Finally Playing Portal 2

On By WinstonIn Humor, Pop Culture, Video GamesLeave a comment

After months of having everyone tell me how incredible Portal 2 is, I’ve finally started playing it.   So far, I’ve got to say, it looks like they’re right.  More to the point, it sounds like they’re right.

The game play is exactly what I expected.  The controls are smooth, precise and easy.  The puzzles are clever, challenging and profanity inducing.  The visuals are excellent as is the physics implementation.  All of that is what it’s supposed to be.

The story and the humor are the payoffs for me.  The puzzles are clever, but the A.I. is more clever.  The person who created that character and wrote it’s dialog should win an award or two.  I can’t remember the last time I laughed that much during a game.  This thing is wildly funny.

If you enjoy puzzles, well constructed storyline and some twisted humor, this is a must play.

Cheers, Winston

Bringing Back The Positive.

On By WinstonIn Enlightenment, Personal, Self Awareness, ValuesLeave a comment
Neil Pasricha
Neil Pasricha creator of the blog "1000 Awesome Things", author of "The Book of Awesome" and "The Book of Even More Awesome".

I watched a TED.com talk by Neil Pasricha last night and it started me thinking.  He talked about going through a very dark time in his life.  His marriage ended and a close friend took his own life after a long struggle with mental illness.  As part of the process of moving himself out of that dark place, he started a blog.  He called it 1000 Awesome Things.  It took off so well, that he was offered a book deal and he wrote the Book Of Awesome.  The initial message to this is pretty clear.  If we change our focus, we change our lives.  It’s not that we can prevent bad things from happening.  It is simply about remaining aware that other things, better things are happening.  Often at the very same time.

He also talks about the  “3 As of Awesome”.  They are Attitude, Awareness and Authenticity.  I’m just going to touch on them really briefly, then I’ll get to my point.  I promise.  Unless I get distracted.

First up, we have Attitude.  No, not the Attitude you break out because NO ONE can find their gas pedal if they’re in front of you, but can’t find anything else but the horn when they’re behind you.  This Attitude is more about how you chose to look at the world.  You can choose how you view the world.  You can focus on the negative and dark and miserable, or we can practice seeing the good along with the bad.

Awareness is the second “A”.  If Attitude is choosing how to live, Awareness is about implementing that choice.  It’s developing the habit of noticing the quality of the light before a storm instead of focusing on how far you still have to walk to avoid it.  Seeing the person who gave you a break and let you merge not just the ten who didn’t.  It’s about seeing the everyday “Awesome” in everything.  Even when you think you can’t.  Especially when you think you can’t.

Which brings us to Authenticity.  This is about not being afraid to be who you are.  It’s about celebrating the things that you find awesome without worrying about what others might think.  I love big summer blockbuster movies.  I think Michael Bay is a very talented director.  When I went to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon, it was awesome!  I take a lot of flak for it, but that’s what authenticity is.  Being true to yourself regardless.  Neil has a much better example in his talk which I strongly encourage you to watch here:   http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_pasricha_the_3_a_s_of_awesome.html

Now for the point I promised earlier.  See, I hardly got distracted at all.  After I had watched him and started thinking about how this applied to me, I started thinking about my own blog.  No, not in terms of a book deal, but what my choice of posts says about where i put my focus.  I realized I spend a lot of time on politics, and social ills, and losing my job, and idiots with stupid things written on their cars.  I write a lot of negative stuff, and I don’t have to.  Sure it sucks that I’m losing my job.  On the other hand, it’s Awesome that some of these people that I have been talking to every week for five years tear up when they say goodbye.  It’s awesome to have an eleven year old child shake my hand and thank me for being the only person in any store to treat her like a person.

i only saw the idiot with the stupid saying on his car because my Awesome wife drove over to pick me up from work.  My brother was rushed to hospital with a crack in his aorta.  this is something with a 10% survival rate.  I was terrified he was going to die.  How Awesome is it that on his last visit, his specialist told him he has NEVER seen anyone heal so fast or so well!?  My life is full of these things.  So Awesome, and yet so ordinary I don’t always notice them.  I think it’s time I paid more attention.  It’s time to change my Attitude a little, develop a little more Awareness, but I’m still going to write the other stuff too.  It would lack Authenticity if I didn’t.

