New Looks, New Books, and Crazy Russians...

Greetings again. Thought I'd post again. You know, just to keep you guessing...

Also thought I'd tweak the look of my blog a bit. You'll notice a nice, dark grey theme instead of the usual white one. And of course, the new header. I made a couple new headers to try out, but went with the moody one for now. Here are the others, in case you want to vote!

Mostly landscapey-type shots... but as pretty as they are, they're kind of bland. I'm looking for something a bit more edgy and angsty. I'll keep experimenting - not completely sold on the black, moody one I chose - though I do like the big ghosted letters in the blog title. Yes, I realize you can barely see the letters... that's the point! Sheesh!

It does fit my mood today, at least. Was thinking about death again. Hang on, bear with me here. Every now and then I get flooded with a realization that everything and everyone dies, great and small, famous and anonymous. How many billions of people have been born, lived, died, that we know nothing of? I really do think that death is just no big deal, in the grand scheme. Nothing to fear, in other words. It happens to everyone - how scary can it be? It doesn't take any special skill or ability. I can't picture God being that particularly bothered by it. By now, He's seen deaths by the jillions. Caused a lot Himself, if the Old Testament is to be trusted.

I was thinking about many of the Old Testament heroes, and what their trials would be like if they were alive today. You know they'd be arrested and put on trial. How many Bible Greats would be considered mass- or serial-murderers? King David would be tried for war crimes, and compared to the most bloody, brutal rulers in history... I mean, that guy personally killed A LOT of people. Elijah called down fire from heaven, which consumed 100 soldiers and 2 captains... plus single-handedly slew the prophets of Baal on the top of Mt. Carmel. Moses killed. Gideon killed. Elisha cursed those kids that mocked him, and the two bears came out and gobbled them up. Joshua. Judges. Samson, of course. Samuel hacked the King of the Amalekites to pieces with a sword. David's Mighty Men ran wild. Seems a lot of death was perfectly fine with God. That's why I tend to think that it just isn't a big deal to Him. People die by the thousands every die across the world. I wonder if it moves Him at all anymore?

Yeah, I know, I've likely talked on this before in this blog. But, hey, it's on my mind of late, what with the odd chest pains I've been having.

OK, I'll shift gears.

Question: What should a sane man do when he has a shelf-full of books waiting to be read? Answer: Buy more books, of course!

 

I stopped by Barnes & Noble today after work, to unwind by drinking a frap and wandering the wonderful aisles of books, and I saw the new KJ Parker book, The Hammer, which was released today, actually. I had a B&N gift card burning a hole in my wallet, so I snatched it up. I also looked for Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton and Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, but they didn't have either in stock. Guess I'll buy the Kindle versions...

One could possibly wonder why I'd buy the Parker book, when I haven't even finished the first book of his/her Engineer trilogy yet. What can I say? I am nothing, if not a man skating on the edge of sanity!

And now:

Something that Absolutely No One but Me Will Find Interesting: A year or two ago, the makers of one of my favorite games ever, Battlefield 2, created a new Battlefield game that was free to play online, called Battlefield Heroes, which, honestly, appealed to me NOT AT ALL, for many reasons. It was cartoony (like Team Fortress 2, another game I don't like), and it was third person. I'm an FPS guy, sorry. Anyway, the game fizzled. The good news (and the part that's interesting to me) is that they regrouped and decided to tweak the original Battlefield 2 game, which I dearly love, and are going to make that game free to play! Woot!

[By the way, when I say "free to play", I mean, you don't have to buy the game or pay to play it... you know, a free game. As in, you don't, like, pay anything. It's... uh... free!]

The reason I bring it up is that I will be contacting each of you, personally, to find out what role you'd like to play in the new BF2 clan I'm making for us. Think of it! We can squad up every night, and hit the servers, and own some noobs! Of course, I'll be Anti-tank, and lead the squad that focuses on defending control points. The rest of you will form up into 4-man squads for coordinated assaults. We'll go over the specific, targeted strategies for each of the maps, have exhaustive practice sessions several nights a week, and communicate in coded messages, based on a variation of the Nazi's "Enigma" machine from WW2, in case other clans try to hack into our practice and listen in.

Think of it! O, what fun we will have!

Speaking of crazy Russian motorcyclists with a deathwish, watch this....



Yeah, that just about made me simultaneously lose my lunch and soil myself.

I'm done with this post. Who knows what 2011 will bring? Let's find out together, shall we?

Dave