Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love The Life-Ending Asteroid.

I suppose I should start with a comment on something that actually pertains to the end of the world, since that is what I do after all. Fox News has begun their Chicken Little act again. Apparently the world is going to end in 2036. Asteroid impacts are my least favorite of the Apocalypse theories – even outweighing nuclear decimation of the planet. Why? I don’t know. Certainly it is more survivable than a global nuclear conflict because you probably won’t have all that radiation cooking away our flesh like a rotisserie. On the other hand a strike in the oceans could lead to global flooding. Call me crazy, but seeing as the earth is mostly water… well, I think the chances are good that’s where it might hit. I may not like the the south, but I certainly don’t want to see it as beach front property. Yes, I realize the article says it’s a 1 in 250,000 odd chance.

Well, except Tennessee. The sea can’t swallow that wretched state up fast enough.

My Minecraft server went up like a charm. It was probably the easiest thing I’ve had to do for a long time. I had only to change a few router settings and bam it was done. Me and my buddy began playing in it almost immediately. I’ve been building pretty steadily. So far I have a large castle keep with a fully functional dock, a rail system, an underwater observation area, a lighthouse and a newly planted peace garden. I’m not entirely sure what to build next, but once I get there I know it’ll be awesome. I’ll probably build some kind of island or underwater base – that was the coolest of the ideas I saw online. I promised myself that I wouldn’t do it, but I have used the console to give me a few resources I know would be nigh impossible to find without hours and hours of digging. Sue me, I’m using Minecraft to assuage my architectural side. I used The Sims for damn near the same reason. I like to design and build, despite the limitations of the game.

Mass Effect is definitely getting better. I stopped playing for a while because I got entirely too busy at work. I just passed the part where you had to kill the giant plant creature, which hung me up for a bit due to lack of First Aid supplies. I felt like kind of an idiot when two rooms up there was a Medical Cabinet that could replenish my gel. Oops. I saw ME2 and didn’t realize how much better it looked graphically. I’m also told they improved the story arch and it’s not as linear as the first game. Seeing as I’m OCD, I won’t be able to play it until I finish the first one.

I really haven’t marketed this website at all to get any readers. Truth be told I wanted to be able to have a regular post on something relevant before I started saying “HAY! YOU! READ MY BLOG!”. I don’t really care much for self-indulgent blogs, so I’m going to be trying really hard to make this a place where we can talk about things we all have a mutual interest in: humanity’s survival in the face of overwhelming odds. I know for a fact that there is a large population of people who enjoy it, just look at Amazon.com. As far as discussion goes, comments are turned off right now because of the never-ending spam I got. Apparently the spamvertisers haven’t realized that anyone who’s spent any time on the internet knows their filthy little tricks. However, some good news is that Forums are still up, so head on over there and sign up! I’m also looking at a redesign for the website. I need to improve the graphics header and whatnot. I like the overall look, it just needs some polishing.

I really need to get better at going off on tangents; I had an entire post here about ten minutes ago that railed against racism in our country. This isn’t that kind of blog.

Posted in Post | Comments Off

So I have a confession to make: I’m a bad gamer.

For someone who defines himself as a ‘gamer’ this can be a problem. My main issue seems to be the fact that I’m what you might call ‘gun shy.’ I don’t want to spend (now) $60 on a game that I might not enjoy that much. So what do I do? I avoid it. Despite the reviews and recommendations by people that I know and trust, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Perfect Example: I fell in love with Fallout 3 – enough so that I created a D20 Modern campaign based on it and have played it several times over. That being said, Fallout: New Vegas has been out for a few months now and I have yet to purchase it – despite the fact that I’ve had the money several times to buy it.

I operate on what I’ve discovered is Computer Savings Time. I just purchased from Steam a few games that are less than new: Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, Half-Life 2 (which I have already played and beat for the Xbox 360). They are, as I said, less than new but they were cheap and I haven’t played them yet. So far, so good. Mass Effect reminds me a lot of KOTOR – which is expected considering it’s made by the same people. The only complaint I have so far is that the game is entirely too linear. I have been spoiled by MMO’s to be sure, but it doesn’t have the same open feel of KOTOR. I’ve been told that Mass Effect 2 is a little better.

My other recurring obsession is Minecraft. I’ve got it in my head that I want to do some kind of epically large design, but I need to set up a multi-player server. I will likely set it up on my home PC and run it so me and my buddy can work on it together. The unfortunate side effect of my job is that I have a large amount of downtime and I’d like to do something to keep busy – even if it is only virtually productive.

Posted in Post | Comments Off