Read this. Make sure you get to page two.

Hokay.

So a guy who works for Team Catholicism came out and said it's cool to believe in aliens.  Not that any particular Team Catholicism proclaimations have much effect on me any more... somewhere between calling out the Muslims and a priest trying to explain to me how homosexuality and kleptomania were inherently the same thing, I stopped getting the memos (and on that note, grats to California).  Now, unlike my demi-hero Joss Whedon, I very much believe in the "sky bully", an afterlife, a meaning to "it all", etc.  Heck, I even still think Catholicism is a heckuva foundation-- which is why you'll find my religion beliefs listed on the book of faces as "Hare Club for Men" (I hope somebody out there gets that reference before they go to Wikipedia).  

SooOOooo I see this news all over the place and think, "Good! Some open-mindedness!"  (And, honestly, reading that article, there are a LOT of statements in this press release I LOVE.  This guy is smarter on the uptake than many officials...)  But then I get to this gem, which not all the reports have been covering:

"There could be (other beings) who remained in full friendship with their creator"

And suddenly my knee-jerk reaction kicks in.

Aliens didn't commit original sin, eh?

I could be wrong on this, but I think the majority of people reading this blog ascribe to some theory of evolution.  They understand differences between micro and macro evolution, they get the reasons that particular fossil links are hard to find (because it happens very fast), and so on.  So, I'm not talking to any frakking fundamentalists, unless Riley's mum is lurking over his shoulder.  Which means we're all on the same page: the Bible is a good book.  Divine inspiration? Sure! Amazing message? Absolutely! Literal? Fack no. Heck, there's so much contradiction between New & Old Testaments, as well as the fact that the books that made the cut were chosen by just another bunch of humans, not unlike the bunch of humans that wrote the flawed books... if we are to believe that any free will was involved, we must believe there are some problems.

Not that creation as told in the Bible is a problem, if you're functioning above the intelligence of a properly educated junior high student.  It's a represenational story.  It says, in short, "God created everything and it was sweet."  Then the second item, "He also created us to be like Him, but the sweetness got messed up via choice."  I don't think that some evil woman tricked my species into falling out of grace.  It's a very anti-feminist world view, in my opinion. I'm more inclined to believe that myself and everyone around me was made very much like God.  When the first post-monkeys started to make choices that went against survival but instead towards emotion and intellect, they occasionally made choices, because of their freedom, that were anti-God.  And the beauty of that is that we really CAN choose (thank you, Lord).  

So, why does the concept of guilt-free aliens bother me?  For me, it assumes a full human-centric view.  Jesus came to save us, and nobody else. Paul had to write letters about this viewpoint problem from day one.  God came to save us all. Now, I'll give you He might have repeated the performance elsewhere, sure. I have no problems if you want to tell me about the planet Claxxon Five, and their Savior who was laser-beamed to death to save them from sin. 

BUT if you say there are intelligent beings out there, and they got a pass, there's something wrong there.  Either they are not intelligent beings, which means they work purely on survival, OR God made someone literally "better" than us.  Our He/She Lord allegedly made angels with will and reneged on the enterprise after one of them became a real asshole.  If extra-terrestrials got a pass, though, that would mean they were fully intelligent, and for some reason, they got the full story.  They realized, fully, that God was awesome, and so they just never-ever screwed up.

Maybe this doesn't bother you.  But think about this.  If you're a functioning Christian, you believe that when you die, if your ducks were in a row, you go to Heaven.  And there, you don't "lose free will" but you "gain eternal life".  So, you choose, forever, to play for team Holy.  If you're making said informed decision, that means you're closer with the big fella than any angel was, because when they had choice and strong communication lines they still had some people cut out.  So, while it's been theologically exemplified for sometime that humans > angels, we would now have a universal view that other > human.  I'm assuming both "other" and "human" would be technically made in God's image, so... it makes no sense.  Unless God made intelligent beings NOT in Her own image that were in better Communion with Her.  Which is kind of a self-defeating view for anyone in the Vatican to be taking on, eh?

Now, I know this isn't some religious decree that says, "THIS IS HOW THE CHURCH BELIEVES" or even the Pope speaking on the matter.  But it is someone in Catholicism, in a position of authority, speaking publically and saying something that is, to me, fairly damning.  Maybe Mr. Vatican Science Guy doesn't want the aliens to have free will.  Or maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill.  

