree with the fundamentals of their beliefs... more the little details about things I feel The Bible does not address in the way they address it... Of course, I think that is more about the individual church instead of the "denomination" itself, so that's why I don't disagree with them, but feel that it is up to me to understand the differences and make the decision myself after my own analysis of everything.

Interestingly enough, the sermon last night was coincidentally about the restructuring of the Jewish Sanhedrin! Even if it is all just part of self fulfilling prophecy, it is hard to deny the pointing towards a structure laid out in The Bible! But then again, it comes down to a matter of knowing what the people believe WILL happen, and then going about to MAKE it happen, was it really pre-told or simply something like using an illusion to get what you want out of the situation. *See Return of the Jedi and the C3PO/Ewok scene (as Luminous cringes at the thoughts of Ewoks :p ). That's why I think understanding science, history, politics AND religion is important, because if you don't look at the BIG picture, then your decisions can't be based on the complete picture!

Other than that, I didn't do anything last night except play some Mario 3-on-3 while sitting in my new favorite room! Hopefully that issue will be cleared up today, but no signs as of yet... so we'll just have to wait and see!

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

I don't cringe at the thoughts of Ewoks, back when I saw Jedi in theaters (it was 1983 and I was 10) I liked them for the most part. Once I found out they were originally supposed to be wookies is when I was bummed out. The fact that 3ft. tall fur balls were able to take on a legion of Imperial Stromtroopers and their weaponry is a little much, but still enjoyable when watched.

[HawkClay]

My bad Luminous! I thought you just had it out against fwuffy wittle teddy beaws wif big wocks and twees to fight off that meanie Empire! :p

Well, so far so good! I just ate lunch (some nasty chicken sandwhich), so we'll see if I'm able to keep THAT down! Should be a relatively good test considering! :p

[DarthArcturus]

I had no idea ewoks were going to be wookies. That would have made so much more sense for the trilogy....sigh lucas..

Good afternoon. No work for me today. I was scheduled by begged my boss to let me have it off so I can watch my gators tonight! :D National championship game against oklahoma if you didn't know ;) GO GATORS!!

[Frogacuda]

I think giving children an understanding of religion and the principles falls solely on the parents though, and in the end, it will be left to the "adult child" to determine what is right for his or herself. But I do understand that by bringing up a child in "church" will likely influence their decision as an adult, but I feel it is a parents responsibility to raise the child by providing for them as well as showing them what the parent believes and why, all while teaching that certain behaviors will warrant certain reactions, as this is true in society, it HAS to be taught at home!
Yeah, but you can teach right and wrong and even maintain religious traditions without indoctrinating a kind in dogma and guilt. And that's not an issue of "forcing" ideas on the child, because, as the prime giver of information, every idea you plant in a child's head is forcing something on them.

This issue a bit personal for me because I have a sister, with whom I'm very close despite being philosophically worlds apart from, who was raised extremely strict orthodox Jewish, attended yeshiva, and lived in a solely Jewish community to the point where she never directly interacted with anyone else. She was taught that she was morally superior and a member of the chosen people and others were not.

So what do you think the result was? She's extremely racist, homophobic, and has no concept of cultural relativism at all. People that do things different from her are "stupid" and she feels guilt or shame if she's exposed to say, a TV show or a movie, or music with english lyrics. It's really very sad, and they got her from such a young age that she never had a chance to think for herself.


That's why I think understanding science, history, politics AND religion is important, because if you don't look at the BIG picture, then your decisions can't be based on the complete picture!
Yeah, I agree with this. I think skepticism is critical, but cynicism is not. I was a religion minor, actually, which might seem strange for an athiest, but I think it's important.

My biggest disagreement with matty is not so much that I disagree with his worldview, but I think that challenging your own view of the world with an open mind is always critical, or else atheism will become its own sort of dogma, you know?

[DarthArcturus]

YEAY GATORS WIN! :D

[The Bastard]

That game was slightly underwhelming. Credit to the Gators for taking advantage of their opportunities. Bob Stoops chokes another one away. Let him go to the Broncos so he can screw up that team even further....

[Luminous]

YEAY GATORS WIN! :D

Yes, congrats to the Gators!
First Kansas (hoops) and now the Gators, very nice!


Morning.

I was able to get some co-op Gears 2 in with Newport last night. I do enjoy the campaign in that game. :nod:

Well it looks like more snow is coming tomorrow. We are barely three weeks into winter and we have already had a few storms. I hope it isn't too bad otherwise my drive to and from work tomorrow will suck. I could always just not come in. ;)

[NewportStark]

Yes playin some coop Gears with Lum and almost finally finishing that game was very nice. Then on to aid Hawk in his quest to finally finish Halo 3 for the first time. Cystic jumped in for a bit too. Gotta love 4 player co-op! :)

I'll be down in the OC visting some friends Fri and Sat night but if anyoen wants to gaem Sunday evening... I am down!

[matty]

So matty, you are an atheist?

The term atheist is a controversial and sometime contradictory in its stance. For this reason I think of myself as an agnostic and anti-theist. That is, by virtue of the fact that we cannot logically disprove a negative, I cannot call myself a complete atheist--further, I believe anyone who employs the scientific method in examining this issue will have to yield to a stance of agnosticism.


I still believe in God, but I don't go to church every week and I am not a creationist by any means. I fully believe in evolution and I do love science, but I like having some faith. It makes living on this world a little easier, IMO. Being too scientific all of the time can get boring. It's nice not being able to explain everything.

