Star Trek Online now has a release date! It will beam down February 2nd,
2010. Oh hell YEAH I'm buying that game. I've been following its development
and it looks utterly amazing. I can not wait to play this. Unfortunately,
I'll end up turning into one of those WOWzer people who just sit in front of
their computer hacking away at things all day. The difference is I'll be
phasering away at them instead. From what I can see, it doesn't look like
this is going to be another Star Wars Galaxy disaster. I hope I'm right.

I used to be a huge Christmas celebrationist. I'm sad to say that with the
Christmas Creep (seriously, fucking Hobby Lobby had Christmas crap in
freaking August!), I am not excited for Christmas. I actually dread it now
and that makes me really sad. I have typed out my reasons in previous years.
I liked it more due to the family traditions and remembering my childhood
and how magical the time was. But...due to the retailers shoving it down our
throats, I just can't find the excitement anymore. It makes me really
depressed to say that. Good work, retailers. You killed me Christmas Spirit.

The final straw was the fact that Halloween hadn't even ended and I was
seeing Christmas Commercials. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few
out even before the 31st. I could handle some stores having small Christmas
aisles and such, but...I can't abide watching two months of Christmas
commercials since I can't avoid them. Its even worse when they all have snow
and stuff in them and it's like 65 degrees out.

What's next? I mean, at this rate, we are literally only years away from
stores just having a year-round Christmas section. It makes me sick to my
stomach to think of such a thing. I realize that stores need to make money
and stuff, but do they really think people forget that Christmas is coming?
Do they really need to capitalize on it so fucking early every year? Back
when my parents were kids, they didn't even consider doing Christmas
shopping until probably a few weeks before Christmas. And, I'm fine with
Christmas "starting" the day after Thanksgiving. That's when it SHOULD
start. Thanksgiving is to Christmas like the Royal Rumble is to
Wrestlemania. Thanksgiving begins the Road to Christmas. Now, Christmas
starts two, three months early for some stores. This year seems particularly
bad and i think its because retailers saw their sales dip quite a bit last
year and they wanted to get even more money this year, hence the "Black
Friday" sales every god damn weekend until BLACK FRIDAY.

Do retailers not realize that by having Black Friday sales on days that
AREN'T Black Friday, that they're going to not have anyone buying shit on
BLACK FRIDAY?!

So, being sick really sucks, but it does apparently help you over that plateau. As of yesterday when I weighed myself, I have lost ten pounds! That's right, ten pounds in essentially a month and a half (I started dieting on September 28th). I noticed today that a pair of my jeans that was normally kinda tight on me needs a belt or it slips down! 35 left to go!

I've been sick since Tuesday evening...it sucks.

Well, well, well...look how the mighty corrupt are falling. Scientology has
taken a major shot today as is evidenced by this letter written by writer
Paul Haggis. I am very outspoken in my disdain for Scientology. Personally,
I won't hold back even if I meet someone who is a Scientologist, though I've
never met one (lucky for them). So, I hope that having this letter publicly
publishes will get more people to focus on this cult.

http://gawker.com/5389594/oscar+winner-paul-haggis-publicly-resigns-from-church-of-scientology-over-gay-rights

Unfortunately, most Scientologists are discouraged, and sometimes outright
denied, access to the internet or newspapers because the upper level fear
them reading articles like this and putting two-and-two together. Another
thing that happened recently is that the official Scientology spokesperson
stormed off of the set of a new interview when he was asked if his religion
believes in Xenu. Xenu supposedly came to Earth 75 million years ago and had
a battle with those who opposed him and buried them in volcanoes and now
they are inside everyone. The spokeperson also denied that the church has an
official disconnection policy, which is bullshit.

Here's hoping they get taken down majorly hard really soon. I'm tired of
being outraged at those bastards.

