Phendrana Drifts

I recently read both Ishmael and My Ishmael. Two books by Daniel Quinn, they have had quite an impact on several people in our society (along with another book titled the Story of B, which I have yet to read). I will eventually get deeper into it, but suffice to say it is a philospophy book based upon the concept that our way of life is going to destroy us. It makes some very interesting and compelling points, but like the main characters, my first instinct was to hate it. Or rather, disagree strongly with its message. Lots of people have embraced it. But as I head to Red Deer in a right-wing celebration of all that the books disagree with, I feel the need to keep it in my mind.

Nevertheless, I just thought I would warn readers I plan on talking about it in the next couple of posts. I need to talk about it.

So I usually don't care about web stats or the sort. I mean, I'm not hawking anything on this web site so really, if I were the only person to ever visit it, that would be cool. But over 1300 have visited me! That is neat. But what is depressing is that only four of those people have bothered to sign my guestbook. Who on earth are you people? Kidding. I would love for you all to sign the book, if for no other reason so I can learn a bit more about you, and your thoughts on my site. Especially if you are family.

When I started this blog, I honestly meant a good portion of the content to be the reviews of games I got (and/or rented). Nevertheless, I thought I would share with all of you that I am well behind on my reviews. So you know, I have four reviews to do:

Dead or Alive 3 - xBox
Pokemon Ruby - Game Boy Advance
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - GameCube
Game Boy Advance SP

They will come soon - post-Tory conference I imagine. But all four are great! Especially the three Nintendo products - this has been the best Nintendo month I could have possibly imagined. As much fun as Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion were, I think this effort in March (1st Quarter is usually a dearth of decent releases - look at the other systems and developers for proof) is simply amazing. I hope Zelda gives the GameCube a much needed boost and that Game Boy sales soar, so as to invite one decent third- or second-party developer (other than Konami's Castlevania series) to do a decent work on the Game Boy.

I'm not sure how much to read into this, but I think it might be safe to say that Halo 2 might not make a fourth quarter release in 2003. That means summer of 2004. A year and a half. But you can still pre-order at Electronics Boutique.

"On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada we would like to thank the academy. I've invited my fellow documentary makers on stage with us and we would like to ... they are here, they are here in solidarity with me because we like non-fiction, we like non-fiction and we live in fictitious times.

"We live in a time where we have fictitious election results, that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it is the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts. We are against this war, Mr. Bush, shame on you, Mr Bush, shame on you and any time you got to..." (drowned out by music)

- Michael Moore

Now, the question is do I fast or do I eat more? I do want the United States to win (really, do you know anyone who actually wants them to lose?)

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:hres153:

Coach's Corner

Don Cherry: Everybody knows what I'm talking about. I'm not just getting mad, I'm just...

Ron McLean: It just hurts you to see them go it alone.

Don Cherry: I hate to see them go it alone.

Ron McLean: But what if it's the wrong thing to go?

Don Cherry: Who says it's the wrong thing to go?

Ron McLean: I think it is.

Don Cherry: Well, you think it is...

Ron McLean: Yes, not that that matters.

Don Cherry: The people that think it is - like you - are walking on the streets with signs. Wait a minute. And the people who think that isn't right are over there laying their jobs and their lives on the line.

Ron McLean: That's ridiculous. I would go and fight for...

Don Cherry: What are you saying?

Ron McLean: The basic question is why attack Iraq when Iraq hasn't attacked you or your allies?

You have a dominant kiss- you take charge and make sure your partner can feel it! Done artfully, it can be very satisfactory if he/she is into you playing the dominant role MEORW! What kind of kiss are you?

Electronic crack continues. We are now 22.5 hours into it. Girlfriend still loves me. I have defeated the Team Magma leader, am about to mount a challenge for the fourth badge. Zoe (the Grovyle) remains at level 32, but I have developed a level 30 Machoke, a level 28 Gyarados, and developing several more in the wings. IGN says the adventure should only take me 30 hours, but I have the feeling I am dawdling as I stop and smell the roses and try and catch 'em all.

Now up to 19 hours. Zelda tomorrow, should fix that. Or at least slow it. I should note that an average game takes me only 16 hours to finish. I doubt I'm even half done Pokemon. That is a good thing.

