Tag: Things Having Nothing to do with Anything

Gunnies and Gamers

There is a rather interesting story linked on Says Uncle. The story is an article in the Escapist where they find it funny that gunnies are complaining about the Call of Duty Effect. The story itself isn’t nearly as interesting as the comments made on it though. It does show quite a divide between gunnies and gamers.

I’m one of those people who happen to be in both categories. Granted I’m far more of a gunnie than a gamer these days but when I was younger and had a combination of more free time and less money I played a lot of games. I was also pretty involved in what could be called the gamer culture. Yes I was on clans (That’s gamer speak for teams) for many different video games. I competed in Command and Conquer Red Alert, Team Fortress Classic, MechWarrior 3, and MechWarrior 4. It was a lot of fun and gave me something to do without having to spend a lot of money (You can get a lot of entrainment time out of a single game). I still retain ties with many of my former team mates who are still gamers through and through.

I don’t have to explain my involvement as a gunnie as that is the major theme of this blog. Needless to say I’ve always found the divide interesting between the two groups. On one hand you have the gamers who think through their playing of video games that they are experts on many different weapons platforms. On the other hand you have gunnies who are very angry that somebody who plays video games dare claim to have knowledge in the field of firearms. Then you have the gamers who get mad when gunnies explain the fact that their game derived knowledge of video games isn’t so much knowledge but wrong.

What is funny is the divide between the two groups is warranted. Gamers claim to have detailed knowledge in the use of firearms even though most have never touched a gun. Then you have gunnies who simply call the gamers idiots and don’t take the time to properly educate the gamers on firearms.

I have a proposal. First you gamers out there please understand that if your knowledge on firearms comes from video games you have no understanding of firearms. Second you gunnies out there stop calling gamers idiots when they talk about guns in your presence and take time to properly educate them and even offer to take them to the range. We can all get along if both sides realize that they’ve been acting like idiots.

Heck if there are any gamers out there who want to try some guns out I’m more than willing to take you. The only conditions are you have to be willing to drive to the Twin Cities area, be at least 18 years of age or accompanied by a parent, and obey all range and safety rules which you will be briefed on.

What Wussies

Seriously everybody is going on about the horrible snow storm that hit the east coast, even other countries are commenting. I don’t know about the rest of the country but here in the northern part of the midwest we call these massive snow storms “winter.” And to prepare for this “winter” we do a few common sense things like ensuring we have a supply of food, have needed snow gear in our vehicles, and wear heavy coats. You guys in the new global warming sector should look into those items.

This is Retarded

No seriously it is. There is a web site dedicated to stopping people from using the word retarded. Retarded is a legitimate medical term for Christ’s sake. This is no different than deterring the use of the word idiot, moron, or stupid. All of those words are legitimate medical terms referring to an improperly developed mind and are used in derogatory manners.

Trying to stop the use of terms in place of flowery hippie phrases is one of by biggest pet peeves. It’s akin to saying a child isn’t poor, they’re at risk at hope. I’m sorry (OK I’m not) to be blatant about this but no matter what word you create to replace retarded it’s eventually going to be used in a derogatory manner because people like to insult each other. The best thing you can do is ignore it and eventually people will move on to another word.

These campaigns are stupid. I personally pledge to keep using the word retarded as well as every other word I use to insult things.

I’ve Been Waiting on This Forever

I’m going to go way off into side note country here but I’ve got some awesomely good news. Sam Raimi’s next project is looking to be The Shadow. Yup the original playboy millionaire turned vigilante who stalks the night

I’m a pretty big fan of the old Shadow pulp fiction novels and the radio drama from the 1930s (Which are available for free via the podcast section in the iTunes music store). Sadly every movie made on this franchise has ended up being shit (Although the most recent one was fairly decent in my book, just too cheesy). But I think Raimi can pull it off since when he first got outbid for The Shadow movie he created Dark Man which was a sort of tribute to the Shadow and that film (The first one) was great.

Yeah this is probably the only “super hero” movie I’m going to be more pumped about than Iron Man.

It Just Dawned On Me

As I’m sitting here something just dawned on me. As I’m typing this I have the following applications open on my laptop:

  • Google Chrome
  • NewNewsWire
  • Apple Mail
  • Quicksilver
  • Safari
  • Eclipse
  • iCal
  • VMWare Fusion
  • Terminal
  • Activity Monitor
  • System Preferences
  • KisMAC
  • Scrivener
  • Preview

And the system is running flawlessly. Boy how far we’ve come in computer. Although I’m used to stable multi-tasking I’m now remembering, not fondly, the days of Windows 3.11, Windows 9x, and Mac OS Classic where having multiple applications running at the same time was a risky proposition. Man thing have certainly improved.

Hell the sleep mode on my laptop works which was also a risky thing back in the days of my machines that run older operating systems. The number of kernel panics (UNIX version of Blue Screens of Death for you Windows folks) I get in a year can be measured on one hand as opposed to the old days where system crashes weren’t a matter of if but when (And When usually mean sometime that week).

Yes our computer operating systems are far more complex than they were just a mear 10 years ago (My God it’s been a long time since Windows 9x was in use). Yes modern operating systems take up gigabytes of space instead of kilobytes of spaces. But you know what our systems are far more stable nowadays then ever before. I love the advancement of technology.

Up Next on California’s Ban List, Gun Safes

Apparently an 11 year old child decided playing inside a gun safe was a good idea. He got locked in there.

Furthermore the employees apparently didn’t remember how to open it so they called the fire department. The employees eventually got it open without the need to blow anything up. And of course this happened in California so look for gun safes becoming illegal there or warning labels required on the front warning about the possibility of getting locked in.