I figure I should update this with more than a line of text and a picture every 6 months.

I recently returned from a vacation to Upstate NY. It was my second time going, first time by driving. I decided going through Canada would be the shorter route and according to google maps it was. But what google maps doesn’t take into account is what day you go, whether or not its a holiday weekend, or a national holiday in the country your driving through. Well I hit the tri-fecta on Friday July 1st (National Canadian Independence day, 4th of July weekend). The wait to enter Canada was about 10 to 15 minutes and was fine, the drive through, with the exception of a major highway closed down for repaving and afternoon traffic in Hamilton was not too bad. But that changed when I reached the border crossing the north port of entry at New York was a scorching 4 hour wait to re-enter the US. By the time I got through I was miserable and I wanted to break something, I made my way onto I-90 and hit up the first rest stop and fueled up for the long 5ish hour journey to Saratoga Springs (which I was going to arrive by 12am now, instead of the initial planned 9pm) I spent a total of 17 hours driving and was dead on my feet when my friend Jason Clark met up with me and showed me back to his house.

After a good nights rest and a shower I felt a lot better, and by 12 we were ready to leave for one of the reasons of me even coming Sims’ Engagement BBQ. It was a fun day filled with good food, great company, and awesome times.

Sunday we were recovering from the previous night and I wanted to hit up Five Guys for a burger because you can’t come all this way pass a five guys and not have a delicious burger and handcut fries, if you did you should be arrested. Later that night had plans of meeting up with Gary, Adam, Cassandra, and Sims for Gary’s birthday. We decided to go to Ruby Tuesday’s which was awesome, It made me miss ours back home. Then we decided to go back to Adams to watch a terrible movie that shall not be named, and get a little tipsy. Our plans were almost foiled by one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard of that all liquor places close by 9pm. I supposed we are spoiled by our 24 hour liquor stores here in Michigan. But it was a good night and the next morning had breakfast with Adam and Cassandra which was also very good.

Monday the 4th was generally laid back, I was too late to meet up with Pat, Dev, and Dawg to go to Lake George and rather than get lost going up there. I decided to meet up with the Sims and Kelly for delicious chocolate chip banana pancakes (which are every bit as good as they were promised) some mortal kombat on ze 390 and some Lewis Black to finish the evening before heading back to ‘Toga.

Tuesday I got in contact with my friend Bill in Troy and spent the day with him, We got lunch at Dinosaur BBQ which was really awesome, then went Hoosick Beverage a beer garden and stocked up some delicious beverages. Basically hanged out and drank beer and watched some episodes of TV shows before we decided to walk down to The Ruck a bar down the street with amazing beer selection and famous wings that I had tasted last time. A couple of Bills friends joined us and we played a few games of shuffle board before heading back to Bills apartment and some hanging out before crashing out. I stuck around the next day in Troy till the afternoon and got lunch from D.P. Dough which made some killer calzones.

Wednesday night my last day in Saratoga Springs Clark and I met up with Sims and Kelly and went to Morrette’s Steak House for amazingly delicious steak sandwiches and had a really awesome time.

Thursday I thanked Clark for letting me stay and packed up my bags and headed to Syracuse to stay with my friend Tim for the day and then depart Friday for Michigan. I left around 9am and got to West Syracuse by 12. Had a good lunch with Tim and hung out and played Black Ops until Katie got home and we decided to meet up with Chau (who didn’t actually meet up with us) at a Chinese Buffet which Tim said had $1 mixed drinks with a purchase of the buffet. It was probably one of the better buffets I’ve been to in NY, and afterwards we met up at the Syracuse mall with Chau (finally) and his cousin Ken and his friend to get a free screening of Friends with Benefits which has the super hot Mila Kunis. After the movie we went back to Tim’s house and chatted for a bit then went to sleep for the not-so-long journey back home.

I decided that staying in the US and going through Pennsylvania and Ohio was probably the better bet than attempting to go through Canada again. A few rest stops, 650 miles, and almost 12 hours to the time I left I was back home seeing the familiar surrounds that I grew up with as a kid.

As with every vacation time while things are happening is slow and enjoyable but when you try a get more and more done, you realize that time really went too fast and your not able to do everything that you want to. I didn’t get to see or stay as long as I would have liked but I’m glad I got to do the things I wanted and see who I did. A big shout out to Jason Clark, Adam Wilkins, Bill Schiefen, and Tim Davis for letting me stay at your place(s). A super congratulations to Jason Sims and Kelley Tiedt, and a big thanks to New York for being a great place to party and have good times.

