#before next time i want to upgrade a bit and probably practice recording some local shows

[jennyfromthebes]

man i listen to like. a LOT a lot of live tapes. but listening to the ones that I personally recorded hits really different.

[whimstories]

Balcony AU

Part 1

Next // A03

Word Count: 1.4k

A/N: I made my contract and here is the first day! I would not be posting this if I didn’t say I would. There’s something about this pacing I don’t like but, I can’t figure it out. I guess we’ll learn along the way. 

Comments and critiques welcome! Thanks!

When she takes me in her arms

And speaks softly to me,

I see life in rosy hues.

Marinette hums with the fathomless voice bleeding over the Paris apartments, her head swaying to the tunes. The male singing is accompanied, as usual, with a short plucking of chords that reverb like chimes in an yawning chamber.

The sounds wash over her body like floating on a steady sea, the fresh spray of salt water and rhythmic motion of the waves lulling her to comfort. Its a different experience than any time she’s listened to music. Even the experience of Jagged Stone’s concert when she was a teen couldn’t compare. Though his slows ballads are likened compared to waterboarding through a turbulent wave.

Marinette holds her warm cup of cocoa to her lips and blows a small wisp of steam into the winter weather.

“‘Hold me close and hold me fast, this magic spell you cast…’”

When he begins singing the English rendition, her slightly warm hand presses to her mouth to prevent the torrential flutter in her stomach manifesting into a giggle.

He sounds playful and confident today. She can easily imagine his mouth smiling around his words with each lilt and vibrato. He is so clear to her when he sings, his days laid out in song in ways a conversation would take hours to convey.

She’s mouthing the lyrics before her mind catches up with her, then singing along before her nerves can stop her . She switches up the pronouns so she sings of a male and he sings of a female, but their vocals blend like silken threads to a tapestry. Its one thing to keep her distance from knowing his face, but touching his voice with her own creates a sensation of fuzzy euphoria from head to toe.

The final notes stretch across the streets once more and Marinette can hear the sprinkled clapping from fellow neighbors and strangers down below. She nestles deeper into her chair and hugs the soft shawl to her face, though still feeling warm from the music.

The voice above says a few flourished ‘thanks you’s to the unconventional audience and Marinette takes it as her cue to rise from her seat.

“Are you going to speak to me this time?” A distinctly pointed shout comes from above.

She clamps her lips to a tiny pucker, the hard thump in her chest halting her movement. Its hard, honestly, not to shout back. It’s harder every time, but its the rush of blood to her heart and the light headed fluttering in her head that makes her realize her fears again.

She touches the handle of her glass door.

“I will hop down there, if you don’t respond.” The voice teases.

She almost swings around to make sure he does not. The difference between balconies in the complex isn’t impossible to scale, and she has considered it before, but one wrong move would cause considerable injury.

Though she can’t help imagining him easily landing before her on the balcony, confident and easy as his singing, with probably dark hair and gleaming grey eyes shining at her. She has no idea what he looks like, of course, but a young Darcy-like character is never a bad base model for dreamy mystery men.

She has to grip the door handle tighter to shake the fantasy. What is she kidding, even if he was as amazing as she dreams him to be, she would ruin it somehow. It’s just her track record.

She closes the door.

When she wakes up a bit groggy the next morning, Alya, her best friend, calls her for a morning drink before heading to work.

Alya is the ultimate foodie. She finds new restaurants and cafes daily and drags Marinette along for the experience. Though that experience is summed up to ruining the perception of home cooked meals and draining most of her account on local chefs. Which as an artist herself, doesn’t feel too bad, but is bad on her lifestyle.

They’re sitting at a worn wood table, which is surprisingly sturdy when Marinette leans her elbows on the surface, in a nicely sized cafe.

“How was your business trip?” Alya asks over her Caramel Dolce Cappuccino. It had a beautiful foam flower on top until it was smeared to Alya’s upper lip.

“Relaxing,” Marinette sighs. She takes a sip of her mocha and hums before Alya is gesturing to have a taste. “Who knew going overseas to look at fabric would be so invigorating?”

“You’re probably just sick of us and finally realizing it, admit it.” She smiles, before grimacing at the mocha and back at Marinette. She shrugs innocently, as if she couldn’t forsee Alya hating her extra sweet drink.

“Maybe the first two days,” Marinette jokes. “But a week is a long time. It was so easy just talking to people and pointing at things, I barely knew how to get out of bed this morning.”

Marinette instantly regrets mentioning a bed when Alya’s eyebrows raise behind her drink. The cogs are turning and there’s no going back. “And how is your bed? Will you be upgrading to a king anytime soon?”

“No, Alya.” Marinette groans. She hunches in her chair and busies her mouth to finishing her wonderfully sweet mocha.

She raises her shoulders and smirks, “I’m just saying, the last time we talked you kept singing the same three love ballads before bursting into tears over a plate of croissants because— what, you smelled fresh pastries on the streets when he sang?”

Marinette doesn’t respond, the smooth white mug a sturdy anchor in her palms. She focuses on the hot liquid passing her lips and running a stream down her tongue. Its still cold outside and the walk to her job is a good twenty five minutes so it doesn’t hurt to bask in the warmth while it lasts.

“Marinette,” Alya laughs and touches her hand, “You’re head over heels for this guy. Why are you hesitating?”

