Comments on ABC News are batshit crazy

Recently, I have noticed that the people who comment on ABC News articles are absolutely nuts.  The majority of the quotes I found are anti-Obama, but there are plenty of stupid things being said by people of all political beliefs on ABC News.  Here are a few gems I picked out:

“Obama is such a baby.

He can’t even defend his comments and this AGAIN shows how inexperienced he is at foreign policy.

Obama should return to his old district and “finally” help the poor people in the “south-side” of Chicago.

Americans “aren’t” going to promote a guy that never “solved” the problems of the folks he represented at the state level.

Regarding Obama…………..NEXT!”

I “really” think quotes are “great” tool to make your “point” seem more “valid.”

“GET OUT OF IRAQ! NOW!” -Sisto Maximo

This person’s posts almost always are composed of one capitalized line of text.  Sisto Maximo has other great hits such as “STOP BUSH TORTURE NOW!” and “Cheany! Stop The Torture! Now!”

“Barack Hussein Obama is a spineless, wimpy, wussy of a weenie. That’s why he will lose 40 states this November.” – Carlos

I think this brilliant statement stands on its own.  Carlos forgot to mention he was going to beat Obama up around the back of his elementary school later that afternoon (but before his mom picked him up of course!).  However, this does bring me to a subject that many ABC comments love to hit: the fact that ‘Hussein’ is Obama’s middle name.  Here are a few more examples of this phenomenon:

“Obama HUSSEIN will destroy this country if he gets in!” – Joe

 ”Dear lovers of the Magic Negro, This country will never ever trust its security to Barry Hussein Obamba. I’m sure all the Ayatollahs in Iran are jumping for joy that there Muslim Brother may take the reins of power of the great Satan.The silent majority will hold its nose and vote for John McCain.” -jimbeaux

Joe and Jimbeaux, thank god you have found out Barack ‘the Magic Negro’s’ true intentions.  Choosing a candidate must be easy when you are ignorant and racist.  I hope the choices for the 2012 election are Barack Obama and another Black American so you will have to stay home and not vote.

“George Adolph Bush is a lovely man.” – I Can Lie, Too

I see what you did there!  This type of statement is about as helpful as Joe’s up above.

“many sux democrats are piece of sh*t, lying dirtbags. Lie so much can’t remember what TRUTH “is”. But I guess it depends on your definition of what is is hey.” – USA

Well I don’t know if I can argue with this solid statement since it was written by the country I live in.  If anyone should have a say in who leads the USA, it is the USA itself.  However, I have a hankering suspicion that this is, in fact, not a comment from the USA.  Additionally, LOL WUT?

“Promises made during a campaign are meant to be broken. This is true for every canidate. No one can forsee what any of the Presidential Canidates would do once elected into office. To bad the media has not made a “Truth O Meter” during their campaign speeches. Instead we are subjected to endless news talk shows with diverse, extreme, wacky and alien opinions. Makes a person want to Barf. Hello, is there anyone normal out there.” – Spiderman

Well, uh, actually this one isn’t too bad.  Thank you Spiderman for taking time out of your busy crime fighting schedule to show us an example of a useful response to a news article.  However, please don’t make another movie. Oh, and it is spelled candidate  not canidate.  I thought you were smarter than that Peter Parker!

Radiohead at the Nissan Pavilion: Come on rain down on me

On Sunday, May 11, 2008 I saw Radiohead live for the first time.  It was quite an experience, one I will probably always remember since the weather turned it into a crazy ordeal.  My friend meandthestereo was there and his account of the show can be found here.  As you can guess, my girlfriend and I had lawn tickets to the show.  Perhaps they would be better described as mudslide tickets, because that is what the ground quickly turned into.  Actually, the area did remotely resemble a lawn when the gates opened, but that quickly changed.

