Brent’s Thoughts

Last Friday Jeremiah left AFNI for good. When he left he sent out a mail message to a large group of people talking about the things that he thought AFNI had problems with and that he thought should be corrected. Apparently this has caused a major stir amongst the top “Brass” and as such a investigation has been started.

In that time they have locked his account out. That is to be expected, but since, in the infinite wisdom of my supervisor, we use his account to register machines on the domain I cannot ghost new machines. They have also read his email messages. Therefore everyone that has replied to his message about AFNI will be known. They have also listened to his voice mail. Therefore everyone that thought they were secret by not sending email is known as well. I’m sure that if I actually had his machine on they would be scanning the hard drive on it too.

So what does that mean? Well it means they have a list of all the people that bothered to comment on Jeremiah’s ideas, whither it is good or bad. The interesting thing will be if AFNI uses this for good or evil. Knowing AFNI I bet they use it for evil.

Well since I have started jotting this down I have found out that two techs in Northwest Tucson have been fired for agreeing with Jeremiah and for sending a comedic email about the incident. I have also found out that my boss has started reading other peoples mail, besides Jeremiah and even going so far as to recover email that they have deleted. I guess my assumption about using it for evil was correct.

To read a text version of Jeremiah’s email click here

With the recent ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional there has been a lot of public outcry about different topics.

First, Christians are screaming because they think that God should be allowed in there. In a somewhat notable fashion though you don’t hear them screaming about how the pledge should contain the phrase, “One nation under Allah.” To be fair to all religions (something that our country is proud of and noted for) the pledge should really read much longer as it would have to contain an entry for every deity recognized by every person in the USA, plus an entry for those that don’t believe in a god. Or the section that speaks of “God” should be removed according to the laws that we as a nation have.

There are other people that say that it should stay the same, because that is the way that it has always been. Well there are two bad aspects of that argument. One is that if something is incorrect, it shouldn’t matter how long it has been that way. It should be corrected as soon as it is noted. The second problem is that is not the way that is “has always been.” The pledge was created in 1896. At that time there were no references to God in it. It wasn’t until 1954 that congress added “under God” to it. This was done at the urging of the Knights of Columbus. Therefore the argument that it is a vital piece of American history is kinda smacked down. First and foremost if there are people alive that are 109 years old then they are older than the Pledge of Allegiance in any form. Someone who is only 48 is older than the current version which contains the word “God”. Another problem is that the phrase was added after a campaign by a religious group. That seems to be somewhat out of line with US laws.

Truthfully, I think that their shouldn’t be any mention of God or any deity in public schools or government practices. This country was created by people seeking to escape religious persecution and therefore when the constitution was created it was created so that it would allow for a “separation of church and state.” This was done so that everyone one would have the freedom to do what they would like as far as religions. I am not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to pray in school, but instead there shouldn’t be a set time or ritual for it. If people want to pray that is fine, but to truly honor the ideas that this country was founded upon schools shouldn’t force, or actively be a part of that. A lot of people are also using the cry that the word “God” is in the pledge that the president gives when he is inaugurated. The problem with that is that in the actual pledge as laid down by our government “God” is not in it. The first president (and I believe everyone after him) added the word “God” to it. Truly, the people that wrote the Constitution went well out of their way to make sure that religion has nothing to do with our country as a government.

Then this morning when the news was talking about this ruling they went out on the street and were asking people what they thought about it. One lady said something that struck me like a punch to the stomach. She said, “This is America and that is our pledge of allegiance. If you don’t like it then get out.” I was amazed. Here was the perfect example of why America was created and it was being said by someone who obviously thought she was a patriot to our country and the ideas that it was founded on. Sadly, that isn’t the correct way to feel about it. People should have the rights to state what they think and bring things up for question. That is what this man has done. He brought the Pledge of Allegiance up for question against Constitutional law and the courts (the ones charged with interpreting the law) found that he was correct in that the Pledge violated our laws. This is all perfectly within the design of our country. What is not in the design of our country and is what this lady was implying should be done, is expelling people from the US for their beliefs or religious ideas. Under the disguise of Patriotism she was performing one of the acts that made people start our country in the first place, religious oppression. This is because she is attempting to make this person worship (in a small way yes but worship none the less) a deity to which he does not subscribe to.

There is a separation between being a Christian (or any other religion) and being an American. This is proof by the fact that you can be either without being the other, but not everyone realizes that. That is most likely due to the fact that Christianity is the dominate religion in the United States. Our president prides himself on the fact that he is a devote Christian. Not surprising then that he was one of the first to stand up and state that this was a bad ruling. This shows that he to doesn’t realize that there should be a difference between being a Christian and an American and that he doesn’t truly understand the laws that our country is founded upon.

People as a rule are sheep. I am not sure where that comes from. I don’t know if it is wired into us, or if we learn it somewhere along the way. There are people in the world that don’t act as sheep and there are people that in general aren’t sheep, but have some sheep like tendencies.

I am sure you have seen the sheep effect in action. Have you ever walked up to a line and seen a huge line of people standing there, only to look over and see a perfectly empty line that no one is using? How about eating at someplace like Rally’s that has the drive thru on both sides. How man times have you seen the line for the right side of the building be three times longer than the line for the left side?

