Post Holiday Report.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season.

It started like any day for me, in my bed sleeping only to be awoken by a phone call from my uncle reminding that I need to get Gramps ready to leave when he comes to pick up. So I did.

At first Gramps did not want to go any where, but after a while he relented and we started our journey in my uncle's 1974 VW Camper.

While at my uncle's we had the usual fan fare of opening some gifts, and eating some food. I got to spend some time with my cousin as well, which was kind of awesome. The first thing he grabbed when he saw me was his Pokemon cards, he wanted to impress me with his collection, a feeling I can relate too because I was like at his age as well. When he handed me his cards though they were all jumbled up and some were even bent which kind of triggered an OCD fit (I call it that because I am lazy and do not know what else to really call it) in me and I had to go through all of his cards and organize them all for him. The sad thing is, my cousin, as much as he loves Pokemon, he has not had the chance to play the games. I tried hooking him up with a gameboy emulator, but that did not really work out, most of what I found was spam or junkware. 

As time progressed, and as the day went on my uncle suggested we go on for a ride on his boat, but first we needed gas. My mom volunteered me to go get the gas, so I hopped in the car, went to the nearest gas station and bought five gallons of gas and came back with a six pack of beer. That's where the fun began.

I am so classy I drink my beer with a straw...

There was a total of seven of us on the boat, which was a bit to much for the 70 HP outboard engine on the boat, but we still managed to get out of the channel, go out on the water a bit, and then turned around because we really were not getting any where fast or comfortably.

Then we ran out of gas...

Fear not, we made it back to land. 

Over all I had an awesome day yesterday, and I realized something: Christmas is not about exchanging gifts with loved ones, it's about spending time with and realizing that we are lucky enough to have made it through another year together. Oh, and drinking as well. It's not necessary, but it certainly makes things a little more interesting.

Anyway, let me leave you all off with some pictures I took while on the boat.

 Out of gas...

 Over cast...

 Gramps is smiling, sort of...

 Nice one...

It's a boat.

There you have it guys. Merry belated Christmas, and a happy new year...

Online Dating Sucks...

No really, it does.

Maybe I am being a bit lazy writing only a few lines for this post, but it is kind of hard to put into words really how much online dating sucks. It is possibly one of the most soul sucking and depressing experiences for a guy my age to go through.

The only real success I have had online is the girls I have met from WoW oddly enough, I guess because of the shared interest, and the fact that I can hop into a ventrillo server and actually talk with them. WoW is a good place to start, or you can try other online video games, you just have to be patient I guess.

Your Opinion does not Count...

Ever see the ads on TV promising to pay you to take a survey? Ever though, "Gee, that sounds like a pretty sweet deal?" Well, I did, and I am beginning to realize I got the short end of the stick with this arrangement.

See, they take your personal information, and your time in the form of the surveys you take. The problem with the surveys is they take about 30 minutes to complete, and that is if you are even "qualified," to take them. The site that I ended up being suckered into using is "Mysurvey.com," a site which for every 1,000 points you earn can be converted into a $10 gift certificate, that takes six weeks to be mailed to you, or 10 days if sent via e-mail. How long did it take me to reach my first 1,000 points on the site? Close to four months. In that time I took several surveys, and most of them I was not "qualified," for, so I got fed up with their bull shit criteria and just started clicking randomly until one of the surveys actually allowed me to finish it and receive points for completing it.

In order to get ahead on the site you have to lie. Which really means your opinion is not valued, and your time is meaningless to them as well, because there have been many surveys where half way in the middle of them they will just stop, after you spending say 10 minutes taking them, and instead of it rewarding you with points it instead gives you a "sweep stakes," raffle ticket. They hand those out like candy, and they do not actually give you any benefit since the chances of you winning their lottery are astronomical, and that everyone else on the site has at least 100 of them just sitting around doing nothing.

How else is taking a survey for "money," a losing proposition? Well, even if you do manage to make it through a 30 to 45 minute survey, the site will only give you at a maximum 150 points for completing it, and if you convert that into their point system of 1,000 points = $10, then you are being paid $1.50 for 30 minutes of your time to answer questions about shitty products that you will not ever buy.