My rant is done.  What's your opinion, gang? 

Yo.

Just so everyone knows, I am safely in Boston (and Zarrin is safe, too). The apartment is nice (it's the first floor of a house). We have food now, and internet. Eating and surfing are the two most important things, and we have them. This is a good thing. 

Zarrin starts work tomorrow, I start wednesday.

Thanks to Nolan and Cayla for letting us crash at your place, it was very nice and appreciated. In case you care, after leaving lawrence Zarrin and I went to her folk's place in Virginia, and we visited DC for two days. I saw the Air and Space Museum, the washington monument, art museums, natural history museum, the capitol building, and the national archives. We also just walked around the city, but it was rainy and cold most of the time.

Ironman ruled... "The Bank Job" was alright. Jason Statham does his usual bad guy that you can't help but root for role.

Everyone enjoy your summers (or ends of semesters if you are still in school) 

Hey guys.

First off, you should have read Nolan's Iron Man post below before diving into this one (which, by the way, I greatly enjoyed). However, as someone who's interested in these sorts of crazy things, now that both Iron Man and GTA IV numbers are available, I'd like to just discuss in a little bit more detail the whole crazy "ZOMG GTA IV WILL KILL IRON MAN" prediction that a lot of pundits and analysts out there were making.

First off, the cold, hard facts.

Iron Man

From Wikipedia:

"In its opening weekend, Iron Man grossed $98,618,668 in 4,105 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #1 at the box office, making it the tenth-biggest movie opening weekend of all time,ninth widest release in terms of theaters, and the highest-grossing opening weekend of 2008. It grossed $35.2 million on its first day, making it the 13th-biggest opening day. Iron Man had the second-best premiere ever for a non-sequel, coming behind Spider-Man. It had the fourth-biggest opening for a superhero movie.

As of May 8, 2008, Iron Man has grossed $225.6 million worldwide — $126.6 million in the United States and Canada and $99 million in 57 other countries."

"Estimates for the cost of marketing Iron Man ranged from US$50 to $75 million."

 "Iron Man received very positive reviews from fans and critics alike. As of May 9, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 92% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 177 reviews, with the consensus that "even non-comics fans can enjoy this smart, high impact superhero movie". Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 78 out of 100, based on 37 reviews. 

GTA IV

From Wikipedia:

 "GTA IV sold about 3.6 million units [Riley's Note: later in the article it states that figure at $310 million on day one] on its first day of release and grossed more than $500 million in its first week, breaking the first-week sales record of $300 million set by Halo 3. The release of GTA IV became the "largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment"

"The Xbox 360 version of GTA IV has received an average critic review score of 99% from review aggregators Game Rankings and Metacritic, while the PS3 version has received average scores of 99% from Game Rankings and Metacritic. As of 5 May 2008, those scores place the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions as the #1 highest rated games on their respective consoles on Metacritic, and as the #1 and #2 ranked games of all time respectively on GameRankings, becoming the first game(s) in history to surpass The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's score on that site.^"

"It has been reported to be the most expensive video game to develop at around a budget of 100 Million. There was a pretty good size army of animators and programmers working on this game for a very long time and it shows in a big way." (from http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/digitaljoystick/archives/138128.asp)

Similarities

After reading that info, there's a few things you should immediately come away with. First off, both of these products were incredibly well received by critics. I would argue that although Iron Man received a bit "lower" score, the movie industry has been around a very, very long time, has a wider overall audience, and its critics are generally more seasoned and "picky", for lack of a better term. I would honestly say that, subjectively, the 92% Iron Man received on Rotten Tomatoes is more outstanding than the 99% GTA IV received on MetaCritic. Of course, that's my personal opinion. So, they're both "cream of the crop" in their respective environments.

In addition, both of these products were heavily marketed. I don't know that GTA IV was as heavily marketed as Iron Man (video games don't do LG phone tie-in commercials, for example), but I think they both did a respective amount of solid marketing for their target audiences.

But here's where the similarities end.

