Letters to a Comrade from the Motherland

League of Legends Music

2012-01-12T00:58:00.000-08:00

I recently discovered how to change the music for League of Legends--this applies to log-in screen and character select music only, not in-game--yet. It's pretty easy.

Find the Ambient folder in your League of Legends game folders-- my path was C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\RADS\projects\lol_air_client\releases\0.0.0.117\deploy\assets\sounds
Rename the files with a .orig after the original name so you don't misplace it.
Copy the music files you wish to play to this folder. You'll need to rename them to the exact name that corresponds to the music type--ie. ChmpSlct_BlindPick for the Blind Pick (Normal, non-draft) games; or ChmpSlct_DraftMode for Draft, etc.
If anyone can figure out which of their provided tracks are the in-game music, please let me know-- that'd be awesome.
I suggest you close and reopen the League client to ensure that the changes take effect.

Here's some examples of music I chose to create playlists from--Amon Amarth Compilation, Delight and Angers Instrumental, League of Legends Metal, Oblivion Theme, Halo Theme

(all music belongs to their respective artists)

Let me know how this works out.

Ninja Bedroom

2012-01-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

Man, this guy has to do gymnastics just to go to bed. Crazy ninja stuff.

Thanks to 9GAG

Mario Kart

2012-01-07T03:24:00.000-08:00

Everyone from the 90's knows this feeling...

Thanks to 9gag

Angry Pizza

2012-01-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

I'd pay good money to get this delivered.

Although I don't know how long it would last framed-- I wouldn't dare eat it.

Courtesy of 9gag

Who reads books, anyways?

2012-01-04T16:37:00.000-08:00

People burn these amazing landscapes into books. And I thought my hobbies were interesting. Thanks to 9gag http://bit.ly/AE3Zyd

Reague o' Regends Theme Song Cover

2012-01-03T17:22:00.000-08:00

An amazing cover of the (annoying-as-all-hell) intro music League makes you listen to when you queue for a game. Great stuff-- courtesy of Ferdk16 .

Confused?!

2012-01-02T21:26:00.000-08:00

Pokemon fans will get this. Thanks to 9Gag .

Flatliners

2011-10-04T00:25:00.000-07:00

Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland and William Baldwin star in this psychological horror film about near-death-experiences.

It's not often that I'll watch horror movies older than I am--there are exceptions for stellar films such as The Evil Dead, The Thing or The Shining--but in general, I tend to avoid horrors pre-1995. Flatliners was an exception. I kept seeing this pop up again and again as I searched for movies on Netflix and decided to give it a try. It all ended up better than expected.

Flatliners is a different sort of horror that's still pretty unique--a group of brilliant med-school students decide to experiment with assisted suicide and resuscitation--essentially offing themselves for a few minutes to experience a possible life after death or near-death-experiences (LDE's). The premise is interesting and plays out a lot better than your typical slasher.

The film is carried largely by Kiefer Sutherland (24) and Kevin Bacon's (Apollo 13) performances--Sutherland is the mastermind behind the experiment and the vivacious Bacon provides an excellent foil to Sutherland's chilling behavior. (He's got the wackiest hair, too; but so did a lot of people in the late 80's-early 90's). Julia Roberts is here also, in her first serious drama/horror--she hadn't quite attained the popularity that she held throughout the rest of the 90's after Pretty Woman and as a result, she's quite a decent actress here--plenty of guilt and emotion and all that jazz. William Baldwin (Backdraft)... I'm mixed about him-- he seemed to be constantly scared and paranoid all movie long--but I suppose I would be too if I saw scorned women who's lives I basically destroyed on every screen, all the time.

It appears that Mr. Sutherland herps while he derps. He also strongly resembles Frankenstein's monster.

Flatliners has some chillingly spooky moments mixed in along far too much cinematic smoke-- we're talking smoke coming from manholes, grates, exhaust pipes, doorways, lawns, graveyards, and bridges. It seems that the director really had a fetish for smoke.

Picture this--times 50. Then add flashing lights and bad haircuts.

There are also some corny situations and bad makeup on a few of the dead that the med students see after they undergo the experiments, along with some outright strange stuff--it appears that the med school classes are in a museum being renovated with Italian-Greco architecture... ok...

That's a med school building? Wish my school resembled that.

Certainly, Flatliners cannot simply be compared to masterpieces of psychological horror such as The Sixth Sense, The Silence of the Lambs, or Psycho, but it does provoke thought and many questions.

DiCaprio's on da ball.

For instance, when does the mind shut off and psychological death occur? At brain death? After? How is it that there are cases of people who are clinically dead "coming back" if brain death is final? What happens immediately after death? Is there an afterlife?

Wait a second... why am I on an island?? Oh @#$! Not this again!

