Empire of the Iguanadons

Well, it's that time of year again. The time of year we in Southern California dread the most. Fire season. This year the fire season arrived unusually late in the year and has unfortunately made up for lost time. We currently have two major fires burning in the area as of tonight. The Santa Ana winds have hit gusts of up to 75mph and relative humidity is hovering around 6%. Combined with the ridiculously dry brush, conditions were ripe.

The first is a large fire burning out of control in and around the Sylmar/Santa Clarita area. For those less familiar with the area, that's more or less Magic Mountain. So far at last estimate the fire has burned 6,500 acres, however unlike last year this fire has destroyed a number of homes. The hardest hit was the Oakridge Mobile Home Park where all 500 units have been destroyed. CHP has had I-5, I-210, and St. Hwy. 14 closed on and off all day long. At last check, the northbound lanes had just been reopened but traffic through the area has been backed up all day so it won't clear out anytime soon. Arson is suspected in this fire, which just goes to show you that there's always at least one sick twisted asshole who enjoys the suffering of others.

The second major fire, the "Freeway Complex Fire" is burning much closer to home. The Yorba Linda area on the south end of the Chino Hills State Park burst into flames sometime around 9am this morning and has since gone completely out of control. Dozens if not hundreds of homes have been burned to the ground in NE Yorba Linda, while the fire line is burning to the northwest into the park land. Much of the park hasn't seen fire in at least 30 years, while on the northern end it hasn't burned in at least 15 years. I first noticed this fire when I went out for lunch around 1pm and saw the huge plume of smoke rising over the ridge. As the day wore on, it became clear the fire had in fact crested the ridge and has burned down into Carbon Canyon. As of about 30 minutes ago, the flames are visible from the back yard of the house. The fire is many miles away and poses no danger here in the city, but it's definitely gotten bigger than the news is reporting.

The 91 freeway is closed at this time in the Santa Ana Canyon between the 55 freeway and the 71 freeway. The 57 freeway into Brea Canyon is closed at Lambert Road, and on the north end is closed at the 60 freeway. Pictures on TV earlier showed people going northbound had decided to take matters into their own hands and had begun driving up the wrong way on the onramps at Imperial Highway. CHP had parked a cruiser there to keep folks from driving up the asphalt burm, but the moment he had to leave for something people were back at it again. One guy said he'd been stuck in traffic for over 2 hours. Normally the trip up from Santa Ana takes 20 minutes to reach Lambert Road. It seems the CHP is content to let people drive backward up the onramps as long as it's being done in a semi-orderly fashion. In the case of either of these fires, it's unwise to bother trying to get through. I'm also reasonably sure that Carbon Canyon Road will have been closed down too, except to the residents living in there.

As I sit here writing this, the wind appears to have shifted again. I can now smell whiffs of smoke coming in through the open window. As is usual this time of year, the Santa Ana winds are unpredictable. The firefighters had been talking about the so-called sundowner winds making things worse. I have no doubt they'll be on the lines for several days to come as these things do not get put down easily.

There are also a number of smaller fires burning throughout the area and thus far the news media doesn't seem to have a very good handle on the story. I guess being the weekend a lot of it may have caught them off guard. Either that or there's just so much going on right now that they're not able to cover it all, and because of the geography around here they may not even be able to reach the fire zones.
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McCain-Palin 2008
http://www.johnmccain.com/

It's been a long time since I've played either Fallout or Fallout 2, so Bethesda had mostly a clean slate from which to work as far as I was concerned. That may be good, bad, or whatever, but what little I still remember from the old games shouldn't be too much of a problem. For those somehow not familiar with Fallout, the series deals with the remnants of human civilization in the United States following a devastating nuclear war. A series of underground vaults were built to house and protect a select few to continue the species after a set amount of time. Each game in the series deals with you needing to leave the safety of your Vault and venture out into the wasteland. Fallout 1 took place mostly in Southern California, ranging as far east as Phoenix and as far north as Las Vegas. I forget exactly where Fallout 2 took place, might be because I was bitterly disappointed with it. Fallout 3 takes place on the east coast, in and around the ruins of Washington DC, also known as the Capital Wasteland.

