Fox Newzorz

So, with all the crazy fun that Fox News seems to have with generating biased reporting, it’s not surprising that Presidential candidates start locking them out of press conferences. Of course, that doesn’t stop Cavuto from kissing the President’s ass at every turn. Woo-hoo, isn’t great to be in mass media?

Feingold shot out his legislation (you can get a link to the PDF here) for withdraw. However, Novak thinks that all the troops will be out by the end of 2007 – Bush wanting it or not – to save face for Republican candidates in the ’08 elections. I will not be surprised if that’s true.

Microsoft Vista was released today. And then hacked and the hack distributed to the rest of the Internet in less than 9 hours. If this is the best Microsoft can do, then we’re all royally screwed.

Read Full Post »

WorldWorks Games Review

 

So, I decided to put together a little cardstock terrain, and settled on working on the expansion piece to Streets of Mayhem. Here’s my initial thoughts about it after constructing the subway train car -

The car itself is not that difficult to assemble. At work, all I have is a black and white laser printer, so I had to make due with that. However, the detail still stands out remarkably even with the absence of color. The only thing that takes a bit of dexterity is the railing and the seats themselves (they are kinda small and need to fit down inside the car – hint: You may want to really follow the instructions).

The top of the train is basically a lid to the car so you can move miniatures both inside and on top of the train. The format can be either 1″, 1.5″ or no grid. I went with 1.5″ to see how that worked. The grid fits well within the car that you won’t have any problem moving figures around (none of that “Am I able to occupy that half square seat?” or whatever).

The train platform itself takes a little more skill. There’s benches, walls, steel girders and other items to use. Again, the grid works well with the platform, too. And the train sits fairly even with it so the doors are level for boarding. With all the obstacles you can add to the set, it’s almost Necromunda worthy (only Necromunda doesn’t use trains … oh well, maybe they do in my vision).

Again the level of detail is very good, and I have to hand it to Scott Reid – the entire thing looks very nice.  It’s a very usuable piece of terrain for a modern setting (combat or otherwise). I would recommend it if you are going to get the Streets of Mayhem setting.

Read Full Post »

Minimum Wage Revisited

Let’s try this again.

Today is a slow day for me. Nothing news worthy or extremely interesting going on that I haven’t already discussed. Except Obama seems to be more vocal about ending the war in Iraq in a slow and precise manner that allows Iraq to try and stand on it’s own.

Read Full Post »

Seize Fire! Wait, that’s not right …

So with no evidence supporting that Iran is presently trying to create nuclear weapons, the UN has called for the US to back off. The US responds, “FULL SPEED AHEAD!” Glad we listen to the rest of the world.

In fact, I’m sure US governments do not listen to their people, even when the people make it clear what it is they do or don’t want. The Vice-pResident* will go on interviews just to prove he won’t answer questions. And to make matters more embarrassing, they are trying to stack the deck in their favor right in plain sight in an obvious manner.

In Nebraska News:

Omaha’s going to open a “terror-free-oil” gas station. I think the premise is a good idea, but when I go out to the sponsor’s website, there’s a giant ribbon on the right corner that says, “WE SUPPORT ISRAEL COMPLETELY.” Yeah, Israel totally did not terrorize the people in Lebanon trying to get at the Hezbollah. So I won’t be buying gas at your station, thanks.

I know I promised to post these a few entries back, so here are your Colbert/O’Reilly appearances:

Enjoy!

*The off-capitalizatoin is intentional.

Read Full Post »

Minimum Waaaaaaage, Hiya! *Whippish*

(Title Courtesy of They Might Be Giants)

Anyway, all I seem to is hear about lately is a lot of bickering about the minimum wage. “It will cause corporations to fire people,” “It will raise prices,” “It’s not necessary,” etc.

Instead of being paranoid about the minimum wage (and relying on the ever-so-altered Wikipedia for info), why not read a ->valid study<- on the minimum wage instead?

And for everyone who thinks prices will go up – shut up. No they won’t. If anything, increased spending created by increased wages causes lower prices. What is going to cause prices to go up is CHINA – who owns a majority of our debt and dollars. If they decide to not cover our asses anymore, and sell our debt and dollars, then we’ll have huge inflation.

Until then, just shut up.

*Hint – the paranoia for minimum wage increases has historically been inaccurate and propagated by large corporations. You should be able to figure out why.

Read Full Post »

We have nothing to fear but fear itself

So why are white male political figures constantly trying to undermine the growing Hispanic majority in the US? Gingrich and Tancredo are both paranoid cowards. Let me say this: Get rid of the benefits for minorities, and when we’re the minority in this country, we’re going to get screwed. Despite the best efforts of racist white politicians, white people are going to be a minority in this country soon.

