Octuplets' mom seeks online donations

Wow, I sure didn't see this coming. Poor lady. She has what, 14 kids now? She's a single mom but decided to add 8 more children to the 6 she already had. Brilliant thinking. Oh, and now she needs money because, you know, it's hard to feed 14 frigging children when you are on disability. So since she has squeezed out her last 8 love muffins, she has tried to get her own TV show (as if we need another John & Kate + 8) and is now appealing for donations.

I am normally not taken with the old "welfare cheats" stories about how some women keep having kids to get more money, but this is just ridiculous. It's obvious that this psycho was all about the publicity. Otherwise there's this thing called family planning, see? And it helps you make tough decisions like, "Say, you already have 6 children that you really can't take care of. Perhaps you should think about stopping right there, eh?" Instead, during a full blown economic crisis, she wants everyone else to foot the bill for her completely irresponsible decision to have more kids. And just who the hell was her fertility doctor that thought she needed help having more kids? There's some real ethics there, huh?

So please, folks, give generously or else the kids will suffer. Because that's what this is all about. You know, the kids.

Computer back!

Back up and running. I replaced the heat sink and CPU fan, which had been making noise for a long while. Then much to my surprise when I rebooted the computer, I still got the fan alarm. Only I read it closer and it said my chipset fan was the culprit. Doh! Anyway, I unplugged it from the board and rotated it a few times by hand to make sure it was spinning freely. When I rebooted, it started up just fine. Obviously I will have to keep and eye on it, but my computer does alarm when it is malfunctioning, so that should be cool. And I am so glad I replaced the CPU fan anyway because it has been a problem for a long while. Now I can not worry about it anymore.

Anyway, I am back in business!

Computer down

I am typing this from my wife's laptop as my PC is currently unavailable. My CPU fan has been making noise for a while and I knew I was going to need a new one. Today the power went out in my house for about 30 seconds and it took my computer off. When I restarted it, I kept getting an alarm saying that the fan was not running at a fast enough speed. After striking out at Radio Shack and Best Buy, I am going to have to visit a computer repair shop, possibly as soon as tomorrow. I may check in from my wife's laptop before I get mine going again.

Movie minute: In Bruges

Saw this last night and absolutely loved it. It's a small, quirky film but it is filled with great performances (Colin Farrell has never been better) and lots of laughs and drama. Ralph Fiennes is menacing as a crime boss while Brendan Gleeson teams up with Farrell to portray a pair of unlikely hitmen. Highly, highly recommended, I'd give it a solid A.

Some sports gaming stuff

I am loving the hell out of FIFA Soccer '09 right now. When I played it right after it's release, I was underwhelmed. But I recently started playing the Be A Pro mode where you play as one person the entire match. Very addictive, and I don't have to deal with the frustration I have playing defense; my main complaint about the regular game mode is that your computer teammates are brain dead when it comes to playing defense. You have to constantly switch players and do everything yourself; your teammates don't even go after the ball. FIFA has been like this for ages. But with Be A Pro mode, I can concentrate on playing as a striker and worry only about attacking.

FIFA is such a well done game. I am a sucker for a sports game that offers up lots of teams to play with and FIFA has over 200 teams to choose from. Different leagues throughout the world are represented so you can play in the Barclay's Premier League if you'd like or you can go somewhere where the talent isn't so good, say the Australian or Korean leagues. It's a lot of fun and I am really glad I gave this game another spin after ignoring it for along while. My only other complaint is that when you create a player, you can only make him average at best. There is a limited amount of skill points you can give him, so you can't create stud players. I am a firm believer that games should give you any and all options available. You pay a lot of money for these game and the user should be able to have all the flexibility he/she wants.

I also downloaded the demo for Sony's MLB: The Show 'o9. Brilliant stuff. It is a lot like last year's version, which is a good thing. It looks like they added some new features and cleaned things up a bit. It is a beautiful game, just stunning as far as the stadiums and players go. This is a day one purchase for me. As Dave Roland mentioned, he and I are gonna have to get some more baseball games in this year. I still owe him for a beatdown he gave me last year.

Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage

I went ahead and download the first DLC for my Game Of The Year for 2008, Fallout 3. I have yet to boot it up and it will probably be a while before I can get into it. Reviews so far have been good, not great. Apparently it is basically all about combat and no real role playing is involved. I'll offer up some thoughts after I spend some time with it.

Super Bowl review

Well, if you read my earlier post on the Super Bowl, you know I got exactly what I wished for; a good game by Kurt Warner and a last minute Steelers' win. But I couldn't help myself. Bill Bidwill aside, I was pulling for the Cardinals. When Fitzgerald scored that TD with just over 2 minutes remaining, it was euphoria at my house. My parents and some good friends of ours were over to watch the game and we were all pumped. Then came the Steelers drive and score, on that spectacular catch by MVP Santonio Holmes. The whole house deflated.

I hope Warner's performance was enough to put him over the top for the Hall Of Fame. His one interception was a huge, huge play in the game but he passed for over 370 yards and 3 TDs. He has played in 3 Super Bowls and has the top 3 passing games in Super Bowl history as far as yards. That's damned impressive. I know not a lot of his passes were long, but he had to thread the needle all night over the middle and he did just that. My hats off to him, and to the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers. Celebrate hard and safely, Steel City.