Month: September 2015

PC Gaming: Bioshock – how to defeat the first Big Daddy

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So I had been told and many web based tutorials suggested you use gas cylinders and hacked automated machine guns to kill Big Daddies. Me, I roll a different way.

I simply used telekinesis first to hum shit at Big Daddy to lure him. Then I used fire and blasted at him several time. When I he got close in, all burning, I hammered at him with the wrench. Killed the fucker. Yeah I’m good at that. My favorite of the plasmid tools is the fire – I’ve roasted quite a number of critters in the game with that. Nitro Splicers – they don’t do too well with fire. And of course another trick with telekinesis is to catch Nitro Splicer bombs and hurl them back at said Nitro Splicer. Love it!

The game is awesome – it helps you out quite a bit. Points you in the general direction of your goals. And it works so much better with an Xbox 360 controller – they make one that a wireless dongle plugs into your computer (In my case a laptop) and connects to the controller. It’s pretty awesome – in effect my PC turns into an Xbox 360 with that controller and the Steam Application.

This is really fun.

Why Syria and Irag are such an ugly mess

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Part of the problem is the tribal nature of the region among Sunni, Shia, Wahabi etc.

And Iraq and Syria are what I’d call modern partitions. You see after World War I the Ottoman empire collapsed. I know this from reading T.E. Lawrence’s “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”. The Ottoman Turks were pussies compared to the British lead expeditions. Seems the British learned a thing or two from their time in America.

Anyhow prior to the end of WW I Iraq and Syria did not exist. They were part of the Turkish or Ottoman empire.

It was the British who carved it all up and gave us the modern day nations. It takes a brutal dictator to keep a country together. And we’ve managed to take out one in Iraq and severely weaken one in Syria.

So that’s why it’s such a mess.

PC AGaming: Bioshock

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So my office mate turned me onto an app you can install on Windows and Macs. It’s called Steam made by a company called Valve. I’ve heard of Valve before.

So anyhow he recommended a game called Bioshock. It’s a cool game – And I’m getting pretty far in it now. About to face my first real Boss aka Big Daddy.  They’re very hard to kill.

But I even got the t-shirt.

BioShock-Boss

Welcome to Rapture

Evolution in Bottle

Man-Chooses

bioshock___poster___freedom_or_imprisonment

Thursday Night Event: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson at Providence Performing Arts Center

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So Wednesday I noted a post on Facebook that said Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson would be at the Providence Performing Arts Center on Thursday the 24th of September, 2015.

So I purchased two tickets for Keyron and myself. Kind of expensive at $90 each ticket but well worth it.

We had dinner at a local Teriyaki place. I had the Pork Katsu – very yummy. Keyron had a chicken dish. It had to be fast as we’d arrived at the restaurant at 6:30PM and I wanted to get to PPAC by 7PM. We arrived at 7:10 and getting in was VERY easy. Kudos to the ushers at PPAC.

Dr. Tyson had a full house and he entertained us for 2.5 hours.

He talks about how Earth and the Universe are trying to kill us all. Pretty amusing. He spoke of the demotion of Pluto from Planet to Icy Sphere. It was a good meandering trip through astrophysics.

He talked about the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation – and how two Nobel prizes were awarded but he didn’t say who discovered it. I know who discovered it, it was Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson of Bell Labs. They had been searching out noise in a system and discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.

Even talked about telescopes. That’s something that fascinates me.

Then came the Q&A and I’ll be honest the questions were just shy of idiotic.

But all in all we had a good time. Tyson is entertaining when he’s stuffing knowledge into your noggin.

Hellish MBTA Commute this Evening

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So I normally leave the office around 4PM to catch the 4:35PM train back home. Today an email went out at 3:30PM saying some idiot, and I call him an idiot because anybody who chooses to off themselves on a public transit right of way – they should be rotting in hell for causing the commuters to have to jump through a couple of extra hoops to get home this evening. So I left at 3:35PM.

What it meant was that all Red Line trains between North Quincy (My stop to get to/from work) and JFK were being shut down and buses would replace service between North Quincy and JFK.

Now let me give credit where it is due – the MBTA did a bang up job getting a shit ton of buses over to North Quincy and getting people on them. It was amazing. I cannot picture say RIPTA doing something like this.

