Every good website that offers advice always starts off with a disclaimer right? Well, here’s mine. DISCLAIMER: Although I am pretty good (maybe really good ) good at Modern Warfare 3, I am by no means pro. I do not play games to make a living, in fact it’s quite the opposite. I make a living so I can play games (among other things), and when I play these games, I don’t want people like you pissing me off, hence the blog post. Also note that I’m speaking from a Hardcore Kill Confirmed standpoint, and maybe also Hardcore Team Death Match. What works in one game mode most often won’t work in another, so don’t take my advice and go use it to play Search and Destroy. You’ll get your ass kicked.

A little info about myself before I rant: I’ve got a 1.83 KDR. I held a 2.5 after all of last week. By no means is that pro, but it’s definitely better than the vast majority of everyone else. I only play hardcore kill confirmed, sometimes hardcore search or hardcore team death match. I prefer these modes because of their realism. One or two bullets should be enough to kill your enemy, and real enemies don’t get back up on their feet after taking a .50 cal through their thigh. I do not: rocket, noob tube, shotgun, camp corners, or camp buildings/areas (unless I’m sniping). I do run around and get a bunch of tags (my tag/kill ratio proves that). Collecting tags does come at a small sacrifice to my kill/death ratio, but my team typically goes anywhere from 50 to 100 games without losing, so I don’t care much.

Lastly, I am a strong believer in ‘you get better at what you use the most’, and for that reason I have only ever used the ACR 6.8 and the Barrett 50 cal. Most people will say the Barrett isn’t necessary for hardcore, and I believe they are right. In my case, it’s just what I’m used to, and I will not change because I feel like I know the intricacies of the gun, and it always does its job.

Anyways, enough about me, now lets talk about you. That’s right, you! You’re the camping fag who sits with your back turned into a corner, not moving, waiting for someone to walk by. You’re the guy with the noob tube who never shoots a real bullet through the barrel of your gun. You’re the guy who only votes for Dome and 1 other tiny map because you’re not good enough to use a gun that requires aiming, the only way you get kills is if everybody is bunched up together so you can spam your shotgun. Finally, you’re the guy who thinks you’re better than everyone in the lobby because you grabbed your own tag the 20 times you freaken died, putting yourself up on the top of the leader board. If you really are one of these guys, keep reading, because I’m about to open a whole new world in front of your eyes.

You all suck, and I can prove it to you. There are major tactical problems with each scenario. For you corner campers, you give me a definite location to communicate to my teammates, all of which instantly know to either avoid you, or more commonly, where to kill you (unless you’re smart enough to camp and move, that’s a little different). I’ve also noticed campers tend to neglect tags that might be more than a few feet away, probably because you suck and couldn’t hold your own if you came into contact with an enemy while grabbing the tag.

For those people who only tube and rocket, there is another major tactical problem. More often then not, you run into situations where having a rocket/tube equipped is less beneficial than a gun. I’d say 4 out of every 5 times I’ve been killed by a tube or a rocket, it was a kill that the person would have had with a gun anyways. Now add on top of that, that you just wasted your only shot (or one of a couple shots), and you just made a loud noise announcing where you are to the entire map, and you probably just left a smoke trail that points right towards you. Congrats, moron. People don’t realize it, but little things like that affect how much you die.

For you people with the shotgun; I’ll hand it to you, you might just be ‘the shit’ on Dome. I’ve seen you guys come out of Dome feeling like a pimp, so bloated full of your 25 -10 score that you completely forgot you have a .60 KDR. You were god, you were unstoppable, you were pro! You might have lost the game (because after all, you are still playing against me, which means you lose), but it doesn’t matter, you were amazing. Then you play Bakaara, or Liberation, or Fallen, and all that bloated-ness turns into “OH GOD THIS GAME WAS LAGGY AS F**K! YOU F**KING CHEATERS ARE USING MODDED CONTROLLERS! HOW THE HELL WAS IT ALWAYS SPAWNING YOU BEHIND ME? YOUR 4 BAR CONNECTION (which is green, btw, green for good) WAS WAY FASTER THAN MY 3 BAR CONNECTION (which is still green, btw, green for good)!

