Hell

So. The history channel has, for some reason, a bit on hell. And they have some preacher (recorded) talking to his congregation saying "There's a real place called hell, every one of you deserves to be in it!"

And the congregation cheers.

If you will excuse the expression, what the hell?

First, no, I don't believe in hell. I think quite frankly religion in general is just something for people who have no scientific understanding to try to figure out the world around them, including scaring people into behaving. I'll take science over "Listen to me or you'll burn forever!" any day.

I think it's a ridiculous proposition that "If you don't believe what I say is right, you're burning forever. What did you do to deserve it? YOU EXIST!" If that's the way of your belief, your god - I want nothing to do with that utterly irrational, vindictive, jealous being. And to me, it's worse with those who believe in predestination - "No matter what you do, if I decide not to save you, it doesn't matter how good you were in life, how much better you made life for everyone around you, sacrificed your things for other people - you get to burn and be tortured for eternity!" Really. Yeeahh... right.

But why would people cheer when they're told THEY deserve to be there? I mean, walk up to a crowd and say "You all deserve to have me kick you in the nuts!" Think they'd cheer, or run you out of town?

Frankly... it sounds insane.

I don't have a problem, for what it's worth, with people getting some degree of comfort from a "something higher." If that's your thing, fine - but do you *really* think it all makes sense? Have you really thought it through?

I don't like the Tea Party.

That's pretty blunt. I don't like the "Tea Party Movement." But I have huge hopes for it, even as I support our president and hope he weathers the oncoming storm.

See, the biggest problem with the Tea Party Movement is that - well, it's not a party. And no, I don't mean paper hats, noisemakers and drinks, I do mean this in the political sense. The tea party movement is summed up in two words - "We're mad."

Well, that's great. Discontent - something rather solidly American - drives change, if you want to do the work, if your politicians listen and do their jobs. But the tea party movement isn't any more defined than that - they're just mad about *everything.* Some over things that are patently false (Obama "not being american," policies that are more conservative than Nixon and that the Republicans offered a decade ago being "socialist" and the like,) some are just foolish ("Throw the bums out" being a rallying cry against incumbents,) and even internally, there's just no agreement. Find something to get a bunch mad and point them -

They're being a herd, and they're being used. And they're not, in their current form, good for the country.

However, that's also a hope for me for them, because our current parties are the *same way.* Less than a generation ago, we had political discourse. Yes, we had Democrats and Republicans - we had conservative, moderate, and liberals in both parties, though. They could work together far better than they seem to now - when it seems the only thing that's going to happen are party-line votes and mudslinging. (Yes, I realize that happens in politics, in many cases defines it, but it seems more entrenched now.)

My hope for the tea party? That they manage to shatter the parties. That we get a range of people - or better yet, actually get a viable third, or fourth, party out there, made of those broken away from the monoliths of Democrat and Republican. Those that would *have* to be worked with, those that would prevent "We're just going to say no to everything" from locking down government.

It needs to happen. Two parties, as long as we've had them, are dangerous. When they calcify, nothing gets done. We need a third... and while the Tea Party Movement isn't a party, maybe they can organize their anger enough to light a fire under those who *can* form a viable, long lasting party that can be taken seriously.

Note, I know there are "other parties," but really, when they don't even form a blip on the radar...

Dear EA Games

I hate what you did to C&C4.

No, this isn't dislike. This is actual hate. I've tried to like the game. I've liked the series for years - C&C was far superior to Warcraft. C&C2... eh. C&C3 rocked, and C&C4 - crash, burn. (Similar to Red Alert - 1 and 2 were great. 3 sucks, *hard.*)

I'd like to know what the hell you were thinking. OK, you're run by someone who thinks games shouldn't be fun. Mission fucking accomplished. I'm really hoping someone makes a good C&C3 mod to tell a better ending story.

Let's see, what's wrong with C&C4?

