Hokey Smoke!

While finishing up the Beowulf review tonight, I heard a loud impact on the air conditioner. Sometimes a panicked cat will jump up there, so I checked it out to see if there was an emergency. Instead, I beheld this:

I blinked multiple times because I had never seen anything like it. Then I realized what it was and was even more shocked. It was an honest to goodness flying squirrel!

For some reason I had always thought they were bigger than this little guy, but there was no mistaking the flat tail and membranes between the legs. I had no clue they even ranged into Minnesota.

Walz vs. Quist: Rochester Chamber of Commerce Debate

Twenty-five minutes in and it is obvious the two men cannot stand each other. What surprised me is that Republican Alan Quist managed to get under Democrat Tim Walz’s skin and make him angry. Quist is always angry with prickly being the mellowest you ever see him. The whole tone of the debate is personal attacks, led by Quist -- and complained about by Quist. I thought Walz was slicker than this, but he has been red faced multiple times throughout the debate.

Wow, neither candidate looked good in this forum. This debate is the epitome of complaints about a lack of civility in politics these days. Only partisans on each side would declare their candidate the winner. Quist was hectoring, took constant nasty shots,  and was constantly confused whether it was his time for rebuttal. Walz was flustered and increasingly angry while sticking to boilerplate talking points (Akin SQUAWK).

Inspector Dreyfus Has Passed On

Herbert Lom always had the best scenes in the Pink Panther films, in my opinion. Perpetually chasing and trying to kill Clouseau, he appealed to me as a kid and as an adult. So I am a little sad to see that he died today.

I had no clue that he was a Czech refugee from the early days of WWII. At 95, he certainly lived a long life after making it to Britain. While he was best known for the comedies with Peter Sellers, he was in quite a few films spanning many genres usually as a supporting character. His roles in The Ladykillers, The Mysterious Island, The Phantom of the Opera, and Journey to the Far Side of the Sun were the ones I remember the most.

It strangely feels like another piece of my childhood has disappeared, even though the movies remain.

So here is Dreyfus speaking at Clouseau’s funeral, one of his best performances as an actor or character:

Health 9-26-2012

Had a relatively high pain index night of 7-8 so I ended up reading and playing Torchlight II until tired enough to overcome it. The body has been acting a bit in distress, but still an improvement over last week. It looks like pain is going to be at higher levels post Lyme Disease. Such is life.
So no lit dropping for Greg Davids in Houston today. At least I was able to drop my father off and have lunch. It is a nice day out for walking, wish I were up to it.
Hope the headache will subside soon, I have a review to write.
Updated some hours later:
Some of the symptoms of Lyme Disease are flaring up now and I will be keeping a close eye on them. The swelling in the head and odd sensation when breathing began showing up shortly after I posted this in the afternoon.
Back to writing the review.

More Torchlight II Observations

Now that I have a character approaching level 30 in the Second Act and have had some multiplayer time in, I feel like I can make some more comments.

First, FIX THE BUGS! I have had the disappearing stash and shared stash bug hit with me unable to access my gear online or offline. Mysteriously, it all reappeared late last night and so far I can use the rare and unique gear. We’ll see if that lasts. Saved game synchronizing to Steam’s cloud has been hit or miss for me. This is frustrating.

Second, this is a remake of Diablo II as far as the plot line goes and the settings. I do not view this as a bad thing, in fact I was happy to see the desert again. Enough has been changed to avoid lawsuits, but if you are a big Diablo II fan this is your game to play.

The performance of the game engine has been a pleasant surprise, with the only slowdowns I’ve encountered being in online play. Playing with others is a blast and incredibly fast moving due to people triggering fights left and right. The graphics are pretty with the cartoony/anime style of Torchlight looking better than ever.

Sound is well done and my pet cat purrs after he kills something. It reminds me of the best cat ever, my late pet Sid. So I have named the critter in my solo embermage build after him.

Loot is ridiculously plentiful. While there is an option to turn off seeing normal items, I cannot get that to work in solo games. It works fine in multiplayer. Inventory management is sleeker than ever, but it gets a constant workout due to all the goodies you find. Trading with others in your party is very easy.

