FilteringCraig

“…the insurgents had been able to show themselves as a real threat to the democratic experiment and to reveal their true colors - enemies of democracy, Jihadist fanatics and Baathist thugs. The election was in part a referendum on these forces. And they lost - big time.” - Andrew Sullivan

Sullivan was also clear to state that he isn’t saying that we are done with the work, and there are a great many more tasks to be accomplished, but he seems very optimistic and even called it a miracle.

I feel that the elections are an initial success, but total success is far from achieved.

Just in the interest of statistics, how do you feel about Iraq right now given the relative success of the elections over the weekend?

1 being horrible and 10 feeling great.

I give the whole situation a 6.5 right now from my little corner of the world. I am slightly optimistic, but still very wary.

I don’t know if any of you have been following the story about the morning team at Hot 97 in New York who played a “We Are the World” parody making fun of the Tsunami. The song was racist against Asians and tasteless to be sure. They have now been suspended. They are probably going to be fired soon.

Show host Miss Jones and her entire morning team were indefinitely suspended Wednesday after a week of growing public outcry — and after a number of high-profile advertisers began pulling their support from the station.

This is the only reason that the company needs to fire them. They created a show that advertisers felt the need to pull away from. This should be the end of it, but it goes further.

“What happened is morally and socially indefensible,” Rick Cummings, president of Emmis Radio, which owns Hot 97, said yesterday in an statement. “All involved, myself included, are ashamed and deeply sorry.”

What began as a cruel joke about a natural disaster has turned into a catastrophe for Hot 97 (WQHT/97.1 FM). The song, which first aired Jan. 18, included slurs against Asians and jokes about floating bodies and orphaned children. It was set to the tune of the 1985 famine-relief song “We Are The World.”

Is it tasteless? Yes. Was it bad judgement? Yes. Was it indecent? Nope. Racist speech isn’t within the FCC guidelines. The only reason that these people should be fired technically is because they created a show that advertisers pulled away from. They hurt the bottom line. The company shouldn’t even have to make another judgement beyond that.

After hearing the song, I have another position as well. Please write better parody songs. It was a bad parody song. The offensive words didn’t rhyme and the singing was beyond defensible. If you are going to go out on a limb with a potentially offensive parody song, at least make it good and funny.

Maybe it is too soon to be joking about the tsunami.

Instability bugs me.

I am currently having work done in my house to add a bathroom on the second floor. I know having a new bathroom up there is going to be great, but it has been a little crazy for me to deal with the instability of having ongoing construction.

It meant that the garage was taken up with supplies and garbage so I couldn’t park my car there in the middle of winter in Ohio. (Todd and I remedied that by picking up all the trash and organizing the supplies last night.) Also, because they are doing work in the room that contains my closet, I have had to live with all my clothes on the bedroom floor. This may be the norm for some of you, but it isn’t the norm for me. My computer was also set up in there. There are plastic strips running through the house to try and protect the carpet. Everything is really dirty and there is really no point in cleaning until after they are done. So, in terms of me living the life that I have grown accustomed, it is quite a disturbance.

I guess I can deal with all that.

What I can’t deal with is coming home from work and not being able to find my cat. I know cats aren’t as cool as dogs. I know cats are less valuable culturally in this country than other pets, but damnit, I have become pretty attached to my cat Pixie. I still maintain that I would rather have a dog, but I am not going to apologize.

Back to the situation at hand. I am running all over my house looking for my cat and she isn’t anywhere. She isn’t making any noise. I am using an ultra-stupid, high pitched voice to yell “Pixie” while shaking a miniature can of her treats. I am sure I looked like a retarded salsa band member with a horrible singing voice, but you only think of these things in hindsight.

I have deduced, by checking every hiding spot that I know about in the house, that Pixie has escaped the evil and noisy workmen by braving the 2+ feet of snow that remains on the ground since this weekend. I now have a flashlight and I am looking all around my house to see if maybe she left some tracks. I am quietly thinking to myself that even if she left huge obvious tracks in the snow, would I be able to tell that they were hers? Would I try and follow them around the neighborhood? Who in the world do I think I am? Looking for tracks in the snow? There are none to be found thankfully, as I have now realized that tracks wouldn’t have helped my retarded ass do anything about anything.