So in the end is it worth it to be "paid to take surveys?" I would have to go with a resounding "no." Your personal information and time are more valuable than what these assholes are willing to give you for it, and while they do "pay out," it's no where near how much they should be and they do their best to hold on to your "money," for as long as possible. Bottom line: It's bull shit, and do not bother with it.

Here's a little Rage for you all, and as always, do not be shy about commenting on my posts, and if you would, connect with me on Google+.

Diablo II is possibly the best game I have ever owned...

In the last 13 or so years there are few games I have had to buy more than once, Diablo II is one of those games. Something about this game, despite how old it is, is still quite engaging and fun. It brings me back to a simpler time, when Online RPGs did not suck (though technically Diablo II is an offline game, it at least gave the option of playing online, which was kind of an awesome feature to bad they screwed that up with Diablo III).

Now I am not really a spell caster type of player, but the last time I played the game I had a level 24 Necromancer that I decked out in field plate that I got from the secret cow level. Maybe it was stupid to raise his strength over 100 so he could use it, but I really just wanted to see if I could do it and guess what happened? I had a freaking tank Necromancer. I invested most of my points into Bone spells and had him primarily set up for defense/offense using Bone Shield and Teeth to mostly clear out rooms. Bone Lance was pretty helpful too, and Bone Wall.

That experience above was one the reason why I loved the game so much, you could play a spell caster, and if you wanted too, you could build them to wear heavy armor even though they really are not supposed too. I tried to replicate a Necromancer in the same way this time around but I quickly got bored and started an Assassin, which was alright at first. I got through the first Act pretty easily, but started to notice a problem in Act II. Mostly because I was super squishy, getting one hit by bosses, and also a depressing lack of damage. I guess you could say I kind of suck at building characters. I kind of just abandoned her for now and moved on to my Barbarian.

My Barbarian is level 19 right now, I am in Act II and really the only problem I have had was in the viper bit, the boss kept three hitting me which was a major pain in the ass coupled with his knock back (I was kind of stupid and chose to put a point into Iron Skin instead of Concentrate). I built my character around dual wielding and I have been using mainly swords as my weapons of choice (I lucked out with imbuing from Charsi, I took a regular Falchion and it came out being a superior sword with added attack bonuses on Undead which are really helpful in the second act). Most of my points are in combat skills and weapon skills, I am kind of ignoring completely my battle shouts which may not be the smartest thing I have done, but damn it I am going to try anyway.

Enough about my characters though, I really just like the game, and I really could not argue with the price of $20 (the other two times I bought the game as a special edition I paid $40, add that all up and I have spent $100 on literally one game) which was awesome because my mom gave me a $20 target gift card that I ended up impulse buying it on the spot. My only problem with the game is that Windows 7 for some odd reason has trouble playing the game, well not any more since I figured out how to set it up to play on Windows 7.

The first time I tried to run the game it took like 20 minutes for it to open, and when it did finally run the colors and everything were really messed up. A quick google search however, gave me a solution to my problem, turns out I have to right click on the icon, click "trouble shoot compatibility," and go through a couple of menus before Windows suggests the best options to run the game in. I've got a video I made detailing the process.

Anyway, if you are also a massive Diablo nerd like me, then feel free to relate your favorite moments from the game in the comments section below, and if anyone currently has the game installed and wants someone to play with, let me know I'll be more than willing to tag along. 

Losing weight is easy (sort of).

Seems like these days people are crazy about losing weight, mostly because this whole "obesity epidemic." There are these fancy programs out there that are supposed to make you "lean and sexy," but in reality they are incredibly gimmicky and ineffective. So how do you lose weight? Easy, stop thinking about it.

You can waste all your time and energy trying to figure out a way to lose weight, but in the end if you don't take action, nothing will change. How do you take charge and make a change? Simple.

Start small and build yourself up.

It does not matter what you do, so long as you're doing it. As CT Fletcher once said:

"It's still yo mother fucking set."

Even if you do not plan on being as big as CT Fletcher, his advice still stands.

