Growing up: It sucks...Don't It?

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Even before I had graduated from school, I was dreading starting my career.  Even though that career is pretty cool, I still didn't want things to change.  Who wants responsibility?  I miss the days of reckless abandon that I had gone through in my teens.  After school we could do whatever we want.  There was no thought of how to pay the bills, let alone about getting hurt.  I remember that I would go cliff jumping into the local creek every summer.  Did I care that kids got seriously injured there every year?  You bet I didn't.

I saw a video today that reminded me about all of this today, and I thought I would share it with you guys. The alley oops were pretty awesome.

Not to say that I wouldn't try jumping off the deck into the pool, but I would definitely hesitate about doing a back flip into one.  Their moms must have been freaking out.  I know mine would have.  I bet the last things on these kids' minds that they could get seriously injured.  When I think these types of things, I usually catch myself, slightly ashamed that I have turned into a responsible human being.  Of course, not having health insurance could be playing a major part of that.  Truthfully though, I probably would have been thinking the same thing if I had insurance.  It really just sucks knowing that I will never be able to live my life like that ever again.  The reason people tell you to enjoy life while you are young, is that all the stupid shit you used to do to entertain yourself will no longer seem like an option.  All older people miss that.

To go on, I have seen a whole bunch of really good trick shot videos in my web surfing days, and here is one of the more recent ones that I have seen in the past few weeks.  I think any group of guys with a video camera, persistence to get something almost impossible right, and nothing planned for a weekend will find some inspiration from. 

Who knows how much time they had to waste, but props to them for actually doing it. I hope there was an elevator leading to the top of that tower...I'd hate to be the guy who had to bring that basketball all the way up there after every miss.  Oh the young and all of their energy.

So to go on, there was a little bit of a lapse in good video games that were released in the past few months (Unless you like Starcraft, which I don't.)  I had been looking for something to play that I could pass some time with, and I really didn't want to spend a lot of money.  I also have lost a major slab of my interest in shooters because that is all I do at work all day.  Finally, I had decided to go pick up Fable 2.

Besides having awesome cover art, this game is a lot of fun.  You can get the above version, platinum hits, for only $20 brand new.  This version also comes with a shitload of DLC content on the disc, which means you won't even have to download it.  It's a pretty good deal.  I had played the original Fable on the Xbox, and I had a lot of fun playing it, but it wasn't anything memorable.  This game though, I think is more what Peter Molyneux was looking for.  After the Fable was released, he had officially apologized for the way it had turned out, because a lot that was promised was not actually included in the game.  Everything about the game is great.  The only gripe I had about this game is that it is a little sluggish.  Install it to your HD to speed things up a little bit.  Fable 3 is coming out later this year, but if you need something to play now, or you want a good idea what Fable 3 is going to be about, you won't be sorry.  I couldn't find a good professional review for this game for some reason.  I have put up the Gamespot review of the game for all those interested.  I don't know whats with the horrible background music, as that song isn't even in the game.  I agree with its score of an 8.5. 

Your afternoon can go right in the crapper cause of someone else's fender bender.

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So I recently moved to an apartment in Jersey City with one of my Buddies.  Working full time as a game tester, there isn't a lot of things that I don't like about my job.  One thing, and I am sure any working man or woman who lives near NYC would agree about, is that you are not looking forward of the inevitable part of your day that looks like this:

Now let's face it.  There is not much more that can be done to limit the amount of traffic in certain area of the world realistically.  The reason that I emphasize the word "realistically" is that I know some people would be thinking, "Carpools and public transportation would fix the problem."  Unfortunately, even though this would fix a great deal of the congestion problem that highly populated areas would have, people are lazy and won't do it.  So are we damned forever with congestion?  In ten years is it going to take hours to get somewhere that takes us an hour now?  Probably.  For this to get fixed, certain drastic changes would have to be made.  This is one of the things I think about while I am stuck in traffic.

Of course, the thing that seems the coolest and that would work the best are new types of cars.  As I sit in traffic at rush hour, I would say that at least 80% of all the cars on the road only have one person in them.  There is so much wasted space on the highway that it is ridiculous.  Carpools don't really work most of the time.  What are the chances that you live close enough to someone that you work with that you would want to go out of your way to pick them up?  I would say that on average, people would not travel more that an extra ten minutes for a carpool.  So what can be done about it?  Nothing without some drastic change, and one of the ideas that I have with this is that everyone should buy thinner cars.  This means more lanes, and instantaneously get rid of a good deal of the traffic, at least for another 10 years or so.  After some research, I realized that there are cars that have been in development for the past few years that fit into this category.