Damn electronic crack. Darn it for being so addictive and yet so kiddie. Since Thursday evening, I have spent 15 hours of my life playing Pokemon. Out of 60. 25%. I worked for 15 hours in that time. I slept for about 21. That has left only 9 hours for other things (you know, eating, watching movies, reading, paying attention to my girlfriend, playing Dead or Alive, listening to music, walking, etc.). I have to get a life. However, in those 15 hours, I have developed a level 30 Grovyle, and six other pokemon who are level 20 or better. I've only been tripped up once (a trainer with a fire pokemon I couldn't best until I went out and raised a Gyarados from scratch). It should be illegal to market something so addictive that I can't share with other people even remotely my own age. I will go to work on Tuesday and people will ask "What did you do all weekend?" What will I say? What can I say? I will say I got my copy of Zelda. "Isn't that a kid's game?" Sigh.

Have you ever seen that Simpsons where Homer gets hair? Out of a bottle? He puts Monoxonil (the miracle hair growing drug) on (after throwing away with scorn previous miracle hair growth formulas), and the next morning he wakes up with tonnes and tonnes of hair? That is me today. Well, actually Allie would point out that has been me for over a week, but I have only come to realize it now. There is too much hair. There needs to be less of it. And there is only one way to do that. Well, actually there are two, but I tried to cut my own hair once and it wasn't pretty. So off I go to get it cut by a "professional."

You are the first to know - I got my Game Boy Advance SP! It is so neat, so tiny, and now I can play in the dark. Superb. And so much prettier than I expected. A much better day than I was expecting. My boss took me to lunch, I got my Game Boy Advance SP and I got lots of work done. Plus I'm going out with Allie tonight! What a glorious day.

Still, it was nothing compared to yesterday. Allie made me feel like a king. My world really does seem better than it was a couple of weeks ago, except for the war.

I still seem a little lost. The war really puts everyone in both an odd and different mood. "Shock and awe." Pokemon Ruby is fun by the way. More to come soon.

Boo. War. It would be better if it had not come to this.

Found a neat review site! As you can imagine, I read a lot of reviewing sites for everything - games, music, films - and this is one of the neatest. Rather than review the material directly, it compiles the reviews and delivers it back to you. Metacritic obviously has drawbacks, but I will certainly be visiting more often now, and finding out if everyone likes the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or is it just a few people.

Interesting blog from a war correspondant in Iraq (what does he think a war will start there anytime in the next 48 hours? does he know something we don't?). Just thought I would share.

I suck. I promise, then I fall asleep. It's like I'm a bad boyfriend to you blog. Regardless, here I am. I tried to do a bunch of chores yesterday, but utterly failed. Allie would point out that it was in fact the people around me who failed, but I don't like to pass responsibility. Like my failure to blog.

So, to recap life for the past (almost) week - I got my income tax return and paid a bunch of bills. I also paid for my Game Boy Advance SP. What else happened? Allie bought me a bunch of DVD movies (yay as well!) - Terminator and Terminator 2, Shrek and 2001. Well, I bought her 2001. All is good though. Listen, it is a pseudo-big day at work, and if all goes well, I will post this afternoon; if it goes badly, I will post this evening; and if it goes really poorly, well I guess I will have all the time in the world to post. One of my boss' personal assistants is coming to visit to talk about how my office handles e-mail and mail. Not good. There were a couple of foul-ups very recently (although only one of six is actually my fault) and I figure as the lowest person on the totem pole, it is going to be me who will take the blame. That could mean nothing more than a information session where proper policy is explained and developed (which is the ideal situation) or I could be yelled at. Gosh, I hope that it is the first option.

This is the beginning of a real post. I promise. I will come back post-movie and edit this and actually write about something. I don't know what yet. But something.

You know, I should really write something in my blog today.