I would agree with you. However, I think our perspectives and definition of 'faith' differ. That is to say, whereas your convictions are very much theistic--granted their theistic evolution (still a subset of creationism)--I on the other hand subscribe to an Einsteinian God. Einstein in his deistic belief often used the term God to comment on the unfathomable mysteries of the universe and its laws--in this sense, what you feel about the suspense and wonder of the universe and life itself, is exactly what Einstein, myself, and every other person on the planet has once felt when examining the world from a scientific point of view. Science does not need to be portrayed as an amoral, apathetic, or sometime cynical point of view; on the contrary, science takes great delight in attempting to answer intricate questions of life, and takes even more delight in hypothesizing what we have yet to unravel. It is a roller coaster ride--sometimes you're right, and sometimes you're wrong; science is always in a state of flux, scientists exult when they are proven wrong by other scientists, because that's all more motivation for them to work harder. In short, science is the study of the world, of life, of the unknown--and I much rather take pleasure in not knowing certain things, but rather having the confidence, that as we advance, we'll get a little closer to the answers; as opposed to having all supposed answers provided in holy scripture--doesn't leave much room for the imagination does it...

P.S. I'm glad you’re tests came back clear.



Still, with the things that we DO know, I still fail to see how "religion" on any personal level is a bad thing!

I have no problem with individuals and their private beliefs. The overwhelming and growing problem with religion is that it is the exact opposite--you're wrong, I'm right, my God is true, your God is false, I will be in heaven, and you will burn in hell. I can literally give you hundreds of books to read on this, but to save time, all I ask is that we examine the past and the present affairs of religion in causing global scale conflicts. I'll give you two examples close to home.

First, in June of 2003 your current president said to the Palestinian leaders in an interview that God told him to attack Iraq.

Second, we are witnessing for the first time ever in recent human history, a time when religion beliefs are held higher than International Law. I am of course talking about the Israel and Palestine occupation--in short: the Israelis are breaking international laws to take over land that was promised to them by their God.

Like I mentioned Hawk, all one needs to do to understand the negative consequences of religion is to study history--pure, unbiased history. And this is where the problem lies. I would love not nothing more than for people of faith to practice their faith privately without imposing their views; I would love to live in such a world. But alas, such a world is more wishful thinking than anything else.


And that's not an issue of "forcing" ideas on the child, because, as the prime giver of information, every idea you plant in a child's head is forcing something on them.

I think it's important to note the difference between providing information and giving information. I am all for providing a child with the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, a physics text book, a philosophy book etc... and allowing the child to come to a conclusion for him or herself. But when you label a child a Muslim child or a Christian child simply due to faith of their parents--that is forcing your ideas on a child--as the child is far too young to understand the concepts he is being labeled with, never mind being allowed to make the choice him or herself.


Yeah, I agree with this. I think skepticism is critical, but cynicism is not. I was a religion minor, actually, which might seem strange for an athiest, but I think it's important.

Science by definition approaches everything with skepticism.

As for the cynicism, I've often had people ask me "well religion gives life purpose, science does not." My answer is always, that science does not owe you an answer, science is not here to make you feel tingly and nice inside--science is indifferent, it employs not optimism nor pessimism, but realism. I can't help but be reminded by what George Bernard Shaw said once, "the power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism, but those who don’t have it."


My biggest disagreement with matty is not so much that I disagree with his worldview, but I think that challenging your own view of the world with an open mind is always critical, or else atheism will become its own sort of dogma, you know?

I believe we all agree that the study of science is the most open-minded field of learning. It's not as if science has ignored studying the data provided by religions, we have, scientists most certainty have, or else they would not be in a position to nullify some aspects of it. And considering that science serves as an all encompassing field which has collectively, along with philosophy and history (religion being part of history,) brought us to the point in time where are right now; I'd say you cannot get any more open minded than that. After all it's all education, and as Forbes once said, "the purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one."

[jp]

The term atheist is a controversial and sometime contradictory in its stance. For this reason I think of myself as an agnostic and anti-theist. That is, by virtue of the fact that we cannot logically disprove a negative, I cannot call myself a complete atheist--further, I believe anyone who employs the scientific method in examining this issue will have to yield to a stance of agnosticism.




I said this exact same thing around here once and got lectured. :p

But I agree! Agnosticism is the way to go, though it isn't necessarily my personal belief, which is weird, but I'm weird, so who cares?

[YankeeH8er]

100% atheist here.

[DarthArcturus]

Yes, congrats to the Gators!
First Kansas (hoops) and now the Gators, very nice!

I know...4 championships for Florida in basketball and football. KU football won the orange bowl last year and the whole thing in basketball. I'm fucking spoiled beyond belief now.


Matt, damn good post...agree with a lot of your points. BTW what is your field of study ??

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Matty, that pretty much mirrors what I said about this in my first couple of posts on the topic. "Holy wars" and being "ordained" to do so may work to win over most people, but seeing the REAL agenda behind the whole thing always tells a different story! My whole point is how do you start "fighting" that kind of corruption? I think it all starts with trying to follow the good standards yourself and not letting the rest of the world lead you like a lemming... as I think the problems in higher levels that people today feel they have absolutely NO control over eventually wears a person down into negatives themselves, even if they think they are a good person... And that's why I think it's so important to take it down to a personal level, and keep practicing those ethics and moral standards of religion or "conscience" if you are against the religious thing. And what I was saying with THAT is that it all boils down to the way YOU react to others! If what you are doing is going to bring someone else down, then I believe that is the fundamental question that needs to be asked when governing your actions in a good vs. evil attempt.

And I don't think ANYONE should just blindly believe what they are told without questioning things and seeking the truth themselves! I have many times thought that people who are higher ups in "select organizations" are hiding the truth about a LOT of different things, and doing so to fulfill their own selfish greed. What if one day we all woke up and could read everyone's mind and there was no more secrets, and all truths were known? It would be absolute chaos at first, but I think eventually it would get to a point where because of that, the possibilities for advancement of our society would be unfathomable!

But on another note completely now...