The workmen haven’t seen her all day, and I can tell that they feel badly, but they really don’t know what to do. Then Todd gets there and he starts helping me look for her. Now Todd is checking the outdoors for tracks in case his Native American-like animal tracking abilities are any better than mine.

I have already checked the area where the workmen are, but then it occurs to me that Pixie could be in a wall somewhere, or she could have gotten into the crawl space area and maybe found a way somewhere else in the house that I hadn’t thought of looking, because I had logically ruled it out. The attic above the garage. I know those crawl spaces in my house don’t make it to the attic in the garage, at least not from and way that I can see, but maybe there is a way for a small kitten with a bad attitude about power tools to find her way from one side to the other.

There also happens to be a door to that attic from my bedroom upstairs so I walked in and looked around until I saw those green eyes catch a little bit of light. She reluctantly came out from her hiding place and disaster was averted.

Pixie is now safely locked in Todd’s office for the remainder of the week when we are not at the house. I am really hoping they finish sooner rather than later so I can get my situation back to normal.

Have I ever mentioned how much instability bugs me?

I must admit that I didn’t know who to root for in last night’s game. Part of me always wants to see the Steelers lose due to the historical rivalry, but I am still just totally in hate with the Patriots.

Either way, I was reminded by my friend Mike just how alive and well the rivalry is. He photoshopped this hateful little number.

I have decided to do a list of my favorite all-time top ten video games. This list is not meant to be definitive. (IE my favorite games may not be the same as yours, but I would be glad to hear about yours if you feel like sharing) The list spans time, and platform.

Games have come a long way, and while I haven’t been the most consistent or addicted gamer, I have gone through my phases. You will also notice that one game in particular is missing from this list. That game is James Bond Goldeneye from the N64. Everyone and their mother played that game like lunatics for weeks/months, maybe even years on end. I am not that guy. It is a great game that I enjoyed a lot, but for whatever reason my group of friends and I did not play that game as religiously as the rest of the world. Therefore, it does not make my top ten. I am sure it makes most other top ten lists

Also, I will be giving honorable mentions, which might be similar games that could have made the list or games on the same platform that competed for my attention in the same time period.

Without further ado.

10. Centipede - Apple IIe Home Computer

Centipede was one of the first games that I ever played in my lifetime. We had it on a real 5 and 1/4 floppy disk for the Apple IIe. I remember playing this game, the first home game of my lifetime, until my fingers hurt from pressing the buttons. The only thing that sucked was having to take turns with my brother and sister. Also, it led to an inadvertent childhood punishment. I remember playing it one afternoon and I wasn’t able to finish off a level and I said something about how they “didn’t hit my ship!” because I thought I had been unfairly killed by the game. My mom comes running in from the kitchen and sends me to my room for swearing. To this day, I swear to you that I said the word “ship” and my mom was wrong. Plus, it would be like the back judge in the NFL calling holding at the line of scrimmage. If you are too far away to see the play then you are too far away to throw the flag. Anyway, Centipede was a great game.

Honorable mention - Galaxian, Dig Dug

9. Super Mario Kart - Super Nintendo

One year, we got the Super Nintendo for Christmas and that was when my brother and I realized that this whole gaming thing could have some legs. Seeing the upgraded graphics of F-Zero and other games on the Super Nintendo just fascinated us. But, it wasn’t until we got Super Mario Kart that we were totally addicted. Super Mario Kart had ever element that a game needed. It was part racing. It was part death match. It was part Saturday morning cartoons. There were secret paths that you needed to execute to get a leg up on the competition. You could also set time records against the computer. Just one of the most perfect games of all time, especially for me, being competitive and having a brother to play against.

Honorable mention - R.C. Pro Am, Super Mario 3, Dr. Mario

(note on Dr. Mario: This was a special game for my family and me. It was the first and only time that video games turned into a family event. I used to play this puzzle game with my dad, and mom as well as my brother and sister. A surprisingly fun game.)

8. Doom II - PC

Doom was the start of a whole new generation of games based on running around, shooting things and having them explode in gory 3d glory. I played Doom 1, but II didn’t catch on to the whole 3d blaster until ID Software released the second game in the series. Doom 2 had the coolest levels, the coolest weapons (BFG), and the coolest graphics that the world had ever seen. On top of that, it really introduced gamers to the Deathmatch, which has been an integral part of gaming ever since. At the time when this came out, the world still wasn’t totally connected to the internet. My friends and I were into the Bulletin Board technology which allowed you to dial into local networks using a modem. We used this kind of technology to blast each other in Doom 2 for countless hours and countless frags (kills.)

