This is a pretty funny hero generator I saw on someone else’s live journal. It randomly generates the name based on how you design you hero. It’s pretty funny. here’s mine:

Check it out here. Einstein was ahead of these guys by 103 years!

I downloaded Spore last night from thepiratebay.org due to the draconian DRM used by EA. First, a store bought copy of the game only allows you to install the game 3 times before having to call EA every time you wish to reinstall it. Fuck that, i'm not gonna pay $50 for a game I have to ask permission to play! So I got it downloaded and installed. The torrent I used went surprisingly fast! I had the 3.5GB download in about an hour. Yay Comcast and lots of seeders! Anyway, the install went pretty simple. The game came with a cracked .exe and a keygen. Used the Keygen (amazingly it wasn't infected with a virus!) and got the game installing. Apparently the SecuROM security had been removed as well as the install only too about 5 minutes as opposed to the 30 minute installs I had been hearing about on the internet. After the install though Spybot popped up and asked if it were ok if EA added a startup option called Core.exe, Normally i'd be ok with this as i'd check it out online and see what I could find out about it. This time however I was REALLY hesitant as it popped up like this: Core.exe -silent. I was immediately suspicious as to why EA wouldn't want you to know they had installed this startup option at the very end of the install process. So I checked it out online and didn't find much at all on the subject. So I thought to myself, fuck it, let it go. If it sent back any data to EA i'd just be letting them know I was one of the thousands already pirating the game. I replaced the stock .exe file with the cracked on and started up the game. Everything went fine. I experienced no problems. When you get to the title screen for the game EA asks you to login or create an EA account. I already had one so I tried logging in. This is where the game tries to tie the CD Key to the account you just logged in with. But the game obviously had a bogus cd key and wouldn't tie to the account. It said I wouldn't have access to the online options. I was fine with that. So I started up a game. You start as a single cell organism with some basic features like some cilia and a pokey thing to stab other creatures with so you can eat them and gain their DNA. DNA is the key to the gam as you can't improve/evolve your creature without it. Also there are little red things that resemble crunch berries to eat and gain DNA as well. They are part of the meteor that crashed into your planet and started life. So here is a basic breakdown of game play: Click on things to eat them until you have enough DNA to add a feature to your creature, continue to eat things to evolve your creature until you move onto the next major evolutionary milestone. Which is finally climbing out of the water onto land. I made it that far. Here the game changes and takes a serious nose dive as far as I was concerned. Now you have the option of making friends with the creatures or attacking them for the purpose of food. My creature was a carnivore so food was foremost in my thoughts when I was interacting with creatures. It didn't go over to well just trying to eat everything before I had a creature that had any evolutions in the direction of offense/defense. I was killed a number of times. That's ok though you just start back at your nest and are cast out into the world yet again looking to find a place. So I decided that since I had no flare for combat just yet i'd try to befriend some of the other species that were around. Here is where the game just became stupid. You have to basically have a little sing/dance off to impress any species you wish to befriend. So here I am clicking madly to out sing/dance a purple monkey with one eye and a spiked mace for a tail when I realize (out loud no less) "What the fuck am I doing here? This is fucking retarded!" I pictured playing until I had a space-faring species and what I would be doing when I encountered an alien race. In my head I pictured us, as a human race encountering an alien race for the first time and us going into some extravagant song and dance routine and then being vaporized by the alien death ray for being dumb. So anyway, I fell like  played far enough into the game to where I had a decent feel for the game and I didn't like it. So I quit and went to 7-11 to buy a Coke.

Death Magnetic is the title. Well, I have had the album for over a week now. Downloaded from the Internet of course (I don't pay for music.) And I am more than willing to say this is the best album they have put out since ...And Justice For All. I like it more than the Black Album. I like it more than Load and Reload. I like this one. ALOT. Not just because it's a lot faster than those previous albums, but I think it's because they got rid of Bob Rock as a producer. It's my honest belief that he was holding them back as a band. I came to that decision after hearing and really getting a feel for this new album. The producer is legendary producer Bruce Dickinson. Just kidding! No cowbell on this album... lol Anyway, the producer is Rick Rubin. He's been a producer for ALOT of metal bands in the past. In fact, he's been a producer on so many different genera's it's almost silly. The guy knows his shit. If you care to give it a listen, let me know and i'll burn you a copy if you like. I am half tempted to go buy this one myself though just to see what all comes in the packaging.

Here is a funny comic to read.

