Human Nature

Human Nature

Have you noticed that if you ask for help, the common reply from people is to figure it out for yourself. And when you do figure it out for yourself and try to help those that were once in your position, the common reply is then, 'Yeah I knew that. You could've found that out here, here and here.'

Everyone knows the answer and they'll bend over backwards to let you know they have the answer but when they're asked to share it, brick wall.

As a government grows, so does a nation's problems.

"Where all think alike, no one thinks very much."
- Walter Lippmann

Kids Say The Darndest Things

Kids Say The Darndest Things

Mostly IRC conversations, interesting ones, funny ones that crack me up.

Pulled from bash.org.


Degskalle› There is no point in arguing with an idiot, they will just drag you down to their level and beat you with experience


Zybl0re> get up
Zybl0re> get on up
Zybl0re> get up
Zybl0re. get on up
phxl|paper> and DANCE
* nmp3bot dances :D-<
* nmp3bot dances :D|-<
* nmp3bot dances :D/-<
[SA]HatfulOfHollow> i'm going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet


xterm> The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?


DragonflyBlade21>: A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.


Zanthis(ALE)> AFK, tornado


Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.


Beeth> Girls are like internet domain names, the ones I like are already taken.
honx> well, you can stil get one from a strange country :-P


[TN]FBMachine> i got kicked out of barnes and noble once for moving all the bibles into the fiction section


Locl-Yocl> I helped the EMTs at a car wreck and got blood all over my arms and shirt. It looked like I murdered 20 people with a fork... anyway, I walked into a convieniance store down the street and said my girlfriend needs a tampon. The guy at the counter was mortified.


xxxGirlygirlxxx> Thank you for listening to me.
xxxGirlygirlxxx> You know your a really good listener.
xxxGirlygirlxxx> Sweety please say something.
Sandaedar> Ok I'm back.


robT> Name ONE thing that your windows comp can do that my MAC cant
bawss> Right click.


DaZE> at my school.. the cop from DARE passed around 3 joints to show everyone... and he said "if i dont get all three of these back this schools getting locked down and everyones getting searched till i find it.." and like 30 minutes later when everyone got to see 'em and they got passed back the cop had 4


IronChef Foicite: well, there's a lot of reasons
IronChef Foicite: i mean, roses only last like a couple weeks
IronChef Foicite: and that's if you leave them in water
IronChef Foicite: and they really only exist to be pretty
IronChef Foicite: so that's like saying
IronChef Foicite: "my love for you is transitory and based solely on your appearance"
IronChef Foicite: but a potato!
IronChef Foicite: potatos last for fucking ever, man
IronChef Foicite: in fact, not only will they not rot, they actually grow shit even if you just leave them in the sack
IronChef Foicite: that part alone makes it a good symbol
IronChef Foicite: but there's more!
IronChef Foicite: there are so many ways to enjoy a potato! you can even make a battery with it!
IronChef Foicite: and that's like saying "i have many ways in which I show my love for you"
IronChef Foicite: and potatos may be ugly, but they're still awesome
IronChef Foicite: so that's like saying "it doesn't matter at all what you look like, I'll still love you"


Mike3285: wtf is a palindrome
MaroonSand: no its not dude


benja> A worldwide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question
asked was:"Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the
food shortage in the rest of the world?"
benja> The survey was a huge failure...
benja> In Africa they didn't know what "food" meant.
benja> In Eastern Europe they didn't know what "honest" meant.
benja> In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant.
benja> In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant.
benja> In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant.
benja> In South America they didn't know what "please" meant.
benja> And in the USA they didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant


(morganj): 0 is false and 1 is true, correct?
(alec_eso): 1, morganj
(morganj): bastard.


skrike> I think the people above me are having sex
skrike> either that or they're sleeping restlessly and agreeing with each other a lot.