First off, I thought we had come pretty well prepared to stand outside in the rain all night long.  We brought an extra pair of shoes and socks, towels, raincoats, umbrellas and a bag o’ snacks.  Unfortunately, the reality was our equipment was inadequate for the weather we were about to face.  It had already been raining for about 2 hours when we arrived at Nissan Pavilion at around 5:30pm.  We ended up staying in the car until around 6:20 (doors opened at 6pm).  This was my first mistake.  Since I decided we had to enter so early, we ended up subjecting ourselves to hours of unnecessary rain and wetness.  Anyhow,  to get to the top the Nissan Pavilion there are a very large and steep stairs which had turned into great concrete waterfalls due to the heavy rain.  Once at the top and on the grass, I realized the Nissan Pavilion is a lot smaller than I expected.  At first we were hesitant to get our shoes wet and muddied up, so we stayed on the concrete walkway for a bit.  At this time (about 6:40) there were very few people on the lawn(1 or 2 rows of people and umbrellas at the front edge of the lawn).   Some groups decided it would be best to use a tarp and hold it over them like a very large multi-person raincoat.  Others had not prepared at all and were completely soaked wearing only t-shirts, shorts, flip-flops and other summer clothing.  Eventally we ventured into the mud to secure ourselves good spot at center stage.  Almost instantly our shoes became soaked through (mine actually stayed dry for a bit since they were gortex).  Once we found a place we liked,  we stood there for about an hour huddled between others with raincoats and overlapping umbrellas while we waited for the show to begin.  During the long wait some people tried to ease the boredom by playing in large puddles or sliding down the muddy hill.

Once the opening band ”Liars” hit the stage I was able to keep my mind off of the increasing pain in my limbs from the cold.  However, I wasn’t as interested in their music as I would have hoped (I chalk it up to just wanting to hear Radiohead too much to care) and I started noticing that I was very cold and wet again.  When Liars finished, I was thinking “Oh yeah here we go” along with everyone else.  Sadly, we were mistaken.  The setup time between acts was over 45 minutes long.  During that time, long dangling lights systems were hung and adjusted.  These were to provide a really cool effect during the songs.  They could be best discribed as long thin LCD Screens hanging from the top of the Venue.  In addition to these hanging lights, a large screen behind the stage was used to show highly processed and styleized views of the performance (from what seemed to be about 4 cameras).  Forty five minutes felt like an eternity for the people on the lawn and by the time Radiohead started playing it was around 9PM.

Fortunately, they were freaking awesome.  They played their hearts out for us and everyone loved it.  I really got into it, and for the most part I had forgotten about the terribly wet and muddy condition I was in.  Lots of “In Rainbows” songs were played, which I thought was fine since I really enjoy their latest album.  However, the rest of the fans (myself included) really loved when they played some of their favorites such as Idioteque and Paranoid Android.  Idioteque was brought to life surprisingly well for having such an electronic timbre on the record.  During the song, the hanging lights were used to create flashing rhomboid shapes, while the video screen behind the band showed several different shots of them on stage playing.  Up until this point, as each song ended, I hoped the next would be Paranoid Android.  When the next song finally was Paranoid Android, everyone went nuts.  This was the best part of the concert for me.  I learned that the greatest way to experience Paranoid Android is while cold, wet, and muddy.  Everyone on the lawn really got into it, especially during the lyrics ”Rain down, rain down, Come on rain down on me…”  Everyone was yelling the words as if we were telling the clouds that nothing could stop us from enjoying the show.

After Paranoid Android was finished, I looked over at my girlfriend and it was clear that she was in extreme agony.  She told me that she couldn’t feel anything in her feet except pain, so I told her that we could go.  I couldn’t feel my feet either, but mine weren’t hurting like hers were.  I was also shivering voilently because I was only wearing a t-shirt under my raincoat (stupid me).  I think if we had brought fully water-proof footwear, we would have been fine.  As we left the show, Radiohead played us out with “Just.”  I don’t think we missed many songs because by the time we got out of our wet clothes, changed, and wrapped ourselves in towels, people were flooding out of the pavilion headed to their cars.  I had a great time, and we might go back to see them in New Jersey in August.  However, next time we won’t be getting lawn tickets.

Resistance: Fall of Man – Weapon Perfection

What paintbrushes are to paintings, weapons are to First Person Shooter games. With the right set of weapons, a player can create their own game play experience in a unique and enjoyable way. However, players of FPS games usually find themselves clinging to a favorite weapon, usually due to the superiority of the weapon (or the lack of usefulness of other weapons) within the game play setting. A lack of good weapon choices makes for a more monotone game play experience.

