ryan.fullofthink.com

So it’s been awhile but nothing much has happened really. I’ve managed to lose 20lbs in the past months partially in part to walking 3 miles a day with an overloaded backpack. I’ve been preparing for the summer so I could go down to Red River Gorge and do some backpacking since I got a bunch of the gear for it last summer but only got to use it once.

See I used to go camping/caving all the time when I was younger, I actually went on my first rappell/caving trip when I was four.  The problem I usually face was simply finding somone who not only wanted to go, but was able to as well. From both a time and equipment point of view.

It’s not that difficult to find people who will agree to go car camping, that’s fairly simple to put together, backpacking is a different beast entirely as I discovered when I went for the first time last summer. Starting out it’s difficult, exhausting, and painful. The rewards are more than worth it in my eyes though. So I recently joined a cincinnati backpacking group, I haven’t been on a trip with the group just yet but it will definitely aid in finding likeminded people to head down there with. I also volunteered for a group that goes down once a month to do some work on the trails and other assorted things to try and keep everything in good condition so that should be pretty cool as well.

I eventually hope to head down there for a saturday - sunday week long trip, just disappear into the wilderness and wander around for days on end. Hardly seeing another person the entire time. For now though, I’ll just have to stick to weekend trips. Like this weekend for example

Unfortunately I have no camera so I cannot share the sights down there with you guys or I would.

read comments (1)

So I was talking to one who shall not be named while working today. The topic of religion came up, somehow related to the conversation of whether or not it’s a grocery cart or grocery buggy. (cart won by the way) I don’t remember how it’s related but it is.

As a warning to you religious types, in all probability what follows is going to insult or offend you in some way. If you cannot handle the criticism of your belief systems then you should stop reading now. If you can handle it and are willing to duke it out with rational arguments and thoughts please feel free to comment, I welcome it.

 On to the fun stuff, if you haven’t figured it out by this point, I’m anything but a religious person. I have been to church before, I was even baptised (sp) at one point. This was of course when I was very young and didn’t really have a choice in the matter. You’ll note most of my ideas will be focused on christianity as that’s what I’ve been exposed to the most.

When I think of religions you have different levels of followers, there are the fanatics who follow the beliefs as an infallible system of rules and regulations. Everything in the system is true and right no matter what. They will ignore any kind of scientific evidence citing anything that suggests they might be wrong as tests of faith. For example, dinosaur bones, they are here as a test of faith. Nothing like that actually existed, god put them here to see the true measure of our faith. It’s quite impossible to argue with these people as it always gets to the point of the intangible faith that drives everything. It doesn’t have to make sense, you just have to believe.   Really… I’ll pass on that thanks.

Then there are the people who will follow most of the teachings, more as a moral code than anything, but still go to church, try to convince others their way is right, they arent quite as unreasonable as the fanatic but still you wont get far trying to argue with them about beliefs. They however will not condemn you to eternal damnation if you don’t agree, at least not to your face.

Finally you have those that pick a religion just to fit into the norm or were raised into it and it kinda stuck, they might go to church now and then. Possibly pray sometimes, just in case. They are driven to follow out of the fear that maybe just maybe it’s true and they’ll spare themselves the eternal damnation by at least believing in something. 

Which leads to my next point, fear. Fear is what religion is really for, keep the populace in fear so you can control them. It’s a method of controlling people, as simple as that. It’s simple to see, every religion has punishments for ignoring the rules, following other religions, all kinds of stuff like that. It’s all about the punishments and keeping people in line.

So many terrible things have happened in the name of religion, moreso than anything else I’d wager. So much death, so many long wars based on religious beliefs. Crusades, Inquisition,  hell even suicide bombings in our war now. All in the name of “god”. How is the benevolent being allowing all this to be done in his name, don’t you think he’d step in by now and say “guys, what the fuck” 

So assume somone out there is right, one of these many many religions is correct, what about everyone else? Automatically condemned to eternal torment because they picked the wrong one, were born into the wrong one? What about the people that existed before this religion came to be? Automatically fucked from something they couldn’t possibly know about? It’s ridiculous to think so.  Alright so we’re all right, now there’s hundreds of gods and spirits and you’re better off making your own religion, might as well set your afterlife up nice right? 