It's gonna suck life! Make them stop!! lol

I don't know why people are always down the throat of Microsoft over their monopolistic ways. In case you hadn't noticed, Google does the same thing. Maybe they are just more subtle about it, or maybe people just aren't willing to look past the "goodie goodie" image of Google. For example, this is in the EULA of the Chrom browser they just released yesterday:

11. Content licence from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

In other words, they can do what they want with content you post through their browser, but you cannot profit in any way from their browser.

They have since retracted this from the EULA and replaced it with:

11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

But only after people noticed and made legal threats. Google knew they overstepped themselves with this and were just hoping no one read the EULA anyway (Honestly, who reads those??)

It seems there is another upgrade to the computer coming sooner than I had anticipated. That's always a good thing. I'm selling of most of my computer for about $400. Mobo/RAM, Video Card, case & PSU, and a SATA 80GB HDD. For the cost of $344.97 I will be getting:

1. MSI K9A2 Neo-F ATX AMD Motherboard
2. CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 
3. AMD Phenom 9950 BLACK EDITION 2.6GHz Socket AM2+ 140W Quad-Core Processor
4. Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

What about a hard drive you say? Well, I still have my 500GB SATA drive. That'll have to do until I pick up another 500GB SATA drive. I'm a bit late the 1TB party, but I plan on being first to the 1 Exobite party, lol!

Now here is the exciting part I think. The video card i'll be getting... Hopefully I can convince the wife that $600 isn't too much for a video card. I'm really in the realm of possibility for a Radeon 4870 X2. I just order one from Dell along with a 850W PSU and i'm good, right? I think so.

My 360 quit working again. Well, not entirely. The DVD drive died. I can still turn it on and play all the arcade games I have downloaded, I just can't load any games off of discs. This sucks more than when it died last time due to the fact that now my 360 is out of warranty. That means I have to pay Microsoft $100 to fix it. Needless to say I am more than a little pissed off at this. With the current failure rate of the model of 360 that I own, how many times is one expected to hand Microsoft $100 to fix a console that will likely stop working again in a years time or possibly even less?

That's the one alright. Found one for $230 from Amazon.com new. HD DVD is coming back!!! If I gotta do it myself damnit! LOL!! Obviously i'm not serious about that. But I figure it's not a bad investment due to there being over 450 HD DVD titles available now. I have been collecting SD DVD's for about 12 years and only have 350 or so. So I think HD DVD will hold me till the UHD formats start hitting in about 4 or 5 years from now. With the upconversion (agreeably the best in the industry) I can enjoy new releases on SD DVD in 1080p. Not true 1080p mind you, but somewhere in the middle of SD and HD, which is not super-fantastic, but it's not bad by any stretch either. Here are some specs for those who like to look at them:

Video

HD Output 720p/1080i/1080p

Benefit: Leading-edge, efficient video compression standards makes it possible to experience the full potential of your HDTV.

1080p/24 Frames Per Second (24p) Support

Definition: 1080p/24p offers a smoother, more film-like viewing experience. The HD-A35 outputs images at 24 frames per second, the same frame rate used by directors when using film to create motion pictures. Watch your favorite movies in their native frame rate with compatible HDTVs.

Audio

Advanced Audio including Dolby® TrueHD, Dolby® Digital Plus and DTS® HD (core only), along with legacy formats including Dolby® Digital DTS®

Definition: Advanced Audio capability brings increased sonic realism to movie soundtracks.

Convenience

Web-Enabled Capability

Definition: Open a whole new world of entertainment experience that can include access to exciting studio-provided enhanced features.

Backwards Compatibility

Definition: With backwards compatibility you can enjoy your existing library of DVDs and CDs, and through the process of upconversion and output through HDMI, your movies are scaled to match the resolution of your HD display for near-HD picture quality.

CE-Link HDMI-CEC

Definition: CE Link offers the capability to communicate with and control another CE device in a completely new way. For example, using CE-Link with “One Touch Play,” consumers will be able to turn on a HDMI-CEC capable HDTV and a Toshiba HD-A35 player, and start playing a movie with a single touch of a button on the player’s remote.

Jackpacks

Ethernet Connection

Definition: Connect your HD DVD player to the internet to allow it to receive updates that will support future applications and services.

HDMI™ with Deep Color

Benefit: Deep Color™ provides smoother image transitions, improved contrast and detail, and displays up to a billion possible colors all in the comfort of your own home theater.

