"I dropped a bomb, do you have it?"

Last Saturday, I met with my brothers to play Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 (Yuri's Revenge). We haven't played as a group in probably 5 or more years and we've all upgraded our computers since then. Well, when we sat down to play we ran into three problems: 1) Getting Vista to even install the program, 2) Getting Vista to run the program; and 3) networking. We were eventually able to get a workaround for all three problems, but it took some doing and none of the solutions were all in the same place. So, I'm going to try to consolidate the information I found in a one place so others may overcome the evil Windows Vista and successfully play Red Alert 2, one of the five best RTS games ever created.

1) Installation in Vista.

Windows Vista is all about security... and stupidity. Windows took the things that worked in XP, raped them, and stuck their evil spawn in Vista. This means that every time you try to do anything, you end up facing some absurd wall of security. Well, there is a way to overcome this. It doesn't matter if you are just going to play Red Alert 2, as that program should run just fine without any additional steps (at least, it did for me). The problem arises when you try to install Yuri's Revenge. When the installer runs Yuri's Revenge, it tries to update the existing version of Red Alert 2, but can't unless you take an extra step.

The only way to get it to work is to install the program as an administrator. This means you need to open the CD in Windows Explorer, find the install.exe program, right-click and select "Run as administrator". It's a stupid, stupid extra step, but is absolutely necessary.

2) Running Yuri's Revenge in Vista.

This one was the one that gave us the most trouble. My two brothers had no trouble getting it to run, but it wouldn't run for me. Every time I went to run it, I got this message:

"******Fatal****** String manager failed to initialized properly." (Yes, bad grammar and all.)

I tried running it as an administrator (see step 1, above), and still no luck. You can also change the program's properties to run in "compatibility mode" where Windows Vista will emulate an earlier version, all the way down to good ol' Windows 95. I read in a bunch of places that this would solve the problem, but alas, no luck for me. I even changed it on all the .exe files in the C&C directory (there are six) and still no luck. I tried every compatibility mode available, including the oft-recommended Windows 98 but still got the error. I was finally able to fix it by putting the program into Windows XP compatibility mode and disabling "User Account Control". Microsoft has these handy instructions.

I should mention that I only have one user account on the computer and it is an administrator account. Despite this, I still had to go through all these stupid steps to get the program to run. But, once I did, bingo - I was sniping dudes and sending nuke trucks into the bases of my enemies like nobody's business.

3) Setting up a network game.

This is also a problem. See, Windows Vista decided to abandon the network protocol that Red Alert 2 uses - IPX. So no version of Windows Vista natively comes with IPX, nor is it available from Microsoft. So, you have to use another protocol, which requires a patch. We used UDP and the patch that could be found here: http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Red-Alert-2-over-the-Internet. This worked for us, which means that it will almost certainly not work for you.

Good luck and happy hunting!

Welcome to the Real America

Congratulations, America, you just survived another election cycle. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back. Done? Good. Let's get down to business.

SARAH PALIN CANNOT BE PRESIDENT.

I just cannot emphasize this enough. Before this election I, along with what I assume is the majority of Americans, never thought that a Palin presidency could be a possibility once McCain lost. She seemed so obviously unqualified that the idea of her being president was laughable. I've talked to many of my Republican friends who seem to agree that Sarah Palin is sort of the Barney Frank of their party - loud, obnoxious and ineffectual, but not a serious contender for real power (and yes, I know that Frank is a Senator). However, the time has come that we can no longer wrap ourselves in that warm blanket of common sense safety.

See, Sarah Palin is all over the place. I had never heard of her before McCain chose her to be his running mate, but I don't think a day has gone by since that I haven't encountered at least one news story about her. I used to think that like all fads, America would grow weary of her banal stupidity and stop paying attention. Then, on election night it hit me: I've been thinking that same thing for more than two years. I've been assuming all along that Sarah Palin was so stupid, so terrible that she could not hold the Nation's attention long enough to matter. Oh, how wrong I was.

