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By Mark D, January 15, 2013 10:26 am

So back in the day my dad was at the arcade near my house constantly. He used to brag about having long lines waiting to play the Indiana Jones game he used to play all the time. Of course what they were probably complaining about is a late 20s guy taking over the arcade booth for hours on end because he had a disposable income. Either way, he considered himself  the master when it came to video games. He kept his household title for a bit, until Legend of Zelda just about broke him.

It’s a level I’m never going to forget. The 5th underworld/dungeon or whatever you want to call it in the original Zelda. It had a secret area you had to navigate,which to get into and through was surrounded by a bunch of stronger darknuts. For those not familiar with the game, darknuts were knights who you couldn’t hit from the front and you had to hit from the sides and back. Their spastic movements made this really tough, especially in these rooms considering blocks made it tough to maneuver. Oh yea, hits from these darknuts would take off 3 hearts at a time, which was pretty big.

For my dad this was too much. For two nights he stayed up cursing and screaming at the TV all night. He told my mom it took him something like 12 hours to finish the two rooms. Since he knew I was right behind him in the game, that I would be doing that level soon. So he couldn’t wait to find out how long it would take me to do it. When I got to the area I breezed through it, and a few days later my mom asked me and I told her I had finished it.

That weekend my dad found out from my mom, and he didn’t believe me at all that I had finished the level in under half a hour. He actually made me go back and play the level again so he could watch me beat it. Apparently he never thought of using bombs on the darknuts. He also complained that I cheated by using bombs, but that has more to do with his ocd. Thankfully my mom defnded me and said I didn’t cheat and he stormed off.

After that he never really played the NES that much. At one point he bought a joystick controller because he complained that the directional pad was screwing him up. That lasted for one day before he threw the controller into the wall. His ocd continued though. He used to claim we were cheating at games if we didn’t beat everything on screen. Don’t forget these were the days of the NES in which enemies would respawn if you moved offscreen. There were games that took me days to beat instead of hours cause I would try killing everything instead of running past it.

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By Mark D, August 24, 2011 8:25 pm

It’s sort of like a train wreck, you can’t help but look when the title is Dictator-in-chief Obama and US Congress collaborating to destroy USA? I mean I get a laugh directly from the title. It’s hard to be a Dictator-in-chief when you’ve been elected. That was one of the complaints about Bush following the 2000 election, we don’t know if he really won the election he just ran the better PR campaign after. Gore actually got more votes then Bush, something commonly forgotten. Or you know that the Congress which couldn’t figure out how to raise the debt ceiling is working hand in hand with Obama to destroy the US. But hey, let’s dig into the meat of this article a bit and have some fun.

The facts are now so obvious and blatant that even dyed in the wool Obama sycophants should be able to see and hear the truth. What took the people of this country generations of their blood, toil and sweat to accomplish and build has been destroyed in less than 4 years.

Well, it took Bush less then a year to give huge handouts to Corporations and to totally ignore Bin Laden while vacationing in Crawford. But hey I’m sure if Obama had done any of that you would have given him a break too.

The United States of America has been gutted of its financial resources,

Yes, it was Obama in the last 4 years, and nothing to do with 2 Endless Wars. One war in which Bush lied to us (They have WMDs) to get us in to make his daddy happy. Also Bush NEVER had any plan on how to PAY for the wars. But hey, I’m sure all of this is Obama’s fault.

its people have had their rights to makes their own decisions about their lives (think ObamaCare, the First, Second and Fourth Amendments for starters) rescinded so that Obama and his cabal will decide for them,

Wait, Obama isn’t illegally quartering troops in civilian’s houses? I’m shocked. Look, I’ve already mentioned the Patriot Act (Which here she claims protects the US) and remember it was Bush who made “Free Speech Zones” so popular. Everyday I have to do things I don’t want to do because Obama and his “cabal” (what exactly is his cabal anyway? The ever so powerful Cabinet?”) make me do them. I wake up in the morning, turn on the telescreen and I’m forced to exercise.

US citizens have had their jobs removed and so thoroughly decimated that they must now rely on the fewer and fewer still working and Obama’s good will (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) to survive.

