Monthly Archive for December, 2010

Christmas: Post Game 2010

With Christmas over and a stack of video games that should keep me entertained for the foreseeable future, *and* a stack of board games including Catan and Risk that will certainly keep me entertained in those non-digital moments (or power outages), I have to say Christmas was successful yet again.

However, the grass is once again becoming green and it’s calling for a high of 8C this Saturday, making the first day of the new year veritably t-shirt weather.

Finally, I’m finding plenty of time to get writing done whilst still relaxing, which is why I’m venturing here to blog.

Wrapping

I think with the amount of presents I’ve wrapped this Christmas, that I’m now going to be a complete pro. I’m getting perfect folds and ribbons tied. At least I’ll soon be done with it all.

Kelly’s being a trooper, sleeping on a blanket while I’m busy.

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse

Just ventured outside the building to see the lunar eclipse. It is disturbingly red, which just makes it totally awesome.

Alas, no pics. We were venturing out at 3am to see the high-western sky (we can only see eastern to South-West-West – if you’re sticking your head over the balcony. Forgot the camera, 3am has that habit of making you forgetful.

Like all full moons the dog is being a psycho and chasing her tail. Normally there’s an apparent reason – like a recent bath, but not right now. She’s just chasing it, getting dizzy and stumbling around like a drunken mutt.

Roller Coaster Tycoon

The wife and myself have become re-addicted to Roller Coaster Tycoon. There’s something simplistic but great about the games that many other Tycoon games simply fall flat at. I think the only other comparable game is Railroad Tycoon, which is rather brutal in the gameplay’s fairness, letting you fail whilst remaining fun.

I am however very happy to hear more credible rumors of RCT4 in recent months rather than the usual nonsensical rumors that are spawned here on the interwebs. The latest coming from an Atari Forum Administrator seeking improvements and ideas upon the existing game format.

PayPal, Mastercard, Visa…

It looks like the kids in Anonymous has been busy today whilst the rest of the world has been at work. As the US government has been strong arming payment companies to block payments to Wikileaks, despite Wikileaks has yet to be shown to be illegal. So the kids in Anonymous have been busy DDoSing payment companies, and notably managed PayPal, Mastercard and Visa for all blocking payments to Wikileaks.

This of course follows the US government strong arming the Swedish government to press prosecution on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange… for rape or as the definition appears to be in Sweden – not using a condom in consensual sex. It shows the credibility of the case when the two women accusing him of wanton non-usage of a condom (definition of Wanton: sexually lawless or unrestrained; loose; lascivious; lewd) – I’ll avoid using rape as it’s factually insulting to rape victims not only for the hilarity of the weakness in this case but also that they’re arguing rape when – they bragged about their ‘conquest’ of Assange. I’m sure many rape victims brag about it to their friends on twitter…

Congratulations go to Sweden, they were once the epitome of moral character for their ability to remain neutral, and were widely renowned for their mass construction of shoddy furniture and henceforth made all furniture just as mass produced and shoddy. Now they’re prosecuting people on the behalf of sluts with a political agenda. It’s still a testament to Sweden’s liberality that being a slut preclude you from being a rightwinger.

Edit: This is probably in response to Assange being arrested yesterday and currently facing extradition to Sweden. His lawyers are likely planning to argue that any extradition to Sweden will expose him to extradition to the US, despite both countries yet laying formal criminal charges.

The UK group Women Against Rape (thought I’d embed a link, give a search engine boost to a group that actually knows what rape is) questioned, in an open letter to The Guardian, the zealous nature that Assange is being pursued under. They say it’s routine in the UK for rapists to be granted bail, and it’s unusual for Sweden to be attempting extradition when – this bit doesn’t have to come from this group, it’s basically common knowledge – it has a notoriously low prosecution rate on rape that it really doesn’t need to be extraditing people when they already know they’re not going to manage to complete the prosecution.

I mean Sweden is still positively flummoxed over The Pirate Bay issue, do they really need to grab hold of the Wikileaks issue and just bury themselves further in irrelevance in the 21st century.

To any Swedes that might read this: You have 90 years to get your country to get with it and you might not be remembered as the Amish of the 21st century. Remember it’s the dutch that were technologically mis-inclined not the Swedes!

Blizzards, but not here

Whilst areas like London Ontario have been hit with up to and over 100cm of snow, we’ve had precious little to talk about here in the Golden Horseshoe. Toronto, Halton and the Hammer have had diddly squat.  Bloody cold though.




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