JawsBlog

It looks like VH1′s series “I love the 80s–Strikes Back” may have been onto something.

Classic Video Games Make Comeback

When Rob O’Hara needs a serious video game fix, he unwinds a black rubber joystick and plays a few rounds of “Space Invaders” on his Atari 2600, vintage 1982.

The 30-year-old networking engineer owns newer Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube consoles, but for a true gaming geek like O’Hara, nothing tops the blocky graphics and simple sound effects of retro video games.

“Playing games was a big part of my childhood,” says the Yukon, Okla. man. “Back then, it seems like games were more family-oriented, and as a result, families ended up playing a lot of games together.”

O’Hara is no relic in his love of 1980s electronic nostalgia.
Nintendo Co. recently released eight classic games for its portable Game Boy Advance, including “Super Mario Bros.,” “The Legend of Zelda,” and “Excitebike.” Along with the $20-apiece games, the company also released a $100 Game Boy Advance system styled after its original Nintendo Entertainment System.

Those were the good old days, no? I’ve still got my old 8-bit Nintendo (with the Zapper and PowerPad too)–it brings back so many good memories. Nintendo should perhaps make a special limited -release of the old 8 bit system—how cool would that be? If they do, they better bring back Tecmo Bowl–because that game was awaesome!

The Original Legend of Zelda was also one of the greatest games that I can ever recall.

Zelda and Tecmo Bowl…..life didn’t get much better than that.

Today has already started off on a bad foot here at home. The house is freezing cold (I wonder what the thermostat is down to–and who set it that low). Then my little brother has sucessfully managed to (already) drive me nutz, and I’ve been awake for, oh less than 90 minutes.

Today just feels like one of those days on which I feel like I woke up on the wrong side of bed…problem is, I can only roll out of my bed to one side….sigh….welcome to my life

Maybe going to the gym will help me feel better

Let’s hear it for the IDF!

According to the Jerusalem Post, Not only did they wind up locating the wanted Nablus Tanzim head Nayef Abu Sharkh, described by Palestinian security sources as Israel’s most wanted militant in the West Bank but in the course of a firefight, the IDF Paratroopers liquidated him!

but wait–there’s more!

As things would have it, the IDF trooops lucked out–the terrorist slimeballs were actually having a little get-together when the good-guys happened to come across them. The IDF knocked off five other terrorists simultaneously! These other bastards were members of all Popular Front and Islamic Jihad senior members.

Among them were The terrorists killed include Jafer el-Massari, the commander of Hamas’ military wing (Izzadin El Kassam) and Fadi Bagit, the commander of the Islamic Jihad’s El-Quds (Jerusalem) Platoons.

I’m not sheding any tears over their departures.

The celebration is going on over at Emperor Misha’s –so go check it out.

It’s an indisputable fact of life…the Yankees Suck.
Now there’s an anti-Yankees alliance being formed in the blogsphere
Do your anti-Yankees duty and enlist today!

So a lot has been made out of Cheney’s remark(s) to Sen. Lehey on the Senate floor (not during a Senate session) the other day.

Personally, I’m still chuckling about it. Perhaps that’s just a result of my twisted sense of humor, but I see the light side of it.

Apparently Cheney has no regrets for what he said, telling Fox News’ Neil Cavuto:

“I felt better after I said it,” Cheney told Fox News Channel today. “A lot of my colleagues felt what I said badly needed to be said.”

Which leads to the question–was Cheney’s cursing part of a prescribed medical plan to lower his stress levels and thus keep his heart functioning?

However, I didn’t expect someone like Cheney to curse….rather I thought the first one to break out some F-Bombs would be “Rumbling” Rummy. I came to that idea by watching the way he deals with the Press (who we all know he’s got a great relationship yet). The smattering of some choice words in his responses would really solidify the entertainment value of his press conferences.

But why is the media making such a big deal out of this one statement by Cheney? Is the news cycle really that slow?

Thanks to OF Jay, my blog has been upgraded to WordPress v1.2

I’ve also attempted to fix the time/date presentation, to reflect the fact that I’m in the EST Zone, rather than the GST (which the blog was previously posting)

As such a post or two from last night (early AM today) may have been misplaced, so just scroll down. That’s all!