What a plan by Obama, get Bush to ruin the economy and cost thousands of jobs so Obama can win the election and destroy the country. Brilliant! No mention here of the corporations that are making huge profits but refusing to hire anyone still.

And now Obama has decided — as he promised to do but, the leftist elite and enough mentally deficient American voters chose to elect him anyway — to shut down coal (even the refurbished “clean coal” plants) production operations by using his EPA regulation hammer to drive them out of business.

The scary thing is, if she considered the people who voted for Obama mentally deficient, what does she consider the people who voted for Bush twice and McCain with Palin on the ticket. I guess they were the lost intellectuals of the day. Oh and let’s get something straight about Clean Coal, it may sound good, but it’s really not much of a solution. Coal is still “dirty” and still produces CO2 no matter what you do.

Remember that Obama couldn’t get his Cap % Trade through Congress so, he issued a dictatorial fiat. This is completely illegal and unconstitutional but…no one is stopping him.

I guess when Bush pardoned Scooter Libby that was unconstitutional too. Executive Orders are a long term aspect of the Presidential office, and I’m sure all Presidents have used them in a way that have upset people. Hell, the Emancipation Proclamation was an Executive Order. Congress can always overturn executive orders if it wanted to.

We are now living in a dictatorial Police State that is completely lawless — save the laws Obama and his DOJ are making up on the spot as they so choose. And Congress and the leftist courts are doing nothing — whatsoever — to stop it.

Yes, Obama is just making up laws as he goes along because you disagree with him about coal. I must live in a different world in which the Tea Party powered House refused to increase the deficit till the very last second. Obviously congress is doing nothing to stop Obama. And these leftist courts, including the 11th circuit would never vote to overturn Obamacare.

Another problem for that portion of the US electorate who failed to think it through — a problem that now onerously impacts us all — prior to casting their ballots in November 2008 is that nearly 45% of ALL energy produced in the USA is from coal power. The US Energy Information Administration in its “Electric Power Monthly report” (released 16 August 2011) writes: “Year-to-date, coal-fired plants contributed 43.6 percent of the power generated in the United States.” This means — if Congress does not get off its collective derriere and stop the madman and his entourage — there will be not only severe power outages nationwide but, estimated millions may have no power at all for basics such as heating and air-conditioning.

Does this sound like a reality to anyone? That Obama will just cut coal production and not find any replacement sources of energy? This is something that isn’t just done with absolutely no planing. Just a quick look at the Whitehouse website shows that the long term plan is more Renewable energy sources, especially wind. But of course no mention of that here, we’re just going to cut off our arm for the hell of it.

I can’t take reading anymore of this, but I have to pick out this one last line:

Heck, Obama is installing Muslim Brotherhood members as quickly as possible into the US government. Shari’a is only a short step away, folks. YouTube has already started censoring and removing all videos that do not support Islamic worldwide domination.

Oh wait, and here’s another fun part of that:

Note: Remember that the Muslim Brotherhood is the foundation organization that spawned al-Qaeda, Hamas and most other Islamic terrorist groups.

I guess the Muslim Brotherhood which spawned al-Qaeda (the CIA had nothing to do with that?) also helped to take down Osama Bin Laden later? Ironically when I looked at the authors archive there is absolutely no mention of Bin Laden’s  death. It just skips from an article on April 30th to May 11th (Osama was killed on May 2nd).  I would love to see how reality fits into Obama being a part of the Muslim Brotherhood. I would also love to see how Youtube can influence the world on the Muslim Brotherhood. Wouldn’t it make more sense to use national television or something that hits a wider audience?

The amazing thing is, this author, Sher Zieve, has been Chicken Little to the country is falling for OVER 5 YEARS! Take a look at this archive. I guess if you predict the destruction of the United States between now and the end of time, your going to be right at some point.

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By Mark D, June 27, 2011 5:15 pm

One thing that isn’t brought up when you talk about the internet is the childlike regression some people seem to go through when a part of an online community. In the past, if you had some odd or strange hobby/interest (let’s say Anime), you were usually alone. At some point it would just fall to the wayside as you grew up and kept up with things your circle of friends kept up with. That was why you eventually stopped watching cartoons. Hell, the public shaming from being adult and watching cartoons was probably more then enough to get people to stop watching them 20 years ago.

