Blazing Angels

Blazing Angels
Originally uploaded by Wrench Devil.

Feeling like recreating some of the major air battles of WWII? Then Ubi's Blazing Angels is for you. This game is a true smoker. It immediately immerses you in air combat.

Yeah, I know that I said that I was waiting for more Clancy titles and Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers, but this one was tooooo good to pass up.

So that's how I pretty much spent my spring break: Beating G.R.A.W. completely and flying the unfriendly skies of WWII.

I ran into some conflicting issues on the new site that I was building. So until some new software is appropriated or old software is re-implemented that project is on the back burner.

Oh, I have an XBOX related blog running over at MSN called: Independent Rebellion, but the name of it is deathpusher so maybe if you search for it you'll get to it.

That's about it from the Select-o-Matic.

Comments now enabled.

It seems that the code for comments and backlinks were a bit awry. All is as it should be now. Blogs as a species are a fickle lot, one bit of mismanaged syntax and you are thrown into the code-search abyss.

Add to that, I have done something in my settings that blocks me from seeing Flickr tags of any kind on any blog. Yes, I see and use Flash on every other page of the Internet just not Flickr tags or badges. It's something I'm working through.

Oh, Ghost Recon:Advanced Warfighter for the 360 is the shizzle my nizzle. Though a bit predictable when played through in hard mode the second time through, it is still a challenge and a great game. Given the money they spent on development and all the corporate sponsors they had (read: Dodge, Pepsi, AXE and others) they could have secured the rights to at least a sample of All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix instead of having some hack band redo the track.

The final fire-fight is a bit perplexing as well, while firing from behind cover at the enemy a couple hundred meters away, you unwittingly eliminate the main antagonist of the entire game. No special colored icon around him or anything like that, just a shot taken from long range at a silhouette at best and that's it, on to the credits. A bit of an unexpected let down.

Now it's a wait for Rainbow Six: Critical Hour and Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers for the original XBOX.

Any donations for the cause will be greatly appreciated, I'll put the PayPal donation button up later today.

Edited to add: The donations for an XBOX game were mostly a joke. Any donation made to Selec-o-Matic goes to keep the site running and to purchase better hosting and domain name acquisition. If you donate, thanks a bunch.

XBOX Arrives.

So, as you can probably guess, the new 360 arrived and all I can say is damn. This is the kind of gaming we were dreaming about 25 years ago. I've been busy on that front pretty much full time since I took it out of the box. That and things have been slow on every other front as well.

I've yet to write the book review on James Wright's work that I read. It's some really down and out stuff that never actually lets you come up for air. To call it depressing would be to shine a positive light on it. Not that he couldn't write, and not that everything has to be all shiny and happy, but damn that's some dark and lonely writing.

I also have to write an artist analysis. I'll most likely write it on Steve or Coop. I was considering Ed Weston but decided against it. I can write about any visual artist, not just photographers.

It's funny how you get away from the Internet for a few days and you feel as though you are out of touch with the whole world.

More Musings from the Madman

Something I cooked up yesterday morning... Have not thought of a name for it yet. Enjoy.

What malevolence this,

Mortality

Imposing that preference be

Made

In the sparkling dew covered

Morning

With haste and befuddled

Musings

Are we to want but for a

Handful of events?

What of eyes met,

Destinations sought,

Episodes lost? Surely

We are mocked by the Magistrate.

Icarus

Icarus
Originally uploaded by Wrench Devil.

Filled with the thrill of flight, Icarus did not heed the warnings of Daedalus, his father, and flew too close to the sun.

I was in the right place at the right time and all I could think of was the story of Icarus, as the sun blazed from behind the clouds.

Enjoy.

Constitutional Peasant...