Remember how frustrating it was to get your first complete set in Diablo II or Torchlight? Expect to have at least one by level 10 in my experience. I actually had two complete sets on my mage by level 12.

I really like the game, but advise people to wait for a couple of patches before completely committing. If you are willing to deal with bugs, buy it now if your are an old school Diablo fan.

Health 9-23-2012

I never did completely shake the cold symptoms from last weekend and they have only gotten worse. Today I am a total space cadet and am having to refrain from any serious decisions on anything due to an inability to function. It took me three tries to write the previous sentence and three to spell “sentence” just now. Bleh.

And now I just caught myself staring into space for a couple of minutes. Yep, I am not in.

Not Something You See Everyday in the Middle East

In Libya, protests against the murders of American diplomat Chris Stevens resulted in a crowd attacking an Islamist militia headquarters. I had been aware of smaller groups protesting earlier in the week, but this is quite a surprise. It gives me some hope that Libya may pull it together in the end rather than disintegrating. As Totten points out, it is quite a contrast to Egypt.

Standing up to terrorists needs to be a priority around the world and good people should not allow evil to go unchecked. Frankly, it all needs to be done locally by local people in the first place. Let this be the start of something good, I pray.

Getting Old and Slow, Plus Torchlight II Impressions

Forget having to get bifocals, it is getting slower in video games that is getting to me. A couple of things have proven this to me the past week. While never one of the best, I could at least game on the hardest or second hardest settings the first time I played a game. With the release of Black Mesa, a remake of most of the original Half Life, I find myself having to continuously lower the difficulty in order to progress.

I did fine until the Marines showed up. Then it became a ridiculous exercise in getting killed twenty or thirty times just to clear one area and limping out of it with under ten health. And getting killed with one shot in the next area.

I used to waltz through Half Life at its hardest settings, so this is a body blow for me. Older games were harder than the current ones,yes --  but this is painful.

The second thing was talking to one of my younger friends I game with. He can’t understand why he beats me handily in PvP when I can run through single player games on difficulty levels he can’t handle. That is simple to answer: twitch reflexes will always dominate in PvP with tactics being a secondary factor. Guile and tactics often compensate against AI opponents who follow predictable paths. Humans are a lot more random.

Watching him play at his house, I was amazed at how fast he could flip through screens, type, and fight without missing a beat. That is simply beyond my ability these days.

At least Torchlight II is something I can still play at veteran level and not die very often, in fact only once so far and that was due to stupidity on my part. So far it is much more like Diablo II than the first game and the graphics look great with no slow downs on max settings despite amazing waves of enemies. The changes all work to the better from what I have tested through level 11 casual and level 7 veteran ember mage builds.

But…

It is buggy. Horrifically buggy. I have a friend who can’t launch it without completely locking up his computer. One side quest I accepted couldn’t be done because the entrance to it refused to trigger. Then there is the multiplayer which was not functioning because Runic Games could not handle the traffic. I could not even create an account last night.

It is as bad as the Diablo III rollout, which is incredibly ironic.

Bleach Ep. 20: Gin Ichimaru’s Shadow

The final episode of Bleach’s first season contains every element that makes the series worth watching. Ichigo and his friends complete their training then take a time out before the assault on Soul Society. As an added bonus, a review of an extra from the season one box set is included.

When you see the title graphic, it does not fit where the story left off last episode. But no worries, it does fit this episode just not right away. With Ichigo having briefly turned into a hybrid of Hollow and Shinigami before regaining control, it is time for him to move to phase three of Urahara’s training. We have to wait a bit for that to resume, though.

A brief recap of Byakuya’s announcement of Rukia’s execution in 25 days starts the show and we get a further teaser of Soul Society. It appears to be inhabited by very shady characters, two of whom show up to needle Captain Kuchiki over his sister’s impending execution. One is a trickster type, Captain Gin Ichimaru of Squad 3 and the subject of the episode title. The other is Squad 11’s one eyed captain, who tries his best to provoke a duel with Kuchiki. All in all, Soul Society does not look like any kind of heaven and seems savage.