Flatliners is a fairly decent movie, and I saw it for free. I suggest you try to see it for free also if you are interested. Be prepared for funky 80's style cinematography, haircuts, clothing, and houses--gods above, that was a strange era. Also--Flatliners is rated R for language, violence, dramatic situations, blah blah blah and so on and so forth. It's worth a watch--don't expect a masterpiece, but just a good horror for a rainy day.

Flatliners gets 3.75/5 stars--mainly cause Kevin Bacon's hair is so damn amusing. It is rated R.

Mandate Pictures Intro

2011-10-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

Quite possibly the oddest movie studio video (at the start of any movie) that I've ever seen. Watch it--it's pretty weird.

Yes, cause little children running into a drum isn't creepy at all......

50/50 Movie Review

2011-10-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen star in this dark comedy about cancer

Cancer movies used to have two specific roles in Hollywood--over-the-top comedies about a cancer patient who decides to do all those things he never got around to, or the melodramatic, heavy, depressing drama-tragedies where you come out of the theater wishing you hadn't woke up that morning. With 50/50, it seems that those niches have been broken, and thank God they were.

This realistic tragicomedy--a self-autobiography of sorts of screenwriter Will Reiser-- keeps the balance between both the funny and the sad quite admirably. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception) is impeccable as young Adam--who has been diagnosed with cancer and must cope with being saturated with the life-ravaging chemotherapy intended ultimately to slow his rapidly-growing disease. Adam is a soft-spoken, calm young man who is law-abiding, kind, and a perfectionist-- JGL eases into this role with charm and candor.

Joseph Gordon Levitt as Adam Lerner

Seth Rogen plays the partying, profane and comic relief friend (Kyle) that he exemplifies--but it seems that he shows far more emotion that usual in this than his earlier films (save Knocked Up, perhaps) It never occurred to me during the movie that these people were just acting, but rather their performances conveyed magnificently a man stricken by a deadly disease.

Other roles such as Anjelica Huston (The Addams Family) as Adam's overbearing mother and Anna Kendrick (Twilight) as his neurotic, psychiatrist-in-training therapist are fulfilled well. There is plenty of humor and entertaining situations as well as emotion-laden, tearjerker scenes. Never once did 50/50 not seem like it was unrealistic--JGL shows many emotions and perspectives of one facing his own mortality in the eye.

JGL and Seth Rogen (Kyle)

Overall, 50/50 is a stellar work to come out of Hollywood during this exceptionally good season for movies. There is probably not a better movie to spend your $10 on this weekend, nor for some time. As 50/50 is R-rated, I wouldn't suggest children. There is a sex scene, copious amounts of profanity, adult humor, drug use (medicinal marijuana), and depressing thematic content. None of these seem really forced but rather a natural depiction of what a man faced with death might consider. Expect to laugh a lot but also feel worry and at times, sadness. The movie soundtrack is pretty upbeat at times but also dramatic corresponding to the situation. Additionally, the Pearl Jam (excellent band!) song Yellow Ledbetter at the end gave 50/50 a great musical ending--the song reflects a sort of melancholy portrayed throughout the film.

50/50 gets a 4.75/5. Rated R.

Lopez Mexican Restaurant-- Review

2011-10-01T17:42:00.000-07:00


Their location on Wilcrest just outside of Meadows Place

Lopez--a highly rated and reviewed (4 stars on Yelp.com) Mexican restaurant close to my home in Meadows Place (Houston, TX) has always been a hit-or-miss experience for me--opposed to what the reviews would have you believe. Usually, however, the food, service, and atmosphere come together to create a nice meal. Tonight was different, unfortunately. I've frequented Lopez several times over the past few months, but service was always stellar no matter what I thought of the food. That was not the case this Saturday evening.

Inside of Lopez.. facing the dining room and away from the bar.

Lopez--since it moved into its new building-- is a beautiful hacienda-inspired restaurant with gleaming tile floors, white stone walls, mosaics, and Spanish paintings. Upon entering, members of the Lopez family typically will greet patrons with warmth and vivacity. Regrettably, that certain interaction didn't happen tonight. We were quickly seated--right smack-dab in the middle of the restaurant. It was crowded, somewhat smelly, and LOUD. I realize it's a Saturday but damn, two birthday parties going on at once! One family was so drunk they kept singing for several minutes after the waiters finished their birthday tune-- think Applebee's obnoxiousness but en español.

We got our drink orders out quickly, but then the problems really started. It seemed like we had several different waiters at one point. We ordered an appetizer--queso con chile--several minutes after we were seated. We saw that same appetizer twenty minutes later. Our waiter--once he solved his identity crisis and got our drink order right--finally took our meal order.