The bus went from North Quincy station to JFK station. That train back into Boston was mobbed. But I made it to the commuter train  with 8 minutes to spare.

But I had to leave early to do it. So may the guy rot in hell, even though I don’t believe in hell. I mean how selfish can you be, to off yourself. And besides, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Yeah, from Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan.

PC Gaming

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So my office mate turned me onto a product called Steam – runs on Windows, Mac, and I think Linux.

You can download games – prices are moderate. I’m downloading Bioshock right now for $19.99. I can see I’m gonna have to use the external drive to store game files. I texted the officemate “A pox upon you!”

I think I’ll enjoy the game.

UPS: I won

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So this morning I’d finally had enough with UPS. When I left the house at 5:30AM I found an Info Notice on the door. So when I got to work I fired up my personal email and shot off a missive to the President, CEO and Director. Didn’t swear once in the email. In fact I addressed them as Gentleman and even signed off with Regards.

Yep – the conversation with the President’s office at UPS didn’t go so well. It ended with me insulting them. What can I say, I go for the jugular. And I don’t suffer fools gladly. The funny part is I spoke in a calm voice throughout, didn’t raise my voice. Just ended it with the bon mot of “UPS is inept and idiotic.”

But at noon time I got a call from the northeast regional director. He and I were able to hash it out. I got UPS to agree to just leave packages and that I absolved them of liability. I did that because I know the people shipping the product pretty much insure things of value against the probability of UPS losing or damaging things. At the end he told me he’d call back in an hour. Two hours go by and I get a call from the local UPS depot – to tell me my package WILL be delivered. Apparently the director must have ripped someone a new asshole. My kind of guy.

So my 1lb. jar of sour cream powder was ‘delivered’ today. I wrap the single quotes around it because the package was hummed onto the porch. Nice touch there UPS driver. I’m still deciding if I should report that too.

But it feels good – I was victorious. My address is now on UPS radar that they have to DELIVER the package.

All it took was emailing the President, CEO and Northeast Director and leaving my phone number.

UPS: They just don’t get it

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So I emailed the President, CEO and Regional Director at UPS about my story.

Just received a phone call from the CEO’s office – telling me I could use UPS My Choice – so I walked through it on the phone with them and it bombed out.

My parting words were that UPS is the most inept and idiotic company out there. My office mate found that quite, well that I’m vicious. Yes I go for the jugular.

They just don’t get it. She could have made the change for my address right on her computer. But no, push it to the consumer.

Here’s my response – I’ll just use another carrier when I have the choice. Because the horse shit with UPS is really bothering me. I’m now to the point where if I call a vendor or visit it’s web site and it uses UPS I just won’t buy from them. More to the point I’ll tell them WHY I won’t buy from them.

It’s time we admit – UPS is really Shit Wrapped in Chiffon.

Annual Rant: Where UPS once again proves they are Shit Wrapped in Chiffon

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So I ordered some powdered sour cream and powdered buttermilk. I use a lot of dairy and the powdered form is shelf stable so I ordered them on Amazon.

One shipped United States Postal Service, the powdered buttermilk in fact. It arrived today. The other shipped via UPS.

Here’s what was waiting on my door when I got home at 6PM:

New UPS InfoNotice

So they’ll leave it at a store several blocks away when there is a functional retail store right around the corner from me. But they aren’t a UPS drop stop. It’s funny I’d heard tell of these new info-notices and when I bought the powdered sour cream I didn’t think to see how they’d ship. Had I done so I would not have ordered it from the vendor. Because this is a consistent issue with UPS.

So I have to go out of MY way to get my package? Really? I find it awfully funny that UPS will deliver a 37lb refrigerator right to my office but when it comes to delivering a little 1lb package to my house it’s all hyper vigilance about leaving a package on my porch, but they’ll deliver things right to my desk at work.

It pretty much tells you who UPS would rather serve. It’s awfully funny for a company that got it’s start as a retail package runner in Chicago that they cannot understand that in the time it takes to write their annoying little info-notices they could have just delivered the package and saved themselves my ire. It’s been a while since I had to go down to UPS in Warwick and rip them a new asshole. I’m feeling the urge to do so again soon. I mean the last time I had to go down there I think I had to utter the words “Go Fuck Yourself” at least once. I need to have a tirade again where I can utter several variant of the word ‘fuck’ while I’m at a UPS facility.