Thank you Neil.  You’ve given me the gift of Awesome.

Cheers, Winston

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The Internet Isn’t The Last Haven Of Democracy.

On By WinstonIn Global Issues, Media, Pop Culture, Society, TechnologyLeave a comment

Courtesy of a raging bout of insomnia, I was browsing some back stories on Maclean’s.  That’s when this gem caught my eye.  On Aug 12th, Peter Nowak posted this article: “Governments Must Adapt To Internet, Not Other Way Around”.  According to Mr. Nowak, democracy “is the de facto model that almost every online operation works on”.

“The popular and good rise to the top… the bad and unpopular is ignored or voted down.” It seems he is equating popular with good.  Hardly a supportable position given the current popularity of reality tv and Jackass movies.  Rising to the top isn’t necessarily a sign of quality, only of popularity and people’s urge to part of the “In Crowd”.  The fact that something gets 80,000,000 hits doesn’t mean that it’s good, only that nobody wants to be the one that doesn’t know what everyone else is talking about.  Popular doesn’t equate to good, more often, only to easy.  Lolcats get more hits than ethical debates.  Contestants on reality shows garner more votes than elected officials.  Yeah, popular is a sure sign of quality.

His next little piece of genius involves praising the hacker collective known as Anonymous.  These self appointed judges/juries/executioners are defenders of openness and democracy according to this guy.  He indirectly praises them for their attack on Sony in retaliation for their lawsuit against the person who posted an illegal hack for the PS3.  Peter seems to believe that it was wrong of Sony to take legal steps to protect their intellectual property.  On the other hand, he is perfectly okay with Anonymous using illegal steps to punish them.  There are a couple of details he leaves out in his paean to digital frontier justice.  The takedown of Sony didn’t just affect “Sony”, it affected the employees, the gamers, the people whose jobs rely on those services being up and running.  It’s like Robin Hood burning peasant huts so they can’t afford to pay taxes to the sheriff.  It sounds good in theory, but the sheriff is still going to want his taxes.

Anonymous is also the group who took it upon themselves to post the home addresses of members of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit police force.  This was in retaliation for BART shutting down cell towers to prevent protesters using them to organize.  Let’s deliberately endanger the live of the officers, their spouses and their children.  Way to pick your heroes Peter. If the persons responsible for that particular act are caught and convicted, they should be tossed into the deepest, darkest hole available and left there.  Pending further notice.

“The fundamental principles of the internet, therefore, are then same as democracy – each user is entitled to freedom and openness, so long as they don’t harm anyone else.”  Where he comes by these “fundamental principle” is never actually explained.  >he also doesn’t explain why Anonymous gets an exemption to the “don’t harm anyone else” part.  The fact is, the internet was created to share information.  Pure and simple.  Other people may have chosen to use it for their own purposes, but that doesn’t make it anything more or less than what it was designed to be.  Just because of bunch of spoiled children have decided that it’s easier to play “activist”as a way to act out when they don’t get their own way, doesn’t make them right.  When an allegedly serious journalist like Mr .Nowak buys into their fantasy, it just feeds into their bloated ego driven God complex.

His closing statement is the best illustration of his clearly delusional disconnect from the real world.  “Governments will inevitably have no choice but to acquiesce and adapt to what are ultimately basic human desires: to be open and free.  Otherwise, as advanced technologies make living in a virtual online world more realistic and palatable, people will inevitably abandon the real world and move into the ether permanently, leaving governments with no one to govern.”

If luck is with us, maybe Peter will be an early adopter of permanent virtualization.  Then any decent spam filter will keep his views in the junk folder where they belong.

Cheers, Winston

To Him It’s A Joke… To Her It’s One Hurt Too Many

On By WinstonIn Discrimation, Society, ValuesLeave a comment

“No Fat Chicks Or I’m Gonna Scrape”  That’s what it said on some wannabe cool guy\s lowered Acura.  If it’s illegal to put blatantly racist comments on public display, what makes this okay?  Is anyone going to try and tell me that this type of filth is less hurtful than a racial epithet?

