In what seems to be becoming an annual event, it’s time for a new entry in the Call of Duty franchise of video games.

This year’s entry is going back to the roots of the series by moving the setting back to the days of World War II, with a heavy focus on the Pacific Rim theater.  There is also a change up in that last year’s mega-popular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) was by the design house at Infinity Ward, and this year’s version (Call fo Duty: World at War is the full title) is by a group named Treyarch.

Everyone on XBox Live has been able to download a demo for a few days now which allows you to play on three of the multiplayer maps.  As long time readers of this blog know, I am a huge fan of online first person shooting games, so I downloaded and gave the game a try.  To be honest, Call of Duty 4 has literally not left my XBox since the day I inserted it, which has been about 8 months now, so me playing anything else is a novel concept.

First impressions tell me… I’m not going to be nearly as addicted to this game, and that is if I even buy it.

To be completely honest, this game is so similar to CoD4 that it feels more like an expansion pack than an entirely new game.  I almost wonder if that is why this game doesn’t have the number “5″ in its title, it almost feels more like a “4.5″ than a wholly new game.  Sure, there are some new aspects such as the addition of vehicles in at least one level of the three they let the public sample, and at some point in the game there is the inclusion of flame throwers, but otherwise the basic mechanics of the game just feel far to close to the last game.

I will say they did add far more details to what weapons damage could do to you, which I am not sure is such a wonderful idea.  I noticed after shooting a guy with a shotgun at fairly close range that I could see his rib cage clearly where the blast hit.  At another point I got hit with a grenade and as my character fell backwards I could see his left leg was missing.  Not to mention the amount of blood that gets splattered on the “camera” when you kill people at close range.  While I understand thay are going for a realisitc approach, I’m not sure I need that much gore in a game I play to relax after a long day of work.

One of the largest annoyances, and I know this is minor, is the inclusion of the attack dogs.  In CoD4, after you would get 7 kills in a row, you could call in an attack chopper.  Well, seeing as this is WW II, they couldn’t have coptors, obiously, so they replaced them with attack dogs.  As an animal lover, I’m not thrilled with haing to shoot dogs to save myself, and my 3 real life dogs are not thrilled with the barking coming from the TV whenever they show up.  Again, minor, but annoying.

True, I am judging this game by only a small slice of it, but the basic mechanics are there, and the actual character movement even feels a bit clunkier.  I mean the way the character itself moves, I expect the weapons to be clunky and harder to manage, but the actual physics of the figure you control just doesn’t feel smooth for some reason.

Will I end up buying it?  I don’t know, I’m tempted, but I may just wait for Infinity Ward to come back to being the designers with the next installment before I once again answer… the Call of Duty.  (Stop groaning!)

It’s episode 17… Scattercast is SO out of here when it turns 18!

Okay, so it was impossible not to discuss politics this week, so I gave in!

- Short recap of the election

- Thoughts on recounts and Question 2 from Massachusetts

- A brief history of my relationship with Halloween and the costume industry.

- Election day should be changed

Only politics this week, enjoy!

Here’s

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for those who wish to download it.

Who knew Massachusetts was turning in to “the fun state”?

For a long time I have advocated the idea that small amounts of marijuana should be decriminalized.  While illegal, and not all together smart, throwing some college kid in jail for having a joint has just never made sense to me.

Prisoner #1: What you in for?
Prisoner #2: Stabbed my wife.  You?
Prisoner #1: I had a joint.
Prisoner #2: Take whatever bunk you want, man!

This past Tuesday, the voters of Massachusetts passed Question 2, which will replace the old penalty of a $500 fine, up to six months in jail and a Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) report.  The new law is:

• Replace criminal penalties with a US$100 fine of which the proceeds go to the city where the offense takes place.
• Eliminate collection of Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) reports for minor infractions.
• Maintain current penalties for selling, growing, and trafficking marijuana, as well as the prohibition against driving under the influence of marijuana.
• The law requires additional penalties for minors not in current law such as Parental notification, compulsory drug awareness program, 10 hours community service, and a larger fine of $1,000. In addition, possible delinquency proceedings for those under 17 if the requirements are not completed.

I like this. While I have always wanted the decriminalization to happen, I will admit I had never thought of keeping a fine in place, and the penalties for minors is also sensible.

Before I go any further with this, let me make one thing crystal clear: these are not the ramblings of a pot head.  Quite often when you see people going on about legalizing marijuana, you have to ignore their goofy grin and blood shot eyes, but, to date, I have never once smoked marijuana.  Yes, I did once get a “contact high” seeing as about 20 people behind me at an Guns N’ Roses/Aerosmith concert were smoking up, but oh well.  Otherwise I have never ventured past alcohol, cigarettes and too much Xbox 360.

So, why should a non-user give a hoot about the legalities of marijuana possession?  It’s a fairly simple answer in that I feel it is a horrible waste of civil resources.  Busting someone for small amounts of marijuana and jailing them takes up officer time, prosecuting attorney time, court time and resources of a jail.  In the end, we are all paying the price for someone smoking a plant, and that just is completely lost on me.

