by Matt | Oct 28, 2004 | Personal
Oh my. Ohhhh, it feels so good. If you’re not a Red Sox fan you don’t fully understand. “So what, they’ve just won the World Series…” other people might say. Yes, while it’s true that this is a yearly event and having a winner isn’t an accomplishment in and of itself, what these people don’t realize is the magnitude of this event. Let me put it another way: My grand-father, rest his soul, was born, lived his whole life as a Red Sox fan, and died, having never seen them win. All the heart break, all the “almost” moments, all that was swept away in a single instant. This team is more than a team. They are representative of the spirit of the people of Boston and Red Sox fans everywhere. Everyone who ever said “this is our year” only to be disappointed at the end of the season. Just think about all the great players who played and never accomplished this. Ted, Yaz, Fisk, Pesky, the list goes on and on.
Somewhere, Ted Williams is celebrating.
Yes, there IS joy in Mudville. Beautiful, well deserved, joy.
by Matt | Oct 27, 2004 | Imported Entry
Angry Matt was on a long extended vacation… until today. I had a long day at work that more or less involved me fighting off swarms of angry fleas. Yes, fleas. Our studio is invested. The pest control guy has come out twice and each time he’s sprayed they’ve only gotten worse. So, I’m itchy, which makes me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m itchy. Then, to make matters worse, we have to take a bridal portrait outside, where the fleas live. You can imagine my joy. Add to this the fact that I came in at 9am, 2 HOURS sooner than our first appointment and far earlier than I was supposed to, after being told I needed to be there that early because we had a 9am appointment. I’ve also had NO coffee at this point. The day isn’t going well.
So, I leave work around 5:30, head towards the highway and prepare to fight rush hour traffic to get home. It’s at this point that a black Lexas 330-something cuts me off. Fine, I’m used to this, people in that neighborhood are more or less “gangsta” and really drive like fuck-wits. So I let it go. A few stop lights later, the black Lexas has gotten into a different lane and is now beside me. As that light turns green and I turn left to go onto the highway, the black Lexas shoots out, cuts me off and gets in front of me. As I feel myself getting angrier I think “it’s ok, maybe he doesn’t know where he’s going”. That thought is quickly forgotten. Being now at the top of the on ramp, he’s AGAIN gotten into the lane beside me. I got to the stop sign first, so, after cross-traffic passes, I go. Oh, but the Lexas has other ideas. Coming AGAIN from the lane beside me, he guns his car past mine ON THE SHOULDER of the on-ramp. I lay on the horn because, since it’s a one lane on-ramp, there’s really no room for the two of us. Then this fuck-wad has the nerve to slam on his breaks and German-Break me. I flew off the handle. I couldn’t take it anymore. Once, fine. Twice, ok. Cut me off THREE times and you’re going to die.
It was at this point I looked over and caught sight of this asshole. It wasn’t the mean, gun-packing gangsta’ I figured it would be. No, instead it was a 40-ish, white collared, suburbanite, white bread fuck face on his cell phone.
I considered, all be it only for a second, plowing my car into his and pushing him off the road. That thought actually crossed my mind. So did following him to wherever he was going and beating the ever living shit out of him.
But I didn’t.
I did what any other good New England trained driver would. I got along beside him, rolled down my window and yelled at him. I can’t really remember what I said but I think some of it involved taking his life with my shoe. Or at least cramming it into the deep recesses of his rectum.
It took me a few minutes to calm down after that. Thankfully it was rush hour so I had plenty of time to sit and stew in traffic.
Not that big, think they’re tough gangster types get some sort of free pass to be assholes, but it’s more expected from them. I don’t really expect that sort of driving from a pompous middle aged cracker. Wait, yeah I kinda do.
You know what, fuck’em. Fuck’em all. All you Lexas, Audi, Jaguar driving mother-fuckers deserve to die. Sometimes I really wish I was in charge of things, because then, these scum would be hunted down and thumped with an iron fist of common decency. Just because you drive what you think is a nice car doesn’t give you open range to be a raging asshole on the road. So, now it’s official. I’ve declared war on these people. These butt-logs with legs.
Die!
by Matt | Oct 21, 2004 | Imported Entry
by Matt | Oct 21, 2004 | Personal
Now THAT was a game. I didn’t want to talk about it and jinx it, not when they were playing the Yanks, but damn. Yanks got farking OWNED!
Tessie is the Royal Rooters rally cry
Tessie is the song they always sung
Tessie echoed April through October nights
After serenading Stahl, Dineen and Young
Tessie is a maiden with the sparkling eyes
Tessie is a maiden with the love
She doesn’t know the meaning of her sight
She’s got a comment full of love
And sometimes when the game is on the line
Tessie always carried them away
Up the road from Third Base to Huntington
The boys will always sing and sway
Two! Three! Four!