Arthur: Old woman!
Dennis: MAN!
Arthur: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
Dennis: I'm 37.
Arthur: What?
Dennis: I'm 37! I'm not old!
Arthur: Well, I can't just call you "man".
Dennis: You could say "Dennis".
Arthur: I didn't know you were called Dennis.
Dennis: Well you didn't bother to find out, did you?
Arthur: I did say I'm sorry about the "old woman", but from behind you looked...
Dennis: What I object to is you automatically treatin' me like an inferior.
Arthur: Well, I am king.
Dennis: Oh, king, eh - very nice. And how'd you get that, then? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress...
Dennis' Mother: Dennis, Dennis! There's some lovely filth down here. Oh, how'd you do?
Arthur: How'd you do good lady? I am Arthur, king of the Britons. Whose castle is that?
Dennis' Mother: King of the who?
Arthur: The Britons.
Dennis' Mother: Who are the Britons?
Arthur: We all are. We are all Britons, and I am your king.
Dennis' Mother: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
Dennis: You're foolin' yourself. We're living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working class...
Dennis' Mother: Oh there you go bringing class into it again!
Dennis: But that's what it's all about! If only people would realise...
Arthur: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
Dennis' Mother: No one lives there.
Arthur: Then who is your lord?
Dennis' Mother: We don't have a lord.
Arthur: What?!
Dennis: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as sort of supreme executive officer for the week.
Arthur: Yes.
Dennis: But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting...
Arthur: Yes, I see.
Dennis:...by a simple majority. In the case of purely internal affairs...
Arthur: Be quiet.
Dennis:...require two thirds majority. In the case of old ladys...
Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
Dennis' Mother: Order, eh? Who does he think he is?
Arthur: I am your king!
Dennis' Mother: Well, I didn't vote for you.
Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Dennis' Mother: Well, how'd you become King, then?
Arthur: The Lady of the Lake,... [Angel chorus begins singing in background] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [Angel chorus ends] That is why I am your king!
Dennis: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis: But you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
Arthur: Shut up!
Dennis: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
Arthur: Shut up, will you? Shut up! [Grabs Dennis and shakes him]
Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!
Arthur: Shut up!
Dennis: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Arthur: Bloody peasant!
Dennis: Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?

Gamertag info.

As you can see on the right sidebar ,I have put my XBOX Live gamertag info up for all to see and add. I have a pretty long history with XBOX Live. When I renewed my XBOX Live account I could not transfer my old gamertag, which was Daishi6. If any of you were ever on my list, send a friend request and I will re-add you. I will be switching everything over to XBOX 360 later this week or at the beginning of next. So there you have it. If you play any Clancy title, you'll most likely see me. Also, if any of you are familiar with Unexpected Company, you know me very well.

Writing a sonnet.

I have written my first sonnet. I'm not a literary conformist in any sense, so all I can atribute to my work as far as being a sonnet is that it has fourteen lines. So here it is.

On Surviving
In perilous abyss and piercing brilliance, I
Through undergrowth and dust alike
With unflagging resolution
I have walked among giants.
While just a whelp, uncertainty called
Out of step and riddled with apprehension
A shadow sheltered me
From the incarceration of my own determination.
Saying, “Keep your wits about you and drive on.”
As copper jacketed hornets fought inertia
To deliver their venomous sting
Shielded in the crucible,
I was born from the Benefactors of Freedom’s equity

And forever indebted by their Sacrifice.

This could be it.

After scouring the internet for a way to incorporate categories into Blogger, I think that I have finally found it. I teamed up with Amit Upadhyay, the author and creator of labelr. To find out more about it just go to Amit's Blog. Hopefully this does the trick. I am going to use it as it stands, but later I will put everything into a drop down window. Now it's time to fire it up and see if the wheels stay on.

Thanks Amit.

Update: Amit and I are in the process of reconfiguring some things. It seems that I was showing a bit of poor Internet etiquette. When I signed up to beta his code I put http://kelvic-enterprises.com/Select-o-Matic instead of http://www.kelvic-enterprises.com/Select-o-Matic . Now, that isn't too big of a deal if you are within the Americas, but it does make a difference to the rest of the world, in a sense. Especially when writing plugins or code.