The very day (today) I was just telling the wife about how my Xbox 360 has been as solid as a rock compared to everyone else's I knew of and it dies. Well, it's not dead per say, but it freezes up after a few minutes of being on whether it's playing a game, watching a DVD/HD DVD, or just sitting in the Dashboard. My personal opinion is that one of the two fans died and the single fan can't dissipate the heat generated by the VPU quickly enough.

Another problem with this is that without my Xbox 360, I can't watch HD DVD's. I have The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and Clerks II coming in this week too! I'm thinking now i'm gonna buy a stand-alone player. An HD-A35 I think I can get for under $150 from ebay or something. Those were the top of the line 3rd generation players from Toshiba before Sony cheated and bought out WB and Fox effectively killing HD DVD. That'll do better with sound anyway than the Xbox 360. The 360 HD DVD add on can only output audio in two formats, neither of them is Dolby TrueHD either. Nor does it support 7.1 surround sound.

I still have my Wii to fallback on though. Now is a good time to get some solid play-time in on Smash Bros. Brawl. And I need to finish up Mario Galaxy as well. I have been meaning to get back online with Mario Strikers also. No better time than the present, eh?

First stop to Fred Meyer and it was in my grasp! They actually had a bunch of copies just sitting in the glass case waiting to be bought up! I have been Brawling non-stop now for like 2 hours! It will continue into the night over at my friends house!

So I played Guitar Hero 3 today for the first time. It was pretty fun I have to say. I did the tutorials and then played my first few songs. My first song was 'Take It Easy' by Foghat. I did pretty good with a 92%. Then I played the Pat Benetar song "Hit Me With Your Best Shot". Don't laugh, it was that or a song from Poison. And I avoid 80's/90's hair metal like the plague. I did well again with a 96%. The last song I played was "School's Out For Summer" by Alice Cooper. I'm happy to say I got a fine score of 98%. These were all on easy mind you where you only have to use three of the five fret buttons. Some of the songs I see being played on Youtube I simply don't see how it can be done that fast. Especially on the highest difficulty where you have to use all five fret buttons. At :21 in the last video is when it really kicks into high gear. That's also from GH2, but the play is the same in GH3. I'm actually interested in the other game similar to Guitar Hero entitled Rockband. I guess you can have multiple instruments going at the same time such as a guitar and drums, two guitars and drums, and I guess you can even throw a singer in as well. Sounds interesting. Anyway, gotta go to bed.

I'm not even gonna type out anything on this. I'm gonna cut & paste the article from TG Daily:

Pricewatch: HD DVD in free fall, Blu-ray continues upward trend

Business and Law

By Wolfgang Gruener

Monday, March 03, 2008 13:24

Article Index

Analysis – Two weeks ago, Toshiba announced its withdrawal from the HD format war and that it would clear out its inventory by the end of this month. It’s time to have a closer how this decision has retail prices for both Blu-ray players and HD DVD units.

Loss of competition rarely means good news for the consumer and that certainly is true in the recently called format war battle. If you aren’t especially interested in the outgoing HD DVD players, which retailers are trying to get rid of by the end of this month, Blu-ray could remain very pricey for some time to come. Average retail prices of Blu-ray players showed little impact and the majority of devices on the market are und a slight upward price curve, TG Daily found.
According to pricegrabber.com, average HD DVD player hit new record lows today with reported prices of $102 for the 720p HD-A3 model and the $137 for the 1080p HD-A30 version. Supplies of the high-end HD-A35 are running out, which means that average prices are somewhat high at $272.

Source: Pricegrabber.com; high prices marked in red, low prices in green

Blu-ray players, on the other side, have been very stable since the beginning of the year, with the exception of the hybrid HD DVD/Blu-ray player LG BH200, which has dropped more than one third from $999 to currently $629 in U.S. retail.
If we are putting these numbers into charts, the price decrease becomes apparent. HD DVD saw its most significant drops on January 14, when Toshiba announced substantial price reductions and on February 19, when the company announced that it would cease production of the players. The dramatic price drop, players are currently selling for as low as $89.99, apparently allows retailers to clear their inventory – Amazon currently lists the HD-A35 as its second most popular DVD player product, the HD-A3 follows at #8 and the HD-A30 at #21. The most popular Blu-ray player on Amazon, Sharp’s BD-HP20U, is listed at #18.

