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Stalker - Clear Sky. The second game in the series had a lot to live up to and it definitely succeeded. Once again you are free to roam a desolate, bleak, post apocalyptic landscape at times both beautiful and deadly. Great graphics and lots of nice scenery fill out a truly great game. If you liked the first, you'll like Clear Sky.

Fallout 3. Certainly the most anticipated RPG this year, Bethesda has come through with a thoroughly engaging story and a large, near seamless world to explore. Great graphics, a killer combat system, and a huge amount of options for your character add up to one awesome game.

Dead Space. A third person shooter/survival horror hybrid in space. What more could you want? Cinematically stunning, full of action, and with some truly horrifying moments, Dead Space is not a game you'll soon forget. Definitely a franchise to watch out for in the future.

Far Cry 2. Certainly a polarizing game in the online community; you either love it or hate it, and I loved it. With outstanding graphics, the best fire in any game to date, and an open world to explore at your whim, Far Cry 2 is a game to be savored all the way to the end, which I won't spoil except to say it was one of the best end game sequences I've seen.

Crysis Warhead. While Warhead uses the same game engine as Crysis, it's a different sort of FPS. The emphasis is much more towards head on non-stop action and, as with Far Cry 2, the end game is one of the coolest in quite a while.

Every one of those games deserves to be played and is a great game in it's own right. But, once again, Rockstar has come through with an unforgettable, amazing, and truly impressive game so we come to my pick for Game Of The Year 2008:

Grand Theft Auto 4. If you look up the definition of 'sandbox game', you'll see Grand Theft Auto 4. Want to go out to eat. You can do that. Want to go bowling, or to a show, or drinking? You can do that ( and even get caught for driving drunk ). Want to hit a strip club or pick up a hooker? You can do that. Go play pool? You can do that too. Buy clothes? yep. Go to an internet cafe? Yep. Get a cool cell phone. Absolutely! Go on dates? Of course you can. Steal cars? Yep. Blow stuff up? Yep. Just walk around the amazing huge city and see the sights? Yeah, that too. Take a scenic helicopter ride? That too, and on top of that you have one of the greatest gaming stories in ages that is told to you in the form of mission based gameplay. All of this in a living, breathing, metropolis with true to life weather, lighting, and day/night cycles. But wait! There's more! You also get some great multiplayer, and the PC version has one of the coolest features in a game ever; a full video editor that you can save gameplay clips at any time and edit them together later with complete cinematic control. Too cool. GTA4 absolutely outruns the competition this year and should be on everyones play list. Do not miss this game. Period.

Rothrin was listening to GTA4 OST - Marakesh - Zhdat.mp3 while writing this post.]]> Games http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=418 Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:47:12 -0700 http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=417
First up is the election. It amazes me that the US public has chosen the path that leads to the downward spiral and eventual end of the United States as we know it. The election of Barack Hussein Obama is nothing more than the death knell of the USA. Oh there will be 'Change' for all you true believers of The One, but it will certainly not be the change you believed in. False hopes lead to bitter futures, and all of you are going to have a very, very bitter future coming. In the short time since the election, Obama has already backpedeled, tried to downplay expectations, and even removed his agenda from his website. Not exactly reaching for the stars now, is he?

All of you that voted for Obama have put not just a democrat into the office of the President, but a socialist. You can hear Obama, in his own words, admit going to socialist meetings, picking those friends wisely, seeing Marxist books for sale. It's sickening. He will raise taxes. On you, me, and businesses big and small. He will erode personal rights. He will make bad foreign policy decisions. He will, to put it mildly, facilitate the downfall of the United States. If you wake up some day in the near future, seeing Red, and a voice tells you Good Morning Comrade... well, you won't be dreaming, you'll have just woken up inside the United Socialist States Of America.

That is, of course, if there's any America left after the economic apocalypse.

