I know that I haven't blogged lately but that's just life, isn't it? Here is most recent desktop...all themes and backgrounds are from customize.org..Enjoy!

Your brain on video games

I thought this was interesting...and scary. Psychologists knocking video games especially halo 3 because there is more activity in your brain and that means that you are going to kill people. I especially liked one of the user comments which i will include. I am still looking for my plasma rifle.




TheBird Says: October 16th, 2007 at 7:25 am
ah, yes, i remember that “brain difference”.
the same EXACT change in activity occurs when playing a nonviolent game
seriously, when the original HALO came out like five years ago, then shouldn’t all those kids that grew up with it be out and about killing people?
maybe they’re just having trouble finding a plasma rifle


HEHE

Premiere Week

Last week was premiere week on many networks and there were a lot of quality shows that premiered last week. Here are links to download high quality files that are rips from hd broadcasts. Each of these files is around 350 mb and megashares only gives you 250 mb at a time so you will have to use a download manager. Enjoy!


Kid Nation

Heroes

Chuck

Journeyman

Stargate Atlantis

The Office

My Name is Earl

Ugly Betty

ER

Bionic Woman

The Unit

House

Bones

Chuck


I will be posting my review of Halo 3 in the near future. Not owning a 360 it has been difficult to finish the game so i haven't posted until i finished it. Not that i am finished i will review all parts of the game. I am also going to start posting reviews of movies and television shows that i have been watching. Many tv shows i will review after i have watched the second episode of the season, especially new shows. I like to give them a chance to show themselves off. Thanks and may the force be with you.

Ode to a Conservative

There you go Kurticus Maximus, I still got the magic!!!

Here is the longer version of the Believe ad...much better than the short version...my girlfriend Charlotte said that she saw it on television today while baking cookies (entirely serious) so enjoy...more is to come on halo 3 and other topics. May the force be with you.

Halo 3, Star Wars, and my generation

I am beginning to think that the imminent release of the greatest FPS of all time is a good reason why i should restart this blog. If anyone reads this thank you for actually caring. The news flooding from Bungie Studios has lately flown so thick and fast that hardly a day has gone by without some goodies coming from Bungie. Halo has, in the minds of many including myself, become the Star Wars of this generation. I know this phrase has been thrown around a lot lately, but I would like to quantify this statement. The original Star Wars Trilogy was a fanciful story of a small group of freedom loving rebels taking down a large evil empire. Much ink has been spilled on these movies' relation to real life, but even I, untrained as I am in the matters of film, can draw out the basic correlations. The time when the Star Wars movies came out was a time of great uncertainty in America. People wondered whether the US's supremacy in the world was at an end. It seemed that our struggle against the Soviet Union was going badly. Star Wars does not translate perfectly into the events of that time, but the struggle of the Rebels (America and the West) against the evil Galactic Empire (Soviet Union) was very indicative of the losing attitude many Americans had, especially after the loss in Vietnam.

Now is a different time with different problems. WE are unpopular in a world that seems to continually use "America" and what she is seen to stand for as a scapegoat. Terrorism has affected America in a very strong way and we are in a war at the heart of the beast that is growing more unpopular daily. The simple desperation of earth's plight is a welcomed tale in the complicated and morally muddled world in which we live. Our country was attacked without provocation in both Halo (while it is instead our entire world instead of just America) and on September 11th and in both tales we face an enemy that will stop only with our total destruction. There are heroes in both battles and while we honor our valiant woman and med at arms, especially those fallen in the field of battle, the United Nations Space Command has in Halo a man who embodies all this courage, honor and inhuman resolve and adds a liberal amount of kickass--Master Chief--Spartan-117--John. A recently released commercial for Halo 3 has an old man telling his story of being a marine during the Human-Covenant War and almost losing faith until the appearance of Master Chief. His myth is almost that of a god giving hope to those who have none. He is an icon of an age that needs hope and will gain it from one of the most unlikely places--a video game. I don't think that it is a coincidence that the Star Wars extended universe has added a similar story to the universe with the invasion by the Yuuzhan Vong in the New Jedi Order Series. Here, however, one finds what I would consider a much more complicated storyline with much greater moral ambiguities.

So when you are playing Halo 3 don't see it only as a game, but a deep allegory of the days in which we live--great days for courage and honor but also dangerous in their moral ambiguities.

May the force be with you as you finish the Fight.

Iraq

Haven't been writing at all, but i think that this letter pretty much sums up the War in Iraq. It is written by a soldier serving there.

Senator Reid,

I am a US Army Reservist. I was activated in March 2005 and served on
FOB Abu Ghraib, Iraq from June 2005 until May 2006. I was First Sergeant
for a Medical Task Force responsible for all detainee health care in
Iraq. My unit was awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation for our
accomplishments and I received the Bronze Star for my achievements. I
certainly hope you can sense the pride I have in my unit and my service.
That pride will soon be stripped from me in defeat.

My father is a Vietnam veteran; a Captain in Saigon. Like me, he was a
volunteer and was awarded the Bronze Star. He began his tour when I was
two weeks old. While I was growing up, I heard over and over again in
classes from grade school well into college how the United States lost
the war in Vietnam. I wondered how he could be so proud in defeat. I see
now that it is happening to me how his pride and accomplishments were
stripped from him on a rooftop in soon-to-be Ho Chi Minh City.

The Democrats have wanted Iraq to become a Vietnam for George Bush from
the start. You, sir, finally have your Vietnam parallel. This war has
been pure politics for you and the Democrats. You have now conceded
defeat when the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and Airmen
have not. And my children will have their parallel as well. They will
wonder how I can be so proud in defeat. The only question that remains
is whether my defeat will be a dramatic airlift off a rooftop or whether
it will be an impotent crawl across the Kuwait border.

From the beginning you and your ilk have sat on the sidelines, our
sidelines, declaring the immorality, illegality, and the futility of
your country's efforts. In emergency medicine there is an old saying; if
your patient believes he is dying, he probably will. Your stance on Iraq
will prove to be just that sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. To my
children, I will have to explain how the war was declared "illegal" by a
bunch of politicians who readily admit they didn't read the
authorization to use force that they signed. And how Hans Blix didn't
really declare that the inspections were working, only that they would
keep Hussein from doing too much. And how Hussein violated every
resolution the UN threw at him. And how the Democrats connived the US
into thinking the war was all about Big Oil and Haliburton without
batting an eye at the corruption surrounding Total Fina Elf, Yukos, and
the Oil for Food program. And that the only shred of illegality
surrounding the war is the lack of sanction by the very institution, the
UN, that sat by idly and allowed a brutal thug to buy their morality.

This loss will be compared to Vietnam, as you wish, but the loss will
not be mine. It will be yours. It will be Speaker Pelosi's. It will be
the Democrats' loss, forever and ever. In fact, since the Democrats'
conceded defeat in both Iraq and Vietnam when we were winning
militarily, the only Vietnam parallel you will likely achieve is how the
Democrats so readily accept defeat.

We are winning this war. Just look at the signs. The enemy cannot safely
wear uniforms, they cannot confront us directly, and instead they hide
amongst and target unarmed civilians. When they succeed in blowing up an
unsuspecting marketplace, they can count on you to dutifully deliver the
big sound bite about how the civilian body count is direct evidence that
the war is lost. Then you tell the same enemy that all they need to do
is kill more civilians and wait, kill more civilians and wait, kill more
civilians and wait. They were waiting for 2009 but, fortunately for
them, "elections have consequences."

This is not the 1960's or '70's. This is the information age and, sir,
there is simply too much information about this war that contradicts
your statements and actions. History will not be kind to you.

--
1SG Steven G. Cotton