The Bare Minimum

Minimalism is so feng shui. No, seriously. It's easy mode. Hell of a lot easier to keep tabs on something smaller than something larger. Anyways, the point is, keeping it real.

Yesterday, I kept it real. So real, in fact, that I made a hundred bucks off of keeping it real. I decided, after some internal debate, that I would simply sell off my CD collection. The reasoning is simple. The future is now. Direct downloads are beginning to take off as an industry standard. Flash drives are everywhere. They even have flash drive USB credit cards in South Korea. WTF???

Basically, I see those types of media standards and information storage as archaic. Seriously, I can go get an external hard drive that is going to hold 5000 CDs' worth of music. And if I need a CD? Burn it. I mean, hell, I bet in five years most cars will be rolling around with small hard drive storage for playing music while you drive around town. No more fiddling around for CDs, scratching them up, losing them, etc.

If you think I'm selling out my "collectivism" for a small amount of money, you'd be right. But honestly... who cares. Collection is right there. These aren't records - nobody is going to be paying two grand for a Beatles DIGITALLY REMASTERED Sgt. Pepper's CD.

Today I read this on a Yahoo article:

"We have a lot of layoffs," said Ji Rawat, a 47-year-old sheetmetal worker with three children who showed up to support Clinton at a rally in Columbus. "People feel poor."

I know it's pretty naive and illegitimate to say this, but... I don't know a single person here in Columbus who feels poor because of layoffs. I don't know a single person who has been layed off because of the economy. If you feel poor, get a secondary job, or stop blowing all of your money on crack, or go to school so you can get a better job. I'm not saying my town is a bunch of rich people - it is a blue collar college town in the Midwest, of course theres a lot of poor people - I'm just annoyed by retards lumping the entire town into their perceived perspective. The saddest part is that a million people will read that Yahoo article, see Ji's opinion of the economic situation in Ohio, and then the readers will think, "Ohio's economy is as bad as Michigans, huh?". No. In fact, you know what? Lets just dump all of these jobs on Mexico, so Mr. Rawat will move the hell away from me.

Is it just me, or is this hope rhetoric really pathetic? I really like the message of say, Obama, but honestly - what the hell is he going to actually do as President? What will any of these candidates do? Chances are, you'll never see jack shizzle of a change that makes an impact on your daily life as a result of whoever is President. Honestly, I really am inspired by messages of hope - but come on. Let me put it this way... If you're watching TV, and the eXtenze PENIS-ENLARGER advertisement comes on, is there any way you're going to be fooled by it? Are they really going to convince you with their flashy commercial that it will actually change anything? How about credit card debt consolidation commercials. Are they actually going to help you get out of debt? Probably. But is the company doing it to help your problems? No, they're doing it to make money.

The candidates are saying all of this junk because they want you to vote for them. They need you. You don't need them. Until this election is over, these people will keep trying to take your power and put it into their pocket. Remember that when you go to vote - vote for whoever you think is going to keep it real... the bare minimum. If you promise too much, you'll never see any of those promises come true. Message to politicians - please fly low, and please fly straight, so we can keep tabs on where you're headed and what you're doing along the way.

Picking A Winner

The album is out!



You can download it or stream it at http://soundclick.com/theempyreans.

Now...

Harken to me! I come bearing the fruition of wisdom, come to light in months of deep thought and induced euphoria - Diz's words of wisdom, if you will.

· The weak is more powerful than the strong, for the weak carries the strong on it's back.

· The machine rolls on, with or without you. Watch out! It's headed in your direction.

· The internet is not a series of tubes; the internet is a series of noobs.

· Graciousness does not supercede honesty.

PS - In hindsight, without using a negative or positive lens to view... what was George Bush's original gameplan before 9/11? I can't decide if he was planning a boom, or if he was turtling and just started a zerg squad after the failed rush by the terrorists. Basically, what were his original strats pre 9/11, and what would you call his strats post 9/11? Did they even change? Was the present situation in his original strats? I wonder if him and Cheney play COD4 on the 360.