Differences

What amazes me the most is the difference in income. GTA IV took in over $300 million dollars on DAY ONE. Now, granted, if we do a bit of math here, we can see that over the entire weekend, if we assume about $10 for a movie ticket, somewhere between 8 and 10 million folks saw Iron Man, while only about 4 million people bought GTA IV. So, you're saying "Well, yeah, video games are expensive. That's because they cost so much to make, right?" Wrong. Look at that statistic from the GTA IV review. The game was one of the "most expensive to develop" in all-time, and it only cost $100 million dollars to make. I'm not sure what the actual budget of Iron Man was (probably less than $100 million? Then again, the marketing budget alone was $50 - $75 million), but I think it's safe to assume that after making $500 million in revenues in the first week alone, GTA IV definitely made a tidy profit for Rockstar and Take Two.  

Why the pundits were wrong

First off, the pundits weren't wrong about GTA IV. In fact, it blew even the highest estimates away. There were 'whispers in the dark', so to speak, about breaking $500 million in week one, but most people thought that was crazy talk. But, it happened. And I'm sure when we get next week's numbers, we'll tack another $100 million or so onto that number. However, they were wrong about Iron Man. Even though people bought GTA IV, the SAME TARGET AUDIENCE still went to see Iron Man. I did both, for example. 

The pundits were wrong because they like to think that there's a finite amount of money in the world to be spent. It makes the movie execs feel good at night when a crap-tastic movie flops at the box office. Don't blame the writing, acting, or directing, oh no, it's the ECONOMY. As we can clearly see, even in a "recession", when movie income is down by tens of  percents over the previous year, if it's good, people will buy it.

And, on a final note, I'm not trying to take anything away from Iron Man, it's a great movie, and I loved it, but as far as "entertainment", GTA IV delivers in spades in ways a movie (to me) never will, and that's why I think we're going to start seeing more and more video games outperform the movie industry in the decades to come.

$100 mil.  That's a freakin' opening weekend, gang.  That's only $14 mil shy of the biggest non-sequel opening of all time... Spider-man. 

And let's not kid ourselves.  Tony Stark isn't Peter Parker.  This is a lesser Marvel character. 

So why?  Why did this movie make $100 mil?  I mean, there's been plenty of "lesser" Marvel movies that didn't make that in opening weekend.  Hell, Daredevil made only $102 mil in it's WHOLE DOMESTIC RUN. 

Why did this movie make a shitton of money?  BECAUSE MARVEL CONTROLLED IT.

In 2005, Marvel decided they'd had enough of Hollywood.  Based on that "awesome" X-Men: The Last Stand that was being produced at that point, I can't freakin' blame them.  So they said, "We're getting back all of our properties.  Jerks."  So, while Spidey and the X-Men aren't going immediately back to Marvel, the company has decided that anytime they CAN regain rights to their properties, they will.  And then, they make the movies themselves, with Paramount distributing.

Marvel got a seven-year $525 million revolving-credit deal with Merill Lynch.  And "Iron Man" is the first movie built off that money.  And she freakin' soared.  Strong casting, independent director, and a buzz that just CAN'T BE BEAT.  What was that buzz?  Two things: one, a lot of marketing.  Plenty of TV spots, lots of website talk, etc. Thing two? Reviews.  Reviews better than gold, and reviews you cannot buy.  I mean, all the "omg, GTA IV will sink Iron Man" bullcrap got blown out of the water this weekend by reviews.  Positive review, after positive review, after positive review.

Why the good reviews?  Because this was the first real superhero movie.  Screw X-Men.  Yea, I watched it, but everytime I have to see a 14-year-old play Rogue, I yell.  And piss off, Spider-Man, with your stupid Macho Man Randy Savage cage fight of lame.  Fantastic Four: Rise of the Almight Dollar and Reed Richards dance sequence can bite my shiny metal ass.  THIS movie treated me like an adult.  It treated me like it didn't need to market to me while it was playing.  It wasn't edited based off test audiences until it was the lamest thing playing at theaters.  And, outside of the DC Comics "Batman Begins" fluke (which, while it treated me like an adult, and was amazing, totally ignored the greater DC Comics universe) this was the first time this has happened.  I mean, even the highly enjoyable "Hellboy" owes me a few apologizes for Babe Ruth bars and a corntastic love story.

Somebody read a comic book.  They opened it, and they read it.  They took notes.  They hired people who read the comic book.  And they went to town.  Robert Downey Jr paid attention to who the hell Tony Stark is, and he went and played it.  So what did we get?  A movie without "cringe" moments.  A movie that truly transposed the things that allowed this character to survive decades, even if he wasn't at the front of things.  I know people reading this may not have read much in the way of comics, but we've had 15 Marvel Comic Book movies, and until this past weekend, not one of them had even MENTIONED S.H.I.E.L.D.  And you can't PICK UP an Earth 616 Marvel book for longer than six issues without somebody mentioning S.H.I.E.L.D.  The fact that we have "Avengers" coming down the pipeline with Roberty Downey Jr. and Edward Norton tenatively attached means we may finally get Marvel movies that aren't just based in small groups of characters.