I think is has something to do with schools and the way that we are taught to be. “Everyone get in line to go to lunch.”, “Everyone line up to go outside.”, “Repeat after me.” these are all lines that I think are still commonly used in today’s schools. I know that they were when I was in school. I think this maybe one source of this sheep effect. I am sure there are others though. Plus it is an effect that breeds itself. What has this led to though? A society where it is expected to follow others and to follow orders without thinking for your self. A society where phrases like, “We do it this way, because that is the way that it has always been done.” or “Do what I say, because I told you to.” are considered OK as valid management practices. A society where to punish kids we make them sit and stare at a wall in a so called “time out”. These ideas do not help to make people grow and improve, they instead lead to stagnancy, boredom and repetitiveness. Why is it a requirement in most peoples minds that when you become an adult you have to lose your sense of imagination? Again is that something we are taught?

I am not sure if I can blame it all on schools though since while we are in school we idolize the people that are the best sheep. If you think about it who were the cool people at your school? The people that had Air Jordan shoes, or Ambercrombe and Fitch shirts, or Guess jeans. Do you think these people went out to the stores and bought this stuff because it was comfortable or because they new that it was the in thing to wear? So what does that mean? To be cool you have to be a good sheep and buy what the nice people on television tell you to. Oh and if you can “baaaa” on the way out, yeah that would be greeeaaaaat.

Now the market droids have started to push 70’s style commercials out. I guess they are hoping that people will see this and think they need to buy the stuff. If we see a resurgence of 70’s style clothes then I think my theory will be proven. By and large I think is no reason for 70’s clothes to come back into style unless it is pushed there.

Hunter: The Reckoning is one of the lastest games to come out for the XBOX. As a matter of fact I couldn’t really find too many reviews for it when I bought it. The box made it sound pretty good so I thought “what the heck.” and picked it up.

The game itself is pretty engaging. The premise is pretty good and the storyline is nice as well. Characters are well developed and the differences between them can be noticed. The extra weapons in the game are pretty cool, and the edges (aka magic) are sweet as well. This stuff works pretty well at keeping the game from becoming just a hack and slash type game.

The areas where the game is lacking are not really the games fault. The first is that after a lot of playing the attack button can become really cumbersome and I found myself accidentally having it pushed in when I needed to let off of it. This is because the attack button is the trigger on the right side of the controller. This button is a analog button that has a pretty stiff spring behind it. So it can wear you out swinging the melee weapons since you cannot just hold it in, you have to release and pull again for each swing.

Another problem is the lack of a map. It is not really a huge deal because eventually you can figure your way around, but it would be nice to have an in game map. Maybe of just the areas that you have been to or something. The game itself is way to fast paced to give you time to map out the different areas and possibilities.

The other problem is the camera. It seems like so many games have this problem. No one can really find a way to make people happy with games like this. The closest solution is to let people control the camera themselves, but that sometimes causes issues as well. The camera in this game is rough. There are times that you are walking and there are enemies right in front of you, but because of the camera angle you can’t see them until they take a swing at you.

Truely though I think this game is billed as a multiplayer kinda thing. It does good in several aspects., but others leave you pissed and wanting to throw the controller out the window. First it goes all out and allows you to have all four characters in the battle at the same time. Thats great!! It is what I was really looking for in a game for the XBOX. Unfortunately the multiplayer parts only enhance the problems with the camera. Now instead of not being able to see all the enemies, you can’t see all the enemies and you are trapped in a box. See were most computer games that allow play like this are working on four seperate computers each with four monitors, this one is playing with four people on one 640×480 screen. So when it is on computers each character’s screen can be wherever it needs to be and allows for large spaces between characters, but when it is on the XBOX the screen has to stay in the middle of the party. Add that to the fact that the game augments itself depending on how many people you have in there and it can get real hairy. There are lots of times where there is a row of shotgun wielding zombies, just out of your reach and they are blasting the shit out of you, but you can’t fight back because one member of your party is lagged back fighting someone else.

Talking about the changes in the game due to multiplayer… It can get real rough. I made it through most of the story without too much problem, the first monsters where easy enough and the bosses died with just a little work. In multiplayer though the storyline is the same, the amount of creatures is vastly changed. The final bosses are also enhanced such that it takes a lot more hacking to get them down.

Increasingly I realize that I am no longer a kid. I will always be younger than some people so I am a kid in their eyes, but I am talking in terms of body, mind, and thoughts. Think back to when you were younger with me. When I was a kid I remember spending whole summers running around outside and playing things like tag and basketball. I don’t ever remember going inside because it was too hot to be outside. Now when I am outside it seems like a struggle in tolerance for the heat and the humidity. I doubt that it was cooler when I was a kid (global warming?!?! bah!), so it must be me. The thing that interests me though is this, is it a mental thing or is this a physical thing? Has my body become less tolerant to the heat or is my mind just more occupied with it?

Another thing that I am noticed is that, I seem to have lost some of my imagination. I have to think more about things to get ideas to come to me. I often times have snappy comebacks or crazy goofy things to say, but my ability to day dream seems to have lessened. Some people might say that this is a good thing, that day dreaming is a waste of time, that I am now more focused. To me I think that day dreaming is an important part of the idea phase of things. I have been working to design new pages for this site and to use the things that I have in new ways, but all I seem to get done is rehashing old ideas and ideas that I have seen from other pages. I have never been an artist, but I have always been able to come up with my own ideas and thoughts. In some ways these articles and reviews are the last area that I have were I am still creating. I am not sure if this is because of my job and lack of interest in it, or that I just don’t have anything cool to work with. I hope the addition of my laptop (gears) will remedy that and allow me to work with the ideas that I have when I have them. Hopefully, I will find a project to work with here soon and I will feel better about what I am doing.