Well, it seems Google has seen fit to bestow upon me a few invites to their
Google Voice service. If you're interested in trying it out, shoot me a
reply and I'll send you out an invite. I will accept gifts and money to put
you to the top of the list :3

Yes. I would say that SvR 2010 is a bit, if not much, better than last
year's installment. Everything is crisper and the animations are easily more
fluid. They also got rid of that annoying UAC thing that took up two strong
grapple slots. A couple things I'm not happy about followed by somethings I
AM happy about:

1 :( You only have one grapple (instead of three) for when a user is on the
mat and you try to grapple the head or legs.
1:) You can easily flip a wrestler from their back to their stomach and vice
versa. There are are also side grapples now.
2 :( Because everything in the Create a Superstar section is made in 3D, the
limitations are pretty stiff. Just having hair takes up half of your limit
of 32 points and jackets take up about a third, leaving you to possibly not
be able to wear pants. Oh yeah, and they took away all of the patterns for
the tights!
2 :) The hair looks a lot better now. I can actually TELL what almost
everything is supposed to be whereas in years past, there were many
accessories that left me scratching my head as to what they were supposed to
be.
3 :) The training area at the beginning is cool and is good for new users
and for trying out a superstar to see what their moves are.
3 :( The training area doesn't let you choose Created Wrestlers...for some
reason...
4 :) The Story Mode is pretty cool and lets you do most things.
4 :( It's still pretty basic, though, takes forever to make a single show,
and doesn't let you preview the "chapter" you just made. You're forced to
accept the show completely before you can preview everything, there's no way
to preview a single scene. It also took me a long time to find a scene where
my wrestler was being beaten up backstage by a single guy. I had to trim the
talking parts from the beginning and it still didn't look right because Edge
was holding a microphone in the backstage area.
5 :) You can create up to four attires for a created wrestler, which is
something I've been wanting for AGES ever since No Mercy on the Nintendo 64
had it.
5:( There's a glitch in the game that if you create a second attire for a
created wrestler, it resets your attributes and moves, so if you spent two
hours playing around with your wrestler and then created a new attire, it's
possible it may reset them, so you have to set everything all over again.
6 :( They took all of the first names from the Created Wrestler area. It
used to be that you could assign James to your wrestler and when he came
out, the announcer would say "Making his way to the ring: James!" So, they
removed all of those and left us with stupid generic nicknames that I'd
hardly ever use.
7 :( The Create an Entrance section remains practically untouched. The
system isn't revamped so that you can have fireworks carry on to other
sections and they still have that maddening Champion Entrance thing where
you're basically forced to use the entrance of a pre-existing wrestler
instead of making your own.
8 :) The Create a Titantron feature is awesome and is something I've been
wanting for awhile. It lets you take Highlight Reels you saved from your
matches and put them into a video editor to make your own entrance video. It
looks realy sweet to see your guy some out to a custom video finally.
9 :( :( :( There have been reports that the Create a Story mode had a limit
of 10 appearances of any CAW in a story. So, if I were to put Jim Lex in ten
scenes, that would be it. I wouldn't be able to have any more CAW
appearances from anyone. That's a real ridiculous limit to put on the
biggest feature in a game with the tag-line of "It's Your World Now". I
haven't reached the limit yet, so here's hoping it just means I'm not
allowed to upload it (which I didn't plan on anyway)

Well, I should get back to work, so that's all I've got. In closing, once
again THQ appears to have done what they do every year. They've added some
cool stuff and taken away things that people loved and relied upon. Sure,
the new CAS mode with the 3D objects looks great, but now I can't make some
of my wrestlers because of the limits with the Points system. Still, I would
say it is much better than last year's game. We'll have to see if there are
any obvious bugs to aggravate me.

When they say "Fifteen Minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car
insurance", they're not kidding. They actually saved me 35%! I got discounts
for being an experienced driver of like 150 bucks. I love the gecko.

Woo! I fixed the door handle in my truck today ^_^ Well, okay, I watched as my dad did a lot of the work, but I did unscrew a lot of the bolts! And now I have a fully functional door handle and no longer have to roll down my window to open the door from the outside :)

Wow...it's been exactly three weeks since I started really watching my diet.
I expected to have lost a pound or two at the most by this point, but...I
started seeing results within the first couple days. I am proud to say that
I've now lost a total of 7.5 pounds in 21 days. I owe it all to keeping
myself under 1952 calories a day. I've cut out snacks in between meals and
I've cut down my portion sizes. I think I may have mentioned this before,
but I used to eat way too much in one sitting without realizing I was full.
So, I'd make soup, which is fairly healthy in itself, but then I'd make a
sandwich, have some macaroni salad, have some chips, and have some fruit or
some sort all in one meal. So, while all of those things individually aren't
that bad, I'd eat them all at once and my body wouldn't tell me to stop
until after I was full.

