Lunch @ Ikea

This is akin to the non-story about the Washington Republican Party’s ad on Michelle Obama.

In the first case, a clear point/counter-point is made about the positions of Obama and McCain. There’s nothing cheap or underhanded at all. In the second, this is an actual quote from an Obama campaign surrogate (who happens to be his wife) that demonstrates an enormous gulf between her beliefs and those of the opposition party.

I guess being “negative” is anything that includes your opponent. Pointing out their weaknesses, foibles or differences is not allowed.

The best part (empahsis mine)?

He’s already in danger of seeming too prissy about food — a perception
heightened when The Wall Street Journal reported that the planners for Obama’s
convention have hired the first-ever Director of Greening, the environmental
activist Andrea Robinson. She in turn hired an Official Carbon Adviser to
“measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every
appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed.”

The “lean ‘n’ green” catering guidelines, The Journal said, bar fried
food and instruct that, “on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant,
each meal should include ‘at least three of the following colors: red, green,
yellow, blue/purple, and white.’ (Garnishes don’t count.) At least 70% of the
ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel
during transportation.”

Saying he is “sympathetic to late night comedians’ struggle to find jokes
to make about me,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) today issued a list of official
campaign-approved Barack Obama jokes. The five jokes, which Sen. Obama said he
is making available to all comedians free of charge, are as follows:

Barack Obama and a kangaroo pull up to a gas station. The gas station
attendant takes one look at the kangaroo and says, “You know, we don’t get many
kangaroos here.” Barack Obama replies, “At these prices, I’m not surprised.
That’s why we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his
surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, “I was expecting the
farmer’s daughter.” Barack Obama replies, “She’s not here. The farm was
foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the
American Dream.”

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Why the long face?” Barack
Obama replies, “His jockey just lost his health insurance, which should be the
right of all Americans.”

Q: What’s black and white and red all over? Barack Obama: The New Yorker
magazine, which should be embarrassed after publishing such a tasteless and
offensive cover, which I reject and denounce.

A Christian, a Jew and Barack Obama are in a rowboat in the middle of the
ocean. Barack Obama says, “This joke isn’t going to work because there’s no
Muslim in this boat.”

From Americans for Tax Reform:

Definition
Cost of Government Day (COGD) is the date of the calendar year on which the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on the federal, state and local levels.

Cost of Government Day 2008
Cost of Government Day for 2008 is July 16. Working people must toil on average 197 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government. In other words, the cost of government consumes 53.9 percent of national income.

Title IX has been a massive failure, harming sports programs across the nation under the guise of fairness. Instead of increasing access for women in sports, it’s been responsible for the gutting of male sports programs in schools that do not have enough women interested in that particular sport.

The thought that Title IX might be applied to academic programs is frightening. See Jessica Gavora’s book “Tilting the Playing Field” to see how “great” Title IX has been. Implementing this in academics will mean a further dumbing down in the sciences, something we can’t afford to do with job competition from China and India.

I think McCain will incrementally continue to close the lead for four
reasons: The hope and change rock-start moments are waning, and replaced by a
new Obama composite:

1) Obama flips in furious fashion; the only controversy is over when the mutations will stop, and how well he can convince his base that they are only cosmetic adjustments of limited duration necessary for election and the implementation of their shared European-like agenda.

2) Obama is proving messianic; all the lectures about fainting, the Brandenburg Gate, his new seal, open-air address in Denver, oceans receding, etc. are cementing a portrait of a megalomaniac. Almost everyone has by now ‘disappointed’, or ‘disrespected’ Obama, or is not the fellow prophet that Obama ‘knew,’ ‘remembers’, or ‘recalls’. His sermons on our SUVs, lack of language fluency, diet etc. are as
hypocritical as they are sophomoric, and confirm Michelle’s summation of the
rest of us as ‘unaware, uninformed.’

3) Obama is ruthless — the numbers of those thrown under the bus — Wright, his grandmother, Ms. Power, former aides — are now resembling speed bumps. This is not unusual in politics, but contradicts the Sermon on the Mount imagery, and confirms the past narrative of his take-no-prisoners political ambitions.

4) Obama has a poor grasp of history, geography, American culture, and common sense — whether the number or location of states in the Union, basic facts about WWII or where Arabic is spoken, or his sociological take on Pennsylvania, etc. His advisors realize this, and are playing 4th-quarter defense by keeping him out of ex tempore, non tele-prompted hope and change venues, where his shallowness can manifest itself in astonishing ways.

The result of these trends is to sow doubt in the American electorate about an otherwise charismatic and electrifying candidate in a year tailor-made for Democrats. In itself, the fissures in the Obama porcelain are not enough for McCain to win: he must focus his message on four or five issues — winning the war on terror, the radical change in Iraq that promises victory, cutting spending and reducing American debt, developing traditional energies in a can-do fashion, as we transition to electric, solar, wind, hydrogen, flex, green etc. power, and closing the border now-discussing the contentious issues later — as he contrasts these with the amorphous always changing opportunism of Obama. He can’t do that via dueling set-speeches; he doesn’t do as well on the teleprompter and the media will always amplify that in their selection of clips. But in town-halls, the debates, and in interviews, he can draw the distinctions.
The longer the campaign, the more it benefits the older candidate rather than
the vigorous, but green youngster.

Flagship Studios’ entire staff fired, all intellectual property lost: ”

Filed under: PC, MMO, Business

A bit of clarification recently surfaced regarding the closure of Hellgate: London and Mythos developer Flagship Studios — though we’d heard from an unnamed source that Flagship would be shutting its doors and letting go of ‘nearly everyone’ on the payroll, Flagship community manager Taylor Balbi recently explained that the entire staff has been fired with a 30-day pension, paid for out of the pockets of the studio’s higher-ups.

The studio’s intellectual property has been turned over to two companies who had invested in Flagship throughout its short lifespan, with Mythos going to Korean gaming developer HanbitSoft, and Hellgate: London going to Comerica, a financial services company based out of Dallas. It’s expected these two companies will work together to continue Asian development for these two titles — though it’s unclear whether the uber-charming Mythos will ever hit North American shores.

(Via Joystiq.)

The final boss battle was done particularly well, with it being challenging, realistic (within the boundaries set by the game) and varied. Done in three phases, I thought phase three was fantastic, and it lead to a little mini level after that evokes some of the scenes and ambiance used by Ubisoft later in Assassin’s Creed.

I can now mark this off my list.

And I can move onto the next game, which will likely be The Witcher, which I just received via Goozex this weekend.

Using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine is both a blessing and a curse for this game, as it helps it look fantastic, but damn if it doesn’t run horrible on a system that should easily support it. I played around with it for a bit after installing it to see what I thought, and so far I’m quite pleased with it.

From what I recall, it’s based off an eastern European IP, and its big contribution is the implementation of moral ambivilance. Previous titles in this genre tend to make you choose between good and evil paths, but evidently The Witcher eschews such conventions in exchange for a more “build your own morality” system.

It hasn’t really come into play yet, especially in the introductary levels, but they seem to have built (at the very least) a well presented interface and have placed enough hooks in the story to engage me. That alone says a lot and bodes well for the game. More as I play it, or as I abandon it for better ways to spend my entertainment time.