My view of the world

Just a quick note:
Cheap Trick casino chips will be announced this afternoon (8/24/06) at the Hard Rock.
These guys have been playing for something on the order of thirty years, and they have a new album coming out titled Rockford, with plans for at least one more album.
I heard Rick, on the radio this morning, he said traveling blows, but playing’s still fun.
Their appearence at the Hard Rock 8/25/06 is the concert opener for Rockford.
Their next appearence is in Burnsville, MN. My, how the mighty have fallen.

We hear on the news, about how bad the illegal immigration problem is in this country, well, it seems we’re not alone.
In one of the British papers, there was a story about the illegals arriving in the Canary Islands, so far it’s something over 17,000 that have survived the trip from the African mainland, just this year.

In jolly old England, the influx of workers from Bulgaria is causing enough fuss, so, Trade Secretary Alistair Darling, said migration would be “properly managed.” I say, there’s the quintessential, politically correct answer.
This “strong statement” came after a poll showed that 77% of the British population wanted a strict limit on any immigration.
The UK government estimated, that somewhere around 13,000 of these immigrants would arrive, so far something over 600,000 have shown up.
I’m glad to see that their bureaucrats ,live in the same fantasy world as our bureaucrats.

In France the police raided one of the many buildings that the illegals use, and made arrests, this happened because of a number of fires, in these poorly maintained buildings, that killed some 48 people. The particular building reported on, is scheduled for demolition.
The French government says there were no clashes, but, the Education Without Borders network, an organisation that helps those threatened with deportation, said some residents did resist the calls to leave. They say that some people barricaded themselves in the building and threw their belongings out the windows, “while children cried.”
Oh, those horrible French, they made the children cry, let’s charge them with crimes against humanity.
I never thought I’d side with the French, on anything, but, you have a bunch of illegals, destroying their own property, and the government is to blame? Get over it.

The rich, get richer, the poor, get poorer, I’ve yet to see a government that wasn’t run by the rich, for the rich, and all the good desert islands are taken.
There’s nothing left to do, but sit at my computer, and point out just what a mess, the whole thing’s become.

I see that Rags over at raghand.com is on his soapbox again. He heard about a couple of homeless types attacking each other, one with a two by four, and the other with a knife.
I guess a lot of us listen to 92.3, because, I heard about it from the Mayor’s interview, and while I don’t believe much of anything a politician says, one of the cops I know, says he heard the same thing.
As I see it, parks were made to be used by everyday people. You remember them, they’re the ones with wives, husbands and children, who are now afraid to go to the park, because the advocates for the homeless, have made them into a sanctuary for the mentaly ill.

There’s a new political pudit over at lasvegasvegas.com, he’s posting as hickory-dickory-doc.
His latest is on feeding the homeless, click here to read it.
He’s obviously more concerned about individuals being charged than I am, there are too many politicians involved for them to prosecute any individual, after all, that person may be a voter.

I just read a press release from Levis. They are releasing Levi’s Redwire DLX, in Canada. These jeans have a side pocket, with a cradle for your IPod, complete with retractable headphones and a longish cable, as part of the built-in cradle, that will allow you to look at the display on your Ipod, without disconnecting it. The pocket is designed so that you don’t have the traditional “Ipod Bulge,” and the control is built into the watch pocket (aka condom pocket).
According to Levi, these jeans are washable, providing, of course, that you remove the Ipod.
The price I saw will be $88, now wether that’s Canadian or US, the article didn’t say.
I’ve seen hoods and other clothing, with Ipod controls built in.
Apple may have kept their prices high, but they have got to have the best marketing department I’ve ever seen.
People are referring to the I-River player as an ipod, just like people will order coke in a restuarant, and settle for some brown, cola like substance. This is branding raised to an art.

