BYE BYE BIRDIE! Thrashers Sold!

The Atlanta Thrashers have been sold to Winnipeg. Last time Atlanta lost its hockey team to Calgary. The Calgary Flames made their first cup appearance 6 years later and won the cup three years after that. If Don Waddell isn’t going with them the Thrashers might do the same.

I’ve watched the players on the Thrashers struggle through season after season since 1999. For all the talent the Thrashers have had, year after year, there was no real good reason they should not have seen at least one cup appearance. But the ineptitude of the team’s owners and management always prevailed.

The equation for building a Stanley Cup caliber team is simple. You start with the goalie. All the Kovalchuks and Hossas in the world can’t help you if Kari “we held on to this lemon for far too long” Lehtonen can’t keep the puck out of the net. Even when the owners made what looked like a sincere effort to rebuild the team they completely overlooked the goalie factor. Pavelec? The kid has potential but when the team has completely failed its fans for 10+ seasons you need more than potential (Lehtonen had potential too, most of that potential was used on thinking up designs for his mask). Chris Mason? Are you fucking serious? Not that Mason is a bad goalie, he’s just not a great goalie.

Look at every Stanley Cup destined team and you’ll see a hall of famer goalie. Sure, the Oilers had Gretzky and Messier; they had Grant Fuhr too. The ’94 Rangers had some Stanley Cup Oilers’ champions, veterans at this point, on the roster; they had Mike Richter too. The Avalanche had Roy. The Devils had Brodeur. The Canucks have Luongo. Boston has Thomas.

I watch hockey because of the players. The Rangers will always be my number one team but that’s because it’s the only connection I have with a father that was never around. I have no loyalties to something as silly as a city, especially Atlanta. If you watch a hockey game with me you’ll laugh because I’ll be cheering when either team scores. I just love the game. I wish the Thrasher players all the best. I’m sure they are destined for greater things than what Atlanta offered them. Good luck fellas, if precedence has a hand in your future you should have the cup within a few years.

And how do hardcore Thrasher fans feel about this?

The talented young lady’s name is Tally and you can check out more of her stuff here.

Memorial Day Thanks. Plus, why did I pick up that bobby pin?

This bleeding heart liberal would like to thank everyone in the armed forces, past, present and future, for helping to preserve our freedom. You are appreciated.

On a different note, while walking back up the stairs with the dog I see a bobby pin and instinctively pick it up…

Man that Fallout game gets in your head!

Caveat emptor: The Case of the Hope Egg Earrings

My wonderful & beautiful wife is an anglophile. The only reason she went out with me in the first place was I’m one generation removed from the shores of Liverpool. Needless to say she was all caught up in the recent fervor of the royal wedding.

Captivated by Kate Middleton–so much so, she now insists I call her Princess Catherine–and in particular Kate’s Hope Egg earrings, my darling wife searched the internet for a keepsake of the royal wedding. My wife is a bargain hunter, probably the best there is. She found us the entire Cowboy Bebop & Firefly series for $10 each, all three seasons of Star Trek (original series) for under $80; this woman should be in purchasing. But the excitement of the royal wedding caught her with her guard down and she ended up ordering a pair of earrings that are nothing like advertised.

And so we come to the purpose of this blog. My wife made some mistakes, I’m willing to concede that. There were many signs that pointed to this retailers nefarious practices, £275 slashed down to £29.89 should have been her first clue. But this retailer is purposely misleading it’s customers and I will show you how so that any of you reading this will not be swindled.

Princess Kate’s real Hope Egg earrings are made by LINKS London, a reputable jeweler that has been in business since 1990. The real LINKS London website address is a .com address. The malevolent retailer my wife purchased her “Hope earrings” from was Links of London, their web address is linkslondononline.net/. To those savvy of the world wide web’s ways this would immediately tell us that these are two distinct and different companies. But this charade is deeper, Links of London does a good job at purporting itself to be the real LINKS London, they even use LINKS London’s favicon.

