Duke Nukem Forever is Never - MIA not KIA

Well it seems that Joel Siegler (See his comment on my "Duke Nukem Forever is not happening" blog entry) was pretty close to dead wrong. As I stated in that post 3D Realms is, in my opinion, incompetent in its approach to delivering Duke Nukem Forever. And it seems news releases have now come very close to confirming that I was right and Joel was wrong about the potential for Duke Nukem Forever to ever see the light of day.

See this article

The really sad part here is that if 3D Realms had been only reasonably competent in their approach to delivering products to their customers it is likely they would still be in business. I suggested before and I still believe their best approach is to license the Duke Nukem property to a company that is actually competent in creating, testing, and delivering good video games to their customers. Perhaps Bungie or Infinity Ward?

Very sad that these guys, in my opinion, let arrogance destroy their company. The arrogance that said "when it's done". Think about how much customers were crying out to own this game, I would refer you to their forum but the 3D Realms website is already shut down, and it's pretty obvious the game would have been a significant money maker.

But perhaps playing World of Warcraft was just a higher priority for them.

I certainly hope someone picks up the Duke franchise.

Duke Nukem Forever wins #1 Vaporware Spot!

Well Duke Nukem Forever continues to earn top marks as Vaporware. Check out the latest at Wired Magazine. For 2008 DNF gets the #1 spot although it should be noted that Heroes Journey is only 2 years behind DNF so who knows if DNF actually releases then it might lose the #1 Vaporware spot of all time.

Mr Anonymous tells me it will be an AWESOME game whenever it releases. I am not sure how he/she knows this because so far the teaser trailer is extremely unimpressive. If you slow down the video you see some really crappy quality on both characters and the backgrounds. They flash the monsters by real fast but a little closer inspection shows some real boring coloring and cartoonish graphics in the background. The blood splatter on the bus looks flat, Dukes muscle shirt has little depth to it and looks like he painted his skin. Granted its a teaser so perhaps the final product will be awesome or perhaps with so much FPS competition out there it will be just another "whatever" moment for gamers.

On a happier note Dawn of War II the sequel to 2004 Dawn of War releases February 19th, imagine that a sequel that was produced in 4 years, what a concept.

Perhaps 3D realms should sell the Duke rights to a company that actually believes in producing products for their customers and retire with a boat load of cash to play WOW full time with hookers and cocaine as their guild partners. Hey it's a thought and I am not the first one to have it.

Podcasts are fun on the run

Podcasts have been around for a while now but never interested me until I had something portable to play the podcasts. I could play them at my PC but I have better things to do when working or playing on my PC. Now that I have a Zune I have really gotten into podcasts on everything from Buzz Out Loud to Ugly Betty (OK yes I like to watch Ugly Betty). The reason for this is because I can play them on the run with my Zune. I can listen at Starbucks while having coffee or play them in the car through the AUX port while driving, or play them while sitting in some waiting area for doctors, car repairs, etc.

The Zune software has made it real easy to access podcasts where ever I find them on the internet so now I look for podcasts as I do research on the web. Obviously other software can do this just as well but what is important to me is the software made it easy to do without having to be some podcast technical guru.

Thanks to PirateT7 for introducing me to podcasts all those years ago even if it did take a long time before I actually used them. :)

Gamestop is wrong to worry about Steam

Rumor is GameStop is refusing to sell or take orders for Dawn of War II because the game requires installation of the digital download capability STEAM. GameStop corporate is cutting their nose to spite their face on this one. I find it hard to believe that I am the only gamer out there that prefers physical media to digital download. I will be picking up Dawn of War II at another retailer now that GameStop has made this poor decision.

Check out this article

http://kotaku.com/5136323/why-is-gamestop-no-longer-selling-dawn-of-war-ii

Duke Nukem Forever is not happening

Duke Nukem was a great game released in the 90's and in 1997 the company 3D Realms announced Duke Nukem Forever as a game they were developing for release in 1998.

