Friday, September 26, 2008

I don't know a lot about economics. . .

I understand the basics of supply and demand, and I understand that you shouldn't spend more than you have to spend, and that is more or less it. Thus, I have a rudimentary understanding of the current economic problems that are going on, but I probably do not understand some of the finer points. However, I have to say Ron Paul makes a whole lot of sense.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Published Again :)

At least technically anyway. No money exchanged hands, but they do have a moderation process which means they don't put up anything so I count it. I have two items that were published to the website youthministry.com

One is a "freebie" and is actually featured on the websites main page. You can find that here: Prayer Road


The other is an article adapted from a seminary paper that is related to youth ministry and you can read that here: Sacramental Theology, Baptism, and Youth Ministry.

If you follow the links and check those out, you can rate what I wrote with five stars and leave comments saying how awesome I am :)

Sunday, September 07, 2008

30 x 30

As of yesterday there are 30 Xbox 360 games that I have played for at least 30 days. That seems like a milestone number for some reason, even though marking milestones in such things is sort of odd. I know this little statistic because the day after I got a 360 I signed up at 360 voice, so along with my Xbox having a blog it also tracks how many days I play a game. Thus, I know there are 30 game that I have played for 30 days. Obviously that is a lot of days and time. So I thought I would share with you the games with how many days (and how they got there) and a VERY short description.

1. Gears of War (187 Days)
For most of 2007 this was the game I played most nights. I have some Xbox friends who were big into this game (and still are actually), every night they sent invites,and I accepted them more often than not. I got fairly good at this game, and gained a reputation for being sneaky.

2. Pac-Man CE (96 Days)
I don't watch a lot of TB, but I really like listening to podcasts, and playing games while doing it. This is the first of many "podcast" games. I got obsessed with beating my high score and eventually leveled out just over 300,000.

3. Halo 3 (96 Days)
I swear I have not played this game that much, but the numbers don't lie.

4. GRAW 2 (86 Days)
I really like GRAW 2, but most of my xbox friends passed it over quickly. That means that most of those 86 days were spent with my brother or by myself with the general public. GRAW 2 is probably the online game that I have played solo more than any other.

5. Call of Duty 4 (82 Days)
So four of my top five most played games are online shooters, It is probably a good thing I do not own a gun or I would probably be on some sort of watch list.

6. Rainbow Six (80 Days)
Oops! make that five of my top six games are online shooters . . .

7. Catan (79 Days)
This the the video game version of Settlers of Catan. I am guessing about 20 of those 79 the rest are all Abigail

8. Zuma (74 Days)
This is a game about a frog shooting marbles from his mouth, and this is all Abigail.

9. Call of Duty 2 (72 Days)
This is the first game that I played a lot on the 360. I even finished second in a tournament, and I have played it a lot with my brother in sniper duels.

10. Pinball FX (68 Days)
A lot of games on this list are short time waster games, like this one. I have played it for 68 days, but I bet on most of those days I did not play it for more than 15 minutes.

11. Geometry Wars Evolved (67 Days)
Another time waster game AND podcast game. I would think that with 67 days of playing I would have been a lot better than I am.

12. Oblivion (62 Days)
I have technically played other games on more days, but by hour count (well over 100) this would be much, much higher up on the list.

13. Carcassone (43 Days)
That is a big drop in count of days! Carcassone is another board game adaptation, and it is the fist game I got all the achievement for.

14. Rock Band (42 Days)
Nearly all 42 of these days were spent rocking out with Abigail.

15. Guitar Hero II (41 Days)
And sadly nearly all 41 of these days were spent rocking out on my own.

16. GRAW (41 Days)
I got in on the tail end of this game. I might have played it more, but 2 months after I got it, Gears of War came out.

17. Call of Duty 3 (41 Days)
Call of Duty 2 and 4 are much better than this one, but an excellent online mode called War was enough to make me play by myself enough days to get it this high.

18. Galaga (40 Days)
Another time waster game, that I did more than waste time in. I know there are a few Friday nights where I played this one for HOURS trying to get a higher score.

19. Ms. Pac Man (40 Days)
Everything I just said about Galaga, copy and paste it here.

20. Forza Motorsports 2 (38 Days)
This is a realistic racing game, that I played exclusively during podcasts. It also advances at a snails pace and is dreadfully boring. I really should not have played it this long to begin with.

21. Small Arms (37 Days)
This unique online arcade shooter only had a brief hayday (like a month and a half) but I played it a lot during that time and was fairly good at it.

22. The Orange Box (35 Days)
This is an excellent collection of games, and Team Fortress 2, the online portion rocked. I would have played this more if my Xbox had not died in February. By time I got it back, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 was coming out and most of the players had moved on.

23. Centipede & Millipede (35 days)
Another game that I played in five minute increments. There is no way to find out but I bet the total time played for those 35 days would be under three hours.

24. Bladestorm (33 Days)
I liked this quirky game, but it really lost its focus and proceeded at a speed that makes sloths seem fast. After 33 days (with 1-2 hours each of those 33 days) the fun was gone and I kind of quit playing annoyed that the game seemingly never ends.

25. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (31 Days)
I have a soft spot for Mortal Kombat 3. . .I must considering this was like the fourth iteration of the game I have bought.

26. DiRT (30 Days)
This is an off-road racing game that make me very happy that I have a HD TV

27. Astropop (30 Days)
This is annoying block busting game that is all Abigail.

28. Time Pilot (30 Days)
This is an old school arcade game that I got addicted to on the DS while waiting for my 360 to get repaired. After getting the 360 back I immediately downloaded it, so that I could see where I am on the high score board.

29. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (30 Days)
This is kind of disappointing because I want this game to be higher. I really like it, but the people I game with moved on from it quickly and an odd glitch with my ISP makes it so I can't play online with the general public. I recently traded it in to get a game I can play with my brother.

30. Lost Cities (30 Days)
This is a video game adaption of a popular card game. Those 30 days are probably fairly evenly split between the two of us.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Epic Pwnage!

John Stewart rocks my face off, and this video is so full of win:




This video really picks on the Republican political pundits, but the democratic ones do the same type of things. The real question is why does a media that claims it strives for objective, journalistic integrity allow these people air time in the first place.