When I started out weight lifting I had barely any weight, and even less money, so I did what any other industrious American does and I improvised. Instead of spending $120 on a barbell set from Wal-Mart, I opted for the $20 40 lbs bar bell set and used those weights on a $12 curling bar I picked up from Play it Again Sports.

In between my sets of weight lifting I was also doing a lot of shadow boxing, and occasionally did some sprinting. When I started I lifting I was about 245 lbs, and after six months I got myself down to about 232 lbs and then shot back up to 240 lbs because I was stress eating.

See the key is consistency. If you start small, build yourself up, and keep at it, somehow in the middle of it all manage to not undo all of your hard work by binge eating fatty foods, then you can rather easily lose weight.

So what changed for me? I found inspiration, and a martial art I really like called "Mauy Thai."

At the time I was also playing a lot of Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City (before I lost all my games on my steam account I had like a combined 800 hours in each game) and began think, "Man Batman sure is awesome, I want to be just like him," so I picked up some weights and started using them. 

Back in August a friend of mine invited me to do a 30 day trail with a mixed martial arts gym in Jensen called "America's Top Team," and I decided to do it because I figured after all I did by myself that it would be pretty easy. It was not. 

My expectations were quickly  shattered when I found out the hardest thing about fighting is keeping your arms up, oh that and coordination (I have none). I showed up about every other day during that month and actually began to see results towards the end, and even managed to pay for a class after my trail had expired, only to have to drop it because of a family crisis.

I spent the next month and a half in Georgia taking care of my elderly grand father only to move him back down to Florida at the end of October. Since then I have been on a bit of a roller coaster of frustration and stress eating. I only recently got myself back in the habit of regularly lifting weight again two weeks ago. I also started something new: Upside down elbow knee crunches, which are actually kind of fun to do.

Where am I going with all of this? What am I trying to say? It's easy to lose weight, you just have to stop coming up with bull shit excuses to not exercise and just do it. Simple. No magic bullet, no gimmicky bull shit. You know what "Kung Fu," mean? It loosely translates to "Hard work," so even if you start doing something that is really basic and kind of stupid, if you keep at it you'll end up being kind of awesome at.

Keep at it you lazy bastards, and don't give up.

Hacks for Old People who can't see

CTRL +

I made this specifically for my Dad's friend, Jim Glendening.

I suck at First Impressions.

I think this is a common issue with people my age. We tend to give people the wrong impression the first time we them, and it is usually because we're lazy, and sometimes we just do not care. I know personally I have screwed up first impressions more times than I can count. The hard part is living with that and moving on.

Moving on would be easy, if only I could stop dwelling on those mistakes. I guess that is what I have had to learn, which is to not dwell on my mistakes. Sometimes that is difficult, because the amount of things I have to dwell on are ever expanding. Most recently I have suffered some social loss, mostly in the form of some long term friends, people whom I have known since pretty much the time I move over to the East coast of Florida. I really do not know what I did, but they no longer wish to associate with me, which is a real bummer.

See I could move on, if I did not get this nagging feeling at night reminding of all the relationships and bridges I have burnt in my time. I try to occupy my brain with other activities to distract me from these things, and yet somehow my brain manages to remind of exactly where and what I did long and torments with the idea that if I had the chance I could do it better, but I digress, dwelling on these things does me no good, I need only move forward.

Speaking of moving forward, what am I going to do? I have a tendency of announcing to people my lofty goals, and then falling completely short of those goals, mostly because I find an excuse to not pursue that goal, or I give up in some kind of fit of futility. That's the part of me that I struggle with, the one that keeps reminding me of the futility of it all, that EVEN if I do achieve my short term goals, somehow in the end my long term goal just turns to complete crap because it does not matter what I do, I am still stuck in the same shitty circumstance.

Maybe my attitude sucks?

To take a page from Socrates himself, when asked about the secret of success from a young man who he ended up walking out in the deep end of river and holding his head under water til he had to fight violently to get a breathe of air, relating that the sensation of fighting for the air at the time is just like how you become successful; you have to want it hard enough to fight for no matter what.