In 2000 Wired Magazine ran an article on the top 10 vaporware products.

"The winners of the Wired News Vaporware 2000 awards in reverse order are:

10: Tribes 2:
9: Wireless Web Pads:
8: Bluetooth:
7: Silicon Film's Electronic Film System:
6: Warcraft III:
5: Intel's Itanium chips:
4: A New Linux kernel:
3: Black and White:
2: Duke Nukem Forever:
1: Mac OS X: "
Link to the article I quote: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/12/40484?currentPage=all
The only one of these to NEVER see the light of day in 10 years is Duke Nukem Forever.

It even made PC Worlds list of the top 15 vaporware products of all time.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/145351/the_top_15_vaporware_products_of_all_time.html

It seems the title was very prophetic since it will be the far side of forever before it ever releases. The saddest part is 3D Realms treatment of their fan base, you should see the list of topics you are not allowed to discuss at their forum. Basically anything to do with the fact that they are incompetent and completely unable to plan a project to deliver this game. I work in software development so I understand the kinds of things that can derail, delay, cancel, etc product development. At this point they should just cancel the product all together and stop stringing their customers along. By this time Halo, Doom, Quake, Gears, Resistance, Call of Duty, etc have taken such a chunk of their customers away that I doubt any Duke they would manage to release could ever recoup the development cost. And notice the companies that work on these other games have actually managed to complete a software development project to produce a successful product multiple times during the last 10 years

3D Realms - Stop jerking everyone around and stop being so arrogant with your customer base. It will be done when it's done I expect from a 10 year old not from a business entity that is suppose to actually produce a product.

HellBoy 2 - a very fun ride for fans

I have to say I enjoyed the first HellBoy movie and enjoyed the second even more. It's not for everyone but I hope fans of the HellBoy series will positively react to the second movie so we could perhaps get a third one :)

France must like repeating history - AKA Chip on shoulder=stupidity

France's foreign minister has made some very interesting statements about the United States. Here is the gist of what he said

PARIS — Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France, said Tuesday that whoever succeeds Bush in the White House will have to restore the United States' battered image and standing overseas [...].

[...]Kouchner said the United States will never be the country it was before the Bush presidency and would have to work to repair its reputation, especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. [...] He added that, although it will take time, the new president will have “many means to re-establish the image” of a country whose reputation is suffering. [...]

"We have to talk with our enemies," he said.

I especiallyi like that last statement. Talk is all the French actually seem willing to do and this is not the first time. Remember that little bit of history called WWII, now before you start telling me to get over it and times are different hear me out.

Consider this point:
Hitler started to re-arm Germany and in 1935 he re-introduced conscription (the recruiting of all young, able men into the army). This was against the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Britain, France and Italy condemned Germany's actions but did nothing to stop her.

Yes I know Italy was a bad boy later on but still the two leading world powers talked and did nothing.

And this piont:
the Rhineland area it was to be a 'demilitarised' zone. But in 1936 Hitler marched troops into the Rhineland. The French had a much bigger army than the Germans and could have driven the German troops out. But the French army took no action.

And this point:
when Hitler marched troops into Austria, Britain and France only protested.

And a final point"
Neville Chamberlain, [...] (British)Prime Minister in 1937, was determined that Europe should not be dragged into another world war. He wanted to find out what Hitler wanted and if necessary, give it to him in order to maintain peace. This was the policy, popular at the time known as appeasement. Hitler told Chamberlain that once the question of the Sudetenland was settled he had 'no further territorial ambitions Europe'. Britain and France therefore persuaded Czechoslovakia to hand over the Sudetenland to Germany in order to maintain peace in Europe Hitler had lied.

Action is often neccesary to prevent larger problems later down the road. Problems that may or may not be caused by previous actions such as the Versaiille treaty being a big part of what brought about WWII.

The problem with the French is they only care about themselves, it is not their population being poison gassed, it is not their leader who refuses to allow UN inspectors unfettered access, it is not there leader that ignores every UN sanction making that form of diplomacy useless and it is not their people suffering needlessly.