Alya was there for her last three relationships, but Marinette could never really explain why they ended so quickly. So when she fell for a new guy in a way that was unconventional, it was obvious why the others failed and she wanted to cling to this emotion while she can.

“It’s been over a month and a half and I don’t even know his name. I have this perfect vision in my head and if I meet him, I’m sure my heart would be broken in an instant.”

Alya places her cup on the table and stares with pitying eyes, which she is doing more to mock her than actual sincerity. Its the new gleam in her eye and the casual lean in her seat that actual puts Marinette on edge, “What do you call him, though?”

“What do you mean?” Marinette replies.

“Even though you don’t know his ‘name’, our male siren must have a moniker? How else do you scream for him at ni—“

“Alya!” Marinette almost screeches as she reaches across the table and squishes her face to stop talking. Its when she looks around that the action of touching Alya’s face is more attention getting than their conversation. She thumps back into her chair with a warm face and a disbelieving jaw.

“We’re grown women and, as your best friend, beyond any form of crudeness.”

Marinette wisely stays silent and pretends to savor the last sips of her drink before mumbling, “Chat Noir.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“Chat. Noir,” She enunciates. “I didn’t come up with it. He did.”

“You’re serious? He told you to call him that?”

“He came out of his apartment and announced himself, like a mini concert hall. ‘Welcome to the stage, Chat Noir!’,” She smiles. “I’m not sure he knows I heard him. It was a while ago.” Marinette shrugs.

The worst of it is what she didn’t say. That she had an actual moniker for the original moniker. She recalls last night falling asleep to a seeping wet warmth on her fingers and gasping pants of ‘kitty’. She practically crushes the straw between her fingers as she moves the last drops of whipping cream in circles.

Luckily, Alya decides to relent after the admission. Though since she is a journalist, Marinette should have been suspicious of her silence. A name is a powerful one, even if it is fake. She could track down a man after finding pocket lint on the ground.

They forsake talking about love before its time to go to work and by then Marinette is itching to cut up some muslin.

[epacer]

Rolando, San Diego

This is from a three-part series that ran in Rolando's community newsletter last year. I'd interviewed people who grew up in the area between the late '50s and early '80s, but the self-indulgent second part was the one best received and now featured permanently on the RCC website. Kevin B. Staff, February 15, 2019

Growing Up in Rolando, 1960s - early 1970s

On a hot summer day in 1960, a young musical group piled into a car for a drive to North County. They called themselves Rosie and the Originals. Their destination was an airplane hangar in San Marcos that doubled as a recording studio. Their saxophonist was missing because he had committed to mowing a lawn, and his mom wouldn’t let him out of it. Another group member knew the rudiments of blowing a simple instrumental break, and the unpolished nature of the recording that resulted is probably part of what makes it so hauntingly appealing, as if emanating from no particular place or time.  

By fall, Rosie’s “Angel Baby” had become popular locally. By Christmas, it was an international hit.

In mid-September 1960, as the song was first getting airplay, our next-door neighbor on College Avenue walked me to Henry Clay School for my first day of afternoon kindergarten. My mom had broken a toe while chasing my little brother and me around the coffee table in our living room. The plan was to show me a definite route to follow—from College to Acorn Street to Seminole Drive to Solita—and, after a week of escort, to let me walk it on my own. There were no sidewalks along College Avenue in those days, but I was able to make the walk.

During that first week, a kid kept crying in class, and on one occasion tried to escape. Old Ms. Leber seemed to leap across the room in a single bound as she grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back. Resistance was futile. My best childhood friend, a year younger than I, spent several days with me trying to build an airplane out of bamboo strips and pinwheels that we thought we could use to fly away in, so that I wouldn’t have to go to school.

I came to like kindergarten after a while. I began to walk with a girl who lived in the back unit of a duplex near the corner of College and Acorn. I tried to impress her by breaking glass bottles on the wall of the Campus Drive-In until an old lady came out and made me sweep it up and that was the end of that. One day, I came to the girl’s door just as her father was rushing off to work. The screen door hit me and knocked me into a cactus garden by the side of the house. He actually seemed relieved to be able to call in late. While her mom telephoned my mom to explain what had happened, he took me into the bathroom, had me pull down my pants, removed a number of cactus needles from my bum and rubbed the area with Bactine. It was quite embarrassing.

The rest of my elementary school flew by, in retrospect, although a year seems to take forever when you’re a kid. Kennedy was inaugurated in January 1961, To me, he was President for a long time. It was hard to think of him as young, since all adults seemed old and he was even older than my dad! He was assassinated while I was in third grade. We heard about it just before recess and did talk about it on the playground, but it wasn’t as if the world had stopped. We played ball and ate our lunches; I even bought a bag of Planter’s peanuts for a nickel that day.

We moved to our new house on Seminole Drive on Veterans’ Day 1965. Although it was less than a mile away, I didn’t see as much of old friends and started hanging out with a different set of kids. The area west of Henry Clay had been developing steadily since the early ‘60s. The apartments on the south side of Acorn Street went up around 1963; we used to climb around on the building materials until the workers chased us off. An old-style ranch house with a big front porch was torn down, and four houses, including the one we moved into, went up on the west side of Seminole. The shopping center where the BLVD63 apartments now stand started out as a large dirt lot with just a De Falco’s Food Giant on the east end.

