House - Thursday, January 19, 2012

My dad once told me while we lived in an apartment that he didn’t like paying rent because he could be taking that money and putting it towards a mortgage. Now I live in an apartment with a plethora of disposable income (having no children is so very awesome), and I’m slowly coming to the same conclusion my dad did. Also, seeing Massive’s massive house made me realize there might be benefits in being a homeowner. However, I’m not quick to make huge decisions, and there are advantages to living in an apartment. So I’ve decided to make a list of pros and cons for buying a house, and I shall share this list (in its current form) with you:

Pros

I won’t share any walls with anyone. This means I can turn up my amps to 10! I can even go up to 11, if I need that little extra oomph. I can buy bigger and better amps! I can buy a drumset! And not an electronic one, an acoustic one! I can buy a true surround sound system, instead of the 2.1 sound system I currently have (and enjoy). I don’t have to deal with neighbors and their volume. This is a huge thing for me.
My rent will now go towards a mortgage. I’ll be working towards something, instead of just “throwing money down a hole”. My mortgage payments will likely be higher than my current rent, but that shouldn’t be a problem.
I’ll actually be able to BBQ next to my home! I currently can’t BBQ on my patio, because you can’t BBQ on an apartment patio in the county I live in (stupid county fire ordinance). I have to use the grill a couple of hundred feet away, to which I say “Nope!” This is also a huge thing for me.
Having a garage is better than having a carport.
I can host parties! I won’t, but I can.
When our drummer decides to procreate (for some unfathomable reason), we’ll have a place to practice during the small-baby-can’t-withstand-the-rock period, and I don’t have to haul any of my stuff.
The house will likely be larger than my 1-bedroom apartment. I don’t really need a lot of space, since it’s just me, but having another room for my instruments wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. I might even have a basement, and a basement is a good place to put instruments.
I guess being able to modify my house to my liking is a plus, but I’m pretty lazy. I wouldn’t even mount my TV to the wall, but mostly because I don’t like the idea of mounting my TV to the wall. I guess I can hide the wires for my surround sound system.

Cons

I’ll have a lawn. I hate lawns, because they have to be tended to. Luckily, I can pay someone to do that, because I’m not doing that myself. Too bad I just can’t pave over my lawn. Stupid grass.
I hate having debt, and a mortgage is a huge, huge debt.
Once I’ve bought the house, I’m kinda stuck there for a while. I can’t just pack up and move with “ease” like I can with an apartment. Which means I’ll be stick in Kansas City for a while. Even though I don’t currently have any plans that involve moving, but this is still a slight concern.
When things break in my apartment, I can call the apartment office and they’ll get all over that. When things break in my house, I have no office to call. I have to handle it myself, or find people to handle it.
I’d either have to buy more furniture I really don’t need, or have an empty house. The latter isn’t that big of a deal, but the former is a pain. I hate furniture shopping, mostly for the same reason I hate clothes shopping: I never find what I want. Do you know how long it took for me to find a black couch that wasn’t leather? At least a year. You know how many times I’ve gone to Nebraska Furniture Mart only to come back with video games and no furniture? Almost every time. I can’t resist deals, which Steam already knows.
It seems like people in houses a lot of solicitors. I don’t think I want solicitors.
There seems to be a lot of maintenance involved with a house, and that’s not cheap or effortless.
The possibility of dealing with a Homeowners Association. I don’t need random people telling me I can’t paint my house black. I’ve currently no desire to do such a thing, but maybe I might one day decide to make my house metal. And if I want to make my house metal, it has to be blacker than the blackest black times infinity.

André//11:50 AM//No one ever leaves comments

An excuse to talk about Skyward Sword - Monday, December 19, 2011

Due to being pretty boring, I play a lot of games. I’m going to talk about these games. Exciting!

