Video Games

I have been playing Mirror’s Edge on the iPhone recently, among other things.  Mirror’s Edge is a game about running around and dodging things “with style”.  You run over roofs, down zip lines, and across various objects.  Your only attacks are slides and kicks that disable but don’t kill.  The entire thing is based off something called parkour.  As a friend of mine said, “Leave it to the French to make a game of running away”.  

There are quite a few parkour games on the iPhone, most of them being continuous runners like Mirror’s Edge.  I find it strange that most of the parkour games are based on dystopian societies, but none of them involve ever fighting back.  The goal of the games is simply to get “away”, yet as the Nazis proved in World War 2, there isn’t much of an “away” to get to.  

Moving on…  I’ve also been getting back into Portal, Half-Life 2, and Counter-Strike.  I’ve mostly been playing Half-Life 2, as I find that game to be one of the best made and I haven’t bought many games in a long time.   I was intending to get info Fallout 3 world building, but Fallout 3 doesn’t work well on Windows 7.  And I’m not going to spend 6 hours digging through forum posts to try and get the damn thing working.  That’s just not going to happen.  So I pulled out my old Valve disks and went to town on Half-Life 2 and Portal. 

My son likes to watch me play video games, and plays Angry Birds here and there when I let him.  He’s three, so I’m not expecting a whole lot.  He’s beaten two or three levels, though I’m not sure it’s intentional or just playing around.  He doesn’t like Portal.  I think GlaDos scares him.  He’s had a noise aversion for a long time, and certain sounds just freak him out.  That’s okay.  GlaDos would freak me out if I was three, too. 

I enjoy the possibility of what Half-Life 2 offers, especially in the map building format.  I think there is a method there to create the worlds flowing through peoples’ brains and do it on the cheap, so you can explain to you significant other what you mean.  If you can get your significant other to quit playing Candy Crush.

Looks to be a busy week next week.  Should be interesting.  Or at least I think interesting.  Could be horrible.  I don’t know.  We shall see.

News flash: It's you

For some reason, I keep thinking about the Bowling for Soup song “I’m Gay”.   The song goes a bit like this.  (Emphasis added)

Well we’ve all heard about

How the guys in the band

Weren’t the most popular kids in school

And now you hate your parents

‘cause the way you turned out

But in the end the blame’s on you

And we all sympathize with your torn-apart heart

And you really artistic worldly views

It sells records when you’re sad these days

It’s super cool to be mad these days

And that covers the vast gist of why I keep thinking about the song.  I deal with far too many people who are perfectly willing to gripe about their world and how their life sucks and how some person slighted them.  But in the end, a person turns out the way they did because of what they did.  It wasn’t someone else who made you an idiot or lazy.  It was you.  You are the problem in your life, so quit blaming others for all the havoc going on in your life.  Quit hanging out with idiots, and you will quit having a crappy life. 

If your friends are losers and you don’t want to be a loser anymore, dump your friends.  Don’t hang out with drug addicts and expect to stay sober.  Don’t hang out with fat people and expect to stay skinny.  Don’t hang out with poor people and expect to have money.

I wish I could say it was more complicated than that, but it’s really not.  Not a damn bit more complicated.

And that is the worst part about my job.  I don’t have anyone to reach for or aim at.  I’ve got to drive myself, because there is no one currently employed with us that is better than I am at what I do.  I’m at the point of “no competition”.  And I need competition.  I never thought I was a competitive person, but I guess I’m wrong.   Eh well.  I guess I’m just not competitive in things that I don’t care about.  Which is logical. 

Uninstall/Reinstall

I’ve grown to hate certain applications.   Java is one of them.  Sure, it’s supposed to be a super portable framework that works “everywhere” and “just works”, but it doesn’t.  So I have to keep two installers of Java on my computer at all times.   One to install Java 6, rev 18.  And one for Java 7.  Verifone SMS doesn’t play nicely with Java 7, and 6 rev 18 is their recommended version.   But the install I have didn’t include the JRE, and that’s necessary to run the web-based remote access software.

Hooray for me. 

So, I have to use one version for certain things, and another for different things.  And I only use one laptop.   Isn’t it all just grand?