Galactic> you know what's ALWAYS bothered me? cold cereal mascots
Galactic> I mean that is just some FUCKED UP SHIT
Galactic> the Trix rabbit, for example
Galactic> I dunno man... if I were him I'd be fucking KILLING some kids
Galactic> I remember a commercial where the fuckin rabbit WENT INTO A FUCKIN STORE AND BOUGHT A BOX OF TRIX WITH HIS OWN FUCKIN MONEY.
Galactic> fuckin kids came outta NOWHERE and basically fuckin mug the poor stupid bitch rabbit
Galactic> "silly rabbit Trix are for kids"
Galactic> Fuckin rabbit just sits there and looks depressed.
Galactic> FUCK NO that wouldn't fly with me
Galactic> I'd have pimp-slapped EVERY ONE OF those fuckin bitches
Galactic> and made them go get me the REST of a "complete breakfast" and eat Trix right in front of them bitches and THEN beat the shit out of them some more.
Galactic> and wtf is with the disguises? All the dumb rabbit does is hide his ears and all of a sudden he's a fuckin kid?
Galactic> I dunno about you, but if I SAW a 6 foot fuckin RABBIT with his ears tucked under a baseball cap, I wouldn't immediately think
Galactic> "Hey, there's a cool lookin human kid, let me go over and share some of my cereal with him"
Galactic> NO.
Galactic> I'd be thinking
Galactic> "that's a 6 foot fuckin RABBIT with his ears tucked under a baseball cap... what the FUCK was I just smoking?"
Galactic> another thing... wtf is up with cereal being "A part of this complete breakfast"
Galactic> last time -I- checked, cereal WAS breakfast
Galactic> they show a big ass bowl of frosted flakes next to a waffle, a pancake, toast, a banana, a fuckin grapefruit... who the FUCK eats a breakfast that big
Flaming_Duck> not me
Flaming Duck> I don't even EAT breakfast nomore
Flaming_Duck> I mean, I eat when I get up
Flaming_Duck> but the whole thought "BREAKFAST IS ONLY SERVED UNTIL SUCH AND SUCH TIME"
FLaming_Suck> bitch, you make my fucking sausage and egg sandwich when I pay you the fucking money
Flaming_Duck> don't give me that shit.
Galactic> Back to stupid cereal mascots...
Galactic> Lucky Charms.
Galactic> FUCKING LUCKY CHARMS
Galactic> Lucky can turn the fucking MOON into a marshmallow, and he can't escape a bunch of fucking 6 year olds?!?!?
Galactic> C'mon now, Lucky.
Galactic> I KNOW your bitch ass has got to have a "Blow the fucking kids up" spell SOMEWHERE
Galactic> or make "kid marshamllows" and EAT those bitches.
Galactic> "They're after me Lucky Charms!"
Galactic> ....
Galactic> KILL THEM, BITCH!
Galactic> I dunno why I went off on this rant here
Galactic> it's just always bothered me."


MortalKombat> stfu mat|t u cu.nt
* Acaila sets mode: +b MortalKombat!*@*
@Acaila> FINISH HIM
mat|t> rofl
MortalKombat> omg wtf man
* MortalKombat was kicked by Acaila (forward, forward, back, back, forward, punch)
@Acaila> FATALITY!

Odometer Milestone

Odometer Milestone

100,000 miles on my Jeep. This is the first car I've had since its birth. I think it had 13 miles on it when I bought it from the dealer in August 1999. Just over six years later, I turned over the 100,000th mile on it. It happened today at 10:18a on 465 south right at 38th street, west side, in a territory where everything is covered in white.

A blizzard blew through the night before that made my drive home from work four and half hours long! When I wasn't frustrated, I was bored. I even got a tired and hungry. Then I started eyeing my falling gas gauge needle that told me I shouldn't leave my car running all night in 4 wheel drive and the defroster left on high to defog the windshield. But I finally made it home.

So, 100,000 miles. I watched it flip, then a semi cut me off. I honked my horn in celebration and maybe a little at the truck driver who probably never heard me. I cheered. I laughed. I cried. I don't want my Jeep to break down on me now.

The last car I owned was an 82 CJ7. I bought it with 125,000 miles on it. I put it at 170,000ish until I sold it and got the Wrangler I have now.

The car I had before that was a Hyundai POC. It may have had about 100,000 miles on it when I bought it off some college kid for $900 cash. I probably put about 5,000 on it before I blew the engine. Replaced that engine and blew it out again within a few months. Then I sold it for scrap for $100.

The car before that was an 86 Topaz (Mercury's version of the Ford Tempo). Great car. Fast, zippy, solid. Until the clutch went out. Gave it back to my parents and then rode a bike everywhere.

Looking forward to 200,000.

This Day In Rock...Oops

This Day In Rock...Oops

In 1943, Jim Morrison is born. Lives to the ripe ol' age of 27 until heart failure claims his life in a Paris bathtub on July 3, 1971.

In 1953, Sam Kinison is born. A car crash claims his life on April 10, 1992 at age 38.

In 1980, John Lennon was shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by an apparently deranged fan. He and wife Yoko Ono were returning home from a recording session. He was 40.

In 1984, Motley Crue singer Vince Neil crashed a sports car on a California highway, killing his passenger, Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle Dingley.

In 2003, Ozzy Osbourne was seriously injured while riding a quad bike around his English estate. He apparently hit something and the bike landed on top of him.

In 2005, guitarist Dimebag Darrell, formerly of Pantera, was shot and killed during a show with his new band, DamagePlan, in Columbus, Ohio. Three others also were killed before a police officer shot and killed the gunman, Nathan Gale.