Another 10-15 minutes passed and we recieved our food. My fiance's father ordered enchiladas--the meat & sauce tasted as if it came out of a can--he described it aptly as chili gravy. Ick. My burrito was not a burrito--it was a beef enchilada. I didn't bother making a fuss as we were now limited on time--aforementioned father wanted to watch a football game about one hr after we arrived. Luckily the bill came quickly and we left rapidamente.

Poor Lopez. I really wanted to like you tonight. I did before this catastrophe. However, I must bid you adios and hope that you get your act together. Hasta luego... hopefully a long, long time before we return.

Rating-- 2/5 stars for inconsistent food, being overrated, piss-poor service, but also a friendly atmosphere and a beautiful facility. Also, the queso was great when we finally got it.

Desktops Away!

2011-10-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

Sick and tired of your desktop looking like the losing side of a barroom brawl? Tired of massive amounts of shortcuts and boring, bland ol' Microsoft sample wallpapers on an endless loop of misery?

About as productive and organized as a hungover teenager at Taco Bell.

Luckily, there's an answer for your desktop woes beyond the typical Google image search. Hundreds of sites and tools are out there to fully customize your experience. Today, however, I want to name a few that I've found indispensable and vital in getting your desktop to do whatever you want.

That being said, the obvious first choice is Rainmeter. This is an open source software that allows your desktop to be customized with low-memory hogging applications and "skins"--from your typical clock to weather to even RSS feeds and email notifications. Rainmeter is the basic skeleton that you'll need to install to do anything with your desktop. There are a few other options out there but in my opinion, Rainmeter has the most versatility and technical support. It also allows budding developers and software designers to give its source code a whirl and create apps/skins of their own.


A very basic Rainmeter desktop--this is the Enigma set of skins, I believe.

As you can probably see, Rainmeter focuses not only on design and art but functionality. Imagine never having to use your Start menu again, if possible. You can easily link any program on your computer to a small icon or bar here on your desktop. It makes for a world of efficiency.

Rainmeter is a fantastic start and all, but what if you're not one for the amount of work it takes to set up a beautiful desktop? Well, luckily, if you have RM installed, you can hop on over to either the Rainmeter forums or DeviantArt--Rainmeter to find many skins, addons, and even full fledged desktops for your perusal.

A typical user-created screenshot of their desktop, using RM and other tools.

My current desktop, courtesy of DeviantArt's Tatenokai.

To get the above desktop, make sure you have Rainmeter installed and then navigate over to Tatenokai's Newspaper Desktop on DeviantArt.

Best of luck on your customizing endeavors. As always, you should thoroughly read Rainmeter's instructions before you set out--lest you destroy your desktop beyond all repair. Just kidding!

Dropbox

2011-10-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

I know I've been away for quite some time but I'd like to thank those of you who stuck with me and kept reading my articles. As a sort of a thanks I'd like to refer anyone and everyone to possibly the best piece of freeware on the Internet--Dropbox.

It'll save your life, I promise.

Dropbox is a file-storage program that you can access anywhere, anytime you are connected to the Internet. You start out with roughly 2 gigs of storage (plenty unless you're trying to store movies!) and you can upgrade for far more.

I haven't used a flash drive or a CD (God forbid) since I downloaded this. It even has a mobile app that lets you see your files on the go. As a college student, I find this indispensable because I can easily see my professors' syllabi and classwork minutes before or even in class without having to carry around a binder full of papers. I can also take notes on a netbook and when I get home to my desktop, they'll be in a folder--easily accessible.

Dropbox is free to use unless you upgrade. Clicking on this link below will also grant you an extra 250mb of space over the 2gigs. Sign up today-- it's free, useful, and quite small of a download. Just click the link below. Or, if you don't believe me (as a precaution for spam/adware, etc), contact me on Facebook/Gmail and I'll send you the referral.

Dropbox

(or copy the link below & paste if the above doesn't work)

http://db.tt/z9A1A1vE

Foreign Drivers

2011-05-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

10 bucks says it was an Asian

Ok, ok.. I know this topic might seem a little racist. But honestly: today, while my fiancé's mother, my fiancé, and I were driving, we were rear ended at a stop sign by a little South African woman who wasn't looking the right way. This marks the 2nd time in 2 days that I've been in an accident involving a minority who was at fault (Yesterday my fiance couldn't react in time to slow from 40-0 cause a Chinese mother decided to brake hard for a squirrel). So, I propose, the theory of bad foreign driving, based off of general knowledge, internet videos and pictures.

Anyone from a non-English speaking country drives poorly (This is general)
There is a noticeable difference when comparing drivers from the US/UK/Germany and Asia
Africans have cars???
Because Mr. Ford was American, and cars have been here the longest, 1 and 2 correlate well as our society has had a century to master them.
Asian driving laws are extremely lax... see any videos of Indian/Japanese/Chinese intersections.. and extremely dangerous drivers are commonplace, not the exception.
MXC... nuf said.

