Unwanted Commentary

Okay, so I'm listening to Paul Harvey's radio show this morning and he's talking about the UN and humanitarian groups, like the Red Cross, removing personnel from Baghdad. Paul mentions that it's so bad that Sec. State Collin Powell issued a statement along the lines of "if you do this, the terrorist win".

Now my reaction was, "Hell yeah, that's because they are winning!" I just couldn't believe it really. I mean how can these organizations ask for their employees to risk their lives on a daily basis? These organizations are there to help the people, not get blown up while the US government and military try to subdue the city…if they don't want them to leave then maybe they should offer more security and protections….or "oh my gawd!" they could have actually had a plan before we went in guns blazing.

You know I started off as a supporter of Bush and the war in Iraq, but as time goes on it seems like there are more and more things that drive me away. The sadder thing is that the Democrats don't seem to be able to put anyone up there to take his place.

Posted by Jeff at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The weather finally turned colder this weekend. You've got to love Texas. Saturday morning was pretty warm, probably nearing the 80's or higher, then over the course or a few hours it dropped down into the 60's. However it happened, I'm just glad it did, part of the fun of fall in Texas is the uneasy anticipation of that first truly chilly day, that first day when you get to pull out the coat and turn the heater on in the car. The first time you really can be sure that the summer blast furnace is over and winter is on its way. Of course you never can be sure that it won't be 90 degrees tomorrow, but for the moment it's a nice feeling.

We went to a haunted house if Ft. Worth Saturday as well. This is the second year in a row that I've attended a haunted house, the only reason I mention it is that I'm not a big haunted house person. I did it once when I was a kid and that had been enough. I just had trouble suspending my disbelief for it to actually be scary. The Ft. Worth haunted house, named Cutting Edge Haunted House, was actually pretty scary and was nicely done. I still think the price was a little expensive and the ending was fairly anti-climatic, but overall I only felt a little ripped off. We spent the extra five bucks to get the VIP ticket, which meant we didn't have to stand in the really long line in the chilly weather…and we got an hour of free game play at Gameworks.

Gameworks was pretty fun, the highlight being the balloon combat game that shoots you up in the air about two stories. I remember arcades from when I was a kid and while it didn't stop me, I was always aware of what a rip off they were…there's no telling how much money I spent in those places. Going to Gameworks this weekend showed me that they are now several orders of magnitude beyond the level of rip off that they used to be.
I don't think there was a game in the place that cost less than a dollar and the vast majority were some derivative of fighting, shooting or sports game. Maybe I'm just nostalgic, but I remember there being more than three categories of games when I was a kid….oh well…it was free, so it was fun :smile

Posted by Jeff at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm becoming a board game geek. I find myself browsing the board game web sites looking at the new games and wanting to buy them, looking up reviews of games even...help me!

Posted by Jeff at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I bought my first designer board game, A Game of Thrones, about a week ago. I couldn't really afford it, but I wanted it and so I got it and it has turned out to be a pretty good investment so far. The game is based on the first three books in the series A Song of Ice & Fire by GRR Martin and the designers did a a great job (IMHO) of capturing the books theme and feel while making an excellent war/strategy game.

So far I've played it three times, a 3-player, 4-player and 5-player game and each instance I ended up playing a different faction. I haven't done so well in any of the games, but they've still been a lot of fun. The 5-player seems to be the best option, though the 4-player didn't seem too bad, but the 3-player was just a little too out of whack. In the 3-player two of us ended up butting heads early, which allowed the third player to seize the necessary number of cities and strongholds to get the win.

In the 5-player game the Muster card, the mechanism that allows you to get more troops, came up fairly often and so there were plenty of battles. The 4-player saw only one Muster card come up and we all had trouble figuring out what to do, (also this was a much more passive group)...I can see now that there needed to be a lot more negotiation going on as no one could afford to cover all thier fronts at the same time. I like this notion that one game can be heavily militaristic and another be more diplomatic, though it looks like both elements need to be in every game. This sucks for me, because I'm not good at the diplomatic end.

Can't wait to play it again though.

Posted by Jeff at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh man, I just almost died...for a few minutes it looked as if though a full hard drive backup I'd done before reloading a client's computer was corrupted! But it seems okay now and is happily restoring data from the image file.

I've got enough drama in my life...I don't need this aggrivation!

Posted by Jeff at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, what the hell is up with the Stars losing 1-0 last night when they should have won something like 4-1. I don't think I've ever seen a more deliberate, or maniacal intervention by the hockey gods to rip victory from the team that was clearly working harder and deserved to win.

Oh it is so unfair, life is unfair, hockey is unfair!!!!! Why, why, why?

GO STARS!

Posted by Jeff at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, what the hell is up with the Stars losing 1-0 last night when they should have won something like 4-1. I don't think I've ever seen a more deliberate, or maniacal intervention by the hockey gods to rip victory from the team that was clearly working harder and deserved to win.

Oh it is so unfair, life is unfair, hockey is unfair!!!!! Why, why, why?

GO STARS!

Posted by Jeff at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, what the hell is up with the Stars losing 1-0 last night when they should have won something like 4-1. I don't think I've ever seen a more deliberate, or maniacal intervention by the hockey gods to rip victory from the team that was clearly working harder and deserved to win.

Oh it is so unfair, life is unfair, hockey is unfair!!!!! Why, why, why?

GO STARS!

Posted by Jeff at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's interesting how life can shift your fortunes around. When things are going well you can't imagine how they could ever turn bad. In some respects I find it simply amazing that we've all managed to survive this long. I've become so aware of the frailty of life in what seems to be a horribly dangerous and unforgiving world.

With just the smallest of events you can find your life suddenly in an entirely new light.

Posted by Jeff at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)