What is it that draws people into these systems? Is it the idea that there is some eternal reward for being a good person in life? Should that matter? Are you really a good person if the reason it’s so is because of fear of punishment in the end? Religion shouldn’t be necessary to create morality in someone. Artificial morality born of fear is no better than none at all. Is it the hope that something will come intervene on your behalf when times get rough? Nothing ever does. I’ve heard it time and again, you pray for help in a bad situation. Either it gets answered and god listened or god has a plan for you, he didnt ignore you, just wants you to be a stronger person through these trials you’re facing.  

The entire system is a load of shit, science diminishes what little credibility it had with each passing day. It was somewhat ok to have it in the times where things were largely unexplained but in the world today, with what we know, I expect people to act a little more intelligently when it comes to things like this. Stop following your imaginary friend and start following the truth around you.

read comments (2)

So I’ve been having a great time lately, EVGA did finally approve my RMA, all I need to do is go get a copy of a reciept from something I purchased over a year ago from the store I got it from and everything will be set. Hopefully that isn’t as difficult as I feel like it’s going to be.  My spider bite o doom has all but vanished at this point though it does seem like it’s going to leave a nice scar on my leg. Good times.

With the loss of my computer I have since turned to some 360 games for entertainment in my off time. Two in particular stand out right now. Lost Odyssey is the first JRPG/Console RPG I’ve ever played, while I’m told it follows the same basic formula of every game of its kind, it’s all new to me so I’ve been enjoying it although random battles are somewhat irritating at times. It’s definitely worth picking up if RPGs are your thing. Not that there are many options for the 360.

 The other more recent addition to the collection is actually called Culdcept Saga, I originally got ace combat 6 awhile back, got bored with it before I even finished it, took it in to gamestop to sell with the intention of getting something multiplayer. I picked up kingdom under fire under the impression that it was similar to gauntlet legends, just a mindless hack n slash you could pop in and play with your friends. I was mistaken, took it back within 24 hours and picked up culdcept. The concept is quite simply like monopoly merged with magic. While it may not look like much, it is highly addictive.

Which brings me to my last bit, I was browsing the stardock forums the other day and stumbled on a post featuring this article http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=33624

 It basically outlines my feelings on the anti piracy that software companies are so fond of using.  It’s not very often that I pirate a game, usually if I do it’s something that I wasn’t sure was worth buying and I’m very often correct. The fact of the matter is, the anti piracy stuff never stops the pirates, and it truly is a royal pain in the ass for people who actually buy the software. Treating your customers like thieves gives them no reason not to act like thieves. As they outline in the article, using pirated software is less painful than using the actual purchased software more often than not. It most definitely should not be that way. Not at all.

read comments (0)

Just a quick update. My 8800 GTX is KIA. Hopefully they’ll let me RMA it, I don’t think I’ve still got my original reciept which they ask for. I also didn’t register in time to fall inside their parameters for replacement still. I may be out a $650 video card -_-

read comments (2)

            So, bit of an update on things as of late. For starters, my spider bite o doom refuses to heal but is also not really bothering me anymore aside from the fact that it refuses to go away. Not knowing what it really is does bother me a little bit. Hopefully I make my save vs death and it just goes away.

Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (2)

Clearly I don’t post a lot of these things, it is quite frustrating when the things I DO post end up vanishing into the abyss. In any case, post count +1 

As I detailed before I have what I thought to be a mild brown recluse bite just above my ankle. I’m not entirely sure what it truly is at this point, what I am sure of is that it doesnt seem to be healing, but at the same time it isn’t progressing any further than before.  It has turned into a small hole in the flesh surrounded by a circular area of dying skin. Pleasant to visualize I’m sure. On the plus side, it doesn’t make it difficult to walk anymore. Perhaps I should actually take the time and go to the doctor, *sigh* I hate going to see doctors.