A lot of the fighting I have been doing as of late has been with myself though, I am constantly fighting the urge to just give up and jump in front of train, or maybe even on coming traffic and just end the struggle all together.  I am to stubborn to do that however, because I realize that is an easy way out, and despite how much my life SUCKS right now, it will SUCK LESS down the road.

Do I have a plan for success? Not exactly, I am not really the planning type, but then again, I am at the point in my life where I need to cut the bull shit and start doing the things that will ultimately make me successful which means I need to seriously invest some time into myself pinpoint exactly where and what I want to do with my life.

I got a little detracted. What does this have to do with first impressions? I guess I give people the impression that I am some kind of sad sack who is mostly coasting through life, which is mostly true. It's time for a change, and I am going to make that change. I once again publicly humiliate myself stating that I will achieve a major change in life and that I will amount to something within the next three months or so.

Here's a video from Eliot Hulse, a guy that's helped me with a lot of the shit going on in my head:

Musical Wendnesday Triple Play!

This may be a bit late, but that's mostly because I am lazy, and mostly because it took me all day to finally decide on what songs I will post today.

First, however, let me give you some background, I was in Middle School when I first started watching regularly and one of the first series I was exposed to was Cowboy Bebop. Cowboy Bebop has by far one of the best sound tracks of any anime I have watched. That is why the first song I post here is this one:

The raw emotion of the lyrics of this song spoke to me at the time because I was going through the typical angsty teenager phase of my life. When I hear this song it brings me back to a simpler time when the only thing I had to worry about was finishing my home work, but instead opting to play Rune Scape till two o'clock in the morning and then doing it on the boss or during lunch because I am lazy.

Then there's this:

Green Bird is a great song, though I do not really understand what is being said, the visuals of this sequence convey a message of sadness and regret, not being able to set it right.

And finally: 

The ending sequence of this series was simply amazing, it ends on an ambiguous note of whether or not Spike died or not. These scenes inspired me and helped me through my hard times.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think (if anyone else other than bots is actually reading the crap I post) and what you want me to cover next. Eventually I'll start writing more interesting stuff.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy! (Musical Wednesday!)

Today being Wednesday and all I figure I lighten the mood with a song that upon hearing it brings you back to simpler time in the 90's when Nickelodeon actually produced quality entertainment. Growing up I had this song stuck in my head frequently, I even remember my dad yelling at me because I said "I'll teach your grand mother to suck on eggs..."

Anyway, I have been kind of lazy and have not been doing any posts lately, but I figure I may start up again with the blog, so if you care be sure to check back here from time to time to see what's new.

I am going to be lazy.

Okay, as of late I have been dealing with a lot of internet conectivity issues which has made it difficult to keep this blog updated.

What's new:

I decided to scrap the review I was going to do on Rune Scape, and instead will sum it up with one word; crap. The game has become complete and utter crap, its the only free MMO that actually penalizes and limits what free players can do, which I think is completely againgst what Rune Scape originally stood for. As for their claim that they are the "best free MMO," I have to challenge that because it is anything but. I've played better Korrean F2P games than Rune Scape.

Pros: Game has come a long way in terms of graphics and such.

Cons: Good graphics does not a good game make. From a lack of varity in gear types and generally boring combat and stale gathering skills this time sink does not have a whole lot to offer. Plus the disappoint lack of healing spells makes the game rather frustrating because your only option is to carry food with you.

Maybe I am rambling? I thought I'd share my displeasement with the game.

One last thing:

Last Saturday I was at the Jupiter Light House for the "International Light House On the Air," event. The weather and location were great, the propagation, not so much. I did more opporating than I did last year, but for the most part I just got frustrated with the condition and spent a lot of time doing other things like swimming, setting up gear, and lazying about in our motor home (Yep, we brought home with us).

The furthest contact I think I made during the whole contest was a Light House in Peuto Rico, W4L. Which was cool, I also made a few more contacts after that but for the most part found myself just chatting with the noise.

Was it fun? Yep.

Do I have pictures? Those are coming.

Notice: I wrote this on my mobile phone.