I can’t but help to slam my head on my desk the moment I read they let Treyarch do another installment of the Call of Duty franchise after World at War was huge let down and contained so much fail that EFG laughed at it. Right now the game is almost unplayable in a party atmosphere, it takes 5 – 10 minutes at the minimum to find a game in any mode. Lag issues are crippling gameplay along with several well known and frequent bugs. But I know that every game is entitled to a patching period (and that there is several fixes being tested and hopefully implemented with great haste) but to see components that where a huge problem in world at war rear their ugly head again in a new game some months later is a big disappointment.

I like how they ripped pretty much everything from counter strike, so much so it should be called Call of Duty: Countersteal.  First of all buying things with cash or some type of in-game currency that you have to earn I can deal with that, gun game sure, it even has L96AW or AWP from CS. Still they haven’t seemed to learn there lesson about dual wielding and shotguns yet, along with several broken sniper rifles and launchers. But where I have to give treyarch some props are is the playercard system, I like that they recognized that the backgrounds and icons in MW2 was such a big deal that they gave us a boat load of freedom to do with as we please on how to make things. But with freedom comes the negative things, that all free-ranging ideas produce; I cannot count the many bestiality sex acts I saw depicted along with several racial icons such as nazi symbols, and several creative but yet highly disturbing human body parts.

I will probably get my $60 worth out of it, but like all call of duty games I doubt I will return to it.

- Replys to comments below -

@Aaron I guess im not a big stat whore like you and that really didn’t make my list. But to be fair the all time stat list isn’t broken.

@Jason I refuse to play zombies until we get another map, the one that comes with the game is terrible…. 4 -5 Rooms before you can get to the power? Balls.

@Justin lol brb doughnuts

@Gary My huge problem was mostly the law, and the rpg. Jumping while still remaining aiming down the sights is broken imo. I got jump shotted with the rpg so many times. China Lake is horrible imo, I didn’t mean to say that it was broken, but if it takes more than two shots of a explosive round at someones feet to kill them, then yes it is imo broken.

The second part is weapon damage the AK one of the most powerful guns in the game, takes 3 head-shots directly on a fully-healed person to kill them. I’m sorry but if you take even one 7.62m round to the head you are not getting back up to spin-move head-shot me. Snipers fit into this category, I’ve always said bolt action rifles pack enough power in any game to be a one-shot-one-kill weapon. Semi-auto snipers like the wa2000 or dragonov should take two, but its hard to even accomplish that because of the lag.

—

I suppose I can’t complain because no matter what don’t really have a popular alternative fps to play.

I know this thing hasn’t been getting any attention, just been too busy with life to update it. But this weekend I hope to change that with some updates about my final quarter in college, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and my new truck. Stay tuned.

In July I noticed my monitor going on the fritz. When I would press the power button the screen would blink off and on for a period of time and then continue on working as normal. But over time it grew worse and worse eventually stopped working at all. I was to say the least disappointed. After doing some research online into the symptoms of my monitor I found out that most LCDs are plagued by bad capacitors in the power supply mine was no exception. Being that it was purchased in 2008 and Samsung carries a 3 year limited parts and labor on most electronics I decided to give them a call and see if I couldn’t get it fixed.

After a short wait on the phone I was pleasantly greeted by a woman who had an accent but spoke excellent English. She expressed her regret on behalf of Samsung that my monitor had died and was very professional. I told her what had happened and the progression of symptoms and after reading a few numbers on the back of the monitor she determined that my monitor was approved for repair. She sent via email UPS label it affix to a box of my choice and send it out for repair.

I sent it out Friday, July 23 and received it this past Monday, August 2nd. All in all im glad to have my monitor back and in perfect working order. I couldn’t be more pleased with Samsungs service.

I have moved from our old Hostgator webspace to my new space at Dreamhost!

Lifehacker deal from dreamhost was too good to pass up here is the post that I’m talking about if you want to get the deal for yourself (2 years at for around 65$).

With my spring break fully in effect, and my winter quarter now behind me. I will be heading to NY tomorrow for what I know will be the best spring break ever. I will update this post along my journey to NY. For everyone on facebook that reads my notes, make sure to check this (http://bit.ly/dfbIbH)  as it will be updated with more detail than just my status updates from twitter.

