I respect the fact that developers spend a lot of money and put a lot of time into creating great games. I am completely willing to put up my $50 for a new title. I am not willing to be treated to third party software installs on my computer, EULAs that effectively eliminate any rights I may have to use that software or dictate how I may do so after I�ve paid my money or in short, be treated like a criminal while the individuals who do pirate your software enjoy a better user experience.

Ben goes on to quote an EA rep from their forum, which pretty much sums up why EA is the devil

Be nice in your forums. The below quote is a perfect example of not being nice. It shows only that you would willingly take away a paying user�s ability to play a game based on words they would say.

Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you�d actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It�s all one in the same, so I strongly reccommend people play nice and act mature.

All in all, we expect people to come on here and abide by our ToS. We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but its what we have to do.

Those banned will stay banned, but like most other internet services, its not that hard to create a new fake e-mail account. However, its a lot harder to get a new serial key =)

I�m glad that smiley is in there or this slap in my face would sting a lot more. In short, don�t punish us for buying your software.

This really is a good read, and I highly recommend any gamer chooses to speak out about the way we’re treated.

An open letter to Electronic Arts – because voting with my wallet isn�t enough.

2000 Jetta GLS 2.0
Fully loaded
98k miles

A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in the conversation over dinner? That’s the nerd working on his project in his head.

keyboard

It’s unlikely that this project is a nerd’s day job because his opinion regarding his job is, “Been there, done that”. We’ll explore the consequences of this seemingly short attention span in a bit, but for now this project is the other big thing your nerd is building and I’ve no idea what is, but you should.

At some point, you, the nerd’s companion, were the project. You were showered with the fire hose of attention because you were the bright and shiny new development in your nerd’s life. There is also a chance that you’re lucky and you are currently your nerd’s project. Congrats. Don’t get too comfortable because he’ll move on, and, when that happens, you’ll be wondering what happened to all the attention. This handbook might help.

Regarding gender: for this piece, my prototypical nerd is a he as a convenience. There are plenty of she nerds out there for which these observations equally apply.

RandsInRepose

On the girlfriend forefront, I can officially say that Justine makes me happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Sure she’s not the skinniest or “hottest” girl I’ve ever dated, but in my eyes, she’s drop dead beautiful, and I can say that I love her and mean it. She keeps me level headed, she talks to me, and knows what to say. We have a creepy parallel thinking on just about everything, and by that I mean, we literally blurt out the same thing at the same time after one of us finishes talking. It’s really odd. The mental, physical, and soulful connection of this relationship is mind boggling. Sometimes I really just want to cry because of everything. Cry in a good way. I feel I may finally have my family. She loves me, and for the first time in my life I can actually FEEL it.

Justine met Zie a couple of weeks ago. She really likes her, which is a huge relief. I know it’s a little weird, who knows how somebody will react to an offspring when it’s not their own. She took it really well. I’m happy about that.

We launched our new company a week ago, which is one of the reasons I’ve been MIA the last month. The preparations to get everything ready, then the actual equipment move and now the hellish work schedule is slowly killing me. The cost of doing business I guess. It will alleviate soon enough. Hopefully that dollar figure will follow for sure this time…

Cathy’s grandmother had a stroke at some point this week and she took the baby to Trenton this weekend (2/2, 3, 4) so there’s another weekend I didn’t see Zie. I feel bad for her grandmother, but I don’t know if I feel bad for the family. They use the only successful person in that family and nobody does anything for themselves. It’s not right. It’s not that it’s their “culture” Hispanics can be very successful, I’ve seen it. But I’ve gotten fucking used over and over again by that family. I don’t feel bad. Maybe this will be a cruel wakeup call. Mommy won’t be able to take care of you forever. People die. Get over it. Grow the fuck up you god damned lazy bastards. Get a job.

MDK. Oh how I miss you so. I just don’t have enough time to dedicate to PE at the moment. I’m not gone. Not by a long shot. Justine wants to play PE so I’ve been trying to find the time to get my spare PC up to par and we’ll get her in. The working 14-16 hours a day is really impacting my gaming.

I have, however, picked up Guitar Hero II. I can play 3 songs then goto bed. It’s quick and SO MUCH FUN. My left wrist is killing me tho. Accelerated carpel tunnel, but hey it was worth it lol

I’ll be getting the gallery up today hopefully, look for it. I’ll try to keep this updated a bit more often, it’s hard to find the time. C`ya!