Do we need to talk? absolutely! but to the extent that things get completely out of hand.

When is the right time to take action? I am not sure and I don't think anyone can really ever know before the action is taken. Because of this we must ask ourselves is the action we are taking making positive contributions and not just to us, like the selfish French, but to those we are helping.

Consider the progress that France and liberals want us to ignore:
Pessimists have been repeatedly wrong about the prospects for postwar political progress in Iraq.
They doubted that the Iraqis would finish writing an interim constitution on time in 2003;

they doubted that sovereignty could be transferred to an interim Iraqi government by that constitution’s deadline in 2004;

they doubted that elections could be conducted on the constitution’ ambitious timetable, in January 2005.

They were wrong on all counts.

One last point about progress in Iraq:
Although critics impatiently complain about its slow pace, Iraq is making much faster progress in standing up an elected government than Germany or Japan did following World War II. Given the tremendous damage inflicted on Iraqi civil society by more than three decades of dictatorship, the Iraqis are doing remarkably well in forging a national consensus among the Shiite Arab majority, Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and other minority groups with a long history of mutual distrust.

I don't want any countries soldiers or citizens dieing in a war and yet there are circumstances that demand such sacrifices. France only wants to talk which means ZERO sacrifice on their part and continued sacrifice on the part of others they refuse to help.

Link to French foreign minister story
Link to before WWII information
Link to progress in Iraq article

Berkely California is PRO rape, PRO murder, PRO torture,

It occurs to me that the city of Berkely must really enjoy rape, murder, discrimination against women, torturing children, and poison gas as a means of controlling a rebellious population.

You see if you are against what we are striving to do in Iraq than you are willing to allow all of this to return.

So let's see
The city of Berkely California is PRO rape rooms.
The city of Berkely California is PRO mass murder of men women and children.
The city of Berkely California is PRO chemical weapons of mass destruction.
The city of Berkely California is PRO torture. Not the silly water boarding kind, I am talking the feet in the plastic shredder kind of torture.
The city of Berkely California is ANTI a judicial system that does not do as told

This article from the Wall Street Journal gives you an idea of what we stopped. My only complaint is we did not help the Iraq people soon enough.
Criminal Against Humanity

We can choose to disagree about why we went into Iraq and we can choose to disagree about how to best complete operations there but one thing we should not disagree about is that we are doing much more good by being there than by not being there. If the City of Berkely California ran our country prior to WWII we would all be talking German or Japanese today.

Let's not be totally short sighted about this and lets support every one of our troops completely even while we argue with our politicians about how to best complete operations.

RAMBO - as true to life as it gets

This weekend I saw Rambo, I was both horrified and impressed. The story is plausible and it highlights the Burma civil war in graphic detail. Killings in this movie are so real it will make most people cringe and turn away. The important thing to remember is the realism is not exaggerated but rather is showing you truly some of what is going on in the ongoing Burma civil war as well as the realities of what must be done to protect the innocent. Cruel, violent, men without morals or conscience can not be negotiated with they can only be removed like a cancer from the earth.

This movie is well worth seeing if you have the stomach to know what it really is like for the people of Burma and those that try to help them.

You know your a racist when.....

This December I had a horrible encounter with a member of our camping club. We were having what started out as a good dicussion of political candidates when suddenly this person says "I don't know what would be worse a woman or a nigger in the White House." To say the least I respectively explained to him that a persons skills, knowledge, ability to lead, etc. are determined by many things. The color of their skin or what they have between their legs are two things that do not determine anything. I find it so dis-heartening that we are 144 years past the emancipation proclamation, 53 years past Brown vs. Board of Education Topeka, KS. and we still have people that judge others by color or gender.

The flip side of this to be fair are people of color that think all white people are racists, I know such a person. This is just as bad and until this event the most racist person I knew was a black person.

