My two cats

Well they are really my fiancees cats, but since we are getting married here they will soon be my as well. Last night I went to bed around 12pm. At first I could not fall asleep, but it only got worse as I could here the two cats running around our apartment scratching things and doing stuff I know they shouldn't. I tried to ignore this and just go to sleep but those two little shits just kept making noise, and pounding around the apartment. Finally around 1am I got up because I could here one of them doing something and I knew it could not be good. There in the kitchen I found Fay standing on top of her litter box and paws stretched out to the garbage can trying to get at something inside. When she saw me she got scared, knocked over the garbage can and ran out of the room where she knocked over a light in the living room. I was not thrilled and was up till about 1:30 cleaning up after her. When I finally tried to go back to bed I found that in my absence my fiancee had moved into the middle of the bed and I had no where to sleep. Not wanting to wake her up I grabbed my pillow and went out to the coach where I was going to sleep. However both cats chose this as the moment when they wanted me to pet and play with them. Not the last 16 hours I have been up, but rather 2am and I had the two of them climbing on me and licking me and crying at me. Finally I just ignored them covered my head with a blanket and finally got to sleep some time after 2am. So today I am exhausted and if we have a repeat of last night again I will drive the two of them far far away and leave them there.

Lets all blame video games

So Monday around 9am a shooter killed 32 people at Virgina Tech. Also on Monday around 10am people came out and blamed video games for this travesty. WE DID NOT EVEN KNOW WHO THE SHOOTER WAS YET and people said it was video games fault. Fuck you Dr. Phil! Now it is easy to blame video games for this travesty, there are numerous studies out there stating that video game violence is linked to real violence. Now I think this is a load of crap while my fiancee believes these studies. So as with any subject that we are divided on we spent a good hour or so last night debating this issue. Now she is a psychologist, so I am already at a disadvantage in the argument because we were on her home turf and I am fighting an up hill battle. I mean all she needs to do is bring up one of these studies and I lose. Not one to lose gracefully Today I have spent the better part of an hour looking up these studies to see what they actually say, and how they are preformed. While reading this paper "Video games and real-life aggression: review of the literature." I was shocked to see all the information that we are not told about these experiments.

Allot of the papers that are commonly cited by people as showing that video games violence can cause real violence; here use the testers observations as the means of determining the effects of video game violence on the subjects. And people are never bias.....never.

The age ranges that are used for allot of the papers that show any consistent correlation are that of kids between the ages of 4-7 now I don't need to tell anyone who has a kid or has worked with kids in this age range that they don't need anything to help them become "aggressive". One study had kids play either a karate game or a jungle vine swinging game. Then they were put in a room with jungle toys and a bobo punching toy that was dressed in a karate suit. Its findings showed that the kids who played the jungle vine game played with the jungle toys while the kids who played the karate game played "aggressively" as the put it with the doll dress in the karate outfit. To me all this says is these kids remembered what game they just played.

Adults studied appeared to have no real definitive relationship between violent games and violent acts. The only group that they could make real claims about was that known delinquents had a preference for violent games.

Another article reported that kids showed less empathy towards video game violence then real violence and movie violence. And they believed this was a problem...........So kids know that video game violence is not real..............i am missing the problem.

All I am saying is that people should not blindly blame video games for the violence in school. I guess the real problem here is that people need something to blame, since Demons,TV, and Music have all ruled out as a possibility the next logical step would be video games; Not society.

Porn Blogs

Ok, so I have been using blogspot now for a little less then a week. For the most part I do enjoy the service, it is relatively easy to use and it allows me to do what I want to do. Now one thing I do enjoy doing on here is clicking the next blog button on the top of the page and just looking at other peoples blogs. What I don't like is clicking the next blog button and getting porn. I am not saying porn is bad. Like most people I to have looked at porn, I have no problem with it. My real problem with it is that when I hit that next blog button and I get a porn site while at here at work. I could care less if people want to post porn on their blogs I just want to make sure it does not come up in my random browsing of the bloggasphear while I am at work. And the most annoying part is that I never get those sites at home while browsing the blogs; It is only here at work where I truly do mind if one appears on the computer and it seems like every other blog that comes up is a pron blog. I just get tired of having to be ready to slam the back button all the time.
Now recently legislation was brought forward to create a .xxx domain for porn and to have all porn sites moved to the is domain. However, and this is the crazy part, the religious groups in America are trying to stop this because they feel (and this is what I have been told) "it will give legitimacy to the porn industry" I am sorry they are talking about and industry that rivals most major film companies, I don't think they are really that underground anymore. And I applaud the adult film industry for wanting to take these steps. By doing this parents will be able to better monitor and control what their children are exposed to on the internet. Now I don't believe this is the end all be all for regulating porn on the internet but I think it is a big step and it just baffles the mind why anyone is against this idea. But then again their are allot of uptight idiots in America who don't believe porn should be allowed on the internet at all.