Update 01 (3/22 5:30pm local) – Arrived in Chicago’s Union Station at 10:40am local time and was right on time. Hailed a taxi to my uncles place and rested for a while, he arrived shortly after I did and we talked for a few then walked around the corner to grab a bite to eat and after that he took me to browse around Millennium Park and I saw the “bean” (which was cool). Then we went back to his place and conversed a little on wireless security, and google wave. Which brings us to now he is taking a nap and I’m messing around on his mac mini hooked up to his LCDTV in the living room. I plan on leaving around 8 to get to Union Station early and get my bearings and perhaps pick up a beverage or two for the ride to NY at 9. (also corner bakery > panera bread)

Update 02 (3/23 11:30pm local) - After leaving Chicago’s union station, and boarding my train to NY I attempted to try and get some sleep but moments where I dozed off where few and far between. I decided to stay awake as long as I could when I was conscious. Then eventually my eyes got heavy and I put whatever I was doing in my feeble attempt to burn time. Sometimes just falling asleep without out putting it away, my radiohead discography on my zune30 helped out to drown out the sound of the rails. But I would be jolted awake by a loud song sometimes but that was the hit and miss of the first traveling inter-stately for more than 3 hours. The time drifted on and on, falling a sleep here and there, but for the most part It felt more like 30 hours than 15. But finally I got to Schenectady and de-boarded and was promptly retrieved by my friend. We went to his house and my other friend clark came over after I arrived, and we conversed and played some perfect dark on the 360 ( the good one, not the horrible one that came out with launch.) My friend and his wonderful mother and father, allowed me and clark to stay for dinner which was delicious. After dinner we had more of the conversations and then went to my host’s house where I was going to be staying and unpacked and went to bed after a game or three of Worms Armageddon on the 360.

Update 03 (3/26 11:30am local) – After having a good nights rest, we decided to go to dennys for lunch. Which I thought at first was awesome because all the dennys near/around muskegon had closed. But shortly after eating I started to feel a little twinge in my stomach which caused me to hit up the bathroom more than a few times. But that aside after regrouping to a friends house we gathered our numbers carpooled to troy where we met up with my friend who I played WoW with. We met at Browns Brewery for a fine beverages and some pretty good mozzarella sticks even if there where only 3 to an order and slightly expensive.  Then after settling up the tab we had our wonderful friend who was playing the DD drive us to The Ruck which was about 6 blocks away or so from Browns. My WoW friend who was our practically our tour guide in Troy told us there was nothing really special about this place. Except for the amazing wings, and yes, they where amazing if not the best buffalo wings I’ve ever had. After having a few shots and a couple more beers with the wings it was time to hit the road.

After resting up after the blow out at the two venues from the previous night. My friend from Rhode Island was coming into town for the occasion, and me and my tall lanky friend doing the obscene gesture above drove to his mothers house in Glens Falls. We met up with him and his girlfriend and went to New Way Lunch for an american staple, hot dogs. They where made different than the G & L chili dogs that we consume back in MI. Topped with hamburger, onion, celery salt and mustard. After that we went back to his mothers house where we had some brews called Narragansett’s (Made on Honor, Sold on Merrit). After having some of those fine beverages we retired to his mothers basement bar which was even more stocked than some of the bars back home. We had a projector hooked to up a 360 we played a few games perfect dark, call of duty 4, and forza 3. Not to mentioned his mother offered to have us for dinner which was amazing as well.

Update 04 (3/27 7:30pm local) – I had an amazing night, and full filled the only requirement which was to see my friend who was hosting me completely obliterated. It started out as it usually does trying to figure out what to do, we wound up going and meeting up with a couple of new people that I’ve only seen or talked to in passing and after chatting with them for a few decided to hit up a bowling alley & bar (starlight lounge). Where the bartender was being very generous with the portions of alcohol being mixed in and the music that was being played was mediocre and my friend felt it was necessary to make the poor guy do freebird. To whit my friends bought him a shot of Bacardi Silver and apologized but before dropping it down the hatch he said that he had to start the next set with sweet home alabama. After a few drinks my host was pretty much well lit up and we didn’t even get to the main attraction we had gotten word of a party that was being thrown at an apartment and decided to hit that up. But there was a small hitch my ride who was by this time in no condition to drive so I had to arrange some last minute logistics to get us there. But even the drive didn’t sober him up so he spent the entire time we where at the party in the back seat of the car sleeping it off, but even as he did that we had many toasts in his honor at the party. Not to mention the games of epic beer pong and the crazy-way-too-friendly-neighbor from across the hall. All in all it was a night to be remembered.