My Uncle told me a few times about how my cousin was on he way to being a pro baseball player. Supposedly he was heavily recruited when going to high school for his baseball prowess. So what happened to my cousin? My uncle would sum it up in one word, “Girls”. Suddenly instead of practicing baseball every free moment he had, he was chasing after girls and up late with them. By the time he got to junior year he wasn’t even on the baseball team anymore. That’s what happens when you grow up, you eventually let go of the toys of your youth. Mostly this is brought on by social pressure from your peers.

But now what happens though is you find some online “community” and suddenly there are hundreds and maybe even thousands of people who share the same interests and hobbies. Suddenly it’s okay to be 20 and liking cartoons, hell you talk to a guy from 3 states away whose 35 and likes the same cartoons too. Instead of moving forward and leaving your toys behind, you end up spending more and more time with the community that understands you. You feel as though the people you know in real life are the ones who left you behind. Suddenly your best friends are people who you’ve never met and never known. Instead of being shamed, your reveling in it.

Now here comes one of the worst aspects of these communities. It becomes like a hivemind. Because everyone becomes super-sensitive to any negative comments. People are living within their own little bubble, and are more then willing to fight back. The bubble protects them from ever having to go out and face reality. To them an “attack” (be it a critique, criticism or trolling) on one is an attack on everyone. If one of the members of the community leaves because they agree with something negative that was said about the community, it can cause a domino reaction causing more of them to question things. But this would force people to question themselves, and maybe even grow up a bit. So the natural reaction is an over-reaction to anything that can be the slightest bit negative.

Now the amazing thing is, that if someone who is in charge or held at a high level of prestige says something negative about something the community held positive views on, people will suddenly change their view. If you’ve ever wonder how society could get like it is in 1984, in which people can in an instant go from hating one faction to another, just watch these communities long enough and you’ll see it.

It gets worse though when some of these people have a sexual fetish that gets out of control because of these communities. Some things in life are truly better off being repressed and hidden in basements. Sometimes it’s not good to indulge yourself in a sexual fetish while losing ties to reality and people around you. Just as an example, I remember reading about this slightly mentally handicapped adult who was getting less socially awkward. Then he got a new psychiatrist who convinced his parents to let him indulge his strange fetish, and then he was egged on by an internet community dedicated to the fetish to think acting like he was was normal. Of course none of this ended well, but that’s a story for another day.

I’m not saying all internet communities are bad. But too many people make them the be all – end all of their life. Too many of them see everything as an attack on the group, when it’s just a simple critique. The fact of the matter is that most of them just need to move on in their lives, grow up, and be social normal human beings.

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By Mark D, February 15, 2011 5:32 pm

I really do, but sometimes you can burn out on it. That’s definitely what happened this weekend. For those that don’t follow hockey, I write over at Lighthouse hockey which is a SB Nation blog for the Islanders. The boss (Dom rocks and this isn’t his fault at all) went on vacation and I just had to write up the recaps for the games. Well Friday night the Islanders ended up in one of the most insane games of recent history. 300+ PIM, fights, misconducts, it was a throwback to 70s hockey. The Islanders not only won the game in a complete blowout, but pretty much beat the crap out of the Penguins. Also given that 90% of the fans not living in Pittsburgh hate the Penguins, you can imagine the excitement among Islander fans.

Now this is where my love of writing gets me into a bit of trouble. I’ve actually been blogging on and off for about a decade now. Whenever I do posts from the vault it’s actually from my old LiveJournal. Sometimes despite the fact that I now tend to get 50 hits a day, I still act like this place is getting 30 hits a month. Not that I would change at all anyway, but I don’t even think about it. It’s not just local either, I’m quite popular in Belgium, Paraguay, Bolivia, Norway and even Vietnam. It amazes me that someone from Vietnam spent 10 minutes reading my post on Victoria 2.

