The Robot's Thoughts

This weekend I began playing resident evil 4 for my gamecube.

The game is simply amazing.

First off, the music in the game is done just right. Its primarily atonal drums, like in battlestar galatica, and it relies on the tempo to indicate to you that you're in danger. It builds tension and adds suspense.

Second, its immersive. When I'm standing hip deep in swamp water and fire off three rounds at a zombie, I can hear the hiss of steam as the shell casings hit the swamp water.

Third, you die a lot. Like in any zombie movie, you don't have enough ammo or firepower, and its easy to get overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

I remember reading somewhere that a Resident Evil Online or Land of the Dead (depending on which type of zombie apocalypse strikes your fancy) might be the only MMORPG to displace WoW. Zombies. Something like 500:1 odds, in favor of the zombies. Players could have safe havens they'd have to protect, or might have to move from one temporary shelter to another.

If done well, it could be bad ass. Especially if you don't make it a level up system. Make it more like RTCW's XP system, where the longer your player survives in combat, the more XP he gains. XP brings him certain abilities, like being able to detect enemy mines, or disguised enemies. Skills could get better with usage, too. For example, people with medical skills might be able to advance from being able to stich up wounds to treating zombie bites before people turn undead.

And here's the best part: When you die, your character becomes a zombie. You get to create a new character, with about half the inital amount of XP as your old character, and some of its loot. You could re-spawn in the same area. But to get your stuff back, you'd actually have to kill the zombie version of your last character and loot its corpse.

It could be like the old video game gauntlet where the enemies keep coming out of a spawn point until you "kill" it. You could have missions where you have to clear an area of spawn points. An unlimited number of constantly spawning zombies, and only a finite amount of ammo.

You could have levels that are "last stands" or "hold the line" scenarios. There's 5,000 zombies all heading straight for you, and nothing between the two of you but a barbed wire fence and a trench. Use grenades, flame throwers, and .50 calibur gattling guns to mow them down before they get over that fence. Watch the situation grow dire as you run out of ammo and their superior numbers begin to gain ground.

I think it could be done well. And if done well, I think it would be badass. What do you think?

The benefits you get from your employer always sound superty duper, and then you try to use them.

I'm talking about my vision benefits. My "Optical Plan". Its not so much as bad, just that none of the places I went last night accepted it. And an out-of-provider-network re-imbursement is only something like $96. So if I'm to save myself any money, I'm going to have to find a optometrist that takes my insurance.

Glasses like mine are expensive. Since I wear them all the time, I usually go for a lot of the high end options. Teflon coating, for example, high-index focus (reduces the thickness of the lens by 2/3rds...also reduces the weight), and transitions lenses. I also try to pick a frame I'm positively in love with, simply because its going to be a part of me for the next 4 years or so.

Even tho my glasses are falling apart, I still received compliments from the very courteous lab technicians that do not accept my insurance on my frame. I really owe the nice lady who helped me pick out my frames 4 years ago a debt of gratitude.

A friend of mine sent me a link that showed the myspace profile of my best friend freshmen year.

Needless to say, she's really changed. But the transformation, from my perspective, is more of butterfly-to-catipillar then anything else. I regret that in my opinion that she has lost some of uniqueness, and that made her beautiful. She has more glam, more attitude, more reality-tv pop culture infusion. I have no illusion that she's less popular or happy. I'm sure she gets the special treatment, whether or not its more by her insistance than her merit.

While my friend was in his own way pointing and laughing, I just felt distant. I had no desire to laugh at her, put her down, or trash her life. I don't harbor any bad thoughts at this point. We both pulled away as we changed. I just look at her and wonder if there's any of the friend I once had left.

This brings me to think about the nature of friendship as we get older. The younger you are, the eaiser it to come and go into people's lives. DeskLaser once remarked that its not surprising if 50% of the people you hang out with one year aren't hanging out with you next year.

Friends on conveinence.

This week alone I've given references for two people I've known for 4 years or longer. It feels funny to say that: I have known these people for more than four years. We haven't cut and run on each other yet, and I think none of us give each other enough credit for that.

I don't blame people who left, regardless of whether they I give them a cold, prickly feeling, or a warm and fuzzy feeling. At the time each of us had to do whatever it we did to stay sane. I leave it at that.

But for those that were true friends, be they now philedelphia alcohalics or the offical matresses of Fleetweek, know that a small part of me misses your consel and your laughter. I miss your antics and your stories. I miss the randomness of it.

But I do not miss the drama or malicious invectives.

Good luck to you.

The Essential Dali Lama.

I like it.
People need to get in touch with their compassionate side. I know I am. I know as we get older, or at least from my experience, it seems we get more intolerant of stupidity. We're more willing to cut ties with valued friends. We get better at rationalizing it.

One, I think it can be the case that as we grow up we get more 'aware', and realize that in some respect, some of the people we're surrounded ourselves with in life are really, really stupid. I think that's something that happened with Sam. I think Chuck could attest that we both made a bad call to hang out with someone who, at best, is a pretencious airhead.