The game is built around an updated version of the Gamebryo engine which also powered Morrowind and Oblivion. Bethesda has made some improvements, clearly inspired in part by fan mods for Oblivion. Distant land display seems to have been largely fixed up. Graphics in general appear to be significantly improved, though very much stylized to fit in with the apocalyptic theme. They've incorporated a number of small touches like containers that animate slightly when you open them, traveling merchants, birds that circle over populated areas, and other things like that. They chose to abandon any use of weather such as rain, quite possibly they've yet to figure out how to do it right and figured it wasn't important to the story to have it anyway. There are still changes in the cloud cover though. Lighting appears to have been vastly improved. What looked at first like static graphics with no actual light halo turned out to be more or less highly focused spot lighting. This only really becomes apparent if you stand under one, or near one on a wall or something. The use of ambient background light hasn't been completely removed though. I suspect it would have become tedious in the extreme to play given the large number of underground and interior locations you need to visit. Probably the best and by far the most welcome tweak is the ability to adjust your companion's tactics and inventory when/if you happen to pick one up. Yes, it seems you can only have one companion at any given moment. The game will force your hand in this. Or at least it did for me. On the plus side, companions can carry a hell of a lot of junk and they don't require constant ammo replenishment. Apparently the game lets them be endlessly supplied.

Perhaps the most unique thing about the way they handled combat was the addition of VATS. It's entirely optional, but if you want to use a sort-of turn based approach to combat that works vaguely like the first two games, VATS is it. This is where the locational damage system really shines, and you even get some really nice slow motion camera shots of it. I'm told that the entire experience is exactly like the Deadly Reflex mod for Oblivion, but I'm sort of doubting any user mod could be this good. VATS is also good for getting yourself out of some tight jams, provided you can hit the activation key fast enough to freeze the moment. Spend some time with VATS, and just for shits and giggles, take the "Mysterious Stranger" perk when it's offered. I did, and later in the game when there was a hell of a lot of shit happening, seeing him pop in from time to time and help finish off a nasty was worth one hell of a laugh.

There's no shortage of places to visit and people to talk to and thank God Bethesda was able to make background conversations less monotonous. At least they fit the locations you were in and weren't a universal expression of disgust for radscorpions or mole rats. There are also plenty of interesting little side quests to keep you busy. Any location of even minor significance has something going on, sometimes quite funny just to observe for as long as the game will let you do so. If you're like me and love to explore, then you'll probably get absorbed in the act of doing just that. In locations that offer up potential companions for travel, even they are varied and interesting, though they do tend to revert to the drone role pretty quickly once they're following along.

Background atmosphere is pretty good too. Play around with the radio in the Pip Boy. Not only is some of it amusing as hell to listen to, it's occasionally important to the story, though not required. Right from the get go you'll be able to pick up the broadcasts of The Enclave. Now, supposedly Fallout fans know who these guys are already. But I don't recall them. Maybe they were part of Fallout 2? In any case the propaganda material they use for the broadcasts is amusing. You can also listen to the musical interludes in between assuming you like patriotic tunes. The other major station is Galaxy News Radio - and without giving too much away - as you play through the game, take the time to stop and listen to the DJ. He'll sometimes tell everyone about your exploits. He also sometimes gives some hints about things you can do to pass the time.

See a random car sitting around somewhere? Wonder why sometimes you hear explosions but can't find the reason? Go shoot a car. Stand back, I mean way back at first, and wait. If you hit it, it'll burst into flames. Wait long enough and it'll explode in a very huge way. Nice huh? The bigger the vehicle, the bigger the boom. Use wisely and don't do what I did for the first few levels and stand on cars for a better view. Guess I got lucky there. I'd have been really happy with the ability to level a building. But I'm sure there's technical reasons for why this couldn't be done.

