Cleaned up the header menus (it was really bugging me that the second row only had one entry on most desktop computers) and added a Comment Policy page.

Lucky reader, you get (at least) two posts today!

[caption id=“attachment_7025” align=“aligncenter” width=“604”] Assassin’s Creed: Revelations[/caption]

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (4 hrs) - I finally started playing Ass:Rev nearly 7 months after I got it as a gift. I’d been putting off playing it because it’s a lot easier for me to play computer games at night than it is to play with the Playstation at night. I was able to play 2 two hour sessions over two subsequent weekends. I’m….just not quite as into Assassin’s Creed as I was after completing Brotherhood. The gameplay and story elements were a huge jump from the first to the second installment. Even Brotherhood brought along the new play style involving your recruited assassins. Revelations just isn’t quite as innovative. It’s not a huge shock since the series was annualized; there was no way for Ubisoft to continue the pace of innovation. Still, the story of Abstergo and how the Templars were affecting everything in society was a fun tale. I loved solving the puzzles in AC2 and Brotherhood that had such creepy moments as when someone called about seeing his vitals in his cable channels and then his implied death.

Those of you who have been reading this blog long enough know that I often write my blog posts during my lunch break at work and set it to post at some point in the future. I’m writing this post almost 1 month before it is to appear on the blog. So in the middle of July I find myself in what many who have backed projects probably experience as the Kickstarter Lull. I backed a project by I Fight Dragons and interviewed them about it here and I backed a comic project by Greg Pak and Jonathan Coulton. During the backing period as a way to drum up support there was a constant stream of both updates and digital goodies. IFD, in particular, gave backers 2 albums (live concert recording and a conceptual album) and a concert film. A little while after the backing period was over, the projects contacted us for the info they needed to fulfill our backer rewards. Since then I haven’t heard from either of them. On the rational side, I’m glad they’re focusing on creating what we paid them to create. But after the constant communications it just feels odd to have “radio” silence. Now we just wait for the products to be created. In the case of these two projects, the members involved are all veterans: IFD put out records before having a record company contract and Greg Pak has already done about a half dozen Kickstarters. So, outside of catastrophe, I don’t fear for my money. I could see where this silence might be more disturbing with an unproven team.

Today while swimming it was “Jesus Loves the Little Children” stuck in my head. I haven’t thought about that song since about a year ago when I was comparing with someone from another denomination to see if they sang the same songs in Sunday School. Definitely a weird one to have in the noggin while trying to remember numbers.

I came across an article a couple weeks ago that baffled me. Let me get one thing out of the way right away, lest it become a distraction: Sidney Meyers is an idiot for calling in a school bomb threat on his cell phone. (And would still be a dummy even if he didn’t do it on his phone) With that out of the way - let’s set up the ridiculous situation here. Sidney Meyers is a 20 year old man. He met a girl who turned out to be 16 years old. They started a sexual relationship. This relationship was actually cool with the girl’s mother. And in South Carolina, where they live, the age of consent is 16 so there’s no big deal that they’re having sex. (Well, you might have some squick issues with the age difference or the fact that an adult would want to be with a minor - but legally they’re OK)

When I’m swimming I’m usually just repeating numbers over and over in my head so I don’t forget what lap I’m on - especially important on days when I’m doing 80 laps. Many times I end up saying the numbers along the beat/melody of a song. Today it was Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines. “21 21 21 you know you want 21 21 21 21”

We were raised with the constant reminder that we needed to care for our parents when they got old. They spent countless hours and money to raise us - it’s the least we could do. We always said, “Yes” or “Of Course”. It’s funny, I always thought I appreciated what my parents had done for us. For most of my childhood my parents had very little. It wasn’t until around the time I was in high school that they were solidly into the middle class. Yet they made sure we did sports (which are very expensive) and had a computer and nice clothing. And I truly appreciated all of that; I appreciated it more and more each year as I matured and and realized what these things cost. But until I became a father I didn’t truly understand the time and emotional investments that kids are. I now truly realize how much they gave me. The only situation I could see for having to have my parents not live with me when they get uber-old would be if they required some kind of medical equipment that couldn’t be installed in my home or care that a live-in nurse couldn’t take care of. (Well, other than if they decided to live with one of their other six kids rather than me - for whatever reason) But, you know, that’s supposed to be way out in the future.

My stats say there have already been 43 visits today, so some of you may have seen the header while in its state of flux. After talking it over with the wife (who also thinks the new theme looks more pro! yay!) and sleeping on it, I got the header to about 1.0 stage. I have a couple ideas on how I want to punch it up a bit more, but I want to give myself some time to mull it over.

In fact, according to mathematician Marc van Leeuwen, an “oldest person in the world” will die roughly every 0.65 years.

- Boing-Boing

Just got the new header image up. At least the first draft of it. I’m CLOSE to where I want to be with the header, but it’s going to take some thinking about it to see exactly what I want to change. Slowly, but surely, the website is moving towards what I want it to look like.