I find it hard to respect those who have a Wii, but don’t own Skyward Sword. Knowing Skyward Sword exists, but not putting it in your Wii is just a terrible life choice. People like that shouldn’t have children, because they’re just all about making terrible life choices. It’s just so, so, so good. Why would you deny yourself of Zelda? When has Zelda ever sucked (ignoring the CDi games that clearly don’t exist)? It hasn’t. Stop being stupid and get all over this stuff. Clear out 30 hours of your schedule (yes, the game is 30+ hours long!) and save Zelda.
Bastion is just classy. Listen to this narrator! You hear him throughout the entire game, and the world is a better place for it. It’s short (5-ish hours long), but there are few better ways to spend 5 hours.
I never expected Ico to make me rage quit, but it did. For those who don’t know, Ico is a lovely game about guiding a mentally-challenged girl though a castle. I’m serious, something is wrong with this girl. This chick doesn’t run from the shadow beings that are trying to take her away; she thinks staying still and letting them take her is the superior option. Help me help you! Another example: I climb down a ladder and tell this chick to follow me. She starts climbing down the ladder, but sometimes, she will get near the bottom and then decide to climb all the way back up the ladder? Why? Because she’s mentally-challenged. And she climbs ladders so slowly. How can someone be so bad at ladders? It still is a lovely game, and I do like the fact that everyone speaks a made-up language. I think I would be fine with voice-overs in Zelda games if the language was made up, but Link can’t talk. Link can never talk.
Mario Kart 7 is…well, Mario Kart. It’s excellent and day-ruining. Nothing says “you should start swearing profusely” like a blue shell, then a red shell, then getting knocked off the track.
Cave Story 3D is so pretty in 3D. It’s not that hard of a game…until you try to get the good ending. If my controller wasn’t my 3DS, I’m pretty sure I would have chucked it at a wall. Regardless, Cave Story is excellent, and everyone should have Cave Story. It’s on pretty much every platform that matters (and iOS) in one form or another.
I started playing the New Game+ mode for Tales of Symphonia, but eventually lost all desire to play that game. I don’t know why.
I really am enjoying these 10 GBA games Nintendo gave me for buying a 3DS before the price drop. I also enjoyed the $80 Best Buy gave me because of the price drop. Too bad I already own Minish Cap and Warioland 4. But I have original Warioware! It has taught me the proper way to pick my nose! I’m going to play Yoshi’s Island so hard, because it must be done.
Demon’s Souls sits on my DVD/game stand, ready to be played. I won’t play it until I’m a bit happier, so I can better deal with the inevitable, blinding rage. But it will be played, I will become a man, and a full beard will be grown. Because that’s what happens when you beat Demon’s Souls: beards are grown.

André//10:39 AM//No one ever leaves comments

Look at my new stuff! - Thursday, November 17, 2011

A while ago, the backlight for my lame HP laptop (never buy HP) started going out, so I decided it was time to get a new computer. The search was difficult, especially considering that I primarily use Linux, and a lot of laptops come with Nvidia Optimus, which is garbage on Linux. Eventually, I remembered that System76 existed, and they sell Linux laptops. It only makes for me to spend my money on a laptop that is guaranteed to work on Linux without any issues. So, that’s what I did. I ordered my Gazelle Performance, the backlight for my lame HP laptop instantaneously started working again. Great. My brother claimed the lame laptop was testing my love for it, and I’m glad to report that I don’t love it at all. It can die in a fire…after I’ve moved all my data off of it.

Look at that laptop. So pretty. They keyboard even has arrows on the W, A, S, and D keys. My heart was instantly warmed. My laptop came with Ubuntu 11.10 installed, but Ubuntu screwed up during the initial setup process. However, that wasn’t a big issue, since I wiped the hard drive and installed Arch Linux and Windows 7 (I love not having to pay for Windows). I seem to get about 3 hours of battery life out of the lappy, which is actually better than my significantly weaker lame HP laptop. Windows 7 is weird, but since all I do on Windows is launch Steam and Starcraft 2, it’s not a problem. So far, I’m quite pleased with my System76, but I’ll really see how good it is after holiday traveling separates me from my main machine.

