Ahh memories...

Last century, my friends and I played a lot of UT. That's Unreal Tournament for all of those that aren't hip with the gamers lingo. A bunch of friends fragging each other online till the wee hours of the night.

So we ended up getting pretty good. We started a clan called Mighty Mighty Smiley Squad, Micah Sheller and his brother Joel thought up the name (that explains a lot). It was a fun time.

This video was made after we won the Unreal Tournament Invitational 2 tournament. At the time it was the Super Bowl of UT.

The UT community was very active back then, and apparently is still somewhat active today. There have been a few new iterations of UT. I think UT2k7 is on the way. I prefer the old skool game myself, mostly because I don't have to practice. I can just jump on a play a bit for fun.


We had a great time playing, and all remember it fondly. If I could have done anything different, I'd have exercised a little more, you know, try to work off the beer gut I accumulate from all that aiming fluid. Oh the MGD we consumed!

A Glimmer of Hope

This past summer my in-laws told my wife and me we needed to see the film An Inconvenient Truth. There wasn't any reason given, we just needed to. After sitting down and taking it all in we were inspired and disappointed. Inspired to do something, and disappointed that the film didn't really tell us what we could do, ie give us the answers! I almost expected to hear a solution at the end, but that's not what the film was about.

So we went home, emailed our friends and family and told them all the same thing we were told. You need to see the film. That was all we said.

I was reading a blog the other day and I saw this picture that gave me a glimmer of hope.




It warms my heart like only a 10-fold increase in greenhouse gasses could to see an empty shelf where An Inconvenient Truth once stood. The film was completely rented out at Blockbuster. Not only that, but I saw an article in Newsweek here about how it's becoming popular in the United States to live Green. From driving the new Hybrid car and investing in renewable energy to buying organic food and clothing, it's a step in the right direction. There are sites devoted to living green.

With countries like China and India quickly modernizing and using fossil fuels, we as a nation need to make the time to do our part. While I'm ecstatic that the movie is being seen, it doesn't give us the answers. We need to listen to people smarter than ourselves, or act like the geniuses we are. Do something, do anything, but make sure we do it today!