1. New engine.

Ok. Yeah, it's "not like other RTS games." Congrats. So give it a new series, one that can die in a fire somewhere if it sucks. Don't do this massive change to an existing IP and ignore your playerbase when, in beta, they tell you "This is not fun." The whole "No base, pop cap, limited resource" thing? It's as non-C&C it might as well be X&X. It hurts gameplay, and it hurt the story.

2. "Always online."

I'm sorry, but I hate this. I want to go through the single player stuff on my own. Yes, I CAN pick solo - but I STILL need an internet connection (unless I hunt down a crack and risk viruses and the like,) STILL need to see a chat room full of people babbling in 1337 "u sux" "i pwnt u lulz" to each other. Of course, now those rooms are DEAD because, well, nobody wants to deal with the game. I just want to hop in, play the campaign, maybe a skirmish, and go on about my business.

Oh, it's an anti-piracy measure? Guess what this boneheaded, dumbass move is encouraging as people go to find cracks for it - either just to use the game, or in lieu of buying it AT ALL. (I bought it. I'm regretting it.)

3. Persistent XP and leveling.

Oh. My. God. Who the HELL thought this was a good idea? Especially when, frankly, you *need* the Tier3 stuff in the last mission to beat that damn bomber. Guess what. I haven't unlocked it. The other games? By the time you've gotten there, you've been introduced to all your units. You just have to build through your tech tree, live, and win. It might be a hard fight, but it's doable. Here? You're not rewarded for being clever, sneaking people over to take over a base, for instance. Nope, that costs you XP. So, at level 11 on the last mission? I have no idea what I need to unlock Tier3. I get to *grind.* I don't like grind in MMOs. I Sure as *fuck* don't like it in my C&C.

4. No bases.

Look, I get the whole "wanting to keep combat fluid." And I actually kind of like control points affecting the game. But having to wander around in this damn "crawler," trying to spit out the units I'll need, not being able to set up defenses if I'm nto the right "kind" or make a backup to affect production, or any of the hundreds of other things you can do with a base - including what you can do to the *enemy's* base, like capture it and use his own weapons against him - ugh. This sucks.

5. No Tiberium.

No harvesting - just picking up crystals that, for some reason, are delivered to a battlefield... what? One of the linchpins of the game story has been the overtaking of Earth by Tiberium crystals. The economic warfare is a big part of the gameplay. You're telling me everything's scoured clean? No, I'm not buying it.

I thought "co-commanders" were irritating in RA3. C&C4? Makes RA3 look like a jewel by comparison.

EA, just go out of business already. If this is your "plan" for games? You don't deserve to be in the industry.

Dear idiot fake-WoW-admin spammer:

Yes, you. You with the fake Blizzard email address.

Just knock it off. Seriously. I get several fake "Your account has violated EULA section XYZ," "For account security we need you to..." and similar emails a week now. It's past pathetic.

I don't normally do this, but I'm going to help you out here. Do you want to know why these emails don't work on me? I'll give you a hint. No, it's not spelling errors, or the fact I DO check out links before ever clicking on them, or my email program saying "This looks like a scam!" or anything similar. Admittedly, all those and more were the reasons I didn't fall for it in Aion, but this is about WoW.

No, the reason I don't fall for your little scheme is this. I don't have a WoW account. Never had, other than a trial, oh, five years ago where I decided I hated the way the game looked and played.

Now stop wasting my time and leave me the hell alone. Thanks.

What creates a "fanboi?" (Brand devotion and regrets)

Argh.

So, earlier this year I finished building up my nice new gaming/main system that, if all goes as planned, should last me a few years. (My previous one did yeoman duty through two processor upgrades, a video card upgrade, an OS beta and upgrade, and is currently my media center - maybe not the most power efficient one, but it's still going strong. I just couldn't upgrade it any longer - can't get past an early Phenom for the CPU, and you can't find those now.) Four years of regular use, and I'm sure I'll get a few more out of it as a media center. Not bad.