Blu-ray trends

Blu-ray players showed no direct impact of the HD DVD shutdown, with prices remaining stable and trending lightly upward. Sharp’s BD-HP20U, Sony’s BDP-S300, Panasonic’s DMP-BD30K as well as Samsung’s BD-P1000, which is not listed in this chart, show increasing average retail prices. The only Blu-ray currently experiencing decreasing average retail prices Sony’s BD-P1400: It is currently the cheapest standalone Blu-ray on the U.S. market, according to pricegrabber.com.

Source: Pricegrabber.com

If we combine the HD DVD player and Blu-ray player graphs into the chart, it becomes apparent, how easily Blu-ray manufacturers apparently sailed through the first two months of this year, while HD DVD lost a seemingly dramatic battle. While HD DVD player prices were dropping, Blu-ray prices were trending upwards.

Source: Pricegrabber.com

There is little hope that Blu-ray player prices will be coming down substantially in the next six months. If you are planning to purchase a Blu-ray player soon, you should plan on spending at least $350 - $400 on such a playback device. There is no doubt that prices will come down over time, but industry sources currently indicate that those sub-$300 players won’t be available until Christmas.

I tested 7 different bandwidth tests today for accuracy and here are my results:

And here is a screen of my ACTUAL download speed from fileshack.com (The nearest server was in Houston, TX):

I let it go for a few seconds so the download speed would stabilize. Why do all bandwidth tests report in kilobits/sec (kb/s)? Is it so they can report a higher number than if they reported the results in kilobytes/sec (KB/s)? Kilobytes/sec is a much more real world number and easier to interpret seeing as how Firefox and IE and just about every other web browser reports the download speed in Kilobytes/sec. So again, why do they report in kilobits/sec?? That is dumb.

Alright guys. I need some more people to play Xbox Live! games with. I have a HEALTHY list of games for Arcade that I would really like some more people rather than the typical online dude/chick. I'd like to play with some people I know, but everyone that I know isn't all that interested in the Arcade games (Well, not as much as myself anyway.) Here is my list as of January 05, 2008 in glorious alphabetical order:

1. 3D Ultra Mini Golf
2. Aegis Wing
3. Carcassonne
4. Catan
5. Contra
6. Double Dragon
7. Fatal Fury Special
8. Geometry Wars
9. Gyruss
10. Hexic HD
11. Marble Blast Ultra
12. Pinball FX
13. Puzzle Quest
14. Robotron 2084
15. Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting
16. Super Contra
17. Totem Ball
18. Track and Field
19. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
20. Uno
21. Yaris
22. Yie Ar Kung-Fu

Ok, there ya have it. You now have a few days to go out and buy an Xbox 360 and some games. I'll be waiting in the Track and Field lobby.

Capcom announced ballpark dates and prices to go with some of the downloadable titles they plan to offer on Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and PC in the next half-year. The details were given in London, so to ere on the side of caution, we're going to call these Euro details until further notice -- we doubt that's the truth, but a little caution never hurts. The games are:

• Rocketmen: Axis of Evil -- Holiday '07 (XBLA 800 MS Points ($10), PSN $10)
• Commando 3 -- December '07 (XBLA 800 MS Points ($10), PSN $10)
• Talisman -- April '08
• Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix -- Q1 '08, but actually "when it's ready."

 Talisman For XBLA, PSN & PC Factsheet

Release Date: Winter 2007
Genre: Action RPG
Platform: Xbox LIVE® Arcade, PLAYSTATION®Network, PC
Rating: RP (Rating Pending)
Developer: Big Rooster
Price: TBD
Game Description:
Based on Games Workshop's classic board game, Talisman is the quintessential fantasy hybrid board/role-playing game for up to four players, either online or offline. The game takes place in a fantasy realm and is based very closely on the board game through a 3D representation of the map with animated movements and in-game events. Characters are fully animated as they walk about the board, attack other creatures, cast beautiful effect-laden spells and use objects to enhance their actions. Talisman will be rolling its way onto Xbox LIVE® Arcade, PLAYSTATION®Network and PC this winter. The highly anticipated 4th Edition of the board game is due for release from Games Workshop's Black Industries imprint in October 2007.
Features:

• Electronic board game with 3D characters and environments
• 1 - 4 players offline and online multiplayer
• Dynamic camera angles adjust to each active player
• Up to 25 characters from the Talisman franchise
• Unique features for each character including strength and magical abilities
• Voice chat options
• Downloadable game expansions including character updates, adventure card updates and alternate endings

