The Rusted Musket

Who isn’t aware of America’s desire to secularize any and every holiday into something more palatable for her pagan minority.  Alas, even though Thanksgiving does not have an Easter Bunny or Santa Claus to detract from the real meaning of the season it is not immune.  Here is my thought, if Thanksgiving isn’t about being thankful to God what then pray tell is it you’re supposed to be thankful towards?  The government, the garbage guys, the turkey, what?!  This Thanksgiving I will give thanks to my Creator for the overabundance He provides even in the midst of what we call a recession and the end of the world as we know it…

I bought the limited edition Fallout 3 that came with the lunchbox, the bobblehead, and the behind the scenes DVD exclusive. I bought Fallout 3 because I was excited for a post apocalyptic RPG shooter blend, not because I was familiar with Fallout 1 and 2. And then I played the game and it was amazing, the vault was spectacular and when I left the vaults safety I felt awestruck by the wastelands chaotic majesty. And then, what felt like seconds later, I beat the game and was totally dumbstruck. I thought I was only half way through the game! The story had just started rolling and I’d only spent about 6 hours on the main quest. I wish I would’ve known to make a hard save before telling one of the NPC’s that I was “ready to go” whereby kicking off the final mission. At the end of this last mission I died, not in the “crap I just died” kinda way, I died because the game killed me. I reloaded, I died again, I reloaded and tried to get out of that horrible chamber of endgameness, but just like the Hotel California, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. You must end the game, and your character must die. It occurred to me at this point that no matter how much I wanted it, there would be no coming back to the world of Fallout 3 after beating the main quest for this hero, even if the hero had only 40% of the side quests done. And the real kicker is the final end chamber battle and climax is so underwhelming you hardly believe it’s the same game. Truth be told, the blundering main storyline isn’t Fallout 3’s only flaw, the graphics kinda suck, the lack of different skins for special weapons is lame, and you can’t create and custom name anything a la Oblivion. Really, the neatest thing about Fallout 3 are the side quests, these are phenomenal triumphs of apocalyptic awesomeness, and worth playing.

All in all I feel so horrible about the way this game ended I’m tempted to sell Fallout 3 on Ebay while I can still get a solid $40 for it. I think I’ll keep the lunchbox and bobblehead though:)

Last night when I logged on I got the new 360 dashboard update. This wasn’t a surprise to me, I’ve been waiting for this to drop for months now. It’s awesome, the first thing you’re prompted to do is create an avatar. My avatar is amazing, it represents a cooler me, but what is even more amazing is the fact that my wife sat on the couch watching the entire process. She even said “I could get into this kinda thing”, the reader must understand that my wife does not do anything video game related, her saying that was a big deal! One of the most important features to me is the ability to load my games onto the hard drive. Lets be honest, the only time the 360 screws up is when the dvd drive conks out whereby screwing up the game with a lethal reboot crash text of “clean the disc because your stupid dvd drive is crap”. the hard drive gets rid of this. I also know the transfer rates are faster from the hard drive than from the dvd drive, this could boost performance in my opinion. Lastly, Netflix on 360 = awesome! I definitely plan on having the entire Netflix library available to me whenever I want.

My final thoughts are that the new dashboard is a sound design full of pretty colors, funny avatars, and fantastic features of which I’ve only just nicked the surface of.

Charlie Sykes has an interesting piece on the auto industry “bailout”…

As they say here, this isn’t a “bailout” of the auto industry so much as it’s a “bailout” of the UAW. Until the problems with the UAW are resolved (and yes they are major problems) this is simply a proposed loan for a few companies that will more than likely never be able to pay it back. Here’s to hoping the Republican party will hold their ground against this “bailout”…

Ach, the business model the American auto industry is using is what, 50+ years old? Might as well be a hundred. There is a saying that goes “don’t beat a dead horse” and I’d like to add something else, don’t feed it either. A bailout for a failed business plan is no different than feeding a dead horse, money won’t resurrect it…

I came across a wonderful quote by G.K. Chesterton the other day.  Take from it what you will, in the meantime, I’ll resist the urge to thoughtlessly tangentalize its brilliance…

“Why be something to everyone when you can be everything to someone“