I knew I needed to get my mind out of the habit of making my eyes bigger
than my stomach, so my strategy was to only eat microwave dinners for
awhile. True, there is a LOT of sodium in those things, but I needed a
control. I could tell myself that I would ONLY eat the dinner. If I was
still hungry afterward, I could always make something else. But I came to
find that once i finished, I WASN'T hungry. Now, I find myself starting to
feel fuller faster than I would before, almost as if my conditioning
actually worked. I can more accurately gauge how hungry I actually am while
keeping under my daily calorie intake.

My pants feel noticeably looser and I will be so happy once a particular
pair of pants get too big for me. Basically, that was the day I knew there
was a major problem. I went shopping for pants and came to find that no
longer could I even close size 32 pants. Even 34's felt tight. I had to buy
a pair of size 36 pants. So, these pants are my catalyst and I will gladly
donate these once they stop fitting.

I think this time is going to be different. I've discovered the root cause
of my problem and it seems that I am working quickly to fix my eating
problem. I am not even doing any extra special exercise and I've lost 7.5
pounds, so just imagine what I'll do once I can motivate myself to go to the
gym again. The site I'm using is great and isn't a pain in the ass to use
like the past couple were, which discouraged me from using them. It's also a
huge help that it has an iPod app I can use to keep track of my calorie
intake anywhere i have wi-fi. I have 37.5 pounds left until I reach my goal
of 140 lbs. If I keep going at this rate, I'll have met my goal in about 5
months. So, I'm hoping in time for my 25th birthday, I will have reached
back to 140 and can begin to work on maintaining my body.

Also, if you're interested, you can keep track of my progress by going to
http://dailyburn.com/locker_room/duffin.

I know that Obama has taken lots of hits from both sides of the aisle for
various reason, but...you can not deny that we have one of the most "with
it" presidents in recent memory. Can you imagine Bush making a joke about
Lady Gaga at a Human Rights Campaign assembly before vowing to end the
don't-ask-don't-tell rule in the military? Fuck no, you can't and don't even
try. The universe would implode. And do you think Bush even knows that a
Blackberry is? Probably thinks it "Them juicy things that stain yer fangers
when ya eat 'em."

I still heart Obama. Sure, he hasn't made good on all of his campaign
promises, but for fuck's sake, people...can we at least give him a year or
two before we start accusing him of renegging on his promises? He's not
Jesus, you know. And I'd like to see a list of all of the promises Bush made
that he never even MENTIONED after being elected.

You know what really pisses me the fuck off? Assholes who try to pass you in one lane 25 MPH speed zones. Fuck you people! Excuse me for not wanting to get a ticket on those speed traps. Oh, and you think I'm going to let you pass me? Fuck no! Then, they have the gall to give me a dirty look or flip me off when I don't let them pass me so they can go 55 MPH and not get a god damn ticket (since they never do). Fuck them. And, yes, I realize the irony of speeding up to stop someone from speeding. It's just one of those things that bugs the fuck out of me. Two lanes? Fine, go ahead and pass me. But, I'm not going to let some shit head pass me over a double yellow line like I WANT to go 25 MPH.

I just weighed myself and I've gone from 185 to 181! That's four pounds since I started paying extremely close attention on September 24th. I'm so excited. The only thing I've really changed so far is keeping track of my eating. I've also combatted my problem of eating way more than I need to because I think I'm really hungry. The way I fixed this was to buy microwave dinners. They're designed to sate one's appetite, so I told myself that I would only make one of these. If I was still hungry when I finished, I could always make something else. Lo and behold, when I finished, I wasn't hungry. I think this has jump-started my body. I find myself starting to realize that I don't need as much food whereas before, I couldn't really tell based on my hunger. I think I could actually get back down to a healthy weight!