Finally, and my personal favorite, the guy who thinks he’s better than everyone because he uses a tactical insert to get his own tag over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing tac inserts. In fact, they can be quite useful. Especially if you’re quick and the other team isn’t, the ability to respawn and grab your own tag plus the enemies is deadly on Kill Confirmed. My beef is with the people who go 15 -30 on Hardcore Kill Confirmed, lose by a bunch of points, then tell me I suck because they are on the top of the leader boards. I mean come on, you’ve got to be delusional if you honestly think you’re better than me because you grabbed your own tag every time you died. I had one guy once actually tell me that I wasn’t as good as he was, because he topped the leader boards multiple games in a row. Yet, his team lost every round, he never had over a .75 KDR in any of the games we played, and I consistently had over a 2.0. Sometimes, people just make me wonder…

-Kyle

Recently, I had the opportunity to go to a symphony. More specifically, the Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses. It was an Amazing experience, and I’m glad I got to share it with my brothers, my Dad (who hasn’t played any of the recent Zelda games, and yet still enjoyed the symphony), and Ben. The sound was amazing, the game play on the screen was intriguing, sometimes even funny, and if it weren’t for the fact that I was sitting directly in front of the only whining kids in the entire concert hall, it would have been perfect. Seriously folks, don’t take your kids to symphonies. EVER. Just because it’s a symphony of music from a series of video games doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a symphony. Getting a babysitter for your kids would have been cheaper anyways, it was like 80 bucks a ticket. Sheesh.

The journey began in Manteca, California. Myself and 3 travelers departed from our home. We venture out occasionally beyond our borders, but rarely do we cross over the hills into the vast and unknown territory beyond. My three companions were Aaron, son of Greg, Cameron, son of Greg, and Ben, son of someone else. Aaron being the leader of the expedition, led us on the long and perilous road over the hills. Aided by a few provisions and our trusty PT Cruiser, we made the journey over the hills with little to tell. Once on the other side, we picked up our fourth and last companion, Greg, a much older and wiser man who has made the journey over these hills and beyond many times in his lifetime.

Once the fellowship was complete, we began on the road towards BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), a more alien form of transportation, but one that would allow us to reach within walking distance of our final destination without navigating the treacherous roads of San Francisco.

Inside BART we encountered many interesting forms of life. Some were highly intoxicated, others would have benefited from being able to use intoxication as an excuse for their strange behavior. Although some of us feared harassment from these strange beings, we found if you simply accept them as normal and pay no attention to them, they pay no attention to you.

The journey continued on BART for some time. Above roads, under ground and under water we traveled, until finally arriving deep in the heart of San Francisco. Once outside the BART station, we walked towards Davies Symphony Hall, which looks absolutely beautiful inside and out. Inside we ordered drinks, bought merchandise, and peed listening to the sweet sounds of Zelda playing throughout the restroom. Ben and Cam took off to get pics, a few of which I’ve uploaded below.

Fi, Link, Ben, and Cam


Zelda and Ben, too bad she’s to good for you man


The view from our seats

Soon after, the symphony began. They played a wide variety of music from many different Zelda games, all of which sounded absolutely incredible. Youtube videos cannot do it justice, but I figure it’s better than nothing. Take a look at some of my favorite pieces from the concert, uploaded by others on Youtube.

This one is of Majora’s Mask, and covers a wide range of music from the beginning to the end.

So what I’m trying to get at here is, if you didn’t get a chance to go, it definitely sucks to be you.

-Kyle

Hey everyone! My latest tutorial is on something that I personally think every human being with a computer and an internet connection should know how to do. That’s right, this tutorial is on how to download pirated movies, music, and software! Wait… no. That’s the other thing every human being with a computer and an internet connection should know how to do. This one is on how to make an ethernet cable. What is an ethernet cable you ask? Well first off, it’s not pronounced eh-ther-net, it’s pronounced ee-ther-net. Second, it’s sometimes referred to as a network cable. It’s the cable that you use to connect your computer to a router, switch, hub, the wall, or whatever you are plugging into to get your internet connection.