Future is finally here.  Real comic book movies.  Hopefully "The Incredible Hulk" will continue in this vein... I know there have been some major arguments occuring over the editing of this film ("Is it too long?" "Is there too much story?" "I don't know if we should mention S.H.I.E.L.D."), but hopefully the box office numbers will shut up everyone and make them realize, "We can just make the movie we want, and not worry about that crap".  If this continues, that loan with Merill Lynch is gonna look like chump change, and the distribution deal with Paramount is gonna be the best deal ANY major distributor has. 

Thor, Dr. Strange, Captain America, Ant-Man, Black Panther, and more are on the way.  So, call me a True Believer, and know as long as this business model of "Marvel Studios" continues, I will continue to Make Mine Marvel.

'Nuff said.

I'm making this post from school, and without having read much of what you guys have already posted. It has been a terrible year.

But I'm sure your thinking that not everything is doom and gloom, well it is. My father is getting sicker, my grandmother just had a hip replacement and can't get around on her own. I think I told you that I transfered to PSU, well that was something that I didn't take seriously enough and now my GPA shows it.

I'm taking at least next semester off, not by choice. I can't afford to be a student and have a life, as in rent, bills, and all that comes with it.

but since this is the tempest i will at least talk about something relevant outside of my life. I just saw the movie "there will be blood"

It was a real letdown. I was hoping that since it was based on a kickass book they would present it in a similiar way to "no country for old men" which kicked some serious ass. They seemed like they weren't sure if they wanted to present more of the interior struggle of the main character, or in the role he played in other peoples lives. But it was a letdown to say the least. I also just saw "cloverfield" which I give a C, and the ruins which was so incredibly god awful that I want to find the script writer and piss in his eyes.

 catch ya later

fife 

Thanks to the wonders of the greatest comic book in the past five years (seriously, everyone should be pre-ordering the collection), I'm back on the smack. And why the hell shouldn't I be?  I mean, whether or not you're gonna buy a copy of GTA IV this next week, God knows you're gonna go see IRON MAN. So, the big question is... why the crap aren't you reading comics?  I mean, you watch movies about them... you play video games based on them... and yet you can't take the plunge?  I know it's intimidating to step up to the plate; especially when you're looking at titles that are about to hit 500 issues. Which is why I'm here to help, with my ideas on how you can support the industry that gives you so much joy.

• After you go see Iron Man this weekend, and are jumping up and down like a six year old after a two liter of Mountain Dew, go to your local comic book store.  "But it's scary" you say?  Sure, it can be.  But not THIS SATURDAY.  This Saturday is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY.  No shit.  FREE.  You go to your local comic book store, and they will give at least one free comic, from an assortment of special promotional issues.  Some of them a crummy, but some of them are AWESOME.  Sometimes publishers give big previews of new books they're launching, or books specifically designed to catch you up to speed.  Personally, I'm most excited about Dark Horse (who always is great for FCBD) doing a special Hellboy book, in part to promote the upcoming movie.  Check out the preview.  Wow.
• Check out Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited.  This is the best thing to happen ever in the terms of "catching up" with modern comics.  Read greats like Exiles (it's like Sliders with X-Men), Cable & Deadpool (or "when the odd-couple uses guns to solve their problems"), or Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men ('nuff said)... from issue #1.  Some of the books at DCU you can read for free, but most come with the INSIGNIFICANT price tag of $10 a month OR $60 a year.  Well, well, WELL worth it.
• Just buy a book.  Whether it's a collected trade paper back or a single... take a chance.  Pick up a classic, like Watchmen (and if you're totally against spending real money you can even check out something like that at your public library), a simple "run" like the 50 issues of Y: The Last Man, or something new in single form like All Star Batman & the Boy Wonder (written by "big deal" Frank Miller with pencils by Jim Lee).
• Use the internet.  Try not to download too many books (you damn thief), but use it to develop your tastes.  One of my favorite things to do is read Wikipedia articles on comics until I find something that sounds good.  Find artists and authors who speak to you, and support them with your coin.