I’m just getting the chance to blog for the first time all day right now (sorry today was a day when things became uber-FUBAR right when I woke up).

I think I’m going to have to blog about AlGore’s latest rant–I’ve not yet read it, but just the annoucement sounded promising.

While at the gym today I saw an ad for Michael Moore’s latest waste of film–yikes, it seems really wacko. And no, I’m not planning on wasting money to go see the film in theater. (Simultaneously, I can’t recall the last time I went to a movie in a theater it’s been so long).

Okay, I’ve got to go out and pick up dinner for the family. It’s salad night (yay!) and I ordered the “Jane Fonda” (and I’m so tempted to put Hanoi in front of the name, but I’ll resist).

It looks like contrary to popular rumor, Dick Cheney is actually alive and not a robot!

Cheney curses senator over Halliburton criticism…
VP to Sen. Leahy: ‘F**k You’… Nearly a dozen senators witnessed…

First Kerry cursing in Rolling stone, now this! It’s good for a laugh among other things

Woah! Gore really flew off the handle in his speech today.
Was it broadcast on TV (C-Span perhaps) or anything?

I’ve not had time to go through the whole speech, but I’m sure it’s extremely ripe for a fisking. But virtually half the blogsphere has chimed in on the speech, so you can find interesting stuff elsewhere (sorry, I’m too tired to link to things tonight)

What’s with this thing about the “brown shirts” though? AlGore–you’ve already broken Godwin’s Law…that was fast!

I was very shocked to read this story in today’s news:

Felons Paid in Voter Registration Drive

A Democratic group crucial to John Kerry’s presidential campaign has paid felons — some convicted of sex offenses, assault and burglary — to conduct door-to-door voter registration drives in at least three election swing states.

A review of federal campaign finance and state criminal records by The Associated Press revealed that the names and hometowns of dozens of ACT employees in Missouri, Florida and Ohio matched those of people convicted of crimes such as burglary, forgery, drug dealing, assault and sex offenses….

Now I’m all for rehabilitating some criminals and giving them second chances, but I do not feel comfortable knowing that there are felons, including sex offenders, who may be coming around my neighborhood. Not only that, also the idea that they would be obtaining personal infomration makes me rather uneasy.

I wonder what the NIMBY (Not in my back yard) crowd has to say about this? And what about the rest of the public?

Update: A follow up thought: if ACT wants to have felons (or is the term ex-felons) work for them, perhaps they should consider putting these people in “less visible” roles. Rather than having ‘em walk the street, perhaps have them back in a main office type setting, doing clerical type work?

They bettter be telling the truth and nothing but the truth about the surveillance in this story: Feds watching another suspect in Ohio mall bomb plot

I’ve got no intention of purchasing or reading Bill Clinton’s book “My Life” which was formally released yesterday.

Why not?

For starters, call me frugal, but I’m not usually willing to spend $35 to buy a book that I’ll read maybe once. Second, how long is the book again–960 some pages? That’s a bit too long

From the small segments I’ve heard read from the book, it sounds like an arduous read. The writing struck me as being convoluted and full of all these little details which are truly irrelevant–it was boring! And the thought of having 900+ pages of writing like that? The AP and NYT book reviewers, who totally blasted the book were very much correct in their reviews.

Also, the book, from what I’ve heard, doesn’t seem to contain much content of interest–that is his thoughts on the political side of things during his presidency. As the NYT Book Review says:

[He] does not grapple [in the novel] with the unintended consequences of his administration’s decisions to pressure Sudan to expel Osama bin Laden in 1996 (driving sent the al Qaeda leader to Afghanistan, where he was harder to track) or to launch cruise missile attacks against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for the embassy bombings in 1998 (an act that some terrorism experts believe fueled terrorists’ conviction that the United States was an ineffectual giant that relied on low-risk high technology).

Were to he have grappled with topics such as this (or other political issues)–then I’d highly consider giving the book a read. That’s much more interesting to me than finding out who he went to a HS dance with.

