Random Ramblings

Strange happenings around the world…

Tokyo man casts a spell over women to get them to live in his home..? When asked what the incantation was, he said “When you say it, even unattractive men become attractive. But I won’t say it because if I do, I’ll die.” Apparently you said it once without it being an issue, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to find such humor in your story…

Twins from Zimbabwe arrested for indecent exposure. Yeah, because there’s NOTHING unusual about dressing up in a loincloth with your twin brother and going to a shopping mall…

Teen boy sues school for discriminating against boys. Everyone’s a victim these days… His parents were probably upset he was failing his classes so he blamed the school…

In a real heartbreaker, The groundhog day handler retires this year. One must wonder, with only one working day a year, what did this guy do outside of work?

Malaysian scientists hunt bigfoot. First of all, bigfoot lives somewhere in the Pacific northwest, and is a man who goes out on the weekends dressed in an ape suit to scare tourists. You’re looking in the wrong country. Second of all, a ten foot ape? Sounds like the villagers have seen “King Kong” a few too many times… Thanks, Peter Jackson, thanks so much…

Tags: Humor, News by Andrew Laine
No Comments »

Okay, I hate these things a lot of times, but this amused me to no end…

Fat Tony People Iced: Thirty Eight Car Bombs Planted: Two Favorite Weapon Sledge Hammer Arms Broken: Twenty Six Eyes Gouged: Seventeen Tongues Cut Off: Ten Biggest Enemy: Big John Get Your HITMAN Name

Tags: Humor by Andrew Laine
3 Comments »

Okay, so this technically probably should’ve been earlier in the month, but I’m doing it anyway. I’ve been kind of reflecting on 2005, and all that’s happened in that one year. The crazyness just never ends, where to begin?

In 2005, a lot happened. I transitioned stores with Christian Supply a grand total of 4 times in one year, and served in capacities from manager in training to manager, assistant manager, interim manager, director of on-site operations, and staff photographer. In 2005, I travelled to California for the first time since I went with my sister down to college. I got to see Lake Tahoe and was able to meet with a friend. In 2004, I ended a two year relationship. In 2005, I started what I hope will be a lasting one. I had a friend break my heart, and I unwittingly broke the heart of a friend. The friendship with the one who broke my heart was salvaged, the friendship with the one whose heart I broke was destroyed. In 2005, I became an aspiring musician, learned to play “the entertainer”, and founded an indie record label. In 2005, I mixed techno, rapped, and started working on a song for a DJ Broken Dawn/Sweet Ebenezer crossover. I swung frfom rooftops as Spider Man, battled evil as the X-Men, and have been slowly but surely getting to game a little more even with my busy schedule.

I think of everything that’s happened in the last year, the most important thing has been my relationship with Jenn. She sort of blindsided me, but it was a welcome blindsiding. She not only finds value in me, and for some reason, finds me amusing, but she’s been a catalyst for keeping me closer in my walk with God. It never ceases to amaze me, less than a year ago we didn’t really know each other, and now I cannot begin to fathom what life would be like without her. Only four months into the relationship, I would say it’s too soon to tell, but if this isn’t the girl God has in mind for my future, I can’t imagine finding someone better.

To Jenn & everyone else who made 2005 special, thank you. Here’s to hoping 2006 is even better. =)

Tags: Personal, Writing by Andrew Laine
1 Comment »

Apparently “having a bun in the oven” does not qualify for the carpool lane. I appreciate the courts clearing that up, but as muchas I like seeing stupid people get what they have coming to them, I only wonder how long before N.O.W. or Planned Parenthood tries using this as precedence to say that a fetus isn’t really a child…

Governor Arnold won’t get a ticket for driving a motorcycle without a license. Apparently the motorcycle license is only required for 2-wheel vehicles and when adding a sidecar, that makes it a 3-wheel vehicle. Only in California…

Tags: Humor, News by Andrew Laine
No Comments »

I recently stumbled across this Washington Post Article that raises the question, which is slanted, the press or blogs?

I personally find this a complicated question, but my answer ultimately winds up being “yes”.

You see, it’s really no secret that the media’s biased. You need only take one or two journalism classes to see that. And in taking a few journalism classes, you’ll also come to find out that the next generation of so-called journalists aren’t improving matters any, they’re just another, possibly worse, generation of mudslingers & fact-warpers. That was both the reason I ceased to be a journalism major and the reason I wish I would’ve stayed one.