If you're a rocker, stay home today.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Going to be a good week. I've got my family coming up with my youngest brother and his family in tow. The guy just retired from the military. Spent a year in Iraq. I did fly out to Colorado Springs last year to visit him but I think this is the first time the whole family will be together in many many years. I can't even remember the last time.

So I've got a half day today, working full day tomorrow. Off Thursday and Friday although I do have to come in Friday morning for about an hour to take care of some time sensitive data my company needs.

Thursday, Mrs. Lock, Baby Lock and I are traveling 90 minutes south to spend Thanksgiving #1 with Mrs. Lock's Mom and her family. After we stuff ourselves there, we're going to drive two hours east to spend Thanksgiving #2 with Mrs. Lock's Dad and his family.

After that visit, we'll spontaneously combust although I'm not sure how spontaneous it really is when we knew we were getting two Thanksgiving dinners in one day.

But wait! There's more.

Friday we'll celebrate Thanksgiving #3 with my own family at the Lock Stronghold. Our metabolism will get quite the work out with three turkey dinners in 24 hours, we'll waste away to nothing, skin and bones when it's all over.

I'm thankful for many things this year.

#1 is Baby Lock. What a joy she has brought to my life, even when she's screaming.

#2 is seeing my family for the holidays, all of us together.

#3 is having a very cool and fun in laws that make our long drive well worth it.

Happy Holidays.

Single Player Heaven

Single Player Heaven

2005 was a big video game year for me. I think I own more video game titles this year than I ever have in previous years. And before you go blasting me that of course I have more video games this year because I'm just adding to my eternal collection whenever I buy a new one, I should tell you that I have given away and sold most of my older titles. I don't keep video games around for long unless I really really like them. When Gamecube came out, I gave my N64 to my brother, all games included.

So anyway, big video game year. I'm partial to single player games and I did several of them this year. It was probably the best year for video games too. Just some very good titles the video game industry is cranking out. Great talent.

Halo 2, my first single player game to kick of 2005. Actually I picked it up in December, but it gets included with the gambit of single player games that took up most of my 2005 free time, even the newborn arriving in February took a distant second.

Halo 2, highly anticipated, I think it was Xbox's #1 seller and still is to date I believe. Has a tremendous multiplayer side to it which I dabbled in. Single player pretty fun, nothing extraordinary over the single player game in Halo, but new vehicles and weapons to play around with. Not sure how long it took me to solve it. Maybe 15 hours? 18? It was shorter than the others. Fun, but if I had to pick a shooter to play over and over, it's a title I'll mention later. Took me several tries to beat the boss. Like a dozen? I went back and played it on normal and beat the boss on first try. HUGE gameplay difference between normal and the skill level one higher that I played on. 8/10.

Next, the controversial title that's been in the news lately and has certain people seething and if you're not in that group, then you're in the group that is seething over the people that are seething over the game. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Wow, what a great game. Huge. This series has really set the standard for fun loving sandbox games. I had a lot of fun with this game building my thug empire, running over hookers, blowing away old geezers with a sawed-off and doing my civic duty by controlling the gang population with genocide. And all of that was before I started the missions.

I played this game almost daily over a couple of months. I'm not sure the number of hours of gameplay, it seemed endless and since I was having so much fun, this is a good thing. Load screens are a bit much, about the only thing I can dock this game for and given the size of the cities, it's very understandable. Beat the boss (final mission) on the first try. 9/10.

Next, Jade Empire. This actually was my first purchase for 2005, I started playing it but San Andreas came out. Took a break from Jade Empire to play GTA for a couple of months. After I was done with GTA, I came back to Jade Empire to finish it.

I enjoyed this game although the load times were very frustrating and very long. Not so much a Jade Empire as it is a Load Empire. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Once you got into a map though, it was endless role playing fun, until you had to go to the next area.

Save file said it took me about 25 hours to get through the game. I'm going through it again as a Closed Fist (evil) follower to see how it ends for the bad guy. Also, there's a skill you get late in the game that I kept undeveloped during my first run, that I found out on the very last mission is very powerful. I'm going to be pumping it up as soon as I get it on my second run through. Very neat game. Get rid of the long load times and it'd be awesome. 8/10.

Next up, and on the seventh day, God created Resident Evil 4. I never really played the previous titles, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I had more experience with the movies than I did the games, but let me say, this easily became my favorite game this year, possible of all time. There was a small learning curve, the third person shooter if I can call it that, it made aiming a bit awkward but I got used to it after getting hacked by the first few creepy villagers. And there were a few gotcha moments in the game that made me jump out of my seat or scream like the baby that I was. Combine that with the eerie music, dank environment and best graphics for any video game ever to make me feel spooked from start to finish. No game since Doom has affected me this much. I did beat the boss on the first try after exhausting every resource, every health, every bullet I had in my inventory. It was a slobberknocker to the finish.