Modern Mann

On Thursday I went to another Visiting Writer presentation. I wrote a review of it for a grade and also submitted it to the University Press but I called too late for them to make room. There's always next week. So, seeing as it couldn't be published in the press. I figured that I'd throw it up for you, my loyal audience. Here it is as it was presented to the press.

Enjoy.

Thursday evening the University Visiting Writer Series welcomed Jeff Mann to the Alumni Lounge inside the Memorial Student Center. Mann writes of the beauty within nature that touches our lives in ways that many over look. It seemed, as he read from his works, that the bulk of his work is self-reflecting. As self reflecting as it is, it is also a mirror held in front of the world forcing it to recognize who and what it really is.
As I sit here and write this review, I struggle with how to word it. How do I write about issues that are foreign to me? Do I handle the review with kid gloves and dance around wording, or do I put it out there as it was presented? I struggle with the words because Jeff Mann is a gay man who writes exceptional poetry and prose.
He finds beauty, as most poets do, in the minutiae of life. However, his work is also about growing up gay in rural West Virginia and having to struggle with that. It doesn’t matter how much I sympathize or try to understand, I cannot get my head around that, because it is something that I have never had to deal with. I have had and hopefully still have several gay friends whom I have hung out with, but at the end of the day I cannot fathom with the complexities of who they are.
Jeff is an accomplished author and educator whose work is as varied and wide-reaching as the publications he is featured in. The great thing about his work is that none of it is self-pitying. He is who he is and you either accept that or you move on. His work stands on its own merits and is a testament to honesty and non-conventionalism. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading and brought from it a sense that my struggles with writing, more often than not, pale in comparison to others.
Jeff Mann is the author of four books. His newest book of poetry and memoir is Loving Mountains, Loving Men, published by Ohio University Press in 2005. I suggest picking up any of his work. It may aid you in your struggles or it may disgust you, but in the end you felt something, and that is all that art is anyway.

Justice

I'm not sure how many of you out there in the blogosphere are up on things lately, but there's a war on. As you have read or will read on my site, I am by no means a right-wing anything, but I am a Veteran of this country and regardless of whether I support the war, I support my brothers and sisters who risk their lives every day in the their fight against hate and oppression. That being said, I love it when turds get flushed and get their hands slapped for touching the handle of the melting pot. The gene pool in this country needs more Clorox.

This little turd Michael Crook had a web site where he constantly bashed the soldiers, sailors, and airmen/women of this country. Seems he was asleep at the wheel and when it came time to renew his site he got slip-shanked and it was purchased before he could renew. I support free speech and I am and have been willing to give my life in the protection of all freedoms, but this is classic.

I submit for your approval.

Justice

So, I drafted this little ditty a few days back. I had just put something up that I wanted to stay on tap for a few days, but now I guess that's over. Here it is.

Holding on.

I understand now why it is so hard for most people to move on from various times in their lives. I was just sitting here browsing around my music collection and decided to put in Slippery When Wet just because I hadn't heard it since about 1987 or something like that. When "Wanted Dead or Alive" rang through the head phones I was overcome with a sense that rarely bothers to waste its time on me. I waxed nostalgic for high-school daze. I thought of all the good times in the various places and conditions I was in during that time. I wouldn't go back to it for anything but damn those were some kickin times. I get the same feeling from "Rocket Queen" too but I listen to that one more often because it reminds me of Tim, the only non-blood brother that I would still cripple you over, and I haven't seen him since the early 90's. I miss ya man, come and see me. I'll provide the Guinness.

So, like I said, I understand the difficulty but I cannot understand not being able to let go. I mean, come on, the music will always be there for you when you want to revisit that time. And yes I admit it, I listend to the hell out of some Bon Jovi. It's hard to have a truck load of girls when Slayer is cranking through the home speakers in the back of the old Blazer, LOL.

Here's to the good old days. I'm glad they're gone, but I miss the hell out of them sometimes.
And yeah, for one brief second, without reprocussion... I'd do it all again, in a friggin heartbeat.

GET TORKED!!