Pauls Rants & Revelations

Im not referring to the good old days like the 40′s or 50′s, but the 80′s and 90′s when those of my generation were learning about the world and it’s many twisting and turnings. Specifically, our cartoons.

One of my favorite cartoons of all time was Animaniacs. That and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I mean, todays cartoons are rather a let down when it comes to the styles of animation that are used in their production, but more than that the “message” that todays cartoons deliver seems to be a somewhat less meaningful and very watered down version of the messages from these 2, in my opinion, staples of my generations cartoons.

For instance, when Shredder was thwarted (yet again) but the cowabunga band of mutated amphibians, there was always some meaningful bit of wisdom that was gained be it “never put all your super weapons in one Technodrome”, or something about good hearted teams will always triumph over evil individuals.

From Animaniacs, though, the best message you could hope for was from Mr. Skullhead, either about not skiing a downhill run in summer, or not to go swimming in a pool of sharks with meat tied around your neck.

For those of us with children (and none of us thought we would actually have them) we can still see them today. Animaniacs can be rented from your local library now (as my friend did, which we are about to watch disc 4 of). And TMNT is making a comeback of sorts as evidenced by the new movie (which I took my son to see, and he loved it and the messages about brotherhood that it bestowed upon the audience). Perhaps we will yet again be blessed with TMNT in the mornings and Animaniacs in the afternoons as it was in our youth, but if not, then we can get the DVDs (or download them from torrents) and enjoy them with our children who will hopefully learn the same well rounded lessons we did at their age.

-Cheers

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority – Benjamin Franklin

This was a great read that asks a lot of questions that many Americans are asking themselves. Read it now.

When did America become a nation of frightened wimps? | steve-olson.com

-Cheers

With all the hullabaloo that the Imus comment is getting this week, It got me wondering about a few things in society that i believe are major contributing factors to why we are going to hell for this one.

For those who dont know, Don Imus, a popular talk radio personality, was shit canned from CBS on 4/12/07 for calling the Rutgers womens basketball team a bunch of “nappy headed hos”.

He was fired for speaking his mind and to Rev. Al Sharpton this was a racially derogatory comment requiring severe action. More than a few Hip Hop albums call women “ho’s”, but when a white man says it, its a racial slur? If the team were predominately white it would be been forgotten in 10 minutes, but since its mostly made up of black players it makes it racially negative in nature? A crock-of-shit double standard if there ever was one.

One thing I found rather disturbing was that some people are saying that this will damage “race relations”. What the fuck is that? Are we negotiating with Martians or something? Why wasn’t I informed? I was under the, I guess it was mistaken, impression that we humans were all part of the same race. We just come in different styles and colors; much like cars do.

So now a days, if someone of a particular skin color says something that offends a few folks this will… what? Lead to total social anarchy? If thats the case, then excuse me while I get my nail studded baseball bat from the storage closet.

I think Oprah Winfrey is a didactic, shit-stirring, opportunistic yammering cow who uses crying pregnant teens to push up her ratings, but that doesn’t mean I dislike every black person in the country. I just dislike her; because shes Oprah; and she pisses me the fuck off.

To restate it, we are going to hell. Not just some of us. All of us. Yes, even the ones who go to church and pray and whatnot. You, too, are going to hell.

We are going because God hates dumbasses. American society has become so overly-cautious when it comes to talking or saying anything regarding race, gender, sexual preference, religion, and so on that a lot of people would rather not associate with people of a different color; all because they don’t want to be slapped with a lawsuit for saying something that even remotely approaches a hundred mile radius of possibly racial comment.

And that is just stupid and sad. How are we supposed to get along when everyone is walking on eggshells with their hands clasped over their mouths?

If God were even a hair less forgiving and patient then he is, He would wipe the whole planet clean. Just undo every fucking thing in existence and go from there. (BTW, O’ great one, thanks for not clearing us off like last nights table scraps just yet).

You couldn’t really blame Him though, given all the crap thats floating around society at large? We have so many rules regarding speech that we have no room for talking. And if no one talks, it’s going to get very boring.