If I had a Nickle for Every Damn Dime, I'd Have Half the Time... (Musical Wednesday)

Your Life:

I want to start off by saying that Modest Mouse has to be one of my favorite bands. I know there are people out there who claim that they have sold out, but for some reason I still really like their music, even if it is a bit repetitive and sometimes just down right bad at times. I guess in some ways their music reminds me of driving around town with my brother in his beat-up Honda Civic.

My brother moved 3,000 miles away recently, he's living out in Colorado, so in a way, Modest Mouse is standing in for the void that he left, and it brings me back to the time when he was at least 30 miles away.

Enough about my brother though, onto the song. This song sticks with me because it acknowledges something that most of us are afraid to admit, that if we could have anything we wanted, in a perfect world, we would still find a way to be unhappy or disappointed. Looking back, even at my own life, I tell you I have a lot of regrets, things that I wish I had handled differently, or things that I could have done to prevent my current situation, but what I have found is that dwelling on that stuff only drags me down and makes it harder for me to move forward with myself. 

So maybe I am frustrated and perturbed but I keep moving forward, looking eagerly to the next day. I realize everything is temporary, and that things will either change for the better or worse and that I cannot control it, so instead I just accept things as they are and continue with my life. Enough about that though, listen to the song, tell me what you think, and if you would like to hear more of it.

Musical Wednesdays

Musical Wednesdays:

Alright, since it's hump day I thought I'd do something a bit different to try and switch the week up for anyone who's reading my blog. As the title suggest, I will dedicate Wednesdays to posting various music videos to try and lighten things up. I guess I can do something where one week I post a music video of a band I like, and then next week I can post a video that you guys choose. 

The name of the song is "Funny Bunny," by The Pillows, which is a Japanese band that I was first exposed to back when I was thirteen years-old from an anime called "FLCL." Sure the song itself is in another language, but if you actually take the time to listen to the song itself, you will begin to appreciate it for what it is; a pretty damn good song.

Do you agree with me, disagree, or really don't care? Let me know in the comment section, also, if you want, suggest a song for next week for me to post here. I'll figure out a way to make a poll, and based upon what you guys want to see I will post it.

Side note: I am really putting off the review I promised, but I will get around to it eventually. Keep reading and I promise to not disappoint.

Interim Report

Interim report:

Alright, I know I promised a review on Rune Scape, but I have had to put that on hold, mostly because I am camping.

Why?

Mostly because I can, and mostly because of my hobby. What is my hobby? Amateur Radio.

My family lives in a motor home, so we can literally bring our home with us if we go anywhere, so we brought it with us to the beach. My father rented out a pavilion over by the Eliot Museum on Hutchinson Island, so we took our motor home with us.

Our rig.

So how did Amateur Radio bring us to the beach? This weekend was a contest called "Islands on the Air," so we decided to arrive Friday night for a dry run, and the contest started on Saturday, at about 8:00 A.M EST.

Saturday:

I woke up earlier with my dad to start getting everything ready to get on the air.

A blurry picture of our radio and my laptop.

We had no issues setting up the radio and my laptop (for logging), but when we finally started operating we found that we could hear other people, but they could not hear us. There was an electro-magnetic storm that knocked out all  HF bands pretty much. I spent about two hours of so going up and down the 10 meter band trying to make some contacts, and did get a few. My dad (N4BKT) and I traded off and on with the radio, and even had some visitors who showed up and worked the station.

Now I did take some time to go swimming too, because, well, it was the beach after all, so you really can't not go swimming; so I did. That's about the time my younger sister showed up with her baby: Oliver.

Left: Oliver sleeping after swimming in ocean for the first time. Right: My sister, Kate.

My sister, myself, Oliver, and my mom(KI4RHM) all walked down to the beach together, where we set up an umbrella to put all our things under. It was a blast too, my sister asked me to watch Oli (my nickname for Oliver) while her and my mom swam, so him and I hung out under the umbrella, where he proceeded to do what most babies do; be cute (at least in my biased kind of view, because you know not EVERY kid is cute).

Not that I was doubting his relation to my family, but I knew right away he was one of us when he's not even talking yet and he's putting his foot in his mouth (A common trait among males in my family, both literally, and figuratively).