But I'd be overgeneralizing if I honestly believed that everyone I've cut out of my life was an airhead. I think sometimes we just let the polarizations of life get in the way. "So-and-so made a different decision, so he's out of the circle."
I think this can lead to an elitest attitude. Let me down, and you're a screw up.

I am hoping to diminish that. I've got plenty of time on my hands, and I want to stay isolated until I feel like I've made some progress in directions regarding personal growth.

So here goes nothing and everything.

Thank you federal government for my federal tax return.
I'll now be buying a snowboard for super cheap discount prices, since the season is pretty much over.

But that doesn't mean I couldn't take a trip out to Denver to visit my cousins and snowboard out there.

Found
this story by way of Reddit.com.

In summation, its basically a mathematical model of marriage and prostitution from an economic point of view. I'd note its a mathematical model only. As, in the model, a women only has two choices: Get married or become a prostitute. (I think we all know we've come a long way since those were the only options, but they chose to make it an "A or B only" model for simplicity's sake.)

Its an interesting read, at least, especially on their take on marriage. Marriages will only occur when both sides profit. In other words, all your good qualities go on a the profit side of a Profit-Loss sheet, and all your bad qualities go on the loss side, and this is done for both partners. So an aging billionare who might be socially inept and unattactive might still be a preferred candidate for a supermodel because of the lifestyle that comes with marrying him.

In other words, economics have proven the sound reasoning of gold diggers world wide.

The article sort of takes a cynical look at the article, seemingly because you're putting a dollar value on human sentiments like love or the desire to provide or have children.

But at the same time, we all laugh out loud when Carlos Mencia points out that "love is nature's way of telling you that you can't do any better." His argument? "What man wouldn't have a threeway with Tyra Banks and Jennifer Lopez if the chance along...married or not? But you're still going to love your wife, because she's the only one who's going to put up with you. Believe her, if she knew she could do better, she'd have dumped your ass."
(I think something to this extent aired on the first or second episode of "Mind Of Mencia". He used audience members to prove his point.)

However cold it may sound, I kind of agree with the economic point of view of marriage: Both parties should benefit from it, or it shouldn't happen. And as cold blooded as it sounds, you have to look at the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and ask yourself what you're going to do in those real-life worst case scenarios. She's falls down a flight of stairs and is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. A hunting accident damages his small intestines, colon, and prostate, and you have to help him change his colostomy bag. Car accident leaves them a vegetable on a feeding tube.

Granted, not all marriages are going to be filled with "test-your-faith" situations that severe, but I'm sure all marriages have "test-your-patience" situations.

Thankfully, the only situations I have to deal with on a day to day basis is the "test-your-software" kind.

I have my PC hooked up right now, and my iPod was pretty much out of juice, so I plugged it into its firewire card, so that I could charge the machine off its bus.
Little did I know that when I had last upgraded iTunes to 6.0.2, it had gained the capability to see and read mac-formatted iPods. (Previous it would warn you that the iPod is unreadable and that you need to reformat.)

I guess my computer gave me a valentine's day gift. How cool is that?
(I know, I'm lame. Geez)

I can't get the song "Protection" by Massive Attack out of my head. Which means at some point I'm going to disturb my office mate by singing the refrain, "You're a boy and I'm a girl."

That won't be weird at all.

Anyway, February is an important month. Someone I know from my hometown turned 25 on the third. I wasn't near a computer, so I didn't send my usual birthday wishes. I'm probably going to whip up a mix CD and email it via a service such as YouSendIt.com.

It's also the anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. I intend to be going stag. But you never know, one of the attractive girls who works in my building and works out at the same gym paid me a compliment when I came into work today. I still maintain that she's even out of my league, but she was the one that worked the fact that she's single into one our conversations.

Anyway, musing aside, I'm going to imitate a spooked submarine captain again. I'm going deep, and going quiet. The social experiment that blogging has been has had its good and bad results. I like it, and its going to stay. It can hurt you in the short term, when someone can open you up like a can of peanuts using your words, but I think in the long run, that whole "moral transparency and accountability" is A Good Thing(tm). Also, its more elitist than being part of The Indie Scene(tm).

But even as we approach summer and it gets brighter out (and with it, my mood improves) I'm feeling particularly anti-social. I've seen enough highway. And I've seen enough no-win situations (see the past few drama-fill posts) in the past few months that I'm not going to see anymore highway just so I can end up driving into another one of those.

I'm going to keep posting though. I'm not entirely sure what direction I'll be taking it. Commentary on That Damn Liberal Media(tm) or peppering this place with work-related vents (I hate how PL/SQL has an IF ELSE IF and and an IF ELSIF syntax, because that minute difference can be a bitch to spot in a 35k loc program) or just random shit. Potentially random shit has the best chance of entertaining people, so you'll probably see that the most.

I also have quite the backlog of soapbox articles that need to be written, revised, and published.

So that's about it. I don't mind inconsistent people, or crazy people, or consistent, predictable people. But whatever it is, the bottom line is that my spirit and my growth are too important to be ground down by being at the epicenter of problems that are entirely someone else's burdens.

