Red Shirt the Cologne

The scent of expendable in a bottle.

The Agency MMO exodus

It could mean nothing but a number of key staff for this Sony spy MMO have left. Often that means it sucks and they are bailing out.

Eurogamer continues to call it "one of the most promising MMOs coming".

Also of note, this MMO is coming out for PC and PS3 but not 360.

Federal texting and driving laws

I really don't know how they plan to enforce this aside from saying "you weaved so your either drunk or texting!". But I do believe this law will come to pass.

They have been tossing around stats lately like its 23x more dangerous to text and drive then it is to drink and drive. Course I've never heard any statements as to how much the person has had to drink, when comparing. I doubt they are comparing it against someone so drunk they can't even walk.

Modern Warfare 2: No PC collectable editions

MW2 will have two special editions but for consoles only. The $150 Prestige Edition and the standard fare collectors edition called the Hardened Edition.

Prestige contains everything the Hardened has plus night vision goggles (with stand). Which is cool but I think I saw the same thing in the toy department at Target for $20.

...and PC continues to get the shaft.... I could see it for a lot of titles but MW2 wouldn't be one I would expect as its a huge PC franchise.

Fun facts: Nolan Bushnell

Today I was shocked to learn that Nolan not only founded Atari but also the Seventh Level of Hell, aka Chuck E. Cheese. How screwed up is that?

All good things...

For some time now I have been wrestling with a horrible decision: accept an offer of full time hire or lose my primary contract. Which was really a decision between accepting the known vs. accepting the risk of the unknown. Fear is a motherfucker.

Bush-era allowed for me to greatly prosper for the better part of the last three years. For that I am thankful. Now Obama is rolling all of that back (swiftly if you think of the speed government moves). Contracting positions will continue to be systematically eliminated as the federal government grows. It is now my turn and it was a day I knew was coming from the moment he won the election. But don't take this as bitterness, I really don't mind - it was a good run.

I really wanted to move on but couldn't. From a monetary stand point it was a good deal and the money was too easy to pass on. So I rode the train for as long as I could.

I can't stress how terrible this decision was. I have the news bombing me every day with unemployment numbers. Everyone knows someone who is out of work and has been that way for quite some time. I don't believe the economy is getting better.

Just over a week ago I had another nasty confrontation with the guy that would be My New Boss. I came so close to telling him to fuck himself and walking out the door. Closer then I have ever been in my whole life. I really don't know what stopped me. But it made the path crystal clear: I can't work for this guy. Period. It's just a matter of time before we attack each other.

Despite the nasty fears rolling around in my stomach, I have declined the position. God help me. In response The Powers That Be have decided not to renew my contract. I have a few weeks remaining. I think there might have been some vindictiveness to this cancellation but the bottom line is in eight weeks all contractors are gone anyway.

As I said it was a good run and I can weather a hell of a storm, if needed. Reaching out to past clients it already is appearing that that storm isn't going to be so bad... and I need to remember, this is what I do for a living....

Aion picks up Steam

I don't know... an MMO, worse an Asian flavored MMO but it sure seems to be IN right now.

Steam's Top Ten (by Revenue) (7/19 - 7/25)

1. Aion Collector's Edition (Pre-order) / NCsoft
2. Left 4 Dead / Valve
3. The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition / LucasArts
4. Counter-Strike: Source / Valve
5. ARMA 2 / Bohemia Interactive
6. Tales of Monkey Island Complete Pack / Telltale
7. Dawn of Discovery (ANNO 1404) / Related Designs
8. Street Fighter IV / Capcom
9. Team Fortress 2 / Valve
10. Killing Floor / Tripwire

Training....

Today its scouts....tomorrow its a clock tower....

Male Myths

I was reading '5 Myths About the Male Body' today and myth 3 gives the nutritional content of seminal fluid. I thought this might be handy to know in case you happened to move to San Francisco recently....

This doctor makes it out to sound like health food.

Seminal fluid is made up of water and nutrients such as vitamin C, calcium and magnesium. It also contains the sugar fructose but only 5 to 7 calories worth per, ah, serving, according to Dr. Rachel Vreeman, also of Indiana University and Carroll's co-author

ATI DX11 cards soon

About 6 weeks from now we're finally going to start seeing some progress once more in the currently stagnate video card market. ATI will release its first line of DirectX 11 cards.

There are six confirmed DX11 titles to be released before the year is over.

District 9

Granted I haven't been watching much TV lately but it seems strange that I have never heard of this movie and it's almost out.

Title link goes to a trailer.

Diablo 2: Wide screen mod

Click the title link and look at the pics. Might be enough to get me to load up D2 again. Only thing stopping me was the massively distracting 800x600 screen rez.

A strange thing about this mod though.... apparently it only works well with Vista.

300 Sequel

A sequel to the movie '300' is in the works. While I'd say that's cool, one wonders what it could possibly be about.... then next I find myself thinking about how Frank Miller made Sincity so there's that.

CoD: WaW map pack 3 in August

Call of Duty World at War is getting another map pack in August. This is shocking news to me as I would never have thought to see another. If I were a betting man I would have laid money on pack 2 would be the last.

