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).