No gaming for me last night! We did pizza and movie night, so we watched Wall-E! It was pretty good. I was dead tired after the movie though, so I came home and CRASHED HARD! Tonight I have some stuff to get done around the house, and I'm going to TRY and get to bed a little early, but I do want to squeeze some game time in there somewhere if possible!

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

Another fine Saturday at work. ;)

The wife just went to her mother's with my little one and is staying there tonight and tomorrow night!!!! So if the second NFL game tonight isn't all that good (and it might get ugly real fast) I am going to game. Tomorrow is going to be great, two awesome games will be on and I will be alone

I just have to get up early on Monday (oh wait I am up early every day now) and head down to my in-law's to get my daughter. It will be worth it to get a couple of night sleep though! Plus I can get some gaming time in.

[HawkClay]

Luminous, the other night Newport and I made it to the last level (?) in Halo 3, and I told him that I wanted to wait until you were able to play it with us so we could all fully finish popping my "Halo 3 cherry" together! :x After that, I need to beat the game on single player and brush up on my survival skills and learn the levels a bit!

I'm also hoping to get back into Mortal Kombat vs. DC since I got my game back from my brother now (let him borrow it since he was here for Christmas). I also need to try and bring up my wins on Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix! I don't know what happened, but my ranking skill went to "0" somehow, and now I'm not even ranked properly! :( I was doing OK with my rank, but due to picking random select most of the time, and playing against some REALLY good players, I know it's not as good as I could have been... Oh well, I need to brush up on Guile again anyway since I RARELY get him using random select! I usually get Ryu, Balrog or Blanka... which coincidentally, are 3 of my WORST characters! :| I'm still OK with them, but definitely not good enough to beat the best with them!

OH MAN! That reminds me of Pac-Man! A different post for that, because talk about frustrating! X-(

[Luminous]

Hawk, I should be online tonight, probably around 8:30pm or later my time. Although Newport won't be around. He did say he will be around tomorrow evening and after the second NFL game (Steelers vs. Chargers) so will I.

[matty]

I know...4 championships for Florida in basketball and football. KU football won the orange bowl last year and the whole thing in basketball. I'm fucking spoiled beyond belief now.


Matt, damn good post...agree with a lot of your points. BTW what is your field of study ??

I have a joint honours degree in English & Philosophy, and I’m currently working on my MA in Philosophy with focus on applied ethics. Besides philosophy, I absolutely love evolutionary biology and theoretical physics--albeit I am by no means scientifically inclined, I try to learn what I can. As the topic of science & religion is concerned, I've been doing some research for just about two years now.

Hawk, your points are well taken and I don't think we're actually in disagreement.

On an unrelated note, I'm going to be playing some MGS 4 today. :)

[HawkClay]

Matty, I was thinking the same thing! I know "religion and politics" are two subjects that are typically looked down upon talking about because of all the disagreements out there, but I personally like to talk about religion, because I think (from what I'VE seen), most of us here all have the same underlying ethical and moral foundational beliefs about the self, no matter how we differ in our beliefs towards God/religion.

Luminous, that's cool! I may not be home tomorrow night though, so tonight I'll probably just play some Mortal Kombat or Pac-Man unless anyone is online who has Left 4 Dead and wants to help me learn the ropes in that one a little better! I've only played my copy once, so I'm still REALLY new to the game, and I hate joining online groups of strangers who know it all already, and think I'm bringing them down because I'm completely lost or something! :p

[Luminous]

If I see you online tonight Hawk maybe we can play some Left 4 Dead, I haven't played all that much myself though.

[HawkClay]

That's a good reason to play with me then! I've only played once and I'm definitely not very good at the game yet! :p

[YankeeH8er]

I have a joint honours degree in English & Philosophy, and I’m currently working on my MA in Philosophy with focus on applied ethics. Besides philosophy, I absolutely love evolutionary biology and theoretical physics--albeit I am by no means scientifically inclined, I try to learn what I can. As the topic of science & religion is concerned, I've been doing some research for just about two years now.

Hawk, your points are well taken and I don't think we're actually in disagreement.

On an unrelated note, I'm going to be playing some MGS 4 today. :)

My degree is in theoretical physics. I have a masters in physics. Lattice QCD was what I did my thesis on.

[matty]

My degree is in theoretical physics. I have a masters in physics. Lattice QCD was what I did my thesis on.

That's awesome. I have immense amount of respect for physics students--are you still in school?

Also, have you been following the progress at CERN, with regards to the ATLAS experiment and the LHC?

[Wildcat]

Hey. I went to Monterey yesterday as part of my birthday celebration (which is today, yay!) and picked up old books. I managed to get 5 for about $100 (including one for free, which was a pleasant surprise!). I added to my main collection, which is the Limited Edition Club books by one (I have three of them now) with the Oresteia trilogy of plays by Aeschylus, which is a huge book with some incredible art inside. These books are 1 in 1500 (or 2000, which are the later books in the company's lifeline, and are also signed by the artist (and occasionally the book's designer or typesetter signs it, too. In very rare cases, the author signed them as well, but they rarely printed books of an author that still lived when they were printed) When they were sold in the late 80's, they became even more limited (500 or less, if my memory's correct), but they don't focus on the classics so much anymore, so my interest in those aren't all that high. It's nice to know I have books that only a limited amount of people have. :) I also got two Heritage Press books, which are the common version of these LEC books, The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Lewis Stevenson, and Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus/Prometheus Unbound by Percy Shelley. Along with those, I got a exact copy of the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (he's my favorite poet), which is awesome, and a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's stories, with illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg (who is an incredible artist who does his work through wood engravings).

