2010

So I put my away message up on Google, and even though we haven’t officially left yet (or packed for that matter), I am on vacation. I haven’t done any work, or put bids in on anything much today, I figure I will do that on Sunday or Monday when I get back. Either way, hopefully next week when I get back I can get some good clients or finish up some of the stuff that is pending that should lead to a decent payday.

Later today we are heading out to Ronkonkoma and tomorrow Atlantis Marine World, so hopefully I’ll get some good pictures and be able to relax a bit, since it’s been about 8 months since I had a full day off with nothing to do. I will blog when I get back and hopefully put up pictures.

I’ve been really busy with work the last few days, which is why I haven’t been blogging, though I guess I don’t really have much to blog about, otherwise I would have posted sooner. I am trying to finish up as much as I can before Friday since this weekend we are going away and I will be away from my email for a few days.

One of my clients is doing a Jersey Shore website. For the most part that show offends me as a New Jersian, mostly because the show put a bunch of New Yorkers in a house in Seaside and would have you believe that these people are from NJ. Obviously most people from New Jersey are upset about this, even the governor has come out and said it was offensive, and that is probably the only thing I would ever agree with him on. If you are from NJ then you know that isn’t even how we talk, these people act like the spoiled Gotti kids that had a show a few years ago.

I must say that I am amused by the number of shows about New Jersey that are going on television, but they aren’t true to life, most of them have New Yorkers playing New Jerseans, much like the Jersey Shore. I wish they’d follow people around Middlesex County College, or Brookdale, or Rutgers, and show what real New Jersey college aged people is like. Even just putting a camera in Denny’s or Peter Pank in Sayreville would be more accurate and possibly more entertaining than some of these shows.

No, this isn’t some new stage in my life, actually it was a friend’s birthday party this past weekend and her dream has always been to have a luau, so we went to Party City and picked up a bunch of luau supplies, including the outfit that I am wearing. She had no idea what we were doing, but she loved it when she finally got there, after being stalled by her boyfriend. I’d have more photos, but they are on my Facebook and I don’t normally carry a camera around with me anymore, so that’s why there have been a lack of pictures here for a while, but hopefully when I get a phone with a better camera, things will change.

That luau actually took up most of our weekend. We decided to do it on Saturday and while we were in Party City, we got her mom and boyfriend on board and just kind of went crazy from. It was really fun.

In a few months gamers are going to have two more ways to play video games, in the case of Microsoft, it’s going to be without a controller at all, and by using your whole body, and with Sony in a way that is much like the experience that comes with the Wii.

In Sony’s case I think they saw what the Nintendo did with their system, and then looked at what gamers were hoping for, then did a combination of what Nintendo did, with what gamers were wanting. They also have the advantage of 3D gaming, so motion controls and 3D might allow them to sell more consoles, but I don’t know anyone with a 3D television, so while in theory it does sound good, it also sounds like something that won’t be happening very soon.

Onto Microsoft, they have said time and again that Kinect is more about using an intuitive way to interact with what’s on screen. While core games haven’t been shown yet, they have promised that they will come, the question is when. Kinect isn’t just about gaming though, Microsoft wants it on computers to offer a whole new experience there as well.

Now I have played PS3, and I own an XBox 360 and Wii, when it comes to PS3, they didn’t have anything I really wanted. I would love to buy one and have Move, but unless I see some exclusive games that I really want to play, I won’t be buying the system, plus their online system isn’t that appealing. As far as Kinect goes, it does look promising, but the lack of any kind of input device seems limiting, you can’t move around freely in a game like Halo and there’s no trigger or button to press to shoot your gun. Microsoft does have the online support though, and with their video chat feature, I think that could bring in some awesome features, if it’s done well.

I think a lot of gamers feel the same way I do about these companies and what they’re trying to do. Unfortunately, until we see some exclusives for these new devices, I don’t think they will see much movement, at least not enough to consider it a game changing movement.

For some people money seems to come easy, they get it whether they need it/deserve it or not. For me it seems I get it when I have something planned. When I was going to Disney, I had money coming in from a bunch of different projects and clients, when we canceled the Disney trip that money stopped coming in. When we made plans to take a vacation out east, I got $600 from different clients. I am going to try and have things planned from now on, since it seems to be the only way I can have a lot of money come in. So far I think I want to pay off most of my bills and get two of Kris’s credit cards down to half, then get a new laptop for myself. Kris also needs a car since we only have one between the two of us and she wants one that is going to last ten years or so. Let’s see how well this works, in theory it sounds good, I suppose, let’s see if in actuality this will work.