Yet another member of my political party embarrasses me and the rest of his party by being a total baby. Hello? It wasn’t uncommon for Republicans to treat the Democrat minority like crap for the last 8 years. So why bitch about them giving a little of it back?

So Bush is asking for more money for his contractor friends Afghanistan, while it’s out there that we now had plans to invade Iran that go way back. Way, way back. I can say they go back earlier than 1992, really.

Read Full Post »

Another Day, Another D’oh!

Again, I’m getting some angry, nutty comments from Conservatives that I think people believe are going to be allowed. I will point those people back to my original disclaimer on my comments policy. The only reason I let vimto1‘s comments through is because he was pretty sure I wouldn’t let them through (and because I like the guy, to be honest). Other people presented views with a sense of humor, or were too wacky not to approve.

I guess not everyone was happy with the State of the Union address – especially other Republicans. Robert Novak makes an intelligent observation: the SotU address didn’t do anything to help the Administration, and only highlights the success and growing popularity of the new Democrat Congress. Talk about something blowing up in your face. Democrats: 10, Bush: -1.

I’m glad that some people realize that being President is not as important as serving the nation. John Kerry gets my approval (although I’m still not a fan) for dropping out early so he can keep the Dem-led Senate going. I wish Biden would follow suit and do the honorable thing as well. However, it seems that some idiots won’t drop out even if they can’t answer simple issues.

Where, oh where, has that little Intel report gone? Oh where oh where can it be? Not complete, or Presidential apathy? You be the judge.

In the entry before last, I mentioned the Iranian leader dude hating on America. Well, apparently, he’s okay with a US-backed Iraqi government. So … it’s okay to destroy America, just not American by-products. Gotcha.

The YouTube video of the week (w/ Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel):

Read Full Post »

WorldWorks Games

WorldWorks Games is a growing company in the gaming world. Founded and driven by illustrator and cardstock wrangler Denny Unger and co-piloted* by Paul Senior, WWG provides many a cardstock terrain piece for innumerable roleplaying and miniature gaming fanatics. They support several genres for popular gaming, including:

• Pirates!
• Dungeon-scapes!
• Castles and towers!
• Pubs for those RP sessions that always start in “that tavern!”
• Medievial towns and arenas!
• Spaceships, alienships and space colonies!
• Modern day city mayhem!
• And much, much, MUCH more!

They even have their own fantasy world called Arcraetia, where they develop independent and linked adventures to run! With each adventure comes a trove of exciting terrain add-ons for already existing terrain sets, as well as cardboard standies and other interesting goodies (the recent Coins of the Realm was developed with this realm in mind). Developed by WWG fans who have joined the staff (authors Bob Cooper and Joel Sparks, kitbashed by Aubrey Erickson, accompanied by illustrators Alberto Silva and Matt Cuenca).

I joined the community (which is absolutely superb, btw) in 2005. Throughout last year, their staff has grown to include several talented writers, designers, kitbashers and illustrators. They have teamed up with several other terrain developers, like StoneEdges Eric Galand and Ebble‘s Chris Roe, to continue to provide many cardstock alternatives to expensive terrain gaming.

For those new to the cardstock terrain building, they even supply some tutorials. I own a few sets myself, and I haven’t had to use the tutorials since the instructions are well-written and fairly in-depth, but you never know when you may want to see how other people do it. If you are super-stuck, you can always go to their user forums and ask questions (everyone in the community is more than happy to help). In fact, we more than welcome/encourage you to join the forums to be a part of our growing base.

I’ll be updating this blog with their newest releases as soon as they come out, as well as cover some of their old releases. I’ll have a WWG tag for you to use to check out what releases and news I’ve reported.

Denny’s just restarted his sneak peek blog for the site here, so feel free to keep an eye on it for updates as well!

* This is actually a Flight Simulator joke.

Read Full Post »

State of the Reunion

I tried to watch the televised State of the U address, but couldn’t find enough that wasn’t a repeat of last year’s SotU address to keep me awake. The Democrats let Webb throw out a rebuttal, and I’m actually starting to think they may be learning them some of that there strategy stuff. They let Bush say everything that puts everyone to sleep, and then went with short, mostly hitting the points of contention. “We agree with everything but these two points. There, done.” Yay!

I did notice that El Presidente mentioned the name IRAN as something evil. Last time Bush mentioned the name of a country (i.e. IRAQ) in his speech as something evil, we meandered over there and basically started a war that’s not the war we wanted to fight, but it’s the war we’re now fighting. I’ve heard the Prez ask why other countries don’t like us. Maybe it’s his Administration’s idea of diplomacy?

And Iran seems to like to emulate G.W. Bush by continuously throwing at random threats to a growing list of people. Man, they even add each other to that list. Eventually, these leaders should just shorten their giant list of people that radical Islamic groups hate to be, “Anyone but us.” It’s more efficient that way.

Read Full Post »