Judge all by their actions, and deeds. Do not judge them by appearances.

Back to Blogging I hope

Well the fall and holidays was a killer time for me at work and at home. Pretty much put blogging and a bunch of other stuff on hold for months :)

MoveOn.org - Is this really what you want?

I thought our country supported our military troops even though some of us disagreed with the current Iraq policies? If this is true why does MoveOn.org attack our military leader with their advertisement. General Patreaus was almost unanimously approved by Congress and yet now liberal democrats remain silent when their dictatorial master MoveOn.org attacks this fine commander.

Could someone, anyone, point out to me what is wrong with our Iraq policy? I see people happily voting in IRaq, I see women getting educated, being allowed into politics, and freed from the tyranny that existed in a regime that ruled through torture and fear. I read the transcripts I can find from Saddam's trial and shudder at the many examples of WMD's turned loose on the IRaqi people. I remember U.N. inspectors being prevented from confirming the elimination of all WMD's and related technologies in Iraq.

Do Americans really cower and want to turn away because a minority of bad apples in Iraq want us out before the country achieves true democratic Independence? The path to freedom and democracy is not an easy one and not something that happens on a set timeline. I know we want more political progress to be made but leaving does not abandon politicians that are not doing things fast enough. Leaving abandons all the wives, mothers, women, children, men, fathers, and husbands that seem to relish their freedom as demonstrated by their enthusiasm in elections.

For any that read this and comment I ask one specific question of you that I want your comment to address: Do you condemn what MoveOn.org has done in its Patreaus add?

Xbox Live is Poisoning Your Children

As many of you know I am an avid gamer and play many games online through Xbox Live. The games I play are mostly rated M for Mature meaning adult only, sort of like an X rating on movies. What I find surprising is the number of very young children I hear playing these games which are extremely brutal with significant foul language. The game is actually the tame part of the experience for children under 17. The really vulgar part of the experience is many of the people on live. You hear people, including many young children, curse and degrade players with terms like Mother Fucker, Gay asshole, and nigger. Yes I used the N word because outside of some movie use Xbox live is the only place I hear children calling other people these terms. Your children are learning hate, foul language, and how to degrade others if they are playing on Xbox Live. Every parent that allows their child to play online must sit-in and listen to what they are experiencing. Many parents I am sure would immediately cut the network cable if they knew what was really going on. Here are some other things I hear all to often when playing games online.

You fucking newbie, go play with yourself you motherfucker

Your a God damn nigger you fuck!

Yea I raped your mother too shit head!

That's right asshole I tea bagged you!

Your so fucking gay

And trust me this is just the tip of vulgar iceberg. Parents listen to what is going on and take control before your child thinks calling people niggers or motherfuckers is acceptable.

I read the Presidents Speech again and I still think we did the right thing for the right reasons

Reading the entire speech from President Bush on Iraq before the war I still think America made the right move for the right reasons. I was and still am unwilling to wait for those that are proven enemies of freedom to go too far before we do something about them. Remember President Clinton passed over a chance to stop Osama before he became too dangerous and look at the repercussions of that decision. We should not judge President Clinton on this single point though because again he made what he believed was the best decision based on the information he had available at that time.

New information or changing intelligence does not mean we stop a course of action unless you truly believe that course of action is wrong in its entirety. Abandoning the freedom loving, struggling voters of Iraq is wrong. We are not a conquering nation and there are many reasons to see this through. Including helping in the overall war on terrorism. I love the fact that we are catching Al Queda leaders over there.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

Equating disagreement with the President's strategy with lack of support for the military [ is nonsense ]

The title was a comment I received on a previous post and this person could not be any more wrong. Who according to our constitution is the Commander in Chief of the military and why do you think our founding fathers knew that a war run by a political committee was doomed to fail. Our founding fathers and other wise men after them did know that the people through their representatives needed to approve any war. They also knew once that approval was given the President needed to run things and not political parties. Congress approved the war, Congress approved the current military commander in Iraq, unanimously, and they approved the troop escalation his plan called for. But now suddenly when it has become politically expedient for them to do so some of these same people start calling for troop withdrawal plans, less than month after starting the new strategy they voted for they say it has failed. Then they choose to play political football with troop funding including increased compensation for the volunteer military personnel that are implementing the strategy congress approved. There is only disagreement with the President's strategy because Democrats and secular progressives see it as a political win to disagree. I applaud those in Congress who have asked for improvements, got those improvements and now want to provide our military commanders the time to enact new strategies.