 In other news my video card that went through about a week of apparent near death experience has suddenly and inexplicably decided to function again. It’s as if none of the brokenness of the past week ever happened. Strange, but I’m certainly not going to complain about it, that’s for sure.  However, at the same time my computer decided to come back to life, my MP3 player decided to commit suicide after I unplugged it from my computer this morning. Perhaps whatever evil was infecting my computer has now transferred into the mp3 player. In either case, it’s certainly a lot cheaper to replace than the 8800 GT would’ve been.

Oh yes, the other thing that was in the vanishing post, new liquor, Oozo (maybe, that’s at least what the name sounds like) When described to me they categorized it as “liquid LSD”. Now I didn’t have any hallicinations but it did seem rather potent, the key thing about this stuff was the flavor. It was like drinking black licorice jellybeans. Simply amazing, I could drink this stuff all day.  Now if I could just find a bar that actually had it besides the one I first tried it at.

Also, WTB spring, I’m seriously getting sick of all this cold weather and snow shit. I don’t particularly care for driving to work on a sheet of ice in my shitty ass little car. I could take a turn on the snow going 5mph and start sliding ominously toward parked cars and/or telephone poles. Of course at that speed it’s like playing bumper cars but it’s seriously infuriating to slowly inch toward something and be unable to stop it. Like fuck, I’m barely moving, here it comes, wait for it, wait for it…. Bump. *sigh*         Hate snow and Ice.   Of course not even 2 hours AFTER I get to work, everything is cleared up. It’s just the drive there I get to slide around on snow and ice in a blizzard. Brilliant.

read comments (7)

Well the trends of the previous weeks do not really seem to want to change, I ended up missing my great grandmothers funeral because nobody saw fit to tell me when it was going to happen, despite me calling and specifically asking to be updated when the date/times were finalized to see if maybe I could guilt trip my boss into letting me have the days off. It happened on thursday in Iowa and I’m told this on like tuesday of the following week, and to top it all off, at the same time I’m also asked if I went to the funeral of my great uncle who died last friday, something else nobody saw fit to tell me about.  When I asked about it I was basically told that it wasn’t worth it to take time off work to attend these since they weren’t immediate family. Nevermind the fact that I used to visit them regularly when  I was younger of course. A couple days of work missed is a small price to be able to pay your respects to those who’ve passed on.

 The work excitement continues, the night before last I worked 8am-7pm and thus missed yet another class. Fortunately they arent of the difficulty level that it presents too much of a problem catching up without going, but it’s still quite frustrating. Oh and I come to find that all the work I did till 7 that night ended up being fairly useless overall and I spent all of yesterday doing practically the same damned thing over again.  But to be fair, my job is pretty much always doing the same shit I did the day before just in a different way. Thus why we don’t really make any progress isn’t exactly a mystery.

 Other than that though, life goes on as usual, I’m managing to stay fairly consistent with my experimental backpacking excercise plan. If anything it’s good for getting strange looks out of anyone who happens to drive/walk by.  My friend and I managed to hold a pool table for the entire night on monday at the bar down the street from my house, that is until the stupid good guy came in and practically won on his first turn. My pool playing is like a random number generator, sometimes I’ll be insane good for like 3 shots, then the rest of the game you’ll wonder what the hell happened to me. Kinda irritating when I think about it.  Anyway yay for free pool games, be they granted by luck or skill, free is free.

 Such an interesting life I lead… yea, interesting

read comments (1)

So Age of Conan got it’s official rating for the US which ended up M 17+  Our version will contain full fatality functionality, gore, blood, and ….. bewbies. I can only imagine the uproar that will stem from this. Personally I don’t think it’s that big of a deal either way, the rating is there for a reason, the same type of rating scheme is applied to movies and there certainly isn’t an uproar every time a REAL tit is shown in a movie so the concern for a pixel version in a game is odd but whatever.  Undoubtedly there will be a toggle for the blood and nudity in the game but the more vocal complainers will not concern themselves with this.