RE4 took me about 21 hours to complete. After finishing it, a super weapon is unlocked but not accessible right away. You have to buy it and the price tag is very hefty. After finishing this game, I immediately started over and went after the new super weapon. I finished this game for the second time in about 10 hours. Would've been quicker, but you have to save up for this super weapon and I didn't get it until after the half way point through the game. 10/10, not a darn thing wrong with this title. I love this game and I think I'm going to marry it.

After trying Doom 3 on the PC, I picked it up for Xbox. Very good looking game, scary at times, good mood. Good amount of game play. You do a few restarts because some areas are tough to get through. My favorite thing to do was take a chainsaw to one of the "dogs" and slice and dice it up.

So it looked good, simple, scary, a good shoot 'em up gore fest. What more do you want from a Doom title? I beat the boss on first try. Went back and redid the ending just so I could explore the lair since I didn't waste any time the first time through. 8/10.

Lego Star Wars. This is a couple's game. The wife and I like to get these co-op battle games to play together. In that past we've enjoyed the Baldur's Gate series and DND's Heroes. This was to further the tradition. This game took about 35 minutes to finish. Ok maybe not that quick, but it's a pretty darn short game. That's not a complaint though, we enjoy the game (still playing it to unlock other things/characters). It's cute, fun, novel. You can slash Lego Jar Jar with a light saber over and over (he keeps coming back!) if you're into that sort of thing. 7/10.

Another title I'd like to mention, that doesn't really qualify for my 2005 list here because I got into late 2004 and haven't even played it in 2005, is a game Morrowind. After feeling a bit disappointed by the short story line in Fable, I wanted more questing, more role playing, more stat adding, power leveling, more magic using, more everything. Morrowind filled this void for me. It was the super size to Fable's small fry. Morrowind and Jade Empire were purchased to satisfy my RPG hunger that Fable created.

The interesting thing about Morrowind is that I had given it a try the year before on the PC. It was around the time it came out but I did not like it. I thought, simply, that the character moved too slow. Combat was a bit weird, but the thing that turned me off of the game was that I moved way too slow. When I gave the game another try on the Xbox about a year later, I read about an item called Boots of Speed or something like that that added 200 to your speed. The average speed was probably 20? 200, I could go places with those and I did and that got me interested and I enjoyed the game leveling up my mage.

Another cool feature of the game was customizing and making your own spells. If you wanted one spell that could make you fly and turn you invisible at the same time, you could do that. You set the duration, the strength which affected the casting cost and you could name the spell yourself. Very very cool.

There's no way to beat this game. It's huge. Fable had an ending, Morrowind goes on forever, it's a bottomless pit and that's a good thing. 8/10.

Single player games I'm working on today: Half Life 2, Quake 4, Burnout Revenge, Star Wars: Battlefront.

Land of Confusion by Genesis

Land of Confusion by Genesis

Is this 20 year old song out of date?

I must’ve dreamed a thousand dreams
Been haunted by a million screams
But I can hear the marching feet
They’re moving into the street.

Now did you read the news today
They say the danger’s gone away
But I can see the fire’s still alight
There burning into the night.

There’s too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Can’t you see
This is a land of confusion.

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make it a place worth living in.

Oh Superman where are you now?
When everything’s gone wrong somehow
The men of steel, the men of power
Are losing control by the hour.

This is the time
This is the place
So we look for the future
But there’s not much love to go round
Tell me why, this is a land of confusion.

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make it a place worth living in.

I remember long ago -
Ooh when the sun was shining
Yes and the stars were bright
All through the night
And the sound of your laughter
As I held you tight
So long ago -

I won’t be coming home tonight
My generation will put it right
We’re not just making promises
That we know, we’ll never keep.

Too many men
There’s too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Can’t you see
This is a land of confusion.

Now this is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make it a place worth fighting for.

Baby Lock Turns Nine (Months)

Baby Lock Turns Nine (Months)

Today is Baby Lock's nine month birthday. She's been alive as long as she's been a bun. She's bigger than life, always excited to be awake and playing. She loves to express herself, elation when she's happy, angry when she's mad. She still has yet to fall asleep while in the middle of doing something. If she's tired, she complains until someone rocks her to sleep, otherwise, she will stay up all night.

We're fortunate that she hasn't been sick since she was born. She's as healthy as an ox and ready to take on the world. It cracks her up when you try to scare her. The more you do it, the more manic her laugh. She loves exhilaration.

Anyway, won't be long before the big Zero One.