• 1Dec 08

  The Magic is in YOU

  It seems as we grow older and become more and more "adult" in our lives that the Holiday season for some reason just loses its warmth and magic to us. No longer is it about candy canes and snowmen. No longer is about magical elves that bring us oodles of presents. No longer is it about an onslaught of happilly decorated cookies and candies. No, as we become adults it turns into the hassles of running from house to house to be sure that you spend time with aunts and uncles, moms and dads, inlaws and outlaws and every other aqauintance you've made throughout the year. It becomes a race to find the best deals on the hottest items whilst neck deep in crowds of shoppers also looking for that same exact deal. It has become worrying about how many calories are in that glass of eggnog you just drank and if your lactose intolerance is going to flair up because of that very same glass. Indeed, it seems that the Holiday Season just isn't quite as magical as it used to be....but it can be.

  As adults the fantasy and mystery of the ways of the world are revealed to us and often times humble us. We forget about fairies and elves and magical sacks of toys. We think about mortgages, auto insurance, and how much it will cost us to by the gas to power our car over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house this year. Why do we forget such things that brought such wonder and joy into our lives. We've become to busy. To busy indeed, to busy to stop and appreciate the little things like a sparkling snowflake, and knowing that there is no other snowflake in existance that has that exact shape. To busy to stop and wish some random stranger Merry Christmas, or even better hold the door for that stranger as she tries to exit the store with full arms. Alas, as adults, we have become to busy to even care.

  There STILL is magic in the holiday season though, if you're willing to seek it out, if your willing to give it out. That magic is in you. It's in me. It's in anybody and everybody who has the ability to give. Give not of the wallet, but of the heart. If you want magic. Make it happen!!! Go volunteer at a homeless shelter, you'd be surprised at what a simple bowl of soup and a warm smile can do for the down trodden. Go caroling at an old folks home, they like to know that they're not forgotten. Donate toys or even deliver them to an orphanage, just because those children don't have families like you or I doesn't mean that Santa should pass them by.

  So as you're driving to the local mall, cursing at traffic underneath your breath, cringing at your cell phone ringing for the who knows how many times, sipping your $4 cappa-frate-cino, listening to your iPod and complaining that the city hasn't salted the roads yet, stop. Just stop. Turn it all off. Tune it all out. Listen to the season. Open your heart and let in the warmth you once knew. Catch it, then spread it like wildfire. Share that warmth. Share it with friends. Share it with family. Share it with co-workers. Share it with people you meet on the street. MOST importantly, even if you don't share it with anybody at all, do share it with those less fortunate than you, no amount is too big or too small.

  • Posted Dec 1, 2008 12:25 pm GMT
  • Category: Other
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• 12Nov 08

  Will Big Brother be LISTENING After the Update?

  Online gamin has made leaps and bounds over the past decade. It has gone from the core group of stereo typical PC Gamer nerds to the cool and trendy XBox Live gamer groups. With the exponential expansion of the online gaming community demographics and participant quadrants changed. Instead of seeing the 15-40 something shut in hermit-like PC gamers playing online, we now had a wide range of ages from children to grandparents, men and women, boys and girls, and in some cases monkeys, all playing Xbox Live together. A mix of this degree could only lead to certain disaster.

  Age, sex, relgion, race, and every other form of discrimination started rearing its ugly face in the plethora of games being played online. Why wouldn't it? There's no punishment for acting like a complete biggoted racist uneducated moron online. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all tried to curb the exposure of these elements to children by implementing some trully stellar forms of parental control services on their consoles. However, these controls only work the parents actually turn them on and enforce them. Saddly, many parents do not.

  Microsoft, being ever vigilant in "protecting" their customers from what they deem to be obscene and offensive material has recently secured a patent on software that would censor streaming digital audio in real time. What this means, is that there would be a censorship program listening to everything you said over XBL and cutting out what it considered to be offensive, obscene, and vulgar.

  This is all well and good for there are many many people out there who's vocabulary online is nothing but a slew of words that are so foul that the late great George Carlin wouldn't even of included them in his Incomplete List of 2,443 Impolite Words and Rude Sayings. However, as an adult subscriber to XBL I believe we should have the CHOICE of what we can and can't here. Similar to our privacy options where we can choose who can and can't see our Friend's list and recently played games list, we should be given the ability to filter who/what we want. Then again, if parents actually enforced the parental controls of the Xbox onto their kids then 1/2 of the obscenities and immaturities would be taken care of right there.