Our courts especially are already taxed beyond belief with backlogs of cases running into years, and this also adds to the workloads of our prosecuting attorneys.  According to an AP story, the new version of the law won’t take effect until sometime in December, but Hampden District Attorney William Bennett said he is already dropping all cases for possession of an ounce or less.

Opponents of the new law said that this was bad because pot serves as a gateway drug, which I have always found to be a weak argument.  I have known many people who have indulged in drugs over the years (hey, I said -I- was clean, nothing about people I’ve known), and not one of them ever said, “Oh, if I had just never smoked that first joint!”  In actuality, most of them had totally skipped marijuana and gone straight to cocaine or stronger.  (side note: Having seen someone in heroin withdrawal is probably what kept me from ever trying a drug -shudder-)

Is this going to be a perfect system? Probably not, but I certainly feel it is a step in the right direction for taking care of some of the load on courts and jails.  I also think it will save some people from having their lives destroyed due to a simple mistake that might keep them from getting into some schools and proffesions they may want to go into later in life.

In short, it’s not perfect, but I still think it’s better than what was there.

You know, I’m not naive, but talk of the 2012 election tonight even surprised me.

In a recent sketch on Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey as Sarah Palin made a joke about buying “Palin in 2012″ tshirts before this current election was even over.  At the end of the joke, she said you should wait until Wednesday to wear them.

Apparently no one got the hint.

I had to go by Walmart today, and I chuckled as I walked past the Christmas displays.  For several years now, Halloween has become the marker for businesses to go in to Christmas mode.  I still think it’s early, but oh well.  As I walked past a Christmas tree, I wondered how long it would be before we heard stratagies for the losing side in this election as they looked forward to 2012.

I started to hear the rumblings by 8 PM EST.  In other words, as the first polls closed.

I spent the evening watching Republicans throwing each other under the bus at an astounding rate, and by 1 AM EST I was hearing what sort of candidate the Republican party would need in four years as well as what they will need to do to their platform.  This was followed by, “Well, our job starts tomorrow.”

-cue me banging my head on my keyboard-

I am 100% sure we would have heard the same from the Democrats had the tables been turned, but what I am thinking is… I’m tired.  I am bone tired.  I can not take any more campaigning and politicing at this point.  I was almost angry at how I looked at tonight as a finish line more than anything else.  I felt no excitement, no emotions other than relief at this exhaustive campaign being over.  No more commercials.  No more debates.  No more press conferences.  Just completion.

Both parties need to learn that the American people can only take so much of this.  It is almost the equivalent of being held hostage by the political parties and the media.  I wish whomever the Republicans run in 2012 the best of luck, but I really don’t want to even hear their name until 2010 at the absolute earliest.  Let us rest, to catch our breath, have your one day of armchair quarterbacking, but let the American people rest… please.

It’s finally here: election day.

After what seems like the longest election cycle in history, it all comes down today.  All anyone can do at this point is to sit back and hope for the best.  No matter who wins the presidency, they have a long, hard road ahead of them due to this financial mess and fighting wars on two fronts.  While I obviously have cast my vote for one or the other (remember, I voted early), I wish both men the best of luck, and I hope they can accomplish everything they need to in office.

All of that being said… please, I don’t care if it is raining fire where you are, please make sure you go out and vote.  I would hope you vote with a well thought out process over going with your heart, or just who you like for some surface reason.  This is too important job to be decided on a whim.

Good luck to everyone out there… and prepare for the talk about the 2012 election to begin late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning… groan.

Been grocery shopping lately? Anyone annoyed you? I can almost assure you you have run into one of these people.

In general I try to do my grocery shopping at 12 or 1 AM just so I can avoid the vast majority of people you run into in the store.  Sometimes I have no choice but to go in the middle of the day, and every time I do it only serves to remind me why I don’t.

The Cell Phone User – “Oh, my phone is ringing and I am in the middle of the aisle, let me stop and answer it.”  This was my favorite for my last trip to Walmart in the middle of the day: a woman was walking down the middle of a narrow aisle in produce with two women walking side-by-side behind her.  She stops to answer her phone, and the two women stop behind her and… stand.  The woman on the phone never turns to look behind her, the two women never say excuse me, and as they stand in their little huddle, they effectively choke off three aisles.  Gee… thanks… really, I had no desire to get to the lettuce, really.

Middle of the Aisle Walker – “You know, I’m in no rush today, and I’m not sure what is in this aisle, so I shall walk down the middle of the row at a leisurely pace, taking my time looking from side-to-side.”  Sure we’ve all had those days where we want to look around, but stay to one side of the blasted aisle!  And here in the USA at least, that means stick to the right side, just like you would in traffic.

End of the Aisle List Checker – “Lets see, did I get everything?  I’ll just stand across the end of this aisle and check it… oh, I did forget something… let me continue to stand here and look up at the hanging aisle directories.”  Do I really need to say any more about this one?  Just move to the end cap for crying out loud!

The Friends – “Oh hi!  How funny we ran into each other passing in the aisle of the grocery store!  Shall we just pull up next to each other and chit chat, blocking the entire aisle?”  Once again, more aisle blocking… this seems to be a common theme.