Really? I'm going to review an Eminem album? Yup. I like Eminem. He's "dope"
as the kids like to say these days. Okay, seriously. Yes, I've liked Eminem
ever since I heard his Marshal Mathers LP album when I was a bit younger. At
first, I was all giddy because of the swearing since most of the music I'd
heard up to that point was pretty kid-friendly. Since that album, I had
been disappointed in most of his work. Sure, the soundtrack to 8 Mile had
some classics such as "Lose Yourself", but I missed the hardcore stuff he
did in Marshall Mathers LP. I didn't even listen to Encore. Well, if you
thought that him getting clean would clean up the rest of him, you'd be
wrong. Relapse is once again rife with the outlandish rape, violence, and
pill-popping you've come to expect from Eminem. The premise of the album is
that Eminem just left rehab and immediately goes into relapse, hence the
title. 3 AM chronicles Eminem (or is it Slim Shady?) waking up from a drug
bender to find a bunch of dead bodies in his house without knowing how they
go there. In My Mom, he raps about his mother force-feeding him prescription
pills as a child. My favorite line of this song is ""All right, Ma, you win
/ I don't feel like arguin' / I'll do it, pop it, gobble it, and start
bobblin' / Stumble, hobble, tumble, slipped, fell in bed / with a bottle of
meds / and a Heath Ledger bobblehead." A lot of people have been offended or
outraged by this line, but I don't think Eminem meant it in an offending
way. I think it was meant more as a parallel to his tough childhood and
Heath Ledger's sudden and unexpected pressure in his life.
One of the songs I simply don't find appealing on this album is called "We
Made You." First of all...it features Jessica Simpson on the backup vocals
to the song and doesn't sound like her at all. This seems very strange to
me, considering all of the times Eminem has trashed her and all of the other
pop singers like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. I'm unsure as to why
he would choose to have her sing, but the whole song just doesn't work for
me. It doesn't add anything and it just another outlet for him to go after
Kim Kardashian, Ellen DeGeneres and Sarah Palin. I don't know WHY he's
mentioning Kardashian so much in this album, but there are multiple
references. I don't even know who she is, really.
About halfway through the album, Eminem overdoses and passes out in his
bathroom and is taken to the hospital. This is the turning-point of the
album. After this, the album goes more into a moral-of-the-story type of
situation. He raps about how he's yet again cleaned up his act. Careful What
You Wish For ends the album explaining what happened to him in the four
years after his previous album. He even makes a good point about when a fan
wrote him while he was in rehab, saying that he was praying for Eminem. He
says back:
Why would someone pray for you when they don't know you?
You didn't pray for me when I was local
And as I lay these vocals
I think of all the shit I had to go through
Just to get to where I'm at
I've already told you at least

A thousand times in these rhymes
I appreciate the prayer, but I already got
God on my side

I feel this. So many people care waaaay too much for these artist they've
never even met. What makes Eminem so special? Would you be praying for him
if he weren't a rapper and was just some homeless guy in rehab? Nope.
As is pretty obligatory in most Eminem albums, he makes repeated references
to current celebrities. In Bagpipes from Baghdad, he is locked in Mariah
Carey's wine cellar and makes threats to Nick Cannon (who I guess is going
out with Mariah. I don't really know) because he wants Mariah back again
after she broke up with him. Same Old Song and Dance (which, to me seems
like a sarcastic title) is the "Just Lose It" of Relapse where he rapes
about killing Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. It doesn't seem to
completely fit the tone of the album and almost feels as if he put it in
there because he felt he had to.
One of the things I've always admired about Eminem are the beats he uses in
his songs. I hate most rap because the beats are all rehashed from old songs
or musicals or nursery rhymes. But Eminem's tend to be very inventive and
most are original. Some are catchy and some are down-right grating and
dirty. My Mom is a great example of a catchy song. Then, you have a song
like Underground with the hard bass sounds and the deep strings.
Relapse is definitely Eminem trying to go back to his roots by bringing back
the Mass Murdering Slim Shady while at the same time trying to show how life
changing drug abuse can be. It did speak to me and I do like how he tried
his best to make sure that none of the songs in the album were
radio-friendly (though I've heard that somehow they put Crack-a-Bottle on
the radio. Must have bleeps every other word). On the downside, some of the
songs are a lot more of Eminem just trying too hard to offend people. When
he first showed up on the scene, rapping about a kid being butt-raped or
murdering everyone in a McDonald's would have people up in arms.
Nowadays...well, most people have heard that before. He's been away for four
years and most of the Mainstream Media has forgotten about Eminem. He's not
controversial anymore. Just look at what happened when Sasha Cohen came down
and fell on Eminem during the VMA awards or whatever. It was mentioned for
maybe a week. I don't really think Eminem can be controversial anymore, but
that's fine. He doesn't need to be. Relapse would be just as powerful
without him constantly going after celebrities. I just wish he'd realize
that. Now, I'm waiting for the second album to drop.