It's pretty kickass in my opinion.  A two seater, styled like the cockpit of a fighter jet, and it's electric?  Sign me up for one! Top speed 80mph and can go for 93 miles.  If you wanna read more, go here.

So I know some of you are thinking, "There is no way that everyone will want to get this car," or "It is going to cost too much money."  You're right.  I am assuming that all of my ideas would either take many years to assimilate, or an infinite budget.  After some math and statistics, to replace every car, not including heavy machinery and work trucks, would cost somewhere in the range of 632 trillion dollars. So yeah, not happening instantaneously. 

The reason this is going to cost so much is because for this idea to work, it would have to happen all at once.  This is because it is replacing something that is already in use.  If a million of these cars were made and bought, it wouldn't even put a dent in traffic because the majority of people would still have normal cars.  So instead of replacing and reworking space that is already in use, we have to find somewhere else that is empty that we can add to....

...Look Up.

Look at all that empty space up there!  It's just waiting to be used!  So...scientists out there, where are our Jetsons cars?

This, I think, would be the ideal and most realistic way to go.  Other ideas that I have had aren't going to get anywhere anytime soon.  How about teleportation like in Star Trek or the tube in Futurama? If there were flying cars, people would be able to adopt them at their leisure, or when they can afford them.  And many people would want one because there wouldn't be many people out there using them.  So we are just waiting on the scientists and engineers of the world to actually come up with something that works that can be used by people on a regular basis.  I sincerely believe that this will happen in the next few decades.  With the exponential rate that the population is raising, we have to do something.  You guys have any ideas?

In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment. ~Thomas Carlyle

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Welcome to Nerdbrew!

My name is Pat, and I am a 23 year old Game Tester That lives in the NY/NJ area.  I have been out of school for almost two years now, and felt the need to write.  I don't really know where it came from, but the urge is there, so I have decided to start a blog.  Originally, I was just going to make this site a place where I would rant and complain about things, and my initial post was a huge rant about the IT guy at work, but I think I can keep things a little more positive than that.

On this site you can expect to see some topics that are worth reading.  Mostly just writing about ideas, opinions about current events, artwork that I have done or like, and funny vids and pics that I happen to find.  Also, if you cannot guess by the name, two of my favorite things are beer and video games, so you will also see a lot of that.  A lot of the things that I do find that are funny are either given to me by my friends, and other random sites and blogs that I check and read on a daily basis.

So to start things off, today is the day that my company, Vogster, released an update to it's game called Crimecraft. 

I am not going to try to pitch this game to you, but it is a Massively Multiplayer Online Third Person Shooter running the Unreal 3 engine.  I enjoy playing the game a lot and it is a pretty solid game.  There isn't a lot like it out there right now and it does things a little differently than most conventional shooters.  It has some pretty bad ratings out there, but all of these reviews are from when the game was launched.  The game has changed significantly since then so don't listen to them.  The game is free to play and download, but they have microtransions similar to those in Battlefield: Heroes.  I am not trying to talk up the game cause I work there, if you are wondering.  I truthfully believe that the game is worth playing.

Anyway, we have been working hard on the game for all, putting in massive amount of OT just so that the game will be the best that it can be for everyone to play today.  So all you Crafters out there, enjoy.

Since this is my first couple of days doing this, I am super pumped to write.  I have a few topics that I am trying to resist writing about so I can save them for later.  I don't know if I am going to be able to do this though.  I am just going to keep going for now.  So let's go on to the Brew side of NerdBrew:

Boddingtons Pub Ale is my favorite Beer of all time.  It is a low carbonated honey beer from Great Britain.  I was first introduced to this beer in my trip to England a while back when I went to a pub and was pointed in its direction.  It is the the ultimate sip beer.  It is very smooth, and needs to be served in a glass ice cold.  It has a little aerator in it much like Guinness does and when you pour it in a glass it gets this beautiful frost that is super creamy and delicious.  As far as alcohol  content, it is on the lower scale of things with 3.5%, due to the fact that Britain has a percentage cap by law, or so I was told by a Half Time worker.  The beer is relatively cheap also.  It only comes in cans, and can be bought in a 4 Pint for anywhere between 6 and 9 dollars.  Kegs can be found, but from what I was told, since the beer is so frothy, you would get nothing but foam unless you had a kegerator. 

So there is my first post into the Blogging world.  Expect more to come in the next few days, as I see if writing a blog is just a fad for me or becomes something that I look forward to on a regular basis.  Enjoy!