*end old book talk*

I'll be spending some time online this morning, then will head out to the local schoolground with my wife and our dog to goof around, then will head up to my parents to play with ye olde Wii (yes, my parents love the thing, surprise!). I asked them to get me We Love Golf!, which is supposed to be pretty good. We'll see. I'm still hoping somebody got me Chrono Trigger DS, but I know my wife didn't, so I remain steadfast.

[DarthArcturus]

hey CJ sorry about dropping out on gears 2 tonight..my roommate decided to reset the router without telling me because his laptop wasn't connecting :|

Good gaming though I will have to try and clear those last 10 waves that's all I have left to clear them all :D

[YankeeH8er]

That's awesome. I have immense amount of respect for physics students--are you still in school?

Also, have you been following the progress at CERN, with regards to the ATLAS experiment and the LHC?

No, I am finished with school. I am an elementry PE teacher now. LOL. I have not been keeping up with physics at all since I graduated. I knew a guy that was running an experiement at CERN, I wonder how it is going?

[Luminous]

hey CJ sorry about dropping out on gears 2 tonight..my roommate decided to reset the router without telling me because his laptop wasn't connecting :|

Good gaming though I will have to try and clear those last 10 waves that's all I have left to clear them all :D

I was wondering what happened to you. LOL, no worries.

[NewportStark]

Just an FYI..... I will be gaming for a good chunk of time this Saturday. A good chunk in the AM and a second in the dinner hours. Hopefully I'll see some of you online. :)

[Luminous]

Afternoon peoples.


Since Best Buy had a few 360 games for $9.99 this week I was trying to track two of them down (Ninja Gaiden 2 and Condemned 2). My local one had neither when I was there Tuesday and NONE of the ones I can get to from work or home has NG2. I was able to get Condemned 2 for $9.99 today as well as The Simpsons Game for the same price. I had a $10 Reward Zone certificate and lots of gift card money so in reality I spent $0. WIN!

They also have Unreal Tournament 3 and Battlefield:Bad Company for $19.99, but I held off on them.

[Bruhaha69]

Awesome deal on those games.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Dang, what a busy freakin' week it's been! Besides getting pretty slammed at work, I spent the majority of my free time helping a 9 year old put together a 2 week research report/presentation that they were only given LESS than 1 week to do! *sigh* Mom got an e-mail from the teacher saying how great his report is though, so it was all worth it! :)

Wildcat, happy belated birthday! Sounds like you had a good one, so that's AWESOME! I have SO MANY books I need to catch up on reading! I just don't seem to be able to find the time to do it all! :( I would LOVE to have a "classic" collection of my own, but until I catch up on all the current stuff I'm sitting on, I doubt it will happen anytime soon! :( And that's just books! I'm backlogged on movies and games too! :p

Last night was the first night I didn't do that after work, so I managed to get some pretty good game time in! Mostly spent my time playing Mortal Kombat vs. DC online. I think I've given up on connecting some of those offline combos I am used to doing. I mean, I can't even OPEN the combo with something as easy as "A, <-X" to start them in a "bounce" setup for the big majority of the combo, let alone the whole thing I like to do offline... :satan:

*cough*

Batman:

Reverse batarang to push them towards me stunned, which sets them up for his double axe kick (A) which puts them in the air, followed by two <-X in succession to "pop" them on the ground twice, and then time it so that his regular punch, punch, kick combo hits in air (X, X, Y) followed by a flying kick and usually ended with an explosive batarang planted on the ground waiting for them to get back up... which I hold there until I throw the next reverse batarang to try throw them for a loop and set them up for that whole combo AGAIN! :p I've TRIED to do the leg grab after the flying kick, but I can't connect it most of the time, which just sets me up for disaster, so I went to this strategy instead.

Yeah, so I can pull that off easily 80% of the time offline! Online, I have to settle for just the regular combo and try and mix up my moves to throw off whoever I'm playing... And I have played some ANNOYING people online! Like the guy who played as Liu Kang who doesn't do anything but sit there and wait for you to do something and then he counters. Yes, I know there's nothing "illegal" about "turtling," but it's dang annoying to play against them! When I started to work my moves around what he was doing, and just go REALLY aggressive and mixed it up, he'd just throw me, which puts me back across the arena as he sits and waits again. :| Yeah, so I put him on my "banished" players list because I'm not going to give that kind of player the satisfaction of playing me again!

Then there are the ones who play as the "universally cheap" characters, such as Scorpion, The Flash and Superman. Actually last night, that wasn't TOO bad. This one guy played as Raiden and had me SCREAMING though, and another guy was Sub-Zero, and all I have to say is THANK GOD for wireless technology, because I would have yanked the controller out of the system if it was wired! :p Raiden, I'd block/react to things that are SETUPS for combos (like if you block the "superman push"), but every time I did, even if I waited for him to drop a bit, my guy would go THROUGH Raiden, and put my back to him setting ME up for a beating! WTF??? And Sub-Zero, I almost swear that guy was exploiting something, because he'd do this "body freeze" move which once it wore off, I'd attack, but I'd still get frozen??? Sometimes he didn't have to do ANYTHING and it would freeze me! How am I supposed to do anything if EVERYTHING is just going to freeze me and I can't react against it? That's actually the first time anyone has done THAT "good" with Sub-Zero online, so that's why I think he was probably doing "something" as that whole fight was just fishy. :|

On a positive note, I managed to beat Arcade mode on the hardest setting without continuing, which gave me the "Arcade Master" achievement! :D So I can whoop up on that game offline, but getting the 25 ranked wins in a row ONLINE is going to take some adjusting to, or playing cheap myself (which I REFUSE to do)! Sucks because I can have some REALLY good fights, win them all, and then get thrown into one of "those" fights, which I then lose... HORRIBLY, and it resets my win streak! :| 25 in a row too? Dang, that's going to be tough! I think I may start focusing on the Kombo Challenges now to try and get them out of the way, while playing online as much as possible to get more "used" to that aspect of gameplay.

