The Nibbana Family

And “A Christmas Story (You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!)”…

It’s been two weeks since my birthday, and I have been silently frustrated about it since. Birthday’s are a sore subject with me. Who actually enjoys getting older after 30? It’s also hard to digest the fact as you get older you receive less recognition on your birthday. Fewer friends and family seem to even acknowledge them with each passing year. Once you have children, the center of attention on holidays and birthdays becomes focused upon them (as it should). But a culmination of events has resulted in my utter despisal of my birthday.

This last birthday was especially frustrating. I asked for one gift, tires for Kelsi’s car, because her tires are nearly bald and we haven’t had the money to replace them. Kelsi objected to this idea because it wasn’t really a gift for me. What she failed to realize is that a gift that helped her in turn helped me, as we share income and bank accounts and new tires would have eased the burden of having to figure out how to pay for them. I knew I was asking for an expensive gift beyond the scope of normal birthday presents, but I figured other family members with birthdays had also recently asked for tires and they got them. Since people didn’t agree with my idea, nothing was done, and my birthday came and went without acknowledgement.

For the past several weeks I have been quietly reflecting on my Birthday and trying to decide how to change my celebration in the future so I won’t be dissappointed. Finally, the other evening an idea came to me that was long overdue. Why do I depend on others to enjoy my birthday? Why am I hoping others will do something for me? After all, it’s my day, so why shouldn’t I celebrate it and do something for myself? So, hence forth, I have decided my birthday will be a day I will do something special for myself. And I have already decided what I will do next year.

Next year for my birthday I am going to take The Dream Car Tour. The Dream Car Tour is an opportunity to drive six different vehicles from among a stunning collection of the world’s greatest automobiles, including the Ferrari F430, F430 Spider, and 360 Spider, the Lamborghini Gallardo, Gallardo Spyder, Murcielago and Murcielago Roadster, the luxurious Bentley Continental GTC, the stunning Aston Martin DB9, the monster Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG, and the brand new Ferrari-powered 400hp Maserati GranTurismo.

For once I’m actually looking forward to my next birthday. Hopefully I won’t be a birthday Grinch after next year.

I seldomly play computer games. When I do, I get very drawn in and play really hard, quickly begin feeling guilty for ‘wasting time’ on mindless entertainment, and then quit playing just as fast. As a very logical person and computer programming hobbyist, I am also always looking for ways to beat the game by finding areas to exploit to my advantage. Back in the 90’s while playing Final Fantasy VII, I found a sequence for earning money within the game by depressing keys in a certain order. I rigged up some duct tape on my controller to hold the keys in place and 8 hours later I was rich!

A couple of months ago I became obsessed with MyBrute. The benefit of MyBrute for someone like me is that it only allows three fights per day. This equates to about five minutes of game play per day, which is perfect for preventing me from becoming obsessed with the game and puts me at ease that my competitors are given the same limitation and can’t get ahead. Still, I’m always looking for an advantage. I began looking at ways to create my own bot, or an automated script which would automatically login, go to the arena, select an opponent, fight, and then repeat the process. I wrote a PHP script using the Snoopy class which succesfully completed most of these tasks. Unfortunately, it stalled when it encountered the fight stage because the creators of MyBrute utilize Flash and require a button keypress within the Flash object. Snoopy and cURL are unable of replicating keypresses in an object such as Flash. Perhaps the creators of MyBrute anticipated this, and subsequently my bot attempt was thwarted.

More recently I became obsessed with a game on Facebook called Farmville. Farmville is a cute little game that allows you to build a farm, harvest crops, manage livestock and grow trees. As a player gains experience and money from harvesting they level up and can buy new and exciting items for their farm. It didn’t take long to figure out how to quickly level and earn money and ribbons but as the games progresses leveling becomes exponentially harder and more time consuming. There had to be an easier way! That’s when I thought about using a mouse and keypress replicator that would record my keystrokes and automate the process for me. I found an application called Axife Mouse Recorder which does exactly what I was looking for. All I had to do was record myself planting, harvesting and plowing some crops and automate the recorder to do it for me while I am away. Now I can level in my sleep.

The obvious question that may come from some of you is, “Aren’t you taking away from the fun of the game?”. My answer is no, at least not for me. Different people derive different forms of pleasure from playing a game. While you may be excited and content playing a game in a more traditional fashion, I get the most excitement from figuring out how to beat a game and finding ways to exploit opportunities to my benefit. Games are a form of entertainment after all, and I believe each person should feel free to play in the way they find most enjoyable.

Want to play a game that is free, elegantly simple and yet terribly addictive? Then head on over and dare to challenge My Brute!

Not too long ago while perusing the news on Tyler Cruz, I came across his review for My Brute. Intrigued, I accepted his challenge and gave his character a run for his money. He quickly pummeled my character and taught me a valuable lesson, but at that moment I vowed to return one day and seek revenge. Victory will be mine!

The premise behind this game is elementary. After naming and selecting your character you make your way to the arena where you can fight up to three times per day. Your character has random strength, agility and speed attributes and is given a weapon or two to begin. As you gain experience and level up, your stats increase as do your hit points and opportunity to earn special skills.

Once in the arena you don’t actually do anything but watch the screen and root for your Brute to win. There are no buttons to push or actions to take, you simply sit back and relax and let your Brute do all of the work. Initially you may think little of this mindless entertainment, but soon you find yourself addicted to the brilliant simplicity of the game and looking forward to your next battle after a nights rest. The limit of three fights per day and desire to beat your next opponent will keep you coming back for more.

So what’s stopping you? Are you daring enough to challenge My Brute?

The other night we saw Staind, Shinedown, Chevelle and Halestorm in concert. We were front row center and had the best view I could possibly ask for. We managed to catch a guitar pick from Shinedown, three guitar picks from Staind and a drumstick from Halestorm!

Kicking off the show was Halestorm, a local band from York, PA with a female vocalist and an absolute animal for a drum player. Coincidentally these two are brother and sister in the band, Lzzy and Arejay Hale, hence the band name. They did a great job of getting the crowd going and energized for the rest of the show.

Chevelle took the stage for an hour long set including their biggest hits. “The Red” was by far the crowd favorite and left the crowd roaring and ready to go for more. Personally, I was excited for Shinedown to take the stage as I have seen them live before and they put on an incredible show. Not to dissappoint, Brent and the band put on an electrifying show with their hits “45″, Heroes”, “Fly From The Inside”, and “Second Chance”. Brent’s enthusiam and interaction with the crowd was definately the highlight of the show!

Finally, Staind exploded on stage with “Raw” and continued their set with crowd favorites “Right Here, “So Far Away”, “For You”, and other hits before closing the show with “Mudshovel”. Aaron came down into the crowd to perform an acoustic set for “Outside” and “It’s Been Awhile” which was a treat for those further out in the audience. I was hoping to hear Aaron’s rendition of Pearl Jam’s “Black”, but it wasn’t to be tonight. Overall, their performance was great as they sounded incredible. My only gripe would be their stage presence, which lacked enthusiam similar to the gents in Van Halen we saw a few months back, but I had been tipped off by a friend and it was expected so I wasn’t as dissappointed as I might have been. Overall it was a terrific show!

(Staind, “Right Here” – Merriweather Post Pavillion – Columbia, MD – Jul. 9, 2009)