I watched The Avengers  last night.  It was awesome.  It got me to thinking this morning…  It’s probably the line of thinking that gets me in trouble, but anyways…. 

The thinking is thus…   “If I were a billionaire, what would I do with my life?”  And then the brain starts racing, going through the various possibilities of what my life would be like and what I’d spend my time doing. 

The next train of thought is “Okay, I don’t have that kind of money.   So what would I do that essentially doesn’t cost anything?”  And then I started thinking about that thought.   And it made me realize…  if that’s what I’d do if money weren’t an issue, then why aren’t I doing it now?   Secondly, what progress could I make towards that stated goal?

Gardening

So I’ve started gardening.  I know it is late in the year, but I consider this year to be a practice run for next year.  I know I’m going to screw up this year, but I want to figure out how it all works together.   Right now, my garden is an unremarkable patch about a foot from where the fence will be.  I say will be because I haven’t put the fence in yet. 

The fence is going to be black chain link.  Strangely enough, black chain link isn’t any more expensive than silver chain link.  Around here, only Lowes carries the black chain link materials.  If I was truly dedicated, I’d pour a curb all the way around the property.  But I’m not going to go that far.  I’m just going to put the chain link down against the ground and concrete the posts in so they don’t fall over.  Can’t have my posts falling over. 

Anyways, next year the garden will get completely torn out and destroyed.  It doesn’t matter what succeeds this year.  I’m just going to scrap and rebuild next year.  I know that’s a strange thing to do, but I don’t even know what I planted.  In the background, Tom Waits is playing “The Piano has Been Drinking” as I realize I planted flowers next to vegetables.  And even if they produce anything, as it is almost July before I even put the plants in the ground.  I think there are tomatoes and cucumbers.  And possibly some other stuff.  I don’t remember. 

Because I know nothing about gardening, I bought a book.  Hastings had a one day sale, and all of their used books were $2.99.   I picked up a few.  The gardening book I picked up was The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch.  I have to say I know nothing about gardening, so picking a book that started from the beginning seemed like a good idea.  I think the plan is to just throw a bunch of stuff in the ground, and see what happens.  My yard is grassless and pretty horrendous, but I can grow a plant or two. 

And next year, when the season starts, it will be time to cut my horrendous grocery bill by growing my own tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and whatever else I can grow.  Makes me think I need a good juicer. 

Annoyance

Something annoyed me a few days ago.  I was talking to a friend and he was saying how bad the economy was, and giving the doom and gloom speech about how the little man can’t get ahead.  He makes $21,000 more than I do, yet seems to be living paycheck to paycheck.  He’s convinced that “more money” is the solution to his problem.  So he’s gone out and got a side job.  And a side sales business.  I wish him well, but unless he changes his attitude, then he’s going to fail.  

Blaming “the economy” is just another gigantic copout that people do when they don’t want to accept responsibility for the mistakes they’ve made in their life.  Yes, finding work can be hard.  But if you are a bad ass, then you will find work.  It may not be in your field, but you can find work.  All you need is a “getting by” job to keep your head afloat while you find your wonderful job. 

But then many people need more than a getting by job because they’ve spent every single penny they made, trying to keep up with the Joneses and listening to the age old lie that you have to spend money to make money and you should “fake it until you make it”.  Which is completely hilarious.  Because “The Millionaire Next Door” says exactly the opposite, and that’s based off research of ACTUAL millionaires.  These are people who are worth a million dollars, and they know how to make money and hold on to it.  As a general rule, the rest are gigantic underachievers of wealth.  Of which I am too, but I’m making progress and I have a plan to change that.

More than likely, my friend has never put pen to paper and figure out what in the world is going on.  With what they make and what they pay in rent, that family should be banking.  But they aren’t.  And I can tell that just from the way they talk.  Because they are up to their eyeballs and debt and they talk like the “the economy” is bad.  They haven’t taken responsibility for their actions and accepted that the problem is right between their ears. 

I should probably spend some time working on them, but it’s going to be a hard sell.   I mean, how can a guy making a lot less than you tell you how you need to run your finances?  Even though my advice comes from works written by millionaires and by plans created by wealthy people.  We’ll see.   We’ll see.