Palin has managed to stay politically relevant despite acting like a retarded badger for years. She has drawn a following of loyal activists who love her rhetoric and parrot it all over the place. In fact, her rhetoric, for better or worse, defined the issues during this election. The message moved from, "things are getting better, just let us keep doing what we're doing" to "all Democrats hate the Constitution and want to euthanize your grandparents and make your children into Socialists." Even though that position is so preposterous that only the craziest could believe it, it has gained popularity and now dominates political discourse in this country. It's amazing to me that a half-term governor of one of the nation's smallest states can be so important, but there it is. It's happened. And I am scared to death.

Even though it seems obvious that Palin cannot and should not be President, that is not enough. Candidates don't win elections on the, "Are you kidding me?" platform. No, Sarah Palin is out there talking out of her butt on the issues and her opponents - including Republicans - need to attack her head on. We can no longer rely on the axiom that a Palin Presidency (see, it even rhymes!) would be disaster for everyone. No, we must take the time to address her on the issues and point out to America that her world view is naive and misguided and that her total lack of experience will hurt America. She couldn't even be governor of Alaska for more than two years, how can we expect her to hold the hardest job in the world for four or, heaven forbid, eight years?

But, if you aren't willing to put forth that much effort, then please, follow this simple advice:

Just don't look.

We'll all be better for it.

An open letter to Microsoft

Dear Microsoft,

Thank you so much for making me update by XBox 360 firmware. It wasn't difficult or glitchy at all. I also want to thank you for making the menus a blinding color of white, instead of the much easier on the eyes gray. Oh, and I'm certain that having less cartoony avatars will make the 360 more popular since introducing them has had such a profound effect on sales. I know I bought my XBox so I could spend time creating an idiotic character rather than playing the awesome games offered on your system.

Keep up the good work, you're clearly spending your time well.

Sincerely,

Everybody

"I want the people to know that they still have two out of three branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad."

In my home state of Utah, we have been represented for a long time by Jim Matheson. He distinguishes himself from Utah's other representatives by not being crazy or stupid. He also has a pretty good record of supporting Utah and since he's been reelected like a million times, it's pretty clear that he's kept his constituents happy as well. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a big fan but have never voted for him. Or against him. I don't live in his district.)

This year, he is once again facing reelection and his opponent is once again, an irrational moron. He's being opposed by a former state legislator whose name is also a euphemism for pooping: Morgan Philpot.

I can usually entertain myself pretty well during the election season by looking at the websites of the candidates opposing my preferred candidates and attacking their inconsistent and unworkable arguments, which they usually have in spades. But this year is different. I'm not that interested in attacking Rob Bishop because as long he keeps using campaign signs that only say "Bishop" in big letters, he's going to get elected. That, and he's seriously stupid. It wouldn't be sporting.

Another option is Jason Chaffetz, but even though I disagree with almost every word that comes out of his stupid, BYU-football, self-important, retarded, ugly, stupid, stupid mouth, I feel like I'm just yelling at a wall when I try to point out his stupidity. The people who like him do so not because of how effective he may be at representing their beliefs or the strength of his arguments, but rather because he spews the rhetoric they want to hear. They don't even care that he was completely owned by Stephen Colbert. That's why he'll remain an outsider and pariah in congress, at least until he unseats our resident closeted-homosexual, Orrin Hatch. Screw him, too.

I could talk about Mike Lee, but I just don't care. He's another Tea Party hack and they're all just crazy. It's like trying to debate a homeless person about the merits of cap and trade, but all you get back are conversations he has with the invisible person he hates. I'd rather just sit back and enjoy the show.

Which brings me back to Philpot. I would love to disagree with him and pick apart his beliefs because the doofus is just asking for it. (By the way, "doofus" was not in the dictionary, but "doodahs" was.) The problem is, I can't for the life of me figure out what he actually believes. He's got a bunch of generic "policy statements" on his website, but they don't really get into any substance. I could point out that his statements about immigration don't really meet the issue, or that his generic statement about gun ownership is the same claptrap every Republican uses, but where's the fun in that? It's just the same old rhetoric, from a new, somewhat empty-looking wannabe. (Seriously.)