Honorable mention - Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem 3d

7. Warcraft II - PC

Warcraft II was the first of the war combat planning and strategy genre for me. The original Warcraft was a great start, but Blizzard Software really pulled it together for the sequel. Much better graphics, better control, and awesome multi-player, really made this game as addictive as it was. You start off building peons, to get your buildings together, in order to build the most diverse and powerful army possible. You could be either Orcs or Humans and build alliances, or go it alone. The bottom line is that this game usurped a whole bunch of hours from my life as I sat in front of a computer screen playing General God to all my pixilated minions.

Honorable mention - Command and Conquer, Starcraft, Age of Empires

6. Unreal Tournament - PC

This built upon the successes of its predecessors like Doom II, Quake and Duke Nukem. It took it to a whole new level if you ask me. This game kept the arcade appeal of the Id Software titles and mixed in sniping and some of the features from the more technical and simulated shooting games. On top of the fact that they had very good internet multiplayer support, including capture the flag, and other variations on the deathmatch, it was a perfect game. The support around the world from independent developers and casual fans with programming skills also made this game better. There were mods (modifications) and an almost limitless supply of downloadable levels that always kept the action fresh.

Honorable mention - Unreal Tourney 2, Half Life

5. Ms. Pacman - Arcade

I don’t know exactly why, but Ms. Pacman is far superior to the original Pacman game in my opinion. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my orthodontist had a table top version of this game in his office that I would play while I was waiting. No matter. This game is addictive and fun. I have had a lot of fun throughout my life coming across the occasional Ms. Pacman game and more often than not, setting the highscore before leaving the bar/arcade/mall or whatever.

Honorable mention - Q*Bert

4. Contra - Nintendo

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start - This cheat code has been on the lips of video gamers the world over since this game came out. You don’t know? This is the code that gives you and your teammate a bunch of extra lives before you start a game of Contra. You compete against the game. You also try and compete against whoever you are playing with for the rapid fire and spread guns that are on each level. I can’t tell you how many times my brother and I played through this one until the end. Just too much fun.

Honorable mention - Mike Tyson’s Punchout, Tecmo Bowl, Gauntlet

3. John Madden ‘94 - Genesis

It was hard to figure out which John Madden football game to put on the list, but this is the one that sticks out in my mind because it was the unofficial year of the running backs in this version of Madden. Emmitt Smith could cross the width of the field seven times in the backfield before turning up for a big gain. This was probably the best year for the games when they were in the Genesis/Super Nintendo phases. Sure the “maddenisms” got really old and you wanted to curse your brains out when Madden would say “Quarterback can’t hold onto the ball that long” as your QB was being blitzed and ultimately driven into the ground, but overall this made for some exciting, high scoring video game shootouts.

Honorable mention - Other Madden Years, NFL Blitz, NBA Jam, Bill Walsh College Football, Double Dribble, Blades of Steel

2. Quake - PC

Before Unreal Tournament, Quake really set the world on fire with internet multiplayer. I honestly can’t remember how many people used to play simultaneously in this game, but it was one of the best online deathmatches ever. It was the best real 3d game of its time allowing people to move totally freely from bridges, to floors, to underwater areas where you could be electrocuted by the lightning gun. This game defined the first 6 months of my freshman year of college when we were awkward, lonely and before the girls our age had been properly abused by upper classmen to the point where they would give us the time of day again. (Did I get off on a tangent?) This game is also how I learned about firewalls that existed between Boston University dorm buildings. But, before we developed a social life in college, we had Quake to steal away nights on a campus without cable TV.

Honorable mention - Quake 2, Descent, Call of Duty

1. Diablo 2 - PC

My number one game of all time has to be Diablo 2. This game was addictive, had great multiplayer, had a great storyline which used cinematic sequences to keep the gamer interested, and had maps and levels that were never the same twice. It epitomizes what gaming is today. It also made good use of the Expansion Pack, which is a lower-priced expansion to an original game that comes out later. The expansion pack become standard video game stuff since Diablo 2. I think this game has given more than just the horribly un-lubricated red-eye effect that it gave me. It gave rise to these Massively Multiplayer Online worlds like Everquest, City of Heroes and Worlds of Warcraft. After my Diablo 2 addiction, I am not willing to even try playing games like those.

