Jehoshaphat

There’s one reason I don’t think I’ll ever vote Republican ever again in my life-time…the war in Iraq. Now I don’t really want to go into those details because it just pisses me off to talk or think about it. But I heard on NPR this morning a story that made me comment on it really quick. The story is about the “Sons of Iraq”, it’s about 6 minutes long, I HIGHLY recommend you listen to it.

Basically, the “Sons of Iraq”, the Sunni groups that we paid to stop fighting us and to turn on Al-Qaida, are being targeted by the Shia leadership because they fear their power and don’t want them to be a factor in upcoming elections. The success of the “Surge” is centered around these “Awakening Councils”. But the military commanders in Iraq have said again and again the success of the “Surge” can be lost if political gains aren’t made. And you believe this report, not only have political gains not been made, there is evidence of growing divide between Shia and Sunni in Iraq. The Interior Ministry wants to disband all of the “Sons of Iraq” groups, following the same mistake that the US made when it disbanded the Iraqi Army without finding jobs for the hundreds of the thousands of people who relied on the army for a job.

While I did not support the “Surge” and believe a immediate withdraw of US forces is the only solution to the problem, the “Surge” did work…for a moment. It’s hard to imagine that US forces, when used in strength, couldn’t stop the violence. But all they are doing is holding back the water…the underlying problem still exists and we have no solution for it. Whether we stay or leave, it’s clear to me now that the underlying problem of a governing a country of Sunni, Shia, and Kurd will be impossible for a people with no sense of democratic traditions. The last time Iraq had anything resembling a democratic government was probably during the rule of Alexander the Great.

So the real question now has the “Surge” worked?

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Nixon - 1973 - “concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.”
McCain - 2008 - “America’s troops are coming home, thousands of them, and they’re coming home in honor.”

So last week I kinda got derailed some. On Tuesday, Tropical Fay decided to visit the state, entering just south of Ft. Myers and heading into the Everglades. To everyone’s surprise, the storm quickly intensified over land (something that never happens) and was projected to leave the state, head into the Atlantic and re-enter the state south of Jacksonville. So everyone started freaking out because a hurricane has never hit Jacksonville some some 50 years. Now mother-nature is a cruel woman…

First, the storm intensified over land because it was over the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee. The Everglades, also called the River of Glass, is a giant swamp that is maybe a half-foot above sea level. And Lake Okeechobee is a giant, shallow lake that is always being cooked by the sun, and had a water temperature 91 degrees when the storm went over it. So when the storm left the Everglades, it stalled and lost it punch but kept all of it’s rain.

So after the storm left the state, dropping some 30 inches of rain on Melbourne, it quickly did a 180 and re-entered the state just south of St. Augustine. Jacksonville shutdown offices and schools Wednesday thru Friday, even though the worst effects of the storm didn’t effect us until Thursday evening. My wife had off those days as well because her school followed the public schools. My work let us work from home on Wednesday thru Friday, but because Friday was the worst day, I didn’t get everything done I needed.

The storm dumped a crap-load of rain and had some winds with it. It stalled in the middle of the state on Friday and just dumped rain by the bucket-full. It’s crazy to think about 12 inches of rain, we probably had somewhere between 12 to 18 inches of rain total. The lakes and creeks in our neighbor quickly rose over their banks and there was a good deal of flooding around the city in general. At the height of the storm 100,000 people were without power, we lost power a couple of times for a brief moment but nothing serious. The most annoying part was when the power would flicker off and on, because restarting all of my computer equipment.

So here are some pictures from the storm…

My front yard looking down to the street corner

The lake overflowing behind my neighbors house

The main street in our neighborhood looking south

The main street in our neighborhood looking north - note the my neighbors attempt to clear the sewer

There was no major damage to our house from the storm, but I did lose a lot of time at work. So it’s been CRAZY busy at work lately. Combined that with this contractor I have to work with, I haven’t had anytime to goof off this week. So I haven’t looked into my vent settings, I haven’t played the new patch of TF2 that much, and I haven’t made my goal for my rogue in WoW this week. Last night I went to bed at 9:30, just completely exhausted. I’ll try and finish my greatest games of all time list this week, and I’ll try to upload some vacation pictures.