So now that you know what it is, now you’re asking me why you should ever need to know how to make one right? Well, this is the reason why you should know how to make these. That’s a link to a six foot cable for 18 dollars at Best Buy. If you know how to make them yourself, and use the link I provide for you below, you could make about 15 six foot cables for under 18 dollars (maybe about 30 dollars if you need to buy a crimping tool. This is obviously a one time purchase) You could also make about three of them in the time it would take you to drive down to your local Best Buy (or whatever store), pick it out, wait in line, pay the cashier, and get back home. A person with previous experience making cables could probably pump out eight to ten in the same amount time.

Another reason for knowing how to make your own ethernet cables is that you can make them exactly how long they need to be, helping fight against waste and cable clutter. Go ahead, look behind your desk or computer. A little less cable back there would definitely be a good thing.

After all those good reasons, you’re probably pumped up and ready to go right? I bet you’re thinking “gee Kyle, I never knew knowing how to make ethernet cables was so important, where do I start!?” Well I’ve made it easy for you. I’ve made a page with lots of different options on the equipment you need that you can buy from Amazon. The basic list is:

-Cat5E cable
-Crimping tool
-RJ45 plugs/connectors
-Cable Tester (optional)

Everything on the page above is compatible with each other. Just pick out your RJ45 connectors, a crimping tool, some wire (you can also buy it in rolls of 1,000 feet, but I figured you might not need 1,000 feet of cable) and a tester if you’d like. Then just do-it-like-i-do-on-the-discovery-cha… I mean, like in the video below.

-Kyle

Click here to Play Bloons Tower Defense 5

Bloons TD5 has heaps of new features including all your favourite towers from BTD4 with 8 awesome upgrades each instead of 4, and two brand new never before seen tower types. Use the towers’ unbelievably cool ‘Super Activated Abilities’ to lay waste to the endless swarms of Bloons. You’ll need all the firepower you can get to combat the new Bloon types and fun new tracks with moving parts and tunnels. Save your progress and earn Monkey Money to buy cool Special Agent towers and other goodies by creating a free Ninja Kiwi account.

A note from us…
Just like the previous installment in the series, Bloons Tower Defense 5 is just another simple tower defense game. Also like the previous installment in the series, Bloons Tower Defense 5 is one of the most addictive flash games you will ever play. Take Bloons TD4 then add tons of awesome new towers (monkeys) to play around with, a bunch of new creatively designed maps, a more in depth leveling system, daily challenges, and more! Bloons TD 5 is very easy to get into and very hard to get out of. Gameblog.me is not responsible for any loss of productivity or employment should you decide to play this at work.

A note from Kyle…
My brother thinks he’s cool cuz he spells favorite with a ‘u’.

Click here to Play S.A.S Zombie Assault 3

SAS3 brings dozens of new guns, an in depth leveling system, full multiplayer co-op, five maps and so, so much more awesome!

A note from us…
S.A.S Zombie Assault 2 was one of the most addicting flash games I had ever played. S.A.S 3 takes all the fun from number 2 and adds in cooperative multiplayer! Now you can try and survive wave after wave of zombies with friends. Not only that, Zombie Assault 3 adds in a leveling system where you gain experience from playing. That experience is used to unlock exciting new guns to try out. Don’t miss one of the most exciting flash games to ever hit the web!

If you’re like me, you don’t like sharing your stuff. That’s why I bought my own Xbox, controller, and TV. What I didn’t realize before buying all this stuff, is that I’d still have to share the time that I spent connected to Xbox Live. In lots of home networks, you can’t get more than one Xbox on Xbox live at a time. I’ve seen some people talk about putting one on wireless and one on a wired connection and making it work. I’ve heard other people talk about putting one Xbox in the DMZ (a section of your network that is basically unprotected) and making it work.

Both situations are not ideal for a few different reasons. For starters, I attempted both just to see if they would work, and I never could get it work (although I didn’t spend much time trying, as I already had a workable solution). In both situations, you still can’t connect more than 2 Xbox’s to your network at a time, and in one solution you have to deal with wireless while the other you leave your Xbox unprotected. I don’t know exactly just how big of a risk it is to leave an Xbox in the DMZ, but why not play it safe?

