12/27/02 12:00 am

I broke down today and opened LotR: TTT.  No, I'm just kidding, but I had you going there for a second.  Instead, I used my unfair Blockbuster benefits to rent a copy of the game instead so I could test it out and see if it's a keeper.  Just about everything about it is good, except it's so god damn short, just like Jen told me.  I played for about an hour and a half and it showed on the little progression map that I was about halfway through, which was disappointing.  There's some cool extras in it including interviews with the movie actors about the video game.  There's an interview with the old gay guy (yes, he's really gay in real life and I'm not just being an insensitive jerk) that plays Gandalf in the movies and it's hilarious because he hates video games, but tries to hide it.  There's also one with Elijah Wood who seems really spastic and excited about the game to a frightening degree.  I've made the executive decision to exchange the game for something else, like a cheap hooker.

In other news, my hatred for the game site is growing by the day.  Last week I was experiencing technical difficulties with the site's email and have been unable to submit certain required materials.  Today, the crisis continues as further censorship of my writing has occurred by a certain individual.  It isn't the first time, and I have the feeling it isn't the last since he is our "arbitrary leader" and has ultimate power over everything that goes on the site and its related capacities.  Everything that I've said that's been even slightly controversial has been censored, even though one of the primary principles of our original site idea was to stray away from censorship.  Luckily, this is the only place on the internet where I can speak freely without having to worry about other people's opinions.  I anticipate that if he finds out about this post on my blog, he'll do something irrational like delete the link to this page in my signature on the game site's forums, but that's fine with me.  In this instance, I do actually have the power to retaliate and edit some of his work, but I feel that making changes to other people's work to the point that it changes the message behind it is unprofessional.

12/26/02 8:43 pm

Jen is my Samwise Gamgee and this LotR theme that my blog has taken on needs to end, but it'll probably continue anyway.

SwabTheDeckMatey: you played LotR: TTT, right?
DragTheLake20: yea on ps2
SwabTheDeckMatey: i got it as a present, should I keep it?
SwabTheDeckMatey: or get something else?
DragTheLake20: get something else..it has no replay value whatsoever
SwabTheDeckMatey: but there's like no other game that features sexy legolas
DragTheLake20: fine...succumb to the ploy
SwabTheDeckMatey: :-\
DragTheLake20: seriously...after you beat it...you're gonna wish that yuo listened to me...did i tell you i beat it in one sitting...
SwabTheDeckMatey: it's sitting unopened on my desk right now, calling to me like the ring called to frodo
DragTheLake20: 4hours
SwabTheDeckMatey: but you're supposed to unlock all the stuffff
SwabTheDeckMatey: and beat it with all 3 characterrsssss
SwabTheDeckMatey: aaaahhhhh
DragTheLake20: there isn't that much to unlock
SwabTheDeckMatey: IT'S CALLING TO ME
DragTheLake20: rent it
SwabTheDeckMatey: be my samwise and make me resist it
DragTheLake20: mr. stevens no!
SwabTheDeckMatey: ok, that did it
DragTheLake20: damn right
DragTheLake20: i rented silent hill for xbox...i got scared and died
SwabTheDeckMatey: died in the game or died in real life?
DragTheLake20: game
SwabTheDeckMatey: oh, sucky