So I wrote the recap of the game and celebrated it for the most part. Well Pittsburgh fans didn’t take too kindly to it. First the Penguins fan site on SBN linked to it complaining about my title and their fans ripped my comments. Then this blog that I didn’t even know existed that follows the Pens called LHH “Buttholes” for the game recap. To put a cherry on top of everything, SBN has regional hubs. The regional hub for Pittsburgh decided to rip into my article too. To say the least that I was annoyed is putting it mildly.

Basically I just ignored them, and then the Penguins blog I had never heard of had a Podcast that again spent a good amount of time ripping the recap. So as you have seen since then, I posted a comment saying I’d love to chat. After getting cursed at by their crazy fans, I posted the screenshots of their comments. When I tweeted about it, one of the Pens fans saw it and told the owners that I was bashing their site. The funny thing is that I was hardly even bashing their site, I said almost nothing and let the screenshots talk for themselves. So he tweets that I created a new blog (Since it’s so hard to take a look at the calendar tool and see I’ve been around for almost 3 years) because SBN wouldn’t let me post my “attack” (I actually didn’t think it was newsworthy and didn’t want to give them anymore publicity) and I got twitted to death by a ton of asshole Pens fans.

So pretty much I spent a whole night tweeting back and forth with a bunch of idiots and not getting any useful sleep. Which especially mattered since I also needed to do the Recap on Sunday and the Prospect report for Monday morning and my followup post on Monday. So after all that I was pretty much burnt out. My apologies to people who might come by looking for real updates with all the insanity in the world recently.

But I wanted to just really thank everyone who comes by and reads. It’s so awesome that people I might not even know actually come here and read some stuff. Feel free to say hi, you can Like the Bards Blog facebook page, twitter at me or even email me. You can also comment, I usually answer everything unless I don’t have anything to say. And I promise I’ll be back to work full time tomorrow.

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By Mark D, August 27, 2010 1:04 pm

I don’t think I’ve ever quoted from the Bible before. It’s kind of ironic that 8 years of Catholic School basically assured that I was too smart to fall for religious BS. But sometimes the only way you can speak to the far right is in their own language.

“But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them – bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping” (2 Peter 2:1–3 NIV).

Personally, I am sick and tired of hearing about “End Times” as “predicted” by the Bible. Realistically the Book Of Revelations was written as a way to parody Nero. I mean imagine if in a thousand years someone picked up a random book which mocked history and thought it was real. Or even better, imagine if the only thing that survived to tell future generations about our society was Epic Movie. The very thought makes me sad.

But as long as the Christian Right believes it is preparing for a final battle between good and evil, let’s play along with it. Glenn Beck is a wolf among the sheep. His outright and blatant lies has been stirring up the most ignorant and fearful on the right. Anyone with a thimble of intelligence should realize that he spouts nothing but lies. His poor record as a commentator is seen in the ads he sells. Glenn Beck wouldn’t care if every single one of his “supporters” went bankrupt buying gold. Ironically, Glenn Beck selling gold is like “Don’t Be A Victim” selling guns. Both programs do nothing but promulgate fear. Beck’s listeners buy gold on the belief that the government is on the verge of collapse and your fortunes will be saved if you invest it in gold. That these relatively fundamentalist Christians who believe rapture is right around the corner care so much for saving their wealth. Shouldn’t the glory of heaven be worth more then any earthly possessions?

I tend to ignore Glenn Beck. His view tends to be so insane and fake that I can’t take him seriously. So you might be wondering why I’m even bothering with him now. His “Restoring Honor” gathering tomorrow at the Lincoln memorial has perturbed me  to no end. It’s funny that a Republican (Or if you object, Right Leaning) would hold any sort of speech or rally at the Lincoln memorial, considering that the party has long lost sight of what it’s most important member stood for. Could you imagine today’s Republicans if there was a civil war and at the conclusion their leader, the President, wanted to offer amnesty to all rebels? They would run him out of town on the first rail. Take for example the Freedman’s Bureau. Not only did it actively try to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves, but it also helped improve both medical coverage and schools through the South. How quickly would today’s Republicans be screaming about the fair market?

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