Can I pull up beside him and call him out for his blatant offensiveness?   Can I point out that he’s apparently about 14 I.Q. points shy of idiot?  Or can I just wait for him to pull over and let nature take it’s course from there?  Is there any good reason that this isn’t covered under anti-discrimination legislation?  How is this not deliberately hurtful to any overweight girl/woman who sees it?

Maybe the answer is just to wait until he parks and paint over it.  Possibly remove the offensiveness with a wood rasp?  That could be fun.  Then leave a note advising that hurting other people for your own entertainment isn’t cool.  Even if you do have skinny tires on your over-sized rims and a big fart-can exhaust.  If you put something ugly, offensive and hurtful on your car, you’re a gigantic, pathetic ass-hat.

There is enough in our society to make any woman larger than a size 8 hate themselves without that.  On behalf of every girl who feels bulimia is better than being bullied, who cries when they look in the mirror, who hates themselves because others hate how they look, for all these and all the others hurt by a thoughtless joke, I say enough.  It’s time to stop celebrating stupid.

I’ll close for now because I have to go shopping for some spray paint and a wood rasp.

Cheers, Winston

You Sorta Need Someone To Command & Control

On By WinstonIn Canadian Military, Politics, Society7 Comments

A report from a former Lieutenant General in the Canadian Armed Forces seems destined to be ignored…. again.  Apparently, there are as many military personnel in Ottawa’s National Defense HQ as there are on active duty in the navy or regular force army.  During the last six years, Command and Support has grown at four times the rate of actual deployable force.  That seems a tad disproportionate to me.

Andrew Leslie, the author of the report, wants to see that change.  Of course after years inside the Canadian military, he knows the odds against any of his recommendations being adopted.  In the last forty five years, not one plan to reform Canada’s Armed Forces has been fully implemented.  It seems like maybe it’s time for that to change.

When there are more people running the military than there are in it, it represents a really skewed set of priorities.  It’s hard to justify the amount of money we spend on our military knowing most of it stays right here in Ottawa.  The government talks about Force Projection, but the bulk of their personnel don’t seem to project much beyond DNDHQ.

My nephew served three tours in Afghanistan while upwards of twenty-thousand military staff did their best to bring peace and stability to Ottawa.  Recent stimulus spending has fueled a large part of this expansion.  Now that well is running dry, and the deployable forces seem to have been left off the gravy train.  Thirteen billion in awesome new jets is a grand gesture, but it’s meaningless if there’s no actual people to put them in the air.  The same is true of the army, and navy.  When the budget is being drained by a top heavy administration, there’s not much left for actual boots on the ground.

If you think of it from a business perspective, it’s not a good idea to have more staff at head office than you do actually doing whatever it is your company does.  That’s a recipe for disaster in the private sector.  In the Canadian Military, it’s business as usual.  The status quo has been institutionalized in the name of stability and a healthy dose of hidebound leadership.  Case in point, former Chief of Defense Staff Rick Hillier.

Hillier’s take on Leslie’s recommendations: “You try to implement that report as it stands and you destroy the Canadian Military.  You simply can’t take that many people out of Command & Control functions.”  Really?  How many bodies do you need in C&C per deployable person?  Apparently, the idea of a leaner more efficient military has yet to breach the fortifications around Ottawa.  While the deployable forces are tasked to do more and more with less and less, DNDHQ is doing a little bit more with a steadily growing mountain of resources.

Andrew Leslie’s own words seem like an appropriate wrap up.  “If we don’t do something along these lines, battalions will be disbanded, ships will be tied up and aircraft will continue to be grounded while headquarters continues to grow.”

Note to Defense Minister Peter McKay and current Chief of Defense Staff Walt Natynczyk: YOU SORTA NEED SOMEONE TO COMMAND & CONTROL!

Cheers, Winston

Tech Etiquette or Keep It In Your Pants When You’re Talking To Me!