We can only fail in Iraq by turning our backs on our military and all the freedom loving people of the world. The terrorist organizations that are arranging for beheadings' and road side bombings are the same terrorists that attacked the US, Spain, Britain, and other countries that love freedom. Anyone who thinks the people in Iraq causing trouble are not terrorist organizations needs to pay closer attention to the all the facts coming out of Iraq. If the people of Iraq were not interested in Freedom and getting the help they need then they would not have turned out for the elections in such large numbers under the threat of death from terrorist organizations.

Iraqi's genuinely want to be free and here is one example:

"He [top U.S. commander in Baghdad] said that in the Abu Ghraib area more than 1 500 fighters had volunteered to serve in the Iraqi security forces, with 300 new recruits showing up each day.[...] They also have to take an oath of allegiance to Iraq, Fil said."They want to fight with us. They are tired of Al-Qaeda and the influence of Al-Qaeda in their tribes and in their neighbourhoods, and they want them cleaned out," he said."

Here is the link to the full story Click Here

I have one last comment. Read as much testimony from Saddam's trial as you can find and then tell me we should not be there, he never had WMD's, and we should not stay.

If Democrats were in charge in 1776 our country would not exist

I don't understand why Democrats keep harping on a pull out strategy, a strategy for losing to the enemies of freedom. Why is it so hard to trust our military leaders and be supportive of their efforts to help an entire country to live free and never again be a haven for terrorists that want to destroy us. And on top of that liberals want to blame our President for starting a war. Joy Behar on "The View" when discussing Presidential candidates said perhaps we would elect one that won't start a war. When did President Bush launch missiles into the World Trade Center, when did President Bush blow up the U.S.S. Cole, when did he support training camps in Afghanistan, when did he drop poison gas and nerve gas on Kurdish Villages in Iraq, when did run Iraq as a dictatorship friendly to terrorist groups?

Our Military has some of the best leaders in the world and while no human is perfect I do believe our military leaders have implemented a better strategy in Iraq. Our military leaders deserve our support and deserve our patience. None of us wants people dieing in Iraq. Our military soldiers have the dedication to see this through and they deserve us continuing to support them instead of trying to demoralize them by asking for a pull out plan.

Tell me this which wars ended better, those we stuck with or those we bailed on because we lacked the backbone to finish. And please don't confuse Vietnam with Iraq. In Vietnam our President thought he was a great military leader and he screwed the pooch by micro managing the military. President Bush is relying on his military professionals like a President should. That is why the supporters of Freedom will win in Iraq when we did not win in Vietnam. And this is why we should stick with Iraq until the job is done instead of acting like scared yellow children who are easily bullied by the guerrilla tactics used by terrorists.

FOX news fair and balanced is too much for Democrats

I am still pretty surprised by the reaction of Hillary Clinton(She dropped the Rodham part) Clinton and Barack Obama to a debate on Fox news sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Both of them are shunning the debate. Consider that the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation started looking for a television outlet for a debate four years ago and in that time only one news outlet made an acceptable offer to them. That news outlet is Fox News, how much more fair and balanced can you get than to work with a fine organization like the CBCF to put on a political debate for the largest cable news audience in the country. I am not sure what constitutes acceptable to the CBCF but surely this means a well structured and fairly run debate. Why then would leading democratic candidates shun this debate merely because they "feel" Fox News is a pro conservative news outlet? Who gives a care and even if it is pro-conservative isn't that the audience these democrats want to convert to their side? In my opinion Fox News is more fair and balanced than other cable and network news outlets. Their only sin is in being willing to deliver the conservative message that previously was relegated to only talk radio.