Global Tensions Rising: China and Japan

Things seem to be escalating quickly over a group of islands, with one Chinese general telling his troops to prepare for war with Japan. This looks awfully calculated given the other aggressive actions in the region, but there is a component to it that is not traditional posturing. Instead it is an aspect of asymmetrical warfare being given a test run with Japan as a proxy for the United States.  Asymmetrical warfare involves using methods other than overt military force to bring down a foe perceived as more powerful. Propaganda, cyber warfare, and attacks on financial infrastructure are all key parts of this approach.

The latest tiff has led to threats of using Chinese ownership of Japanese government debt to bring them to their knees. Do not think this is disconnected from the U.S.A., for yesterday’s demonstrations briefly attacked the Ambassador to China’s car. The demonstrators knew what they were doing and chanted anti-American slogans during the incident.

With the two largest American bond holders in an intense war of words that could go hot to some degree (how hot? Ask the Chinese.), this is not something that should be ignored right now. The threats being made to undermine Japan’s economy can be made against us.

It should be noted that such a threat only works if a war does not actually follow. In war time, all debts to an enemy are declared void. Quite a tricky balancing act for China’s rulers, eh?

Gamera: MST3K (1991) Review

An epic battle between Sandy Frank’s version of the 1965 giant monster classic and the occupants of the Satellite of Love completes my review trilogy of the first Gamera movie. Love is found amidst carnage when a giant turtle meets a young boy named Kenny and the world conspires to keep them apart. Expect explosions, inventions, voodoo, and robot abuse when Mystery Science Theater 3000 first encounters Gamera – for the second time!

Most Americans associate Gamera with Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) if they even have a clue what the flying turtle is. If it were not for Sandy Frank’s particularly bad dubs of those old monster films, it is questionable whether or not MST3K would have become as big as it did. Thanks to a sale at Amazon, I ended up getting my hands on the box set of those episodes for less than half price a mere week after whining I couldn’t afford it. Maybe I should whine publicly more often?

For the storyline of the movie, please consult my reviews of the original film and the American version.

 

If you are not familiar with the show, MST3K featured a janitor launched to a space station by mad scientists where he was forced to watch “cheesy movies” as part of experiments. To alleviate his loneliness, the janitor named Joel built robots to be his friends. It is all an excuse to riff on and mock bad movies for laughs.

This classic episode opens with Joel (Joel Hodgson), Crow (Trace Beaulieu), and Tom Servo (Kevin Murphy) warming up in preparation for the next experiment, or film as we would call them. While the lone human stretches, the bots go through vocal exercises. Yes, it is sheer lunacy, which is what this show is all about, so go with it. Just relax, like the theme says…

Some Guitar Fun

A video from a father and son duo I am friends with. It has been a trip watching Chris Jr. move from drums to guitar and then evolve as a player. The kid has a lot a talent and learns it all by ear.

"Just Because" is a fun tune and this noodling around turned out well, I think:

Health 9-17-2012

I despise colds. ‘Nuff said.

Bleach Ep. 19: Ichigo Becomes a Hollow!

The mini training arc continues, Bleach style. Slapstick comedy mixes with an intriguing dive into Ichigo’s very soul when his quest to regain his lost powers takes a very dark turn. Will he survive his training? More importantly, will he survive being abused by little kids?

I think everyone has had one of those days where they have found themselves restrained in a magical straightjacket and subjected to torment by small children. I hate when those happen, they are real downers. So when saw Ichigo go through the events of this episode I empathized deeply with him.

But it is Rukia who gets the short end of the stick, both in events and screen time. The episode opens with Renji freaking out when he finds out Rukia will be executed and his captain, her brother, approves of this. Byakuya may be a pretty boy by anime standards, but his personality is cold to say the least. There is not a trace of positive emotion shown toward his sister and the whole encounter leaves her in a deep funk while she tries to let go of all emotions like a proper noble woman. That is all we get to see of her.

While she is in a black hole of despair, Ichigo is in a hole of his own.

China Doesn’t Just Copy Electronics: The J-21

The military aviation world got a surprise a couple of years ago when the Chinese government took the wraps off of the J-20 stealth fighter, but that is nothing compared to what just showed up. Roughly in the F/A-18 Hornet size range and possibly a competitor to the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter, it is clearly derived from stolen data from Lockheed and subcontractors of the F-22A Raptor program. That is a scaled down F-22 if I have ever seen one with a radome more like the F-35. The proportions made a lot of us on the Net think it was a Photoshop at first, but I had a pit in my stomach when I studied the photos and better ones came out.