Honorable mention - Diablo, Crusader: No remorse, Warcraft III

So there you have it. My top ten video games of all time. I am sure I missed a lot of your favorites. Be sure to leave me your top ten list, or at least a couple of your favorites.

Seriously, I had no less than 1000 comment spams over the weekend. Every time I sat down at a computer, it seemed I had 100 to 200 more spams sitting there waiting to be deleted. I even tried to close comments for a while by changing the name of the script, but that didn’t work for some reason. How that didn’t work to just close them all the way, I will never know.

Finally last night I had some time and decided to update to the latest beta of Blacklist, which is what I use to delete and block some of the spams. I got it uploaded and ran the install routine on the server. It gave me a success message saying it had been installed. I am thinking “ROCK! I hope this works!”

I got up this morning and looked at my comments and realized that there hadn’t been any yet today. No spams, no nothing. I did a silent cheer and a fist pump thinking I solved the problem.

and it finally occurred to me that commenting might not be working at all. Sure enough, I somehow hosed comments last night while installing the new version of Blacklist.

Maybe the only way to defeat spammers is to close down comments completely.

****IMPORTANT**** COMMENTS HAVE BEEN CLOSED ON THIS SITE FOR A BIT BECAUSE THE SPAM IS OUT OF CONTROL. THEY WILL REPOEN LATER (MAYBE)

I may have missed the Steelers vs. Jets, but I am back in action now.

500 on Minnesota (+8.5)

3 team teaser for 700

St. Louis (+13) (this line may be out of date)
Philly (-2.5)
Indianapolis (+8.5)

This game is shaping up to be the game of the year, if not the game of the last five years. I will admit that I am biased against New England after having lived in Boston for just over 4 years, but I can also be objective… when I want to be.

There have been conversations around this site and over at Leading Brand about Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, etc. Is Peyton the new Dan Marino? Does he have the inability to win the big game? Is he the Patriots bitch? Up until now, the answers have been yes, yes and yes. It might still be the same after Sunday, but I think this game will present more of a challenge for the Pats than they have had in quite some time.

The Pats have scoreboard and they are the champs at home and the team to beat. Until they are beaten there is no point in talking trash. (Do you hear me Mike Vanderjagt? Oh, and by the way, you are a kicker, so nobody cares what you have to say, you non-matching shoe dummy.) At the same time, it would be foolish to say that New England will just roll over the Colts, who have been one of the hottest teams in the NFL of late. True Peyton hasn’t shown up big in big situations. True they have to play outside in New England.

I think those factors will work against Peyton for sure. He won’t be able to run his audible offense nearly as effectively as he can run it in the dome. Bill Belichik is an absolute defensive witch who will have more than a few tricks in store for the Indy offense. The weather will also have a big impact on what Indy is able to accomplish among their high flying passing offense.

But still, they are the hottest team in the league right now. Just ask Denver.

And the Pats aren’t without their problems. As Justin said on his own site, Tom Brady was doing his best Drew Bledsoe impression during some games in the second half of the season. The secondary is truly banged up without Ty Law. Troy Brown has been a savior for this team in the second half of the season going both ways, but he is still a wide receiver playing out of position.

This is why I am a football fan though. I don’t need Paul McGuire and Joe Thiesman to give me a storyline for this game. I don’t need to worry about Peyton Manning chasing a record. I don’t need to worry about the Pats going for a consecutive games streak. Thank the good lord that Ray Lewis (the guy they never stop talking about) is nowhere in sight.

We have an up and coming contender with a whole lot to prove and the weapons to prove it with against the reigning badass on the block who is showing some wear and tear from being the object of everyone’s aggression for the whole year. This is what sucks about being on top. Everyone guns for you.

Do I have a prediction? Not a chance. But I am truly interested in this game because of a couple things.

Peyton Manning has to prove he can win a big game, especially with all these guys around him.

New England is banged up, but always seems to rise to the occasion. Will they be able to keep this streak up, or is it just too much to overcome this time around?

Tom Brady doesn’t always look great, but he just seems to win. Is that the truth or is the magic about to disappear?

It should be interesting, that is for sure.

Wal Mart is demanding lower prices on the CD’s that they stock in their stores. A lot of the details are undisclosed, but you can be sure that Wal Mart, who makes Procter and Gamble stock their own shelves in Wal Mart stores, will have some serious bargaining power at the table.