Tessie, Nuff Ced McGreevy shouted
We’re not here to mess around
Boston, you know we love you madly
Hear the crowd roar to your sound
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Tessie, you are the only, only, only
The Rooters showed up at the Grounds one day
They found their seats had all been sold
McGreevy led the charge into the park
Stormed the gates and put the game on hold
The Rooters gave the other team a dreadful fright
Boston’s tenth man could not be wrong
Up from Third Base to Huntington
They sang another victory song
Two! Three! Four!
Tessie, Nuff Ced McGreevy shouted
We’re not here to mess around
Boston, you know we love you madly
Hear the crowd roar to your sound
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Tessie, you are the only, only, only
The Rooters gave the other team a dreadful fright
Boston’s tenth man could not be wrong
Up from Third Base to Huntington
They sang another victory song
Two! Three! Four!
Tessie, Nuff Ced McGreevy shouted
We’re not here to mess around
Boston, you know we love you madly
Hear the crowd roar to your sound
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Boston, you are the only, only, only
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Red Sox, you are the only, only, only
“Tessie”
by the Dropkick Murphys
Long live the Red Sox. Long live Red Sox Nation.
We Believe.
by Matt | Oct 20, 2004 | Games
Well, I’ve done it. I broke down and pre-ordered HL2 through Steam. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m the one that hated Steam. Well, curiosity got the better of me and I have to say that for the most part I’ve very impressed. Having last used Steam two years ago simply as a game update client I thought it was doomed to die a slow, laggy death. They’ve done right and really fixed the major issues it had.
So, immediately after preordering Half Life, all the games that come with it immediately appear in your “my games” section of Steam. From there you can choose what to load/preload, play, etc. I started the HL2 preload as well as the CS:S and DoD preload. I left it all running, went to bed, and when I woke up I had 6Gs worth of stuff on my hard drive and it was telling me CS was ready to play. Shit, I couldn’t resist an invitation like that, so I fired it up.
Let’s get to obvious out of the way. This is NOT Counter Strike 2. It’s simply a rehash of everything from the original, tweaked, and brought into DirectX 9 land. The map layouts are 99% identical. I fired up cs_office and knew right where to go. That doesn’t mean that they’ve left everything as is, just that the “flow” of the levels hasn’t changed. Basically everything got a nice polish and a cleaning and everything that changed engine wise was updated. For example, the glass shattering on Office, the water on Aztec, that sort of thing. Also, as a side note, I don’t know what sort of fetish Valve has developed but everywhere they had blank space they put in oil barrels. There’s hundreds of them, it’s kinda weird.
Anyways, I figured you guys might like some screen-shots, so I fired it up for a few quick minutes here on my “fast as heck” work machine. If I’m going to show you screen-shots, they might as well be nice ones, right? The descriptions precede the image link. I’m too lazy to make thumbnails, sorry.
CS Havana:
Cool street lighting effects – Image
Same – Image
Sunlight effect on center courtyard – Image
Glass window effect, no longer shatters as a “sheet” of glass – Image
Same glass, shot again, not how “pieces” break off – Image
Ooops… umm, showing the “physics”, yeah, that’s it… – Image
DE Aztec:
CT start area facelift – Image
Everyones favorite bridge (notice the water below) – Image
Site “B” is a bit prettier – Image
I like the new C4 model – Image
My favorite CS gun, the “commando” and all the realistic bullet holes it makes – Image
DE Cobble:
T start area, a bit updated – Image
I like what they’ve done with the place – Image
Area “A”, same improvements – Image
Area “B”, same thing – Image
DE Chateau:
T start area, nice water and grass – Image
On the way to site “A”, damn nice looking water – Image
DE Dust 2:
T start area. Look, stuff in the distance! *gasp* – Image
Interior hallway, notice the “light particles” and floor shine. Spiffy! – Image
Some things don’t change much – Image
Tunnel view – Image
Apparently Dust is in the ghetto – Image
Thats about it guys. Hope you liked those. I don’t really see CS pulling me away from DC, especially not with DC Final being out now, but it will be a welcome break and a trip down memory lane. I can only hope they do an equally nice polish on Day of Defeat. With all those water effects and smoke effects in the engine, they could really make DoD look sweet. We’ll have to wait and see. DoD:S should be out before Christmas but after the launch of HL2. I can’t wait. November 16th is just around the corner, and I have 5Gs of HL2 on my harddrive. It’s taunting me.
Matt out.
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