The swimming took up about an hour or so of the day, and by the time the sun went down I realized that I had a sun burn on my head (I recently shaved about 90% of the hair on my head, because I was tired of dealing with my long messy hair) which really kind of sucked.

Our visitors were people like Kevin Jackson (W4JKJ and president of JTRG) who stopped by to operate for a bit, Norm Alexander (W4QN), Dick Lambert (KK4FOA, did not operate), Joe Sawyer (KI4OXP) Pual (N7JQN) Doug Shields (W4DAS and president of MCARA) and Ray Strickland (K4TCJ who showed up after hearing me on the local repeater Sunday morning).

A picture of me operating, like a boss.

As the day progressed into night and the bugs came out to say "hello," it came down to my dad and I operating again, which was fine with me because I got to play around on the 40 meter band (As a technician I do not have any phone privileges on 40 meters, but because I was under the blanket of my dad's extra I got to scan around and make some contacts) which turned out to be a very interesting band .

As I was going through 40 meters, I happened by a net of people holding an "interesting," conversation...

At around 10 o'clock at night after fighting the bad conditions all day, we finally decided to call it in. My parents were bushed (so was I), but they needed me to baby sit everything out side while they napped in side, which really was not so bad, I just went through a can or two of bug spray is all. During my time out side I did make some contacts, got a few people in Europe (Poland is about the furthest contact I have made as of yet, because I mostly stick to local repeaters) and the United States, mostly. I hit the hey at about 11 o'clock and that brings us to Sunday.

Sunday:

Got up early again, and tried to make a few contacts before the contest ended at 8 o'clock, but that did not go to well.  After the contest was over I listened to the Treasure Coaster's net, and went inside and heard some club members on the repeater so I picked up an HD that was lying around and called in to see if anyone could hear me. I made a contact with someone whom I cannot recall their call sign or name, he was in Port St Lucie. After hearing me on the air that's when Ray came and he asked us about how the contest went for us and how many contacts we made. He stayed for a bit, and by about noon we were ready to go home.

Summary:

I had a fun weekend, but I was also not on the internet, so that's mostly why I have no posted anything, well that, and because I am kind of lazy put off posting this entry.

I encourage comments and question by the way, I know my post may be a bit sporadic and out there, but if you need me to clarify anything, or give more detail, let me know and I'll try to expand on it.

An Introduction.

Socrates, a bit of a personal hero type....

Hello all, I would like to first thank anyone who is reading my first post, I will try to keep this simple. As my introduction I would to tell you what you can expect from this blog and from myself. Mostly that I am quite opinionated, and I am sure more than likely someone will disagree with me; which is fine, I actually welcome it. My opinions are board and varied, and I like to think that they are mostly "rational," rather than motivated by emotion and passion. I realize that may be a bit subjective, but I will try to remain as objective as possible.

There in lies the question, though, what do I think is "rational?" I guess that could be a subjective definition as well. So what is it then? What constitutes a "rational," opinion? Why do I keep putting "rational," in quotation?

The answer, it's not so easy, really. See, people have personal biases, and lord knows, I have them as well (I think most any one is burdened with bias as well). Trying to transcend your own personal biases is kind of hard, and that is what I intend to do here; to leave my bias at the key board.

So, what are my rational opinions, you may be asking yourself? And why should you care?

The opinions I will express in this blog, while my own, will be on varying topics, like video games, politics, popular culture, and I may through in a bit of philosophy into the mix.

With that being said, who am I?

I am just your average Joe with an overly active mind that feels the need to share his opinion with others, hopefully I do not just end up sheltering myself behind a group of people who only agree with me and rejecting any and all feed back from anyone who happens to disagree with me (I have seen this happen not only on the internet, but in real life as well). I hope to make my post both entertaining, and witty, and I may even through in some videos of me talking about the articles I write.

Here is a preview of my first actual article I will be writing: it will be about the MMORPG RuneScape. I will be doing a review of the game in its current state. I'll tell you what I like about, what I don't, and whether or not you should consider playing the game.