As the rest of the shopping center developed, Thrifty Drug Store and College Theater opened, with a few small retail businesses between them. There was a vacancy between Thrifty and Von’s for several years, until Straw Hat Pizza Palace opened. It showed old Laurel and Hardy films and such, and instantly became a favorite hangout for older kids. The back of Thrifty had a tall flat wall and a good-sized parking lot that quickly became a place for playing handball and racquetball. We got to know most of Thrifty’s employees, who let us go up to the roof to retrieve our ball if we somehow hit it up there. We bought candy bars that over the years went from five cents to ten cents to fifteen cents while becoming smaller and smaller, and could get a scoop of ice cream on a cone for a nickel, with two scoops for a dime.

Sixth grade at Henry Clay ended in June 1967, just before the weekend of the much-remembered Monterey Pop Festival and several weeks after the release of the Beatles’ much- overrated Sergeant Pepper album. In the fall, I moved on to Horace Mann. Because I went to Sunday school in the College Area and had joined the church-sponsored Scout troop, I already had a collection of acquaintances from other elementary schools that I now saw every day. It was quite a change, having to go to different classrooms and listen to bells ringing every hour. Miniskirts were much in fashion, and we guys were beginning to notice.

For those who went through adolescence in the late ‘60s, the era has always been something of an enigma. That time in a kid’s life is chaotic and confusing enough, but we also had to deal with living in one of the most tumultuous eras in modern history. There was a lot of anti-establishment posturing by kids my age—mainly aping older siblings, I suspect. At heart, I think, teenagers are the most reactionary of conformists. If you were going to rebel against society, there was a very definite way to dress and behave. But political posturing aside, kids will be kids. We enjoyed going through what we called the A&W and Uni-mart storm drains, identified by the businesses nearest the tunnel entrances. We had raucous impromptu after-school football, basketball, and soccer games. We took off on long bike rides without bothering to tell our parents where we were going or when we’d be back. We threw water balloons at each other in hot weather.

In fall 1970 I started high school in 10th grade at Crawford. It seemed a much more easygoing place than Horace Mann, with basically no dress code and fewer ringing bells and public announcements. I didn’t take part in many extracurricular activities, having embraced the current drop-out-of-society ethos. That fall I took drivers training, then offered by public schools. Dad occasionally let me borrow the car, but I really wanted a motorcycle. In July, after working a few months at Campus Chuck Wagon, I was able to buy a little Honda CB160. By the middle of my high school years, several of us had small bikes and would take them on weekend camping trips in the backcountry. Although my Honda wasn’t built for off-roading, we did a bit of that too, often in the area that is now Mission Trails Park. There weren’t a lot of restrictions on where you could ride then. Soon enough, the noise and dust got on people’s nerves and laws changed.

I participated irregularly in wrestling and track, but for the most part was uninterested in school-related activities. I did stay active in the Boy Scout troop throughout high school because of its outdoor program. A half-dozen other boys my age felt the same way and we’d all become friends. It was through the troop’s outdoor program that I got to know most of San Diego County, particularly Anza Borrego State Park. We climbed Mount San Jacinto in the San Bernardino mountains each year, in preparation for an annual week-long trek through the Sierras. I’d climbed Mount Whitney twice by the time I was 16!

Watergate was just getting underway when I graduated from high school and American participation in the Vietnam War had ended earlier that year. For us, the feeling was that the ‘60s were definitely over but nothing particularly cool had come along to take its place. There was a lot of soft rock music, and it was considered fashionable to be a “sensitive male.” On the other hand, it was the era of the Guitar Hero–all about making a lot of noise while playing fast. To me, most of the hard rock seemed much less tuneful than ‘60s music.

I left San Diego that fall of 1973 to become an auto mechanic in Arizona. It seemed like a practical thing to do until I realized I intensely disliked the work. After a year, I joined the army. Although I came back to San Diego for short periods, I didn’t live here permanently again until 1997. The Rolando area was basically recognizable as the place where I grew up, until about ten years ago when the shopping center was demolished to be replaced by BLVD63, the Thrifty became Rite Aid and moved to its present location by the Post Office, and Henry Clay got some upgrades.

When I taught at Palomar College in San Marcos, I had the chance to ask Rosie Hamlin, the lead singer of Rosie and the Originals, if she remembered the location of the hangar where they recorded “Angel Baby,” but it was all too long ago and far away from her current life. In March of last year, Ms. Hamlin died. *The author of this article is Kevin Bradshaw Staff, Class of 1973 and is on the Rolando News Staff.

[anthonyguidetti]

Why I Cancelled YouTube TV

I made an article a week or so ago in defense of YouTube TV’s price increase, a stance I still stand by. Many users online are understandably upset about the new price, and that’s reasonable. Some articles are taking the discussion a bit further by suggesting that the price increase betrays the initial goal of YouTube TV and cord-cutting as a whole by offering content at remarkably low prices, which I disagree with.

YouTube TV’s goal was to make live TV better, and they succeeded. The service is generally regarded as the best online live TV service because it has the local channels, the guide is customizable, the DVR is at least as good as a traditional DVR in functionality (something no other online live TV service can say) and gives you unlimited storage with individual recordings lasting for 9 months, and the experience is at least as good as your cable service and probably even better. I call that a success.

