...and Battlefield 3 public stats are online

One of the many options in very early stages but they're promising tons of updates soon. Who needs Battlelog\? Plus I can spy on other people now...

That's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying.

I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing. And when the man is brave and true looks death squarely in the face, like some rhino hunters I know or Belmonte who is truly brave, it is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds until it returns, as it does to all men, and then you must make really good love again. Think about it.



TGIF

See...something like this could never happen in COD

So I actually jumped into the Single Player campaign and it's more or less you sprinting/following people in alley ways, then getting violently stabbed by a terrorist out of nowhere when you can't press 'O' in time. They're also dishing out some serious story line cheese with missing Russian nukes, attacking American soil, terrorists in the Middle East - all that good stuff.

Anyway, here's some interesting things that I've learned from multiplayer (so far):

• Only respawning actually deducts from the reinforcement tickets - reviving a downed player doesn't count (unless he chooses to suicide).
• Tactical lights and lasers attachments blind you even in daylight.
• Pressing knife will make you slash, but holding it too long will actually switch to knife...not so good in the middle of a close range gun fight.
• Sniper rifle scopes give off glints (to help you spot bush campers).
• Down on the directional pad can controls rate-of-fire on some guns, and up toggles the attachment.
• Flying choppers is very difficult nonsense.
• Just like BFBC2 you have to actually quit the game to exit a multiplayer session, ie: you can't exit to main menu EVER.

This is also why Battlefield is so interesting: barely any kills, less than 1.0 KDR, top of the leader board and my team wins. It's a real team effort.



I still wish they had 64 player support but it's still fun.

Battlefield 3: Strike while the iron is hot.

Pre-ordering ain't half bad. Considering the fact that I didn't have to pay for shipping and it arrived on my doorstep at 9am-release day, it's alright.

Anyway, it's begun. My money saving plan of just playing video games throughout the Holiday season is in motion. Turns out all my snowboarding poseur gear/classes associated costs destroyed my wallet.

As far as I can tell the game plays very similarly to Battlefield 2, but even better. Maybe it's because I'm so used to COD, but I have to admit that I'm pretty happy that they've included strafe-running and going prone into this version (so I can juke and hide in bushes). But yeah, the game build on something already great and is definitely refreshing from Black Ops.

Just by having it you automatically get a Battlelog account too. I guess it's EA's response to COD Elite, but unlike COD it's been done before by other sites like Stats Verse. I guess EA has some sort of API available, but as far as I know there's no affiliation between the two - just another way for people to publicly see the same info and how much I struggle.



I got in a session going with Jon last night and it's clear that they haven't worked all the bugs out yet. The servers are overloaded and even after the initial patch I got stuck in limbo a few times. Luckily getting booted or quitting the game for those reasons chalks up as a loss in Battlelog (great). Squads (still) don't work properly and apparently neither does voice communication, but I think that might have something to do with the servers being so busy. Smooth moves, but I look forward to the fixes.

As I mentioned yesterday, you gotta surf that initial noob wave to quickly level up before everyone gets pimp gear and shines tactical lights in your eyes so that you can't see before you. Otherwise it's rubber band gun vs. LMG (or something like that). Other than the outright skill (which I don't really have), stuff like weapon/class upgrades and especially map knowledge are the only things that can give you any sort of edge. And being me, I'll take what ever I can get (just like in real life).

The fact that most people at this point are ranked at level 2 or 3 and just bee-lining it to anything that pops up on the map at least gives you a chance to figure out what's what before people actually start playing smart. When everyone else knows what they're doing and you don't, it's not very fun. See me buying Black Ops one year after it's release as an example...

In my extensive years of sucking at games, I've learned that map knowledge is pretty damn important - routes to run, where to expect contact, objective locations, vehicles, stuff like that. So now is as good a time as any to get that before you get waxed by dudes laying in bushes, picking you off before you even know what happened.



Deploy now!

LINE Traveling Circus 4.2 Gone Camping

It's official. I'm signed up for snowboarding lessons - Beginner Level One. What's the worst that can happen?

You can't always get what you want...

I've had a very interesting past few weeks and it got me thinking just how different my experiences could be from anyone else's. It's like when you're in school and you try to spot that alternate version of you and your friends in a different class or year. Meanwhile you actually have no idea what that person is like or what they've gone though to get there - odds are that they've experienced things you can't even wrap your head around and vice versa.