I knew our defense programs has been thoroughly compromised by the Chinese, but seeing the tangible results has been an unpleasant experience. As far as cyber security goes, our most classified and protected programs are in the hands of a hostile foreign government. It makes you wonder if the federal government is competent at anything at all.

Meanwhile, China continues to push claims on disputed territories with no fear of being countered.  With the continued aggression in the Pacific against neighboring countries, is it any wonder an arms race has begun in the region?

Odds and Ends 9-15-2012

It baffles me that certain movies are not out on Blu-ray or took many years to get issued, such as Lawrence of Arabia. Having obtained a minty used copy of the special edition DVD set of The Right Stuff and watching it last night, I can’t understand why there is no Blu-ray of it. It is a stupendously beautiful looking and sounding movie that deserves the full high definition treatment. It also is the shortest over three hour movie I have ever watched. By watched, I mean repeatedly over the years.

While I like my Iview Cypad 7” Android based tablet, I do need more horsepower. The Google Nexus was a disappointment in my view, since it has no HDMI out or memory card slot. The new Kindle Fire HD 7” looks terrific, but still lacks the slot and leaves you tied to Amazon’s proprietary store. Even with that, it is the current top candidate for a replacement. Ainol, a Chinese manufacturer, has a new tablet, the Novo 7 Fire, that has everything I want, but there are some early technical problems involving overheating. Its specs beat both the Nexus and Fire HD, so if they work out the difficulties, that is the one I would like to get.

After many years, Black Mesa rolled out yesterday. Black Mesa is a mod for the Source engine that recreates much of the original Half Life with all the bells and whistles of newer technology. I did a short run as far as the highly annoying jumping the crates level and have to say the wait was worth it. The attention to detail is simply amazing and the voice acting isn’t bad at all. There is a possibility they may do the Xen levels later, but hardly anybody liked those. I can’t wait to get into the fire fights and see how they are executed.

Making Faith Godly

Making a challenge when teaching Sunday school has its consequences. This post is one due to the fact that I have to live up to the challenge I delivered to the men in my class to write about their faith this week. Diaries, journals, wives' diaries, letter, mother's diaries, blogs, or whatever it took were part of my request.

 

So here I am, writing about my faith. It is more rambling than I would like due to being written during a hectic day yesterday and a very tired day today.

 

Faith is the first critical step towards finding salvation through Christ. Yet there are different kinds of faith, from the material to the spiritual. Only the most paranoid have no faith, though I suppose they do have faith in the idea that the world is out to get them. Simply having a belief in something unseen (ref. Hebrews 11:1) is not religious in itself, as was pointed out by the class during a lesson I taught in Elders Quorum this past Sunday.

No, there is more to it than that. So I find myself contemplating my faith in God and whether or not it is a Godly faith.

 

An Impressive Bit of Socially Engineered Blog Spam

Going through my email account revealed a comment waiting to be approved. While posted from that ever witty pseudo being, Anonymous, it looked legit at first before going off the rails:

Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point.
You definitely know what youre talking about, why
waste your intelligence on just posting videos to your weblog when
you could be giving us something enlightening to read?
Look at my homepage ... free porn

No video on the post is a wee bit of a giveaway even before the pornography offer (link deleted by me). Misspelling is no longer a surefire indicator that something is spam, so that can be forgiven. The idea of using constructive criticism as a form of social engineering in spam is a new one to me. I know it made me read the entire thing, so I bet this one is fairly effective.
Fiendishly clever is the phrase that applies, methinks.

UPDATED

Meanwhile, the Russian referral spam continues unabated. This time it is one from super-online-search . com that takes you to a site you do not want to visit.The Huns are at the gates, I tell you.

UPDATED 9-13-2012

A comment for another post is another clever variation of this that turned out to be a way to get clicks on a “survey” site as well as the video.

I'm having this exact problem with the video: http://www.youtube.com/(removed by me)  I've put one comment on the video site, but Youtube won't let me link your post as part of the explanation. So far, you are the only post that has tried to make sense of this stupid spam issue. Thanks for posting!