The problem comes with the channel lineup. The service initially cost $35, and you couldn’t subscribe unless YouTube TV had agreements with the local channels in your market. Even if they did, some notable cable channels were missing, like Turner channels TBS, TNT, TCM, CNN, and Cartoon Network, as well as the Discovery channels, like Travel, HGTV, and Food Network, and they didn’t have any PBS channels which is still the case on other live TV services. With every addition of channels came a price increase. First $5 more, going to $40 a month, then $10, to $50 a month. Which brings us to a few weeks ago with the addition of the Viacom channels Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, and others, bringing the cost up $15, to $65 a month. This was the last straw for a lot of users, so much so that YouTube TV’s support page indicated the increased call volume. While Viacom is the easy target here, YouTube TV has stated in the past, much like Sling, they still haven’t turned a profit, so while $50 to us was a better price, I’d have to imagine that at some point, YouTube needed to increase the price to survive (or to give Google a justification to let it continue to live), so that price was bound to go up anyway, regardless of the addition of more channels, compared to other live TV services like AT&T TV Now’s similar price increase sans more channels.

The problem with live TV in general is the more channels you want, the more it costs. Cable providers pay the cable channels in order to add them to your lineup. Meaning a service like YouTube TV is the middleman between you and the live channel you want to watch. The cost for live TV only gets higher when you factor in the retransmission fees for the local channels, the higher rates sports channels like ESPN charge, and of course the bundled channels that you are forced to get. If you want Comedy Central, you must carry CMT. If you want ESPN, you better carry Freeform.

Few cable providers have been able to break the business practice of bundling. Sling is one of them, giving you the option of a few base packages. One comes with ESPN and the other Disney-owned channels, and the other comes with the Fox and Comcast owned channels, each at $30, or you can get both for $45. Then you can add other packages like Comedy, Kids, News, Lifestyle, Movies, and even more Sports, all costing around $5 each, with the extra Sports package at $10. You don’t get any locals with Sling, but that $30 base price may be enticing, so long as you don’t compare it to the feature set of YouTube TV. Spectrum also offers a few a la carte options, but their service doesn’t have a DVR, and you have to have Spectrum internet to get it.

YouTube TV comes with features that other services can barely match. If you option up Sling to match the channel lineup of YouTube TV, with the enhanced 50 hour DVR (without the ability to skip live commercials, only DVR’d ones), the price is $62 a month, and now you have to figure out how to get your local channels. The same goes for Hulu + Live, which starts at $54, then you add the enhanced DVR which totals up to $64. If you really want to save a dollar or two, be my guest, but if you are looking for a true cable alternative that can match the experience you had with traditional cable, YouTube TV is it. It may cost the same as the introductory rate of cable, but at $65 for YouTube TV, there is no introductory rate, and you don’t have to rent equipment or worry about what devices it supports. It works, and it works well.

All that being said, I asked myself whether or not I was getting the full $65 use out of YouTube TV, and I found that I really wasn’t. Especially when the shows I wanted to catch up with the next day had clips officially uploaded to YouTube, it really made me question why I was paying for YouTube TV in the first place. I’ve said before that I like the feeling of live TV, both from the perspective of being indecisive with on-demand services, I can just put on a channel and it’s already playing something, coupled with the feeling of connectivity with other people watching the same thing at the same time somewhere in the world.

While Pluto TV, Peacock’s “channels” tab, and other similar channel services are pretty good at matching that live TV feeling, especially for free, I still like having some traditional live TV channels, but maybe not for $65. So, I went back to Sling with their base Sling Blue package at $30. I was going to go with Philo, even though it has the superior experience, there were a few channels I like having that are on Sling. Plus, I have an HDHomeRun connected to my antenna for the local channels so I can get all those across my devices.

At $65, it’s understandable that YouTube TV’s users aren’t happy with the price. It’s fair to have the opinion that it costs too much, an opinion that I share considering how often I actually watch TV. But when you compare the cost to similar online live TV services, and then compare it to traditional cable and satellite providers, not only is it a better deal for the lineup and features which don’t require any additional upgrades or rentals, but it’s a solid service for those who came from cable looking for the best cable experience without the cable. Its goal of providing a superior live TV product has been met, now if they can just work on offering packages like Sling to bring the cost down and provide an a la carte service, I and many others will be much happier. I believe this may be something in the works, as when the Viacom channels were added, some of ones missing like MTV2, Nicktoons, MTV Classic, and the other upper package staples were explained to be added at a later date. This either means they will be added to the lineup as is (hopefully without another price increase), or YouTube TV will introduce a package system. So, stay tuned.

[truesportsfan]

Greg Schiano carries big regret into his Rutgers ‘second chance’

For his band name, prefers “Second Chances” to “Unfinished Business.”

Schiano traveled through a wormhole in December and turned back time eight years to the end of his beginnings as a head coach. He brought home with him a band of more than a dozen coaches, trainers and administrators who once made Rutgers football prideful to New Jersey, relevant in New York City and pesky to national powers — but never fulfilled its championship goals.

“I left,” Schiano told The Post, “and I shouldn’t have left.”

Schiano, 53, is sitting in a black leather chair in the same (mostly empty) Hale Center corner office once filled with his memories. He is repurchasing a house he built in 2007. He is just back from a familiar coffee run to the QuickChek on River Road in Piscataway.

CEOs like Schiano — hands in marketing, budgeting, maintenance and all aspects of athletics, not just football — don’t deal in the wasted energy of hypotheticals.