The opening tutorial is tied in very nicely with the main quest. It's not as rigidly forced as the one in Oblivion. As you progress through it, you can make decisions during it that will have impact later. Should I end up playing through again in a different style, I'll try out one such alternative to see how it works out. The main quest itself is fairly well done and engaging. For the unfortunately brief length of time you get to be involved in it. I find this aspect of the game to actually be quite disappointing. I'd already heard rumors of how short it might be, but... damn. I wasn't expecting it to be over this soon. What's probably worse than that is the fact that once you're done, that's it. The game ends and you are no longer able to continue. There are supposed to be several ways you can end the game, so perhaps the path I ended up on had no outcome that allowed for continuation? I have my doubts about that considering the rigidness of events. There's a lot of stuff I haven't done yet that I wanted to check out but am now unable to do. If all of the end-game paths lead to the same result of being unable to free-form afterward, this game is going to have a very short life span. I have my doubts about how good the replay value will be other than to try playing as a ruthless evil bastard instead of the mostly goodie two shoes I ended up with. It's also eluding me right now how there could be any expansion packs or even intermediate DLCs made available. You'd have to deliberately halt progress on the main quest in order to have much hope of seeing any expansion content.

The game also has some serious issues that need to be addressed. Left on the default difficulty level, I found myself continuously low on health, often with a crippled limb or two to show for my efforts. A challenge is one thing, but come on. I *DIED* so often I got fed up and lowered the difficulty setting to easy. Yeah, thanks for penalizing me on the XP gains. Really people. I just want to explore and kill stuff I need to kill. I don't want every last battle to feel like it'll be my demise!

Given you start with very little and you pretty much suck at everything you do, including VATS combat, honing your initial skill set quickly is very important. I quickly realized that survival meant rapidly advancing the small guns skill. It's truly the only vital skill there is. Everything else is secondary to being able to shoot things dead. However, you're going to be forced to take on lockpicking and science as well. A vast amount of game content is locked away behind doors, in containers, or behind various computer terminals. Without being able to pop them open, you may as well just swim the radiated Potomac River. And the lockpicking mini-game is more or less a must do since the force lock option usually results in a permanently broken lock. Same with hacking into computer terminals. Pretty much a must do since failing your final attempt results in a permanent lockout.

Don't bother with repair skill early on. For some seriously dumbass reason, Bethesda made it so you can only repair stuff if you have more than one of the same thing. So if your favorite pistol or rifle is damaged, tough luck. Sure hope you have the caps to pay for it. You'll be spending an obscene amount of time looking for safe havens to have your stuff repaired by various NPCs. Who apparently don't obey the restriction on needing multiple pieces of the same thing to fix yours. User mods already exists to fix this problem. Some simply reduce the use damage to manageable levels. I instead chose one that eliminated it all together. Yep. Repairing your shit is that much of a hassle to me.

Ammo is scarce until later in the game, at which point you become flooded with it. But by then who cares since your time in the Wasteland is short. I wound up with so much ammo in my inventory I ended up randomly shooting up cars just to watch them explode. While that is still cool to see and never got old everywhere I went, it just underscores the problem. Too little early on, too much later.

The DC Ruins are very very tedious. Sure, it's cool and all to be able to see things like the National Archives, the Capitol Building, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and all that stuff blasted into ruins ( or mostly anyway ) but what's not cool is having to navigate a labyrinth of underground subway tunnels to get from section to section of the city.

They've not quite solved the issued with companions getting in your line of fire. Not long after acquiring everyone's middle game favorite, the combat shotgun, I spent more time reloading from bad kills than making progress. Damn companion kept stepping in front of my shot as I was taking it. Which usually resulted in their deaths. The enemy never managed to kill any of the companions I traveled with. That was my honor alone. They also haven't gotten any better with path finding. There were several instances where the companion following me simply refused to tag along and instead made a long journey around half the area I was in. Often drawing out mutants while exploring the DC Ruins. They also spend a hell of a lot of time pursuing their victims, even when they can't actually see or shoot at them. Which means I ended up having to run after them to provide support to keep them alive, while wasting time in the process. Oh, and a big word of warning. Don't ever give your companions grenades! They have a nasty tendency to chunk them right under your feet instead of under the enemy's feet. Similar warnings on the use of missile launchers or the Fatman weapon. Especially in the DC Ruins where there are lots of cars.

