Gera's uber blog of everything

The truth behind "The cake is a lie"

2008-05-28T02:02:00.000-07:00

I've been extremely bored recently so I decided to start blogging once again. Today I shall explain to the best of my ability what the phrase "The Cake is a Lie" means.

Urbandictionary.com defines it as:

Roughly translates to "your promised reward is merely a fictitious motivator". Popularized by the game "Portal" (found on Valve's "Orange Box" game release for PC, XBox 360 and PS3). During the game, an electronic voice encourages you to solve intricate puzzles using cake as a motivating perk. When you have "broken out" of the game's initial testing phase (from threat of death), you find scrawls on walls of the innards of the testing center warning you that "the cake is a lie".

Employee #1: Yo, Dave, manager says we will probably get a promotion if we meet the sales expectations for this quarter.

Employee #2: Yeah, so, don't get your hopes up on that one, Ed. The cake is a lie.

Employee #1: Really, aw crap.

So there you have it, I didn't really explain it, but who gives a crap rite? You have an answer now.

kthxbai

Cloverfield Am Cry

2008-02-12T01:35:00.001-08:00

Coming soon...

Seriously Microsoft... WTF

2007-12-03T00:24:00.000-08:00

I mean, why after 10+ years of using .doc files you come out with your newest version of Office and guess what? now we have .docx files? i mean WTF.

Victor said:
but you can save it 97-2003 documents

to which i replied:

well... i know... but that shouldn't be the case it should still be .doc

This is like coming back home and seeing a Walrus at your family dinner table seeming you're the only one that notices it while everybody else ignores you.

/ rant

Update your old TV

2007-11-11T18:41:00.000-08:00

here are some quick tips from what I've researched on buying HDTV's

* don't be a cheap ass get a Sony, Samsung or Sharp HDTV, please don't go for the vizio's do yourself a favor and keep away from them.

* get an LCD set, they're way cheaper than DLP and CRT(these are big, and cheap but requiere calibration) and some DLP sets suffer from burn-in.

* ignore the whole "FULL HD 1080p ads" it means nothing unless you're getting a set thats 50' or larger, the human eye can't tell the difference from 720p, 1080i and 1080p if the TV is smaller than 50'

* be sure your tv has ATSC tunner, (previous brands will have it included) but what is it? the tunner will let you access HD transmission of your local channels.

* if you're a gamer, be sure it has a game mode, so you don't suffer from lag in-game (recent samsungs are good at this, trust me ;))

* take advantage of black friday deals, best buy has some of the best, if there's a time of the year to buy an HDTV it's black friday. DO IT.

* you can get a 40' samsung for $1400 or less

that will be all, thank you

that will be all for today, thank you

JACC 2007

2007-11-04T15:19:00.000-08:00

who would have guessed that in my first year participating at JACC (Journalism Association of Community Colleges) i would win an award. I was shocked when the announcer was starting the News Judgement/Layout - Broadsheet category award. It was an Honorable Mention but hell, i've never ever designed a layout for a newspaper and this was my first try.

If it wouldn't be for Mark Rojas or Almendra Carpizo back at the newsroom i wouldn't have an idea of what to do, and thats why I'm completely grateful with them.

although i didn't win anything in the sports competition i don't feel bad, i thought i did my best in the contest.

JACC was a great experience and i already can't for the next one. Getting to know better Brandi Perez (ex-sports editor) Victor Muniz (photographer, who is in our class) and Chris Saenz (photographer) was also great I think we developed a great friendship between all of us.

Also, the highlight of JACC was this video, we probably watched it like 10 times a day, sad i know...

LTTP: I watched "3:10 to Yuma" last friday

2007-10-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

And my god was it good...
Definitely one of the best films of the year so far. I've always had a thing for Western movies but the thing is, no one makes them anymore. Seeing Rusell Crowe portray "Ben Wade" i was "OMG ITS TEH RUSELL CROWE AS A a badass thief" seriously it was a great performance by Crowe who side by side with Christian Bale was pure awesomeness, the story too was great, and the whole "im bad, but not really" by crowe was a bit expected it didn't detract from the whole premise of the movie.

Also Wade's gang, run by the fanatically loyal Charlie Prince portrayed by Ben Foster in his absence, is determined to liberate their leader who followed his leader blindly and in a sort of fanatical way.

in short...
Don't let the fact that it's a "period" film keep you from seeing 3:10 to Yuma. It's a kick-ass action film, as well as a vastly entertaining movie that proves that popcorn flicks don't have to be dumb, shallow or contemporary to be enjoyed.