I also played some Street Fighter II online. This time I picked Guile and only did random like 3 times. I actually won most of those fights... Except when I did random and got stuck with the likes of Ken/Ryu (I know they are the most popular, but I REALLY suck with them because I've never liked playing as them much)! There were still plenty of "ARGH!" moments thanks to the beauty of the standard 360 controller as I lost by a fraction a few times after being ahead for most of the round... but NOTHING that set me off like MK vs. DC did! :p

I also played a little bit of Geometry Wars since it has been awhile since I picked it up, and I really do like the game, despite not having quite "figured it out" as far as scoring and such is concerned. Not sure what the best strategy is to take to get to that 1,000,000 points in one life! Right now, that just seems IMPOSSIBLE! My eyes couldn't keep up with everything on the screen, and I had to take my contacts out to even be able to manage, but my eyes were so glazed, even that didn't help much! :p

Oh yeah! The other day I did play a little bit of Pac-Man on a small break I had, and I managed to get the PERFECT achievement where I ate all 16 ghosts! It was close on the last one, and I ran into a VERY similar situation that happened the other day (where one went past the ghost box while another came out), but this time, I just held back and waited (since I had time because I didn't MISS MY FREAKIN' TURN this time :p ), and then I reacted AFTER the ghost came out, and I managed to BARELY catch up to the last ghost and eat his sorry @$$! B-) After that, I just got all the rest of the achievements, which were very easy to get as it was pretty much just beat the next level up to level 21... And you can continue, so it's a breeze!

Well, tonight it's pizza and a movie night, so probably no gaming for me! I may be on tomorrow though, but we'll have to wait and see.

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[Luminous]

Awesome deal on those games.

Yeah I am pretty happy. I just wished I went there last Sunday so I could have bought Ninja Gaiden 2, The shipping online takes away from the deal somewhat, between shipping and tax add at least $4. Still $14 new for NG2 might be worth going for.

[jp]

Good morning all!


I am at work, and it sucks.

I made chili last night though. Yay!

[Luminous]

Afternoon people.

I fisnished off TMNT the other day (1000 points fairly easy). I sneak in an hour here or there to get some single player stuff in. It seems like I can get some games worked on now that I really don't have too much time to play online. Not a bad thing overall.

[DarthArcturus]

good afternoon. Busy day for me. Went to firestone to get new tires they didn't have the tires I wanted in stock but they have a special sale starting Friday for all name brand tires. Basically getting better tires for the same price as the cheap ones I wanted w00t. So no car till Friday but no problem. I can take bus and find rides to work.

[NewportStark]

YO!!!! Been busy as fuck. Spent probably 8 hours over the past weekend installing all the new shelving for my gaming lair. They didn't even have enough of the shelving I was getting and the total for all materials was still 350.00!!! I also though that it would give me plenty of room to display my game collection... now after getting most of it up I think there will be just enough room for the games etc on the shelves. I'll still have several boxes of stuff that I won't have room to display. In the end though it'll be the closest thing I have had to a fully functional game lair. Part of the qualifier is that all systems must be hooked up and playable. I have a couple pics of it thus far for your edification :)


Will have to post them tomorrow though due to computer issues! :(

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Sorry I haven't been around much. Been keeping busy both at and outside of work, so it's been tough to actually post. I did get a chance to play some games this week. Bionic Commando Rearmed for the most part! That is a freakin' AWESOME game! I beat the normal game, and unlocked Super Hard mode... which I tried, but got spanked at! :p I made SOME progress, but it became more of a game of memorization, because the bad guys take LOTS of hits while you can only take two! Blocking bullets isn't tough, but you have to learn how many each guy fires, and when to move in relation to their shots! It's crazy, but I think I can manage to pull it off with some practice! For now, I am satisfied with having completed it on Normal though!

I have also worked in some Street Fighter II HD, Mortal Kombat vs. DC, Tempest and Animal Crossing ( :O ) a bit too. Not much to add on any of those, except it's been weird playing Animal Crossing again, considering the big reason of why I even got into it was because of "someone else" in the first place!

Work is still like walking a tight rope right now. I somehow manage to make it each week surprisingly, but every week I'm really thinking about looking for a second job since the overtime isn't here like it has been in the past! I'm glad that I saved a few bucks from when I did have work, and that my cuts allowed me to catch up on things, otherwise it could be a LOT worse right now!

Well, I just had a meeting with my manager, and we went over some numbers and talked about how things are going around here. I tried to present some ways for us to be a bit more efficient, because I see quite a bit of places that could use some "tweaking!" I don't want to be seen as complaining though, so I just brought up options on ways we could potentially make things a bit smoother up here. Seemed to go over pretty well I think! *crosses fingers for another week*

Well, I'm outta here... Yeah, I know, I just got here, but it's been a crazy day/week/month! ;)

Y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[jp]

Just out of curiosity...


The world knew when Superman died.
The world knew when Captain America died.




But does anyone here know that they just killed Bruce Wayne?

Like, seriously. Batman is dead.


Just wondering... it strikes me as odd that there were actual new outlets reporting the death of Captain America, but no one seems to know that Batman died recently. 0_0

[The Bastard]

Seriously, if it wasn't for you, I'd have no idea that Batman was dead. Knowing DC, they'll find some ridiculous way to bring his ass back to life (Batman is fucking money and it would be stupid to keep him dead). Brubaker's way of keeping Captain America dead has been good so far. We can only hope that when Batman is revived, it won't be as lame as Superman's return.

[jp]

Captain America came back in Secret Invasion as far as I could tell. As for Batman... this is Grant Morrison's doing. And Grant Morrison is a fucking hack. Next up he's going to do a whole big thing on "Battle for the Cowl", where Nightwing/Robin/Two-Face/Alfred/Etc. all wind up fighting or something to take on the role of Batman. It seriously looks stupid as shit. But then again, Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis are both absolute garbage.

