Month: June 2009

[SAS] Dept. of Agriculture, continues

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I’ve been working on the map some more tonight and have made some decent progresses. The thing that annoys me the most is how many times the rat bastard of an Unreal Ed likes to crash! I have often cursed about hex editing programs into the Nth level of DooM—if the editor for Unreal Engine 3 games is as bad as all the Unreal 2 games I’ve used it with, I will start cursing about hex editing the editors development team into all levels of the DooM II megawad: Hell Revealed.

I don’t really wish to comment on the specific changes here, mostly because I want the map to be usable as a Live Operation during its unveiling :-D. Needless to say, it is still the same map but it will not be the same. As long as I can get the stuff rigged up for the fire escape spawn point, I think people will enjoy the map hehe.

What dreams came

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Around 09:39 or so, I was woken up because the car cover came off the car, and had to be put on. When that was done, I just went back to bed… oy what a set of dreams!

I dreamt that it was raining cats and dogs and Ma went out the door to check the car cover; Willow almost ran out the door before I could catch her. In real life, Willow always runs and sits near the door, as ma says, “She knows where her bread is buttered”, but of course I’m paranoid about peoples safety lol. Then to make it worse after I caught her and ma came back in, I explained and turned around…. and see the parakeet Mikey sitting on my table, and creep over to scope him up before he can fly away—and end up dog food.

Then I woke up and fell back asleep a little while later. It was raining cats and dogs and I explained what I had just dreamt. Then it hit the fan, the bird got out and I managed to catch him before the dog. When I tried to put him back in the cage, so I could fix his enclosure… I found that the cage had come apart! It had just began to unravel and decompose without reason, which is a big problem. So here I am standing with the bird in my hands, rapidly losing weight and feathers—in real life Mike is a fat and pampered parakeet lol. As often seems to be the case in my dreams, my family ends up just being totally freaking worthless whenever I need help :-/.

It’s only when I dream of something normal, and not purely fantasy, that I generally get concerned….

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Theme Song

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What a thrill
With Darkness and silence through the night
What a thrill
I’m searching and I’ll melt into you
What a fear in my heart
But you’re so supreme!

I give my life
Not for honor, but for you snake eater
In my time, there’ll be no one else
Crime, it’s the way I fly to you
I’m still in a dream of the snake eater

Someday you go through the rain,
Someday you feed on a tree frog,
It’s ordeal, the trial to survive
For the day we see new light

I give my life
Not for honor, but for you
In my time, there’ll be no one else
Crime, it’s the way I fly to you
I’m still in a dream of the snake eater

Writer’s Block: I Can Relate

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What fictional character do you most identify with?

Live Journals Writer’s Block

One fictional character that I can strongly identify with, is the Jack aka Big Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3.

Obvious spoilers warning

Tom: There’s one more person I want to introduce you to, Snake.

Snake: ?

Tom: Speaking of snakes, you remember The Boss, don’t you? A legendary soldier and your mentor. Actually, it was The Boss that got the DCI’s authorization in the first place. She’s going to be serving as FOX’s mission advisor.

Snake: The Boss is?

Tom: She also helped me plan this mission. She and I were at SAS together.

Boss: Jack, is that you? How many years has it been?

Snake: Boss??

Boss: That’s right, it’s me.

Snake: …

Boss: Talk to me. Let me hear your voice.

Snake: It’s been 5 years, 72 days, and 18 hours.

Boss: You’ve lost weight.

Snake: You can tell just by the sound of my voice?

Boss: Of course I can. I know all about you.

Snake: Really. Well, I don’t know anything about you.

Boss: What’s that supposed to mean?

Snake: …Why’d you disappear on me all of a sudden?

Boss: I was on a top-secret mission.

Snake: …

Boss: You didn’t need me anymore.

Snake: But there were still so many things I wanted you to teach me.

Boss: No. I taught you everything you needed to know about fighting techniques. I taught you all I could. The rest you needed to learn on your own.

Snake: Techniques, sure. But what about how to think like a soldier?

Boss: How to think like a soldier? I can’t teach you that. A soldier needs to be strong in spirit, body, and technique – and the only thing you can learn from someone else is technique. In fact, technique doesn’t even matter. What’s most important is spirit. Spirit and body are like two sides of a single coin. They’re the same thing. I can’t teach you how to think. You’ll just have to figure it out for yourself. Listen to me, Jack. Just because soldiers are on the same side right now doesn’t mean they always will be. Having personal feelings about your comrades is one the worst sins you can commit. Politics determine who you face on the battlefield. And politics are a living thing. They change along with the times. Yesterday’s good might be tomorrow’s evil.