Update 05 (3/28 8:30pm local) – Sleeping off the massive party on Friday night at my friends house which was good because I needed a good nights rest. Me and my host took a day off from our usual shenanigans and for dinner we went to a pizza place that does it by the slice that is called Giavanos over in Saratoga. After having delicious pizza slices we retired back my hosts house and after hanging out decided was time to call my friend out in Syracuse that we where going to attempt to venture out and see, and I had forgot completely that before I left I was talking to him and he had mentioned about coming out Saturday early afternoon and spending the night and watching the UFC fight and have a good time. Well we (me and my host) decided that we could adapt the original plan and make a night trip to Syracuse. We arrived in time to catch the last couple fights on UFC and hangout with him and his family and another friend we both knew and watch Law Abiding Citizen then in the wee hours we decided to catch a few hours of sleep. After sleeping we regrouped and headed out to grab lunch at one of their favorite local bars the Blarney Stone and had some pretty awesome burgers and wings. Shortly after that we embarked on a quest to find on my of friends some 1 liters of lipton raspberry icetea before returning to his house to play some battlefield bad company 2 for a little before we had to leave to go back to Amsterdam.

Update 06 (3/31 11:00am local) – Monday after sleeping from getting back from Syracuse was a busy day, stuff to wash, pack, buy, eat, and all around a big mess. Such a mess that its almost like it didn’t happen. I got to say my goodbye’s to people I saw, to those I didn’t I hope you don’t take it personally there is always a next time. Now back in Michigan at home, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t change my last week for anything. This article is just a brief synopsis on the epicness that was beholden. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing and living it. Make sure to check my flickr for all the photos that didn’t make the post. -JDR

- digitalJDRs Photostream of Spring Break

After a long struggle (four hundred and ninety one hours) to be exact I found myself for the first time in a call of duty game at the lustrous 10th prestige. I took a moment to reflect and realized how much time it took for me to reach this, 491 hours (20 days 11 hours and change) of gritting my teeth at campers, tubers, knifers, and shotgunners. Scumbags the whole lot of them, and I prevailed. Most people gave up, but I was bound and determined to reach my goal of finally getting that sweet icon next to my gamertag.

Overall it was a love and hate relationship , at the beginning it was love. However at the end it was all but a little love and mostly hate.  Hate for that guy who did nothing but tube or use some type of launcher all the time. HATE for the guy who camps in the corner with an RPD and claymores. HATE for bullet latency that when you where behind a wall somehow that last bullet that came out of the guy that was shooting at you managed to bend around the corner and kill you. But there where good times, like when we all discovered 3rd person team tactical and how we would rock till five in the morning owning peoples face off. Or mixing it up with objective games, and that one epic sabotage match which was our definitive first and last game of that playlist. The first prestige, then another, and another, soon pulled away from most of my friends and by then I was hooked. Booting up the xbox when ever I had a free moment to fit a game in here and there trying to get to the next prestige. Progressively over time it got worse and worse, I don’t know if it was my own skill going down or people just got considerably better and I couldn’t adapt but it felt like rubbing my face on a cheese grater trying to get points.

But all that came to and end on 3/4/10 when I finally got there, the magical 10th prestige and by then I loathed even thinking about playing this game again. So when my friend Nate mentioned Gamestop’s March deal about an additional 50% on trade-ins I just had to take advantage of that, dump CoD:MW2 and a couple of other games. After I played the Battlefield Bad Company 2 demo to death with the usual crew, it was the obvious choice for the credit I had acquired from the trade-ins.

So yesterday (3/5) after purchasing my shiny new BF:BC2 game I arrived home and played till I had to do my chapter review for class the next day (procrastination ftw!). After that a good nights rest was in order for class and the post class slaughter that was to take place. Nothing could prepare me for was in store for my agenda. After completing all my required work for class I promptly left early to get home and get back to playing. But EA/DICE servers had a different plan in mind, not having the previous experience of microsoft / infinity ward (the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare fiasco of December 2007) but apparently they did not plan for their game to take off and haven’t hardened their servers for the rampage of gamers who want to play on the opening weekend and earlier in the week the PC & PS3 gamers felt the crunch of the servers as well. So now even as I write this the servers for xbox 360 are hit and miss, and gameplay is spotty if that. Don’t get me wrong this doesn’t even compare to the previously mentioned IW CoD:MW fiasco where 360 gamers where without live connectivity for the game for the better part of 2 full week if not more. But it gives me time to write this post and edit a new template for this website.