So I went to a funeral today. I saw some people that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I don’t know what to say at these kinds of things anymore. A number of people have died in the last few years and I’ve grown to adopt a rather odd outlook on death. It’s simple really. People die. There isn’t a thing you can do about it. It’s just the way it is.

You may not want to think about it. But when it comes down to it I’m going to die. Your going to die. Everyone you either like or don’t like will die. And so I just don’t get worked up about it. I won’t let myself get brought down by these things. It’s because when my grandfather died I took it hard. I was a mess. I was crying and I thought to myself why are there so many people still living that don’t deserve to be living.

Afterwords I said to myself I will never let myself get that weak. I don’t like being that weak. And you can say it’s just me trying to live up to some male John Wayne tough guy fantasy and your probably right. But it’s just the way it is. I’m not going to get all emotional anymore over these things that I have no control over. It’s going to happen and there is nothing I can do about it.

In fact the one thing going through my head is what people will say about me once I’m dead. I think about these kinds of things. I wonder what people will remember me for, if they do at all. I would love to fake my death just to be able to see what the funeral would be like. To see just what people would say. Morbid? Maybe. But this idea of a funeral test run is really something I would do if I could. And don’t even get me started on the idea of having a two drink minimum in effect at my funeral. Because I feel it should be a celebration not all this mourning. But that’s just me.

I wasn’t going to do it. I said to myself I’ll never play it if I buy it. I figured how would I have time for any game other than World of Warcraft. Well I went into Best Buy and it called to me. I couldn’t resist I had to have it. I’m happy to say that Doom 3 by id Software was worth the wait.

Doom 3 is an amazing first person shooter (fps) and id is of course the kings of this genre as they prove with this game. It has to be the first id game with a god honest story in the game and not one paragraph in the game manual. Sure they take some elements from other games. Such as the way your PDA plays audio files and gets emails obviously lifted from System Shock 2.

But overall it just is an all around great gaming experience. The visuals have been talked about for years and there is no need to go into that here other than saying holy shit! Man it’s just fucking amazing. And the game is dark. Not just dark as in the creepy demons and hell that you expect from a Doom game. It’s just a combination of both the graphics and the sound. This is the second game that has freaked me out just a little.

And these screen shots above don’t do the game justice. I’m running the game at 1024×768 and with medium graphic quality selected. I also have tweaked the shit out of the game. I unpacked the pak4’s, I got the un-official ATI fix, the ATI beta 4.9 drivers, and of course modified my autoexec.cfg just to be safe. And for shits and giggles you can take a look at how the leaked version looked on my old computer right here.

I’m still playing the shit out of the World of Warcraft beta. I just can’t say enough good things about this game. Below are 4 videos I made for my guildmates in the Acolytes of Destruction that I posted in the forums.

You will need at least the DivX 5.1.1 codec to be able to view these videos. You can grab the free version of DivX right here.

WoW Vid 01 (7.8 MiB, 66 hits)

WoW Vid 02 (20.8 MiB, 60 hits)

WoW Vid 03 (18.7 MiB, 53 hits)

WoW Vid 04 (12.3 MiB, 55 hits)

It’s funny how my past has a way of coming back to remind me of the mistakes I continue to make over and over again. I haven’t talked to her in a number of years. Not that I have any problems of talking to her. She lives far from here and comes to town every now and then.

Except it’s not really funny at all this time. Her dad died recently. I had heard not to long ago that he was sick and that bit of info just got pushed to the back of my mind. There was other shit going on and it didn’t seem all that important at the time. But it kinda bums me out. Her dad was a stand up guy and he was always nice to me.

So she called the hotel about getting a room for when she brings her dad back home. She called and she said who she was. It was funny because she even told me her maiden name as if to make me remember just who she was. Years may have come and gone, but I still remember the sound of her voice. I doubt very much I will ever forget her and those times.

She was surprised that I would so willingly override inventory so her and her family can stay in the hotel. Despite everything she has always remained my friend, so I can’t say no to a friend at a time like this. I don’t think I could tell her no anyway.

