Jimbo1023's Xanga

Politics and Otakon

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:35:43 GMT

I had an interesting thought from a discussion with someone I know. You see, he made the connection that, because there was between 10- and 30-thousand people at that last teabagger rally in DC, that it must be an accurate portrayal of the American majority's feelings on the subject. I didn't have anything to say to this aside from a deep sigh, but later, as I was getting into bed the night after, a powerful retort came to mind. If this connection can be made, then that must also mean a majority of Americans love anime. You see, Otakon last year had over 26,000 hard-working Americans gathered in one place to celebrate a common cause. These patriots gathered together to show the sleepy city-folk of Baltimore that they are united. You know what else? The main stream media did not see fit to report on this mass gathering of Americans united under a common banner. Why would the media try to cover this up. When most Americans in this country love anime, they should be all over this kind of story like stink on cheese. Why is this?

Now, I'm not saying that the main stream media hates you and wants to eat your children on a kaiser roll, but isn't it interesting that I'm the only one with the courage to ask these questions?

Walker's License

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:57:00 GMT

I think it's high time we started requiring people to acquire licenses for walking, similar to driver's licenses. This would ensure that these schmucks clogging up hallways and sidewalks would be summarily ~~executed~~ marginalized. Anyway, here is my plan.

Young children can get away with walking unlicensed for a little while, but after the age of 14, every person will be required to attend a series of classes in walking. This would cover a range of topics including:

How to always move to the right side of the hall and only move toward the left when passing others
How to always sidestep to the right if you are approaching somebody walking toward you, rather than dance side-to-side foolishly
How to walk in a [god damn] timely manner.
How to walk and eat at the same time

This, of course, is not a complete list, but you get the idea. After completing the requisite classes, legal walker hopefuls will need to complete a written and practical exam. After that, you are fully licensed to walk. There will be none of that walker's permit silliness, where you have to walk with your parents for an ungodly long number of hours before getting a full license. You get it right after the test.

Enforcement will be strict. You will required to present a walker's license whenever trying to purchase shoes. If you are caught trying to purchase shoes for an unlicensed person, you will be punished in a similar way to purchasing booze for minors. Likewise, super-local cops, like campus police or mall security, will be on the lookout for suspicious walkers and will have the right to pull anyone over and ask to see their walker's license. You may still be fined for walking like a prick, but it would not be as severe as not having a walker's license.

Like a Soldier~

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:28:09 GMT

I read an interesting article today in the newspaper yesterday. It's rather short, so let me just quote it for you:

A 21-year-old Milwaukee man knows firsthand the kind of street cred military identification offers. The man says he was walking from work at about 1:15 a.m. Tuesday when four men approached him. He says one pulled him into an alley, where they took his wallet and phone. But when one robber saw the man's Army ID in his wallet, he told the others to return the items and apologized. The robber told the soldier he respects what he does and thanked him. The man said the robber even gave him a fist bump.

Aww, isn't that sweet? Just before Veterans Day, too. I can only wonder what was going through the soldier's head at that time. I'm sure that as soon as he got home, he paused and thought, "wait, what?" Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't take them all on. How can we look confidant and strong in the eyes of other countries if one of our soldiers can't beat up a group of ruffians in the middle of the night with his bare hands? When that hooligan offered a "terrorist fist jab," he should've ripped his arm off and beat him with it. I will grant, however, that the article did not go over what happened immediately after. I like to think that the soldier called in an air strike and obliterated those deviants.

Happy Veterans Day!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:53:01 GMT

Yes, today is Veterans Day. Being a government employee, that means I get the day off. To celebrate, I intend to ~~masturbate continuously~~ ~~listen to war protest classic rock~~ ~~laze on the couch with the Dhammapada~~ remember all of America's proud men and women in uniform and celebrate their accomplishments ~~by masturbating constantly~~ ~~by eating the rest of the unfinished Halloween chocolates~~ by observing a moment of silence to ponder sometime after lunch ~~when I decide to take a nap~~.

Interesting Bumper Stickers

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:34:29 GMT

"Honk if you love Jesus!" – I could not help but notice that no one was honking. I like to think that this driver is spreading the message that nobody loves Jesus. Granted, I live in northern Virginia. Drivers around here, when stuck in our eternal gridlock, don't love anybody.

"Don't let the car fool you, my treasure is in Heaven" – Before I begin, I want to stress that this bumper sticker was on the back of a minivan. Now, this may just be a false consensus, but I have always assumed that most people rank family first, or darn close to the top, on a list of most important things in life. More than a few times, I have heard parents refer to their children as their "treasure". Similarly, the only reason a person would get a minivan is because they have a big enough family to warrant such a vehicle. The assumption that I draw from all of these other assumptions is that I should not be fooled into thinking this driver has a large family… that's alive. They are obviously quite dead and waiting for him or her in Heaven. Well, or maybe the person was just reading 1 Corinthians too awkwardly.