Still, on the other side of the issue, I am struck by the comments a former professor of mine said: "Do you want Iraq to possess weapons of mass destruction? And if not, what is your brilliant idea?" And I don't have an answer. I'm not sure if Iraq still possess evil weapons, but if he does I can't imagine a worse person to have access to them. So what is my brilliant idea? A multi-national (but non-US) peacekeeping and verification force? An Iraqi government of national reconciliation as proposed by Iran (a novel idea that I'm shocked no one has latched on to)? UN monitored elections? All are novel, and much better than the proposed conquering of Iraq the US is proposing. For me I would say that it is time to do something. There is no doubt about it. Like it or not, there are nations in the world (cough, US, cough) who will not stand for nothing to be done. And frankly, let us be honest, no one thinks Saddam is a nice guy. A guy who deserves to run anything, let alone billions of dollars and an army that Iraq possesses. Bah. I hate problems with no solutions.

The first four years of my undergraduate degree were spent studying the Second World War - almost exclusively how it started and how it ended. This is important (well, at least to me) because it seems many of the same questions about the current crisis in Iraq are similar to the questions that was posed back then. People are using similar, if not the same language that was used back then, words like appeasement, aggression and the values of the international community. George W. Bush (not that I would ordinarily use his opinion as justification of my own) would say that this is a test of the United Nations, the sucessor to the League of Nations who died on the eve of the Second World War. It failed to protect its members (time and time again) and it failed to protect the world as a whole from war.

So, here we are again. The world is on the brink of war. I'll certainly grant you that the war in 1939 grew up to be a much larger war than the one brewing in Iraq. But in the end the issues are the same: is the "developed world" willing to go to war to end tyranny in a country? And if so, as my prime minister so eloquently put it, "If you start changing regimes, where do you stop, this is the problem. Who is next? Give me the list, the priorities." I'm sure most people would say it was just to go to war against the evil tyrant Adolf Hitler, but why not Joseph Stalin? The names may have been replaced with Saddam Hussein and Jiang Zemin, but the issue is the same. There are so many other sticky issues, like their were in 1937, but in the end I still feel something is different - I don't know why we are going to war. I mean really. I know the issues as they are usually defined, but there is no Poland (or Finland, as the case could have been made against the Soviets).

Don't you just hate it when someone makes direct fun of you? I mean, they label you perfectly, then show some of your questionable qualities in the worst possible light, and then publish them for all to see? Then they use sarcasm, driving the point even further? This is my story, as told by the Onion.

I have grown to dislike cold weather. That may sound odd, given that I live in Calgary, but it is true. Today it was -25�C (which for those who are used to reading things in fahrenheit, that is about -13�). Even colder with the wind chill. How I long for warmer weatehr, I mean it is March. I should be able to ride my bike right now. But no, I am stuck trudging through the frickin' snow - again. It is supposed to warm up later on this week (if you call 8�C warm). Wow, how do I wish I was in Nassau today... perhaps it is all that beach volleyball playing that is doing it.

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball

As income tax season is upon us, watch for a few new reviews to go up - notably The Sims for the Playstation 2, Hearts of Iron for the PC, the Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker for the GameCube and Pokemon for the Game Boy Advance. However, for the moment, let us begin with the first in the March orgy of game playing. There has been a lot of controversy about DOA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball. For the uninitiated, Dead or Alive is a fighting series, like Tekken or Virtua Fighter, with a few differences. First, the graphics, character models have all been top notch and heavily developed. By this I mean the female characters are, for lack of a better term, hot. The fighting system has also been much more arcade-like than the incredibly demanding Virtua Fighter. How does this all translate to a volleyball you might be asking. Very well, thank you. The... female characters are well-suited to the beach environment but the game (in my opinion) is surprisingly deep beyond the concept. It is like a vacation. There is no other words to describe it. Beauty, stress-free play, little challenge and lots of item collection (plus a very nice gambling mode) make for the game I have felt the least stress playing. This is not as great a thing as you might imagine, as I could also walk away from it right now, and never play it again. But of course, she is too pretty to walk away from like that, and the simple fact that almost anyone can master the controls and concepts within 20 minutes makes it a great multiplayer and introduction game. Also, I think it will appeal to certain people who would otherwise never play a video game (take Allie's 7 year old daughter who is obsessed with finding the prettiest bikini, sunglasses and sandal combo). Well done Tecmo (and of course Team Ninja), you have pulled off an amazing and unique game. Oh, completely ignore the M rating. No violence, no overt sexuality but lots of bouncing boobies in bathing suits. Nothing you won't see at a beach or pool.