In short... read a damn comic book.  You can buy a subscription to one for less than four bucks a month (and many comic book stores will give you deals if you subscribe through them).  Stop resisting.  No longer is it uncool (or if someone tells you that it is, be sure to inform them that they can't go see The Dark Knight this summer). And if you don't spend some coin, then the industry is going to go under, because you're an asshole.  And if that happens, you have to answer to these guys, and their over-sized image:

You don't want none of that.  Trust me. 

Ok so this last weekend was the NFL draft, and I realize I'm probably the only person on here who cares about that.  But for me it is a major holiday, especially when the Chiefs go 4-12 for the first time since 1987 and have the #5 overall pick, and 13 picks total in the draft for the first time since 1984 to attempt to turn our franchise around, makes me very excited.  So I bought tickets to the Chiefs draft party to watch it @ the Arrowhead training complex w/ Chiefs players, fans, and Cheerleaders, and 10 ft. from the War Room where Herm Edwards (head coach), Carl Peterson (GM), and Clark Hunt (Owner) are making the very picks to trasform our franchise...I digress, sorry.  So anyway, it was a truly awesome experience, they gave away A LOT of free stuff, and had a raffle for more free stuff (which I didn't win...DAMN THEM), and had free autograph sessions and everything it was great, even the food was reasonably priced, beer was not but who cares it was bud products anyway and anything from St. Louis (w/ the exception of Amber Bach) SUCKS BALLS, but again I digress.  I had forgotten (I guess living in the BC bubble does that to people) how much of a chick magnet Crutches and Casts are....cause I think @ least 20 of the Chiefs Cheerleaders stopped by and sat down and talked to me for a while about what happened and all that stuff, making things even MORE enjoyable.  We also drafted INCREDIBLY well, according to Mel Kiper Jr. (ESPN Draft Guy) he's the one who makes the top 100 players available list, of which we got 2...2 of the top 10...2 of the top 10, that's 1/5 of the best players available, 20%, that is A LOT for 1 team, and that makes me VERY VERY happy.  It makes me very excited to know that we got those players, and the rest of the draft went well too, we had MAJOR needs @ OT, CB, and WR and we filled all 3 very well, we had other holes @ DE, DT, and TE, and we filled all 3 of those very well, we still have minor needs @ FB, OG, and C but that's ok, there's still 3 months till training camp!!!!! This makes things VERY VERY wonderful in my life...plus the Royals have actually been doing well this season, we could get to .500 for the first time since 03....life is good in my sports world, other than that disgusting display at the end of March.  

Yes, I paid for music on the internet. I bought a song on amazon for $.99. I couldn't find it on seeqpod, altavista mp3 search, "index of" in google, or torrent. So I bought it.

It's the second song I've ever bought. My first was on DI.fm's store. It was nada - numbers. Good song. The one I just got is: Tripswitch -Silver (ott remix). Sure, I could have downloaded cardamar's free 3 hour chillout mix that had this song at the end of it. I could have taken audacity and cut the song out. 

But.. for one dollar, I got the song in a split second. Cokes cost more than that from a damn vending machine. And since bash.org will probably never take quotes I send them, here's one between me and my roommate when I was bitching about my computer lagging (I think the fan on the vid card is not working):

"I'm dropping more frames than Michael J. Fox at an eyeglass store"

Too soon? Probably.

Hey all,

 Well, I successfully got GTA IV ready to go last night, and it's a pretty fun little game. I only had a chance to play it for about 2 hours or so, but just in those two hours I think I got a pretty good feel for at least the beginning of the game. (Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of spoiling anything for anyone who is planning on playing the game. Just some general thoughts follow.)

First off, the graphics are amazing. At one point, I was driving a car under a bridge, and the light was realistically reflecting, shadowed, off the car roof. It was pretty cool to see such great graphics in a GTA game. Secondly, the gameplay is pretty much the same ol', with some nice additions. There's a cover system now, which helps a lot, and the aiming has an auto-lock that is much-improved...in all, I'd say they've done a great job fixing a lot of the problems that were present in previous GTA games with the combat.  The detail in general, as I hinted at yesterday, is also greatly improved. I met a girl, called her up, and we went bowling (which is actually a decent little "mini-game" that you get to play). At one point, I had told her I would show up, but didn't...then, when I finally got around to picking her up the next day, I had to set up another date, and she asked me as we were driving to the bowling alley, "Why didn't you show up last night?", just like any girl would. Nagging? Yes. Realistic? Definitely.