I've done mass amounts of research into what is going on with the economy. So far, no one has done anything to fix the root causes of this problem. Not one thing. Now, I may not like or agree with these people that are in the group that is allegedly trying to fix things, but I know that at least some of them are smart enough to know what the real problems are, and yet, they are ignoring them. Or at the very least, not letting the public know what is going on. It is certainly a complicated issue and perhaps that is why I haven't heard one thing on the news about the base problem until yesterday when I noticed a story about the feds setting up a Credit Default Swap clearing house. That is the FIRST thing at all that has been put forward that will help. It's not enough, and it might even be too late now to save things, but at least it's something.

To be perfectly honest with all of you, the outlook is grim. Between this absolutely out of control economy and the coming onset of Obamunism, we are about to be hit by a double whammy of epic proportions. If we make it through, and that's a big if, the United States we will have, will not be the same Unitied States we grew up in.

Always remember: Society is like an overfilled balloon, and any little pinprick can make it pop in an instant...]]> Politics http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=417 Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:13:06 -0700 http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=416
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson ( ex CEO of Goldman Sachs ) just appointed a buddy of his from ... you guessed it ... Goldman Sachs, to run the bail out. Everybody needs to tear out the page of the encyclopedia where they define "CONFLICT OF INTEREST" and send it to Mr. Paulson.

And hey! Guess what? Remember that 80 some odd billion dollars you and I gave to AIG to bail them out? Well, they went and had themselves a huge party out west and we paid for it! Yeah... booze, massages, spa visits. I'm certain they tried to keep the costs to a minimum... Oh, that's right, they spent FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND dollars. If we were living in the old west, those people would be hanging from a tree on main street right about now.

All of you out there need to wake up, and wake up damn quick! We are at a huge turning point in history. The US is in immediate and grave danger of not only having a total financial collapse with a side order of chaos in the streets, but of also turning into a socialist society! WAKE UP DAMMIT!

When Congress passed that bill, they did NOT act in accordance with the will of the people. Phone calls to congressional offices ranged from 100 to 1 against to 300 to 1 against passage of the bill. I think anybody can see that those numbers were a near unanimous call on Congress to not pass that bill, yet they did anyway.

What does this mean? Why it means that the government is no longer 'for the people'. It shows that they think they know better than you and are treating you like a little kid that has been bad and that they wish would just shut up and go away so they tell you to go to your room or you won't get any supper. They all seem to have forgotten that they were elected to 'serve the people'.

There is an election coming up. I think it's time the American People sent Congress a real message that they won't ignore. One that will get them where it counts. It might be tough, but vote them out of office. If enough of them get voted out, maybe they'll get the message. You want 'Real Change'? Well let's vote in ALL new people. How could things get any worse?]]> Politics http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=416 Wed, 8 Oct 2008 10:56:57 -0600 http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=415 Community Reinvestment Act. The idea behind this act was to keep banks from targeting only higher income families with loans. If banks did not give enough loans to lower income people, they would suffer penalties from the federal government. Time passed. We move all the way to 1995 and the Clinton Administration. Clinton expanded the Community Reinvestment Act greatly. Banks were now required to give loans to lower income, inner city, and high risk credit history people or those banks would suffer even greater penalties. In addition, the new parts of the act encouraged 'community action groups' ( wasn't Obama in one of those? ) to market loans to low income people and to collect fees from the banks for loans given out. Therefore, a new industry was born! Blackmailing banks into giving out high risk loans. Wait, the Government was already doing that! But! On we go! Banks give out the loans. And here we find Fannie Mae who guarantees these loans for the banks. Upwards of 90 percent of these loans were variable rate loans. This is fine as long as the rate doesn't go up, and with things going great it doesn't go up right? The people in charge of Fannie Mae get bonuses based on how many loans are given out. VERY BIG FREAKIN BONUSES. Well over 20 million dollars a year for some of them. TWENTY MILLION. What would you do in their position? Why you'd give out more loans! Then something happened. The interest rate ( which the variable rate loans are tied to ) went up. Uh oh. So in 2003 the Bush administration tried to overhaul the regulatory system for the sub-prime loans. They were blocked by the democrats... Barney Frank (Democrat) specifically. The interest rate continued to climb. More and more people stopped paying the loans back because they couldn't. Then gas prices went up. Uh oh. Housing prices went up. Uh oh. More people stopped paying. Banks stopped lending. In 2005 John McCain tried to get the Housing Enterprise Regulatory Act passed. It would have changed the way the sub-prime system worked, perhaps fixing the whole mess. Once again, it was blocked by the democrats. Things got worse as the housing bubble burst. Housing prices collapsed. Since people now owed more than their homes were worth, even more of them stopped paying. Big Trouble. In 2007 McCain again tried to get the bill passed. AGAIN...blocked by the Democrats. By Christopher Dodd (D) who got more money than any other Congressman from Fannie Mae. By Barack Obama, who got 126 thousand dollars from Fannie Mae. Does any one see a pattern here? BOOM. The sub-prime market collapsed. Banks begin to fail. The Fed dumps billions into the market to stablize things. And we hear Nancy Pelosi say "It's not the democrats fault"...? Check your facts Nancy. Tell me how that crow tastes. So now, we find ourselves screwed. I imagine the cost will be very, very, VERY much over the 700 billion dollar figure that is being thrown out there. Of course the bill that is now likely to pass is full of so much pork and so many earmarks that it will probably double whatever the cost of the real problem is. So all of you tell me... is our government broken? The answer is obvious.