This was one of the key quotes from the article.

“The record industry needs to refine their business models, because the consumer is the ultimate arbitrator. And the consumer feels music isn’t properly priced.”

- Best Buy senior vice president Gary Arnold

I think this is very true. I think that some people are just thieves, plain and simple, when it comes to their downloading habits, but I also think that the record industry has lost control of their stagnant business model. In the past they have been able to basically print money, but in this day and age with increased competition from music alternatives like DVD’s, video games and even things like satellite radio, they need to get leaner and more efficient than they have been in the past.

Here is a breakdown of the cost of making a CD according to the independent market-research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail.

$0.17 Musicians’ unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists’ royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead
$15.99 total CD price

As CD’s have become easier to produce, the industry needed to work on a more on-demand type of system to lean out production and they never did. As a result, they are still pricing based on cost as the CD’s have become less and less competitive with DVD’s and many other competing products from a pricing standpoint. ITunes is one way for them to cut out production costs, but why couldn’t they reduce their production costs changing their supply system? The whole manufacturing world has changed their policies on production and inventory in order to help control costs. The recording industry needs to do the same. I am sure a large portion of those costs are due to inventory and producing a supply of albums that sit on shelves. To an extent that is necessary, but balancing that with lower cost of production ideas will reduce your average cost over time, allowing you to price more effectively in a newly competitive market for entertainment dollars.

They also need to reduce their marketing costs by being creative and taking advantage of the new avenues that are available to reach consumers. Television and radio advertising is expensive and doesn’t always work well enough to justify the cost. In combination with a listener base that is more connected than ever before, record companies should have the largest amount of access to customers that they have ever had before.

In the meantime, if they do not get themselves fixed, Wal Mart will keep putting pressure on them to get their prices to what they think is a reasonable level. Losing out on that shelf space from Wal Mart would be tragic for the major labels as Wal Mart is the biggest retailer in the world.

This is all a price that the labels have to pay for being behind the times technologically and not enabling legal downloading before illegal downloading got out of control. I am not justifying the downloading, but if I am analyzing the industry, it is very reasonable criticism for me to question the lack of foresight on this issue.

Either way, this is something to watch closely. If Wal Mart succeeds in getting physical copies of albums at lower prices, what do you think will happen to the ITunes?

I was reading a section in the Economist concerning nanotechnology last night and they had one cool article where it discussed people’s fears concerning nanotechnology. For those who don’t know, (or haven’t read the Michael Crichton book, Prey) Nanotechnology is a manufacturing technology able to inexpensively fabricate most structures consistent with natural law, and to do so with molecular precision. In other words, it allows scientists to rearrange things at the molecular level in order to make materials stronger, lighter, and all around structurally better in theory.

But then the fearful start coming to the surface. Will it contribute to environmental toxicity? Will it harm our breathing? Will it negatively affect the firmness of our next dump?

These people can think of anything to worry about. This stuff hasn’t even been invented outside of the theoretical world for the most part.

Then I was reading a section about one of the theoretical inventions, to create nano-robots that could self replicate to make anything out of atoms, from a car engine, to the latest and most death defying spatula that your kitchen has ever seen. The fears run wild even though a nano-robot, to this point, has never been built outside of creative minds, let alone a swarm of self-replicating nano-robots.

But that doesn’t stop someone from thinking that the world is going to be TAKEN OVER, by swarms of these nanotechnology projects gone out of control. And the form they are taking is a horrible GREY GOO. There will be no way to stop these things and keep them under control! Keep in mind that The Blob was released in theaters in 1958. The more things change the more they stay the same.

I am not much for science at this level because frankly I am not that smart, but I have the feeling we should take television away from a large part of the population. I can follow the concept of fearing swarms of self-replicating nano-robots, but for some reason, it seems premature if not far-fetched.

Don’t you think this would be more like a chemical reaction? I mean nuclear bombs go boom in a big way, yet they have been able to have nuclear reactors that are controlled (most of the time) in order to create electricity for many people. Nano-technology should be no different. They will try (and most likely be successful) at keeping these things in controlled environments while they improve our televisions, computers, the stain resistance on our cargo pants and about a million other materials applications.

Maybe the fears will be justified. I am just not willing to fear anything before it even exists.