still diggin

Relevant music for those joining us in strip mining.

Cowboy Bebop OST - Diggin

Strip mining is fun!

Still don't see what all those tree huggers are whining about.

So, it finally happened after years of shrugging it off, I was finally dragged into the world of Minecraft.

Jay already had a server up and running for weeks and he and his siblings had a nice over-water city already taking shape.  As soon as I got in, my first order of business was to pilfer as many weapons and equipment as I could carry, and then I immediately set to work building a vast road network that interconnects all the houses/islands together, with appropriate lighting to prevent zombies from spawning.

Once I met up with the Roomie, Jay, his sister, and my bro, we set to work on creating a massive strip mine, to look for the most precious items in the game: diamonds and obsidian.  In the end, we created no less than four massive strip mines, and later found that all of them were interconnected via underground caverns, rivers and lava flows.  All in all, a pretty good weekend.

All I could think of while mining in game.  Click the pic!

I rather amazed at myself with how fast I have become consumed with this game, but then I remember how much into legos I am/was and then it makes sense: of course I'd be into it, it's like legos on crack. 

The holy trinity

I enjoy reading the blog of Vox Day fairly often, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of very interesting posts focused on the Holy Trinity, or the skepticism thereof.  I found it quite fascinating, especially as a Mormon, considering that we've never adopted the traditional interpretation of the holy trinity at all.

In our faith, we have always believed that God the father, Christ and the Holy Ghost are all one in that they are united in purpose and goal, but are all separate individuals.

The first can be found here:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2013/09/mailvox-creedal-correction.html
And the second here:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2013/10/mailvox-25-reasons-for-trinitarian.html

Pullman Mansion

I remember back when I lived in California, I lived not too far from the Stanford Dish, and on the weekends, I would be constantly driving up and down I280 with either my mom or dad.  Both my parents have a healthy fascination with haunted houses (which it seems is a hereditary trait inherited by me), and a recent local legend is one we passed every week, and could just barely see from the freeway: the Carolands Mansion.

The house underwent a 20 million dollar renovation some years back, thus accounting for the pristine pictures here, but during the time I lived there, the mansion grounds were in a massive state of disrepair.  The grounds were completely overrun with weeds, the fence overgrown with vines to the point that you'd never be able to see in, and vines even coated the exterior of the mansion itself like green veins of chlorophyll.  I'll always remember how amazing the house looked even then, but I never really took the time to understand the history of the house, which is quite fascinating.

What really surprised me though, was the story of the murder there.  Which I didn't realize until now, that it happened not too long before we lived there.  Back in 1985 a security guard at the mansion let in two high school girls, locked them in a safe, abused then murdered one and attempted to kill the other. It is a truly horrific tale, which I was tempted to not even link to, as the account is not for the squeamish.

Terrible that such a horrible thing happened there, but at the same time, I still have nothing but fond nostalgic feelings for the place.  It appears, at least, I'm not the only one who feels that way.

and I work in IT

It's funny how disconnected I am with society at large.  I really don't enjoy being connected with people at the push of a button sometimes.  Not that I don't enjoy keeping in touch with people, I just hate the constant interruptions.  There comes a point with all this modern technology, where you start to feel like social interaction trumps everything else in life, including the quiet moments of solitude where you're trying to get some serious reading done.  This especially goes for my cell phone.

I would really like to ditch that thing sometimes and just grab myself an old candlestick-style rotary phone and an answering machine. There's just something comforting about the old clack of a rotary dial; that and it would just be effing cool.

Unfortunately, the only thing they got these days are a bunch of stupid candlestick-style phones that simply look like the old rotaries with out the actual rotor dial.  This is nonsense.  It's the 21st century and your telling me no one has figured out how to make a rotor dial interface work on modern phone lines?  Blasphemy, I say!  Maybe I just haven't been exercising my google-fu enough. 

Things that bug you

I hate it when I have a great idea for a post in the morning but the it gets lost in the havoc and general confusion of a busy day.  So, in light of that, go find something you like on the internet, and enjoy.

Ah, home

I can't think of certain bit of southern Utah, without thinking of this song now.

Southern Culture on the Skids - White Trash

Terror in the void

An interesting thought occurred to me recently.  It seems that all the most creative people I know (and know of) seem to have fairly consistent nightmares.  It seems silly at first, but I think that two can be somewhat related.  As I look back on some of my most creative spurts, it was often inspired by some very intense nightmares, and the same appears to be true of these people I know.  Perhaps it's something within the human psyche that prompts us to conquer or confront what we fear, or simply that our subconscious brings out some creative aspects of our mind while in the REM state.  But hey, I'm no doctor.  I'm just some guy on the internet who is suddenly nostalgic for night terrors, so I can be more creative.  Weird.

basic math skills

Looks like one of my favorite authors has hit it out of the park again:
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/the-scientific-tea-party/

I've always known this, but go give it a read anyways. Hilarious that the researcher in question actually expects people of a certain political leaning to be traditionally stupid, just as the mainstream media tells him.  It's sad how many people I know are of the same opinion.  I knew a guy that is still adamant that all tea party members are simply racist, anarchist wing nuts, that are bent on killing all immigrants.