  I believe that XBL should have a little responsibility for age vs content control on their network besides for just providing the tools. How many uninformed parents get their kids the consoles and games without even knowing fully what this technology is capable of? If an XBL account is registered as a CHILD account, then XBL should automatically reject the connection to play any M rated game online for that account. Why that hasn't been implemented yet I don't know. Microsoft is willing to censor any and all speech traffic on their network, but are unwilling to control accounts registered to children from connecting to games that are blatently stamped for the 17+ crowd. Why doesn't MS do that? BECAUSE THEY'D LOSE MONEY!

  If the under 17 yr old crowd knew that because of the age listed on their XBL account that they couldn't get online and play games like Halo, Call of Duty, and Gears of War...the kids wouldn't even bother getting the games. Even though the average gamer age in America is 35 years old, age does not necessarily equal maturity. So while Microsoft should disable the ability for child accounts to connect to M rated materials (they can't download R rated movies from Marketplace), it is also up the the child's parent to turn on that nice little control switch that would prevent the child from even playin M rated games period. Still, I'm not one to tell people how to raise their kids. I am a firm believer in ESRB ratings and enforcement though. Movies, Games, and Music are labeled with ratings for a reason. Why is it that game ratings are so often ignored, then you get idiots like Jack Thompson trying to blame video games for all the problems in today's youth.

  Back on topic. I'd love to see this streaming voice censorship software rolled out but ONLY if it is left up to ME, the primary account owner, to decide what is and is not censored.

  • Posted Nov 12, 2008 8:18 am GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 3Nov 08

  A Very Serious Disease

  Halloween has just barely come and past once again. While I had the beginings of a most spooktacular Vlog for you all, I never had the time to finish it. I do apologize for that. I do have quite a few pictures to share with you though, so I'll be posting a link to my Flicker page as soon as I get them all uploaded too. I hope everybody had a great Halloween, I know I sure did.
  
  There is a growing sickness in America though. I feel it is something we all need to address. It something we all need to be aware of, less we are infected ourselves. This sickness is the ever growing need to not only sell, but also put up Christmas decorations prematurely. I've done a 4 year study on this disease. Saddly I have not found a cure for the infected. I have confirmed that the disease is real, and it strikes its victims earlier every year.
  
  For 4 years I tracked Lowes, Meijer, K-Mart, and Hallmark stores in my area. These are the results of when the Christmas decorations were put out for purchase in the stores.
  
  2005 - Items on shelves November 5
  2006 - Items on shelves October 29
  2007 - Items on shelves, & full christmas tree displays October 14
  2008 - Items on shelves, full tree & inflatable displays in 2 stores October 5
  
  When I walked into the stores and saw the full on assortment of trees playing music, inflatable yard decorations and twinkling holiday lights taking up more space in the store than the Halloween fanfare AT THE BEGINING OF OCTOBER I nearly vomitted in disgust. How DARE the stores continue to feed the disease by continuously selling Christmas crap earlier and earlier each year. Soon enough they'll just have it available all year round and by doing so ruin the specialness and magic of the season because it will be just another staple item in the deptarment stores. As it is now Thanksgiving is already a forgotten holiday that is barely lucky enough to get a solitary endcap devoted to it. Now the commericalism cretons are trying to destroy Halloween as well!
  
  As if this isn't tragic enough, people are now starting to put out their Christmas yard decorations earlier and earlier too! There are two houses on my street alone that in the same day of November 1, took down their Halloween Decor and immediately replaced it with Frosty, Rudolph, Santa, and all his snow covered little friends. I absolutely could not believe my eyes. Not only did these people set up their displays, they had them fully functioning and illuminating the night that very night as well!!! This sickness has to be stopped somehow. Saddly the only thing that can be done to fight it is to refuse to buy anything Christmas related until after Thanksgiving. Resist the urge to pull out your ornaments and stockings. Fight need to put up your 12,000 twinkling lights and animated yard figurines. Only through these means can we help put an end to Premature Christmas Decoration Sales and Setup.
  • Posted Nov 3, 2008 11:22 am GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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