First Impression, Battlefield: Bad Company

While I am far from finishing the game, I have been given the opportunity to play through the first hour and a half of Battlefield: Bad Company. So far, the game has not disappointed. The game is packed with humor, explosions, and...well, more funny. How could that possibly go wrong?

The game is centered around four soldiers whose role in an indiscriminate war is uniquely summed up by a conversation between the games main characters. While being sent on what could easily be seen as a suicide mission, one of the soldiers remarks that the army has soldiers specially trained for the mission they are about to attempt. Another soldier blithely remarks that using them on this mission would be a waste of the army's money. Essentially, Bad Company is expendable, and the first line of defense in completely indefensible situations.

So far I have laughed, cried, and maybe even pooped a little...

Kaboom!!!!!!

Today Iran test-launched weapons capable of striking Israel. Israel has said that if Iran does not discontinue all nuclear enrichment programs they will attack Iran. Iran has stated that they will retaliate if Israel attacks them. Where the hell is Winston Churchill when you need him? Seriously, we are all hosed. Where have the strong world leaders gone? People capable of stepping in and doing what had to be done. They have been replaced by Ol' George W. "Ramblin'" Bush and his "We need to fiximacate the middle eastish areas through militaryistic manuveration", while every once in a while Cheney jumps in with "don't forget about the oil!". And who the hell knows what is actually going on? The Iranian Special Guard leaders have stated that the act was to "demonstrate Iran's capability in hitting its enemies accurately at the early stages of their probable attacks against the Islamic Republic." All the while Ahmadinejad is saying that Iran does not want war. All of this goes on without thought one as to the well being of the people caught in the middle of these crossfires.

World events continue to play out dictated by the rich while the people they are supposed to represent die in the process. The men who call the shots, who decide to insight rage and invoke "patriotism" for the sake of financial gain, they are not the ones who kill their fellow man following a force fed ideal. They are not the ones who lay dead in the streets of a foreign country while other men in neatly pressed uniforms inform their families that they have been of "great service to our country". They don't spend their time hiding in their house scared to death that a bomb may kill them in their sleep, or that someone who disagrees with their religion may murder them on their way to temple or mosque.

Don't think I am just an anti-war hippie either. Their is a time when war is necessary. When millions are being slaughtered simply because one rich man thinks he is better than the rest, action must be taken. When the threat to the lives of your family and friends is imminent, action must be taken. But when innocent people die because one group believes themselves to be superior to another, then all logic is lost. Country is an arbitrary designation based on current economic situations. Cultural differences are very real, but never worth dying over. Churchill knew this. He continues to work through his children and grandchildren to convey this message. Israeli, Iranian, Iraqi, American, French, we are all people. It's pathetic that we put so much energy into killing each other. If only scientist ruled the world.

Our only hope may be that a universal threat appears and unites all people on a common front. My guess, it's gonna be the raptors. Hopefully it will be the Sith though, because lightsabers would be bas ass...

Do they even sell fish by the barrel?

Went down to Bennett Spring for the 4th of July (or explosion day for those in the mid-west). Bennett Spring is, first, one of the coolest places in the state of Missouri that I have ever seen. It is, unfortunately, also the most frustrating. Bennett Spring is a natural spring which feeds into the Niangua river, and the department of fish and wildlife runs a trout hatchery there. The trout from this hatchery are then loaded BY THE TRUCK-FULL into the spring. All around me people are pulling fish out of the water like God himself was compelling the fish to jump into their nets. I, on the other hand, must have propitiated the wrong fish gods. I caught one fish. One rainbow trout. In a stocked lake. Stocked daily. Crap. I tried everything short of jumping in the water and wrestling the fish to shore by hand (coincidently, there is a printed rulebook that forbids this) and still caught only one damned fish. Catching one fish in a stocked lake is like going home alone from a hooker convention. Its frustrating to say the least.