Burke's Joystick

  I missed so much over the past month.  Sorry about that.  However, I did come across two things that have been stuck in my craw and I just need to address.  First, this guy: Yeah...Glenn Beck.  I have a love/hate relationship with this guy.  On the good side, Beck did yeoman work on his (alas, appropriately) short-lived show by bringing the wisdom of the Founding Fathers to life like no one has on television in a long, long time.  On the bad side, Beck fell victim to Bill O'Reilly-itis (the demagogue O'Reilly being his mentor at FOX News, of course) and quickly developed such a huge ego that he brashly took credit for everything good that occurred in this nation's political life since the start of his television show, including the rise of the Tea Party, the rejection of Obama, and the re-discovery of America's brilliant founding principles. Nonetheless, I still feel compelled to defend Beck for no other reason that the Left hates him...

I iz bak! Amazing how everything can change in a matter of minutes. For me, the world turned upside down about three week ago when my father had a heart attack. I never saw it coming as my father had no history of heart problems. Nonetheless, there I stood in the local emergency room early one Sunday morning wondering how we wound up in such dire straits. Interestingly, neither the ambulance techs, nor the emergency room doctors, could definitely conclude that my father was having a heart attack as the EKG was inconclusive, and my fathers symptoms were not the classic symptoms of a heart attack (pain down the arms and/or jaw, trouble breathing, etc.). In fact, for some three hours, the docs were thinking gallbladder attack or a bloodclot in the lung (his only symptoms were a severe pain off near his shoulder, and falling blood oxygen levels). However, the blood test showed that at some point he did have a heart attack.

Have you ever noticed how every space game represents the conservative ideal?  Rarely do you find a space-themed game where the player needs a space ship just to pick up his government cheese at the nearest space welfare office.  Rather, be it Eve Online , the X-series , or Space Pirates and Zombies , the gameplay always revolves around the player setting out on a new life free from the hassles of the old world, one where he is free to pursue fame and fortune as he sees fit. These thoughts were brought to mind after trying my latest space squeeze, Evochron Mercenary .  Check out the game's description: Trading commodities while sneaking past hostile forces, racing the best pilots in the area, mining for diamonds, negotiating for survival, spying for a curious energy company, cleaning dirty solar arrays, transporting an impatient passenger... and that's just on a Monday. The life of an independent mercenary is rarely without excitement. At times, you may...

I’m always on the lookout for some scratch, a little something to get my crate further along the New Eden power curve. That’s how I wound up in the awful backwater system of Eitu III. While on the way to drop off some hitchhikers looking for a free ride to Oiniken, I get this vidmail from some yap in Eitu by the name of Okita…Okito…Okaydokey, whatever. Anyway, he said he got my name from a contractor I did business with a few years back - I can’t recall the guy, but that’s not surprising since I tend to remember ISK better than names and faces. Heck, Okaydokey would have done better to tell me my haul rather than the contractor’s name if he wanted me to believe his references. Regardless, Okaydokey, who has the look of a junior suit for one of the big corps, goes on and on about how he needs a reliable ship and yada, yada, yada. Who cares. All I really needed to hear was his pitch about “generous compensation” - that is always a good enough reference for me. I ...