We can get thrown into some pretty complicated, fun, intense and awkward situations in life, but I firmly believe that you need to step outside of your comfort zone every now and again to A) keep yourself in check, B) really be able to appreciate things, and C) experience the full spectrum of what life has to offer. Drink a little too much, have a little too much to eat, fall head over heels for some girl, learn something brand new, stress out for no reason and sweat your balls off until you just want to collapse. Since that spectrum is so damn vast you can only really hope to touch a fraction of it if your lifetime, and that's why you're you and everyone else isn't.

You can't expect to understand or judge something without (at least) giving it a try or, better yet, going deep. You don't really know how delicious food can taste until you've stumbled out of a bar at 2 am. You don't really know how intense an emotion can be until you start crying from it. You don't know how much you take your body for granted until you eat some bad food and it comes pouring out of every orifice. You can't grasp the idea of how big the world is until you sit on a plane for a few hours and stand on a mountain top. You get the idea.

Everyone has an expiry date, so try and have some fun.



Anyway, on a lighter note...

It's Battlefield 3 week! And once that postman delivers it to my door then it's on. Just like with BFBC2 I'm looking forward to having Battlelog track my failures in great detail. I don't even plan on playing the single player campaign because I need to jump on that initial noob wave and level up with the hoards before it's too late. Seriously.

In even other news, GoPro just released another HD Hero iteration to conveniently capture all of your embarrassing wipeouts (or sex videos). If there's image stabilization in this version then I'll have to drop some coin. Great.

Yes, this is what I get excited about. IS IT FRIDAY YET!?

Driving down the block, like what else should a brother do?

So I just pre-ordered Battlefield 3 and Modern Warefare 3 Hardened Edition - that's like $175 worth of video game swag. It's going to be a cold winter...



PSN: backspacr. Hit me up if you need someone to bring down your team...

All BURTON Everything.

Buckle up kids because things are about to get serious. After 10+ years of being a ski boss I've finally decided to switch it up and give snowboarding a shot. Shocking, I know.

I can't be certain, but I may have crossed the spent a little more money than I should have on snowboarding equipment based on the fact that I've never picked up a snowboard before line.

Burton Moto boots + Burton Custom EST bindings + Burton TWC Pro snowboard.







Alright, so who wants to teach me how to snowboard? Glen Eden, here I come...

Fat guy tries to run - Part 4: I see you have good stamina, here's my number...

Trust me - if I can run 5km without stopping, anyone can run 5km without stopping. What kind of bothered me though was the number of messages I got after the race asking me if I was alright, because some (other) 27 year old dude died on the course (RIP). Thanks friends.

Anyway, that's the first race under my belt and I have to admit that it was pretty damn exciting. I've never participated in such a huge anything before and with all the spectators and other racers shit got real. Real real.



In retrospect, 5km really isn't that long and unlike the marathoners you can basically power through the cold, thirst or any minor bodily struggle that you might have. I'm pretty thankful that A) my knee didn't explode and B) I didn't run out of gas, because it would have been very uncool to have to walk past the finish line.

Turns out the excitement and adrenaline actually does come into play because randoms cheering you on is pimp. Coming up to the last km or so I could not believe how many people were there screaming for just about anyone - makes you feel all good inside.



Getting down there was a real pain too because apparently the fact that 20000+ people were participating didn't register properly with my brain. And so I thought traffic, parking and the whole shuttle bus fiasco would have been no sweat...

Noob move of the day: despite the fact that it (actually) came with instructions, I broke the strap on the timing chip. Solution? Silly looking scotch tape.



So the start is organized into corrals, which doesn't mean much in a mass start apparently. Everyone lines up and funnels through the start gate to activate their timing chip, then the race is on.

Check the corral out - I'm out front in the red corral, and (I think) there were at least 2 more huge ass crowds behind me. Even at this point I need to make my way to the Automotive Building ahead, turn right, then pass the actual start line about 100 yards out. Since my math is awesome I can tell you that it actually took 2:12 to get from here to the timing mats. Lambs to the slaughter.



After that you're basically breaking ankles dancing around people just to get past them and make some space. The first km is like an arcade game because a whole bunch of people are trying to do the exact same thing.

For timing there's gun time (the time started when the official fires the gun) and chip time (your actual recorded time when passing the start and finish lines). Booyah technology, but unfortunately your overall rank is actually determined by the gun time. That's nonsense because unless you're right at the start when the gun goes off then you don't stand a chance (against the black people).

The one thing that threw me off was that there weren't any distance markers along the way. I had my Timex with me but judging pace was pretty messed up since you're all excited and everyone is doing different things. It's a good thing that I had a few practice runs under my belt or else I wouldn't have had any idea how fast I should be going.