Damn you Bethesda. Damn you for implementing a level advancement cap. I don't care if it spoils anything or not. Upon reaching level 20 I wondered why the hell I wasn't getting any more XP. Even for doing the little things like picking locks, but most especially for killing high level baddies. Turns out after a trip to the official forum that there's a cap at level 20. Mods exist to break the cap, but due to an ill conceived game script, the game will crash if you attempt to advance to level 21 as an evil character, and reset your karma to 0 as a good character. Neither outcome is worth the hassle. And for all the mod community has managed to accomplish, fixing this one requires access to a script compiler. Which means we need a CS.

But the worst problem has nothing much to do with any of the mechanics or level scaling or bad combat AI. It's the graphical glitches. You don't need to be terribly observant to spot what I'm talking about here. Getting walls that look like they have hairline seams in them? They do. Dark places with light leaking through where it doesn't belong? Yep. Bad tileset placements. Worse still is the staggering number of objects which have been placed into the game that are floating above where they should be sitting. Cups on tables. Parts on benches. You name it, it's probably floating. Even corpses over the ground after you kill things. The problem is so bad in some places it becomes a serious distraction. The only good news here is that in the great outdoors, I spotted very few examples of floating rocks or trees. So perhaps they perfected their procedural landscaping. But the wall seams and floating objects reek of people who know the CS, but never tested their shit in play.

Over all, I'm somewhat disappointed. I didn't like being locked out of the game upon finishing it. The story arc was good and despite the large number of flaws, it was enjoyable while I was actually able to play. Though tedious at times ( DC Ruins! GACK! ) there's plenty of interesting content to explore. Most of which can be just as much fun as following the main quest. Many of the smaller flaws such as the repair issues and scarcity of supplies early on can be solved by user mods which already exist. The most annoying flaw that needs fixing though is the level cap. That's got to go, or at the very least be extended safely. I hate to say it, but Bethesda appears to have fallen short on this one. It doesn't live up to their reputation, despite some shining moments.
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McCain-Palin 2008
http://www.johnmccain.com/

So. The long hard campaign is finally over. No more campaign ads. No more political pollsters bothering you during dinner time. No more mailings. No more listening to pundit after pundit drumbeating for their guy. Well. At least for the next 18 months.

So I guess congratulations are in order. The liberal media got what they wanted. They got their Marxist Revolution through. Protect your wallets people, you're about to have them picked clean. If you're "rich" that is. If not, then open them wide up because Obama is about to fill them full of other peoples' money. I realize that there are an awful lot of people who think that's just fine. I guarantee you the vast majority of them either weren't alive during the Carter administration or have gone senile since then, leaving those of us who are lucid and still have those memories as the only ones who were and still are raising the alarm.

The final results:

Barck Obama: 63,507,800 [52%] popular votes - 349 Electoral votes.
John McCain: 56,151,859 [46%] popular votes - 163 Electoral votes.

Senate: 56 Democrat, 40 Republican, with 2 Independents. Apparently 2 more races are left to call?
House: 254 Democrat, 173 Republican. Oi.

The only good news here? The Senate fell just short of being filibuster-proof. But not by much. This is a massive swing in favor of Marxism/Liberalism in the US and spells certain disaster. Sad to see there are so damn many stupid people in this country. Almost enough to make you want to pack up and head for Canada. Where ironically enough they're in the middle of a conservative awakening after 40 years of heavily oppressive liberal policies.

My only hope is that there will be another conservative awakening here in 2-4 years. It clearly depends on how bad the damage is by the time the next Congressional cycle is due up. 2 years is a long time to suffer. 4 years will be devastating. God help us if Obama gets re-elected in 2012.

So what's an Obama administration mean? Here's the deal:

1. Higher taxes on everyone making $150,000 or more in income per year. This will fall squarely on the backs of small businesses rather than most individuals. That's assuming of course the $150K figure doesn't drop again before January. If they have their way then there's plenty of evidence out there to suggest Obama really wants this set closer to $50K. Surprise! I bet you had no idea you're rich! Don't bother selling anything of significant value for at least the next 2 years either. Capital gains taxes are about to double. If you're thinking of rolling something to avoid it, get it done before January. Or move your assets to a Cayman Islands account. But be quick about it either way.

