The most hilarious ABC news comment of all time.

This is an update to my “ABC News Comments are Batshit Crazy” post. I have stumbled upon what could possibly be the most hilarious/stupidest post ever made on ABC News:

“I guess it did not take long for you anti-american (i.e., democrats) to continue your hate-filled postings on this site. Give me a break! Do you really think that Barry Obama’s hands our clean when it comes to his choice of associates (e.g., Reverend Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayres, etc…)? I think not. Frankly, it sickens me that you feeble minded morons are posting your hate-filled garbage so soon after the death of Tim Russert. I for one really view his death as a wake-up call. Life is too short to spend your time posting lunatic rants (like the ones below) on websites that nobody is reading. You people are sad and need to get a life!” – Aaron Burr

It looks like Aaron Burr has lost another duel, only this time with himself.

Death Cab for Cutie live at Merriweather Post Pavillion

On Monday I took a half day at work and went over to Columbia, MD to see Death Cab for Cutie with my girlfriend at Merriweather Post Pavillion. It was well over 90 degrees outside, and extremely humid. This time we had seats (instead of lawn tickets) and it was probably worth it because of the heat. We kept out of the sun, so I feel we were a bit cooler (unless there was a strong breeze out on the lawn) than the people out on the lawn. It was still dreadfully hot inside the pavilion, but we brought little hand held fans which were life savers. If you live close enough to Columbia, Maryland to go see a show at Merriweather Post Pavilion, I recommend you do so. Their website says it was designed by Frank Gehry to “least disturb the natural topography of the Merriweather site.” I would have to say he succeeded because I have been to Columbia on many occasions, and have never seen a glimpse of the pavilion (I didn’t even know it was there). Also, when walking from the parking lot to the pavilion, guests are treated to a nice view of a pond and a stream (it is basically like walking in a park that happens to have a pavilion).

Anyhow, the venue was great and so was the show. Death Cab for Cutie is a band I listen to quite often on my iPod and Pandora so I was excited to see them, but I was not expecting them to have so much energy, especially in the killer heat that day (the whole band was drenched in sweat the whole time). To my surprise they played their songs with an excess of energy and excitement. I really was not aware that some of their songs could translate so well to a large scale like Merriweather since all of the live versions of their songs I have heard seemed to be in small, indoor places. The set they played was great because it included almost all of my favorites, which was surprising since I figured it would have much more from their new album. We ended up leaving at the tail end of the encore in order to scoot out of the parking lot before everyone else left. I was able to take a few steady pictures even though it was so dark inside the pavilion (these are in reverse chronological order – click to enlarge):

Donkey Kong

Recently, I have been playing the original arcade version of Donkey Kong.  I started playing it after watching King of Kong on G4.  King of Kong is a documentary about the battle between Steve Weibe and Billy Mitchell for the Donkey Kong world record.  It is a very entertaining film, but it takes many liberties when portraying the people and storyline linking them together.  For instance, it makes Billy Mitchell out to be the villain and Steve Weibe to be the hero of the story, but in actuality it appears that both are nice guys that just really like a game of Donkey Kong (there is a bit of bad blood between them though).  The film also seems to raise questions about the official videogame recordholder’s (Twin Galaxies) apparent bias towards Billy Mitchell whom they have had a long history with.  However, After reading the official statement from Twin Galaxies, it is clear that the film has only been edited to make it appear that Twin Galaxies was biased, when they actually were very fair.

I have been playing Donkey Kong on my laptop using WolfMamePlus 0.106.  There are more recent versions, but 0.106 is the official version that TwinGalaxies will accept record submissions for.  I use it because it is probably the most stable GUI version of MAME available.  I have played a lot of classic emulated games with my friends from college, and we had a ton of fun getting high scores in Geometry Wars on the Xbox 360, but I never actually played Donkey Kong for more than a few minutes total.  I have found out that is not only a really challenging game to play, but it is really fun to figure out ways to survive in such a difficult game.  New games are so much different from these classic ones, but they are not necessarily better.  Classic arcade games are still a ton of fun to play, and in most cases they are much more challenging than current games.

In Donkey Kong, I am currently trying to teach myself how to get the highest possible score on the first level.  I feel that this is a good place to begin challenging myself, because learning how to get good at the whole game will take much more time.  However, getting a lot of points on the first level of Donkey Kong is proving to be a very difficult task.  The levels are on a timer, and there are only so many barrels or flames to use for points.  It seems that the key to getting your points up in the first level is the timing and use of the two hammers you are allowed to use.  If I can learn how to get the maximum points out of the hammers on the first level, I might have a shot at it.   The best I have done so far is 7000 points after using only the bottom hammer (I died while picking up the top hammer).  The current record for points on the first level of Donkey Kong (*on MAME) is 11,300 by Joe Cain.  I probably won’t beat that, but It is fun to try.