Talisman was an old board game from Games Workshop. It was kind of a board game, and kind of a role playing game. A board game in the fact that there was a board, some dice to be rolled to see how many spaces on the board you moved, and game pieces. But it was a role playing game also in the fact that your game piece represented a character that had abilities, equipment, and even magic. These abilities increased and decreased over time depending how many battles you won or lost. It was a really fun game and me and a few friends literally spent an entire summer playing it when we were back in middle school. They announced awhile back that a company would be developing an Xbox Live version of the second edition of the game (Which was easily the best edition!) Up till now all I had was a "Fall of 2007" type of release date. Well, I have been checking around maybe once or twice a week to make see if any more updates about the game or it's release date. Well today I struck proverbial gold on the matter!!! Here are some more links about the game (stolen right from the Wikipedia page!):

1. ^ Talisman Expansion at BoardGameGeek
2. ^ Talisman The Adventure at BoardGameGeek
3. ^ Talisman Dungeon at BoardGameGeek
4. ^ Talisman Timescape at BoardGameGeek
5. ^ Talisman City at BoardGameGeek
6. ^ Talisman Dragons at BoardGameGeek
7. ^ Talisman 4th Edition Press Release. www.blackindustries.com. Black Industries. Retrieved on 2007-01-08.
8. ^ Games Day & Golden Demon 2007 event announcement, with announcement of pre-release sales of the 4th Edition of Talisman
9. ^ Talisman, 4th Edition at BoardGameGeek
10. ^ Talisman for the Sinclair Spectrum information from TalismanIsland.com
11. ^ IGN: Capcom Wields Talisman. IGN (2007-04-13).

My plan to have the perfect (in my eyes anyway) home theatre system

Today I have decided I will reveal my plan to move from a 32" regular TV to an HD digital projector with quality surround sound and an entire room dedicated to movies and video games. I have a vision of sitting in a small re-creation of an actual movie theatre. Right now my current vision is of a converted garage or full basement with three rows of four seats from an actual theatre with drink holders in the arm rests and each row of seats about six inches higher than the row in front of them so as to be recreate real stadium seating. The walls are painted a dark color and are soundproofed so we can have the surround sound turned WAY up. Enough of my fantasies for now though, lets look at some real life hardware that i'm seriously considering:

THE PROJECTOR: Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080

THE HD-DVD PLAYER: Xbox 360 Elite with accompanying HD-DVD Drive

THE SOUND SYSTEM: Still as of yet undecided, but I think i'm gonna go with something from Panasonic or JVC

     Well, that is the basic foundation of my home theatre system. I think it's a pretty solid foundation. But, this foundation is gonna run about $5000.00 or so to put together so it's also gonna take some time. The projector is the 1st priority followed by the Xbox and HD-DVD Drive as I already have a Sony 5.1 surround sound system.

     As for why I chose those specific components, I have what I think are pretty good reasons:

• The projector has the best ratings in it's class/price range
• The Xbox allows video games AND HD-DVD playback so it's dual purpose
• The sound system will rival that of GOD

     Now, let's get back to a very important aspect of this whole deal. How the hell is a schlubb who makes $13.75/hr going to afford all of this? Well, let's use bullets again, that was cool:

• My wife just graduated from nursing school
• MyCokeRewards - i've been submitting points for a Xbox360
• TransformYourSummer - i've been submitting points for a sound system
• $1,500.00 Dell Credit limit (That will hopefully be raised when I ask!)
• A possible $5,000 bank loan (This is just an idea I haven't ran past the wife yet)

     Two of those are pipe dreams (The soda contests), the first one is just a joke, the loan is most likely also a pipe dream. So the credit limit from Dell is the only thing that is a realistic possibility for me right now. I got that initially so I could buy a nicer widescreen LCD monitor for my computer. Now that I have paid that off though I am going to ask for a credit increase. I don't think they will double it, but i'll take as much as they can give me. Realistically speaking I honestly think i'll have to take a lot of time and build good credit with Dell. The Xbox is more within reach than the projector OR the surround sound system to someone who works a day job and currently supports a family and pays all the bills. That burden will be lightened significantly though as soon as my wife takes up regular work at the local hospital's ER as an RN though.

So that's the plan for now. Once I begin getting regular feedback from all of you who read this changes and revisions will likely be made. I certainly look forward to getting things going on all of this. I feel like it gives me a meaningful (well, meaningful to me anyway) purpose to work towards.