Consider the mission statement of the CBCF:
"With a focus on Leadership Education, Public Health, and Economic Development, CBCF is the premier organization that creates, identifies, analyzes and disseminates policy-oriented information critical to advancing African Americans and people of African descent towards equity in economics, health and education."

This debate on Fox News is exactly the sort of activity that supports this mission statement. Regardless of your race or political slant all of us should be very angry with any presidential candidate that refuses to debate on any national platform offered to them and that includes the CBCF debates on Fox News.

References for this blog include:
http://www.cbcfinc.org/
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/27/news/28dems.php

What is wrong in Boulder? or how to get a secular progressive to really piss people off!

The details of the Boulder High School discussion panel about sex and drugs is all over the news and the Internet so I won't repeat that here. What I will say is there is no way to experiment with drugs responsibly, there is no reason to encourage teens to experiment with sex, there is no reason to suggest it is natural for teens to experiment with homosexuality, unless you are a secular progressive that wants more people to be as immoral as you are. But of course secular progressives think there should be no rules and everything you want to do should be OK with all of society. Alcohol abuse, illegal drugs, sexually transmitted diseases have not claimed enough lives yet for them. Secular progressives want our teens to do these things "responsibly" but do not think anyone should have to be responsible for their actions "that do not hurt others." I wonder if a mother that lost her child to meth agrees with that or a parent that has lost their child to alcohol agrees with this. People are hurt every day by the immoral acts of those they love and people around them, that is what makes these things immoral, their damage to society.

The secular progressives on this Boulder High School discussion panel showed their true nature.
How long will society last if our country is shaped as they wish it to be? Perhaps chaos and complete lack of any social health is exactly what they wish.

Paris Hilton - You get what the judge thinks you need

There are a lot of self appointed experts in the media trying to justify why Paris Hilton should not serve time in jail or should be allowed home detention based on what punishment was or was not handed out to other celebrities or people. I think people are forgeting that the judge sat through the whole trial and determined based on all of the information in the trial what the sentence should be for Paris Hilton.

Personally I don't think Paris showed any respect for the court or the law during this whole issue and that contributed to what many perceive as a harsher sentence than necessary. The judge decided this sentence was needed to get through to Paris and get her to take this part of her life seriously. If the judge saw true remorse and respect for the law coming from the plaintiff I think that allows the judge to go easier on a plaintiff. There is no such thing as a single sentence standard that can be applied to everyone. The circumstances of the crime and the need to get through to a person are important parts of the sentencing phase.

Love or hatred by the public toward a celebrity has nothing to do with how any judge should or does determine a sentence.

And let us not forget that a DUI is part of this as well as a probation violation both of which would result in a much harsher sentence for most people in this country.

Paris needs to shut up, sit down, serve the time, and then take a more serious approach to the law of the land in the future.

Democrats do not think Fox News viewers are worth talking to..what do you think?

Can you imagine the screams that would come from the liberals and secular progressives if Republican candidates refused to debate on an extremely liberal biased television channel like MSNBC or CNN? If the democratic candidates truly believe that Fox News is biased toward conservatives and attracts conservative viewers then refusing to debate on that channel means they do not believe conservatives need to be informed on their positions or hear their messages. How can Presidential candidates justify refusing to debate in front of the largest cable news audience in the country?

Here are some graphs representing viewership. The first is prime time and the second is day time viewership among cable news channels.

How sad that secular progressives are so unsure of their message that they can not debate on the most viewed cable news channel in the country. Democrats need to realize they are dismissing a large portion of the country and that is about as un-American as it gets. Can anyone that cares about themselves and their country really connect with candidates that could that care less about them?

Here is my source for the graphs.

http://http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2006/narrative_cabletv_audience.asp?cat=3&media=6