LHC

Red Alert

Surprisingly I only heard about this a month or so ago, and to be honest I was not too happy about it. I expected that EA would make a hash of it by trying to make a sequel to the best game of all time. However looking at the trailers and reading some beta reviews it may turn out to be surprisingly half decent.

The graphics look good, without being to busy or complicated and overwhelming, they have kept a lot of classic Red Alert 2 things around. Such as the voices and the music, which still sound as brilliant now as they did 8 years ago, the maps and terrain have the same sort of look to them, they are open and bright and seem somehow familiar.

There are two things I am slightly worried about. The inclusion of a third faction, C&C have done thisfor a while now and I don't think they have ever gotten it to work all that well, The Scrin were just annoying, although it did add an interesting aspect to the game play when you are fighting two different factions at once, Generals was too shit to play to see if 3 factions worked well however there is always the exception of Yuri's Revenge, which was just an expansion to Red Alert 2 so borrowed a lot from its greatness and slightly improved graphics. The second is the emphasis on the naval warfare, I am not a big fan of it really, but judging from the videos and the walkthough they may have done it properly and it may turn out to be amazing... I just hope they do not do the same thing as Age of Empires 3 and make the water so visually intensive that even on the lowest settings a decent PC could not run one of the levels because of the sheer amount of lag created. The release date is the end of October, by which point I shall have my new PC, so hopefully the water will not be an issue.

I am actually quite looking forward to it. And now back to waiting for spore to be released tomorrow.

I am

Stolen from http://friendlyatheist.com/2008/06/18/i-am/ who in turn stole it from http://dcberner.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-am.html

I live in a world of people, animals, places, things, ideas, time, space, matter, energy, forces, galaxies, quasars, mesons, and bosons. I live in a universe that seems self-sustaining and acts a whole lot like there’s no God in it. I am an Atheist.

I believe I have not yet sufficiently investigated the myriad of religious, spiritual experiences others claim to have had, and that there are too many well-educated, intelligent people who claim religious belief without a hint of shame, to discount the existence of an otherworld completely. I am an Agnostic.

I believe the teachings of Christ regarding positive social change and mercy to the oppressed are just a bit too clear a message of the gospel to be swept up as a minor sub-plot to securing an eternal country club membership for oneself. I am a Christian.

I believe that by and large, suffering is brought on by the mindless pursuit of people’s desires, and that suffering can be mitigated by increasing one’s awareness, tempering one’s desires, and following a couple relatively intuitive guidelines. I am a Buddhist.

I believe that in small and loosely organized groups of people, the voluntary sharing and distribution of wealth provides badly needed assistance to many without the means to achieve or produce it on their own. I am a Communist.

I believe that governments should not prevent human beings from doing whatever they wish, so long as they are not a danger to others. I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all, not just those who have the means to afford it or who act a certain way or whose skin is a particular color. I am a Liberal.

I believe in the right of all people to seek monetary gain by their own means and increase their standing in society through honest work. I am a Capitalist.

I believe in responsible control of public funds over increased taxation. I support the use of force to prevent one human being from harming another. I am a Conservative.

I believe that no self-sufficient living organism should have to fear a superfluous death for the selfish desires of another. I am pro-life.

I believe that an acorn is not an oak tree, and that what could have been is not what is. I support the right of a family to decide when raising a child is right for them, including in the early weeks of pregnancy, without fear of backlash. I am pro-choice.

I am a person who despises labels and categorizing. I am a whole person with many beliefs and views (some of which are contradictory and conflicted), hopes and dreams, worries and fears, qualities and quirks, delights and aversions. I would prefer that you take the time to get to know me rather than try and pigeonhole me from something someone said about me or something I wrote on a blog at one point or another.

I agree with those definitions, and I am Atheist, Buddist, Communist, Liberal, Capitalist, Conservative, Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. I also could not work out how to turn itallics off after the quote.

Google

Check this out (possibly NSFW)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=will+of+god&btnG=Search

South Park and Doctor Who

I still maintain the South Park is the only TV show to get better the longer it goes on. To begin with it was just 4 kids messing around with Kenny dying every now and again. Then around seasons 5 to 8 there were eppisodes such as Scott Tenorrman must die, A Ladder to Heaven and The Return of the Fellowship of the ring to the Two Towers. The last one being about getting some LOTR porn back from butters and some 'big kids'.

Then who could predict it could get even better?

Season 10 onwards has rewarded us with greats such as The WoW episode, the British trying to recapture the US, Imaginationland, Cartman getting Aids and giving it to Kyle and so on.

Then the three most recent episodes, which I watched last night, were three of the best so far. The first was a parody of the Holocaust using cats, and Cartman ironically trying to save them by hiding them in his attic (and actually at one point telling one of them to write a diary). The next was about Canada going on strike, and in turn reunited us all with forgotten internet fads. Who can remember this guy?




Then the most recent episode was about Mr / Mrs Garrison. For those not familiar with South Park, G started off a straight guy, then decided he was gay (hence introducing Mr Slave who at one point put a live hamster in his ass), then got a sex change to be a straight woman (at one point creating an atheistic future with Richard Dawkins), then became a lesbian (in a 300 parody) and now has just got a sex change back to a man again by growing a new penis on the back of a mouse.

Seriously the two guys who write all this stuff are just geniuses.


Now Dr. Who. Predictably again it was rubbish, there are two or three decent episodes a season and this was not one of them and I don't expect the next one to be either. I am personally looking forward to Silence in the Library in a few weeks. There are no details about it yet, but being written by the same guy as Blink it should be awesome.

Also I thought Caecilius died in Pompeii. Or I could just be remembering my year 9 latin incorrectly. I did spend most of the 45 mins trying to work out how they were going to save Quintus (who I remember surviving).

It is incredibly interesting how much everyone knows about this one family. Especially considering how long ago it was. I suspect I know more about Quintus and Caecilius than anyone else from that time, mythical or not. I also distinctly remember him being a banker or a merchant, not a marble craftsman.

Interesting + Deja Vu

So, first off. Something that I had not planned to write about. I just got a huge Deja Vu while typing in the Tags for this post. I am now going to look it up in Wikipedia, to try and find out what it is. I get them all the time, and while a kid always wondered if I was dreaming the future and just could not really remember them. I then spent ages trying to remember all my dreams and write them down and every few days cross checking to see if any of them had happened.

Music, you should all listen to this:



It is not in English, but is hypnotic and actually quite cool. Stolen from http://noiseandruckus.tumblr.com/

Also, something interesting I have learnt today. Elephants are actually afraid of mice. I always assumed it only happened in cartoons, but it was tested on Mythbusters and apparently they actually are.