I haven’t watched MTV since they stopped being “Music Television” and became…well, shit.  Last night, however, something actually worth watching occurred during the MTV Video Music Awards.  Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to deliver yet another rude, slightly incoherent reminder of what a giant douche he is.

I guess we shouldn’t expect more from a man who has said such things as:

“I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade.”

If this weren’t dumb enough in and of itself, Mr. West, in his phrasing, implies that a decade is longer than a generation.  His humility doesn’t end there either.  I really have no other way to lead into this than to say that what you’re about to read is so asinine that you may shit your pants in a fit of amazement at the undeniable cluelessness that the following statement displays:

“The Bible had 20, 30, 40, 50 characters in it.  You don’t think that I would be one of the characters of today’s modern Bible?”

Fucking wow.  I’ve decided to do my part.

To prevent at least one more person from listening to Kanye West’s music and to honor Taylor Swift since she got the shaft by Kanye, I went down to a second hand CD store, picked up a copy of Kanye’s “Late Registration”, and swiftly destroyed it with a Taylormade 4 iron.

Video after the break.

Read the rest of this entry

Finally, a game where I can get some practice in before the twelve year olds get really good and taunt me from all over the world.

About a week back I received an email from the PlayStation Network asking me to fill out a brief survey, thereby registering me for possible selection for the upcoming MAG private beta test. Here we are, a week later, and I’ve been selected as one of the lucky few (figure 1), beta code sitting in my inbox.  This will be my second beta test on the PlayStation 3, with the first being PlayStation Home.  Let’s hope MAG is a little more worth my time.

If you’re not familiar with MAG, it stands for “Massive Action Game”–major fail in the title department–and is an online shooter designed with a unique server architecture allowing it to support online battles of up to 256 players at once.  Shooters usually fall stale with me as they feel like the same thing over and over, but I am excited to see if MAG can accomplish this feat of scale that we haven’t yet seen in console gaming.  The game supposedly also divides players into 8-player squads, with four squads forming a platoon, and four platoons forming a company.  MAG is scheduled to be released in January 2010.

Click after the break for proof screenshots of the invite and ensuing download.

Read the rest of this entry

My girlfriend is on a streak, or she just knows me really well.  It’s pretty hard to top gifts like a leather Lord of the Rings beer mug and a Dremel, but she manages to do so. For Christmas this past year, she got me a Sony PlayStation Portable (Model PSP-2001, otherwise known as the “slim”).  Given my tinkering nature, there was just one problem.  My PSP, being one of the later slim models, contained a motherboard that, to this point, had been found to be…[Insert ominous music here]…unhackable.

…sigh…

What was a warranty voider to do?  After some research, I had found out how to tell if a PSP is hackable. There is a great forum post over on pspmod.com containing a guide on how to determine the hackability of your PSP.  I confirmed that my PSP contained the thus far unhackable TA-88v3 motherboard. I decided the simplest route would be to purchase a PSP identified as hackable from eBay, and swap out the motherboard with mine.  Upon completion, I would sell the eBay purchased PSP back on eBay with the disclaimer that the motherboard had been replaced.  It was a flawless plan, except that the aforementioned guide required knowing a lot of information about the PSP before purchasing it. I was not looking forward to Q & A sessions with many sellers asking for serial numbers and box codes.

There was, however, a simpler solution.  The guide also mentioned confirmed motherboards in certain limited edition PSPs:

Daxter Limited Edition Pack (TA-85v2/3.80 OFW)(CONFIRMED)
God of War Limited Edition Pack (TA-88v2/3.95 OFW)(CONFIRMED)
Madden 09 Limited Edition Pack (TA-88v2/3.95 OFW & TA-88v3/4.01 OFW)(CONFIRMED)
Star Wars Darth Vader Edition Pack(TA-85v2)
*Note – OFW stands for “Official Firmware”

I decided to go with the TA-85v2 motherboard. Why?  No technical reason.  I just felt that my PSP could use a little dark side with the Star Wars Darth Vader Edition PSP.  I was victorious in my online auction and was ready to swap motherboards.

Read the rest of this entry

There are rumblings in the legislative branch about possibly extending and expanding the first-time home buyer tax credit.

This post’s title originated from an odd and unintentionally humorous commercial my friend heard on the radio advertising male enhancement drugs. The commercial claimed the advertised product would make you thicker and wider. Unless your parts are shaped like a spatula, this does not make a whole lot of sense.  I was thinking about writing a post on this, but decided that I didn’t want to write about wang pills.  I decided the metaphor was appropriate to apply to the housing market, given that we’re all pretty much boned.

Speaking of dick measuring, representatives in both the House and the Senate have proposed among them five different bills affecting the current $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit, all trying to take some credit of their own as saviors of the housing market.  I applied the “popularity contest” principle to these because, despite slight variations, they all propose pretty much the same thing.

The common theme among the five bills is extension of the current credit. I can most certainly agree with this being the forefront of any initiative to modify the current credit.  Like others trying to weather an unsure economic climate, I had already made other financial plans and goals when I heard about the credit earlier this year. The prospect of getting $8,000 in return for purchasing a first home probably got many thinking about buying their first home, but it also left them scrambling.

Read the rest of this entry

I’ve decided to fight back for the sanity of web developers everywhere. Anyone visiting 2Lincolns with an 800×600 resolution will now be redirected to this page.

I spent a decent amount of time designing 2Lincolns.com catering to those users who may visit the site with a resolution of 800×600 and those who may be using Internet Explorer 5.5. After awhile I asked myself, why the hell am I catering to the 1% of people stuck in the age of free Geocities web pages and animated GIFs? Many web developers feel my pain. With the quirks and periodical noncompliance of older browsers, as well as the display restrictions a resolution of 800×600 imposes, these internet users can be a hindrance to progressive and compliant web design.

It is my duty as a member of the internet community to discourage the usage of primitive technology for the sanity of web developers everywhere.  People, update your display settings or GTFO.  If you insist on browsing the internet in 1996 style, I’ll give you the internet circa 1996. That being said, if someone is visiting 2Lincolns with a resolution of 800×600, tough shit, they don’t get to see the page everyone else does.  Instead, they get served the following page:

Click here to time travel to 1996

I’m thankful to see that the majority of my visitors are using modern browsers such as Firefox and larger display resolutions, so the negative nature of this post doesn’t apply to most of you.  Just sit back, saavy internet user, and enjoy this walk through memory lane.  Table layouts, animated GIFs, horrible color schemes, and just overall HTML hell.  You know, kinda like Myspace.