I’m glad there’s a three-day weekend coming up…

So last night I sat down to play some TF2 when my mic decided that now was the perfect time to take a crap in the corner and stop working. And while I can afford another (thanks Andy for making me seem poor), I would rather stay on budget and not buy things that I don’t need. But I think the mic is broken or something seriously is wrong with the sound card, so I’m going to try my wife’s mic on her computer and see what happens. I would rather not buy a USB mic, but we have Amazon Prime so I might just break down and get one this weekend. So after dealing with that for 30 minutes, I decided not to break it over my knee and just went to bed. So a good evening turned into a piss-poor night, again with me getting little sleep. I’m just glad its Friday and I can relax a little…I really need it right now.

So, I updated the list yesterday with the best MMOs, but I didnt right an update for today, so we might have to wait till lunch time. Also, I’m thinking of adding a couple genres for games like X-Wing vs Tie Fighter and Rock Band. So we might be at this for a while.

I watched a-little TV last night, mostly been watching HBO shows lately, two in particular, Hard Knocks and Generation Kill. I love Hard Knocks because it takes you behind the scenes of a NFL training camp and really gets you into the process. They do great interviews with the players and coaches and really unveil these guys to be human not overpaid babies that usually act like. Dallas is looking really good this year with a great defense. They seem like the team to beat in the NFC.

The other show is Generation Kill. I marvel at that show…it’s hype-realistic, it’s edgy, it’s gritty, in your face, and it’s a great watch. Much like Band of Brothers, it follows a Marine Recon company and a reporter assigned to them as they invade Iraq. You get to see first hand the messiness of war. I loved every episode so far and I would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it. That and a book called Fiasco…I guarantee you, you will have moments of sheer anger and amazement over our invasion of Iraq.

Yep, its hard to argue that you’re not a nerd if you enjoy these games, but the list has been updated with the best RPGs of all-time.

I’ve been slammed at work with a bunch o’ crap. I really hate what I’m doing right now…I feel bogged down by junk code and the inability to fix the underlying trash of the system I’m working on right now. We are trying to push out a product that doesn’t seem stable or met any of the user requirements. It’s a struggle right now…I want to learn the logistics business, its something I want to work in, but man alive, this is a freaking struggle. It seems like the expectations are for us to finish this up and move on to other things, but there’s no way that one or all of us will be spending all our time baby-sitting this application. I’ve never had to deal with writing code on top of such a bad database design and codebase, so it’s a good experience to have, but I wish it was over.

I’ll try and get an update up today on the best RPGs but it might be later this evening.

I did not sleep well last night, so I’m completely exhausted…today is going to be a complete struggle. I’ll see if I can update my list at lunch, hopefully I can stay awake that long. My alive…I’m tired…Pray for Mojo.

The list has been updated with my favorite 3 action/adventure games…

I love the weekend, it’s just a great way to relax after a crappy week of work. I played a lot of games this weekend, probably too much, but that’s the great part of the weekend, it doesn’t matter what you do. There was some good football on TV, the first pre-season game is just a quarter of the first-team, but it still was worthwhile to check out. I can’t wait for the season to start, I have a feeling this is going to be a great year…great year of football.

I did watch some Olympics, and I did want to slit my wrists every time that did a hard-luck story of one of the competitors. Also, can we stick with one sport and watch the end before you shift you’re coverage from the “pool” to the “beach” to the “road”. Seriously NBC…

I’ll update the Action Adventure genre of my best games of all-time at lunch today. This category was an interesting one because I had a couple debates on whether these games were actually Action RPGs…let me know what you think.

Watch out for the hack and slash, which is the subject of today’s update. Sorry for the late update, but this is the first chance I had to upload the list. A couple of thunderstorms just rolled thru the area and knocked our offices offline. Looks like the internet is up but not source-control or the databases…glad I skipped lunch and I can go home early, this week has been a nightmare. I seriously need to catch up on some sleep and rest/relaxation. Hopefully it rains a ton so I don’t have to mow the yard…

Oh and did someone mention that there’s, wait for it……..wait for it……wait for it………. … … … FOOTBALL on TV this weekend. Life is good.

Today’s update to the list is the platformer. A great genre with some really classic games in it. Again, because of my gaming experience, most of these games come from the NES/Super NES days. I’m sure I missed out on some classics but this is what I know. Tomorrow is the good ole hack and slash, which is going to be pretty easy. There’s the king and all of his copies…