The real solution requires a router with good enough software to allow enabling UPnP (some routers just have this enabled by default, even though it may not be an option), allow customization of the MTU size (to help fight against lag if you get any), and do port range triggering, which is the most important part. Unfortunately, I can’t guarantee your router can do this. In fact, unless you went out and bought a good quality router (versus taking whatever your ISP might give you, or buying whatever was cheapest at the time), you probably can’t do port range triggering. If this is the case, then I highly recommend you invest about 80 bucks into the Cisco-Linksys E3000 Wireless-N Router. It’s an older model, but it was top of the line when it came out and this is the one I currently use. This bad boy was at least a few hundred bucks just a few years ago, if not more. If price isn’t an object for you, I’d recommend going with the Cisco-Linksys E4200 Dual-Band Wireless-N Router. It’s newer, sleeker, faster, and twice as expensive.

So what do you do with the information above? Well you don’t need to know what exactly port range triggering or UPnP does, or what MTU is. You just need to know how to configure it. Writing down the entire process would be a bit lengthy, so instead I made a tutorial posted on Youtube. Once it’s uploaded, I’ll embed it below so you can watch it here. Enjoy! Oh, and one more thing, this also resolves any NAT issues you might be experiencing.

It’s the holiday season, and most of you are probably thinking exactly what I am. New stuff! Sure there’s the part with family and friends, sipping hot chocolate by the fire, singing Christmas carols (being forced to do so, at a hospital up in Oregon when you were younger. Aherm). We know all that already. I wanna talk about cool stuff though, so for a moment lets forget about that crap. Want Barbies or a new Christmas sweater? Then get out of here, click the red x in the upper right hand corner of this window and head down to Kohl’s. If you wanna see the best video games and other stuff, keep reading. This is for you. Some of this stuff might not be in your price range though, so just do what I do. Look and drool.

Samsung HD TV

The Samsung LN32D403 32-Inch 720p 60Hz LCD HDTV, this 32 incher is pretty cool. At first the 720p turned me off. I almost didn’t buy it for myself. Target had a larger TV for sale on black Friday that was an off brand 1080p. Luckily (and I do mean luckily) they were out, so I had to fork out a little bit more for this smaller one. As it turns out, if your TV is under 40 inches your eyes can’t really tell the difference between 1080p and 720p anyways unless you get right up in it’s face (who does that?), and the colors on this TV are VIBRANT! It’s a very bright, colorful display, with tons of customization options. It has the regular component video/audio ports and 2 HDMI ports, one of which doubles as a DVI so you can connect your PC to it. (You’ll need a DVI to HDMI cable I believe). The sound is really good for a TV and the coolest thing is, it has a USB port! If you’ve got movies or pictures on a flash drive, you can plug it right into your TV and watch/view them. You can get TVs of this size that are off brand at a cheaper price, but after using it I’m glad I paid the extra to get a Samsung. I can’t speak for it’s reliability yet, but from what I’ve read it should outlast its cheaper rivals.

Halo Anniversary-Other Games

The game that started it all is back for it’s 10 year Anniversary, aptly named Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. It’s Halo 1 for your Xbox 360, but completely overhauled with awesome graphics and Xbox Live multiplayer! “Say what?” you ask, “Blood Gulch on Xbox Live?” Yes my friends, please take a moment and watch the demo on youtube, it’s pretty awesome.

On the subject of awesome video games, there are a lot more that I don’t think I need to write about. The latest Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed games are pretty awesome. Skyrim is one of my favorites, and I have a blog post about it here. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has been said to be the greatest Zelda game yet.

We also strongly recommend that you DO NOT get the game “Jimmie Johnson’s Anything With An Engine”. If there was ever a lame game with a lame title and lame box art, this is it. Definitely worthy of some facepalms.

     

Gift Cards

How are gift cards awesome enough to make it on my holiday list of awesome stuff? My friend, because it’s Amazon, that’s why. Let me explain further. You have to keep in mind 2 things. The first thing is, don’t think of this as something you should buy for yourself, nobody does that (unless the card is worth more money than what you put into it, but that doesn’t happen very often). This is definitely a gift idea. The second thing is, what a better way to say “Merry Christmas” than a gift that enables someone to buy whatever they want from their bedroom or living room? Plus, you don’t have to leave your bedroom or living room. In fact, you don’t even have to deal with a physical card. You can have Amazon send a virtual gift card via email at a time that you choose! (like… Christmas morning?). You’ve got lots of card options for all different occasions, so it’ll look just as nice as a regular one.