P.S. LTTP = Late To The Party

P.S 2 Sorry no pic of the week in respect of this great movie

First day at the San Diego Indoor Soccer Center

2007-10-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

Today was the first game of the league for my team "Pitufos FC" in our quest to obtain the championship and be promoted to division III.
After paying up some $65.00 to the cashier we all got our "passes" and headed to field 1 to begin our coed competition.
first off the day was extremely HOT, i felt my feet were burning but effort paid off and we ended up winning our first my match 13-5, a great score to kick off our season.
And no, i did not score a goal... :( i had 2 chances that hit off the post, but had two assists anyways... not much else to say, except "Kind of a big deal" is next and they're gonna get it... i guarantee it

Picture of the Week:

3 days in hell... a.k.a. Southwestern Sun

2007-10-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

so... yeah... Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were hell in the southwestern college sun newsroom. Why? We had to stay ALL DAY laying out the page, and to my surprise it's hard as hell, even more if you, like me, never used InDesing and of course hate apple computers (which are the only one's available in the newsroom).

Overall, i think it went well, i learned A LOT in one night but of course there's still more i need to completely master the programs.

by the looks of it, next week looks like it'll have the same tonality and will be full of hard work, but weirdly enough I'm looking forward to it, although you have to invest many hours in the end it pays off to see your work in print.

Random Picture of the week:

Internet Message Boards

2007-10-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

Week after week, Mr. McCormick haunts me with the same question every monday "Where do you get those images?"
To which I reply "The internet"
Now, it's about time I reveal my nerdiness and tell you were i get them from:
Internet Message Boards
there are internet message boards for almost anything that exists in our real world, while the most popular remain being gaming message boards, you can find cars, iPods, soccer, football, guitars EVERYTHING. It's a place where you can share your opinion and at the same time be ignored, flamed or be called a troll.
The boards that i visit the most are the IGN boards. These are easily among the most popular boards around the internet, followed by gaia.com, although gaia is place for pure spamming and anime freaks, which is scary to say the least.
IGN boards have a wide range of topics and it has a very popular section called "Teh Vestibule" which is kind of the place where you can post random stuff ranging from random topics like "rate my day" to very politically driven "suchs and such law shouln't be passed"
On IGN, you can be banned for everything! If you swear you'll get banned, if you post inappropriate pictures you'll get banned, and if you piss off the mods during their consistent periods, you'll get banned. It's a pretty good moderated place keeping it safe and civiliezed at the time unlike Gaia.
But i digress, the section where i get the random picture is Teh Vesti, people manipulate movie sections, and add a funny caption, there are a LOT of .gif's floating in the vestible going from simple "no's" to far more long and detailed.
examples below:

As you can see, they range from simple funny videos, to an expression, to a funny movie-real life reference.
But, obviously there are sections in the IGN boards that are more discussion-driven, than posting random pictures and topics.

P.S. i forgot to post this earlier

Random Picture of the Week:

Halo 3: The Hype Machine

2007-09-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

Finally it came to and end. Halo 3 released to all XBOX 360 owners across the world, players who were waiting to Finish The Fight. First of, let me say this: the Halo franchise is immensely overrated, yes its funand you have a blast when playing multiplayer but c'mon there are far better First Person Shooters on the market. what i'll give halo is the fact that it made console FPS popular, a genre that most of the time failed due to the fact that the controls just plain sucked (except Goldeneye and Perfect Dark).
Bungie nailed the FPS controls on the XBOX controllers which is why it is widely accepted and popular, the controller below:

but i digress... and this is not my main rant about halo.
I hate the damn marketing campaign, its very irritating when everywhere you go you see Master Chief's face on everything, and the slogan "Finish The Fight"
examples below:

Legendary Edition of Halo 3
Retail Price: $129.99

XBOX 360 Halo Edition
Retail Price: $399.99

while i can live with themed systems and legendary editions... the next is plain unforgiving:

then I wen to a burger king ordered to go... and guess what did the bag have... yes you guessed right Halo 3 advertising featuring master chief, afterwards i go to a 7-11 i go to where the slurpee cups are and guess what... YES ANOTHER HALO 3 SLURPEE CUP WITH HOLOGRAPHIC IMAGES LEIK ZOMG!>!?2?

sigh... and don't get me started with the reviews, thats a whole other blog post.
I know there's more merchandise and I would post it but im tired of it, I'm just glad the game released and everything should be over... or will it be only time will tell

/rant

Random Picture of the Week:

P.S. Each time Mr. McCormick doesn't laugh to my picture of the week God will kill a kitten

P.S. 2 i kid, i kid...

Apple I hate you

2007-09-23T01:04:00.000-07:00

Yes apple, I secretly hate you. but why must you ask? it's very easy WHY DO YOU HAVE TO UPDATE YOUR PRODUCTS EVERY SIX MONTHS!?!?!?!??!!1111!!1. While I'm not criticizing the fact that you update them, what irritates me is the time period you take to do it, and me for one was victim of your bad habits.
A couple of years ago I decided that I needed and iPod, and went to good and trusty eBay to get one, my choice was the U2 iPod, the picture edition that could display photos:

Well... a month passed and guess what? yes apple decided to launch their new video and Nano releases of their iPods... my exact feelings shown below:

Apple should stop screwing around with its customers and now with this price cut on the 74th day of the iPhone release a $200 dollar price cut? you gotta me F***ing kidding me, as I said before, my anger comes from the time they take to do price cuts or releasing newer models, not the iPods or their functionality.
Seriously, this has to stop the only thing we get beside one of the coolest techs around is our wallets raped but of course no one will listen and people will still buy Apple products until the end of time.