Rothrin was listening to: REM - It's The End Of The World (As We Know It).mp3 : while making this post.]]> General http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=415 Fri, 3 Oct 2008 09:28:15 -0600 http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=414 here, or here is a direct download link with a high quality mp4 of the McCain ad. :-)
]]> Politics http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=414 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:05:56 -0600 http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=413
-----

Hi Rothrin,

It's Gaia. You remember me right? We met in a green field of cut grass? I hope this doesn't go into your spam box. lol I just thought I'd touch base. I've been a little down lately. Depressed I suppose. It just doesn't seem like anyone cares anymore. Nobody stops to look at flowers, or just take a walk in a quiet forest. And when was the last time you saw anybody look up at the sky? They're always too busy rushing to and from work or picking up their kids from daycare. I feel like nobody has time for me anymore, that all of my children have abandoned poor Mother Earth.

I realize things change, but I miss the old days. All of you were so cute growing gardens and tilling the fields. I fear those times have come and gone. These days I end up wearing trash thrown from cars like it was cheap jewelry.

I keep wondering how things got this way, if somehow it was my fault. Maybe I should've spoken up sooner, before things got so bad, but I always had faith in humanity. I only hope that faith was not misplaced.

Some days I get so angry. I know I shouldn't, but it is hard not to. Even then, everyone seems not to realize that I am even upset. They only put down my anger as natural events, a hurricane here, an earthquake there. Maybe I'm truly forgotten.

I haven't been feeling too well either. I think I have a bit of a fever, or maybe I'm allergic to something. I've certainly felt warmer lately. At least some of you seem to have caught on to that.

Well, I have things to do. I hope I haven't bent your ear too much, but we hadn't talked in a while and I thought I should start reconnecting with some of Earth's children again.

Take care,
Gaia

-----

Maybe all of you should check your spam boxes...

Rothrin was listening to: Ennio Morricone - The Good The Bad And The Ugly OST - 02 - The Sundown.mp3 : while creating this post.]]> Esoterica http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=413 Fri, 1 Aug 2008 20:45:40 -0600 http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=412 Wings of darkness throw up dust
Sitting high on ruins rust
Pecking dice of knuckles bone
Crow King sits on lonely throne

Eyes so black of piercing gaze
Look upon the end of days
Caw! He cries, no echoes here
None to listen, none to fear

Crow King hops to weathered stone
Sheds empty tears for man’s lost home
Flies up to meet the storm filled skies
And knows within that all things die