12/25/02 8:57 pm

This was probably the least "Christmassy" Christmas I've ever had.  We put the tree and lights up like yesterday.  Instead of turkey or ham or something, we grilled hamburgers for dinner.  Our tree is fake this year when we've traditionally used real ones.  Also, with every passing year, my parents spend less and less money on me and use my age as an excuse.  "Chris, you're too old for Christmas," they tell me.  They also let the cat out of the bag regarding the realities of Santa Claus to my sister.  She's only 9, she had a good few years of blind belief left in her.  As for my haul this year, I got LotR: TTT the PS2 game, two pairs of shoes, some money and some gift certificates from various people.  I have intentionally left LotR: TTT unopened because I'm still debating with myself whether or not to exchange it for something else.  For whatever reason, my parents decided to make me do the shopping for my brother Andy this year, which more than slightly annoyed me.  They basically just told me to go out and spend $X on stuff Andy would like, where X is an undisclosed amount of money that I must keep secret because it's directly proportionate to how much they love him.  I got him Tony Hawk 4, some blank CDs and some other stuff.  I really don't know if he liked it because he typically doesn't like anything, especially stuff that I think he would like.  I get the feeling that he probably didn't like his stuff that much because instead of playing with it, he spent a lot of the day playing Counter-Strike on my computer.  I don't really care either way because I don't really care about anything.  I didn't go to church and in fact, I didn't even think to do so this year.  My Grandma (Pope JP the 2's best friend) figured out that I hadn't gone to church and gave me a whole guilt trip about it.  My apathy is growing exponentially and I'm not quite sure if I'll be able to slow it down.

12/25/02 2:14 am

Additional stupidity involving Liz:

The kid can moo: k
SwabTheDeckMatey: why do you feel the inclination at time to use alternative screen names
The kid can moo: cuz im uploading shit
SwabTheDeckMatey: yeah, ok
The kid can moo: haha you shmunkyface
SwabTheDeckMatey: say what now?
SwabTheDeckMatey: do you think that beastiality is ok if the animal and the person are really in love?
The kid can moo: no!
SwabTheDeckMatey: you're pouring gasoline on the fire of intolerance, liz
The kid can moo: good
SwabTheDeckMatey: fucker
The kid can moo: i hate asian chicks too
SwabTheDeckMatey: FUCKER, MY STEP MOM AND SISTER ARE ASIAN CHICKS
SwabTheDeckMatey: you go eat shit
SwabTheDeckMatey: i hate peruvians, but not in general...just the ones that are bastardly like you
The kid can moo: i dont hate your step mom and sister
SwabTheDeckMatey: yesh you do
The kid can moo: just the asian chicks at my school
The kid can moo: except the ones that are my friends
SwabTheDeckMatey: my step mom went to UCLA
The kid can moo: that are currently at my school

Sometimes I'm afraid to learn about how people really are.

12/24/ 3:07 am

I have a single lamp in my room.  It uses a very bright halogen light and when combined with my lightly colored walls and ceiling, it can turn night into day in my room.  It has a dial on it that infinitely varies the brightness, which is sweet, but it's been malfunctioning lately.  When I turn the dial all the way down, it's supposed to go off, but sometimes it only goes off for a second and then goes back on again.  I turned it off and went to bed about a half hour ago and then just a second ago it turned back on.  I jumped out of bed in a panic, mistaking the lamp for the apocalypse.  I decided to tell you people about it to darken your day, but it probably doesn't really matter because if you're reading this, your life's probably already in the gutter anyway.  Good night...for real.

12/24/02 2:34 am

Despite my mediocre popularity, I thought it might be a good idea to try to get a real domain name for my site instead of the crappy Geocities one.  The following is a search on register.com for "makeshift.net":

I've been spending the past few minutes contemplating why "jimmyrigged" is the second best choice after makeshift.  It's hurting my head.  My confirmation name is James...did it know that somehow?  Without actually doing any real research, I've come to the conclusion that jimmyrigged probably means something that was put together hastily (similar to makeshift in that regard).  It seems like a very unusual choice as the first alternate option though.  I think I'll just go to sleep.

12/24/02 2:06 am

Yeah, so I caught the very end of some crappy movie today because Spy Hard starring Leslie Nielson was coming on right after it.  It was some retard flick with Alec Baldwin being a cowboy, but that's not really the point.  While waiting for Spy Hard, I sat through the credits for this movie and I was shocked by the discovery that I made.  During the credits of many movies, it will display the text, "No animals were harmed in the making of this film."  Instead of seeing this text, in its place was "Only 2 animals were harmed during the making of this film."  The "2" was bold and circled.  From all those times of hearing that animals weren't harmed, I guess I had come to the conclusion that it was illegal to harm animals for the sake of making a feature film, but I guess I was wrong.  It turns out that even for a crappy Alec Baldwin movie, you're allowed to harm as many (if not more) as 2 animals.  After that disturbing development, I tried to continue watching Spy Hard, but the sadness in my heart was too overwhelming.  I decided to go upstairs and take a nap and that's what I've pretty much been doing up until now.

12/22/02 11:47

I love Matt with all my heart.  In fact, he's tied for first place as the top referrer to my site.  However, his friends seem to have serious hatred toward me.  Normally, I have nothing but love in my heart.  I don't really hate these people as much as I feel sorry for them for being so stupid.  How could anyone think that northern California is better than southern California?  We've got better weather, movie stars, beaches and just a general sense of niceness that northern California simply cannot deliver.  And that word!  That word that starts with "h"...like the language of Mordor, I dare not utter it here.  I heard that my former roommate Daryl has been saying it and betraying his SoCal brethren.  I'd kill him, but he's in serious trouble with Matt for other reasons, so I'll let Matt take the credit for killing him.

12/22/02 2:01 am

I apologize for not writing in awhile.  I've been overwhelmingly tired as a result of work, illness, and trying to adjust myself back to "normal" sleeping habits. 

Today, I'm going to talk about my varied, yet consistently disturbing adventures with a corporation known as Blockbuster for whom I work for.  We have many problems, one of which is security.  We had $2,600 worth of merchandise stolen last week, which consisted mostly of DVDs.  DVDs are very easy to steal from us, so I wholeheartedly invite you to go ahead and do so.  All you need is a strong will and a flat head screw driver.  Anyway, as a result of our security issues, we have instituted the "put the big black man in front of the door" policy.  Our managers don't make any effort to hide the fact that the guy chosen because he is in fact big and of African decent.  Additionally, our store manager has ordered our assistant managers to put Vaseline on the entry door (we have an entry door and an exit door, but only the exit door has a scanner on it) so that people don't try to use it to leave.   While upping security in this area, I witnessed a major security breach on another front on the part of one of our mangers in training.  It is strict store policy to not rent anything to a person whose name is not listed on an account.  A man came in today and tried to use his wife's account which he was not listed under.  When our manager in training informed the man of this, he responded, "I've rented here many times before with this account."  Whether or not it was a lie is not the real issue.  In response to the man, the manager in training not only let the man rent but also went ahead and added his name to the account, solely based on what the man said to her.  Normally, such action would require the account owner to physically come into the store (as opposed to calling on the phone or writing a letter) to add another name on the account.  So, if you ever have your account stolen, now you know why.  Another problem we have is blatant sexual harassment.  In particular, our assistant manager that I'll call Steve (I call him that because that's his real name) cannot seem to keep his dirty mouth shut for more than a few minutes.  After one of our female customer service representatives had a hissy fit to him over the phone, he said, "The hymen punches like leather after 20 [years of age]."  Later on, he was sort of gimping around and I told him that he would get no sympathy from me.  To this, he responded, "I'm not limping.  I have a hard-on and I can't move my leg."  After that, he had an extremely explicit conversation over the phone with one of our assistant managers (who is in fact a lesbian) about sex...and oral sex...and anal sex...and eating hamburgers in a sexual fashion.  I guess I should be offended by this sort of behavior, but I'm really not.  Nobody else seems to mind, and they all (including myself) think it's actually pretty funny.  I'm sure that if reported, this sort of behavior would've caused Steve to be fired hundreds (if not thousands) of times over.  I guess if he ever tries to threaten me somehow, I've got an ass load of blackmail material to use as retribution.  I only make $8.25 an hour, but the comedic benefits of working for this corporation are through the roof.

12/19/02 10:50 pm

I haven't posted in awhile because I'm finally home and the parental harassment does not cease.  Literally, every ten minutes I hear one of them calling my name and I'm forced to do their bidding because they pay for college.  One day, I will be self-sufficient enough to tell them to piss off, but until then, I have to be a slaaaaave...for them.  It doesn't suck as much as it could because most of my little chores involve driving and I get to commandeer their nicer, more expensive vehicles in lieu of my own which is in utter disrepair.

In other news, I saw LotR: TTT last night (and for those of you who don't know what that is, you're just going to have to guess) and it rocked like no other.  I got to see it with Liz and her intimidating, yet quirky friends.  Liz nearly screwed us over while we were waiting in line because she decided to go to Rite Aid to get some water, but took about a year and a half doing it.  I found out later that only a small portion of that time was spent getting water and the majority of it was spent trying to find some hentai (read: "anime porn") for me as a joke.  Due to her long absence, I took it upon myself to try and rescue her, but immediately after I set out to do so, she arrived back in line, somehow getting past me without me knowing.  Even after all that, she wasn't able to find me any hentai, and even if she had, I probably wouldn't have found it funny anyway.  Liz makes my life miserable, which is why I constantly question why I associate myself with her at all.

12/18/02 2:35 am

The "man" attempted to ruin my day today.  As I was driving home from school, I got pulled over in Santa Barbara.  He asked me for my license and registration and all that jazz.  I had recently renewed my license so I only had a paper one.  I searched for awhile in my overly cluttered glove compartment for my registration which I hadn't seen in years, but was unable to find it and offered him my insurance card instead.  He said to me, "goin' kinda quick there, weren't ya?"  I responded, "I thought I was going 65.  Is this not a 65 zone?"  This, in fact, was true.  I was obeying the speed limit, which was why I was somewhat confused as to why I was pulled over.  I knew I also had a burnt out headlight, which he mentioned right after.  I told him it had burnt out midway through the trip and I hadn't been able to fix it yet, which was a lie, but not one that he would be able to call me on.  So, he took my stuff back to his car and sat in the car for a few minutes like they always do, gathering information and masturbating (I assume).  He came back and told me that he wasn't going to give me another ticket, but that I'd "probably" get stopped again before I made it back to Agoura Hills.  I don't know why this cop was persistently trying to fake me out.  I knew it was highly unlikely that I'd get pulled over again, but from the way he said it, he made it sound like there was a very small chance that I wouldn't get pulled over again.  Of course, I made it home without any further interruption from the fuzz.  It makes me wonder why I pay taxes that go toward this guy's salary when he's not even going to bust my ass for breaking the law.  I give my money so that they can keep me out of trouble, but some job they do.  Theoretically, I had broken not one, but two traffic laws (even though I wasn't really speeding), but he just let me off.  I wonder how many real criminals he's let off like that.  There's probably three or four of them speeding toward my house right now with their headlights burnt out so I'll never see them until it's too late and they rob me.

12/16/02 4:25 am

SwabTheDeckMatey: fly away on my zephyr
you kill me: lala
you kill me: prettysong
SwabTheDeckMatey: you're a ho for RHCP
you kill me: i AM
SwabTheDeckMatey: i bet you'd totally do flea
you kill me: i would
SwabTheDeckMatey:
SwabTheDeckMatey: saruman owns you
you kill me: i would do saruman
SwabTheDeckMatey: would you do count dooku?
you kill me: i derno
SwabTheDeckMatey: THEY'RE THE SAME GODDAMN PERSON
SwabTheDeckMatey: played by the same actor, and their roles are like identical
you kill me: ohh
SwabTheDeckMatey: gandalf (crazy old wizard) says, "I'll never join you, Saruman"...obi wan (crazy old wizard) says, "I'll never join you, Dooku"
you kill me: hehee
SwabTheDeckMatey: and they're both guys who used to be good but then turned BAD because they're too sexy
SwabTheDeckMatey: standin' in line to see the show tonight and there's a light on...heavy glow
you kill me: oh i see
SwabTheDeckMatey: so, why wouldn't you do dooku?
you kill me: cuz he's not sexy
SwabTheDeckMatey: SAME FUCKING GUY, GODDAMMIT
you kill me: hee
you kill me: oooooh
you kill me: yaaaaaaah

It's this sort of thing that makes me hate my life...

12/16/02 1:43 am

I've come to the conclusion that my website refuses to be tracked.  Neither the Geocities tracker nor third party trackers work, though the Geocities one worked up until last night.  The last thing I was able to determine before my site went into stealth mode was that someone viewing my web site was using a Mac, (which made me happy) but somebody else viewing my site was using Windows 95 (which caused me to fall into a fit of cursing, biting and throwing things that afterwards I realized that I needed).  I suspect that the Geocities one might be upset because I found away to get rid of their ads, (which you may have noticed aren't around anymore) but that's no excuse for third party trackers not to work.  In a general sense, my computer very seldomly does what I want it to do.  Linux doesn't really work (no sound, no video acceleration, no USB keyboard support for the bootloader which = DEATH), the web site doesn't really work, the little tabs on the left side of XP folder windows have begun malfunctioning, I can't serve anything because of my school's evil router (which is why I use stupid Geocities to begin with).  I just don't know anymore.  I've shown nothing but love to my computer, and yet it continues to hate me on so many levels.  Maybe I'm smothering it with attention.  Perhaps I'll try leaving it alone for a few days and then it will be begging for me to come back to it and it will want to solve all of my problems.

In other news, the 10AngryGamers site layout revision was approved today and will more than likely be up by the middle of the week.  You'll be able to read more of my incohesive and sporadic writing there, specifically on the topic of video games.  In the mean time, visit the forums.  If I find out that you're visiting this site and you're not signed up for the forums (even though I can't track you, so I'd never know, but if I did...) you'll be dead.

In other, other news, I'm going to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (referred to henceforth as LotR: TTT and LotR: FotR for Fellowship of the Ring) with Lisbeth and Co. and it should rock the house.  Here at school, my friends sometimes call me Saruman (pictured below) for no reason.  I refer to Anthony, Tim, and Todd as Samwise Gamgee, Tom Bombadil, (featured in the books, but not the movies) and Bilbo Baggins (but only for the part in LotR: FotR where he goes crazy when seeing the ring in Rivendell) respectively.  These names are purely arbitrary and I don't know why we even bother.

12/15/02 9:52 pm

I was finally able to get through to the Big O Software forums to find an announcement about the cancellation of AIM+ 3.0.  This is a horrible disappointment, especially for an aspiring programmer such as myself.  These guys write and distribute their software at absolutely no cost and certain individuals took it upon themselves to attack Big O's site electronically as well as harass certain members of the development team over the phone.  I can only assume that these attacks were a result of the discovery several months ago of statistics-gathering code in previous versions of AIM+ that some people decided to label as spyware.  As a response to this discovery, Big O posted a very simple way of disabling these operations even though the information being gathered wasn't in the least bit harmful and in fact, Big O wasn't even accepting any of these statistics due to bandwidth limitations.  I can't figure out why anyone would attack people that are developing software for free for the benefit of everyone.  I suspect that the attackers were just some little kids that were using various DoS (denial of service) attacks from various locations and Big O was unable to stop them because of the huge array of attacks.  Fuckin' n00bs.

12/15/02 2:55 am

I am a gargantuan fan of a little piece of software known as AIM+ by Big O Software.  It's an add-on to AIM that does ad removal, cloning, transparencies and some other cool stuff.  I love it so much that I've kept the older 4.x (as opposed to the new 5.x) version of AIM simply because the newer one is not supported by AIM+.  Now, what was supposed to happen is that a new version of AIM+ was going to come out on Dec 11th.  Traditionally, when the boys at Big O release a new version, their web site gets overrun with hits and it goes down for a period of several days.  This time, things did keep with tradition and I was finally able to get to the site just a couple of minutes ago, but I was met with this shockingly shocking message, "AIM+ 3.0 indefinitely postponed."  There was no further explanation as to why and I was unable to get to their forums in order to further assess the situation.  Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong and I'm not going to sit idly by and hope the situation rectifies itself.  I know they've got the goods and they're keeping it from me and I will get AIM+ 3.0 if it's the last thing I do!

12/14/02 10:08 pm

Somebody sprayed down the stairwell with a fire extinguisher.  It kinda looks like snow and is getting me into the holiday spirit.  Todd and co. went to burn things, but I didn't go because my sore throat makes it extremely difficult to breathe with the smoke.  I'm going home on Tuesday, but I don't really want to because my family is going to hassle me throughout the entire Christmas break and in addition, I'll be working at Blockbuster again.  My ankle has almost healed and I can walk fairly normally.

P.S. Todd is a bad person, but I'm not allowed to say why.

12/14/02 6:30 pm

I'm pretty sure I'm dying.  I woke up today with a sore throat and was excessively fatigued.  I cannot foresee getting better any time in the near future.  I'm too poor to buy medicine, so I'll just have to suffer.  The rain and coldness isn't really helping either.  I anticipate that by tomorrow, I'll either be ok or dead.  So, wait for updates, I guess.

12/14/02 3:14 am

"Fucking Windows 98!" -General from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

I'm cool with about 79.71% of you guys, but it seems like 20.29% of you are having kind of a problem.  You see, I live in a place where my operating system brings me joy in the form of stability, performance and aesthetic niceness.  However, some of you are living in a place of sadness in the form of system crashes, system lag and visual ugliness because you've made a wrong decision at some point in your life.  That decision was to keep Windows 98 instead of getting XP.  Bill Gates was shot in South Park because of Windows 98...what makes you think you don't deserve the same?  Shhh, don't argue.  No, stop...you can't win this one.  You are a bad person if you're running Windows 98 (or 95, or Me).  You don't have an excuse because software is free (for the most part).  If you're one of those "goody goodies", than you can get XP for $25 on student discount.  That's $25 spent making the world a better place for you and for me and...the entire human race.  Just remember, every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around.

12/14/02 1:48 am

I don't know why I even bother anymore.  I specifically tell people in my AIM profile that visiting this site is a useless and ultimately disappointing endeavor, but they think they're smarter than me and they just visit the site anyway.  At least I know where I stand in terms of my opinion.  If you can see this and you're not me, I hope you suffer needlessly for what you're doing to yourself.

12/13/02 7:45 pm

Far too often, I get the feeling that I'm some sort of ninja with superhuman powers that would permit me to do things that I probably shouldn't/can't do.  However, once in a while, I actually do temporarily gain superhuman abilities as you can see here:

Unfortunately, last night was not one of the times that I was able to call upon my amazing powers.  I tried to fight a guy named Jeff, hoping that my abilities would pull through and bring me glorious victory.  We started fighting in the regular boxing fashion in which resulted in a dead heat.  We then decided that we should each pick unique fighting styles that matched our particular heritage.  Jeff chose Filipino Slapping style and I chose Fighting Irish style:

 vs.

We soon realized that Filipino Slapping style and Fighting Irish style were specifically designed to cancel each other out and we were in a dead heat once again.  I decided that I had to do something drastic to take the lead.  I took charge and busted out a whirling spin trip targeted at Jeff's left leg.  Soon after, I realized the folly of my decision.  I had struck Jeff in the shin with my ankle which hurt him a bit, but hurt me much more in a disproportionate way.  Since I was already quite tired, the true extent of my injury was not realized until this morning when I could barely get out of bed because of the pain.  Ever since, I've been gimping it around campus and it has only created more sadness in my already differently-abled life.