The identity of the commenter was “Ron” but the link to his profile is the afore mentioned survey at sprezzaturarrd . blgospot . com. Interesting development because it looks like they are aware of people trying to spread the word. Notice how the video gets another hyperlink via the comment?

Sadly they did get a couple of clicks out of me verifying the profile, but somebody has to take a look to see what is going on to warn others.

Runaway Inflation Is Now Unavoidable

Bernanke has chosen to do the worst thing possible and that is an open ended qualitative easing. If you have savings or an IRA, expect to lose your shirt since interest will be held low and hyper inflation will lower the value of every penny you have. I suggest looking up the Weimar Republic in German history to get an idea of what is going to happen now.

Stock up on foods and goods while you can, your purchasing power is going to decrease very quickly now. Buying ammo would also be prudent since it will be going sky high after this news is absorbed.

Incompetent and suicidal are the only words I can find to describe this development. It looks like a desperate bid to influence the election.

A Short Comment on the Embassy Attacks

Weakness is never a virtue and never, ever respected in the long run. What we are seeing in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen is the end result of trying to appease evil. Nothing good can come of that, so I expect a lot more to happen now that the United State is perceived as weak.

I have always advocated spreading democracy and republicanism to all states on all continents. Once I believed that it would encourage peace, but then I grew up and ceased being a teenager. Now it is because I believe that everyone must have their chance and be judged upon their resulting behavior.

Does that sound ominous? It should.

The Obama state department has been an abject failure since the beginning, insulting allies and cozying up to people who genuinely hate the West. Fear of offending our enemies and a perverse desire to offend friends has been a hallmark of this administration. So it was only a matter of time before the chickens came home to roost.

Al Qaeda and their associates coordinated the initial attacks on 9/11/2012 with the hope they would spread. Killing Osama bin Laden turned out to be as meaningless as I expected. This is a much bigger movement than one man.

Watching the media rally around the President and try to make Romney a bad guy for making a rational, not to mention needed, statement about the groveling message from the Egyptian embassy staff has been a depressing sight.

Once again, I repeat that weakness is not a virtue.

Gammera the Invincible (1966) Review

An American producer imports a giant monster movie from Japan and splices in new scenes. Godzilla, King of the Monsters? No… Gammera!  The result is something kids will enjoy and adults will find very silly. Park your brain – you won’t be needing it for this movie about a 200ft tall flame spewing turtle. And just what is the mysterious Plan Z? UPDATED September 2012 with DVD screen captures and revised text.

In 1965, Daiei Studios released Gamera the Giant Monster to cash in on the giant monster craze started by 1954’s Gojira. It was a decidedly low budget film that surprisingly did well and spawned a series of sequels. While never as big as the Godzilla series, many a kid watched the films about Gamera, the children’s friend.

The version reviewed is the first Americanized one distributed by NTA, not the even more heavily edited Sandy Frank one most of us saw on TV back in the 1980’s. This one is only mildly incoherent by comparison.  On to the review!

Gammera the Invincible begins with an overly serious narration introducing the setup. Dr. Hidaka (Eiji Funakoshi) is in the Artic to conduct some serious research. On what, I do not know. But he is a serious scholar and don’t you forget it! There he and his lovely assistant Kyoke (Harumi Kiritachi) meet an Eskimo chief. Pleasantries are barely exchanged before a squadron of Soviet bombers fly by at low altitude.

11 from 9/11

Watching the 9/11 ceremony streaming from the memorial site and listening to the names of the murdered read off has made the memories come back with a vengeance. One thing that strikes me is the names come from every ethnic background. When Bin Laden and company launched the attack, they did not attack just one hyphenated American, but the entire country.

I wish people would remember that this year when identity politics have gotten the worst I have seen in my forty plus years of living.

It is painful to listen to the families of the fallen speak and they are only up to ‘P’. It is one thing to remember watching what happened over a decade ago, but to see and hear just a fraction of the people whose lives were permanently changed reminds us of the very human dimension involved. So many kids left behind missing their parents and growing up without their presence are reading names.

Never forget.