Not only do they use the same favicon, they even ripped the picture of the Hope Egg earrings my wife bought directly off LINKS London’s website:

This is the pic I ripped from LINKS London's web site. Note that I kept the file name the same. Click on it to go to LINKS London's website and see for yourself.

This is the pic I ripped from Links of London's web site. Note that I did not change the file name. Click on it to go to Links of London's website and see for yourself. It is the exact same picture.

The earrings she received look nothing like that.

These are the earrings she received. They look nothing like what is advertised.

LEFT earring is a side view of the one she received. RIGHT earring is the side view of the Hope earrings from the legitimate retailer's (LINKS London) site.

See how much bigger (and shaped different) the earwire or post is on the earring(s) we received compared to the real Hope earring(s) (which is what our nefarious retailer is insinuating he is selling) from LINKS London in the comparison pic I made.

Note also how the real pair does not have a hollow back.

More incriminating evidence can be seen when you examine the box the earrings came in:

This is the box that came with the earrings.

This is a real LINKS London box.

The font is different from a legitimate LINKS London jewelery box and our box is missing the 3 interwoven rings that is the LINKS London logo.

My research into this incident also indicates that there is another internet retailer purporting to be the real LINKS London. These cretins are so bold they even use LINKS London’s actual logo on their web site. They have a .org address, if you go to their about page they’ve been in business since 2000 (LINKS London has been in business since 1990). I also uncovered a third nefarious internet retailer trying to cash in on LINKS London’s new found fame. These guys are not so bold as to use LINKS London’s logos but are bold enough to use LINKS London’s picture of the Hope Egg earrings. I’m sure there are more of them, which makes me wonder if LINKS London is aware of this.

I’ll concede that my wife made some mistakes. One, she placed an international order, in and of itself a problem if you need to return something. Two, she didn’t properly research the company she was purchasing from. However she did believe that she was ordering from LINKS London because Links of London implied that she was.

One could make the argument that Links of London is selling jewelry that is comparable with it’s pricing; though I think the earrings my wife received look like they came out of a gumball machine. But what we must question here is the extent to which Links of London goes to make itself appear to be the more reputable and, since the royal wedding, more well known LINKS London. This nefarious and bold faced lie of a marketing technique says a lot about the morals of the people willing to implement it. If one is able to deceive so blatantly what other thaumaturgies is one concealing? Is that real silver or tin?

Gaming Scribble Sh33ts

You may have noticed I added a new widget to my sidebar. It’s a Box.net file sharing widget. Just scroll down a little and you’ll see it. I have uploaded some documents to this file sharing service that some of you gamers may find useful.

As I have mentioned before I only buy used games. Most used games come sans instructions. So I created Scribble Sh33ts. A simple diagram of a controller that you can use to quickly jot down the control scheme to your used or rented game for quick and easy reference without having to dig through the game’s menus.

I also created some Scribble Sh33ts for PC gamers.

You’ll find all these docs in the  Scribble Sh33ts folder of the b33m3r’s DOCS Widget. All the documents are in PDF format. Just click on the link to download the file and you’re ready to print it out whenever you need one.

So what’s in the Scribble Sh33ts folder?

• 360_Scribble – Xbox 360 Scribble Sh33t. 2 to a page/printout.
• Belkin_n52_Scribble_v1 – Belkin SpeedPad n52 Scribble. Single control layout. 1 per page/printout.
• Belkin_n52_Scribble_v2 – Belkin SpeedPad n52 Scribble. Multi control layout. 1 per page/printout.
• PC_Keyboard_Scribble – PC Keyboard Scribble. Not just for games, use it to jot down the shortcuts in your favorite programs (Photoshop, Writer, Excel, etc.). 1 per page/printout.
• PS2_Scribble – PS2 Scribble Sh33t. 2 to a page/printout.
• PS3_Scribble – PS3 Scribble Sh33t. 2 to a page/printout.
• Xbox_Scribble – Original Xbox Scribble Sh33t. 2 to a page/printout.