So, I found out that we may be getting the new Cincinnati Bell fiber service
in our apartment complex. There's a meeting this evening where I'm assuming
they will gauge interest in the service and I hope everyone shows up in
droves. They call it FiOptics and it offers a minimum of 10 megs upload/10
megs download for 85 bucks a month. Oh yeah, and that includes TV (no
satellite needed) and a year of DVR! So, let's see what we've got here: with
Time Warner Cable, I get like 6 MB download, 500-something kb upload and
cable TV for 97 bucks a month. Or I can get 10 MB up/10 MB down and the same
channels (even a couple more that TW doesn't carry) for ten bucks LESS.

Time Warner has got problems. I hope they're scared by this. If they can get
fiber set up all of Cincinnati, Time Warner's going to have some serious
competition. I'm already considering the switch. I'm going to talk with a
co-worker that already got the service and see what he thinks of it.

Why the fuck is it that the Bengals always fucking suck ass against teams like the Broncos and the Lions, but when they face actual good teams, they win? It pisses me the fuck off! You can't ever figure out what tema you're going to get if you bet with them or against them! Argh!

Just work up. God damn it! I fucking hate waking up this late on my days off. It wastes the whole fucking day!

You know why? Because now that they beat the Packers, they're going to brag about it and it was obvious they only won because the Packers were terrible today. If they were on their top game, the Bangals wouldn't have stood a fucking chance!

Well, I've apparently fallen back into the rut I swore I would get out of a couple months ago. I haven't gone to the gym like I said I would and I haven't been eating any better than I said I would. Why the fuck can't I do this? It's not like it's difficult to not eat food and take a couple hours a week to go to the gym and ride a fucking bike. I'm actually getting pretty depressed about this. On a whim, I weighed myself yesterday and I weight 185 fucking pounds. The MOST I have ever been was 175, so...to hit this remarkable milestone...well, it's kind of kicked me in the nuts.
I'm hungry right now, but my mind isn't letting me eat because I'm terrified that I'll end up eating way more than I need because my body can't seem to tell me when it's not hungry anymore until I've eaten three times too much.

Why I haven't I gone to the gym? Because I was moving. Yes...I told myself for a month that I couldn't go to the gym because I had to get prepared for moving.  Yeah, and you know what? We STILL weren't fully ready on moving day because I hadn't really done much to pack. So, that was a bullshit excuse. One of my problems is if I have a major event or thing I need to do coming up that...for some reason, I don't think I can do anything else. I've tried to figure out why and I really don't have a definite answer. I have done it for years. I'll put off working out because I'm worried about something. It's difficult to explain, but something I need to stop RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.

Luckily, I don't have any excuses. There is NOTHING big coming in the near future, so I have no excuses to not go to the gym. I'm hoping that by the time there IS something, that the gym will have become a habit that I won't consider big enough to put off.

I know that eating nothing isn't the way to go. It'll just end up with me gorging on food. I'm not going anorexic or anything...I just worry about getting into the pattern of eating too much. I don't know why my body can't tell me properly when I get full. It doesn't. Maybe I'll go make a sandwich.

Yes, I know there's a stupid episode on Tyra Banks about furs. No, I'm not going to watch it. I was going to, but I turned it off within the first ten seconds. Why? I knew where it was going. The first thing she said was "These people think their sexy live are noooooormal", obviously implying that they aren't. Oh no, they don't have sexy under the covers in the missionary position while their 2 and a half kids are sleeping, for shame! As soon as she said the first couple has group sex parties and the crowd went oooooh, that was it for me. There's no reason to watch, I already know where it's leading.

If you want your fifteen minutes of fame, try not to do it ostracizing the fandom you enjoy. Do they not realize how much they are going to be hated by the furries who watch this? I hope they don't go to conventions because their liable to get strong-worded insults thrown at them in forums. So, yeah...the Tyra Banks show is the new Jenny Jones of the day-time talkshow word, but furries will still freak out. In a year, though...I agree, it's going to be forgotten.