I wanted to point out one more thing. When it comes to throwing stones of judgement, there was an incident where two comrades felt my ex was getting a little too close to me. So they conviently set up a lunch date, assaulted my character, and reduced her to tears.
While it was incredibly cruel, especially since when it came to that tramatic break up, most of them only stuck around for day 1. Even as I was getting my life in order to start dating other people 3 months down the road, I was pretty much the only real support system in place. Others were just blocking her from AIM, or worse, trying to "get her back in the game" by passing her the dregs. I don't use the term lightly, as Pitt has quite the collection of douchebags. By dregs I mean Rudy bad. And no one deserves Rudy. Not even the cartoonist that drew Anne Frank and Hitler knocking boots.

I _let_ it slide. I know who they were. I knew where their slightly out of place heart was. As upsetting as it was, I felt it was the best thing to do. I get the stink eye from Danni if I mention I still hang out with my Ex.

But Danni isn't the one that's supposed to make informed decisions on who I spend my time with, or make them for my Ex's.

So are you supposed to be at mad at your friends when they hit you head-on with some painful truth?
I guess the answer boils down to how much you fancy living in denial.

And speaking of denial, I'll be over there in the gumdrop land of unicorns, elves, and intelligently designed vegetarian dinosaurs from eden.

I did enough driving this weekend to take a year off my life.

I'd have enough of snowy roads, vandalized road signs, bad PA and MD drivers, and the CDs in my car.

In short, I'm not visiting people for a while. I feel that filling up your gas tank once a day on a weekend is WAY too much.

On the other hand, I did get to see family and friends. But driving 10-12 hours for 24 does not pass muster with my cost/benefit analysis. Discussing about whether or not to set up a trust fund for the next generation of romper-stomper if a certain class action lawsuit goes in our favor. I'm not talking about the nano-scratches, but more of the government's failure to follow it own radiation safeguards.

A friend of mine has a girlfriend who was unfaithful twice.

In a situation where you find yourself having to choose between the cheated on and the cheatee, the truth is its not about facts; its not a rational decision. It comes down to loyalty. Anyone in such a peer group, or click, will choose the person to whom they are most loyal.

And the second truth is that the unfaithful one becomes a social pariah for at least a month, depending on the circumstances.

And the little dirty secret is that people don't just cheat because they want to, they cheat because they can. They can do it and get away with it. They know a significant other can be just like a concrete floor: lay it right, and you walk all over it your entire life.

They do it because they're so full of themselves they know the person they hurt will believe ANY of the platitudes you drop in a situation like that, like "I still care about you."

Or the ever favorite amongst college kids, "It was just a one time thing. I was really drunk. I'm sorry."

And it's your lover talking. You want to believe them. The trust between you, a bond now broken by their unfaithfulness, could be healed -- if you were brave enough to take that first step: believing them again.

I wish I could say that my task in Pittsburgh over the superbowl weekend was talking some sense into my friend, being there while he vented, and watching that naive twinkle disappear from his eye as, betrayed by his lover, he becomes less of an overgrown boy and more of a man.

But none of it was really necessary. See, all the straight shooting came from the unfaithful party. She admitted, to his face, that spending time with other guys was more interesting. She confessed, to his face, that she had no stock in the relationship: she had stopped trying to "make it work" months ago. She had faulted him for things beyond his control: He couldn't find a job in his field after graduation in Pittsburgh (note: the only reason he was staying was to keep the relationship going.)

I thought all I had to do, as a loyal friend, was re-enforce the obvious: She's no good for him, and the sooner he starts trying to move on, the sooner he will have moved on.

Sadly, as what seems to be the case, is that while my friend is NOT an utterly whipped, weak-willed pussy, he seems to be a human-vagina hybrid of somekind.

Why are you, the reader, getting a drama update?

Well, who's being singled out as a hypocrite for pointing out the obvious of a) she's dishonest and b) you're not unfaithful to people you respect more then doormats? Moi.

Let's just put it out there one more time: I cheated on someone in a ruthless fashion.

And from experience, the moment you start cheating, the word "love" has a very diminished meaning. And your respect for the other person's feelings has gone out the window. And you know it, and you're going to go on ahead and do what you want anyway, which means you're a coward when it comes to facing bigger problems, and on top of that, you're selfish.

So to clarify this whole 'hypocrite' issue:
I am selfish.
I don't respect people who aren't confident in who they are.
I have doubts of the viability of anyone's long term relationship: Show me a married couple, and I'll show you a man in silent misery. (Watch Lost In Translation)
I'm a coward when it comes to confrontational intimacy issues. I once dated a girl I wasn't attracted to (but it was summer and she was pretty cool), and to cover for the fact that I had absolutely no desire to be intimate, I told her I took antidepressants who sexual side effects meant it wasn't in the cards. She bought it (as far as I know), and we split up when I returned to Pitt for my junior year.

And finally to my friend:
The first reaction is usually the right one, shock and disbelief aside. And if you want to exert any control in the direction your life is going to go, now is the time. Start making your own decisions, for yourself. And start surround yourself with people who believe in you, instead of gave up on you.