Most of it went pretty well - I (reluctantly, I must say) jumped ship from AMD processors to the shiny new Core i7-860, which was my first sacrifice, actually - being a core 1156 (think I have that number right) processor, it costs less, memory (dual instead of triple channel) costs less, and it performs great (at lower power,) plus Win7 sees it as an 8 core CPU... but I will never, according to Intel, be able to use a six core processor with it. (Those reserved for the 13xx series sockets.)

I don't actually mind, TBH, as all I'm giving up are bragging rights. Very little actually uses multiple cores (Handbrake did max it out, which was just nifty to see,) and by the time games and apps generally do I figure I'll be ready to build another system (4-5 years or so.) Still, the multiple sockets, multiple upgrade paths and rapid socket obsolescence are things I'd held against Intel for a while - that and price.

I'll live with that, though. That's fine.

What I'm not all that happy with, though, is the other ship I jumped - from nVidia to ATI. (Yeah, I gave up AMD on one side and picked them up on the other, AMD, of course, owning ATI now.) In this system - partially to get ready for City of Heroes' "Ultra mode" in Issue 17 - I wanted to get a worthwhile graphics card. I'd initially specced out an nVidia 260/216. I'd waited to have one from XFX (great company, my last several cards have been from them) come around. But nVidia, for whatever reason, seriously cut supply. Part of it, apparently, was from the fabs, and part of it was waiting for Fermi (the newly released 470/480 indoor grills... er, cards.) Supply was *just not there.*

Now, I'd vowed not to buy ATI again back in the Radeon 7000 days. That, though, was mostly due to being infuriated at their support. It was a nightmare, mostly of being told (mutliple times) to do things I'd done before contacting them. (I do tech support, I do know how to troubleshoot, and gave them detailed information on *detailed* troubleshooting, removal, cleanup, etc. - all of which was roundly ignored.)

Well, with AMD buying them, the 5000 HD series getting good reviews (and being lower power users than nVidia,) plus having DirectX 11 support (futureproofing as much as I can,) I figured "What the hell." I ended up picking up a Radeon HD 5770 from XFX.

Now, let me say from the start this card *has* shown me good performance. For a sub-$200 card, it's hard to beat. However...

Yeah, always a but.

First was some expected problems. ATI has had issues with City of Heroes historically. There's a setting that fixes many of them ("Compatiblecursors -1") but still - going over enhancements = a jump to the other side, and there are other little things here and there that are just odd or irritating. But they're not gamebreaking - I could put up with them. People have for years, after all.

What's making me regret buying this card, though... the Grey Stripes of Death. Or sometimes just the Grey Screen of Death. See, I'll be playing... well, one of many games. Left 4 Dead 2 or Borderlands, most often - good, solid titles I've had no issues with, when all of a sudden, *WHAM* - grey screen. Or grey stripes. System totally unresponsive, can't get to the desktop, can't kill the game, all you can do is hard-boot the system... something I hate doing.

I've jumped through the hoops. I've fiddled with fan speed, with settings, I've reloaded drivers. I've unloaded, gone to safe mode, used DriverCleaner (nice little program, BTW,) grabbed the 10.3 drivers and loaded those... nada.

Waiting for the next steps from XFX, but... I'm really wishing those 260s had stayed out in quantity. So far this experience is doing nothing but making me want to give nVidia more money and send them an apology for ever trying ATI. And I can't blame XFX - this is an issue that's been going on with all ATI cards, apparently not even "just" the 5-series.

I'm not impressed - but it's definitely strengthening my devotion to nVidia as a customer.

(Now, as far as the title - no, I wouldnt' call myself a "fanboi" - I'll criticize nVidia as well when they screw up, like the current gen's 480/470 running so hot, being late, and what has been happening to prior-gen card availability. That's a massive screwup and can only hurt them. And I've been through the OS wars, arguing against NT, defending OS/2, lauging at Win95... yeah, that old, my current attitude being "use what works and what you like." But this sort of thing does nothing but strengthen those sorts of arguments - and brand loyalty.)