On By WinstonIn Humor, Pop Culture, SocietyLeave a comment

Once again the fine people at Maclean”s have answered the perennial question, “What shall I write about today?” Thank you very much nice people. As you can see from the title, this post is all about tech and how we use it. Specifically, it’s about portable technology and how we use it to abuse those around us. Because so many people seem not to have figured this out, it seemed worth sharing this quick set of guidelines.

Here at the LakeArt Institute For The Advancement Of Simple Simplicity (Proud Developers Of The V.A.P.I.D. Goal Setting System) we have a mission. Our motto is “Making Simple Things Simpler For The Simply Simple-Minded”. Our products are geared to those for whom the Herculean task of understanding even the simplest thing is just too much effort. If you or someone you know falls into this group, DON’T PANIC! We’re here to help.

** If you are on call twenty-four/seven in some sort of emergency or life-saving capacity, you are automatically exempt from the following guidelines. For the rest of you, stop texting for a minute and pay attention.**

1. If you are in the presence of actual human beings with whom you are interacting, they take precedence. Before any of you scream “Heresy!”, let me clarify. I know you paid a lot for your techno-thing and you want to get your money’s worth. I get that. You just need to keep in mind that everyone else paid just as much for theirs so they don’t care at all about yours. When in the presence of actual people, turn it off/down. If you absolutely must use it in public, excuse yourself, move away and then phone/text/send pictures of your naughty bits. When you have finished, put it away and rejoin the real world.

2. Treat your techno-thingy like your private thingy. Dont’t whip it out and wave it around in public. While you may think your techno-thingy/thingy is the most impressive one in existence, others probably will not share this view. Even those who are awestruck by the size of your display will likely pretend otherwise (although they may discreetly ask for your number later). Use of your techno-thingy during dinner/movies/social gatherings should be treated like urination. It should only be done when absolutely necessary. It should be done as far away from others as possible. And remember that no one wants to hear about it when you return.

3. Just because you can share doesn’t mean you should. You know what I’m talking about. Those late-night, drunken posts about how desperately you need to get laid. Or anyone who has ever posted a Lolcat. Or anything else that you are the only person on God’s Earth who might give a crap about. Oh, and that also includes anyone who sends pics of their naughty bits. I know that when you are far from the one you lust for it’s nice to think of them ogling a picture of your bits. Just keep this in mind. If they can’t remember what you look like naked, they probably aren’t going to remember your name either. Unless you get it tattooed on your bits.

(On a related note, a recent survey found that ten percent of people under twenty-five feel it’s okay to text during sex. Here’s a tip for them. If you’re thinking clearly enough to find your phone, let alone text, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!) If you were surprised when you read this and made some very rewarding changes in your life, you can thank me later.

4. If the person you are phoning/texting/sending pictures of your naughty bits to is that that important to you, invite them out to dinner/movie/club. That way they too can have the opportunity to be all impressed by your techno-thingy while you ignore them. Of course, there’s a fifty/fifty chance that they will also be playing with their techno-thingy. If they are, that doesn’t make it okay for you to do the same unless the two of you are totally alone. Here’s some basic math for you. One Total Tool + One Total Tool is not equal to Zero Total Tools. When in public, 1TT+1TT=2TT. Two Total Tools are in fact more annoying than One Total Tool. The formula is pretty simple. Annoyance = Number of Total Tools * Number of Non-Tools within earshot * the Relative Importance of the meal/movie/event to the Non-Tools.

So there you have it. A simple guide to Tech Etiquette. You are probably not the most important person in the universe. The people around you don’t really care about your half of your drama. The glow from you phone makes me very angry when I’m watching a movie in a dark theater. If your text is that important that it can’t wait for the end of the movie: Leave. Fill in the same sentence for meal, party, get together, sunset, cuddle time, etc. Yes, that includes sex too!

Remember. If no one is about to die. Keep it in your pants when you talk to me!

Cheers, Winston

Max and I Liked Zombies When Zombies Weren’t Cool.