Slow Motion

Since Saturday, I have not been doing so great, but managed to get out to socialize and go to church, though I missed the first hour of that. The drive home felt like it took a small eternity, which made me think of the excessive use of slow motion in modern action movies. Interesting in small doses and a massive chore to sit through when over used.

So today has been more of that wading in mud feeling. For over a week I have been working on two review posts and hope to get them up tomorrow at the latest. Part of the delay has been not feeling well, the other… well, sometimes reviews are painful to write. I have no idea how professional movie critics retain an ounce of sanity.

Actually, that would explain a lot of reviews, wouldn’t it?

New YouTube Based Blog Referral Spam

Well that is interesting. The Russian spammers have come up with a new one that delivers up a YouTube video of a Grand Theft Auto 4 sequence. Why would they do that? Well, the account holder gets money from the ads that run before it plays. This is why you see pretty girls doing reply videos to just about every subject out there – they make a lot of money from people clicking on them.

So if you see youtube.com in your referring sites, do not click and enrich the Russian mob.

Words Fail Me...

Two movie trailers and yes, they are real:

The mind boggles.

A Hail of a Night

It was another restless night, but at least this time the weather was overtly causing it. Around 1:30 AM a hail storm hit the house and hit loudly. You know the comic book sound effect “SPANG!”? I heard that quite a few times.

This morning revealed dents on the car hood, which just adds to the expense of getting it repainted. Hopefully, we will finally get it into the shop on Friday if it can be lined up. Also taking damage was a junk locust tree by the mailbox. One of its limbs broke and partially fell in the driveway entrance.

I dragged it around as much as I could, since it is still attached and far too out of reach to saw. Not that I am up for sawing something that thick! It was all I could do to cut the four and two inch diameter branches off to keep them from being run over.

WCA Phone Spam

For the last month or two I have been getting prerecorded messages from an outfit calling themselves WCA on an unlisted MagicJack phone number I have. The outfit is fraudulent and seems to be phishing for information, so do not press any numbers or call them back. The messages are often different, with variation including: debt collection, credit card offer, class action lawsuit settlement, assistance for the elderly, contest winnings, and free gift cards. It seems like this kind of scam is getting more common or am I mistaken?

I had not paid too much attention to the calls, since I thought it was some kind of service aimed at the disabled and elderly from what little I heard before hanging up. But after some of my recent experiences, I started listening to more of the messages and discovered they varied a great deal.

I will note this phone number has never been used on an Internet form or site and I assume it is the result of an autodialer. It is possible they were harvested off of an acquaintance’s smart phone or PIM on their computer, but it is highly unlikely.

Oddly, this reminds me of roofing and asphalting scammers I saw operating in Indianapolis back in the 1980s. The world probably has had con artists scamming people since the early days of civilization. I suspect they would survive being nuked just like the cockroaches they resemble.

Survived Another Holiday

I do not know when holidays changed from things to anticipate eagerly to things that strike dread in my heart. It probably was a few years into CFS that the demands of such days became apparent to me. Yes, I stubbornly believed back then that somehow, someway I would get better.

Then there was Labor Day, a federal holiday I always thought was pointless. I’m not a fan of holidays except to mark important events or to honor military service. It also seemed unnecessary with Thanksgiving not to far away and Christmas a mere month later. To me, it was inconsequential and gave it little thought.

So of course this year I completely forgot it was coming despite many announcements about the ward picnic. Postponed plans to go to the range to make some very badly needed zeroing in for a couple of rifles meant that yesterday morning was a must do. Then at noon the picnic would have to be gotten to. Oh hey, a phone call from a friend getting the online gaming group together for steak later that afternoon made things even more complicated.

I really wondered if I would survive Labor Day.

Health 9-3-2012

Going cold turkey on H202 to prepare for a full cleanse in September has not gone well. So I am now forced into restarting the maintenance regime and postponing the full. Such is life.

I am finding online multiplayer gaming to be more physically draining than I expected. It tires me greatly if it goes more than a couple of hours. That is one of the most annoying things about CFS, it does not care if real physical activity is involved and will be set off by anything I do no matter how trivial.

New week, new challenges to overcome. The first is Labor Day…