[The Bastard]

I think that Captain America (not Steve Rogers) is still Bucky in Secret Invasion (speaking of crap... that ending). Seriously though, what the hell is up with DC?? Unless you've been following the entire time, you're completely confused.

[jp]

Oh was he?

Huh, weird. Thats cool then.

But yeah, Secret Invasion #8 was fucking horrible. Oh. my. God. that. sucked. And you know, if it wasn't for that shit, I might have actually been interested in Dark Reign. But its coming too soon off of SI's heels, and I just can't take that shit for another year.


DC is just sucking it up under Morrison. But Geoff Johns is working pure magic. Green Lantern is fucking awesome, and I cannot fucking wait for Blackest Night.


Also, if Flash Rebirth is half as good as Green Lantern Rebirth... :drooling:

[The Bastard]

Most of the normal Marvel stuff is balony. I stick mostly with the space characters (because War Of Kings is gonna kickass just like the Annihilation stuff before it) and Captain America (No Bendis and very little Avengers bullshit). I'd get DC stuff if graphic novels came out at a more regular pace.

[jp]

Deadpool is fucking awesome right now.


I'm also a big fan of Amazing Spider-Man these days. But I'm one of the few old school Spider-Man fans (note: learned to read off of my Dad's comics) that appreciates what One Last Day (or whatever) did. I think it was brilliant to retcon him being married and return Peter Parker to his roots as some unlucky regular bachelor.

[The Bastard]

Deadpool is hilarious. I need to purchase his graphic novels when I have the cash.

Sadly, I only know Spidey as a married guy whether I was reading Spectacular, Web or Amazing Spider-Man (mostly bought the comics during the "Venom was the awesomest shit" time period). Maybe I'll buy all those huge essential Spider-Man books to read up. I wonder what made me stop buying them.... I miss his funny and witty remarks.

[DarthArcturus]

why the hell would DC hill Bruce when batman popularity is at an all time high?

Speaking of batman, finished Batman Year 1 and thought it was good but really its more a story of Gordon. My next buy is Dark Knight Returns and maybe the sequel to Long Halloween.

[Luminous]

Wait, they killed off their best character? I never really liked DC comics, but I always liked Batman. That is just stupid. Oh well I haven't collected comics in over 7 years so.....

Anyway today is my Friday.....YIPPEE.

I was able to join Newport, Hawk, and Atari for some Left 4 Dead last night. We were having some issues ending the chapter and I had to head to bed. Stupid work!


Well tomorrow we are heading to my sister-in-law's place. I promised my nephew I would play his Wii with him. I loathe the idea, but he is 6 so it will make him happy.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

All I have to say is "HA HA HA" *points to that "comic guru" at Wal-Mart who said that they never killed Batman*

A not so long story, but I went to Wal-Mart last weekend and was looking at toys with the kid, and he showed me one of The Spectre asking who he was, and showed me the Nightwing figure on the back of the pack, and this 40 year old guy chimed in talking about variant figures and the price of the Nightwing figure and such, and he had asked if I collected. I told him I used to, but due to financial constraints, I'm really only getting Robin/Nightwing stuff again... which is pretty rare since there isn't much to be had! I did get a subscription to Robin and Batman for Christmas though... but my first issue hasn't arrived yet, and the kid has a subscription to Nightwing. Anyway, he told me about how BIG he is into things, and I mentioned them killing off Bruce Wayne, and he was like, "No they didn't! The R.I.P. doesn't mean that Batman died!" I was like... "Uhhh... OK" and thought maybe I was wrong since my books haven't arrived yet, and my old subscriptions were cancelled because my comic shops hours are stupid and I could never make it there when they were opened to pick up my books... so yeah, I'm a little bit behind on things, but I was dang near positive they killed off Batman! But now that y'all mentioned it... I'm glad to see I wasn't crazy! ;) I guess it's not really much of a spoiler now that JP has let the cat out of the bag, so here's a picture for you:

1888

So anyway, in doing some reading on the matter, it was the Omega Beams from Darkseid that killed him, and those are supposed to send the person to a different universe over and over, each one getting worse and worse... so MY GUESS is that they'll do something like Batman is fueled by the bad stuff, and he uses his new found knowledge of how the parallel universes works to get back. We'll see I guess. You KNOW they won't keep him dead, and the build up to this was either too much for people to believe (see: Wal-mart Guru) or it's that everyone KNOWS this isn't permanent and will be revived later on... but yeah, a lack of news on the ACTUAL news is disturbing. Batman (and his "universe" ) has always been my favorite, and I know I'm not alone! To see Captain America get a bigger send off is disheartening. Superman at least I can understand as he's really the icon of super heroes and comics and general! Still... HE'S THE G** D*** BATMAN!!!

So... with that said, who do you think will be taking on the role of Batman now? I hope it's Alfred, just because I think that would be absolutely ridiculous! :p

Anyway, yeah I had fun playing Left 4 Dead last night! Sorry I never came back though. Melanie called once she got home (different call from the one to let me know she just got off work :p ) and we had some stuff to go over. I let it go into standby mode, and by the time I was able to get back on, I was so tired, and it seemed y'all had disbanded anyway, so I just went to bed. Still, what we played was fun! That was only my second time to play the game, so I'm sorry I still kind of suck at it! :p

So other than that, I guess... Y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[jp]

Batman actually didn't die in Batman R.I.P., which was fucking retarded. Batman R.I.P. didn't have anything to do with anything ever, and was completely irrelevant to Batman's death in Final Crisis.