That’s not the only new thing in my life. Super Mario 3D Land came out on Sunday, and I rofl-stomped it in 4.5 hours. I was about to be disappointed that the game was far too easy for my liking (although the final fight with Bowser was amazing and not at all easy), then I found out that I’ve only beaten half of the game. The other half of the game promptly punched me in my face, and I felt a lot better. Speaking of excellent Nintendo games, Skyward Sword comes out on Nov. 20, and that’s terrible! It should be awesome, because that’s in less than a week, and it’s on a Sunday. Here’s the problem: I’ll be way out of town. I will be nowhere near my 40″ LCD TV, my decent sound system, and my comfy couch. I’ll be in St. Louis. St. Louis has a 20″ CRT TV, no comfy couch near a TV, and most importantly, two children who will harass me while I try to spend some alone time with my game. Also, I’m not going to play Zelda on a standard-definition TV, even though the game isn’t in high-definition. So I have to wait for a week. One painful week until I too can play Skyward Sword. I won’t get back home until the Monday after, and I’m taking that day off. Partially due to my travel schedule…and partially due to me having a princess to save and a Ganon to shank.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I’m slightly proud of it. It seems Rock Band 2 Stratocasters have a port on the bottom that allows you to plug in a pedal to active the overdrive/star power. That’s great since I’m always accidentally activating the overdrive, regardless of how little I tilt the guitar. Also, it’s quite fortuitous that I have a spare pedal due to my purchase of a real drum pedal for my fake drum set. However, the downside is plugging in a pedal doesn’t turn off the tilt sensor, so the problem isn’t solved at all. I could open up the guitar and cut the wires for the tilt sensor, but I’d rather not do that if I don’t have to. Luckily for me, I found a video on Youtube that shows you how to fix your tilt sensor if it’s seemingly broken. So I followed those directions, except instead of fixing my tilt sensor, I intentionally left it in a broken state. So now I can use the pedal to active my overdrive without worrying about it activating if I think about tilting the guitar.

André//11:48 AM//Someone felt like leaving a comment

So very bad - Friday, October 28, 2011

I want to talk about something I saw a few days ago. It was a video on Youtube of a band covering Through The Fire and Flames (TTFAF). Now if you’ve never heard this song, then listen to 7 minutes and 22 seconds of dual guitar absurdity. Upon listening to this, you can ~~see~~ hear why one should think twice about covering this song, especially if you’re just a barely-competent guitarist. If someone in the group of people I play music with suggested that we play Dragonforce, I’d do two things: I’d laugh because I play bass, then I’d smack them for their hubris. So when I saw this video on Team Liquid in a “worst covers” thread, I was a bit surprised.

I hit play, and saw a drummer with far too few drums to play Dragonforce. “Maybe he at least has a double bass pedal” I thought. Then the guitarist started playing the intro riff, although it was a bit sloppy and a bit fast. I don’t know why you would ever want to play TTFAF faster than it already is, but he did. So it wasn’t solid, but not worthy of “worst cover ever”. Then the intro riff was over and things quickly went from okay to terrible. At this point I noticed that they were missing another guitar and a keyboard, and that’s terrible. Guitar guy was sucking through the part after the intro. Drummer guy definitely didn’t have a double base pedal. Bassist guy…was alright.

At this point, it’s still not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Then I’m reminded that this song has words, because the guitarist sings them, and things go from terrible to Christmas-ruining. Singing while playing an instrument is hard enough, but trying to sing and play a Dragonforce song? Madness. And he was doing such a terrible job. I don’t think he ever hit a right note, even if you don’t consider octaves. And the drummer! I don’t know what he was doing! He should be playing twice as fast! The bassist…was alright…until he started singing for some reason. He was terrible too, but possibly slightly better.

Seeing this guitarist guy bothered me greatly. He kept throwing up the horns! Put those horns down! You’re doing a terrible job! And the crowd was cheering these people! Why? I would have booed them something fierce! The crowd should have given them deafening boos! I don’t care if it wasn’t polite, what that band did to that song wasn’t polite. It was morally wrong and probably illegal in a few countries. All of their musician friends had to have told them that this was a terrible idea (especially if these aforementioned friend heard them play it). If I was in a situation, I’d expect my musician friends to tell me “This…is a very, very bad idea. Worse than the jump to conclusion mat.” I’d expect Ian to drive across the state to backhand some sense into me, because that’s what true friends do.

Why couldn’t they pick an easier song to try? I’m sure they could play something easier. We can’t all be bald and awesome. Now that I’ve vented, it’s time to grab sunglasses for Massive’s Halloween Party. I’m going to be Stevie Wonder and spend my time informing people that I can’t see.