On By WinstonIn Media, Personal, Pop Culture2 Comments

Okay, so I know this may be a bit of a departure from the usual, but the usual is usually over-rated.  I’m a Zombie fan.  Not Rob Zombie.  Not Voodoo zombies.  I’m talking contagion driven, George A. Romero ZOMBIES.  Ever since I first saw Night of the Living Dead many, many years ago, I’ve been a fan.  Long before the current Zombie renaissance, I was a fan.

Their current popularity is kind of a good news bad news thing.  The downside is that you get a lot of people who don’t give an infected rat’s patootie about Zombies and just want to make a quick buck.  The god news is, it lets all the secret Zombie lovers out of the closet.  That’s where it gets fun.

One of those long term Zombie fans wrote a couple of books that you may have heard of.  “The Zombie Survival Guide”, and “World War Z: An  Oral History Of The Zombie Apocalypse”.  It’s not just that these are both brilliant additions to Zombie canon, they were written by the last person whose name you would associate with horror.  Max Brooks.

Now I can tell that all of you are sitting there waiting for the punchline.  You are probably wondering who Max Brooks is and why I think it’s surprising that he wrote these books.  Well, I’m glad you asked.  He’s Mel Brooks son.  You know, “High Anxiety”, “Young Frankenstein”, “Blazing Saddles”.  That Mel Brooks.

At first, I was blown away to think that the son of one of the funniest people in movies was writing Zombie books.  Then I read a bit more and realized that like me, Max is a long time fan.  Just because his father did funny, doesn’t mean he has to.  My father was a hard-rock miner.  Me, not so much.  Once I got my head around that, I could enjoy the irony of it.

Here’s hoping that Max Brooks can enjoy a long and successful career.  Us old-school Zombie fans have got  to stick together.

Cheers, Winston

SMART Goals… Maybe There’s A Different Tool For Government

On By WinstonIn Global Issues, Humor, Politics, WarfareLeave a comment

Any of you who work in a corporate environment have probably at some point encountered the S.M.A.R.T. guidelines for decision making.  The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound.  You can see why I think perhaps  the government uses something different.

Some of the most outstanding examples of this are the “Wars” the declare.  The “War on Poverty”, “War on Drugs”, and my personal favorite, the “War on Terror”.  I believe the decisions to engage in these “Wars” are based on what I like to refer to as the V.A.P.I.D. guidelines.  This stands for Vague, Abstract, Pointless, Imaginary, and Damaging.  I’ll use the “War on Terror” to illustrate my point.

For starters, declaring a “War” on “Terror” seems a tad ill defined.  Not only is it not Specific, it’s actually quite Vague. It’s going to be hard to Measure results because “Terror” isn’t a person, place or thing, it’s an Abstract concept.  Victory could be difficult to Achieve in a “War” against a concept and with “Terror” still going strong after ten years, it seems kind of Pointless.  It doesn’t seem very Realistic to try to eliminate “Terror” from the world, although that Imaginary place would probably be very nice to live in.  With no clear objectives, it makes it hard to create a definitive Ttimeline.  That same blurriness of purpose also distracts from actual issues which is incredibly Damaging.  If you work it through, you will see it’s also true for the other “Wars” I mentioned.

This inability to set appropriate goals is dangerous and unacceptable.  These are the people whom we have charged and entrusted to act on our behalf and in our best interest.  Clearly, they have not.  Clearly this needs to change.  Let’s take a look for a moment at what things might have looked like if they had instead used the S.M.A.R.T. guidelines.

Instead of a “War on Terror”, we might have had a mission statement that looked more like this.  “We will  track down and bring to trial those responsible for the attacks against the United States on Sept. 11th 2001.”  Now let’s break it down.  Is it Specific?  Yes, it clearly states what we want to do and who we want to do it to.  Is it Measurable?  Yes, by having a clear goal, we can see how close we are to reaching it.  Is it Achievable? Yes, tracking down a relatively small group of people is very doable.  Is it Realistic?  Yes, much more so than taking on “Terror”.  Is it Time-bound?  Ye,s when the last trial finishes, the job is complete.  See how much better that is?