Wanting to write ruins my read…

I don’t think I’ve honestly sat back and just enjoyed a book or short story ever since I made a conscious decision to want to be a published writer. I scrutinize and study every sentence, every paragraph, every comma, period, colon and parenthesis. When I stumble onto prose that astonishes me I rush to write it down in my notebook. I’m fully aware of plot and any possible developments that may or may not occur, so much so that I often accurately predict the outcome before I’ve read it.

There’s this gamer doing Black Ops videos on his thought process while he’s playing the game. See 2 guys. 1 left. Other right. Right guy can’t see me yet. Left guy is priority. Etcetera. That sort of thing. It’s kind of like what’s happening in my head when I read, except the thoughts in my head are not that short and precise but long and, quite possibly, over-analyzing.

I’m reading Eric Swett’s 100-Day Challenge (you should too), I get to Day 033 and this sentence:

““Would you like me to send in some refreshment?”  Her smile was pleasant with just a hint of arrogance.  She reveled in her immunity.”

And I’m like, whoa! She reveled in her immunity. How freaking powerful is that sentence? I mean, OK the word reveled by itself is a really strong word but look at how much character expose Eric jams into 3 short sentences. Look at how the previous 2 sentences lead up to the punch of the third.

A few days ago I was reading Sonia G Medeiros‘ Change is in the Air and that whoa thing happens to me just 6 short sentences in:

“Dr. Marius pats Grandma. “You can’t rush biology.”
“His brothers changed younger than this. His little sister!”
Bet they heard that in the waiting room.”

Bet they heard that in the waiting room. Once again, one short simple sentence that says so much about the character uttering it. Then I spend the rest of the read marveling at how short and quick the structure is. How it reminds me of Howl. Then she slap shots a plot twist at me in the end. I go whoa, again.

Then there is this paragraph from Brent Weeks’ Night Angel trilogy:

“It was a place to inspire fear. Carved from black fireglass, a platform dominated the room. Nine chairs sat on the platform. A tenth chair sat above them like a throne. There was only a bare floor facing the chairs. Those the nine interviewed would stand.”

It was a place to inspire fear. Those the nine interviewed would stand. Take out those two sentences and you have nothing more than quick blase description of a room. A bland grouping of words that might not be missed if they where omitted and changed. But with those two sentences you have an ebb and flow of information, like a gentle wave that flows across the ocean and crashes down unexpectedly on your sand castle.

I especially love it when an author describes something so simply and yet so precisely the image pops into my head with ease as Dean Koontz does in his novel The Darkest Evening of the Year:

“In the salt-pale moonlight, an older middle-class neighborhood of one-story ranch houses seemed to effloresce out of the darkness.”

I’ve always felt my ability to describe surroundings in a way that does not feel stiff and contrived is a weak area of my writing. Take out the phrase seemed to effloresce out of the darkness and all you have left is a rather stiff description of some rural neighborhood. A few pages later Koontz turns up his talent for description and places his attention on a violent alchohoic:

“Carl Brockman turned his gaze on Brian. In those eyes shone not the mindless aggression of a man made stupid by drink , but instead the malevolent glee of a chained brute who had been liberated by it.”

…but instead the malevolent glee of a chained brute who had been liberated by it. How much more do we know about Carl Brockman because of this simple and elegant sentence? And here’s the kicker, Koontz doesn’t tell us this information he shows us.

Sometimes I think I could just pack up and shelve this dream of mine for good just so I could sit back, relax and truly enjoy a tale again.

New Vegas: Character Building Guide, Part 3

Welcome to part 3 of my Fallout: New Vegas Character Building Guide. Click here for part 1 which covers S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points allocation and Traits and click here for part 2 which covers Skills and Perks.

WARNING! – while I am not providing specific plot spoilers I will be hinting at future events in the game that you may not have come across yet. Think of this guide as a good parental figure who gives you some valuable worldly advice before sending you on your way.

CRAFTING
Initially crafting can be interesting and cool. Eventually it just becomes tedium. This is true for any RPG, not just New Vegas. Here are a few good recipes to help you along in your travels.