André//3:23 PM//No one ever leaves comments

I’m going back to Cali…kinda - Tuesday, September 27, 2011

I actually did something I don’t do all that much: I went home. Specifically, I went to visit my dad in St. Louis. Not so much because I was home sick, but because I had business to attend to. The experience was…meh. I played a lot of Devil Survivor Overclocked and watched a lot of The Wire. Let me take a moment to talk about The Wire as I now have finished all 5 seasons: it’s possibly the best TV show ever created. I’m not exaggerating even slightly. It’s pretty much unlike anything you’ve ever seen on TV. The characters are awesome and never act uncharacteristically, the actors seem to be born to play their roles, and the morality on the show is in beautiful shades of gray. I think The Wire might have ruined other shows on TV for me. I might not be able to enjoy Dexter’s 6th season as much as I might have before The Wire. Those who don’t like The Wire are pretty much dead to me.

When in St. Louis, it’s necessary to harass Ianda (Ian and Amanda), because out of all the couples I know, they’re the least nausea-inducing by a wide margin. We consumed pizza, and I collected their faces for Face Raiders. For some reason, Amanda’s face didn’t get saved, so I’ll have to take another picture next time I see her. Ian was smoking and I eventually noticed something weird: I had no urge to kill Ian and widow Amanda. Usually when I’m in the presence of cigarette smoke for long enough, three things happen: I usually get a headache, my dreads reek of smoke, and I want to murder anyone with a cigarette. But Ian was smoking like it was the thing to do, and none of those things happen. When I inquired about this, he explain to me the marvel that is the electric cigarette. All I remember about the explanation is being told that the smoke is just water vapor, and Amanda taking a puff (like some sort of smoker).

Amanda insisted that I travel to their home (full of instruments and animals) and play her upright. Uprights are so weird, and they have no frets. It was repeatedly mentioned that Amanda’s bass was too small for me (the thing was huge) and that I could get blisters from playing it. Given how much of my time is spent pressing the tips of my fingers against thing (e.g., round-wound bass strings), I was a bit skeptical. When I left, Ian insisted that I take distortion pedals with me (to borrow, of course). These pedals have truly taught me the value of having a clean blend.

I guess I saw some family too. Most of them have moved out of my dad’s house, so it’s just my grandma, an aunt, and two tiny cousins. Neither of them are named André, but is referred to as “Little André”, much to my dismay. And to make matters worse, I’m sometimes referred to as “Big André”. And for some reason, they think this something other than lame and not okay (for all values of okay). This sauce is quite weak, but not nearly as weak as naming your children in a “cute” manner (e.g., their names begin with the same letter). I can only hope he hates it as much as I do.

André//10:01 AM//Someone felt like leaving a comment

Staycation. - Monday, September 5, 2011

Dealing with the terrible things I’ve been dealing with at work lately (all of Arizona is dead to me) made me decide to take a day off before Labor Day weekend and go on a staycation, which is such a nice word (thanks Amanda). Now that I have a nice chunk of free time, I shall write about what I’ve been doing with my free time lately.