Seems to me that they must be making some real money on these packs from console players as PC they give these to, at some point later, for free. Then again it doesn't take a whole hell of a lot of sales to justify 4 maps for $10.

Azure prices

• Windows Azure:
• Compute @ $0.12 / hour
• Storage @ $0.15 / GB stored
• Storage Transactions @ $0.01 / 10K
• SQL Azure:
• Web Edition - Up to 1GB relational database @ $9.99
• Business Edition - Up to 10GB relational database @ $99.99
• .NET Services:
• Messages @ $0.15/100K message operations, including Service Bus messages and Access Control tokens

Worlds oldest man dies

At 112, he was a World War 1 vet. W0wZ0rs!

According to him, he lives so long because of "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women." A man after my own heart....

Midnight work rant

Somehow I find myself on a conference call with six other people on a Friday at midnight. That's when you know something has gone wrong. I started this day thinking about beer to drink tonight and ended up blind sided. My wife is wondering if I'm sleeping at the office tonight...possibly is the only answer I can give.

What really pisses me off: A. All they had to do was heed my advice to avoid such a fate. B. I'm the one that told the powers that be how to do it right yet I'm also the one that has to stay to fix the problem. WTF is wrong with this picture? I also got yelled at. The yelling part was were things really went sideways.

Shit like this doesn't happen in my world... shit like this never happened before now. FOLLOW THE PLAN FUCKERS - stay on plan = safe; get off plan = bad. It was very nearly a quit the job day. I don't know what kept me from going, sure wasn't fear of having to get another job.

The best of free software 2009

Did that title just awaken the little jew inside of you? Click the title link to explore!

Q2 2009 PC market share standings

Black Wiis

Aug 1 release (Jap only).

CoD: WaW map pack 2 today (PC)

Call of Duty: World at War PC Map Pack 2 will be released sometime today. This comes along with patch 1.5 which adjusts some minor things...mostly related to mods.

... a total of four new maps, with three--Banzai, Corrosion, Sub Pens--for traditional competitive multiplayer and the fourth, "Shi No Numa (Zombie Swamp)," expanding the cooperative Nazi Zombie mode

Next Heroes of Might and Magic to console

Its a rumor still but someone spotted a job posting looking for console devs for the next Heroes installment.

News round up....ya! ya!

There's a lot of news today that is worth reading but not worth reading enough for me to give an entire post to singlely. So here's a recommended reading selection:

• No Alan Wake for PC. Many years ago this was DX10 only now its 360 only, after many many delays. I don't know why anyone ever bothers to talk about it anymore. It will never live up to its promises.
• Buckluster is trying to stay alive through a streaming deal with Samsung hardware. Please die already.
• Comcast now offering HBO and Skin-a-max on demand. DirectTV has offered that and more for quite a while now. I realized this week I don't even need to DVR much anymore.
• China stops practice of shock treatments for game addicts. Really? But what I really find amusing is that the practice of one business becomes the practice of China as a whole...at least in our media it does.
• Upcoming Military Robot to feed on dead bodies. AKA Fox News teaches up how to make news titles that shock people into reading them.
• Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, which occurred about 55 million years ago: The last time Earth experienced major global warming, far worse then we far today. Yet how could that be with out cars?
• Battlefield 1943 43 million kills complete and Coral Sea now unlocked for everyone. That was quick.
• Logitech Omnidirectional Speakers get rolled out. $130 at the high end.
• Poor information technology job market gives rise to white collar crimes. Not sure why I put this one here as basically a poor job market gives rise to crime in general...

Darkfall MMO opens North America servers

I've been mildly interested in this PvP heavy game. The graphics are less this perfect but the game play looks sorta neat. Until now it was EU only which I didn't feel like being the poor step child having to play a PvP game across the pond.

California's hole

The title refers to the one they dug themselves....economically aka The California Budget Crisis. I can't help but to sit back and feel some level of satisfaction as it all falls apart. The place stinks of elitist, we think we are higher life forms.... can't help but chuckle when a higher being stumbles.

Yet weary at the same time because similar events are occurring across the country. California's issue though is on a whole another level.

I'm sure non-Americans think exactly the same thoughts when ever America has some issue...

Where to start? The welfare programs? The criminal justice system? Those are my favorite areas. All on top 25% unemployment in certain areas of the state.

The welfare programs are crazy. Put the all US welfare programs into a big pot. Your going to suddenly notice that one place consumes 30% of that pot. One state...the one and only California. The former 7th largest economy in the world or not...that's out of control.

I have new found respect for a union. (Never thought I would say that) The prison guard union in California. These people go above and beyond, taking it to a new level that I hadn't considered.... they actually work to get more laws passed so more people will have to go to prison. Genius? Hell yes it is. You have to have some level of respect for people that are so good at thier job that they can take it to a whole new level.

Ripe is the environment for that because no one in office can ever be seen as soft was crime or they don't get re-elected. This union uses that to its advantage. You have to respect the brilliance of this plan.... as long as we ignore all the bad things that come along with it.