One more post for the night. This one is for Bob so she can print out these pictures at work. The first one is from a long time ago. The last two are the reenactment of that picture.

And just for those of you not keeping score at home that’s me on the left, then Bob, and then finally Troy.

I just can’t stress enough how much fun I had saturday night at the wedding. It was more fun than I should be allowed. I don’t even know where to start. How about my duties as an usher? At first I thought it was going to be a cake job. But after it’s all said and done I’ve decided it’s a lot easier being a groomsman. They just have to stand up there. The usher has to deal with the people. Seating them as they come in. It’s a lot of pressure. I worried the entire time if I was doing everything the way it was supposed to be done. It’s all confusing having to remember which mother you have to seat first and then which one gets brought out last.

And the whole ordeal of this thing called the runner. The runner is that thing the bride walks down when it’s show time. Well the ushers had to pull this damn thing out right before the bride made her walk. This thing was pinned down at the altar and in theory me and the other usher were supposed to just pull this thing down the isle. Of course as we started to pull the runner one side gets unpinned. So Karsteadt (the other usher) stands on the end by the altar and I start to try to pull this damn thing out. The cord I used to pull it as it turned out was all wrapped around itself. So here I am trying to yank this bastard without ripping it off so the bride could do her business. I was sweating like a pig as I worried if this thing would get ripped off as I pulled it. And everybody was focused on me, at least thats how it felt as I tried to get the damn runner down the isle.

After that it was all fun. The reception was a blast and we all boozed it up. Kevin (the lucky groom) beat out Tanya (the beautiful bride) when it came time for the dollar dance. He won because they charged any guy that danced with him five bucks. And of course Troy, me, and Karsteadt all paid five bucks to dance with Kevin. I consider it a good purchase. The pictures below show me and Karsteadt dancing with Kevin:

So as you can tell form these pictures we were all well on our way. And it was some of the little things that made me laugh the most. I was standing in the bathroom at one point and Mr. Rindfliesch (Kevin’s dad) had been doing his business and I flashed back to something from a long time ago that just about made me cry from laughing so hard. Quite a few years ago for one reason or another I had been looking for Kevin. I don’t remember why. So I called his parents house a few times. And this was just a little after bartime. By the third or forth call I was told by Kevin’s dad that if I called again he was going to call the cops and report me for phone harassment. After that incident I had always been more than a little scared of Kevin’s dad. It was a lot of fun to spend the evening drinking with him. He isn’t as scary as I had imagined. In fact he pretty damn cool.

And there were many little things about the evening that I enjoyed. Meeting all of the relatives of both Kevin and Tanya, giving Karsteadt shit about being a Barry Manilow fan, doing some Sinatra tunes at karaoke, and telling Kevin’s mom and dad all about the exploits of their son when he worked at the hotel. Yep all in all it was a great night.

And one final thought before I finish up. Whoever it is that makes the shoes that come with tuxes should tortured very badly. The shoes I got were a size fourteen and any other time this size shoe should fit no problem. But these bastards were tight as hell. By the time I was finally able to take those things off my feet were killing me. In the morning when I finally got up and out of the tux I saw that my feet were red and slightly swelled up from these shoes. My little pinky toe on my left foot even had a nasty looking welt on it. Over a day later my feet still hurt. But it was well worth it for all the fun I had.

I decided to open up a Cafepress.com webstore. I figured if it works for Gawain it can work for me. You can find my shit right here. It should be mentioned that these three items I’m selling are at cost. I not looking to make any money with this site. You got your standard white t-shirt, a cute number for the ladies, and finally a baseball cap. The t-shirt is 8.99, the ladies t-shirt is 16.99, and the baseball cap is 12.99.

I plan on getting one of the normal t-shirts and the baseball caps as soon as I have some money so I’ll let you all know how they turn out. But if for whatever reason you would want to wear something with my sites name and slogan on it by all means go for it. And of course send in some pictures sporting my shit if you do buy any of it (especially any cute single ladies out there).