But Schiano can’t resist here: If Rutgers was invited to leave the crumbling Big East for the Big Ten in January 2012 — instead of 10 months later — would he have turned down a five-year, $15 million contract from the NFL’s Buccaneers, as he did offers from college football titans Miami and Michigan?

“Yes,” Schiano said.

This answer is emphatic. Others, over the course of an hour-long conversation, are deliberate, marked by long pauses and thoughtful creases on his face.

“I ran from something, not to something,” he continued. “That wasn’t my dream to be the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I didn’t like the way the horizon looked for us here.”

The Schiano era (2001-11) produced bowl berths in five of the final six years and an NFL pipeline anchored by Ray Rice and the McCourty twins, but he left behind what might have been his best team and best recruiting class.

In the time since, Schiano was fired after going 11-21 with the Buccaneers; spent two seasons as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator; landed a head-coaching job and lost it in one day to a Tennessee fan mob ill-informed about unsubstantiated hearsay he knew of Jerry Sandusky’s child sexual abuse at Penn State; resigned for family reasons as the New England Patriots defensive coordinator after two months; and sat out three football seasons.

In the time since, Rutgers is 35-56 and bowl-less since 2014. So, it’s not all picking up where he left off.

What Schiano built to last instead crumbled for many reasons, starting with the university’s refusal to give another coach the same power he wielded. Spring practice opens in two weeks and the depth chart has no cemented starters.

“The last eight years has been, ‘Get your dukes up,’ ” Schiano said. “Nothing surprises me anymore. Maybe that’s a bad place to be, but life teaches you. I feel like this isn’t a coincidence. But, man, did a lot of crazy stuff have to happen to get me back here.”

The Empire State Building was lit red Nov. 9, 2006, when Rutgers beat Louisville in a battle of unbeatens and climbed to No. 6 in the BCS rankings.

Thursday night games at Rutgers brought New York’s pro athletes across the bridges. A streak of 18 straight sellouts ended in 2009, after the stadium’s capacity was expanded from 41,500 to 52,454.

Rutgers’ average attendance in 2018 was 20,071, and eyeballed crowds looked smaller last season.

“Ultimately, you have to win,” Schiano said. “This is an event-driven area. When your games become events, it was a Who’s Who? on the sideline. It might take a while, but we will do that again.”

In Schiano’s first day back, Rutgers sold more new season tickets (excluding renewals) than it did the rest of 2019 combined, according to the athletic department. The number tripled over the next three months.

Rutgers AD Pat Hobbs (l.) and Greg Schiano.Robert Sabo

Six months before kickoff, there are midnight office huddles and Saturday morning staff meetings.

“I feel like I never left,” said recently returned Kevin MacConnell, who worked at Rutgers from 1986 until leaving for the Buccaneers with Schiano. “It’s 11 p.m. and he’s holding conversations with five of us, jumping back and forth, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god, this is the way it was. This is when we get our best stuff done.” ’

Except it almost never happened.

Rutgers fired Chris Ash in September, slow-walked its replacement search and tried to spin the narrative when scared off just before Thanksgiving by Schiano’s honest assessment of needs.

Then a crazy thing happened: Tortured fans united and bombarded the email accounts of university president Robert Barchi, athletics director Pat Hobbs, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and other VIPs, threatening to cut off allegiance and revenue — some six-figure donors — if Schiano wasn’t rehired.

“I am not sure that I will be able to maintain my enthusiasm,” wrote a 36-year season-ticket holder with a prominent position at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

The Post obtained signed emails through an Open Public Records Act request:

“We are sick and tired of being the laughingstock of not only the Big Ten, but of all of college athletics.”

“We have been all-in for a long time, but today our confidence is shaken.”

“Fire Pat Hobbs. Hire Greg Schiano. Save Rutgers Football.”

Negotiations resumed.

Schiano signed a record eight-year, $32 million contract with pledges to upgrade facilities and $7.7 million (a 155 percent increase over 2019) to spend on assistant coaches. The Wyckoff, N.J., native vows this “incredible staff” will help Version 2.0 be more efficient, understanding and content.

“Part of my insecurity as a coach was I felt like I had to do everything,” Schiano said. “Some of the things I felt I had to do, quite frankly, I had to — or they wouldn’t have gotten done at the level we wanted. Maybe that’s because we had a 25-year-old doing a 35-year-old man’s job, but that’s what we could afford.

“I feel like we’re close to getting things into systems that will allow us to be not such a Greg-centric program.”

MacConnell, now Schiano’s chief of staff, helped prepare Rutgers’ first pitch for expansion to the Big Ten and ACC in the 1990s. It fell on deaf ears.

Schiano privately laid out his vision to join the Big Ten as early as 2002 and chirped in the ear of commissioner Jim Delaney when possible.

“Eight years, a lot has changed,” MacConnell said. “But I walked in the building today and video of the [2006] Louisville game was on. That is still my greatest night ever. If you had said this [reunion] to me a year ago, I would’ve said, ‘How is that remotely possible?’ It’s because we all trust him.”

Hobbs is fundraising at unprecedented levels to benefit other sports, but Schiano says a football-only field house with an indoor practice facility rolling onto its state-of-the-art grass outdoor complex is needed to recruit in the Big Ten. Estimated price tag: $150 million, at least half of which has to be privately fundraised, per his contract.