2. Surrender in Iraq in no more than 16 months. He's made that case pretty damn clear. The troops will be coming home. Whether we've achieved our final result or not. Despite the fact that we've more or less won the thing. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is something the Dems do best. But our boys in Europe and South Korea? They get to stay put. Bosnia? Sorry, you're not going anywhere. The logic here escapes me.

3. Massive cuts in military spending. Barney Frank said it clearly and in the open. To his credit, it was an honest statement. Defense spending can expect to see at least a 25% reduction, similar to that under Clinton. The reason for this is because they can't find any other way to pay for their pending mountain of giveaways. Cutting spending where it actually should be cut hasn't even crossed their minds. Once these deep military spending cuts have time to take hold, you can probably expect terrorist attacks against the US to increase. Potentially even culminating on another strike here at home.

4. A very deep and very painful recession, bordering on an outright economic depression. This ties back into #1. As taxes go up, businesses will have to cut costs. The very first thing Corporate America does when it comes time for cuts is to reduce headcount. That means massive layoffs. If that's not enough, and there's every indication it won't be, then they simply raise prices on their goods to make up the difference. Which is paradoxical since you just fired 20% of your workforce. The 500+ point drop in the DOW today pretty clearly indicates that Corporate America knows exactly what's coming.

5. Tied directly to #4, unemployment figures will skyrocket. It's been reported on several news outlets that we could be looking at 10% within a year if Obama actually goes ahead with everything he wants. And Congress is now positioned to give it to him with barely any resistance. If you have a job now, for God sake, don't quit. If you're out of work now ( like me ) it might be time to consider finding those bread lines.

6. The Fairness Doctrine. Democrats have made it perfectly clear they were pissed off when that got tanked by Reagan and they were never able to get it back. The 2 year window they had with Clinton got chewed up on other crap like Hillarycare. Thank God for that, but don't think they haven't already got this on the agenda. Obama wants it. Reid wants it. Pelosi wants it. And their target will be right wing talk radio and blog sites. Just like this one. So don't be at all surprised if somewhere down the road this site vanishes. The old saying about "I wasn't a Jew" or however it goes applies perfectly well here. Just remember, when they come for you, nobody will be left to protect you.

7. Citizenship/Amnesty for 30 million illegals. What? You thought there were only 12 million? That 12 million figure is rather old at this point. All objective estimates put the figure much higher, some as high as 50 million, some as low as 15 million. 30 million is probably a safe estimate. What does this mean? It means a whole hell of a lot of Democrats waiting in the wings to vote in 2-4 years. Legally anyway. Anyone with a brain knows they've already been voting in large numbers illegally. Which just means it will be that much hard to root the liberals out of power in the future. Which is exactly how they want it. The big danger here is that McCain will probably side with these bastards and make it that much worse.

8. Russian aggression will be sharply on the rise. Putin himself laughed his ass off at Obama's pathetic response to the Georgian crisis. One need only look at today's headline to know what's to come. The Russians are already vowing to begin a second Cold War. Of course, chances are Obama is going to cave in and cancel the missile shield and leave our allies twisting in the wind like never before.

9. Unrestricted negotiations with Iran. Yep. Forgot about that I bet. Obama made it very clear on many occasions that he'd sit down at the table with Ahmadinejad. Without setting any preconditions. Such as no more nuke program. Count on the Iranians accelerating their aggression and their nuclear program over the next 2 years while the window is wide open.

10. Liberal judges on the US Supreme Court. I bet nobody bothered to think of this either. An Obama appointment will mean major setbacks for those of us on the right for decades to come as many decisions which began to undo the liberal stranglehold on our courts will swiftly be undone. The really bad part about this is, even if the country wises up in a hurry, if someone on the Court dies next year, you can count on the Senate rushing to confirm whoever Obama picks and you can count on a bitter and destructive effort on their part to crush any potential filibuster by the Republicans. You haven't seen activist judges until you've seen a Court filled with the likes of Ginsberg and Stevens. We should be damn thankful the last two appointments were Bushies.