Alright, alright.. I'm sorry for the quasi-racism, but there does seem to be a substantial amount of proof that these people can't drive well. I'm sorry to the decent non-American/European drivers out there, and I commend you, cause you are far and few between.

Here's a video if you had put your politically correct ideals aside for a couple minutes while reading this and will continue to do so while watching the below.

"Ilium" book review

2011-05-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

Dan Simmons' Ilium (Locus Award Winner 2004)

Next on the list: a brief review of Ilium, a book I recently read and highly recommend to any serious sci-fi/fantasy fans.

Ilium portrays the lives of several people far in the future--namely the reborn scholic Hockenberry in a futuristic, terraformed Mars where the Greek gods oversee the great Trojan war as fictionalized in Homer's Iliad/Odyssey, a moravec (space robot)--Mahnmut of Europa who has an avid interest in Shakespeare's sonnets, and the eloi-human Harman of a futuristic, Orson Welles' The Time Traveler inspired Earth filled with naive humans while evil gods from another dimension threaten the fabric of the entire universe.

As you may be able to tell from the huge sentence I just wrote, this book is damn complicated. But Dan Simmons manages to weave this highly intertextual "literary science fiction" piece well--there is much character development from the lowly Harman to the Greek gods themselves; along with plenty of action, amazing mind-pictures and panoramas, romance, greed, destruction, and violence. Even those who wouldn't consider themselves sci-fi readers would probably find Ilium a great read.

Simmons manages not to have any glaring plot holes, grammar errors, or generally annoying literary mistakes--he also honors the literature that he pulls elements from--perhaps inspiring further interest in Prousts' In Search of Lost Time, Homer's works: the Iliad and the Odyssey, along with Shakespearen sonnets and many other titles. However, this is a book that will probably never be required reading--it's too entertaining and interesting.

At 731 pages, Ilium requires a lot of time investment. But if I've piqued your interest enough, it's well worth it to read.

Schwarzy ol' Schwarzenegger

2011-05-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

So I heard today that the Govenator has had yet another pitfall in his life outside of California's failing budget, the rise of gang warfare throughout cities there, and the fact that his muscles are rapidly atrophying as he gets old: Schwarzy's got a love child. After investigation by reporters (this came after the former governor announced his divorce with Ms. Shriver) they found out that one of his staffers had been impregnated by the pro bodybuilder.. during his marriage. This makes for some juicy stuff, California! I'm expecting a movie within 4 years (Michael Bay, undoubtedly, with explosions and fireworks in the background as Schwarzy enters the bedroom...) Full article--thanks to CNN--below.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/17/california.schwarzenegger/?hpt=T1

No wonder Shriver's leaving him

Teardrop in a Waterfall

2011-05-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

Today, I decided to get on this blogging bandwagon for the first time. I've been pretty tech-savvy all my life, but I never extended my view to this interesting and diverse new world. In a way, I'm excited. There's so many options, so much I could write about, but you know what they say--reality is stranger than fiction. And that's the material I suppose I'll discuss first--it's kinda relevant to us all. So, a quick rundown of my thoughts and what events occurred in my seemingly insignificant (but highly important to yours truly) life today.

My fiancé and I got into a wreck today (a small fender-bender) because those wonderful Asian drivers love to drive 15 in a 35 and stop suddenly. Her war-torn Ford Fiesta was towed away, undrivable, while their SUV drove off with a couple scratches. They refused to give us their insurance information until the police showed up an hour later, and barely spoke any English.. fun stuff. A picture (it's not the best) of the damage..

As you can tell, the fender is practically coming off and the hood is all bent up.
Her car was leaking radiator fluid and smoke came out of the vents for a moment.

Had to fill out paperwork for a couple hours for a new job as a data processing intern--perhaps a sign of times to come? Then I found out that they couldn't process any of it until they received a second form of ID. They also couldn't administer the state-required drug test on site.. had to wait for an hour at a clinic for a 5 minute test.
Reorganized my small room into something that I can actually be happy in... feng shui is present now!
Watched the season finale of Chuck and Castle. Surprises in both, but I was amused by Morgan getting the Intercept uploaded, Chuck on a superbike, and other entertaining shows. I don't watch TV often, but I have my old favorites that I'm glad I can come back to.
Also reorganized my computer--Rocketdock (http://rocketdock.com/) is an amazing application, along with Rainmeter (http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/)--if you are adept with computers and want to have something other than a typical bland desktop. Got rid of that old yucky IE9-- went with Chrome (or Firefox) for better speed in the interwebs dept. Here's a preview of my desktop... quite minimalist.

Well, this newfangled blogging apparatus seems to be working out quite well--I think I'm addicted already. Hope y'all enjoyed my rambling.. I promise I won't post too often.