I went for a walk on Saturday afternoon and wound up walking to the end of the Santa Monica municipal pier. I looked out at the beach and had to snap a picture.
This is what it looked like. Unfortunately, all I had with me was the camera in my phone, but it turned out okay. Actually seems to have a nice unintentional artistic lense effect. Not sure how that came about, but I like it.
I went for a walk on Saturday afternoon and wound up walking to the end of the pier. I looked out at the beach and had to snap a picture.
This is what it looked like. Unfortunately, all I had with me was the camera in my phone.
I just came across this great article on Alternet.org illustrating how the proposed tax policies of both McCain and Obama are friendlier to the super-rich than was the case during the Eisenhower administration.
Am I too old for video games?
A lot of my friends from high school are settled down with mortgages and/or kids. Most of them are married or living with their significant others. I, however, am continuing to live the life of an emotionally retarded thirty-two year-old man-boy, drifting in and out of variously addicting video games on my newly purchased PlayStation3.
As of yesterday I have acquired a Sega Dreamcast – still in its box – a gaming console originally launched in 1999. Very excited to try it out.
I was playing Gran Turismo 5 Prologue last night and I found something interesting. I was playing the online race at the Daytona Oval track for cars with 700 performance points when I noticed three players with virtually identical screen names show up in the player roster.
Their names were:
BYE_HATERS_01
BYE_HATERS_05
BYE_HATERS_10
They seemed to be engaged in some sort of cooperative play. They didn’t play well enough to have been bots, but it got me to thinking how cool it would be to create a bot for the online version of the new Gran Turismo. If anyone can shed some light on what these guys were up to, leave me a comment on this page.
I believe they were engaged in cooperative play because at the race to the finish on the last lap I was trailing behind one of them (BYE_HATERS_05 I believe) in third place. The other BYE_HATERS were well behind us. I was drafting BYE_HATERS_05 when, as we approached the finish line, he slammed on his brakes, as if in an attempt to slow me down. Such a move sacrificed his own position in the process (he neck-and-neck with another player vying for first place). Had he been successful, it might have allowed at least one of his “team mates” to pass me.
Not sure what this is about, but I’m sure more light will be shed on it soon.
UPDATE!
This particular race event was no longer available a mere 24 hours later. Could these have been moderators having a last go at the track before the event was closed? There were a lot of “wreckers” that would play on this track and perhaps a few people got upset and called Sony. “So and so isn’t playing fair! He ran me off the road.” I know I’ve felt wronged on more than one occasion.
Kyle Hayes
My friend Kyle has a blog. Kyle is The Master.
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