“It’s not a little thing we’re fixing to do,” Schiano said. “I only would have come back if I believed the same thing I believed when I took it the first time: We can be the very best. I know people think I’m cuckoo.”

Greg Schiano waves as he is mentioned by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy during the State of the State address.AP

It’s enough if the local high school players and coaches think he is sane. He already changed his pro-style offensive philosophy to incorporate elements of the spread and entice top quarterbacks.

“If we could recruit a top class at Rutgers back then, why can’t we do it now?” Schiano said. “I hope I don’t have to prove that we did then was real. We should be in that ballpark, and then go flying past it.”

New Jersey is the recruiting lifeline, but Rutgers has more scholarship players from New York — “the high school football in New York City has gotten so much better,” he says — than any other Power Five conference team.

“In that way, we already are New York’s team,” Schiano said. “I’m sure the people up north [Syracuse] won’t like that, but I don’t particularly care.”

College football’s 150th anniversary just passed with Rutgers — hosts of the first game — mired in irrelevancy.

“My goal hasn’t changed one bit. My purpose has changed a little bit with age,” Schiano said. “I want to get there, but I want to get there while we are building into people. I was so driven that it probably had an adverse effect on reaching that goal.”

But the climb is more challenging now with annual games against Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, right?

“I hear all the arguments,” Schiano said. “If you are from here, like I am, then it appeals to you. If you are not, it may not appeal to you.”

Those same fans who rallied for his hire carry accelerated expectations. Scrap the usual grace period — incremental improvements — given to a new coach.

This is Schiano’s 12th season at Rutgers. Or is it his first?

“We decided we were going to spend the rest of our careers here. Then things changed,” Schiano said. “That’s why I call it a ‘second chance’ to do my dream job. Usually, you don’t get that.”

source https://truesportsfan.com/sport-today/greg-schiano-carries-big-regret-into-his-rutgers-second-chance/

[michellelewis7162]

Establishing a Kitchen Space Remodeling Spending Plan - Adding Worth to Your Property Value

Establishing a Kitchen Space Remodeling Spending Plan - Adding Worth to Your Property Value

 It is really necessary to find out an allocate any sort of property renovation project, and also kitchen area makeover in miami is no exemption.

 A word of vigilance: I spent a number of hrs investigating custom home kitchen upgrading expense as well as budgeting on the internet to gather information for this post. I managed right into a couple websites that offered square video pricing for kitchen space renovation. I commiserate with their try to locate a basic procedure to think out cabinetries remodeling rates, this style of tips is actually not located in truth. https://remodelingkitchenmiami.com/

 Like everything else in this particular world a home kitchen remodel is actually visiting cost more than you assumed it will and the heavens is actually excess about what it can set you back relying on your tastes. There are several variables that go in to finding out a redesigning spending plan.

 There are a number of areas on the web you can easily visit help you develop a standard budget amount to begin with. My individual suggestion is Remodeling Magazine's Cost vs. Value Report which is actually launched by area and also primary city every year. The actually great point about this document is actually that it offers a description of the "normal" project to ensure that you may evaluate if your kitchen space remodel is actually going to fall over or even below the standard. I likewise locate their typical pricing to be actually a precise representation of the prices for our company, so through advising to clients before I even consult with them that they explore this document they are more probable to set up a reasonable budget our team can function within to provide an awesome kitchen.

 Personalized Hutch developed with Semi-Custom Cabinets

 While Remodeling Magazine's report is actually extremely useful, it is actually still an incredibly one measurements suits all strategy to setting up a spending plan. Maintain reading through if you 'd just like to try to refine your numbers a little bit.

 Receive out a pad and also paper as well as take down a few keep in minds about each element as you look at this list:

 Aspect 1 Home Value- Consider not just what you believe your house costs, yet additionally the worth of comparable homes in your neighborhood that actually have updates. My favorite site to check out house values is actually zillow.com, just enter your address and you receive an active map along with residence market values and various other relevant information noted straight on the chart. Bear in mind of which homes are actually of identical dimension to yours, have been actually purchased more recently, however possess a higher worth, after that peek in their windows to find what your house appears like. Ok, truly, I was simply joking. If you don't know them perhaps it is actually time to comply with the next-door neighbors and also request a simple excursion.

 Compose down each motivational aspect which is essential to you in a kitchen space remodel. Listed below are actually some possible examples: Kitchen is falling apart. You really love to amuse and really want to open up the kitchen as a place to collect.

 Factor 5 Size Matters- Determine what portion of your house your home kitchen includes. A tasting of over 100 modern house floorplans of 1000 to 3000 square foot houses disclosed the typical home kitchen square video to be actually 7% of the residence's square video footage. , if your kitchen space is actually larger or even smaller than this standard you may require to improve or even lower your spending plan correctly.

 .

 Factor 6 Layout- if you actually recognize you're going to desire the sink relocated, an isle sink included, an internal wall structure moved and also an outside door added, at that point you require to incorporate loan to your spending plan well past what a standard face lift would set you back.