What’s funny to me is when I was taking the journalism classes, I found that a lot of the other students sung the praises of “independent press paper”. This amused me greatly, because they believed that since it wasn’t a major news organization, it wasn’t biased. In reading it, though, I found that it was just as biased as the other papers were, it’s bias, however, matched up more with the student’s own personal bias.

And that, in my opinion, is what bias has finally boiled down to in this day and age – An idea or opinion that doesn’t presently match up with the reader’s own ideas or opinions. We’ve become so relativistic in our thinking, that we ultimately have no basis for what is true or untrue as far as the media’s concerned. We believe what we want to and call what we don’t want to believe “biased propoganda”.

Take Fox News for example. In many a hotel room, I’ve watched both Fox News and CNN. Of the two, I’d call Fox News probably the least biased (my reasoning is that in general, both sides take equal criticism on Fox, where, if you study the newcasters on CNN, you can definitely pick up a more liberal slant). However, in general people seem to think that Fox News is comepletely right-biased. Now, how they come to this conclusion, I can see fairly well, because as a general rule, the Media would be more like an “L” (With fox news being the top, straight up in the middle, with CNN laying on it’s side), but it’s been like that for so long, that people’s views have become more skewed to think that CNN isn’t AS slanted as it is and it winds up looking to them like a “V” (where each side is about equally biased with the “perfect unbiased journalism outlet” falling somewhere in between).

The same, I think will ultimately wind up going for any blogger. We will ultimately write our opinions on a subject based on our own personal bias. If you don’t like the war in Iraq, you’ll rant endlessly about the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. If you’re okay with it, you’ll rant against the person ranting against the war in Iraq and the Bush administration.

Whatever happens, I think we can all agree, thank God that Howard Stern’s gone over to satellite radio.

(Or maybe you don’t agree and think I’m biased. Feel free to think what you will. =)

Tags: News, Writing by Andrew Laine
1 Comment »

For anyone who doesn’t know, season 5 of 24 premiers this Sunday night. 24, it seems like just yesterday we were introduced, and it was the beginning of one beautiful crack addiction.

I was first introduced back about two years ago. It was shortly after Christmas, there’d been a snowstorm, and Kennon braved the snow to come hang out, as I was off work because of the snow and he was out of school. His idea? “You have to see 24, the show is awesome!” Now, I was skeptical. The whole idea behind it seemed strange, after all, an entire season is just one day? How much can you really have happen in one day, seriously?

From the end of the first episode, I was hooked.

By the end of that week, I had finished the entire first season. Kennon got his hands on season two, I got to see that in about a weeks time as well. The third season had already started, and by the time I got into it, I decided not to get into it because there was so much that I’d missed already, I didn’t want to ruin my DVD viewing of it. So, the majority waited until Season three came out on DVD, and, as before, I ran through the entire season in under a week.

Season four was when things really got interesting. You see, Season four is the first season I’ve got to watch start to finish on TV instead of DVD. There are pluses and minuses to this. A definite plus is, you get to find out what happens a whole six months before the DVD is released. A definite minus, however, is it takes you from January to June to finish the season, because with the exception of the four-hour premier, you’re stuck getting only one episode to feed your addiction each week, and you kind of go through withdrawls. Season four, as it happens, also is the first season that I’ve gotten on DVD before Kennon. I got all four seasons on DVD for Christmas (Four from my mother, one through three from my lovely girlfriend, Jenn).

Well, season four I just finished watching on DVD, which has made me REALLY want to go back through the first four seasons and re-watch all of them. But most importantly, with Sunday fast approaching, I get more and more anxious to see what happens next.

Where’d we leave off… Let’s see… Jack Bauer, is for all intents and purposes, dead. Tony and Michelle have decided to leave the FBI in search of the quiet life with each other. The crazy mercenary chica who, somehow, has managed to make a spot appearance in almost every season trying to kill someone (first two seasons she’s trying to kill Palmer, season four she tried to kill all of Los Angeles), got herself immunity, is now on the loose, the president was in critical condition, the vice president was taking all the credit for former president palmer’s handling of the situation. Oh yeah, and the Chinese wanted to get their hands on Bauer for a raid on their Los Angeles consulate. And Tony, Michelle, Chloe, and President Palmer are the only four people in the world who know Jack Bauer is really alive, hiding from those who seek to kill him.

It makes you wonder… What could possibly bring Jack Bauer out of hiding? What’s more, Fox boasts it happens in the first ten minutes of the show.

8:47:10……8:47:11…….8:47:12………8:47:13…….