Sins of a Solar Empire / 2008 Nerd Speculations

Ahhh, Sins of a Solar Empire. Where do I start? Well, I start right here:

I plug in my USB Slippers (usbgeek.com [just kidding, cool site though]), and I'm good to go. For twelve hours. Sometimes a lot more. Ok, so what is all the hubub about?

How in the hell is this game not already hailed as the entire reason to continue PC gaming??? This is the best game I've played in years. I cannot put enough emphasis on years...

Click to enlarge!

Sins of a Solar Empire is a new type of game. It will single handedly change the way that RTS and 4x games have been developed from now on. It is a fusion of both. SSE lays the tracks with all of the lumbering, macro-intensive strategy of Civilization 4, and then runs a train carrying Starcraft 2 micro over it... at a glacial speed. Very refreshing.

SSE is such a revolutionary game that it causes the gamer to adapt mentally to the epic scope of the game. It literally trains you to be more patient. The past decade has really been dominated by a lot of games that reward speed over skill. This game plays so slow, that it requires you to be more patient in your entire gaming style. Wave of the future, seriously.

The gameplay is so intuitive that a five year old with down syndrome could get the hang of it in a couple of minutes. The learning curve is really short, but the end game seems to be dominated by extremely finesse strategic manuevers and well designed tactics. Sort of like chess. No zerging, no brute force, no imba here. The game mechanics are very even across the board in the original vanilla game setup (yes, this game will be modded to the next galaxy and back).


Click to enlarge!

Back to the point about the down syndrome, though. This game is so incredibly in-depth, yet simple to control and slow paced. The combat is very involved and there are split second decisions, don't get me wrong. The point is, if you found yourself overwhelmed by anything at any point in this game, you should probably quit playing video games completely. Why? Because the UI, the pace, and the overall flow of the dynamics are so finely tuned and in sync with each other, that there is no way you find yourself lost or confused during a round of SSE. Let me put it this way - you could go to the bathroom, make a ham sandwich, come back to your game, and still find yourself looking at the same events unfolding you saw before you went AFK for five minutes.

One thing I would like to clear up is that I was definitely desperate for a good game to come out. However, this is not some ugly fat chick at the bar that I'm hitting on after last call. This is a bombshell, knock out, Jessica Alba standing in a back alley somewhere, gesturing you to follow her to some swank hotel where she and ten other hot chicks are having some hot lesbian orgy. Where the hell did this game come from??? No reviews, no big marketing, nothing. Just a great game, randomly delivered at the best of times, quenching the thirst of us desert nomads known as "PC gamers." Yeah... screw you, consoles! This year, we fight back!

Check out the official trailer, if my screen shots and ranting haven't convinced you yet:



Sins of a Solar Empire (Official)


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Speaking of this year, it is owning. I feel it. This is going to be a great year. Here are the reasons:

'06 and '07 were the worst years in sports history. The tide has turned, though. My reasons? I'm a Buckeye fan ('06 football AND basketball championship losses to UF, '07 football championship loss to LSU... f the SEC). Major League Baseball and steroids. The cheating refs in the NBA. The New England Patriots, and their surrounding orbiting problems. However, obviously are coming back full circle, since they lost the Super Bowl! Luhlz, Eli... Baseball, I predict, will have a nice season where it turns around things in the ball parks. Buckeyes will also play in their third consecutive national championship, this time blowing out any random mega leet SEC team, and capping our powerhouses of the past few years. Lets get it done boys.



Also, this year looks to be pretty cool for geeks. There are a lot of good games coming out this year, and a lot of new cool technlogy and bomb ass consumer electronics. Some ULTRA MEGA SUPER PIMP PC games on the horizon are Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Fallout 3, and Starcraft 3. I was looking into the Consumer Electronics Show 2008 footage this year, and it looks like they're really stepping it up with the HDTVs, and crap like that. Now that Blu-Ray is the winner, the big consumer electronics companies are going to be pushing the new standard really hard, and the best way to do that will be convincing all of you that HD is the shiznit. Which will cost you a lot of money, but is worth it (sucks, huh). Here is a nice clip of my ranting a while back from a chat room, I'm too lazy to chop this up into a readable format, so here is my abridged review of CES '08...