A few days ago I put up a logo. While I do have some minor issues with it, I think it is good for the most part and really symbolizes what I am and what this site is. I will edit it, possibly this weekend to fix the issues I see with it, but I really like it.

It’s getting late and I still have work I need to complete before I can get to bed, so I should probably wrap this up, but first some questions:

What do you think of the articles so far?
Is this your first visit to LepsLair?
What do you think of the logo?

I grew up playing video games, but when I was growing up we didn’t have 3D games, or even game saves. Playing Super Mario Bros. you only had three lives to start and you had to earn more. If you ran out of lives, you had to start the game all over again. Of course we had things like Game Genie and whatnot that let you alter the game to allow for unlimited lives, but even with that it was still as hard. In World 8-1 of Super Mario Bros, you had to jump at the exact right time at a certain speed in order to make a jump, if you fell into the hole you had to go back to the middle of the level, or the beginning and try again.

Nowadays, life count is hardly ever seen and if you die, you can just load up from a checkpoint and continue. You can even stop playing the game for days and still have the checkpoint saved. You can even choose a difficulty setting on video games nowadays. Kids nowadays have no idea how hard games can be, yet if your on Xbox Live or PS3 you will always here some kid, whose testicles have yet descend, cursing up a storm about how he keeps getting killed, or can’t do certain things. Meanwhile, the kid has probably never played a game like Contra or Super Mario Bros and has no idea just how hard games can be.

What happened to video game companies in the last 25 years? Obviously Nintendo is still around, but Zelda and Mario games seem easier than ever. Ocarina of Time was much harder than Windwaker, and the original Zelda trumped them both when it came to difficulty. With Nintendo’s Vitality Censor, I fear that it is only a matter of time that games will be controlled by your heart rate and in order to win you will need to be the calmest in the room.

Maybe it’s time that a company not try and make a game anyone can play, but one for the true gamers, the ones who know what an impossible game is, one that would make kids today cry in frustration. Take away the save data, the difficulty settings, and multiple ways to do things, and just have it one way, just like in the good old days of gaming.

I seem to have money when Kris and I plan something. Paypal sided with me regarding the dispute, and I had a few payments come in today, which is nice since this weekend we decided to take a vacation to a hotel out east and then go to Atlantis Marine World one of the days we’re out there. We’re going from August 27th-29th. I’m hoping I can just have Friday off and make it a three day weekend, but that depends on clients. It also depends on bills and how we are with money I suppose, though even when we are fine with money I find myself working more and more.

I suppose it’s because I can’t really relax. I am hoping that on our vacation I will be able to at least get a little relaxing done. Yesterday I played a lot of Left 4 Dead 2, but even then I felt like I should be doing something productive, I’m not sure why I can’t just take a day and relax without thinking about work or anything important, I am sure that when/if I get the Droid 2 it will only get worse since I will be able to check my email and do some minor work wherever I am. Maybe I am just destined to stay in a productive state.

Yesterday I did manage to get something done though, I put up the articles section and I think so far that it may be confusing some people, especially since right now it is on top of the blog and no one scrolls down that far, maybe I will change that, but eventually I’d like to have them side by side I think. Either way it will be a place that I can get my thoughts out about things that are separate from the blog and sometimes more important. I will hopefully eventually have categories there too, so I will have posts on video games and other things I want to write about.

How do you define obscene? Is it something that someone should never see? Is it anything that is illegal and is scene? Is it just a matter of opinion and obscenity and varies from person to person? Now how do you define obscenity in a case where it’s talking about pornography? When it comes to porn, should obscenity be defined as something that is legal, where if it is legal to do then it should be legal to film and distribute? Is there some line that shouldn’t be crossed? How do you define something like that?

John Stagliano, a male porn star and producer, also known as Buttman, recently was brought to court regarding obscenity. How do you define obscenity though? Some people would say that porn itself is obscene, some would say anything legal should be able to be recorded and distributed. Personally I lean toward the latter.

A couple of years ago there was a website that featured something pretty extreme that went viral. Two Girls One Cup was seen by millions of people and that was never deemed obscene, at least not to the point where the creator was brought to court. For those of you unfamiliar with the video, it featured two girls who defecated into a cup, taking turns eating the excrement, and vomiting it into each other’s mouths. One could argue that the reason it was never brought to court was because it wasn’t made in America, but even if it has been made in America, there are no laws against doing anything in that video, no matter how disgusting it may be, so why wouldn’t you be allowed to film and distribute it?