I’m not suggesting a law-less society (no matter how fun it would be) but easing back on a few things would make a great deal of progress on the whole “lets get along” mentality the huggy-feely types are pushing on us.

Before you go back to pretending to work, let me summarize this in a simple list:

• American society is too cautious about whats said to whom that original thought and freedom is almost lost
• Racism, true racism, is from ignorance.
• God hates dumb-ass’s. Period.
• Ty looks ridiculous in 12XL Fubu shirts
• If you think you’re racist, you probably aren’t.

OK. You can all flame my comments now. And if anyone thinks I’m a racist, please let me know

-Cheers

… If it hurts when you poke a blind person in the eye.

… if Cher would melt if she sat to close to a campfire.

… if the “Young and the Restless” will ever become the “Old and the Gaseous”.

… if a man says his opinion in a forest, and a woman isn’t around to hear it, is he still wrong?

… why women go through 14 clothing changes in 15 minutes just to go with the first thing they put on. And they still aren’t happy with it.

… why, from your perspective, everyone who posts a comment is a moron, everyone who argues against you is an asshole, and everyone who agrees with you is a suck-up?

… what would happen if I pushed the big red button?

… if life is what you make it, then are problems just “manufacturer defects”? Can we get a replacement?

… what would happen if you follow the white rabbit?

… what the monetary difference is between justifiable homicide and a raging murdering spree?

… if Freddy will visit me in my dreams? And will he bring cookies?

… can a cat kill another cat and steal its extra lives? Kinda like pillaging a fallen enemy for ammo.

… how many people would die without the internet. Not like “my WoW Lv64 Palidin was crushed by that troll” dead; but Dead dead.

… what would happen if I filled the car tires with water instead of air.

So I’ve already reached the 100th post on this little soapbox of mine. I thought I would be really happy about it and I’m more of the feeling of “WTF? 100 already? Don’t I still have a job to do or something?”.

I was trying to think of something witty or ground breaking in my 100th post, but nothing came to mind. Instead, I will leave you with a bit of advice that has been passed down through generations. Advice that you can use every day and it will have a direct impact on your life.

“Don’t eat yellow snow.”

There, you now have 1/67th of the answer to the meaning of life. Figure out the other 66 parts and you are all set.

-Cheers

Originally when I start this site, I thought “I could make money from AdSense like I see on every other site on the planet”. This turned out to be wrong in many and varied ways.

For starters, AdSense is great if you have a busy site with thousands of visitors an hour. Then it would make sense. But for smaller sites (and I mean much smaller) it just isn’t really a big earner and often it doesn’t do anything except take up screen real-estate. And, I feel compelled to point out, that the people who have 2 AdSense blocks on their sites side bars, a header and footer block of ads, and ads within every freaking post, are not going to be making any more money than if you had one ad block on a page. I don’t think Google will count the impressions from the 4-6 ad blocks on a page so you are left only with click thru’s which are becoming more rare. And I believe, as most people are turned off by an ad overloaded site, that site owners will be waiting quite a while to get the minimum cash out amount ($100) from Google.

There are, of course, exceptions. A niche site for example that has a lot of back links and content to offer will probably do well with an ad block or a random ad somewhere in a post or page. However this also, once again, proves the rule that content is king. So most exceptions aren’t truly exceptions as they just follow the standard good practices of writing which is, basically, write well and write often.

So, for all of you with sites that have 100 ads on it, take away all but one ad block and see what you are left with. This is what Google is actually looking at and what your visitors would like to see. If you don’t like what you see build up more and better content. And for those that say “You’re crazy! I’ve made oodles from AdSense”, please comment and post your site and let us know how you did it whether it be one busy site or 50 kinda-busy sites. Or if you bribed Google. If you did that (and it worked) please post the name and address of whom to send it too.

- Cheers

Well, its been 10 days since I bought a pack of smokes. 10 whole, interminably long days. That’s not to say I have had a cigarette in the last 10 days, because I have (only one, so please get that disapproving look off of your face). And the 1 I did have I told my wife about because if I didn’t she would have slapped me when she found out on her own.