I never had any love for Clinton nor have I had any animocity towards him–I guess you could just say that I was neutral towards him. Then again, I was very young during the course of his presidency, so that would explain a lot of my ambivilence. I can recall though that during the whole Impeachment ordeal, my thoughts were simply:

Why couldn’t the leader of the free world get a better looking woman? (Think JFK and Marilyn Monroe)
Is this whole thing over yet? (When watching the news)–isn’t there anything else newsworthy?

That’s probably a good demonstration how much I cared about things then–I was a teenager, what more would you have wanted?

Another reason actually came to mind as the result of a conversation which I heard on a local radio variety talk show. What legislative legacy does Clinton have? Is there something significant that he can point back at, to identify his presidency by? Perhaps the signing of NAFTA, but besides that–is there any major presidental effort or undertaking that can be looked back at? The host of this show couldn’t find one…is that why there’s no such discussion in Clinton’s book?

Either way, I’m going to save my $35 and forgo buying the book, like many people appear to be doing around the country (or so said all the links that Drudge had up)

I’m tossing out this bleg with the hope that someone out there may know something that they’d be able to help me with.

Does anyone know the names of any newspapers (preferably Jewish ones) in the greater Long Island (Suffolk County to be specific) area?

Was awakened this morning by a charlie horse in my calf. It hurt like hell…not a fun way to wake up to say the very least. I’m hoping the pain will subside by this afternoon (I’m still waiting for the Motrin to kick in and do it’s job).

Speaking of drugs, I just came across this entry at the Corpus Callosum about a new Anti-Depressant medication being released by Eli Lilly called Cymbalta. Sounds interesting–I’m going to have to read up on it. One of my areas of interest is related to neuropharmacology).

On the lighter side of things–perhaps some FBI agents have too much free time on their hands–so much so that they go out investigating humerous teddy bears.

As for the rest of the morning, I’ve got a list of things I’m supposed to do…here goes nothing.

I almost forgot to mention, today is the 25th Anniversary of the Cuyahoga River catching fire!

Here’s an NRO article on this famous event. It’s a well known event here in Cleveland…after all, we’ve even got a Burning River Festival

It’s so famous around these parts, that there’s even a beer named after the event: Burning River Pale Ale

So a while ago, Ann Coulter wrote a column about an NYT article which quoted someone named “Greg Packer”.

Packer it seems was the first in line to get an autographed copy of Hillary Clinton’s book–but not only that, as Coulter reveals, Packer seems to be the first in line everywhere.

Apparently, Packer has repeated his magical ability once again–this time being the first in line for an autographed copy of Bill Clinton’s book. (Naturally, the NYT was also able to locate him for comment)

It sounds like this is a hobby of his, or something along those lines. There should be a term for him–how about media quote whore?

Got my weekly lacrosse game tonight…hopefully my team will do better than last week. Then I’m going to try to catch the tail end of a local Republican gathering taking place at a coffee shop nearby my house, that I found out about the other day. Did I ever blog about the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting I went to on Sunday? I can’t recall.

Well, it’s off to play I go!

Update: We lost a close one 6-4; they scored both with 47 seconds left then as time expired. I didn’t play to well. I also forwent the Republican gathering this evening, maybe next week.

Drudge is reporting that Al Gore is preparing to be back in the headlines–as he prepares to deliver a speech–which should be interesting seeming how animated he was the last time that he spoke.

From what’s being reported, Gore is (making of mistake) of jumping to a conclusion based on the media’s erroneuous reporting of no Saddam-Al Qaeda link.

Has Gore not read the public comments of committee members saying that the reported conclusion was in fact erroneous? And since when has the WH “intimidated” the media? It seems to me that things are the other way around, with the media disliking the WH.

I’m home very briefly now after driving back and forth all morning. I was able to attend my weight watchers meeting and this past week I lost 2.6 lbs–bringing me down to 159.2 lbs.

Since begining Weight Watchers on Dec 30th, I’ve successfully lost 49.2lbs! (I’m personally shocked!)

Well, today has already started off on a bad foot. Sigh. I’m heading off to my weight watchers meeting right now (I’ll post my weigh in result when I get home), but before that, I’m going to be running all over town, taking my brother places and doing other things. Here goes nothing!