I was talking to Rich over at Pioneer loan, when he mentioned that their logo that they had been using for more than ten years, had been stolen, by the folks at Shop Las Vegas.com. The disclaimer page, says that they have permission to use the logo, that they have named “Nevada Pete.” According to the owners of Pioneer Loan this permission was never given.
A bit of research shows, that the shop-las-vegas.com, webste appears to be a one man operation, and the person who owns it even put the “Pioneer Sam” logo on his vehicle, on his disclaimer page, this person admits that the logo was adopted.
The part I don’t understand, is why a person would do this.
It’s like my opening a pizza joint, and using Domino’s logo.
What’s the point? Either everyone thinks I’m a Dominos store, in which case, they call Dominos instead of me, or Domino’s lawyer comes after me. This doesn’t sound like a winning situation to me.
This also begs the question, why would any company, give another company, permission to use their logo?
My personal opinion is that this guy liked the logo, stole it, and never expected anyone to notice.

I needed a distraction so I reinstalled Oblivion, my character’s a Dark Elf at level 7 and I’ve saved the world, Martin only got killed once while running the final showdown, I’m head of the mage’s guild, those cheapskates don’t even give you a monthly stipend, I’m the arena grand champion, the only really tough opponents were the three Argonians, and I’m about midway through the Dark Brotherhood quest.
So many of the enemies are level dependent, that if you run the quests early, you don’t have any major problems, but, you also don’t get a lot of good treasure.

If you install very many mods, you need the TES4 construction set, a link to which, can be found here.
If you use Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul, you’ll find that you have to be at least a level 15 to do any of the Daedric quests and therefore, you can’t save the world until then. This is a bitch if you make the mistake of delivering the amulet at the beginning of the game.
You can save Kvatch and get Martin to Cloud Ruler Temple, but then you’re stuck with Oblivion gates opening all over Hell’s half acre, because you can’t get the Azura shrine item, which used to require that you be a level 2.
If you install the construction set, you can open the original oblivion file, then open the Azura file copy the text, close the file, open the Oscuro file, open Azura, delete the text and paste in the text from the original file and save, problem solved.
By changing this one file, it’s entirely possible to run all the guild quests, save the world and not reach a level 15.

Another quirk is the items carried by NPCs in the various dungeons, these vanish because the bodies vanish, however, if you take all the items from the body and then drop them on the ground, they will usually still be there after the body has disappeared, you can also do this with the items in the various chests. This can be very handy, since on my setup, the dungeons eventually repopulate and the chests refill.

I really don’t remember which mods I have installed, but I did install one of the water/sky mods, this looks much better.
A friend told me about a grass mod that’s supposed to be good, but I haven’t tried it yet.
I tried the topless mod and it looked rather silly, however, it did make the servant at my Skingrad house more attractive. I no longer run this one, maybe when they come up with a more anatomically correct version I may look at it again.
I installed one of the Bravil mods, and the place names are in german.
I installed one of the armor mods, so I could use the stalker armor. This is handy when you first get started, since it’s light, and a bit tougher than the shrouded armor from the Dark Brotherhood, but it lacks the magical enhancements, I’m now using the shrouded armor, because of the enhancements to security, agility and so on.
All in all, the mods are getting better and I suggest installing them one at a time, with the graphics mods first, this way if there’s a conflict, you know what the cause is.
Oblivion is a visual game and the better you make the sky, water, plants and buildings look, the better the game feels when you play it.
When I upgraded to an ATI 1900xtx, it became an entirely new game.

Black Hat’s in town, this gives the real hackers someplace to meet, and to discuss the latest techniques and theories of security.
I used to go to Black Hat, back when it cost a flat $1000 to get in, and you got to go to all the lectures, now it costs somewhere in the area of $2000+ per class, and the briefings cost $1595 each. I guess all those feds and corporate types, attending on someone else’s dime, have driven the price up.
DefCon is coming up, but it’s far less serious and not nearly as expensive, this gives the blue and pink hair types, someplace to put shampoo in the fountains and to hack the hotel’s phone system.
As a general rule, you go to Black Hat to learn from the best, and you go to DefCon to party.