Ugh, I fucking hate Grant Morrison. I know I keep harping on it, but I just cannot say that enough. I. hate. Grant. Morrison. Worst. god. damn. comic. writer. ever.

The sad thing is even Martian Manhunter's death (Final Crisis #1) was mentioned in the news.


So maybe they're waiting for some sort of Requiem for Batman before everyone brings out the bad news.


Still, I think Batman is done for a little while. I know Morrison's bitch ass is going to milk that "Battle for the Cowl" for everything it can be. I'm thinking Spider-Man-quits-being-Spider-Man-and-takes-up-FOUR-different-identities-EACH-with-their-own-comic-book bad.

[Luminous]

Morning.

It is snowing AGAIN! I have a cold and my daughter's day care is closed so I am home from work.

It is beautiful outside, but we have had a lot of little storms. I am waiting for a good two footer to hit us.......

[Bruhaha69]

Same here. Snowing lightly and waiting for the heavy stuff to start covering us. Looks nice out, but I don't look forward to cleaning up.

[DarthArcturus]

we had only a little ice and snow the last two days (I think its the same storm system that's there now) For once I wanted a bit more.

[matty]

Hello everyone,

Well it's just past midnight so I suppose this can be a very early morning post. =p

I've been ridiculously busy with school, however, I did play the new MGS--it was friggin' fantastic.

Anyhow, I hope everyone is doing well.

p.s. it's been really cold as of late

[Luminous]

Morning.

That storm was a mess. 5+ inches of snow followed by sleet and rain. Of course overnight the rain frooze and there was ice all over my condo complex. No big deal, just annoying really.

My cold is getting better, but I really wish I could have stayed home and slept as the little one is in day care today. My wife caught the cold so she is home relaxing.

[ngt]

Was on a scholarship interview panel last night for local high school kids and one of them was on American Idol. She made it to Hollywood too. She sang too :) If you watch the show, she's a kid of heavy set white girl with green streaks in her hair. Carries herself very well for a 17 year old. Kinda cool, imo....although I'm not a huge American Idol fan...still kinda cool.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, the past couple of days have been "fun!" http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/19.gif I had to take my continuing education for my licenses on Tuesday. The weather started to get bad while I was there, so coming home was a PAIN! I prepared for work the next day though, because I knew it was just going to get worse! I was the ONLY person at work on time... and I was actually early too! http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/9.gif TODAY however was not as kind! I didn't "prep" for anything because it was pretty much cleared up last night, but the car was FROZEN and I couldn't even unlock it! Then the frost on the windshield didn't want to cooperate! http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/19.gif Yeah, so today I was actually a minute late... Which I blame on the guy in front of me driving at the speed of MUD! I almost got out of my car to ask him if he needed me to help push! http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/9.gif

Well, last night I got together with my girl and we had our Wednesday night church service. I got a new Bible and got to use it for the fist time last night! It's nice too! Now I've got all these different study Bible's that I can use in conjunction with each other! This was the last one I wanted to get before I start over on reading the whole book from cover to cover again! http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/1.gif This time, I'll be keeping a notebook as well as making notes in this one Bible my friend gave me for Christmas that has space in the actual Bible for notes! http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/4.gif I had told him last summer that I wanted one of those REALLY bad, but my Dad wasn't able to find one! My friend came through for me though! http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/1.gif

Well, tonight I'm being recognized at work for doing well in the last campaign! I'm being taken out to dinner, and get to leave work early tonight... and I get paid to go! http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/4.gif Should be fun! After that, I'm going to stop by the grocery store and I'm making chili for tomorrow's party we are having at work. LOL! It's SO Office Space! We're having jeans/jersey day and we're having food brought in for lunch! I can't help but laugh! I just wonder when we'll actually have Hawaiian shirt day! http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/9.gif

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[superyen]

good morning.

[HawkClay]

Good Morning All!

Well, I've actually had a lot of working outside my regular hours this week, so that's good! Not much to update on besides that, but at least I got to work! :D

Let's see, I did download Halo Wars, and it's just not for me. I'm not into strategy games typically... same for RPG's or anything that is considered more "slow" paced! All Halo Wars did for me was made me want to play REAL Halo! Giving commands and watching it happen <<< DOING THE ACTION YOURSELF!!! Oh well, I figured I'd at least check it out to see since I love Halo, but now at least I am not too upset about not getting the game. Honestly, I'd much rather just have the CG cinemas all put together on a DVD and watch it than add a "boring" strategy game to the mix! :p Actually, I sometimes do like strategy games, but I have NEVER finished one completely! Many have been started, and enjoyed for a time, and forgotten about in time! Greats such as Shining Force, Military Madness, Dragon Force and Conflict Zone... OK, so maybe not a "classic," but I enjoyed it at first before getting bored like I usually do! Oh well, the ADHD gamer in me strikes again! Give me short lived action or save me money! I'm finding more and more that short action bursts are just really what I want to play much of anymore... Action, Fighting, Shooters, Platformers (sometimes)... but I guess I've always been like that though! :p

SuperYen, good to see you again! Hope all is well with you!

