I got a text message from a friend, asking if I was pretty much done with PC gaming save for MMOs. I thought I would post here on the subject, since more than one person has asked about it. The answer is a bit complicated.

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I spent some time gaming with a long time friend tonight. We played some co-op Call of Duty: World at War (WaW), followed by some versus-mode Left for Dead (LFD), followed by some straight-up, team deathmatch in WaW. What I wonder, after I left, is whether perhaps I'm just tired of first-person-shooter (FPS) games.

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First of all, who knew the French had a warship?! Second, I think we have to give them credit for picking on somebody their own size. It seems that a group of barely capable Somali pirates are no match for the might of the French navy. Reminds me of a poem:

Froggy liked the bathtub, he didn't like the brook. His friends all said "How funny you look sitting in that big, red thing!" They laughed until they shook. But Froggy liked the bathtub, he didn't like the brook.

Congratulations, France, on your first major naval engagement! And on a more serious note, genuine kudos to the French for thumping a bunch of degenerate pirate scum.

My church is going through a period of transition. Our former pastor, whom I thought I knew and respected, ending up resigning after a long, drawn-out series of confrontations with the elders, culminating in... I don't even want to go into it. The relevant bit today, though, is that we have had a new worship leader for the last month or two.

On the whole I think he's a good guy, but I think he suffers from a misconception: that the music he selects/performs should be interesting and/or unique, at least to him. Normally, I'm all for musical experimentation, as long as the point is to bring glory to God through congregational worship. But this morning, our final Sunday of advent, he proferred a stunningly awful smash-up of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" with--and I am not making this up--U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".

I kid you not, we went from a verse of the great carol, albeit sung to a completely U2-ish backbeat with driving bass and ping-ponging guitar, to singing a verse of the U2 ditty. I think it was to avoid a charge of heresy that he changed the "But I still haven't found what I'm looking for..." line to "And I've finally found what I'm looking for." No matter what else you call it, it was a complete embarrassment. You want to noodle around musically? Fine. Just don't do it at what is arguably the most important holiday on the Christian calendar. Sheesh.

The Ettenmoors is the PvMP (player versus monster-player) zone in Lord of the Rings Online, and I had a great time stalking the moors tonight. I haven't spent a lot of time on PvMP, but this is the only night I've picked up 1,000+ renown in about ninety minutes. Oddly enough, it was a relatively small raid group, varying between 7 - 14 people. I think our size led the creeps to be a bit overconfident. At any rate, if you haven't tried PvMP in LotRO, you should; it's a good time.

I really get how Herb London feels since the election. The election of the lying, flip-flopping, quasi-black, empty suit that is the Obamessiah essentially marks the death of what I believe in most about my country. And this isn't a race thing, so put away the deck of race cards; no, it's about freedom.

The big BO believes that it's a good thing when government takes money from one group of people and gives it to another, and that's just so fundamentally opposed to the limited government the founders had in mind. I don't even recognize this nation anymore from the few decades ago when I was a child. I can't even imagine the degree of havoc the fool-elect and his cadre of leftist whack jobs will ultimately do.

My only hope, really, is that the man is vain enough to care how history regards him; i.e., that he won't want to be remembered as the president on whose watch the final nail went into freedom's coffin. We'll see.

Apparently, the Royal Navy is stupid enough to look to Microsoft for its fleet. Call it "Windows for Submarines" if you will, and I swear I am not making this up. I can see it now...

"You got a firing solution yet?"

"Sir, the last time we tried to fire torpedoes, the engines crashed, and we drifted for two weeks before we figured out it was bad display drivers for your console!"

Ah, yes. Just think how awesome it will be to have to reboot your sub twice a day. Just brilliant.

It ought to be criminal for those fools in congress to get a pay raise at a time like this. They stupidly force lending institutions to make risky loans to people who can't pay them back--all because of their skin color, one should note--help and encourage bankers to resell even riskier packages of such stupid loans, then sit back and condemn greed and incompetence while collecting a pay raise. Here's a piece of tongue-in-cheek "advice" to Islamofascists: stop targeting civilians and blow up congress instead. At least then you'd be doing the working man a favor.

Last night was my first night connected to a CPAP machine. The gals there monitored me while I slept and adjusted the pressure to optimize the settings for my particular issues. Today I feel so unusual that I'm struggling to find the words to express it. I don't feel like a new man, and I didn't wake up feeling like a million bucks, but I did wake up feeling very different than how I normally feel when I wake up in the morning.

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The Washington Post has decided that it will accept only positive comments ("congratulatory in nature") for the Obamas in their new White House feature. I don't know what you think, but that makes perfect sense to me. The press has had an only-positive-coverage policy of the Obamas for the last couple of years, so why change things now?

Six of my new Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) kinmates took some time from their gaming tonight to help take down Helchgam and give me a chance to roll unopposed on his slime--which was my only hope, given my luck. As a result, my main character has finally completed her level 45 class quests, something like nine months after she first started, and has acquired the coveted eagle pet. That probably doesn't sound like much of a way to spend a Friday night to many people, but to me it was fantastic. Hit the link if you're interested in any of the details.

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It's time to vote with your dollars, gamers. Apparently, the PC version of the new Prince of Persia includes no digital rights management (DRM) garbage. I was pretty interested in the remake of PoP anyway, but this absolutely guarantees a purchase from me. I encourage every PC gamer to get out there and buy a copy. Don't give Ubisoft an excuse to keep using crappy DRM schemes!

Is that the frequency with which Microsoft Windows needs to be rebooted? No, it's too high for that, even for Windows. Is it the rate at which the average man thinks of Megan Fox? No, it's absurdly low for that. No, fifty times per hour is how often my body fights coming awake because of sleep apnea when I should be dreaming instead.

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Overloaded is how I felt when I went to bed last night. I had a chance to hook up with an old gaming buddy for the second time in as many months, and it made for a fantastic night. No small part of that was the tremendous game that is Gears of War 2 or GoW2 for short. Read on if you want the details, but be warned: there are some spoilers!

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Mark Steyn takes the media to task for their whitewash of the Muslim terrorists in Mumbai. Well said, Mr. Steyn, and another must-read column on the subject. Call a spade a spade, people: the terrorists were the usual sort, Muslim extremists killing people in the name of their false prophet/god.