I won't lie, my pace was pretty much determined by the hottest girl I could keep up with, so the whole race your own race game plan where I had pace/km planned out pretty much just turned into me juking out dudes and chasing girls. The plan seemed to work though because it was my best time ever and up until that last stretch, where I started to sprint run faster, I felt pretty smooth.

It wasn't until the very end where I saw the 500m mark, 200m mark and the finish gate that things really registered with me because time passed so quickly. I felt like a boss running through the grandstands and when Jeff magically spotted and cheered me on I went Super Saiyan 2. PS: I can't wait to buy my finish line photo.

This is the scene just after the finish. Tons of medals, Gatorade, heat blankets and food for all the finishers. I even saw some vomit on the ground.



So it was a hell of a lot of fun and I would definitely do it again. Since the fastest time of the day was about 15:30, I guess I have a lot of work to do. While I don't think my knee would be able to survive that lightspeed jump required to do a half or full marathon yet, I'm down for more 5km action until I build up to that kind of thing.

Look at me now hater, look at me now.



Next year I'm going to wear my GoPro just to capture how much dodging a guy actually has to do.

Fat guy tries to run - Part 3: IT'S GAME TIME

So in the handful or so runs that I've done leading up to this Sunday I've determined that it takes me about 2km before I get into any sort of groove. Up until that 2km mark it's pretty hard times, but after that the struggle feels more or less the same until I eventually pick it up for the finish.

With that being said here's the plan: a good solid warm up, relaxed running until the 1-1.5km mark, go faster and faster after every km after that, and then in the last 1km to 500m run as hard as I can. If I don't pull any noob moves then I should clock in around 28 minute mark, but I'll also have to see how excitement and adrenaline comes into play.

While training didn't go exactly as planned, I think I succeeded in at least getting an idea of what my pace should be like so I don't burn out immediately. Here are my last 2 runs - check out that Run Keeper manual input cheese (Timex FTW). Just a nice walk tomorrow and that's it.



One of the things I was wondering about was how they manage timing everyone. The ridiculous thought of volunteer high school kids holding clip boards and trying to read the number on your chest crossed my mind, but turns out that science stepped in to legitimize the whole deal. I'm not exactly sure how this mass start works though, but I can imagine it adding some unnecessary time as you try to make your way through that initial crowd.

Anyway, as I mentioned before I can't wait to eat the night before. I'm not quite sure what it will entail but it's going to be delicious. Believe.

So I probably shouldn't have eaten this yesterday either but that's how I roll...The High Priest - Burger's Priest answer to the Big Mac. I added in the panko breaded deep fried jalapenos and I don't think I have to say that it was very delicious tasting.



Time to carb up!

Why hello there iOS 5.

It's true what they say, you never really hear anyone complain about switching to an iPhone or talk about how hard it is to use. Although I may be a fan boy you can't deny that it works well.

So this new version of iOS dropped yesterday and I installed it. While it isn't exactly ground breaking, it definitely makes things a little more convenient. One of the features that I was looking forward to is iMessage. It's basically BBM for your iPhone that's integrated with the regular Messages app. No silly BB pin to deal with either.

Basically, when you message someone it will consult the cloud (or something like that) and determine if you're sending it to an Apple device/account and, if so, pump fake your carrier, do a 720 no scope right in SMS's face and use your data plan instead. It all happens quickly and automatically, so you don't even need to try.

Bottom line: when you sext someone blue = iMessage and green = SMS.



iOS is now integrated with iCloud too. While I haven't figured out yet exactly what that means, I know that I have 5GB of storage somewhere, stuff needs it to run and parts of my iPhone can sync to it. There's also default integration with the Find My iPhone app as well, which is pretty cool for stalking yourself.

For those who use Stanza, Newsstand is there and pretty useless...and you can't even hide it in a folder. Great. (Update: turns out Stanza is not stable on iOS 5 in the least...)



Photos and the camera also got a little improvement too. You can enable a grid, do some basic editing and FINALLY create and organize photos into albums. That just took them forever.



Another one of the big things is Notifications - they all of a sudden copied Android got pimp. No longer do we have to deal with those lame blue bubbles popping up and interrupting your intense gaming session work-flow because it's been re-vamped.

You can still have those notifications pop up if you want, but they've introduced a less aggressive pull down screen consolidating all your important information at a glance. Smart.



Looks like notifications can remind you how boring your life is just about anywhere except for the lock screen. Just swipe down and that tab appears for you to pull down.