 Difficult format: the attractive pillar conceals an audio wrapped drainpipe pipeline

 Factor 7 Funding- Determine the max volume of amount of money you could afford to invest. , if you are financing your venture you can compute what a lender will likely lend you.. Lenders desire to observe a financial debt to revenue proportion( DTI) of.36 or even a lot less. Your DTI is actually established through taking all your month to month financial obligation commitments (credit rating card remittances, automotive car loans, home loan, etc.) and breaking down through your month-to-month earnings. To determine your max risk-free monthly personal debt increase.36 times your monthly earnings. Right now subtract your existing regular monthly financial obligation coming from this amount as well as you possess a regular monthly budget plan max. Below's a web link to a personal digital assistant that will certainly do the mathematics for you: home mortgage personal digital assistant

 Placing all of it Together

 The secret to establishing your finances is discovering the percentage of your house's worth you need to make use of as a budget plan rule. While researching this write-up I bumped into suggestions to use amounts ranging from 10% to 25% of house market value. For a home kitchen remodel of any drug that features brand new flooring, home appliances, cupboards, sink/faucet, illumination and taking electrical unobjectionable I discover anything lower than 15% to become a quite suspicious number. I intend on a thousand buck property 10% would certainly be a workable finances, yet on a 200k house a 20k budget plan is actually marginal at best for a full blown kitchen space remodel.

 If resell value is necessary to you it is actually important to keept the price of your home kitchen redesign venture within 20% of the current worth of your property. Remaining within this variety guarantees that a majority of the brand-new home kitchen's cost is recouped in raised house value right away, and also the continuing to be expense needs to be actually recovered within 5 years as your property cherishes.

 Ok, allowed's run through an instance. Remember, there is actually no exact formula here. Our experts are actually just doing our finest to become as educated as possible as well as make a smart decision regarding the amount of to spend on our kitchen area remodel.

 For our example permit's use my residence. It's a fifty's cape cod along with a small square video of 1500.

 Element 1 market value: Zillow provides me an estimated value of $167,500, nevertheless, I discover zillow hasn't but updated and also represented the solitary household residences which were actually just recently developed in the industry behind our team with a beginning cost of $270k. Zillow also has our straight video noted at under 1200. Resembles the previous owner performed a little redesign without an authorization. I'm heading to locate my budget on a price of 180k which is actually identical to various other homes locally that are the exact same measurements.

 Aspect 2 Goals: My wife and also I love to entertain visitors. To make a kitchen area remodel beneficial for our company we require to lose an internal wall structure to open the home kitchen and also eating nook to the living-room. I'm heading to include 1% to allocate this.

 Variable 3 Must Haves: As a previous cook two has to haves for me are a new stove and a really good lp variety( no all-natural gas solution listed here), ideally a commercial range changed for house make use of (actual commercial varieties do not have insulation around the oven, essential for house safety). I'm mosting likely to add another 1% to my spending plan to be sure there suffices amount of money to receive me my assortment and also gas installment.

 Factor 4 Longevity: Our company consider to keep in our home a minimum of 4 years. Generally of thumb it takes 5 years for most renovating to appreciate and also redeem each one of its price. Since our team are going to likely be actually here a minimum of 5 years I am actually certainly not going to penalize the spending plan, however considering that there is actually a great chance our company'll move straight around 5 years I am actually not going to enhance it like I would if we were actually remaining a lot a lot longer.

 Factor 5 Size of Kitchen: Our home kitchen is actually concerning 140SquareFeet( SF). Clearly this kitchen area is actually going to require some added component and also closets.

 Element 6 Layout: We are actually going to change the layout of our home kitchen rather extensively. Our team currently possess a cooktop headland. The selection is actually heading to take place a differnet wall structure as well as the dishwashing machine will transfer to the headland, though our team might channel the headland, move the fridge and also incorporate an isle rather. Regarding the only thing that will not move is actually the sink. I am actually visiting add an additional 1% to my spending plan, once again hoping $1800 (1% of our 180k worth) is sufficient to cover the power and also pipes modifications.

 As I pointed out in the past, there are going to be individuals that will claim along with me on that, however going lower frequently doesn't leave you with practical budget numbers for full wasted kitchen area remodels. This provides me a working spending plan of 24% x 180k= $43,200 When I contrast this to the Cost Vs. Value record I see that in the Middle Atlantic Region a Major Kitchen Renovation is $59, 098. On the other palm my kitchen is actually considerably smaller sized than their 200SF criteria, so I believe I'll go with my finances number and observe what my specialist can easily carry out for me in that finances.

 Because the cooking area is a high visitor traffic location often, developing an operational layout is actually vital when preparing your cooking area renovating tips. When making your cooking area remodeling ideas you ought to deal with the accessible area you possess and afterwards obtain creative.

 Making Use Of Kitchen Remodeling Software

 Many of the kitchen remodeling software application is extremely straightforward; the actions are as quick and easy as 1-2-3 or even A-B-C. A traditional or standard kitchen area improvement, if designed over the last decades need to have the "cuneate" basics, where the sink, stove, and also refrigerator perform triangular angles with a large room in the kitchen area facility, to ensure that it would be simpler for the mother or even the female of the house to relocate all around.

 Bring in an excellent little kitchen space remodeling layout factors you to the lots of unique cupboard styles as well as surface styles providing your tiny kitchen space a superb feeling of room. Whether you create the home kitchen yourself, partner with a kitchen area renovating professional or house facility, formulating a plan will definitely be actually the 1st step. An additional professional to upgrading your kitchen space is actually the simple fact that you will, generally, be receiving a brand new home kitchen.