Gaming Computers

This particular one I have linked is the iBUYPOWER Gamer Extreme Intel CrossFire A958SLCK Liquid Cooling Gaming Desktop, and it is a beast! There are lots of different versions of these iBUYPOWER gaming machines, with all sorts of different specs and prices. You can check out Amazon’s list here. These machines aren’t insanely expensive all things considered, and they can plow through the latest video games set on the highest graphics. Sure it’d be a bit cheaper to build this same machine with all the same parts yourself, but are you really going to do that?

Skyrim is the latest installment of the Elder Scrolls series of games. Before you discredit the rest of this article, let me make myself clear. I am NOT an Elder Scrolls fan boy. In fact, I invested a mere 8 hours into Oblivion and stopped playing it because I didn’t like it. Skyrim however, is different. I’ve put about 35 150 hours or so into this game so far, and I’m positive I can put it in my top 5 all time favorite games, possibly even top 3. It’s available for Xbox, PC, and PS3, so take your pick. If you’ve got a PC that will run it at high graphics though, I recommend that.

Skyrim Live Action Trailer:

For starters, this game is MASSIVE. The in game world is the equivalent of over 25 square miles, so you can imagine how long it takes to jog from one end of the map to the other. There’s so much to do, and a lot of it is accessible right from the start. Actually, let me backtrack a bit. It’s not “there’s so much to do”, it’s “there’s an infinite amount of things to do”. Besides the main quests (which after 35 hours, I don’t think I can even say I’m 1/4 the way through the game) , and the many number of small side quests, there are other quests that are infinitely generated. You will never stop questing, unless you choose too. There are over 150 dungeons to complete, the quests are pretty diverse so it doesn’t feel like you’re doing the same thing over again, and there’s a lot of intriguing content.

Besides the gameplay, the graphics of the game are amazing. There’s a bit of an issue with load times on the Xbox 360, but I’ve been told that improves substantially once you install it to the hard drive (which reminds me, I need to get a hard drive ). The draw distance is extremely far; I’ve sat on top of a mountainside watching a dragon circle a smaller mountain at least 5 miles away.

I could literally go on about how awesome this game is, but instead, I decided I’ll just show you this Skyrim vs Wow picture I found which has ALL the necessary information. I’ve also thrown in some Amazon links for you; you can save some bucks because it’s cheaper, and you most likely don’t have to pay sales tax or shipping.

I’m in a bit of a… philosophical mood. During the last hour at work, the drive home, the time spent washing my car, and that 15 minutes I was watching the history channel prove once more that UFO’s did in fact crash in Roswell, I spent time thinking about my life over this year. 2011 held a lot of big changes for me. I started investing in the stock market, I got a speech easy device, started the career I’ve been desperately wanting over the past 3 years, obtained a loan for a very cool sports car on my own credit, no cosigner. Started a website, got my first speeding ticket, dated a supermodel, and recently started losing weight. Okay okay, one of those isn’t true. I would never get a speeding ticket. From that long list changes, the weight loss is the one I felt like blogging about today.

As many people know, I’m a pretty big gadget guy. Video games, electronics, technology in general, these things are my passion. Eating right, getting exercise, staying healthy, these things are not. So anything you can do to cross the bridge from one to the other (like Wii Fit! Gotta love Wii Fit), or at least anything you can do to make the weight loss stuff easier, is very much appreciated. I spent the last month or so loading up on gadgets for losing weight. I’m happy to report that I’m down about 10lbs so far, and I wanted to share with you my favorites that I think have really helped me so far.

My favorite is the one I like to call the mother of all scales (or MOAS for short, and not to be confused with the incorrect plural form of Moa, which is an extinct flightless bird). Does your scale tell you your body weight? I’m sure it does, otherwise it’s not really a scale. What else does it do? Probably nothing, except if you’re lucky it looks good on the floor so you keep it there rather than pulling out of the closet for every use. The Withings Scale not only measures body weight, but it also accurately measures the percentage of body fat and lean mass in your body. Many scales can show you in the last 2 months you’ve lost, say, 15 pounds total. The Withings scale shows you you lost 15 pounds total, but 20 pounds of body fat and you gained 5 pounds of lean mass (that’s the stuff you want, FYI).