I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which was surprisingly awesome. I almost had the theater to myself, but some jerk couple decided to see a movie. How dare they! I hate couples. I could go off on a bitter, hate-filled rant about couples, but I will keep such things to myself.
I’ve spent at least 2 hours getting stomped repeatedly in Starcraft 2 today. I won my first ladder game, then it was crushing defeat after crushing defeat. And all of those losses were my fault, because I always did something stupid. Not preparing for DTs after seeing an early gas and a Twilight Council. Units warped directly into my main because my zerglings somehow missed the probe sitting in my base. Letting infestors drop 30 infested terrans to take out my hatches not once, not twice, but 3 seperate times (enough time to stop a spore crawler and spines). I eventually won another game (it was a ZvZ, surprisingly), then I quit. I’m so bad; I definitely deserve to be in the gold league. At least I had more time to watch the GSL.
You know who I hate? HSBC. Do you know who HSBC is? Probably not. HSBC is the company that financed the loan for my car. When I tried to get Kansas plates last year, I found out that my dad couldn’t locate the lein release for the title, so I couldn’t get Kansas plates. Good thing Missouri is still 20 minutes away. Over the last year, I’ve found out that HSBC sold the part of the company that did auto loans, the new company doesn’t have any data on the loans that have been paid off, and HSBC never sent the lein release. Groovy. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been calling HSBC and getting sent in circles until one glorious day where I was forwarded to the lein release people. Amazingly enough, I just gave them my VIN, some info, and my address. I got a lein release a couple of days later. It was so simple and plainless. It was also amazing how it took so long to get someone to forward me to the right people. When I buy a new car, I might not bother with a loan. I still have to get my dad to sign something since his name is also on the title (the car was a gift) and give me the actual title. I’m not going to risk these things being lost in the mail, so I will travel to St. Louis this weekend to retrieve these items. I’m not excited.
I’ve been enjoying my 3DS and the free NES games they Nintento gave me, since I am an ambassador. I’ve also been enjoying Devil Survivor Overclocked, and that game is hard. But it’s a MegaTen game; they’re all hard. My 3DS says I’ve been playing that game for 36 hours, but my save file says I’ve only had 20 hours of play time. That means I’ve been getting spanked for 16 hours. I beleive that, partially because I have hard numbers to support that, and partially because that game is hard. You know what else is hard? Metroid. I’ve played Zero Mission, and that game has all the modern conveniences of things like a map, save rooms, and starting out with more than 30 energy every time you die. I don’t know who thought that was a good idea, but I hate them.
Drum programming is tedious, but I think I’ve finally found a set of drum sounds that I’m pleased with. Now maybe I can finally stop being lazy and record music. I should just set aside a couple of hours a week and just record music. I’ve started setting a couple of hours a week aside for replaying old games, and it seems to be a good idea. What else would I do on a Friday night? I’m currently playing Tales of Symphonia again, and that game is a bit easier with double experience (yay for the grade shop).
I actually went shopping for clothes and actually came back with something! Why is it so hard to find a pair of plain jeans? Why can’t I buy clothing that’s as boring as I am? Why do I have to play DDR/ITG everytime I come across it at an arcade? Don’t I know it makes me sweaty?

Unfortuantely for me, my staycation ends today, and I have to work tomorrow. Sigh.

André//9:38 PM//No one ever leaves comments

Sweet lady Catherine - Sunday, August 7, 2011

You know what’s in my PS3? Disc 1 of Mushishi. But Catherine was in there, and it shall return to my PS3 as soon as I’d done with this post. Catherine is pretty much the best infidelity-based puzzle game ever created. Not only is it an Atlus game, it’s was made by the Persona team: the guys who thought it would be a good idea to mix a dungeon crawler with a light social/dating sim (it was a very good idea). I bought Catherine with a quickness and was torn between starting on easy vs. normal difficulty. On one hand, playing on easy is quite shameful. On the other hand, it’s an Atlus game that was patched when released in Japan because it was too hard. For those who have played other Atlus games, you understand what that means in regards to the difficulty. For those who haven’t played other Atlus games, what’s wrong with you? Buy Persona 3 FES, play it, and enjoy it. Then buy Persona 4, and enjoy that too. After you do that, you’ll understand that Atlus doesn’t make easy games. If you still aren’t convinced, I’ll have to tell you all about the Atlus game that ruined my life. I checked online and I was told to swallow my pride and play on Easy, because it’s Atlus. Now that I’ve beaten the game, I can definitely say that easy was easier than I wanted it to be. I recommend being a man, growing a beard, and playing on normal. That’s what I’m doing on my second playthrough.

Speaking of repeated playthroughs, you’ll probably play through this game more than once. Why? There are numerous endings, and multiple “good” endings”. I’m tempted to just watch the endings on Youtube, but I’ll try to at least get some of these endings the honorable way. The best part about Catherine is that it means the Persona team can now devote all their time to Persona 5. Let me tell you about Persona 5! I’m more excited about that game than I am about any other possible game coming out in the future. I hope it comes out in Japan first, so it can be verified that they didn’t ruin Christmas with a weak game (like Namco did with the second Tales of Symphonia game). That way, I can buy the game the day it comes out without fear. I’ll come home from work early with my copy of Persona 5 and play late into the night. I don’t have to worry about work the next day, because I’m taking that day off. If the band wants to practice, they can eat it. Persona 5 comes first. Cute girl wants to go on a date (as unlikely as that may be)? Nope. Persona 5 time. Forget real-life social links, they don’t help me at all. If Skyward Sword came out on the same day as Persona 5, I wouldn’t even think about Skyward Sword until I’ve sufficently beaten Persona 5. And now I’m off to sufficiently beat Catherine.