Well, let's see... I played some Pinball FX and Mortal Kombat vs. DC this week... Ummm... I played a level in Rez (5 of course) and a little bit of Sonic I believe! That may have been last week though! :p

Tonight I'm going to try and get some stuff done around the house so I can spend the day out tomorrow! So laundry, cleaning, and XBox! :p If anyone is online, then hit me up for either some Halo 3 or Left 4 Dead or something... If not, then it will probably be all about Mortal Kombat vs. DC! Dang Wonder Woman kombo challenge! :p

Anyway, y'all have a great day posting! ;)

[superyen]

good morning.

it's like almost 3 and i am just getting out of the shower (just woke up). sleeping in is amazing and i totally needed that. I have been running on overdrive lately. My doggy seven just discovered the mirror, and he is totally fascinated by it. it is so cute. there is a new arcade that just opened by my house. the guy that opened it said for me to paint a mural on the walls. he said he wants something 'cute' though because he thinks that it should be a place for little kids to come into. i kind of think that that is the wrong target audience, but whatever. i would love to paint some walls. i don't know what to paint on it though. any ideas? this forum runs slow. why? there seem to be a lot of active members. there is this design contest at my school and the prize is 100 dollars. i am making something for it and i hope i win. =) it's a photoshop thing and i'm just now learning photoshop. i have only been using it for about a month, so hopefully my design is strong enough to make up for my skills. it's supposed to be one of those abstract photo collage things. i am not really into it, but i think my design is interesting. would really like to win 100 dollars and that's not the best part. you get your design on the school catalog. that i think makes it the most worth it.

it is tax season i think... i guess. there seems to be a TON of office work lately... i hate that stuff. it drains me so much... yich. yesterday i spent the WHOLE FUCKING DAY practically in the office. man. it was like from 12-3, and then i got a break from 3-430, and then again from 430 - 7 or 8 or something. so much paperwork. it is like we spend so much time documenting our lives on paper that we forget to live it. it is an interesting concept. i went over to my friend's house over the weekend and there ws this image and it was like a purple sky and there was a bird and it said "birds don't have careers." still have some more paperwork to do today but it's not nearly as much. hopefully things slow down over the week i'd like to catch up on homeworks.

btw i had a really awesome weekend! =D

[Frogacuda]

I also slept until 3:30. Pretty soon I'll be skipping daylight entirely.

For the mural, if you want to do something gamey, you should do like a video game landscape. Skip the characters and just paint like The Fantasy Zone or Mushroom Kingdom or something. It'd be fun to do all the little details and maybe a little more subtle than a bunch of smiling characters.

[superyen]

I also slept until 3:30. Pretty soon I'll be skipping daylight entirely.

For the mural, if you want to do something gamey, you should do like a video game landscape. Skip the characters and just paint like The Fantasy Zone or Mushroom Kingdom or something. It'd be fun to do all the little details and maybe a little more subtle than a bunch of smiling characters.


wow that is such a good idea! thanks! i think i will do that. =D

[superyen]

good morning.

have a math test today. about to get ready for my 7:00 am math class.... o_o

::rubs eyes::

[jp]

good morning.

have a math test today. about to get ready for my 7:00 am math class.... o_o

::rubs eyes::

Hurray for math!!!! :buttrock:


Or... maybe not so much? :.

[Luminous]

Morning.

It has been crazy at home since Friday. My daughter caught a stomach bug (yummy) that she gave to me so I was up pretty much all Saturday night and recovered by laying on an air mattress watching movies on Sunday (5 in fact). My wife got sick Sunday night and stayed home from work on Monday.

We are both a lot better, but the little one still has some lingering affects.

Anyway I have not been out of the house since I came home from work on Saturday night so as soon as I feed her next we are heading out. She is napping right now so I have a couple of minutes online.....

[ngt]

7am math class??? screw that, lol...

[Frogacuda]

There's a 7 AM now? Since when?

[superyen]

yea, i know...

but the teacher is really cool. I had an art class with him like a year ago (life drawing). he is a great artist, and a really decent guy. not totally fucking crazy like all the other math people i know. . . . . . . . :nuts:

so i come in. i am like totally out of it, but it's cool. i am out of school by 4:00 pm so it's not so horribly bad. last semester i was in school from 10 am to 10 pm. anyway, i just keep telling myself that this is the last lame class i will have to take. everything from here on out will be something that is not completely tedious. payin my dues. :flat:

I came home to a very pleasant surprise today... ^_^ I feel so good now. like glow.

last 7am class i had was biology. it wasn't so bad. i got through it. just like this one. i'll get through it. before i know it it will be behind me.

luminous: sorry to hear about your tummy. X( I have a really strong stomach so it has been a really really really long time since i have gotten sick to my stomach. the last time i threw up because of something i ate i think it was from ayahuasca, but that is a whole different story. it is not like catching a bug or anything. Alls i know is that i feel for you. being sick to your stomach is like the worst. :flat: hope all of you get better soon. flush that shit out. least you got to catch up on some movie watchin and take a break. probably not something you would have taken the time out to do for yourself had you not been sick. too bad we usually wait to take care of ourselves when we are too sick to even enjoy it.:lol:

[jp]

not totally fucking crazy like all the other math people i know. . . . . . . . :nuts:


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[DarthArcturus]

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:rofl:

Math rules ;)

So looks like a good chance for some decent thunderstorms tonight...in February I love it. Oklahoma is already getting a good amount of storms right now too.

[superyen]

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:lol: *runs away*

[jp]

:lol: *runs away*

Ay! Get back here you! :fast:

[superyen]

omg u guys i have a fucking sinus infection/ sinus headache since tuesday!

i have not had any relief. even when i sleep i have these vivid dreams and my dreams are tedious and i am fully aware in my dreams that i have a fucking pressure in my eyeballs like they are about to EXPLODE!

i do not take medicines and refuse to visit a doctor for this. fuck that. i am straight.

i got a neti pot today. u put water and salt in it and you pour it in one nose and it comes out the other nose (i know..). it is a little strange, but i did it and i feel a little relief. headache is still there, but it's not as agonizing. like i can actually turn my head to the side without such a sharp pain in the middle of my brain stabbing me. man. this has been pretty fucking horrible.

i am the kind of person who never gets sick. the neti pot rocks tho. it's awesome.

oh yea post neti pot the mucus i expel is not bright neon green anymore it changed to a very light green which i think is good. i think green in general is supposed to be really bad, but ur supposed to want clear mucus.

lol just thought you guys should know. :lol: