This is one of those grey areas. I'm all for jaywalking if the streets are empty. It doesn't make sense to find a pedestrian corridor in order to cross a street when you can see that there is no way a car could get anywhere near you by the time you made it straight across.

However, some people seem to think the streets are giant "sidewalks for grownups". They think it's perfectly okay to cross busy roads during rush hour, or that cars can stop on a dime if they need to. I will give two examples of sheer jaywalking idiocy that I witness last week.

 

The image above shows the situation where I almost hit a jaywalker. He was maybe five meters from the pedestrian corridoor at an intersection, yet he inexplicably walks diagonally across the street behind a stopped vehicle in such a way as to be invisible to cars making a left turn. Thankfully he had almost made it to the oncoming traffic lane by the time I reached him. Darwin's keeping a sharp eye on this one...

 

This motard crossed a busy street in between several cars stopped at a light. Traffic was still able to flow in the other direction because of people making right turns at the intersection about twenty meters away. Lo and behold this person thought it was a good idea to cross the street blindly from between two cars with her baby in a stroller out ahead of her! Thankfully there was no accident.

Please use common sense when jaywalking! Don't jaywalk in areas where you will be obscured by stopped vehicles. Don't jaywalk when there is traffic. The extra minute you spend walking to the nearest intersection or pedestrian corridor can add years to your life.

Elevator etiquette appears to a huge challenge for some people to master. Here are two simple graphics that I hope will help those of you who seem to think the world revolves around you:

 

Some jerk by the name of David R. Foley, who sells arcade cabinets fitted with a computer running MAME has taken it upon himself to register the trademark for "MAME" and the MAME logo, even though it has been in used for years. The jerk had this to say about it:

"Simply put, we are making an effort to stamp out the commercial sales of M.A.M.E. based systems that advertise the ability to play thousands of games while relying on the customer to obtain the ROMs which can not legally be obtained. What we are not doing is trying to claim ownership of the M.A.M.E. open source emulator or sue its authors. We are concerned about the commercial marketplace, and not the readers of the many M.A.M.E. user groups and forums."

Concerned about the commercial marketplace? This guy knows nothing of the spirit of MAME. Do yourself a favor and stay away from his arcade cabinets (which he sells under the name 'Ultracade'). If you're going to buy a pre-built machine, buy from one of his competitors. I so hate it when people put profits before everything else. I absolutely despise it. Only in America...

I have a decent parking spot at work today. There's a curb on my right and, for the longest time, there was no one assigned to the spot on my left. I used to park in the visitor area before I was assigned my own parking spot, and my car got vandalized on a regular basis by motards (I term I made up using the words 'moron' and 'retard') who don't know how to properly operate car doors. When I was assigned my own parking space, my poor, poor car -- which still bears the terrible scars from its experiences in visitor parking -- was finally safe.

Once in a while someone would get assigned the spot next to me, but they would only last a few weeks or maybe two or three months before they disappeared. Recently, an old Ford Taurus has been assigned to that spot. This guy has really been cheesing me off with his parking habits. I went up to my spot today and saw that his right wheels were a full six inches over the line and into my space. I had to park in the visitor area this morning.

Now, it's not that I really mind parking in visitor all that much. I can usually get away without getting any door dings. But it's just that the parking nazis like to threaten to tow people's cars away if they park there when they have their own, valid parking space, and I've been having to park in visitor too often already because of this clown.

Of course, the parking nazis at work are not nearly as bad as the ones that work for the city, or, *shudder*, the university. The university parking police were like the S.S. of parking nazis.

"Your parking pass vas not visible!"

"But it was just upside down. The thing is transparent!"

"Tventy dollar fine!"

or...

"I got this ticket, but here's my parking pass as proof that I'm allow to park here. It fell on the floor."

"Ve do not care! Tventy dollar fine!"

"But that's not fair! I have a right to park here!"

"Oh, you don't have to pay if you don't vant to...and if you don't vant to receive your degree vhen you graduate! Ah ha. Ha ha. Haaaa ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa."

Argh! Those guys were a genuine pain in the ass to deal with.

The other day I had some fun getting home from work. In my back lane there are huge snowbanks on either side which had gotten pretty soft due to the unseasonably mild weather we've been having lately. Anyway, I meet this SUV head on and there's no convenient place for either of us to pull aside and let the other pass. I pull over as far as possible on the street, but it didn't leave much room for the SUV to pass me. Heaven forbid the SUV would have to actually travel through poor terrain with two wheels on a soft snowbank.

So, being the stupidly nice guy that I am, I try to pull over and into the snowbank on my right. This left the SUV with enough room to drive by so as to not risk using the vehicle for the purpose it was originally intended (i.e. off-roading). Of course, with my luck, I found myself stuck in the snow after letting him by. The SUV driver doesn't bother stopping to help (though I have to give him the benefit of the doubt because he simply may not have bothered to look back after seeing me impale my car on the snow bank for his sake.

I eventually ended up walking home, grabbing a shovel, and tediously digging my way out of the snow. I was upset, of course, but these things happe. What really bothered me was that, while I was stuck, one of the residents on that street came out to shovel his driveway not three houses down from where I was stuck. He saw and heard me rocking the car back and forth and trying to shovel my way out of that white crap, but didn't bother to lend any assistance. A simple push would have gotten me out.

Later, another car pulls into the back lane, sees me stuck there, then stops. He waits for about a minute, watching me try to get myself unstuck, then backs out and leaves. What the heck?

I saw a trailer for it last night and thought "this looks like an okay movie", but I cannot understand what Hollywood's obsession is with hordes of CGI creatures. And they ALL LOOK THE SAME. With every movie it's the same thing: black/dark-grey monsters with tentacles or otherwise spindly appendages. The creatures are all obviously based on H. R. Giger's 'Alien' in one way or another.

Let's see some movies with original scary monsters -- ones that were not all developed in the same CGI lab. Please. I beg you, Hollywood. Please come up with something original. Just once. I'm tired of monsters that have slimy, grey/black skin with tentacles or spindly appendages moving around all the time and which move faster than the laws of physics permit.

Maybe it's just a side effect of the CGI age movies have entered. Before computer imaging, monsters were either men in suits or mechanical puppets. They couldn't make these things move very fast or flail a dozen tentacles around wildly. It could possibly be that Hollywood is venting the pent up frustrations of decades of "I really wish I could make this monster move super fast and have lots of grabby appendages".

Here's one example of a monster Hollywood could use: some sort of slow, plodding, rock-like creature. It may not be terribly original, but it's new, dammit! Or how about a monster that's colored bright yellow? If a predator can manage to survive looking like a neon sign, it's got to be one heck of a good predator, and therefore, a scarier one.

Is it really too much to ask for something new?

I hate slush. That is all.

So I buy a can of soup and look at the Nutrition label on the side. The label shows the nutritional value per 250 mL of soup, but the can's volume is 540 mL. Now, I no genius or anything, but wouldn't it be more useful if the nutritional information was listed for the entirety of the can's contents?! I don't care what the nutritional value of 46.3% of the soup is, I want to know the nutritional value of 100% of the soup!

Now, maybe it's some sort of standard to measure in 250 mL when dealing with liquid volumes. Maybe it's considered one serving. But if it was one serving, why the heck isn't the can 250 mL in volume? Or at least 500 mL! But, nooooo, it has to be 540 mL. You can't even divide a small number of cans evenly by 250. You'd have to buy 25 cans of the stuff -- pouring it into a huge pot -- before you could portion it out evenly by 250 mL...but then you'd better have 54 people ready to serve it to.

This kind of information seems less like useful information for people watching their caloric intake and more like a marketing scam ("Wow, this can of soup is only 90 calories!").

I spent two hours of my life shovelling snow last night. If there's one thing I hate about living in Winnipeg, it's the snow. Sure it's all "Look at me, I'm so beautiful!" when it's falling on a crisp winter's eve, but the next day later it's like a big, fat, obnoxious stranger who decides to sleep on your driveway until spring.

We had received some heavier snow over the past week and, with company expected over the next two days, I decided it was finally time to clear my walkways and driveway. Of course, we had to get alternating light snow and freezing rain while I was doing it. I managed to contain my powdery nemesis into huge snowbanks on my lawn...but, for how long?

Argh! Okay, please tell me why it's necessary to drive 10 under the limit during rush hour. Yes, the roads are icy, but when there's no one in front of you for more than an entire city block then it's not going to kill you to go the speed limit! You will not automatically lose control and explode. At least have some consideration for the people that feel comfortable driving the maximum recommended limit under poor conditions, i.e. PULL OVER. I was stuck behind no less than three such drivers this morning. Ugh.

I'm a fan of good first person shooters, rare as they may be. One of my favorite video game pastimes right now is playing Nightfire. I just set myself up in multiplayer mode with six bots (all Snow Guards) on the Skyrail level and blast away in 'professional' mode. That's pretty much the only way I play the game (I don't even think I've finished the single player portion of the game). Sadly, the game lacks a good mix of automatic weapons. Oh how I miss the good old AR44 and RCP90 from the N64 game Goldeneye.

As fun as the game is on my regular setting, it does get a tad tiresome. You know you've played a FPS too much when you start using a pistol to snipe while on the run (it is, however, quite satisfying getting a good sequence of one shot kills with the Raptor .50). But it was hen I started using one of the game's only automatic submachine gun set on semi-automatic mode to snipe, I knew it was time for something new.

So, my brother and I go out and rent GoldenEye: Rogue Agent on the weekend. *sigh* I'll forego describing its major shortcomings and rant about the state of the FPS genre on the console.

Okay. Here is how the video game industry should be: find out what is good about a game in a particular genre, then include that feature in every subsequent game. There is absolutely no excuse for multiplayer mode in a FPS shooter not to have every single one of the following features:

1. Bots

Not everyone can gather a group of people together to play multiplayer games. Every FPS should include computer controlled players in multiplayer mode. At the very least these bots must fill in for missing players. A better standard would be the existence of bots in addition to the human controlled players. Nightfire is a perfect example of how all FPSes from now on should be, allowing up to four human players and six computer controlled players at once.

2. Customizable Controls

No FPS should exist without at least four different control setups. The control layout should be displayed on-screen. There is no excuse not to do this (I'm looking right at you, Medal of Honor: Frontline, whose control layouts weren't even in the manual!). The best would be if each button were customizable.

Players should be able to change controls in the middle of a game. Any sensitivity controls (and there should be sensitivity controls!) should range from frozen molasses to greased lightning (not frozen molasses to regular molasses, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent!).

3. Good Weapons

No FPS game should have fewer than twenty weapons. That is the absolute, bare-bones minimum. A good number of weapons is thirty or forty. The complete weapon set must include the following:

• At least two high-powered assault rifles, capable of automatic and burst fire (e.g. the AR-44 from Goldeneye)
• At least two submachine guns with high rates of fire (e.g. ZMG and RCP-90 from GoldenEye)
• At least one submachine gun with a silencer (e.g. Deutsche M9K from Nightfire)
• At least one, good sniper rifle
• At least one rocket launcher.
• At least one grenade launcher.
• Hand grenades
• Proximity mines
• Laser trip-mines
• At least one automatic shotgun
• At least one laser weapon
• At least two good, normal pistols
• At least one pistol with a silencer
• At least one machine pistol
• A knife
• The ability to punch (i.e. attack without a weapon)
• The ability to use an empty gun as a weapon (i.e. pistol whipping, smashing with the butt of the stock, etc.)

Keep in mind that these are bare minimums. A good FPS will also have several high-tech or experimental weapons. It's okay to put weapons in the multiplayer mode that do not exist in the single player game.

4. Customizeable Weapon Sets

There is no excuse for not allowing the player to choose exactly which weapons he wants available.

5. No Stupid Punishments

Walking slower whenever you have a powerful weapon? What's up with that? If a player nabs the Kill-o-matic 3000, he should not be punished by receiving the walking speed of a small snail. If this is going to be included in a game, make it an option.

6. Team Play

Every multiplayer FPS shooter must be able to be configured to have as few as two teams to as many teams as there are players.

7. Options, Options, Options!

There is no reason to think everyone in the world wants to play the game the same way you do. Two examples of extreme stupidity in game design are from the otherwise great multiplayer game Nightfire. It team play, the game allows only two teams. Believe it or not, the 'good guys' in the game are forced to play on one side and the 'bad guys' in the game are forced to play on the other. You cannot have James Bond fight side-by-side with Francisco Scaramanga. This incredibly retarded design is further exacerbated by the fact that the 'good' team has only seven possible players to choose from! And three of them are mutually exclusive!!! Were the game designers on crack!?!

The second example of designer stupidity was the idea that the behavior of certain bots would not be customizeable. Why on earth would anyone think that's a good idea?!? If the player wants to play a bot with the personality the programmer wanted him to have, then that's what he'll select. Don't force it on him!

Every single thing that might be changed in a game should be controlled by the player with a suitable option. Everything. If a player doesn't want automated sentry guns in multiplayer mode, he should be able to turn that off. If a player wants everyone invincible in multiplayer mode, he should be able to do that. There should be no excuse for a multiplayer FPS to have fewer than fifty or so settings that affect game play.

8. Skins

A good FPS will have at least thirty or forty skins. An excellent FPS will have customizeable skins.

9. Avoid "Unlockables" Syndrome

A lot of game designers nowadays have gotten it in their head that "unlockables" are cool. Unlockables are things in the game that become available when a certain goal within the game is reached, such as finishing a certain level. This is a great idea...to a point. Unfortunately, this idea has adversely affected the IQs of far too many developers nowadays, turning them into gibbering retards.

Some games are now so 'unlockables-crazy' that you cannot even play the normal game without being forced to go through some sort of stupid tutorial (e.g. Burnout 2: Point of Impact, and otherwise excellent game). You can forget about renting some multiplayer games, too. I've seen games were most of the multiplayer content was locked until you spent hours in the single player mode. WHY ON EARTH DID ANYONE THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?

From the first time you play a game, at least 90% of its content should be unlocked. For FPS, maybe one or two levels and a half a dozen skins should be unlockables (and this only if the game has at least six or eight levels and thirty or forty skins).

Excessive unlockables have ruined many otherwise good games. Under no circumstances should there ever be missing a code that unlocks everything in a game. Ever.

10. Fixed Gun Emplacements

Powerful fixed gun emplacements add spice to a good multiplayer game.

11. A good mix of levels

There should be a good mix of maps, preferably at least eight or ten. There should be nice, wide-open outdoor maps for sniping, claustrophobic indoor maps for intense firefights, and everything in between. There should be some big maps, and some small maps, or maybe big and small version of every map.

I am so sick and tired of seeing new FPSes come out that fail miserably at meeting the bare minimum requirements for a modern FPS. Too often the designers focused on eye candy and forcing their own ideas on how the game should be played onto the player..

Again, keep in mind that these recommendations are for good FPSes. Great FPSes will build on what worked with older games and introduce new concepts. Some examples of good ideas that are editable skins, vehicles, remote control weapons (the Helicopter and Tank in Nightfire are fantastic ideas!), special viewing modes (infrared vision, x-ray vision, etc), the ability to destroy large sections of terrain, etc.

Sadly, I fear the FPS genre will continue to stagnate as companies struggle with the basics of multiplayer FPS play.

I had a fun time sledding today with a few friends. We went to a nice big hill in a park behind a nearby school. It used to be the city's garbage dump several decades ago, but now it's a nice, green hill.

Anyway, the hill (well, hills, since it's two big hills that touch each other about halfway up) has several well-defined sledding paths where the snow is packed to a near ice-like hardness. The rest of the hill is just loose snow, with some areas molded into 'steps' which make it easier to climb.

This is a nice orderly arrangement: there are parts of the hill where people go down, and parts of the hill where people go up. Unfortunately, there are people out there who think it's a good idea to just do whatever the heck they feel like. I imagine these are the kind of people who stop to talk or look around right in front of department store entrances (get out of the way!). Anyway, these people have taken upon themselves to walk up the paths obviously worn down by sledders.

Now, I can understand if you just got to the hill and don't know any better (although the packed snow should be a hint), but these are people who just finished sledding down that exact slope. They were up at the top with everyone else, waiting for some room to go down. They know that this is the part of the hill where people go sliding down at breakneck speeds. Yet, for some reason, these people think it's perfectly okay to walk up this same path...sometimes walking along with their small children!

Hello? Did your brain freeze up on the way down? Don't you realize that this is where people slide down? Don't you understand that you are either a) holding up everyone else's enjoyment of the hill while they wait for you to saunter up, or b) endangering yourself and your five-year-old kid by walking straight up the path of suicidal sledders? I mean, come on!