Business...

A Japanese car company and an American car company decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.
Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.
They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. Not sure of how to utilize that information , but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.
They also implemented a new performance system that would give the one person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles.
Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India .
Sadly, the End.
Here's something else to think about: The American car company has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages.
The Japanese car company has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: The Japanese company makes 4 billion in profits while the American company racked up 9 billion in losses. The Americans are still scratching their heads.

Rodents (Mice inc.)

My trusty Logitech G7 has broken down. Don't squeese them too hard I say...

I've always liked wireless mice because they lacked the annoying wire. It's simple, there's no other reason. The G7 was just as good as any other mouse, albeit it felt maybe just a bit more "laggier"...

No matter how much choice of other wireless gaming mice there is, ordering the same one again felt strange and I wanted something new. So ... I ordered a new mouse which should be here soon:

Ass' Creed

It's been a long while since I've wanted to spend so much time with a video game. Most of the second half of this year was just about playing some Team Fortress 2 here and there and the x360 lay dormant and gathering dust. I guess it's life span was expanding as I still have the launch model (which has not given me any problems as of yet).

I picked up Assassin's Creed along with Mass Effect and after playing through the latter I finally started the Creed.

All I heard of this game was that the producer was really hot and you're some assassin missing a finger running around Jerusalem and stuff, didn't take much interest. That is why it became so ultimately cool when you find out you're role playing your ancestors' DNA memories from the present-time. The backstory is an amazingly orchestrated performance, giving you information in such limited quantities that you'll be frustrated to comprehend in the beginning, but later on you'll start to listen and it will make more sense.

The graphics are top notch and set an ideal atmosphere for performing the tasks at hand, I've found some textures to be flickering and glitchy (close up and in the distance), but it was minor.

The gameplay reminds of Prince of Persia, but this time it's more logical and you don't jump around unrealistic landscapes and buildings *almost. The combat system is finally what I've been meaning to see in games of the sort, you have more control of how to react in combat situations and the animations are sweet and accurate. Amongst being really serious, there are some hilarious flaws that can only be described as "oh it's a videogame" - in the main base town of Mysaf you can "gently push" city guards that are standing on a ledge to an untimely - and unnoticed death. The funniest thing is them waving their arms before just falling off and the guard next to him not reacting at all!

You'll be faced with performing various accomplishments to unlock achievements, all are pretty basic and make sense, only if you want to get ALL of the achievements you will probably need a map to find the bloody flags, that's an annoying part of the game I find as it took me more than half the game to find the full 20 flags in Mysaf.

Music is an important part of any game - Jesper Kyd did an great job yet again, but the audio was badly mixed sometimes (volume wouldn't match the game sounds and it didn't have enough bass...).

I'll be looking forward to seeing the producers not screw up such an amazing game for the sequel - there is so much to be done (remove repetition of certain aspects of the game, improve AI - oh and my console started freezing towards the end...) and so much hope for an even more assassinative mood, maybe emphasising on more stealth....

World in Conflict

Buy it. Play it.

Alternative history is something that everyone fortakes in their daily lives ... "what if?" ...

So if you can imagine the Soviet Union waging World War 3 in '89 and now the Chinese machine is on the doorstep, this is perfect for you!

One of the best games of the year, nearly GOTY material.

Bush vs Zombies

Hitler gets banned...

Windows Vista by Bill Gates

Angels got caught

Pregnancy

An 18 year-old girl tells her Mum that she has missed her period for two months. Very worried, the mother goes to the Chemist and buys a pregnancy kit. The test result shows that the girl is pregnant.Shouting, cursing, crying, the mother says, "Who was the pig that did this to you? I want to know!" The girl picks up the phone and makes a call.

Half an hour later a Ferrari stops in front of their house; a mature and distinguished man with grey hair and impeccably dressed in an Armani suit steps out of the Ferrari and enters the house.He sits in the living room with the father and the mother, and the girl and tells them: "Good morning, your daughter has informed me of the problem. I can't marry her because of my personal family situation but I'll take charge.I will pay all costs and provide for your daughter for the rest of her life. Additionally, if a girl is born I will bequeath her 2 retails tores, a townhouse, a beach front villa and a $2,000,000 bank account.

If a boy is born, my legacy will be a couple of factories and a$4,000,000 bank account. If twins, they will receive a factory and$2,000,000 each. However, if there is a miscarriage, what do you suggest I do?"

At this point, the girls father, who had remained silent, places ahand firmly on the man's shoulder and tells him, "You fuck her again"

Politics!

DEMOCRATIC
You have two cows.Your neighbor has none.You feel guilty for being successful.

REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.Your neighbor has none.So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows.The government seizes both and provides you with milk.You wait in line for hours to get it.It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.Under the new farm program, the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts, stating that you have downsized and are reducing expenses.Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.You go on strike because you want three cows.You go to lunch and drink wine.Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.Unfortunately, they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.You break for lunch.Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.You have some vodka.You count them and learn you have five cows.You have some more vodka.You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.They go into hiding.They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.The cow is schizophrenic.Sometimes, the cow thinks he's French; other times, he's Flemish.The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.The cow asks permission to be cut in half.The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.Everyone votes for the best-looking one.Some of the people who actually like the brown one best, accidentally vote for the black one.Some people vote for both.Some people vote for neither.Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.They make real California cheese.Only five speak English.Most are illegals.

New Computer

So, I did manage to get a new computer system over the holiday season:

Shuttle XPC SN25P
AMD Athlon x2 3800+
nVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX OC
2GB Corsair ValueSelect RAM
500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 HDD <-- this thing is loud..is it meant to be so?!

Along with my new Belinea 20" WideScreen LCD..everything rocks and is as it should be. I also have the Logitech G15 keyboard and the G7 mouse, both rock and are highly reccommended.

I also recently received an XBOX360 Premium as a gift, I managed to pick up Condemned: Criminal origins and PGR3 with JadeEmpire too. I use the VGA Cable to connect to my LCD, there are several issues with this none which can be solved by myself, it's all up to Microsoft.

1) Contrast - this is not normal, it is too high or something, colors aren't very colourful :)
2) Size - Surely you can support a proper 16:10 resolution? They have 1280x768 but not 1280x800 so my cars are all stretched!

Routines

Weekday:

8am: Continuous alarm rings or pleasant music from the alarm music player, followed by throwing of the objects closest to the bed and/or smashing on top of with hand
8:10 Further alarms, repent with smashing on top of with hand
8:20 Alarm won't stop fucking with me, I unplug the power and go back to sleep
8:30 The alarm next to the bed goes off, Classical radio turns on and the signal is scrambled. Jammed with hand(s)
8:40 Finally time to get up. Shower!
9:10 Breakfast
9:40 Time to stop chatting on IRC and dress up
9:41 Leave for work
9:42 Stuck in traffic
11:00 late to work by one hour, heads roll

Weekend:
Sleep.
Wake up because of weekly cycle messing with your brain. Biological clock resumes order but go to sleep. Wake up 6 hours later with headache.

Desktop 6.1.6

Broken x360

Pelican

My xbox 360 core system! (going up on eBay!)

G15 & G7

WoW