Resistance has an almost perfect balance of weapons for single player game play. Since this game was created by Insomniac (Makers of Ratchet and Clank), I was expecting some good weapons, and they delivered. Each weapon is good at certain tasks and is bad at others, with almost a rock-paper-scissors like system. There are some standard type weapons (shotgun & M5A2 Carbine), but the rest of the weapon set is quite original and fun to play with. Most amazingly, I didn’t find any weapon useless. Here is what I liked about each weapon:

• M5A2 Carbine
  This is the first weapon you start out with in the game. The main advantages of this weapon are its high accuracy and projectiles velocity. This makes it useful for medium to long range attacks where slower traveling ammunition can be easily dodged by enemies. The secondary fire (grenade launcher) is also very powerful, but ammo for it is limited throughout the game.
• Bullseye
  The Bullseye is the main weapon of the Chimeran force, and it is obtained early in the game. The main fire of the Bullseye is inaccurate and weaker than the carbine, but the secondary fire is what makes this gun useful. The secondary fire can be used in two ways, which allows the gun to have almost three firing modes. First, it can be used to tag an enemy, which allows the projectiles from the weapon to navigate exactly to the enemy you tagged. This allows you to shoot around corners, or hit fast moving enemies with perfect accuracy. The third fire of the gun uses the tag functionality, but instead of tagging an enemy the bullets will collect wherever the secondary fire landed and will collect there until it eventually explodes. This grenade mode is useful for taking out turrets.
• Rossmore 236
  This is the standard shotgun. Nothing new in this weapon, but it is useful for close quarters fighting and is a standard in FPS games. Secondary fire unloads two rounds at once. It is most efficient at killing anything close to you.
• Auger
  This is the first really fun weapon in the game. It one of the very few weapons in FPS games that allow you to shoot through walls (I have a love affair with the Tau/gauss gun from Half-Life). The projectiles fired from the Auger slow down and become more potent after each object they pass through. This weapon is extremely useful for not only killing enemies behind walls, but for locating them because the reticule will actually turn red if there is an enemy behind an object you are pointing at. The secondary fire is somewhat less useful, but can be a life saver at times. It creates a small energy shield which you can hide behind for a little while. The catch is that Auger rounds can not be blocked by this shield.
• L23 Fareye
  This is a sniper rifle that can slow down time with its secondary fire. It should be used for head-shots as often as possible since it can only hold 12 rounds. It seemed to be best used by the “Steelheads” that used Auger fire to obliterate you. It was really a fun weapon to use since seeing the Chimeran’s heads exploding in slow motion was crazy cool.
• XR-005 Hailstorm
  Another unique weapon, the Hailstorm shoots a ton of greenish needles which bouce off of walls and is generally mediocre when using its primary fire. I actually, never used its primary fire after trying it for the first time. This gun is another one which shines with its secondary fire use. The secondary fire launches the entire remaining clip into the air, which turns into an auto turret that is amazingly devastating. This gun saved my butt so many times when I became overwhelmed by enemies from multiple directions. I could fire the clip as a turret, and it would take care of one group of enemies while I focused on another. It is especially useful during the last fight sequence of the game.
• XR-003 Sapper
  This gun can be best described as the Bio Riflein Unreal Tournament. It lays down organic blobs that serve as mines. The secondary fire will detonate them, but they will blow up if an enemy approaches anyhow. This gun had a very specific purpose in my game play: if something big started running at me, I laid down a ton of these mines and then took out another gun and started firing while the mines weakened whatever was charging. For certain enemies that just run at you relentlessly, this weapon is fantastic by backpedaling and making a line of mines for the enemies to run right over.
• L209 LAARK
  This is the rocket launcher for Resistance. It can be used as a standard point and shoot rocket launcher, but if you are feeling crafty, you can control the speed and direction of the rocket that you are firing. Additionally, if one feels so inclined, the rocket can fire out mini projectiles by holding both the secondary and primary fire buttons down. This weapon can be almost as devastating as the BFG if used correctly.