11. Skyrocketing interest rates on housing and car loans. Don't beleive me? Ask your parents how much their mortgage rates were back in 1977. You might just have to pick your jaw up off the floor. My parents got bit by this one firsthand. Their mortgage rate was 21% and they had AAA rated credit back then. Gone are the days of 4% home loans. Inflation due to higher taxes will see to that.

I'm sure there's more I've forgotten. So feel free to add to the list. And welcome to the United Socialist States of America. Leave your money in the box to your right.
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McCain-Palin 2008
http://www.johnmccain.com/

Alright. It got mentioned in passing last night that I may implement user accounts. Well I've now done that. As of right now, user accounts exist on this site. Hopefully everything is in place and working ok. You might notice though I have not supplied a self-registration link just yet. That's partly because I need time to shake down the profile system and to shake down access levels to the site to make sure everything is kosher.

The following breakdown now exists:

Anonymous Posters

Anonymous posters are able to submit comments to existing blog, gallery, and download entries ( when those finally get that ). They cannot do anything else. This ends the practice of picking bogus names to either be silly or to attempt to impersonate a legitimate user. All posts made anonymously will simply be tagged as such. Anonymous posts are subject to spam control by the Akismet filter. Chances are if you're anonymous, and your post is flagged as spam, I'll be treating it as such from now on.

Regular Members

Regular members are one step above anonymous posters. They are able to create an account, post to existing blog entries, choose an icon, set a homepage URL, and create a signature. Regular member comments are still subject to Akismet spam control. Most ordinary users who post occasionally will end up in this category once registered. This is also where spam bots who defeat the measures I'm going to use to filter registrations end up, so they'll still have severe difficult spamming even if they manage to get in.

Privileged Members

Yes, elitism abounds, even here. Privileged members will have all of the same abilities as regular members. However, these members will also be able to post comments without interference from the Akismet filters, and down the road they will be privy to blog entries, downloads, and gallery entries that are not visible to the public at large. Admission into this group will not come lightly. You need to be a family member, good friend, or a solid regular member I can trust not to turn into a spammer. I shouldn't need to point out who's likely to get this. It's also not something that will happen automatically, I need to manually intervene to allow this. You can feel free to ask, but don't expect it unless I've gotten to know you. And for the record, elitism isn't politically correct. But you already know how I feel about PC'ness :)

Contributing Members

Contributing members will have all of the abilities of the previous groups. The one obvious addition is that these people, when/if they should ever be designated, will be allowed to contribute blog entries, downloads, and gallery images of their own. They will be limited to being able to edit or delete content they submit, and if I can work it out, they'll also be in charge of determining if comments posted to their entries are considered spam. Don't expect to see too many folks getting access at this level though since it's not likely to actually get used here. It's more for the software development side of things right now.

Administrators

Officers in the Imperial Guard. Or, simply put, people who have complete access to all portions of the site. There's a very VERY slim chance of that ever being conferred on anyone but myself here. In fact, your odds of winning the Powerball lottery *AND* your state's own lottery on the same day with the same set of numbers are probably better. :)

So with that in mind, those of you who got emails already, if you could poke around and see what's what and make sure your stuff works. If you're going to set icons, keep in mind that those will be restricted to 40x40 in size, and the code will forcefully set that when you submit it. So pick something that's not going to be mangled by the process and we'll all be happier for it.

One other thing to note. I have of course included permissions support on the user accounts which can and will be further developed should my laziness result in people doing shit I don't want them doing. I reserve sole discretion on what that may be, so just use common sense if you have any.

Also be aware there will be bugs. The process of transitioning all the old data may have left some places with missing information. Please report those as you find them.

And opportunity knocks, the window is open for suggestions. I suggest if you plan to submit one, you be as detailed as possible and get it in before I lose interest in working on this code again.
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McCain-Palin 2008
http://www.johnmccain.com/

I don't know who this guy is, but he said in less than two minutes exactly what I know most of us truly believe about the Iraq War. I'd like to thank this man for his service and for standing up to say his piece before the people!


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McCain-Palin 2008
http://www.johnmccain.com/