So what exactly is the definition of obscenity? Well the US law defined obscenity in 1971 in the case of Miller vs. California. Ever since then in order for something to be obscene, the following three conditions:

1. The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interests.

2. The work depicts, or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state (or federal) law

3. The work, taken as a whole, lacks serious, artistic, political or scientific value.

The US law also states that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. The biggest issue I have with this whole thing is that the US Government thinks that we are all morons and don’t know how to not watch something. It’s essentially them regulating stuff that we as free Americans should be able to regulate ourselves. The government goes after the makers of these “obscene” materials, but not the people who star in the movies, or even the people who buy these movies.

Let’s think about this for a minute, say I wanted to watch 2 Girls 1 Cup, I’d go to the website and watch it and I have every right to watch it as a free citizen. If I wanted to, I’d have every right to partake in the acts in that video as well since nothing in it is illegal. If I wanted to record it and distribute it, I can’t do it because certain people think it may be too obscene. No one is forcing anyone to watch the video though. If you do not want to watch it, then simply don’t, but instead our Government has decided that you can’t do something because other people who would have no interest watching it would find it obscene.

Does anyone else feel like their liberties are being taken away more and more as time goes by?

Kris and I went to K-Mart today and I finally bought something that I’ve wanted for a while, a Blu-Ray player. I love movies, I usually watch them while I am working, so I will still stick with DVDs for the most part and Blu-Ray movies will be movies and stuff that I must have in high definition. Now the best part of the Blu-Ray drive? The price, it was only $30. It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles like BD Live, but from my experience, if it is streaming over the internet, you most likely do not need BD Live, that’s why there’s YouTube. So far I bought Hot Tub Time Machine. I am already planning on buying Lost: The Complete Series when it comes out. That might have to wait if money doesn’t come through though, since I also planning on buying the unannounced Droid 2 that is said to be released in a matter of weeks, so hopefully that happens as well.

What is wrong with people? I love how people think that since this is the internet you can just go ahead and try and screw others out of money and have no consequences because of it. In the real world when this happens someone will either be sued, or as I prefer, punched in the face. Wondering what I’m talking about? Well first let me start off by saying don’t ever work with 13 Gemini Designs, or as they are known on Freelancer, geminidesigns. They hired me to do a plugin for maxous and then more than a month after it was delivered they claimed it was broke and demanded a refund. When I refused and told them if it was broke I’d look at it, but seeing as how it was a month, it would probably be something else making it not work and my code, they put in a dispute against me on Paypal. I am still waiting to hear the outcome of it, but hopefully I will know soon whether or not Paypal will side with me or them. Hopefully they will side with me because I have proof they have lied already, they first said that they were in Australia, now they claim they are in India, so that was lie number 1, this bullshit about it not working is lie number 2 because I tested it after their claims and it was working.

In other news I am still waiting on my refunds from Disney. I got a partial refund to my Paypal account from them, but I am still waiting on the other payments I made to be refunded as well. Hopefully when that is all said and done my debt will be around $4,700 and not as high as it is now (close to $5,500).

In website news, I actually have done something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Now in the previews section there will be book previews and television previews. I hope this will be popular for people who like watching television and reading books. I’ve actually wanted to have the television previews since I put up the previews section, but up until recently it wasn’t feasible.

So I thought I would be going to Florida, bought new luggage and clothes for the trip, but I guess it’s not meant to be, at least not this year. The specifics aren’t important, it involves a surgery, some lack of funds, and just a bunch of stuff that got changed and misinterpreted. I guess a trip to Florida will have to wait a while.

In other news I had very limited work that I had to accomplish the last few days so I got the previews working again. I also set up my site’s own Facebook and Twitter accounts that will have the previews posted there. I didn’t post them on my own Facebook/Twitter account because I had some complaints that people would rather read about me and not previews, so I left it off my personal accounts. If your interested, it will mostly be site related, but you can follow lepslair at Twitter.

I am hoping the two above mentioned items allow me the opportunity to be more motivated for my site and for saving/paying back credit cards. If I can do either of these things then maybe you’ll be seeing more reviews, and whatnot. I am always looking for reviewers though, so let me know if you’re interested.

H have nothing really to blog about. I have been thinking about getting articles up on the site, but I am not sure how they’d really be different than blog posts, though I think if I could get an actual video game section up along with previews and reviews then that might be part of the solution. I still need to fix the previews section, I think when I do I will have it post to a separate Twitter and Facebook page that I’ll set up. Then work it out where only real blog entries post to my Twitter account, only because I pissed off a lot of friends with the automatic updates on the site.