Course the state can't afford that massive prison population anymore.... or pretty much anything. Ooooo have to hate when the butchers bill comes due. Truely a utopia!

Bullshit: Video game violence

I caught last weeks Penn & Teller: Bullshit! on Showtime this weekend. This is the show that calls Bullshit on things people commonly believe. Sort of like Mythbusters but less technical and funny as hell.

Lasts weeks episode called Bullshit on activists against video game violence. Of the many interesting gems I walked away with, the point that really stood out was how much less violence there is schools now. Since the mid-90s (Doom and on) fights etc have dropped by half.

I know I've never killed any co-workers and its very likely due to being able to take out my stress by blowing peoples heads off online. One could call it therapeutic. People are violent...thats just how are. An outlet for that violence is helpful, not harmful.

Make a point to watch this episode. Be enlightened and entertained all in the same sitting!

Champions Online open beta starts Aug 17

Take a taste before you dive in!

Battlefield 1943 explodes the server

Well, not really. Though it doing well beyond expectations as server capacity had to be boosted significantly. It was a painful experience just to get logged in.

Pretty neat though... running around those old BF42 maps yet with fully destructible environments. Which I think fully destructible is a key ingredient to all future FPS's success.

I also believe this games success will do a great deal for the future of Live Arcade.

Singularity pushed to Q1 2010

Raven's new shooter was pushed out "due to the excitement of Modern Warfare 2".

MechWarrior

Newly announced MechWarrior game coming some day (next year I would guess). Sporting 4 player co-op and a slew of other features that could make this a hell of a game if they can pull it all off. Title link goes to a dev interview.

Asus Eee Keyboard

Freaking awesome. That's a full Atom based computer running XP contained in what appears to be just a keyboard. The far right side display is a 5" monitor and can be used to completely operate this device.

No official word yet as to when this will hit stores, its not a powerhouse and its pretty much un-upgradeable but still very cool none the less.

Googles Chrome Operating System

Google Google Google.... can you hear me tisking? Your only success, in this direction, will be to further damage Linux's market position.

The only company that really has a shot at making a real OS dent in the Microsoft direction is Apple. But I've come to realize that Apple and its customer base stand in their own way to success.... Apples customer base likes to be not-mainstream. It makes them special and elite. If they ever were mainstream that would no longer be true.

North Carolina Sewer Monster

Not that I'm ever likely to find myself in a sewer but still... not something I'd ever want to run into.

You'll have to click on the title link to see the video footage of these nasty things that are believed to be masses of worms.

Joost bails on regular TV shows

Joost, the original Hulu that couldn't quite get it right, is now bailing from consumer video. The company reports that its new model is:

"support content owners' efforts to build comprehensive branded environments online,"

What the fa-hell does that mean?

East India Company: No go

Well... as usual the screws come out and someone decides to cut a corner. The multiplayer is purely limited to battles.

Stupid Fing ra-tards.

1404 and now EIC. Two possibly great games screwed.

The only Bill Maher that was ever worth watching

This is what I love about a guy like this... he has to eat his own young at some point just to stay on TV.

Sounds to me like ol'Bill longs for the glory days of President Bush.

My trip to the Apple store

I just, for the first time in my life, entered an official Apple store. All other stores in this mall were virtually devoid of all life. Yet the Apple store was so packed you couldn't even walk around in it.

As if I wasn't stunned already.... if I were to have wanted to ask a question (or buy something?) I would have had to put my name on the appointment list. The electronic boards in the store showed a full 2+ hour wait for the next available appointment! WHAT THE F...?

I did however discover that Apple makes the perfect keyboard. Its really not fancy but it is a perfect form factor, durable, and just the right set of functions. I wasn't willing to wait 2 hours for it though heh.

OK, time to hit the shower... I got a bad case of Jobs-stank on me.

Saudis green light Israeli strike

Goes to show them Saudis and Israelis do know how to work together when they have a common interest. The current common ground is on ensuring Iran stays nuke free.

I've been waiting on gods people to deal with that issue. Seems they are the only ones that know how to take care of people that lie even with the truth is easier.

Traffic light camera

Schaumburg, IL, right outside of the busy Woodfield Mall was a traffic camera that issued $100 tickets to every person that ran the red light. The city recently shut it down due to the volume of complaints received because of its existence.

What I find amazing is that this single traffic camera generated over $1 million dollars in revenue for the city. The power of people complaining was worth more to the city then a million bucks or better, the prospect of putting these gold mines up at every light. Wow.

Fable 3 in the wings

There has been a number of rumors about Fable 3 already being heavily worked upon. The most recent one was a wedding announcement from a person who lists his job as Fable 3 Lead Designer, whom also happened to be on the Fable teams of the past.

However, no official notice has materialized.

Blizzard confirms anti-piracy move

The good news is that the no LAN decision out of Blizzard has refocused a lot of nerd rage away from Left 4 Dead 2.

This will also impact Diablo 3. Which I don't really see this as a problem as long as Battle.Net service is mostly lag free.

Lot of hot forums out there right now, on this issue, enjoy reading the screams.