Tags: TV by Andrew Laine
No Comments »

So I haven’t blogged much lately, as eric aptly pointed out, and many qould be curious as to why. Many reasons, though they change with each week it seems, and this week was a particularly wicked breed of distraction… Need For Speed: Most Wanted.

Now, a brief history of Andrew & “Need for Speed”…

Need For Speed II SE – First racing game I ever owned for PC. Played it, loved it, wanted more.

Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit – Never owned it, but a friend did. Thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly the running from cops bit, and playing AS a cop and deploying spike strips.

Need for Speed: High Stakes – Probably my favorite Need for Speed game ever, took what I loved about the previous two and just made me feel all warm & fuzzy. Worked great on my Voodoo 3 graphics card.

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed – Never bought it, only played the demo (which barely ran on my system at the time) and hated it.

Need for Speed: Underground (1&2) – Decided that EA officially sold its soul to the devil to make money off of the fast and furious wannabes with 20″ rims and a racing spoiler on Honda Civic hatchbacks with the stock 4 cylinder engines (which my ‘93 buick would eat for breakfast off the line. I miss that car…). Sure, it offered lots of customizability options, but I wasn’t really interested in racing rice burners.

Enter Most Wanted. I tried the demo, not expecting to be impressed (again, EA DID sell it’s soul for rice burners). However, in jsut trying the demo, I nearly went into shock. For the first time since High stakes, I was actually having FUN!

The cars that came in the demo were an ‘05 Mustang and a Porsche Cayman. Definitely NOT the fare underground offered (again, who the heck wants to buy a game to race hondas?). Some of the challenges included escaping the police after breaking through “X” amount of roadblocks (nothing like hitting a barricade at 160 mph in a dodge viper!), and while the damage model isn’t particularly realistic (a log falls off of a log truck and all my viper got was a cracked windshield? Now THAT’S realism…), the game is still a freaking blast to play.

I picked up the full version with a best buy card I got for Christmas, and that night played from about 12:00 PM until 4:45 AM. The career mode offers you the ability to compete in different street race events, and go head to head with the “black list”, 15 ranked racers who stand in the way of you winning back your car from Razor, the slimeball who rigged your first race and made it to the top of the black list using your old ride. Admittedly, the storyline still reeks of “Fast & Furious” cloning (The woman looking out for you’s name is “Mia”, for goodness sake… Couldn’t you have come up with something SLIGHTLY more original? Then there’s Izzy, who seems to look a lot like Michelle Rodriguez’ Letty, Sunny, who looks something like Johnny Tran… And Earl, who looks something like a Ja Rule wannabe…)

The cars, though… My lord, the cars… Not a honda in sight, everything’s nicer Asian sports cars (Mazda RX-7 & 8 & Mitsubishi Eclipse are about the only asian made cars in the game), european imports (BMW M3, Lamborginis, & porsches), or good old American made (Ford Mustangs & my personal favorite so far, the Pontiac GTO).

Thus far, as I said, I’m loving the GTO. The car hauled pretty good out the box, but then I upgraded it. So far I’ve clocked my fastest speed at around 165, and this is with just the basic upgrades. The roar of the engine is like a modern day muscle car, and my lord… To watch it smoke everything else off the line is unbelievably satisfying. No cheezy mufflers sounds here, this baby’s all engine…

The customization options are great, you can trick out the look of the car (my GTO I’ve dubbed the Spider-mobile, as it’s red with a blue spiderweb vinyl to pay homage to my childhood wall-crawling hero, Spider-Man), as well as performance options and hoods, roof scoops, body kits, and rims.

And lt’s not forget the world. It’s set entirely in Rockport, a fictional city with more than enough roads to keep the police busy busting street racers, and no pedestrians (which is great, if you want to avoid GTA-style massacring of people with your car. If there were a single human being on the boardwalk when I plowed through during a pursuit escape, chances are if I didn’t hit him, one of the 20 cops tailing me would’ve…). The road system is complex, with plenty of hiding spots for when being pursued, plenty of side streets and alleys to careen through during pursuits, and lots of fun shortcuts to try during races (my favorite thus far involved me descending buildings set like stairs down a hill to get ahead of the opposition on a circuit race. It was beautiful. =)

If you haven’t played it, but have a PC that’ll run it, or an X-Box, PS2, or any other platform that supports this game, and you even remotely like racing games, try this game out. It’s the best of need for speed (exotic cars, police chases, and customization) without the hondas.

Until I next blog or finish the game…

~Andrew =)

Tags: Games by Andrew Laine
No Comments »