If that was all it did, it’s still impressive, but there’s more. It connects to Wifi, automatically updates your profile on their website or any of these other websites when you stand on it, supports up to 8 different users, recognizes who is who on it’s own, and gives you the power to look back at the history of the different users and analyze losses or gains more accurately and effectively. Oh yeah, it also looks pretty sexy. I keep mine out on the floor.

Of course you can’t expect to lose weight if you just stand on it every morning and don’t change anything else. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a scale that sucked the fat out of you the longer you stood on it? I’ve been using mine in conjunction with Runkeeper. I have the Runkeeper app on my phone that that tracks my route, heart rate (through a third party heart rate monitor), speed, and calories burned. It uses the information given to it every morning by my scale and keeps my profile updated with the correct weight and BMI, which it then uses to determine just how many calories I burned. It’s all quite fascinating really. 20 years ago to track all this information i’d have to spend more time logging data then I would actually running. Now with the help of Withings and Runkeeper, I just stand on my scale in the morning, (after I pee of course, full bladder = more weight and that’s no bueno) press ‘start activity’ on Runkeeper right before I begin, and [try to] enjoy the run!

Now maybe I’m wrong about this. I’m not as old as some of you folks out there, but for me I remember it started off on Myspace. Remember Myspace? I believe it’s still around, and ingeniously named My[_____]. I think you’re supposed to fill in the space, like it’s supposed to be whatever you want it to be. That might have been a good idea, except people now seem to want My[Facebook] and since you don’t need to even log onto Myspace’s servers to get Facebook, I’m sure Myspace doesn’t have much more time to live.

Anyways Myspace is dead, yes we know, back to the topic. I’m talking about the bulletin, or tweet, or status update that appears to be words for a good cause, or words of wisdom, or some witty comment which is then ruined by the phrase ‘Repost this if you agree’. Or even worse are the ones that say ‘I’ll bet no one else is brave enough to repost this’, and to top the scale of bad to ugly to horrendously hideous, are the ones that say ‘If you don’t repost this your cat will die, your mom will get rabies, and you’ll have bad luck for a year’.

It almost makes me sad. I see some really good patriotic ones about America, supporting our troops, believing on God (which I do), etc. All of these seemingly ruined by the last sentence that obviously hints at 2 things.

1. You did not create it. You should spend some time being original or at least chop off the last sentence so at least it looks like you’re being original.

2. You agree with the content of the post enough to spend 5 seconds copying and pasting it. Woo Hoo. Highlight – Right click – Copy – Right-click – Paste. For you fellow techies out there it’s even faster. Highlight – Ctrl-C – Ctrl-V.

I figured I can cut through the crap and end just about all of these ‘Repost if you’re a moron’ statuses with this simple guide right here.

- If you love America, we don’t care. Go vote, keep it great.
- If you don’t love America, we don’t care. Go vote, make it great.
- If you believe in god, we don’t care. I don’t think the gates of heaven open any wider for those with a 50% God-status update ratio.
- If you don’t believe in god, we don’t care. You probably don’t want to advertise that to the group above to begin with unless you’re looking for a debate.
- If you support our troops, we don’t care. Everybody who pays taxes already does support them whether they want to or not.
- If you don’t support our troops, we don’t care. Posting that probably isn’t a good idea anyways.
- If you think Caylee Anthony deserves justice, we don’t care. We already feel the same way.
- If you were affected by someone with breast cancer, well we do care because that’s sad. Just cut off the ‘repost’ section at the end and we’ll all feel a little better.

For any and all of the points above, if you have a valid or original or useful or any point to make that actually pertains to you and your life, by all means feel free! Examples below.

“I’m going to Africa on a missions trip to help people and poverty and spread the word of god”
Yayyyyy!
“People in Africa need help and the word of God. Repost if you’re not afraid to go over there and do your part”
Boooooo!
“Joining the military is a good way to support our country. I’m thinking of enlisting. Does anyone else feel similar?”
Yayyyyy!
“Joining the military is a good way to support our country. Repost if your not afraid to enlist”
Boooooo!

Alright, I think that’s a long enough rant. Click the little like button below if you agree. Unless you’re too good for Facebook of course, in which case you can click the little plus 1 button below, then the 5 people in your various circles can see it instead of the other 200 uncool people you know that have a Facebook.

-Kyle