irrelevancy

The time of year that I actually have things going on and haven’t posted a thing. I meant to post about my Christmas Eve, but I was either intoxicated or exhausted whenever I thought of it. To sum it up: it was a blast. It was good to see everyone and the weather was none too oppressive. It’s actually been fairly “warm” for the past week or so.

My cousin came in from the Air Force Academy, another cousin came down from Milwaukee (actually, she’ll be moving to El Paso, Texas after the holidays… good luck, cuz). Great food of course. Plenty of lasagna, ham, crab legs. Lots of dessert, and of course, an endless supply of booze. I don’t drink so much, and everyone keeps it pretty moderate, but we’ve had our moments. There were a couple people who were ill, so it was a very relaxed gathering.

The day after Christmas I spent with my cousin and my ex-girlfriend who was in with her family. We said hello to her (huge) family. It was good to see them all. I hadn’t seen any of them in a couple years, but they were very welcoming. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember seeing many of her uncles. But really, who could complain about a room full of women going on about how handsome you are? Must have been ladies’ night out or something.

Oh, I did pick up that digital camera I mentioned. Works great so far, but I’ve only snapped a few photos, mostly of people. Since I wouldn’t post a picture of myself here, it wouldn’t be fair to post other peoples’. Plus then I’d have to give them a link and, well, I’m kind of shy about that.

Born December 25th, 1982 in Phoenix, Arizona; today I’m 23 years old.

Even though this game just came out fairly recently, it seems that this game has been in development for the past 5 or 6 years at least. I’m only about 20% or so into the game, but it does seem very polished.

The graphics are good. Not excellent, but not terrible. I don’t mind that it doesn’t have the latest and greatest in graphics technology, though I don’t think it was necessary for this game. The animations are smooth and the textures are clean. There isn’t a lot of variety to the local NPCs. A lot of times there are papers or other small flat objects that are made to look 3D, but are very obviously lacking a dimension. Everything considered, the graphics do a good job of keeping you immersed in the game, especially with the different visual effects that occur when you’re under stress.

The story is excellent so far and gets more exciting with every cutscene. The voice acting is a little dry in places, but maybe that’s how people really talked in the ’20s. Plenty of dark and disturbing things going on all around town. You are not welcome in town, and they make sure to constantly remind you of that fact.

The controls are great, which I think are typically rare in the adventure genre. My only complaint is that sometimes you have to be lined up just so for things to work. The music picks up in tense moments, but the environment should keep you entertained. Lots of growls and screams.

Overall a great adventure game so far.

I don’t know how it started.

I remember reading a comic strip here or there out of the newspaper when I was young, but it may just as well have been that my parents bought me a collection of Calvin & Hobbes strips.

I remember every year my elementary school had a book sale. Every year a new Calvin & Hobbes collection would be on the shelf. I had to have them. Every one.

I ran into this site browsing around random blogs:

25 Great Calvin & Hobbes Strips

Reading over those familiar strips made me feel I like was 6 years old again. I don’t think I realized it at the time, but this strip was the “most…” everything. It was the most imaginative. It was the most insightful. It was the most intelligent. It was the most humorous.

It had the most influence on my life.

Very interesting article over at Truthdig.

An Athiest Manifesto by Sam Harris