Basically, if you liked the previous GTA games at all, you're gonna love it. Even if you didn't like the previous ones, you might just find you like this one...it's certainly the best in the series so far (or at least thus far it is). I'm only about 2 hours in (and about 4% of the way through the "game"), so I don't know it all, yet...but I'm pretty excited and having a great time. 

I figured I would like to be the first person to make a post from a mobile device. Here's to you HTC mogul! I've had it for 7 month and it's pretty much the best tech buy I've ever made. It's reliable, survived a few drops, has gps that saved me once or twice, wifi, full sliding keyboard, and I gotta say that Windows Mobile 6 is a decent mobile OS. I do prefer it to Palm. I am really looking forward to seeing if I can get android on this thing.

Hey guys, it's nice to hear from everyone. I've decided to entitle my Post "The Sox" because I went to my first RedSox game of the year on Monday. We smoked the Rangers, and I generally had a good time. Nothing beats watching the Sox play at Fenway in 65 degree weather, enjoying a few refreshing beers, and then watching the Boston Marathon and wishing I had run it again.

Link to pictures I refuse to pay for!

Anyways, Life is generally hectic for me right now, and I am exactly 3 finals, 2 papers, and 1 presentation away from graduation. I'll be coming home for a month after graduation, so I hope to see most of you then. I'll also be taking a class at Pitt to pass the time away, Math 557: Real Analysis, and possibly a second class if I find something that catches my eye. If any of you Pittsburg dwellers happen to be taking classes in June, let me know. Perhaps we can meet up and toss the old football and/or frisbee around after class.

 Keep the posts coming.

Hello to all of you. I miss you, and stuff.

Things are super busy at GT right now, so I haven't had much time for anything fun. Heck, I haven't touched TF2 in a few weeks. It makes me sad.

So here's something that struck me. How the hell were the Democrats able to bitch about the popular vote vs. delegates in the last few elections when their own damn primaries allow people in their party to just decide who gets in (I'm talking superdelegates). I mean.. wow.

Also, I'm going to be in lawrence on the 4th or 5th ish. 

Well, some of you may still be at least semi-avid gamers (at least, that's the category I would put myself into). What does that mean? It means that, at some point, I realized playing video games 24/7 was bad for my health, and my free time could be put to better use (like developing web applications and animated series, for example). 

 Still, occassionally a game comes out that I am powerless to resist, and in fact get really, really psyched about. Bioshock was such a game. Halo 3 was (obviously) such a  game. Adam Wake, Spore, and Metal Gear Solid 4 will be such games. But the most recent game that fits into that category is Grand Theft Auto IV.

Again, I don't want to bore anyone who doesn't care with the details, but suffice it to say that this game is supposed to reinvent gaming the same way GTA III did on the PS2. We're talking about the most detail-oriented playing experience you've ever had. Sure, that means good graphics, but it also means the people who wander the streets have their own "motivations" and "agendas." It means you can get on the Internet (not the real one, the "GTA IV Internet" that's in the game), which has hundreds of websites, including a version of Craigslist that allows you to go on side missions and find women to go on dates with. Not kidding, you find them on Craigslist, call them on your cell phone, set up a date, then go there at the appropriate time. How's that for detail?

Drive through a fire, and your car tires will catch on fire, what you do and what missions you take will have a very real affect on who's trying to kill you that day (in addition, of course, to who you're trying to kill), and you can even hop in the back of a taxi cab and ride along while the city flows past your window...or, take the subway if you prefer. Or just steal a car. Your choice.

However, the point of this article is not to wax ridiculous about the merits of GTA IV (if you really haven't heard much about it, check it out on Metacritic), but rather to talk about hacking, and the fact that I am powerless to resist it.

Yesterday afternoon, the story broke that GTA IV had been leaked already online. "Hmmm..." I thought. I had never really seriously considered modding my 360, for fear of getting banned from Xbox Live. However, I don't really play on Live anymore, so that threat was not as imminent. And then, the next thing I knew, I was spending 4 hours at work researching what, exactly, I would need to do to play burned games on the 360. Turns out it's not too difficult, you just open up the case, plug the DVD drive into your own computer, and flash the firmware of the DVD drive. It's pretty undetectable by M$ these days, and relatively safe. "Screw it", I thought, "I've gotta do this." After all, hacking is in my blood. I know that the game comes out in like 5 days, and I should just wait...but it's not about getting the game in 5 days, 1 or 20...it's about beating the system. It's about saying to M$ "why the hell not just release the game when it's done?" It's about playing the game earlier than you're "allowed" to. Hell, I'll still buy it if it's good and I want to play it on Live, so it's not even about saving money.