So, rather than go through the same exercise again, I'll just post the results of my Google search when I went looking for something, anything to say:


That's right, when I searched for "morgan philpot idiot", the first result was that Sarah Palin endorsed him.

I rest my case.

[Editor's note: I changed the title of this post because I later realized that I had previously used it. Besides, I've been looking to use this one for quite some time.]

"Strategery."

I have spent much of the last month playing the latest in Bungie's panoply of great games, Halo: Reach. This post is not to review the game (although it is amazing), but rather, to point out the many completely idiotic tactical mistakes made by the Covenant.

1. Putting a bright light on your snipers. This makes them easy to spot and easy to kill with a headshot. While this isn't such an issue in Halo 3, it is in Halo 2 and ODST because much of those games are played indoor or at night, when the light makes the snipers very, very easy to spot, rather than insanely difficult. While this makes the game more fun, it's tactically retarded.

2. Trails behind banshees. Again, this makes them easy to follow and easy to kill. I'm sure Bungie did it for the same reason as the sniper thing, to make the game easier and thus more fun.

3. Bright, shiny swords on otherwise invisible dudes. While the invisibility makes them harder to see than without, the swords make them stand out more than a visible, non-sword wielding guy would. But I guess that subtlety is not the Covenant's M.O.

"Is this far enough, Master?" "Until the road dead ends."

I recently received an email from Microsoft about my XBox Live membership. I always enjoy getting these emails because they start, "Dear Lawjerk..." It reminds me that I am an overgrown man-child. Anyway, Microsoft wrote to inform me that XBox Live is going to include much more awesome stuff, like Hulu Plus, ESPN on demand, and so forth. Because these features are being added, and because it has become so much more than a gaming network, Microsoft states that it must increase the monthly membership fee by about $1.00.

Once again, Microsoft has proven itself very capable at screwing over its customers while simultaneously demanding more. I couldn't care less if XBox Live offered these other services, they suck. I tried Netflix for awhile, but the selection of streaming movies is so bad that I could only find a handful that I even kind of wanted to see. On top of that, all of these other services charge monthly fees above and beyond the XBox Live subscription fee. So, what Microsoft is offering is that we pay more to them so we can pay more to third parties for using their crap. But, because I have to subscribe to be able to play Halo online, I'm stuck paying it. I feel much like Carl under the influence of his own hypno-rims - being self-sodomized by a broomstick while thanking my tormentors for the experience. (See the quote above.)

Despite my anger and objections, I will likely continue to pay the subscription fee (especially since my brother and brother-in-law recently obtained accounts) and thank my lucky stars that I don't have to own a PlayStation, because the PS3 is really, really dumb.

"So, your job is you take things that are working and you fix them."

I recently came across this post on the official Kaysville City blog:

http://kaysvillecityblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/ponds-park-playground.html

For those of you not familiar with our humble little burg, Ponds Park is a park with soccer fields on one side, a baseball diamond, small playground and big hill on the other. Going from the top of the big hill, which was probably at least 50 feet tall, all the way to the bottom, so maybe 30 total feet, was a long metal slide. It was one of the greatest slides ever built in the history of the world. I remember being little and scared to death of going down it. I even revisited it as an adult and slid down it with my scared kid and really quite enjoyed it. During the winter, you could sled down the other side of the hill, or if you were crazy, down the slide itself. I'm sure many horny teens lost their precious virginity near that hill (in Kaysville, kissing someone is as scandalous as intercourse is in other places).

Well, now, it is no more. The city, in their infinite wisdom, decided to bulldoze a perfectly fine, even great hill, and replace it with something more dangerous that fewer kids can use. Ironically, the author of the city's blog even recognizes this fact:

"The slide was fun for children, but we hope they will enjoy the climbing rock as much as they did the big slide."

So, to the then mayor and the city council, I say with all due respect (none), that you are retarded.