Snake: Is that why you abandoned me?

Boss: No. It had nothing to do with you. I already told you, Jack. I was on a top-secret mission. A soldier has to follow whatever orders he’s given. It’s not his place to question why. But you’re looking for a reason to fight. You’re a natural born fighter, but you’re not quite a soldier. A solider is a political tool, nothing more. That’s doubly true if he’s a career soldier. Right and wrong have no place in his mission. He has no enemies and no friends. Only the mission. You follow the orders you’re given. That’s what being a soldier is all about.

Snake: I do whatever I have to do to get the job done. I don’t think about politics.

Boss: That’s not the same thing. Sooner or later, your conscience is going to bother you. In the end, you have to choose whether you’re going to live as a soldier, or just another man with a gun. There’s a saying in the Orient; “Loyalty to the end.” Do you know what it means?

Snake: Being… Patriotic?

Boss: It means devoting yourself to your country.

Snake: I follow the President and the top brass. I’m ready to die for them if necessary.

Boss: The President and the top brass won’t be there forever. Once their terms are up, others will take their place.

Snake: I follow the will of the leader, no matter who’s in charge.

Boss: People aren’t the ones who dictate the missions.

Snake: Then who does?

Boss: The times. People’s values change over time. And so do the leaders of a country. So there’s no such thing as an enemy in absolute terms. The enemies we fight are only in relative terms, constantly changing with the times.

Snake: …

Boss: As long as we have “loyalty to the end,” there’s no point in believing in anything… even in those we love.

Snake: And that’s the way a soldier is supposed to think?

Boss: The only thing we can believe in with absolute certainty is the mission, Jack.

Snake: All right. But do me a favor.

Boss: What is it?

Snake: Call me Snake.

Boss: Snake? Oh, right, your codename is Snake. It suits you well.

Tom: That’s right. The legendary unit that The Boss put together during World War II was a snake. The Cobra Unit… a group of heroes that brought the war to an end and saved the world. As long as you’ve got a legendary hero backing you up, you’ll be fine. Isn’t that right, Snake?

Snake: Yeah, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have with me. Oh, and one more thing, Boss…

Boss: Yes?

Snake: It’s good to hear your voice again.

The young Big Boss very much symbolizes to me, someone who has yet to find their own path through the jungle. In Metal Gear Solid 3, we see Jacks entry into the Virtuous Mission: the hunt for Sokolov. The Boss warns him of the very true nature of their world: todays enemies can be tomorrows friends, todays friends can be tomorrows enemies. The game continually questions what Jack is fighting for: country, mission, and so on. With the Bosses ‘defection’ at the end of the virtuous mission leaving Jack wounded and disillusioned, Operation Snake Eater again sends him into the wilderness, yet this time with the explicit goal of neutralizing the Boss. During Snake Eater, Jack is taken prisoner by the Soviets. After beating him into a bloody pulp, Col. Volgin demands that the Boss prove her loyalty: “Cut out his eyes! I don’t like those blue eyes of his. There is nothing more important to a soldier than his eyes. You made him a soldier and now you will unmake him!”. When Eve under cover as Tatyana objects, Ocelot commences his juggling act. It ends with Jack trading his right eye to protect Eva.

I think playing through MGS3 is the only real definition of what Big Boss goes through; my best description would be a torture of life.

Surviving Snake Eater with the Bosses blood on his hands, as Eva’s betrayal reveals: the Boss had been endlessly shit on by her country (to put it lightly), yet remained loyal to the end. The boss lived in shadow and died in shadow, giving every ounce of life along the way: until even that was demanded of her service. in the end, Operation Snake Eater was all about cold hard cash, nothing else. And for that, ones such as the Boss and Big Boss were subjected to such misery! By the time Metal Gear Solid 3 ends, Jack has been awarded the title of “Big Boss”, for he has bested even the Boss. Jack lost his innocence a long the way to becoming Big Boss.

Throughout the game, Jack focuses on his missionm‐and is constantly reminded that he must kill the Boss in order to succeed. I feel that in the end, he must ask himself, “What am I fighting for?”, and search to see if this is really the path he will chart in life.