So, next time you get get dragged to one of those corporate training sessions, bring along your MP/Congress Person/Senator/Representative.  Who knows, they might actually learn something.  If nothing else, your boss will realize how lucky they are to have you on staff instead of a politician.  That could be just what you need to hold onto your job.

Cheers, Winston

Empowering Limitations and the Limits of Empowerment.

On By WinstonIn Self Awareness, Society, Values2 Comments

Earlier tonight, I was watching a talk delivered by British MP Rory Stewart about why it’s time to get out of Afghanistan.  That’s not the subject of this post.  It was a phrase in his closing remarks which caught my attention.  Mr. Stewart said, “If we accept that we cannot do all that we pretend, we can do much more than we fear.”

Wow!  That’s such a powerful idea.  If we stop putting unrealistic expectations on ourselves, we have a better chance of achieving the realistic ones.  As long as we remain focused on the big, unattainable goals, it keeps us distracted from the ones we can actually achieve.  What, you may wonder, does this have to do with empowerment?  I’m glad you asked.

We tend to think of empowerment as a removal of limits.  Yet without those limits, we start to believe we can do all we pretend.   That’s the kind of thinking that sets us up for disappointment.  Acknowledging our limits is essential to understanding ourselves.  For someone with a reading disability, pretending they can read isn’t empowering, it just prevents them from getting help.

When we accept our limits, it’s not a surrender, it’s the source of real empowerment.  The reason I refer to this as “real” empowerment is simple. Understanding our limits empowers happiness.  Denying them may seem empowering, but it just sets the stage for future pain.  The problem lies in the perception of limits as negative.  From a cultural perspective, It stems from a misunderstanding of the concept of equality.  Rather than an equality of value, it assumes an equality of ability, or at least potential.

Not everyone has equality of ability or opportunity.  Empowerment encourages happiness by allowing us to set believable goals for ourselves.  Denying limits leads to setting unattainable goals.  Attainable goals lead to happiness.  Unattainable ones lead to disappointment and unhappiness.  By accepting the possibility of failure, we appreciate our success even more.  At the same time, we save ourselves from being crushed by failure.

It’s time for us to empower our limits to celebrate how they empower us.

Cheers, Wintson

I’m Glad She Did This In Texas

On By WinstonIn Society, ValuesLeave a comment

A woman in Dallas TX has been charged with felony child abuse.  So what else is new right?  Well, this one is little more depraved than usual.  In terms of pure evil, she’s the kind of person that bumps Charles Manson out of last place in the human race.

When her two year old daughter had a problem with potty training she decided to solve the problem once and for all.  She dragged the toddler by the feet from the kitchen, glued her hands to the wall and beat her.  I’m not talking a couple of smacks on the bottom.  I’m talking about kicking her in the stomach, and beating her with a slipper and a belt.  Eventually, she called her own mother who arrived to find her granddaughter unconscious on the floor.  She rushed her to the hospital where she remains in a coma resulting from the assault.

The mother is being held on $500,000 bail.  When the little girl arrived at the hospital, her hands were covered with glue and paint from the wall and some of the skin had torn away.  Why is bail even an option for the woman who did this?  There’s no way in hell this person should ever see the light of day again.

The media are going to be all over this.  They’re going to paint her as a demon.  They’re going to paint her as a victim.  They’re going too maker her name a household word.  She doesn’t deserve that.  She deserves to be buried in the deepest hole they can find.  The kind of place they send you if you mess up in hell.  She should be forgotten.  Not her crime.  Not the horror of what she did to an innocent child.  But her name, her life, her very existence should be expunged from the world.

The only good news is that she did this in Texas.  Anywhere else, and she might get off on an insanity plea.  In Texas, there’s always a chance they’ll say, “Hell yes she’s insane!  That’s why we need to fry her!”  Probably not, but it’s the only way to be sure she’ll never do it again.  With her kind of crazy, it’s best to be sure.

Pray for Joselyn Cedillo, the little girl in a coma in her hospital room, because she belongs in a loving home.  Pray for the mother because her soul belongs to God, but her ass belongs in the Chair.  I’m glad she did this in Texas.

Cheers, Winston