I tried explaining to him that the sole reason for the tea party existing was because the people are overtaxed, and the federal government is far bigger than needs be.  The Tea Party is simply a bunch of hard working Americans who are tired of paying taxes for services not needed or unwanted while at the same time, horribly mismanaged with no or ineffective oversight.  We hate no one, but hate the massive waste we see from the government everyday.  We hate bailouts, nationalized health care, marginalized rights, government shutdowns at exaggerated cost.  We aren't against immigration, we want to have it fixed, and to stop illegal immigration. We're tired of government being run by an elite and treading on the right of the people.

We want government to be more responsible and accountable for it's spending and actions, because the current state is unsustainable.  Essentially, we are doing this for the same reasons our forefathers dumped all that tea into the harbor, and it aint because we're coffee enthusiasts.  We're looking to ensure that the Fed is still by the people and for the people, not just to bypass our rights, steal our money, criminalize, and spy on the people. 

working like...some kind of farm animal

What can I say?  Been staying late at work more often, as it's getting to that busy time of year for us and there's a million things to do.

In more fun news, after finally fixing some problems with Steam, I've been really enjoying the latest updates to Insurgency, and have been spending the rest of my time either cruising around Planetside 2 with my brother, or lamenting the fact that I still play the crappiest game in the world on occasion.  I'll give you a hint: the mane of the worst game in the world rhymes with Bar Wreck on Wine.

The logo is almost similar to this....

It's slowly turning into something akin to a bad addiction, as I fully know that the game sucks, I don't really enjoy it, but because I have what equates to free money in the game, I feel like I'm forced to get back what little money I have put into it, by milking it for what it's worth. Ugh.  I hate you cryptic, you slimy, underhanded, uninformed, untalented, unimaginative, bastards.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again, I hope with all my heart that STO goes belly-up, not only so they can no longer justify making a crappy product, but so modders can actually turn it into an enjoyable game (if that's even possible).

Since I mentioned it earlier.

Here's the song du jour:

The Kinks - Louie Louie

Missing my cue

I really enjoy reading Dr. Helen, and a recent post she made got me thinking, and I sent a link to it and the following thoughts in an email to my family:

The General Authorities have said that before years ago: that any two people who are of a positive mindset, willing to improve, and are spiritually motivated can make an eternal marriage work, and work well.

I was also told that you can ask the Lord about whether it's right to marry someone, and unless it's extremely bad choice, the spirit will, more often than not, say "yeah" because there really is no such thing as "the one", The spirit is there to guide us in making the right choices, but there are plenty of choices that have eternal ramifications which blatantly don't have a right or wrong outcome. These choices serve to help us develop our knowledge, understanding, and wisdom by exercising our agency and to use the intelligence given to us.

The Lord would not let us waste our lives risking on a gamble of us only having one person to be most compatible with, and then having the monumental task of being able to find "the right one"; rather we are to work on becoming the perfect mate ourselves and working out on our own who we can best share our time with and serve for eternity, so that we may grow and learn from our choices.

I wish more people (in particular, young men and women of my generation) would put aside this false notion of their being a "perfect match" or waste all their time trying to find someone who suits them best, and realizing that any relationship is like anything else in life: hard work that can pay off with enough effort, time, empathy, and (most importantly) love.

More hilarity at work

So, while I was away at lunch today, I missed a voice mail that my coworker forwarded me a transcript of so I could have a record of it.  Little did I know, that Google voice decided that I should really take an interest in this person:

Yup, this company is bringing sexy back.  Eat your heart out Justin Timberlake, you hack.

1911. The preferred choice

So I saw via Say Uncle, a really interesting article done by shooting illustrated on The right gun for women, by women.  I like how it's done in the same way that Top Gear would have done a car test years ago.  Semi-scientific, with real-world people instead of gold cup pro shooters.

What's really interesting to me, is that it finally puts to rest the whole male-idiot induced notion of, "Get her a snub-nose .38!" type of thinking, which many (including myself) have been criticizing for years.  It wasn't even listed as a preferred gun for any application by any of the participants.