Because my feelings for my family and of my times with www.sasclan.org I have come to sympathize with Big Bosses fate. MGS3 is my favorite of the solid trilogy because it tells his story, of his coming of age. Having seen the whole thing through, I don’t think anyone who has played MGS3 could fail to understand the actions Big Boss would later take in life, be they as they appeared or much deaper; MGS4 (the only reason I would like a PS3 haha!) further explores the reasons behind the snake. In a similiar light, I ask of my self:

Are you loyal to the end?

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Got what’s left of this toe in a scolding hot foot-bath with some Epsom salt; I think it is healed enough that I can eercise on it but I don’t think it has been healing properly… nothing I can do about that though. On the upside, hey at least I’ve still got the nail lol. I’ve never lost an entire toenail before but I know it takes a long time for them to grow back.

At the moment I am finishing watching Midnight Run, I love the part when the three schmucks are being chased by the mobsters helicopter—and Mardukas (Charles Grodin) is shouting, “You two are the dumbest bounty hunters I have ever seen! You couldn’t even deliver a bottle of milk!”, it just tickles my funny bone xD.

Spent most of the day playing SWAT 4 as seems to be the usual for right now. During the early phase I basically had to get a bunch of inexperienced people under control, but hey – I like orderly tactics. And when I am Element Leader, people get in line or they get taken offline ;). I organized them into a basic strike, secure, cover group. 1 and 2 man would be responsible for clearing the room, 3 and 4 man for securing contacts and weapons, while 5, 6, and when present 7 man stayed in the corridor to watch our backs. Very simple clearing techniques. I found it particularly well suited for dealing with a large amount of untrained people, while trying to avoid the usual massive conga-line-of-sloppiness and massive headless chicken problems of such a situation. People soon got the idea, and within a few maps I was able to transition to using RED / BLUE team call signs for the two groups; culminating in a simultaneous take down of 3 sectors at once by a 7-man assault force (of which I was basically the only seasoned idiot). Later on after our element had shrunk back to a more manageable size (4-5 instead of 6-7), I soon was able to take a break when [SAS]_Trp_COT showed up and started his EL practice for the day.

Sunshine

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Just finished watching a film called Sunshine, a bleak future where our sun is dying and Earth being subjected to the deep freeze. Our last hope is a starship named the Icarus II, on a go for broke mission to drop a “stellar bomb” made with all the Earths remaining fissionable mass, into the sun with hopes that the detonation may jump start the sun and spare humanity from its cold grave.

I’m not really a big student of Greek mythology, let along mythology in general (never had the chance) but I do know of Icarus – who flew to close to the sun, and died as his wings melted away from the heat. I can’t think who in their bloody right mind would dare name a ship Icarus in such a dreadful scenario lol (no offense). As far as I know, it is thought that our sun should last billions of years pardoning anything truly catastrophic! And thus, only an immortal might have to worry about its eventual death: the rest of us mortals can just be worried about a planet killer sized asteroid or alien invasion obliterating our world before we manage to annihilate ourselves… be it fast or slow in coming. (I hope man lives to see GOD putting an end to our world, not our own stupidity being the cause)

Sunshine is a very interesting movie, and the stressful-confined-get-me-the-hell-out-of-here feel of some of the scenes remind me of the old Alien. I’m not even going to think about the probability of surviving the oh-shit-it’s-come-to-this emergency method of transferring 3 men with 1 suit from the derelict Icarus I back to the moribund Icarus II. I must admit however, that the Pinbacker mystery also leaves some interesting questions for my mind; but I don’t believe such a thing feasible. It almost reminded me of David Bowman from 2001: A Space Odyssey but not quite on par with the Starchild.

The thing I find the hardest to comprehend is how witihn ~50 years, could man kind possibly develop technology that could get *that close* to the sun? I compared the Icarus’s troubles with that of Doctor Reinhardts efforts in The Black Hole, id est so freaking big a problem only sci-fi could plausibly pull it off in our lifetime. Between intense heat and the amount of gravity that must surround such a beast, I just can’t fathom mans technology alcomplishing that so soon – I would be suspicious if we could even get a bomb close enough to be of science-fictional interest let along that close. That is, without advancing the stories focal point from ~2057 into some point so far in the future, that it becomes a date on the Gregorian calendar, more reflective of the numbers seen in Dunes universe—which spans some 15,000 years and leaves our calendars in the dust. I would reckon that in even seven or eight thousand years from now, the technology of the future would be to us, a satisifcation of Clarke’s third law. But by then I would expect a Death Star or something, not the Icarus II.