/rant

PS - I hate Macs with a passion

PS - /rant = end rant

Random picture:

I dare you laugh at this picture Mr. McCormick, c'mon you know its funny.

I decided to Upgrade

2007-09-16T00:15:00.001-07:00

A month back I finally decided to upgrade my TV and my speakers.
First up was the TV, I obviously wanted an HDTV, since I've owned a PlayStation 3 from around december I knew i was missing out on the so-called "HD era" by playing on my old but trusty 21" Samsung. Knowing Samsung, Sony and Sharp are among the best HD sets on the market, I went with the cheaper option of the three and picked this one:

The Samsung 19" LCD HDTV (LN-T1953H) it was $430 at circuit city but i had a $40 off coupon
Anyways, I still needed an HDMI cable so that i could hook it up to my PS3 and enjoy the HD, but beware don't buy those overpriced cables that every store sells for $100 bucks, just go to www.monoprice.com and you could get one for less than $10 bucks shipping included, a great deal for great quality cables.
Moving on, the cable arrived hooked it up to the new TV and to the PS3, configured the settings to 720p on games and 1080i on movies and the XMB... and my god does it make a difference... its mind blowing really, and its not only the games, since the PS3 has an integrated Blu-Ray player, you can rent or buy HD movies and do they look gorgeous, hell even DVD's look great with the Upscale Feature.
So people who are on the edge of getting a new TV, just do it, DO IT. What are you waiting for? why are you here still sitting and reading this and not buying a new TV?
oh, yes and Vizios are crap, they're cheap but they're not worth it, not good enough Contrast ratio, lack of tunning options etc.

Next up, was getting a new sound system, mostly for my PC since my old speakers crapped out.I set my eyes on this set after a little research:

The Logitech X-540 5.1 sound system.
I bought this set last Wednesday at best buy, and also bought a sound card for my PC, which i didn't realize i needed in order to connect the speakers:

The Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy SE Sound Card
The speakers were $79.99, and the sound card was $29.99 got home installed the sound card, then the speakers, installed drivers for sound card, and voila, welcome to picture and audio heaven... pure bliss.
People trying to have a good video and audio system, with a relatively low price, this complete set is a great deal, of course you could buy a bigger TV which is always recommended if so, but the quality and price of these products are unmatched for the price they have.
Next time, I'll post tips on how to pick an HDTV in case you haven't, anyways... see you next time.

Here's the traditional random picture i post after every blog:

Football Season Started!!!

2007-09-07T11:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, last night was the first game of the 2007 NFL Season, which faced the Indianapolis Colts against the New Orleans Saints.

Great game to say the least, it was an amazing display of how Peyton Manning is THE best Quarterback to play this game, even though he had a kinda slow start, the 2nd half of the game was completely his, making ex-Colt Jason David look like a Rookie instead of a 4th year Corner Back.

In short Colts show great promise to repeat a super bowl year, and run away with the championship

Peyton Manning FTW

BioShock PC demo impressions

2007-08-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Rapture...

Yes, the long awaited Demo for the PC version of BioShock was finally released yesterday evening at 4:00 PM PST. While many online retailers tried to take advantage of the hype generated from this game and chargeed money for download of the demo(yes, I'm looking at you fileplanet.com) although many sites hosted the file free of charge.
Anyways, on to the impressions...

You assume the role of Jack, a passanger in a flight who crashes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and manages to survive, quickly swimming to the closest structure he sees, which turns out to be the entry point to the city of Rapture, a grand underwater metropolis.

The game takes you in this great underwater journey, that has a horror film sense to it, from the moment you set foot on Rapture, anything that was considered normal on the surface changes dramatically once down there. While the game is graphically impressive it's not as impressive as it some would hope for, but that is compensated by great animations, lightning effects and a great art style that sets the mood for the city and the believability of the game, along with great water effects.

Sound-wise, the game doesn't dissapoint, if you are going to buy this game, be sure to have the volume settings high, excellent voice acting, superb sound effects, in all an excellent sound work all around for this game, it's absolutely stunning.
The controls don't disappoint either, mixed with great AI, no fight is ever the same, the whole plasmid customization adds a lot to depth the game.

Overall, the demo was an excellent taste of what this game has to offer, offering one of the best gaming experiences in a while. Don't miss on it.

Welcome to my blog

2007-08-20T23:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog, I'm too lazy to write right now so... tomorrow I'll update this thing and post something that I hope will be interesting for all of you.