Think of this as a sequel to Salad Bar Etiquette from earlier this year, but I think it shows a general death of common courtesy.  Pay attention to your surroundings folks, take into consideration what others around you are doing and realize they may not have any interest in watching you chit chatting, shopping or talking on your phone.  I’m not saying you have to rush through the store at super speed, but you could at least let those of us who are in a rush get around you!

Okay, I’ve complained about standard time before, but this really does annoy me each year when it rolls around.

I did finally learn why we have daylight savings time, and it still makes no sense why we are using it.  It was begun to give farmers more daylight in which to farm.  This makes me ask two questions:

1. Why does it matter if the hour is at the beginning or end of the day?
2. We are no longer an ecological based economy, so why are we still using an antiquated timing system that was created for it?

Not all of the world uses Daylight Savings Time (DST), so it makes no sense why we keep it.  Just like our rejection of the metric system makes us an odd ball in the world, so does this.  It is almost like we feel a need to go, “Well, we’re the USA and we simply can not do things the way the rest of the world does it!”

Sure, even without standard time, we would be getting dark earlier, but not quite as early.  Most people get off work at 5 PM in the USA, why make them drive home in the dark?  Also most people run errands after work, again, why make them do it in the dark?  It has also been proven that later sunlight means less energy usage, and that is why we moved the “fall back” and “spring forward” dates around so we could extend the sunlight hours for the majority of the year.  Okay, here’s a wacky idea… it will shock some, but… how about we just go to DST year round?

I know… crazy talk.

I honestly can not for the life of me figure out what the benefits are to doing this any more.  If anything, it seems to hurt far more than it helps at this point.  never mind there are reductions in vehicular accidents and violent crime rates during DST, but let us ignore all the benefits and keep going with this time changing insanity that makes no sense.  Really, please, keep us all in the dark about it! (pun intended)

As I noted several weeks ago, I voted early, but that doesn’t mean this day isn’t important to me.

I have said many times over the years that I don’t care who you vote for, just vote. Nothing irritates me more then when someone will complain about the state of the government (not just now, but dating back to when I started voting in 1989) and then you learn they never voted.  You know what?  You didn’t vote?  Then you have no right to complain.  Vote against me, cancel out my vote, I don’t care, but you have to exercise your right to vote.  Heck, I don’t care if you write a name in, knock yourself out, but just make sure you take advantage of your right to vote!

It’s amazingthe Sci Fi Channel can find the power button, let alone broadcast anything live.

Starting in 2006, the Sci Fi Channel has taken to showing live episodes of Ghost Hunters on Halloween night.  For those unfamiliar with the show, Ghost Hunters documents the investigations of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) as they hunt for evidence of ghosts and the paranormal.  Whether you believe in ghosts or not, it’s an entertaining watch, and I tune in each Halloween for the live episode.

After last night’s disaster, I may have to reconsider.

While the show started off telling us about how hard it was to set up on an island, they were investigating the civial war prison, Fort Delaware, it was still pretty inexcusiable how bad the tech side of things was.  They had lost a day of set up time due to weather, but that doesn’t explain why microphones kept cutting out, video images froze and filming near your generators is never a wise idea.

You could almost excuse the technical glitches, they were on an island after all, but the never-ending self promotion of other Sci Fi Channel shows got nauseating.  For the second year, the show was hosted by Josh Gates of Destination Truth, which he reminds you of endlessly.  Then you had Steve Valentine, the host of the new show Estate of Panic, co-hosting and going out to investigate with the team, but that also meant we got endless promotions for a second show through out the night.  Amanda Tapping, formerly of Stargate SG-1 and now Sanctuary, spent the night investigating… and clips of her new show being played repeatedly.  So, we’re at three cross promotions now and… oh yeah, for the thrid year we had a wrestler!  While all of them have been from the ECW, which airs on Sci Fi, the first two were tolerable, this year’s guy, “The Miz” was down right annoying and disruptive.

So on top of all the technical issues, we had to put up with four self-promoting crossovers with other Sci Fi shows.  However, I will say Ms. Tapping seemed genuinly interested in the proceedings and investigated for the entire show, while the others dropped in and out.

Think the problems ended with the show?  Oh no, my friends, there were more.  During the episode, we were informed about there now being a social network for fans of the Ghost Hunters show, Join The Hunt, and seeing as how I work with social networks, I went to check it out.  I tried multiple times last night to sign up, and each time I was told to try again later.  Are you kidding me?  Your servers couldn’t handle the influx of new members?  Good job, Sci Fi!  Way to lost potential members and blow a huge marketing moment.

This isn’t too say that TAPS was innocent of oddness last night.  Steve Gonsalves, the tech supervisor for TAPS seemed to be playing to the cameras last night far more than he usually does, and doing very little actual investigating.  Luckily you can always count on the main guys, Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes, being professional in their actions and investigations.

In short: Sci Fi, if you do this again, clean up the tech aspects, and fine, have a cross promotion with another show, but not with four of them!