In some strange way it also makes me wish I had the ability and attitude to study Astrophysics :-/. Then again if I did, I would probably find watching such films to be more on par with watching an 80’s action flick lol.

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Woke up feeling like someone was taking the hands around my head and just squeezing it, plus a mild toothache on the larboard side. The work schedule has been turned up on it’s ear, and it’s coming into that time of year when business starts to evaporate… which does not hold very well for Operation Redeemers goals :-/.

If I wasn’t owed money, I would actually have a chance to supercharge this part of the operation, instead of being S.O.L. All things considered, if I wasn’t owed, I would be being asked for a loan, as far the current state of my families finances goes lol.

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Strange dreams…. I was dreaming that we were attending church services; we haven’t been there in years :'(. While I’m generally not superstistous but I think in my family that may be taken as a bad omen, don’t know. I’ve never really placed much on the interpretation of dreams nor any meaning on them for 99.99999% of the dreams I’ve had in my life; can’t say the same about the rest of my family lol.

When I woke up I said a prayer (my most often used) and rolled back over to get a little more sleep. Then I had a dream that really surprised me: I was dreaming of coming home and there was my father, making himself a sandwich or something. In over 20 years, I think this is the 2nd or 3rd time I’ve ever dreamed of him. Growing up, I always wanted to dream about meeting my father… since I was very small when he died. We spent some time together and there was something going on, because more and more family (equally both dead and living lol) started showing up in good cloths, towards the end Ma finally got home.

After that my dreams turned to more private nature then I’ll post here, I’ll just describe it as more stressful but less strange, including me making a verbal reference to a place I’ve often dreamed of traveling through. Kind of strange actually since certain places, events, scenarios, etc. I often will dream about repeatedly over the years but rarely are they ever the same thing twice.

To me dreams are more so something interesting and occasionally better then TV :-/. What most people would call nightmares I call a sense of adventure missing from life. The only time my dreams have ever worried me is whenever I have a *serious* dream, rather then something absurd…

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What is it about certain songs that can touch a piece of us? That special something that lets you build a rapport with our listening ears? My view is that it is the music that connects with a part of who we are, where we’ve been, and what we’ve been through; much like the subject of the last song-lyrics I posted goes on about.

Most people that I know, there tastes in music in some way reflect their lives. For me and one friend in particular, I’ve noted songs that we enjoy tend to be of a more ‘pleasurable-painful’ nature. Music that can make you remember the old hurts and the old joys gone by, and in some odd way let you touch base with that emotion and feel better for still being able to feel anything that all: or perhaps its just the parts of our existence just plain suck lol.

The songs that I love the most, tend not to be “happy” in nature, but more of a long sad tune. If it’s hit my playlist countless times or I take time to stop and listen to it over the radio, odds are it invokes a strong emotion somewhere.

Someday I think it would be cool to read a systematic survey that tries to map peoples experiences to their musical tastes, but such a thing would be rather tricky to get any meaningful result IMHO.

Songs about me

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I met a guy on the red eye
He spotted my guitar
and said what do you do?
I said, I sing for a living,
Country music mixed with
a little rock and a little blues
He said I’m sorry
but I’ve never been crazy
’bout that twang and trains and hillbilly thing
What ever made you want to sing stuff like that?
I just looked at him and laughed and said

cause it’s songs about me
and who I am
songs about loving and living
and good hearted women and family and God
yeah they’re all just
songs about me
songs about me

So I offered him tickets
I said you’ll see what I mean
if you show up tonight
he said I doubt you’ll change my opinion
I’ll be kind of busy, but hey man, I’ll try

Then later on when we finished our songs
about scars and cars and broken hearts
I saw him, he was standing there
right next to the stage
and he shouted
man you were right
it was like you sang those

songs about me
and who I am
songs about loving and living
and good hearted women and family and God
yeah they’re all just
songs about me
songs about me

So I’ll just keep on singing
’til I hear the whole world singing those

songs about me
and who I am
songs about loving and living
and good hearted women and family and God
yeah they’re all just
songs about me
songs about me

— Songs About Me, Trace Adkins