Not only that, but I also noticed that a majority of the test participants also favored the 1911 as a home defense pistol, which is something that I've been saying for a while.  In my experience, I've noticed that a lot of women would be well suited to liking the 1911, and that it would be a great choice as an all round gun for women, even for new shooters.  Heck, if I remember correctly, I believe that was the first handgun I remember being taught how to fire as well, and I remember to this day how natural it felt in the hands, and how manageable the recoil actually was.

Sometimes, you just can't beat the classics.

ah Louie, Louie

In my neck of the woods, most of the world would have you think there's nothing here but a bunch of rednecks, polygamists and nothing else but your standard white-bread crackers.  However, I never cease to be amazed by just how diverse this little valley can be.

Just recently a really nice guy left my work to go back to his his home country of the Philippines.  We really miss that guy; he being one of the people I have nothing but respect for, as he always has a good attitude while dealing with a plethora of crap everyday.  Anyways, we had a big shindig to celebrate his time with us, and this guy is so cool, he ends up making a massive amount of authentic Filipino food for us to consume and also gave me a nice little memento:

It's funny, I always thought coin collecting was a thing for losers, but now I seem to be unwittingly amassing a small fortune in foreign currency. 

just plain weird

Sometimes conversations just go awry.  For example, somehow I got wrapped up in a conversation at work about how a coworker related a tale about how one of their old high school teachers is now in jail.  Upon hearing that, I suddenly realized that all of my middle/high school gym teachers (save one) are all serving sentences, or have served sentences.  What a world, eh?

A special Sunday

Here's some more music for a nice Sunday, along with some aviation porn for your enjoyment:

Finale by Madeon - for the documentary Speed and Angels

Bon voyage Charlie Brown...and don't come back!

So, the Federal government, after years of collectively acting like a child, has finally decided to run away from home, and well...nobody is missing them, and nobody want to go looking for 'em and everyone is secretly hoping they get raped to death by a mountain lion.

It's funny to me because we have a coworker who's a die hard Dem, and he has a shut-down day counter advertised on his whiteboard like it some kind of outrage that the Fed is no longer working.  I've known all along that nobody would give a flying f**k, and everywhere I look, that almost the exact description everyone gives of the event, to the point that they are a laughing stock.

What's even funnier is that I'm pretty sure that the childish reasoning the government is using to justify this whole shutdown, is they think it will make people realize how much worse off they are without their services, when in reality, everyday life is completely unaffected for anyone who doesn't work in government.  Because other than national parks, monuments and national defense, nobody wants the federal government stealing their money for anything else.

I'm hoping that come tax day, I can just refuse to pay taxes just like they refused to do their jobs that we're paying for with those taxes.  That'll be the biggest eff-you to John Q. Public, is when they don't factor in their little walk-out into our taxes and charge us even more than they did last year, all for doing nothing.

I wish more people cared how much they are getting ripped off, having their privacy invaded, and their rights trampled, so we can all go 'wolverines' on their asses.  Too many politicians just need to go the way of the dodo. 

Cause I'm a slacker

Forgot to mention that last weekend was the 'ol roomie's b-day and we had ourselves a nice shindig going on for the occasion.  We had a barbecue some slow-smoked pork, chips, all sorts of sweets and non-alcoholic beverages.  And that was just the precursor to the massively epic LAN party we engaged in.  Played a bunch of Planetside 2, Dead Island Riptide, among a few others, all while watching action and comedy movies of all types.

All in all, it was a great time spent with great friends, all inflicting simulated violence against one another.  It don't get much better than that.

Dead storm rising

Just heard the news that Tom Clancy passed away yesterday at the age of 66; cause of death still unknown.  Hard to believe the man who started a professional career as an insurance agent later changed gears to become not only a ridiculously successful author, but also had a number of his books turned into successful movies, and then started his own video game studio, and helped invent an entirely new genre of video games that are still unique to this day, and even set new industry standards for third party mod compatibility that very few have been able to match.

Back in the days of my youth, his books were some of the few fictional stories I actually had a desire to read (as I still hold a preference for non-fiction), and spawned a strong desire in me to keep far more informed about foreign policy, world events, politics, military procurement, and procedures.

We can only hope that the deadbeats in both Hollywood and the game industry will realize that we can't let him go out on a sour note, and that we eventually get an actually good Clancy movie, unlike the last one, and maybe even a good Clancy game, unlike the last ten or so.  Seriously, he started his studio making games that were supposed to be semi-realistic in tactics, like rainbow six and ghost recon, but now they've devolved or been bastardized into a run of the mill action game and some weird sci-fi nonsense, respectively.

Personally, I'm still holding out hope for a movie based on "Without Remorse" cause that may be some of the most exciting and craziest fiction I've ever read.  Also, seeing another Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon game that returns to it's realistic roots would be a welcome purchase (that aint no small hint there, Ubisoft!  You worthless dipwads).