 The sad part, to me anyway, is that they are up in arms about showing a boob, moreso than say ripping the limbs off other players or npcs.  I mean, do these people get offended when they step out of the shower every morning? Do they just stare at the ceiling instead so they don’t have to see themselves in such an offensive form? I forsee that being particularly challenging to do but whatever.  Or is the problem in just seeing it on other people, pixellated or not? Then there are the hypocrits who defend it on say, a painting or statue, but not in a movie or game. Somehow the pixellated nudity is offensive but the painted is not, nevermind that it’s showing the exact same things. It’s all technically “art” anyway, just different forms. Everyone has their opinions on what is and isn’t art, fortunately our opinions don’t define those things.

What I am worried about is when the media gets ahold of it, like they did with mass effect recently, they really had like no ground to stand on for mass effect, it was obvious they hadn’t actually gone through and played the game. Now what I don’t want is my future MMO home being banned in the states or perma censored in all aspects because somone might possibly get offended by “OMG BOOBS R ON THE SCREEN!1!11!!”  If you want to live in your world, where everything has the ability to offend you, great, that’s wonderful, but live in your world, you dont like it? Don’t buy it. You don’t want to see it but still want to use the product? Use the damn filters and stfu.

 Now there are the people who will scream “but think of the children!” Why are you letting your children play M rated games? Do you let them watch R rated films as well? There is no difference. Take some fucking responsibility and RAISE your own damn child instead of trying to impose limitations on the rest of the adult world for it. Or don’t have children at all, because you obviously aren’t ready for that kind of responsibility. It’s not like all this stuff is floating around on billboards outside, (europe has nude billboards btw, they are not all fucked up in the head either, imagine that) it’s in your home, your choice, not being forced on you in any way. Simply put, get the fuck over yourselves.

read comments (3)

I haven’t really decided what all I’ll be using this for, undoubtedly it will end up being me venting about whatever happens to be going on in my life at the time. For now I’ll start with last week. It started out like any other week really, until wednesday that is, I got to work, nothing really going on just mindlessly building spreadsheets like usual when my boss comes over and starts freaking out saying we are now in crisis mode, everything stops, we need to fix this asap. So instead of my normal 8-4 with an hour lunch i did an 8-6:30 with no lunch (night class starts at 6:15 and my books/work were at home -_-) So I ended up missing class as well. Things get progressively worse at work from that point on, with our manager basically explaining that if we arent able to put this staff plan out soon we wouldn’t have jobs anymore, none of us, including himself.  Nothing like not knowing whether or not you’ll have a job in a week right?

 This is enough for most people to have a bad week, I certainly didn’t feel like I needed more but hey, I can’t get off that easy right? Nah, thursday night I decide to go out with the girl I’ve been seeing and we end up getting into a fight of sorts as well, I’m already in a bad mood from work and this isn’t helping. Ever try to reason with a drunk person? It’s similar to arguing with a brick wall by smashing your face into it.  So now work and this fight are weighing on my mind. Here comes saturday. I get a text message at like 8am telling me that my great grandmother will not survive the day (she died at 7:40 pm).  At this point I’m waiting for my car to explode, my house to randomly combust, whatever, just throw more onto the fire ya know. Go all out.  Oh and to top it all off, because work is in crisis mode, I cannot attend the funeral either as I cannot get days off work to go.

 Now this was last week, by the time sunday came around I was to the point of just saying what the fuck ever and waiting for something else to happen. However since then things have been stabilizing, I still can’t go to the funeral but my job isn’t at risk so much anymore. It’s just frustrating when it seems like your life is falling apart around you and it’s pretty much all out of your control.

For the TLDR crowd,  last week was made of fail.

read comments (2)