Because "Xbox" is so cool

So, the Nintendo's next system is the Wii. Idiots will be glad to tell you that this is a terrible name.

Two things:

1) YOU think of a good name for a system. As someone who's GMed for several years, I can tell you that names are tough.

2) What system has a good name? "Playstation" sounds like a third grade edu-tainment game; The only reason it sounds O.K. is that you're used to it. Xbox is so painfully corporate you can see a middle-aged fat guy talking about demographics whenever you hear it.

But the most important thing is that the entire name "issue" doesn't matter in the slightest. If anyone makes a decision about this system based on its name, there's really no helping them.

Patriotism?

This just about sums it up.

Atlas shrugged, no one cared

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is just nonsense. In it, the 'people of the mind', resentful of having to do all the work for a lazy bunch of stupid people, decide to quit. Then, for some reason, the societies that lost their writers, philosophers, etc. regret it.

What a coincidence that Ayn Rand would believe that a class she belongs to is the one keeping society afloat!

In the long term, a society needs inventors, revolutionaries and philosophers. If they didn't have any, other countries would pull ahead of them. This does not mean that they are critical for the day to day operation of a society.

It seems to me that most societies would welcome a loss of their intelligentsia, especially for the short term. The people that keep society running are not thinkers, they are workers. If you had two societies, one without idiots that did all the work that idiots do, and one without philosophers, the one without idiots would collapse immediately, and the one without philosphers would coast along in ignorant contentment.

If the people who supported the world decided to give up and leave, all the writers of the world would wonder where their drivers/janitors/electricity/foodstuffs had gone to.

Voting

There are a lot of stupid things that people do, but the most enraging thing is voting wrong. There are seemingly endless justification for voting wrong, but the worst is voting for the person that you think will win. Why would someone vote for someone that was going to win? Your vote means nothing if it doesn't change the effect of the election. It's not like you get a prize if you pick 'the right guy' or something.

Some will point out that your chance of effecting the election is zero, regardless of whom you vote for. That's true.

I have surpassed nature

I have decided that since I have spent more than 24 hours awake, I no longer need to sleep. Screw you, time wasting activity!

From now on, I'll be living 33% more life than you inferior human prototypes. I'll see you in the future, which is 1/3 more distant for me than it is for you. Or something.

Sleepin', or not

I have a midterm tommorow, and I work overnight tonight. Why, oh why, did I get up early today and not take a nap?

I have poor planning skills. Curse you, internet!

Gordon Freeman is a Tool

I've played some Half-Life 2, and I have to say that it fails to live up to its reputation. While it does have a good physics engine, that doesn't make a good game. The AI, from what I've seen, is very disappointing. The Combine soldiers stand there, and they try to shoot you.

Also, the seemingly endless boat ride segment is torment in video game form. I don't know why they thought riding around in a boat and solving random puzzles was the peak of entertainment.
Also, what FPS comes out without a multiplayer mode?

The physics engine is rather neat though. If you want to stack objects, but hate lifting things, this would be the game to play.

P.S. The title is literal. Apparently, Gordon Freeman is bought and sold like meat.

P.P.S. "We're going to take your guns. Except your magic gun. We'll supercharge that, then give it back." What's up with that?

Lost

I've been watching Season 1 of Lost, and I've decided to throw my own crazy theory into the ring: Claire's child is the anti-christ. Just like in Good Omens, the people who raise him determine the fate of the world.

The Trouble with Tr - Zombies

Do zombies:

A) Eat the flesh of the living for nourishment?

B) Bite living people to transform them into new zombies?

It doesn't make any sense for them to do both.

By the way, Shaun of the Dead is a very funny movie. The actors are english, but not excessively so. I give it .91 out of 5 Ron Perlmans.

Presidential Politics

I don't know who the candidates for president will be this coming election, but I do know that a governor has a better chance than a senator. The fact of the matter is, a senator has to make tough, easily misrepresented decisions. Every 'aye' and 'nay' will be reviewed. If a senator tries to re-brand himself, he'll be cut apart by his own record, whether he deserves it or not.

A governor will also have his record reviewed, but it will be largely irrelevant. While a senator votes on things that directly relate to issues confronting a president, a governor only has to deal with state politics. He has effectively no record on military or international concerns. A governor can make himself anything on a national scale, since he is a null entity on those matters.

An exception might be someone like Hillary, since she's spent so little time in the senate that she may have avoided any real decisions.