André//3:05 PM//I'm surprised 3 people left comments

Google + + = Google+ - Friday, July 22, 2011

It seems as Google has it’s own social networking thing, and some would say is a Facebook killer. As to why every new thing is always claimed by some to slay older, popular things, I’ve no clue. But Google+ was delivered unto the world, but it was, like many new Google things, invite only. Oddly enough, someone on Reddit was nice enough to give me a Google+ invite, so now I’m on Google+. I feel like I must talk about Google+, but I might not be the best person to talk about it. Is it better than Facebook? Possibly? It’s definitely different. Some say the UI for looking at pictures is worse on Google+, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t really look at pictures. There’s this persistent chat thing which could be interesting, but I haven’t had a chance to use it.

I can talk about friends, because oddly enough, I have a few of them. All of your friends on Facebook will probably not be in Google+, but that’s probably a good thing for a lot of people. I definitely don’t mind not seeing updates from random people I barely know but carelessly added as a friend anyway. Also, you don’t really have friends like you on Facebook; people just “follow” each other. If you follow someone, then you can see all the updates that they allow you to see. Also, the “following” relationship isn’t necessarily symmetric. For example, I’m following my friend (or so I thought) Amanda, but she’s not following me. Clearly, we aren’t friends at all.

This is only slightly related to the features of Google+: I like how incredibly easy and hard I am to search for. Google+, unlike Facebook, allows me to spell my name properly. I won’t show up if you search for “Andre”, you need to put an accent on that e. Most people don’t know how to do that, so they won’t find me. However, my last name is all sorts of unique. I will show up pretty much automatically if you type that in, but most people don’t know how to spell (or say) it. Is Google+ better than Facebook? I don’t know. I check Google+ way more than Facebook (even though I have only 9-ish friends); however, Google+ stuff shows up on GMail’s menu bar, and GMail is open all day when I’m at work. So that’s it. That’s all I have to say. Now I leave you with the best thing ever.

André//3:55 PM//Someone felt like leaving a comment

If you’re bored, then you’re boring - Tuesday, June 21, 2011

It’s hard to have a blog when you’re boring, because you rarely have anything decent to write about. The only way around that is to become more interesting or write about multiple things at one on occasion. Guess which one I’m doing.

The Wii U exists, and I’m confused. I don’t know what to make of it. I’ll have to wait for more info to make a decision. I’ll probably buy it because I have a lot of disposable income, and the only way to play Nintendo games is to buy a Nintendo system. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m fond of Nintendo games. Nintendo hasn’t let me down yet; my Wii still gets plenty of love.
Speaking of my Wii, Red Steel 2 is superior to Red Steel in every way possible. I don’t know why they bothered calling it “Red Steel 2″, they should have called it something else (e.g., “Stabby Shooty Fun Time”). The game has absolutely nothing to do with Red Steel, and Red Steel isn’t the kind of game you’d want to associate yourself with. It’s like calling Batman Begins “Batman and Robin 2″. The game cost $20 with the Wii Motion Plus, and it was definitely worth it.
Speaking of games that are cheap and worth it, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World isn’t really an element of that set. It’s barely worth the $15 I paid for it. After playing the excellent original game, playing the sequel is such a huge let down. I’ll stick to the flagship games when buying Tales games.
My brother is currently here for a couple of weeks, and he’s finally played Portal 2. I’ll finally have someone to discuss lemons and house burning with. My grandma and my mom also visited for the weekend. I caught Grandma trying to dust my TV stand, and I was having none of that. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to watch any of Dreamhack live, and that’s sad. I watched the VOD of the finals and I’m going to spoil it so hard: Huk has brought both pride and honor to the foreign community.
GNOME 3 and Ubuntu are ruining my days. My beloved GNOME 2 is no longer being maintained, and will eventually die. GNOME 3 is not at all ready to replace GNOME 2. Ubuntu is pushing Unity and making other changes that don’t sit well with me (those new scrollbars are less than worthless). I’m currently testing Xfce + Compiz on Arch Linux, and it’s mostly nice. The only thing I fear with Arch is potentially breaking my system often instead of potentially breaking it every 6 months.
Fiddling with my effects processor last week made me realize that my quality of life might improve with an investment in dedicated effects pedals. The first pedal I get obviously has to be a fuzz pedal. I’m also considering getting an electric drum set, because I have an excessive amount of money in the bank and I can’t get an acoustic drum set in my apartment.
I was thinking about The Room, and realized that Tommy Wiseau could be a comedic genius. To make a movie that impressively awful requires a perfect storm of mediocrity or sheer brilliance, and nothing in between.
It pains me to see people try to use Twitter for anything other than a quick, 140-character blurb. Why do some people feel compelled to use Twitter for everything? Also, this is more than 140-characters.
I have not smashed in ages. Maybe should engage in smashing at some point in the future. I should also start playing Starcraft 2 again. I think I’ll start laddering after my brother leaves. My goal will be to make it into the platinum league. It will soon be time to disregard women, and inject larva.
When did Minecraft start running so smoothly? I’m running it at 150+ FPS with rare drops in FPS, instead of 60+ FPS with somewhat frequent drops in FPS. I was pleased. Then two creepers ended me and I was no longer pleased.