• Doctor’s Bag – Medicine Skill 40, forceps (1), medical brace (1), scalpel (1), surgical tubing (1)
• Stimpak – Science Skill 70, Broc flower(1), empty syringe(1), Xander root(1)
• Super Stimpak – Science Skill 90, leather belt (1), mutfruit (1), Nuka-Cola (1), Stimpak (1)
• Weapon Repair Kit – Repair Skill 50, Duct Tape (1), Scrap Electronics (1), Scrap Metal (2), Wonderglue (1), Wrench (1)
• Mass Purified Water – Survival Skill 50, dirty water (5), glass pitcher (2), surgical tubing (1) Note: glass pitchers and surgical tubing are reusable.
• Cactus Water – Survival Skill 30, Prickly pear fruit (2), Empty soda bottle (1)
• Desert Salad – Survival Skill 55, Brahmin steak (1), Barrel cactus fruit (1), Pinyon Nuts (1)

CLOSING ARGUMENTS: THE CASE FOR NOT SCAVENGING YOUR CHARISMA
The first wasteland courier I rolled followed conventional wisdom. I gave him a 1 Charisma, 8 Intelligence, raised guns ASAP, etc., but as I neared entering the city of New Vegas for the first time I started to feel uncomfortable with this character. I was shooting my way out of everything. He was boring me. So I rerolled.

S-4. P-4, E-7, C-6, I-7, A-5, L-7. Tagged: Guns, Speech, Survival. Traits: Small Frame, Four Eyes. I made Strength a low 4 because I planned on getting my first companion right away to help me carry things, I’ll get the Strength implant when I come across it and probably the Strong Back perk at some point. I also don’t plan on using any really big guns with this guy (he’s more of a gunslinger). I used my trait selections to compensate for low Perception and Agility and I tagged Survival instead of Repair because I’m playing in Hardcore mode. When I hit level 2 I selected the Lady Killer perk and allocated my skill points to guns and speech evenly. This character is a bit harder to play than my first roll, I have to be a bit more careful when considering combat options and I’ve found myself outside of VATS (free-firing) more than I’d like to be. Maybe I should’ve gone with a 6 Agility and a 6 Luck. Either way, I’m finding this character more immersive than my last one. One thing for sure, my companions are significantly more powerful with the higher Charisma, significantly more powerful.

A TIP FOR RUNNING WITH MULTIPLE CHARACTERS
If you have more than one hard drive (like a USB drive) hooked up to your 360 and want to play through the game with a couple of different characters but you are afraid of overwriting one character’s save with the other one. You can save the second character to a different drive and that will keep the save history separate for each character.

• New Vegas Character Building Guide Addendum: covers my thought process while leveling my character.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The following sites offer more extensive help for the game.

• FALLOUT WIKI
• Fallout New Vegas Comprehensive Guide by Hayste
• Fallout Character Creation FAQ by Nathan Garvin

New Vegas: Character Building Guide, Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of my Fallout: New Vegas Character Building Guide. Click here for part 1 which covers S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points allocation and Traits.

WARNING! – while I am not providing specific plot spoilers I will be hinting at future events in the game that you may not have come across yet. Think of this guide as a good parental figure who gives you some valuable worldly advice before sending you on your way.

SKILLS
These choices should be made based on how you want to role play your character. There are certain level requirements to crafting some useful items in the game. A Medical skill of 40 for a Medical Bag. A Repair skill of 50 is needed to make Weapon Repair Kits, the only thing that will repair That Gun, a gun modeled on Rick Deckard’s PKD Blaster. You’ll need a Science skill of 70 to craft Stimpaks. You’ll need to consider these things while leveling up.

It’s probably a good idea to get your primary weapon skill up to about 50 right quick, especially if you intend to blast your way out of difficult situations. Speech will be just as important if you’re planning on being a little more diplomatic on your adventures. Sneak can remain low for most gunslingers. With a rifle and a fairly safe distance you can get the sneak attack critical hit more often than not and if a task requires you to be really stealthy there are always Stealthboys. There are a lot of mines being planted in the apocalypse so boosting Explosives a bit ain’t such a bad idea. Barter will get you better deals but getting bottle caps has not been much of an issue for me. The other skills are more important. Lockpick can be raised casually so long as you don’t mind leaving behind an unopened safe or two. It’s been my experience that most of the safes I have opened weren’t worth the use of a skill magazine.