My Computer

So last Thursday the fan on my CPU started to make a grinding noise. I got figured it was due to dust buildup in the case so I opened it up got out a can of compressed air and blew the dust out. I restarted the machine to only find that the sound was still there. So I turned it off again and this time pulled the fan entirely off the processor to clean it separate from the rest of the machine. After I felt I had cleaned the fan out sufficiently I replaced it again only to find that it still sounded like a I had a meat grinder in my tower.
Now my computer is the Frankenstein's Monster of computers. I got the original tower when I went off to college as a graduation gift from my parents and grandparents. My mom who bought me the computer was lied to and swindled by the company she bought it from. Now I went to college in 2001. The computer I got had windows 95 on it, a no name processor, 64mb or ram, and no modem or LAN card. oh and a 5gig hard drive. My mother told me she paid over $1,000 for it. So over the years since I was a college student with no money I have been "fixing" this computer whenever I can get my hands on old parts from friends and co-workers who happen to have a computer that they no longer want. I have been able to switch cases once before about 2 years ago and I have picked up 2 new hard drives, I have purchase and acquired new RAM as well as video cards and network cards. But now with this fan starting to fail I am thinking it is time now for me to lay this beast to rest.
I would like to finally have a machine that is not 5 years behind the latest technology. However if I have gotten one thing out of working on my Frankenstein machine it is this; I can build my own computer. So now the dilemma I have is purchase a tower and build a PC from scratch for around $350 for the tower and then add vista $150 and Update Word for another $100 making my build my own machine cost me $600 or just go out and buy one from Best Buy for like $900 with a monitor. Now while either machine would do what I want I think I am leaning to building my own, because beyond the starting cost of buying the parts I need the software could be picked up over time.

Super Paper Mario!

Ok, I have been playing this game since Tuesday and I have to say it is great. The controls are simple and easy to use. The story line is funny and immersing. They have lots of little jokes tossed in all throughout the game. I love the mix of both 2D and 3D elements in the game, along with the new story line. I mean I love beating Bowser but after a while the same story line gets old so the new baddy to fight is fun. One of the cool things too is the flash back to the old school Mario games. with the old Mario when you get a star to old level design elements (the whole world 1-2 is in the game.)

If you have a wii and have not picked up this game you should it is a blast.

Open letter to Al Sharpton

Al:

Please GROW A PAIR! I mean is your only joy in life ruining other peoples. The only time I ever hear your name come up is when your bitching about someone else mistake. Now Imus made a bad call using the word nappy when he described the Rutgers basketball team. And he has apologized for that and they have accepted that apology from my understanding. But you had to go ahead and throw yourself into the story and bitch and moan about how horrible and disrespectful Imus is being towards black women. He made a comment about the Rutgers basketball team, not about you. You have no business getting involved in the conversation. I believe you are just looking for another 15minutes of fame, I mean for once Al I would like to see you on the news doing something other then whining about another person or group. I think Al you yourself our one of the biggest embarrassments of the black community. So in closing Al either grow a pair or shut the fuck up.

My Neighbor

So I live in a apartment building. Now I share a wall with another apartment, and my problem is ever since Christmas my neighbor has been playing music rather loudly at all hours, I have tried to resolve this peacefully by going over and knocking on their door but they will not answer. I have knocked on the wall. Finally after one night of this asshole playing his music till 1AM I went and spoke with the apartment complex they supposed sent him a letter and the music did stop for a short while. But then Sunday morning at 8AM I was greeted with this fuckers sub-woofer. Now I can not really hear the words from his stereo so much as watch the base shake my wall. So I have called the apartment complex again and have reported him again. I truly do not understand what would posses this guy to think he can turn his sub woofer up in an apartment complex and not be heard in the surrounding apartments. Then again this same guy lit his deck on fire with a candle he forgot to blow out on night. So I am not dealing with all that smart an individual I guess.

Nobody will read this!

So I have just created a blog. I have no need for one, my life really is not that interesting. The point of this is more so that I can rant to somebody (really nobody) about all the happenings in my life at home or work. So today's rant is more about why I both need and don't need this. I am a 23 year old male engaged to be married, when, we have not set a date partially because we are paying for it ourselves and do not have the money to afford a wedding right now (go college loans). Also because my beautiful wife to be can not make up her mind on where she wants to have the wedding. On top of that I work in a research lab with small but fun group of students and post docs. I swear some days this lab could be a TV series the way things go around here. My mom has had to breast cancer twice and is currently being treated for thyroid cancer. She is one of the greatest inspirations to me. She ran a marathon while receiving chemo for her second round of breast Cancer; so I can never say anything is to hard. I am a geek with the standard geek hobbies video games, searching the Internet for the most useless stuff it can provide. oh and I play warhammer 40,000, it is a table top miniatures game allot of fun. But my fiance does not seem to share my enthusiasm for this hobby and it causes allot of arguments. My faience is both my biggest stress and stress relief. That is why I started this to give me some where else to turn when She is pissing me off. So if you (really nobody) want a good laugh every now and then please just check it out from time to time. Like I had said earlier I really do not need this for the same reasons I think allot of people have blogs this is more or less I place for me to vent and others to get a good laugh because well sometimes other peoples problems are just funny.