Although I was kind of disappointed to find out that Siri will only run on the 4S for now, the idea of talking to a robot is still kind of lame to me unexplored territory, so not a huge loss at this point. But we will see...

Promag Marauder Magazine Review (HINT: AA922 sucks)

So I've had some pretty lame issues with the ProMag Marauder magazine included with my kit, as in it was totally unusable out of the box. One of the risks of pre-ordering a brand new product? It might have issues, and apparently mine did.

I've heard that the feed lips were faulty on some of the first batch runs, so I'm guessing that I got one of those. I'll admit that the lips looked pretty sloppy and my doubts were confirmed as it would not feed properly - rounds kept jamming just below the lips so they would never make it into the chamber.

Here's what mine looks like now compared to something that actually works...



I did do the sanding trick and the lips do seem to feed WAY more consistently, but I shouldn't have had to do something like that in the first place.

That trick was to basically sanding down the insides so that the follower can move a little more freely in order to push the rounds though the magazine and lips.



I did contact the dealer I got mine from to see if it was covered by warranty, but he said that "You will need to contact promag directly for replacement if that is needed. No spare parts are given to dealers." I don't know if that's exactly true since, from what I understand, Hical.ca is distributing lips for warranty and also selling replacements.

I did try to contact ProMag though, but emails to tech support are like messages in a bottles thrown into an ocean...



One of the other issues I've been having is that it's really difficult to load more than 15 rounds into it. On top of that wire which keeps cutting your finger, trying to get too many rounds in there is proving to be a real pain.

It was actually bending the casing of the previous rounds because they were so hard to push in.



One possible solution? A speed loader.



Unfortunately, while the magazine does fit in (even with the sleeve on) it jams and ruins even more rounds. I didn't just spin the loader knob like a savage, I twisted it slowly just to see if it would load, but it didn't.

It would keep jamming after 2 or 3 rounds, possibly because of the messed up lips or that guide wire. I think they need to improve their design because that guide wire is so troublesome.



I've heard rumors that they might sell steel lip replacements, and I'll jump on those as soon as they're out, but in the meanwhile I might order some plastic replacements just so I can get some use out of the magazine this year.

I've learned my lesson with the pre-ordering, so I'll probably get more Marauder mags sometime next year after they work out all the bugs. What a shame.



Looks goofy but works. Oh well...

Gobble Gobble...

What a grab bag of fun and exhausting activities this weekend has been...

All I can say is that I better do some exercise soon because I can feel my ass jiggling from the amount of delicious food I consumed over the past 3 days. Since RunKeeper tells me that my single unit of exercise over the weekend burned a solid 484 calories, turns out deep fried lobster and lava cakes are delicious I have a pretty big mountain to climb.



Anyway, the race is on Sunday and while my training has been going OK I haven't ran as many 5km pieces as I think I should. I will probably also pick up some running swag this week so at least I don't look like a complete noob at the start line, and I'd also like to say that I'm probably looking forward to carbing up the night before way too much.

Seeing as how half the people in the 5 km will probably be walking while pushing strollers I'm expecting the competition/hate to be strong, come race day.



The final plan is a 3km + 5km + 4km this week leading up to the main event. If all goes well I should land a sub 29 minute time which is a personal best (by default).



I also picked up these things called KontrolFreeks after learning that a bunch of the top YT commentators use them on their Onzas.

I won't lie, since my PS3 game is pretty weak I'll take any advantage I can get. I now have $20 worth of extra swag, hanging off my knobs and buttons trying to help my clumsy fingers out. Although awkward at first, the KontrolFreeks made a real difference in control and I'm pretty sure removing them at any point would now be crippling. While that isn't saying much, I'll do anything to get that K/D up. Crutches anyone?

Unfortunately, the BF3 servers were down most of the weekend so I didn't actually get to play that much. Yes, that's me and I somehow got stuck below the soil. There's a ton of bugs in this beta, so I'm expecting a huge first patch once I buy this game on the 25th.



I'll post something of actual content tomorrow (once I'm somewhat recovered)...

This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.

I still can't help but to smile when I watch that goofy lip sync video - it was hilarious to make and it's hilarious to watch. Don't deny it.

So this weekend I'll go ahead and give thanks to my so called friends for bearing with me and helping put together all those ridiculous videos throughout the year...NOT! Because I'm still a hater after all, FYI. Enjoy the dry turkey.



TGI-Thanksgiving long weekend FTW! (I'm just going to play the Battlefield 3 Beta for 3 days straight -mwah)