All this is arbitrary, raise the skills that best resemble the type of character you are role playing. Stealth was not an issue for me but if you’re playing a Ninja or an Assassin it will be important to you. As for what 3 skills you should tag at creation, I would suggest following conventional wisdom a little. Your primary weapon skill should always be tagged (there’s a lot of hostility in the wasteland). Survival is good to tag if you plan on going hardcore. Speech is another good consideration as is Lockpick if you just can’t stand to leave an unopened safe behind.

Remember that magazines will raise the skill temporarily by 10 (20 if you take the Comprehension perk). What skills you choose to work on will reflect the type of apocalyptic wanderer you are role playing. Immerse yourself in the character and you’ll have much more fun.

PERKS
I won’t go into all the Perks, that would make this guide excessively long. As with skills you want to pick Perks that reflect the type of character you’re role playing. That being said there are some must have Perks and others that are not worth the Perk slot. Selecting Perks that compensate for character creation shortcomings is a good idea, like Rapid Reload to compensate a low Agility or Strong Back to make up for having low Strength.

Getting Comprehension and–more importantly–Educated early in the game will give you a skill point edge while leveling, especially important if you chose to not stack your Intelligence at character creation. Getting the Lady Killer and or Confirmed Bachelor (or their female counterparts) Perks early will make sure you have access to all possible dialog options right from the beginning of the game.

I found the Hand Loader perk to be a waste of a slot ( I actually got to level 11 with a character and reloaded to my level 10 save and selected Gunslinger instead). Ammunition is pretty common in the wasteland and I’m making decent enough ammo without it. Vigilant Recycler would probably be a good perk for an Energy Weapon user, I’ve equipped one of my companions with a couple of laser guns and she’s going through ammo like mad. Retention is a waste as well, if you need a skill magazine raise to last longer then it’s probably prudent to raise it with skill points faster. If you spend all your time in VATS like I do, Run ‘n Gun is useless as well. Unless you’re in a rush to get nowhere I don’t see the point in Here and Now.

• New Vegas: Character Building Guide, Part 3: Covers crafting and closing arguments.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The following sites offer more extensive help for the game.

• FALLOUT WIKI
• Fallout New Vegas Comprehensive Guide by Hayste
• Fallout Character Creation FAQ by Nathan Garvin

New Vegas: Character Building Guide, Part 1

This is not a walkthrough. This is not an all encompassing guide. This short FAQ is meant to get you started in the wasteland with a character that YOU want to play. My character building philosophy revolves around the RP in RPG standing for Role Playing not Raw Pwnage. This isn’t Black Ops, it’s not about who has the most kills and who won the most games of Caravan. This game is about getting lost in a vast wasteland of apocalyptic horror and, somewhat ironically, having a good time.

WARNING! – while I am not providing specific plot spoilers I will be hinting at future events in the game that you may not have come across yet. Think of this guide as a good parental figure who gives you some valuable worldly advice before sending you on your way.

S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Points Allocation
Conventional wisdom would have you sacrifice your Charisma stat for the sake of allocating those points elsewhere. If you’re the “uber” character building type who intends to blast a path through the game you will want to do this. Intelligence is of greater importance as it determines the amount of skill points you get each level. I’m personally not too comfortable going through life with the personality of a rabid rat. Imagine if Malcolm Reynolds or James T. Kirk had a 1 Charisma? The possible character interactions you can get with a higher Charisma may be worth it for the added story depth or not if you intend to role play Humongus from The Road Warrior and be a sadistic shit to all the NPC(s), a perfectly viable role playing option. If you don’t plan on using any big guns or boxing your way through the game then Strength is another sacrificial lamb. You’ll have companions traveling with you soon enough to help you carry your hard earned loot. If you plan on using only small firearms during the game you can keep your Agility a lukewarm 5 or 6 (you can even make it 4 and get it to 5 with the Small Frame Trait at the sacrifice of weaker limbs which, honestly, is not that big of a deal even in hardcore mode). There are Perks to compensate for slow reload/draw speed and one handed firearms use less Action Points. Endurance is important in any RPG, I would not go less than 5 here but keep in mind that later on in the game you will be afforded the chance to get implants that will bolster your base stats by 1; the number of implants you can get will be based on your base Endurance score (End 6 = 6 implants). Perception can be sacrificed if you plan on roaming the wasteland with a robot companion. I have noticed a viable difference between a character’s criticals with low Luck and a character with higher Luck.