Polite Conversation

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:17:59 GMT

So anyway, I'm at the food court in the mall eating this baby I took from a stroller, and the lady that was pushing the stroller notices and starts yelling at me. She's all, like, "what the hell are you doing?" And I say to her, "duh, isn't obvious. I'm eatin' this baby here. Are you blind?" Then she gets all indignant on me and says, "you can't just start eating somebody's baby like that!" Well, I said to that, "well, obviously I can, since that's what I'm doing now." I bit off another chunk of leg to prove my point." She gets all, like, flustered now and screams at me, "I'm calling the cops!" That just ain't right. I say to her, "hey, wait a minute. Here I am, minding my own business, eating this baby, and then you come over here, start yelling at me, and threaten to call the cops? I should call the cops on you!" I mean, what right does she have to do that? Sure, I suppose it's her baby, but how was I supposed to know that. It's not like I'm doing her any physical harm. I didn't want to deal with that sort of crap, so I took a last bite from the elbow and dropped the baby on the table. After leering at the irritating woman one last time, I decided it was time to head home. I had lost my appetite.

A Love Letter

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:44:49 GMT

Dear Notepad,

I have something to tell you that I simply do not know how to express to you verbally. We have known each other for such a long time. I remember the ye olde days of Windows 3.1, through the golden age of XP, and through the drunken fit that was Vista. You have always been there, like a shining beacon of pride and purity. Notepad, I love you.

I remember when we first met. I was young and stupid; I hardly gave a second glance to you. It was only as I got older and wiser that I looked up from my wild, loveless flings with other programs like Minesweeper that your loveliness began to shine through.

You are one of the most dependable and powerful programs I know. Whenever I am with you, you never crash, result in a blue screen of death, or hang. You can open almost any file. You may not always open every file necessarily well, but that determination in trying is commendable, and often useful. You can even create nearly any file type. Whether it be a simple .txt, a webpage like .html or .php, a full program class like .java, or even a database useful .csv, you are there for me to quickly get it done. Even with all of this power, you hardly leave a footprint.

Your simplicity is alluring. You know full well that you are a text editor and don't try to go overboard with unnecessary bells and whistles. You are a text editor that edits text. You don't need to be anything more. All of these others that have features like colored code or spell checking are weak, error-prone, and take those precious milliseconds longer to load (precious hours, in the case of some IDEs).

Notepad, I love you. I hope you will always be there for me, forever and ever.

Love from,

Jimbo1♥23
xoxo

Lazy Election Day YouTube Video

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:46:42 GMT

Oh Soldiers, they wanna have fu-un!

Game Difficulties

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:49:36 GMT

Part of the reason I have not been posting as often as I normally do is because I rented inFamous for the PS3. It's a decent game, but the main reason I am writing about it is because of a revelation I had while playing into the state of gaming today. Games have become far too easy. Let me try to explain from the beginning. There are these side missions where you have to run past a series of spotlights within a short time limit. The very last version of this game has a very, very small margin of error wherein you fail outright if you do not follow an exact path perfectly. It took me about five tries to get this done. By about the third time, I was livid with rage. It was after succeeding that I sat back and reflected on what happened. This minute trifle was available only near the end of the game. It took me a mere five tries. Back in ye olde times that would be the standard Level 1-1 difficulty. You would be lucky to scrape out of Level 1-2 in the single digits (triple if it's a Mega Man game).

What has happened here? I think most of the blame has to do with the shift to 3D. Back in ye olde times, when 3D was accomplished with 2D sprites placed on a checkered plain, you had two buttons, limited movement capabilities, and an endless horde of enemies, spikes, bottomless pits, and falling landscape trying to kill you! In inFamous, you have roughly eleven different buttons with functions mapped to them, while pressing one of those buttons changes the effect of all of the other buttons for another set of abilities. It is features like these that are weakening gamers. Other features that are slowly degrading our attempts to reach gaming nirvana that are included in this game: regenerating health, a dodge button (well, SkyKid had this too, but you can only use it a few times before it started failing), high speed methods of locomotion, and a death penalty of merely being scooted back in time about five seconds. I should not be forced to furrow my brow after a mere five attempts. It should be closer to fifty. The simplistic games of today have weakened this generation.

To sum everything up, here is what I want everyone to do. Write a letter to your congressperson and tell him or her to pass some legislation setting up a federal regulation for game difficulties. It would limit how many functions that can be mapped to controllers to a maximum of three (not including movement). It would set a required ratio of enemies to noncombatants at a minimum of about 2,000,000:1. It would require any plots to be no more complicated than "continue moving to the other side of the screen". It would require that in-game death cost you heavily, especially if you do not save constantly. You may even wish to write the president. I think with this administration that ran on a platform of Change, we can finally get some meaningful video game legislation passed.

Happy Halloween!

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:12:16 GMT

Arr... A pirate be ever vigilant!