André//10:35 AM//I'm surprised 2 people left comments

I’m a sucker for debate - Saturday, May 28, 2011

It’s story time…again. So I just ordered a pizza one day when I hear a knock at my door. This is odd, since no one ever knocks on my door. I open my door to find a man and a woman dressed up with seemingly no place to go. I’m pretty sure I looked confused. Then they ask me about whether or not I go to church, and I laughed in their faces. I try to explain my apathy towards religion to them and they ask me whether or not I’ve heard of “Mother God” (apparently, God is a woman). It was at this point that I realize that I have 20 minutes to kill between now and the time I need to go get my pizza. What better way to do it than to debate people that are trying to convert me? So that’s what I did.

They were trying to tell me that the bible is true (which shouldn’t surprise no one), but I thought it was weird that they were trying to prove the bible was true. How did they try to prove the bible was true? They pointed out a couple of passages in the Book of Job (poor Job) stated facts that weren’t scientifically proven until a couple thousand years later. For example, “He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing” means they knew that the earth revolves around the sun. Yeah. They also tried to tell me that if I read the bible, that the Sabbath is actually not on Sunday. I tried to explain that what day the Sabbath is actually on really has no significance to me. My Sundays are lazy for purely non-religious reasons. Eventually, it was time to get my pizza. I left them, they went to another apartment, and acquired my pizza.

So I returned to my apartment, ate my pizza, and fawned over Hit Girl. Halfway through my fawning, someone knocked at my door. I open the door to find that they have returned to save my soul. This, however, was a huge mistake. Not because I’m in the middle of a movie and I hate being interrupted. I didn’t even slam the door in their face like I would expect myself to. The reason this was a huge mistake is I spend some time thinking on the way to and from Papa Johns. They previously met a hungry, slightly-confused André. Now they’re talking to a fed, focused André; the logic was strong with me. Apparently, I’m a sucker for a good debate.

So that’s what I did. It helped that all I had to do was provide counterexamples. The guy brought the weakest of sauce to the county fair. He would just tell me factually inaccurate things: there has been an increase of natural disasters over time (there hasn’t), the earthquake in Japan was the worst ever (it wasn’t), humans are made of dust (I’m pretty sure we aren’t). Whenever I asked “but how do you know that?”, he said “because the bible says…”. I tried to explain you need to prove X in order to say Y is true because of X, which they haven’t done for me. I like the lady a lot more than that fellow, because she eventually got what I was trying to say and explained it to him. They insisted on having me come down to their church for a study session so they can better explain their position. They had to settle for leaving me with their address and the promise that I would consider visiting them.

And I try to keep my promises. I did consider it…then I threw the address in the trash. Why? They probably won’t convince me, especially if they break out with the weak, “because it’s in the bible” sauce again. Religion doesn’t involve “hard equations and rational thinking”, and I like to follow my H.E.A.R.T. Furthermore, I’m not going to change their minds, nor do I really want to. People are free to believe what they want to believe, and I’m free to not care about what people believe.

André//9:22 PM//No one ever leaves comments