All that being said most consider Intelligence to be priority and will set it as high as 8 to get the skill point advantage early on in the game. The school of thought being that it is better to raise the skills themselves rather than their governing attributes and they are right. But these are the same people that will whine about the game being too easy even on the hardest difficulty.

TRAITS
Wild Wasteland makes a second play through much more intriguing and contains a special treat for Energy Weapon users. Built to Destroy’s +3% critical is good to have and the extra equipment decay can easily be compensated by a good Repair skill. Considering the high cost of NPC repairs all your characters should end up with a high Repair skill. Fast Shot makes you less accurate, you shoot more quickly and more often in VATS but what’s the point if you can’t hit the broad side of a barn? Four Eyes is better if you actively search out a specific pair of glasses in the game (this quest line will require you to be a somewhat nefarious character) but is also good to scavenge a point off of Perception to place elsewhere. Good Natured increases your communication and problem solving skills at a minor cost to your combat skills, not a bad choice if your role playing a diplomat (there are better choices). Heavy Handed is a good choice for a melee character, a little less damage on the occasional critical hit in exchange for more damage on normal and more frequent hits is kind of a no brainer. The 10 extra Action Points Kamikaze gives you will not make or break your character, neither will the -2 Damage Threshold. Loose Cannon will allow you to throw dynamite faster but not as far. So much for the bravery of being out of range, eh? Small Frame’s +1 Agility at the expense of weaker limbs is a fair tradeoff even in Hardcore mode. Trigger Discipline is Fast Shot’s more viable brother. Greater accuracy is a good thing but for me, as I spend most of my combat in VATS, the higher Action Point cost would deter me from using this trait on any character builds.

• New Vegas: Character Building Guide, Part 2: Covers Skills and Perks.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The following sites offer more extensive help for the game.

• FALLOUT WIKI
• Fallout New Vegas Comprehensive Guide by Hayste
• Fallout Character Creation FAQ by Nathan Garvin

More Free Programs Everyone Should Know About

iPod/iTouch UTILITIES
Try these programs if you need to get files off your iTouch/iPod without jumping through the flaming hoops Apple wants you to.

iDump, YamiPod, sharepod

FOR MUSICIANS, AUDIOPHILES & VIDEOPHILES

LMMS- Linux Multimedia Studio – a free cross-platform alternative to commercial programs like FL Studio®, which allow you to produce music with your computer. This includes the creation of melodies and beats, the synthesis and mixing of sounds, and arranging of samples. You can have fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more; all in a user-friendly and modern interface.

Hydrogen Drum Machine – Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It’s main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming. Download the Windows Installer Here.

Audacity – a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds.

Exact Audio Copy – an audio grabber for audio CDs using standard CD and DVD-ROM drives. It works with a technology, which reads audio CDs almost perfectly.

TagScanner – a multifunction program for organizing and managing your music collection. It can edit tags of most state-of-the-art audio formats, rename files based on the tag information, generate tag information from filenames, and perform any transformations of the text from tags and filenames.

dvdshrink – software to backup DVD discs. You can use this software in conjunction with DVD burning software of your choice, to make a backup copy of any DVD video disc.

IsoBuster – a highly specialized and easy to use CD, DVD and blu-ray (BD, HD DVD) data recovery tool.

MISCELLANEOUS PROGRAMS

FreeCommander – an easy-to-use alternative to the standard windows file manager.

Amaya – a tool used to create and update documents directly on the Web.

Sandboxie – Sandboxie runs your programs in an isolated space which prevents them from making permanent changes to other programs and data in your computer. Browse the internet in utter safety.