9/10

So I was going to write something meaningful today, but again, here I am, about to go watch a movie and no new post. I went to my grandma's tonight for perogies (yum!) and rented Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball. I'll write a quick review tomorrow, but to end all curiousity, I'll tell you I like it enough to re-include and rank on my wishlist. I am now a big fan of the game. Volleyball, item collection, superb graphics and, umm... assets. Much fun. Like being on vacation.

I don't want to go to war. I don't think most people do. I don't even think Americans do. Yet, here we go again. Historians years from now will think one of two thoughts - either similar stuff to Panama (we went we came home, oh, and we won) or, well...

I had another great day - went to Sultan's Tent to celebrate Allie's birthday, watched a movie, and had a lot of nookie. All good things. Perhaps too much information for some of you, but it was a good time. Well, except for the war watching. I'm off to bed, and I know I've been neglecting you poor blog. Serious blogging tomorrow and Monday awaits. Just if I can get the Soviet war machine off its arse in Hearts of Iron.

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear Allie,
Happy birthday to you!

So I don't feel good. I didn't feel good yesterday, and I feel even worse today. But there is good news - tomorrow is Allie's birthday! There is much dancing around and happiness as a result. Yay! Yay! Today is taken up with trying to feel better and preparations for the big day! There is much to do...

My university made it to the big time - finally, the University of Calgary made it into the Onion. Oh, what a glorious day.

I'm installing a new hard drive at work (which is obviously mostly working, as you are reading this right now). Other than that, there is not much going on. Another terrorist attack if you haven't heard yet. I'll write something more substantial later, but of course the computer is busy so writing in a blog is second priority. To tide you over, check out the editorial on Helen Thomas' recent comment that George W. Bush is the worst president in America's history. Of course I think that is going a little far (he's only had two years), but the sentiments in the editorial are bang on.

I love looking through my links! I just made an expanded links section for my blog, and of course through the course of that I got to visit a whole bunch of sites I think are cool. Naturally, I will try to add a couple of links a week (although you will likely see them here first). But for now, take a gander at my links, and leave comments - either with advice on the existing links or suggestions for new ones.

Oh, and if no one looked, Battlefield 1942 won Game of the Year this weekend at the AIAS (video game version of the Oscars). What a crock - I mean Metroid Prime? Splinter Cell (winner of console game of the year)? Warcraft III? Not that Battlefield 1942 isn't a fun frag fest, but Quake in World War II had been done before. Bah. A good year for video games all the same. Metroid Prime took first person action game of the year and Metroid Fusion won handheld game of the year. I think Metroid was still robbed in both the game of the year and the console game of the year categories, but I suppose Nintendo can't win the top awards every single year.

Last but not least, the comments section is down (way to go recommending people post comments only to tell them they can't) but they should be back up in a bit. Enetation is aware of the problem and is working on it.

You know what? I should write something today. It is a Monday (read last Monday's post for what this means to me)! Huzzah!

I haven't done much today, dishes and the like, and a bit more Zelda. Three more weeks for the next one. Exciting! What else is there to say. I requested some information on the MLIS program at U of A, and they sent me an application and a very dull brochure. Still, I do like mail that isn't bills. I doubt it is the program for me, but then again, who knows. I do like the education more than law, but education and careers are two different things. Know any interesting librarians? I thought not.

So I have had a great weekend, so good that I forgot to post yesterday! What happened? Well, allow me to share with you. First, I had a burger on Friday afternoon. I also had a lousy day at work, but that is history. I went shopping Friday evening, and then went to the late show of Chicago at the Globe Theatre (with Allie). Yesterday, I went and got some pants, drank some coffee, bought the second season of the Simpsons, and went to Murray's Cantina, my boss' party. And while there, I ate some Mexican, drank some tequila and won a $500 gift certificate to any Fairmont hotel. Where should I go...

Today, I went for coffee with an old friend from Edmonton and watched both Daredevil (with my brother Will and my Dad and of course Allie) and The Life of Brian. Can it get better tomorrow? No. But an awesome weekend always puts the next week in a better light. Oh, and the wonderous (also known as Allie) also bought me a book!

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