Well, that being said, I went home last night and performed the (somewhat) risky procedure. The hardest part (by far) was getting the damned case off and back on. After about 2 hours of labor, I had successfully flashed the drive. I haven't had a chance to test it on a burned game yet (GTA IV PAL was released yesterday, not the NTSC/US version). But, it plays non-burned games just fine, still, so I'm pretty sure everything is working.

Fast forward to last night. There I was, at about midnight, sitting on IRC in #alt.binaries.games.xbox360 with about 1,400 other people, anxiously awaiting word that the game had been "pre'd" (meaning that it was being uploaded by the group that had cracked it). I had to hit the hay before that announcement came, but I happily awoke this morning to find that it had dropped at about 2:00 AM last night. So, I queued it up on my computer at home, came to work, and at a rate of 600 KB/sec, it will be done downloading and ready to burn by the time I go home for lunch.

I'll let you guys know if it's really as good as they say :). 

She enjoyed it.  A lot.

That's all I have for you.  Your mothers.  I had them.  For you.  For you, I had them.  "Them" being, of course, your mothers.  Who enjoyed it.  A lot.  By "it", you know what "it" means. "It" means "IT". You don't want to know what "ate" means, but the "last night" part is obvious. It was last night. April 23rd. That was when she (your mother) enjoyed "it". A lot. And "a lot" may also have multiple meanings. Like, her "enjoyment" and a quanitity of what was "eaten". If "a lot" can be applied to qualitity, there was "a lot" of quality too. Oh, and when I say "your" mother ("mother", of course, being the woman who gave birth to you), I mean all of "you". Long time posters, first time readers, people who accidentally Googled this page and can't even comprehend English... there were a lot of mothers at my house last night.  I "had" many of "them" over. It took several hours to ensure that each and every single one of "them" got "a lot" of "it", and that they "enjoyed" "it". And, I did not discriminate between your biological mother, your adoptive mother, your egg donor, or anything/one else.  All of them got "it". Lots of "it". And they enjoyed "it". "A lot".

It's good to be back.

And your mother agrees about how good "it" is.

Hello to all again. I'm still alive. Grad school is chugging along nicely. More details in a later post when I'm not supposed to be doing thesis work...

The title is as such b/c I've been watching a lot of Starcraft 2 videos recently. You know... for about the 20th time. 

I'm nearly over some dehydration I got (it was hot and we were on tarmac the whole time... even though I drank 3 liters o' water) while helping out the AIAA Design Build Fly competition this weekend where my fiance's team (of which I assisted) took 15th out of 61 teams. They were also one of only 13 teams to actually complete the two different missions set out. Their report score was 9th out of the 61 submitted. With that now over we've got more wedding planning to get back to. Ugh... Vegas would make life easy. However, the one thing that is totally good to go (besides the date) is the honeymoon at St. Lucia. Yeah, it's in the Caribbean. Yeah, it's an all inclusive resort with free alcohol all the time. Am I gonna be blitzed while trying to scuba? You bet!!

The biggest news besides that is I get to teach a class next semester! Yours truly will be instructing freshman/sophomores on Numerical Methods / Matrix Operations / Fortran. The class is AE227.

I'll now leave you with the most badass picture ever. This was Oklahoma State's plane at the DBF competition. It caught fire thanks to overheating some NiMH batteries, which I've never seen set fire to anything. I've seen them melt and burst, just never any fire. While competition crashes are cool since it's inherent to men that explosions are awesome, it's pretty sad since this plane had a lot of blood, sweat, and tears behind it, as all DBF entries do. 

:EDIT: Picture credits should go to whoever runs the site www.terrabreak.org. It's the "civilian" Design Build Fly site that provides cool photos and a compendium information. So if it anyone asks or is curious, that's where it's from. No personal credit was given, nor any declaration of creative commons. :EDIT: 

 -Michael

P.S. My e-mail is michael.garruda@gmail.com