Rothrin was listening to: Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill 2 OST - Main Theme.mp3: while making this post
]]> .Rothrin's Blog http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=412 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:55:13 -0600 http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=411 Spore Creature Creator is out. Let me tell ya, it's amazingly addictive. You can create almost anything in it as you can see from my Spore gallery, and from the huge amount of youtube videos already uploaded. A very cool feature of the SCC is the ability to create videos and upload them to youtube from within the SCC. You can also email pictures that you've captured of your creations. When the full retail game is out in September, any creatures that have been uploaded to the Sporepedia (including yours), will randomly and automagically populate your gameworld. By using the Creator, you are, in effect, creating in game content for the retail game. Very cool. So what are you waiting for? The demo is free, and the full Creator is only 10 bucks. Definitely worth the money.

Rothrin was listening to: Wumpscut - Schaedling 2CD Limited Edition - Rifki (Cerebral Apoplexy Remix).mp3 : while creating this post.]]> Games http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=411 Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:18:55 -0600 http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=410 -----
Feathered Tears

Into the night
I fly upon wings of darkness.
Obsidian eyes shed charcoal tears.
Such sadness and pain
Echoed upon a coarse cry.
A warm ominous wind,
Rustling leaves in the silent dark.
Rain falls,
Or am I crying?
It does not matter.
My bitter claws reach for a trusted perch,
A tombstone.
It guards this sacred place,
This grave.
The grave of my love,
Long dead, but not forgotten.
I watch,
And remember,
And cry.
The pain fills me.
I welcome it with a lovers embrace,
For that is all I have left,
The suffering.
I watch,
And remember,
And cry in the rain,
So no one can see.
I am nothing,
Just a crow in the rain.

-----
Even on the darkest of nights, the sun always rises...

Rothrin was listening to: Blutengel - Labyrinth - 06 - Sunrise.mp3 : while writing these words.]]> .Rothrin's Blog http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=410 Sat, 24 May 2008 21:28:32 -0600 http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=409

• Kaspersky Internet Security: KIS is far and away the best firewall and anti-virus software out there. It catches everything, protects your registry, doesn't bog your machine down at all, and automagically updates in the background.
• Ad Muncher: You don't like web ads do you? Neither do I, and using this, I never see any. On the rare occasion something gets through, you can instantly put it on the block list. Highly recommended.
• Ultra Recall: The quest for an information/notes manager is a long one indeed, but I think finally UR fits the profile. You can save full or partial web pages perfectly, manage notes, data, store any kind of file inside the database, have saved searches, custom forms, custom tags, use internal and external links, use encryption, and more, all in an extremely stable application. I use it for almost everything.
• Linkman: I've got about 1500 or so favorites/bookmarks, so it's not always easy finding the right one when I need it. That's where Linkman excels. Instant searches on keywords will find any link in your database ready for you to pop up. Linkman works with virtually every browser out there and it exports to other formats if you need it.
• Pop Peeper: Everybody has more than one email account these days, and it's a pain to check them all. Pop Peeper sits in the system tray next to your clock and checks all your email accounts for you. It works with webmail services too like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and all your normal pop3 and imap accounts. Very cool little utility.
• Trillian: As with email, if you're like me, you've got an account on virtually every instant messenger out there. Trillian supports them all in one client. ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, Google, IRC, Myspace, AIM, Jabber, and Trillians own Astra ( only in the new beta ). I really couldn't live without Trillian these days. :-)
• WinRAR: This works with virtually every archive type out there, and does it fast. Not much else to say except that I wouldn't use anything else.
• EditPad Pro: There are a million text editors out there, but only a few good ones, and a very few great ones. EditPad Pro is at the top of the heap. It does pretty much everything. :-) Text/binary editing, regular expression searching, multiple files, fully configurable, and portable to boot. Get it. You won't be sorry.

That's it for now. I have a few specialized tools that I use for various things but I'll leave those for another post. :-)

Rothrin was listening to: Bryan Ferry - Legend Soundtrack - Is Your Love Strong Enough :while making this post.]]> General http://www.rothrin.net/ntest/index.php?itemid=409 Sun, 4 May 2008 14:02:44 -0600