But other than the endless seeming days and the many hours of sitting doing nothing (well, working I guess) its not that bad. My boss, bless him, has loaded me up with so many projects that I think I’m going to drown in code in his attempt to “help save my life”. Well, at least he’s sorta trying to help.

Ill report more in a few days. Just had a minute while some work was downloading and thought to tell everyone the sorta-happy news about quitting smoking.

-Cheers

A few years ago (late 2004) my mate sent me a link to a nifty little service called reinvigorate. It offered off-site tracking (like Hitbox and the rest) but also a few things more. I checked it out and put the tracking code on a few sites just to take it for a test drive. I was immediately (well, a few days after implementation) impressed. The statistics it was gathering were unbelieveable. I could see my visitors in such detail I could have sworn that someone at reinvigorate was reading my visitors minds.

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I just finished the C&C3 demo and I was really quite bummed. I mean, just when its getting good, the demo ends. What the hell? I was just about to see how we respond to the Philadelphia exploding and then, and then… nothing. Erg. Now I have to wait until end of March to see how it all plays (literally) out.

Oh, you wanted to know what the games is like? Sorry, went off there for a bit. Anyways, the game itself is the best C&C that EA has come out with yet. It has the overview (also know as the God view) of the battle field just like all the other C&C games (with the exception of Renegade)  and an almost the same, but totally redone and upgraded player interface with all of the really nifty bits like the Ion Cannon, Jump troopers, and a whole host of new Nod trumping goodies conveniently placed with large buttons on the left side of the screen.

There are, of course, new unit additions like the Zone Trooper, Commandos,  and Grenadiers (for the personnel of the GDI side) and a really great new vehicle called the Mammoth.  This mammoth is not the same as the one in Firestorm as it is a treaded ground vehicle. But it is more powerful than the old mammoth and, guess what? You can build more than one of them. In the skirmish demo I build a whole army of them and it was really great to watch them plow through the city destroying everything.

The game play itself is much the same although much smoother and the user interface is much improved once you get used to it.

The graphics, oh the graphics, are probably the greatest improvement. Where before you had pre-rended out sprites of the vehicles and troops, this time everything is rendered in real-time. The buildings, vehicles, even the ground troops are all 3d models rendered in great detail in game.  Kudos to EA for that as it is just plain kick ass to watch as well as play.

In the demo I didn’t get a chance to  see what kind of new Nod stuff there is. Until I captured their construction yard (tee hee). I played a skirmish, left an enemy power building unscathed, and took over their construction yard. Seeing as I spoiled some great new things about the GDI side, I’m not going to give away whats new in Nod town. But if you get a hold of the demo you can take over their constructor and see for yourself.

:You can get it here if you subscribe to FilePlanet 

:You can get it here if you just want the game without download restriction from Gamers Hell

Overall, I cant wait for March 28th. I am really interested (fanatically interested actually) about whats in store in the later levels and what the Scrim are all about. You can also pre-order the game here directly from EA Link (which is similar to Steam from Valve for those who don’t know) when it comes out. Im not sure about using the EA Link as it feels like a knock-off of Steam. Its the same basic principle just a different company and its hard, being a Steam user for a few years now to use something so similar from another company. Call me crazy.

Enjoy the demo if you choose to wait through the 1.2 gigabyte download, or wait for the game to come out on March 28th to same all the excitement.

-Cheers

Since we are in the market for a house, I have been talking to realtors in the area about the general costs and what exactly they are looking for in ideal buyers. Most the the advice is fairly standard (decent credit, down in the back, pre-approved loan), but when I asked about the cost trends in the housing market, I get different answers from different agents.

Some say that the costs are going back up again, as foretold by a 3% jump in the average home price from January to February.  Other say that the costs are going down as indicated by the decrease in home sales in the last 3 months. There are varying stories citing varying sources and none of them are of any help really. Even news and real estate sites can give you different stories; and depending on how connected the site is to feeds and the MRLS database, possibly several different versions per day.

I would just like to find a reliable news source that gives accurate information about real estate in my area. If I find something like that Ill let you all know, and if you find something that may be helpful drop a line here please.

-Cheers Mates