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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.

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.

So this past week I was almost on my way to Miami. My friend Dave has a contract with some states regarding disaster services, especially those that affect animals and wildlife in the affected areas. Well apparently the oil spill in the Gulf is leaking into the ocean and ending up in the Florida Keys and in Miami. I would actually love to go, it’s good money, I’d be helping out with something that is huge, and it’s Miami, who wouldn’t want to be in Miami? Well unfortunately the trip was cancelled due to three potential hurricanes coming in, otherwise I would have been on my way down there yesterday and arriving today. I may still be going down, but right now it is up in the air as to when or if I will. Oh well now it gives me time to get the drug testing done.

In other Florida news (still going to Disney in September), we did some shopping for the trip. We now are the owners of a five piece luggage set that we picked up from Walmart. If I can earn more than enough money for the trip I may invest in a new iPod for the trip, but as it stands right now in August we will most likely upgrade our phones to Blackberries, so hopefully that will be able to hold enough music for the long train ride down to Disney.

I’ve spent the last hour or so unfollowing people on Twitter. When I was first on there I had a bad habit of following everyone back, unfortunately most of those I followed back were bots so my feed is filled with automated Tweets. I try and do this a little bit everyday, but I just felt I would attempt to get a huge chunk out today, but I don’t think I even cracked the surface. I have managed to unfollow over 50 people though and I am down to under 4246 people that I am following.

I am looking for reviewers for this site. If your interested let me know and I will create an account for you to post reviews. You’d get full credit, a link to your site on the review, and the review could be posted on your site as well. Let me know if you’re interested.

I am going to end this blog on a sadder note. One of the most beloved teachers at my high school passed away a few days ago. Now when I say that he was a beloved teacher I do not mean just for my class, I mean for the entire time he was at the school, back to when he started in the 1960’s. I was a tour guide at a high school reunion and students from the 60’s and 80’s asked if he was still teaching there. Even just on Facebook, when people started saying he died, almost immediately people wanted more information and was asking everyone that knew him if they knew what happened. Now that is a sign that he truly touched a lot of lives.

I personally was only in his class a few days due to a scheduling conflict, but I tried to keep him as a teacher and always wished I could have had him as a teacher. He taught history from a Native American perspective which I always thought sounded so different than anything every other US History class teaches. Honestly I think the most time I spent with him was on a trip to the Vietnam Memorial at the PNC Bank Arts Center and that’s pretty much all I can remember of it. Honestly I wish I could remember more of it, but I think I may be confusing it with a trip to a Holocaust museum.

Mr. Donahue joins an ever growing list of people from Collier High School who have died since I graduated in 2004. Rest in peace Mr. Donahue.

E3 is this week and more than Natal from Microsoft and Move from Sony, eyes seem to be more focused on 3D. Honestly I don’t like 3D. I watched Monsters Vs Aliens for about 10 minutes in 3D a few months back and it was a pain to get the glasses on over my glasses, and if you don’t want to watch in 3D you can’t because it’s all blurry. I think 3D is just a huge waste of time.

Unfortunately with Sony bringing 3D to the PS3 and Nintendo having 3D on the DS (I wouldn’t be surprised if they somehow got it on the Wii as well), Microsoft is sure to follow the hype soon as well. In any case I am looking forward to this week with the best conference that gaming has. I will of course be doing my wrapups of stuff, I probably won’t return comments until that is over though since I know a lot of people don’t want to comment on that stuff anyway.

I haven’t gotten my pagerank back yet, although I am thinking maybe I am a PR0 as the other sites I look at who got the Google Smackdown is a PR N/A, so I should maybe see if I can raise that to a 1, or something.

I spoke with a few people from Izea at TechCrunch Disrupt regarding their latest project and how I was part of the Google Smackdown that brought down my page rank a few years ago. Ever since then I’ve wanted to get my page rank back more than ever. A few days ago I no-followed all my links in my blogs and submitted my site for reconsideration.

Fast forward to today and I am still waiting to know anything. I really want to have my page rank back. If I get it back I think I will be more inclined to add more stuff and get my site out there more. I have a lot of ideas, but without a page rank it makes it look like my site is new, and I am tired of looking like that.

In Disney news we still need around $300 for the trip, but saved up for the trip itself is over $1000 and most if not all the money I bring in is going to the trip. Hopefully this is an epic trip.

So it looks like paying back the credit cards is on the back burner for now because we are taking a vacation to Disney World. I haven’t had a real vacation for years, so this is going to be pretty big for me, and for Kris and me in general. I put the deposit down today, hopefully they will send me a receipt soon so I know how to pay the rest of the money.

We will be there from September 13th to the 18th and we will probably be leaving New York either the 10th or 11th. We will be discussing it over dinner with our traveling companions, Alicia and Dave.

From this point until we get back it is just a matter of getting as much into the savings account as we can, and if that means working 17 hour days and taking on extra work to get as much as possible, then so be it. I already have picked up an extra client and I think I will look around Sprouter for entrepreneurs to see if I can find any that I can get a product up pretty fast for them. Of course while keeping all my old clients. Hopefully everything falls into place until we leave.