 Any kind of renovating concept for a tiny home kitchen have to attend to the complying with issues: counter top space, storing, built-ins, as well as kitchen. When considering on a home kitchen upgrading venture, the spending plan is the primary thing to take into consideration. Whether you've acquired a huge spending plan or a tiny one for your cooking area remodeling job, it is actually a good idea to try to be sure your costs does not spin unmanageable as the procedure continues.

 Do not panic if it is going to require time for you to develop as well as strategize your strategy or version, excellent and excellent kitchen space remodeling ideas need to be created, due to the fact that it needs to be actually best as well as valuable to you and your household. Make sure that your kitchen space redesigning ideas are not that far-out or even improbable, straighten it in your family members's way of life as well as everyday activities; this would certainly give you a brighter plan on your kitchen area style as well as type. The involved kitchen design renovating design plans specifically are actually real-life award victors, and also along with its own cutting-edge process, the entire program is specific to feel free to along with its own client-driven system.

 The details is actually collected you can begin to put all the pieces all together, and also figure out just how you may adjust your cooking area upgrading venture wishes along with you budget restrictions. At that point locate the ideal however affordable kitchen space upgrading companies in your area when you've ultimately chosen on the overall picture of your renovated cooking area.

 Though upgrading a kitchen area may be a significant interruption to the homeowner, the ended up product will promptly wipe out the short aggravation. If you possess a big kitchen area redesigning task you are going to require to put together a brief kitchen a different portion of the residence. Some of the several other pros to cooking area makeover is actually one that you may not automatically have actually considered in the past.

 Kitchen space makeover is actually among the best prominent of upgrading projects every year, as home kitchens have actually ended up being the center of activity in the residence. Kitchen space improvement is actually the property improvement job that adds the best market value to your home. Kitchen redesigning is actually among the very most prominent of upgrading jobs each year due to the fact that kitchen areas have actually ended up being the center of activity in the home.

 A kitchen remake is just one of the most preferable house improvement ventures for numerous Houston area individuals. A Kitchen improvement is just one of the very best expenditures you can create when it concerns home renovation and also often includes much more than the cost of the job to the market value of the property. Particularly, a kitchen space remodel gives the greatest rebound on value of any kind of kind of improvement. Home kitchen remodeling is a considerable amount of job, however the outcomes may be exceptional.

 Makeover Projects

 Remodeling your kitchen area could be a large work, and also there are several vital facets to think about when remodeling. By upgrading your kitchen space you may include value to your residence, and also all at once spare funds with power reliable home kitchen home appliances, or through changing your drafty home kitchen home windows. Upgrading your kitchen space may be costly, particularly if you hire a service provider to the work, yet a brand-new home kitchen may substantially improve residence market value. Remodeling expenses are going to vary relying on the lot of new devices (and their price index), and also price premium of cabinetries, kind of counter leadings, and also work to accomplish the task. Upgrading any type of room of your residence takes a great deal of ingenuity and commitment.

 Redesigning your home kitchen can not merely contribute to your property's market value, it can easily provide you extra storing as well as work space. Renovating your home kitchen is no small job and there are actually a lot of significant factors, however completion result deserves the dedication specifically if you make a good idea options in the process. Renovating your kitchen space is a fantastic method to offer your residence a facelift.

 Property Value Enhancements

 A real property agent may be a great source when considering exactly how substantial a kitchen space redesigning job to embark on. Also if you are not considering moving, however somewhat intend to renovate for your own contentment, Real Estate Agents are typically pretty familiar with just how much previous customers have devoted on redesign and the amount of the value of the house raised therefore, and just how much will be a lot of. Over the last, "home improvement" just suggested repair work jobs, however present day patterns and also enhanced property remodeling choices have fueled a requirement for properties that are actually tailored to private requirements.

 Service providers

 Service providers typically charge due to the hr for their effort plus the expense of products. Professionals that comprehend your business recognize that satisfying the requirements of the customer is what receives the deal. Contractors can easily eat up a huge part of your finances. Professionals that concentrate on kitchen renovation are actually even more knowledgeable in collaborating with the sort of plumbing system, fuel, and also the electrical problems that can easily emerge in the course of a cooking area remodel.

 Devices

 Appliances are actually counted on to go with the remainder of the area and to work hard however silently. Through upgrading your kitchen you may include market value to your residence, and also together conserve money with power efficient kitchen space devices, or even by changing your drafty cooking area home windows. Appliances typically can be found in fairly regular sizes, so they will not be challenging to switch out when your kitchen space renovation is done as well as you've had time to spare up some more cash. Home appliances could be one of the best pricey products to replace in a kitchen space so it is actually a good concept to appear properly at what features are of priority to you. Appliances today are actually streamlined, flexible, as well as supply even more convenience than ever previously.

 Finances

 You will prefer to make sure you are actually opting for the correct home kitchen remodel for your house and also your budget. A cooking area planner/designer's concentration must be actually to create for the way an individual resides, and talking to the right inquiries will guarantee your finished home kitchen fits you and your budget.

 Final thought

 Kitchen redesign is worth your expenditure, supplied your kitchen space is in hands of expert kitchen space specialists. Kitchen space remodeling is actually a fantastic way to help change your residence in to your desire residence.

[terryblount]

Shenmue III – PC Review

The height of the console wars between Sony, Nintendo and Sega was undoubtedly a trial by fire for developer and publisher alike. These companies had invested huge sums of money in the promotion of their respective platforms, and studios hired the most creative minds in the business to develop that one game that would rise above their competitors. It is here that Sega deployed Yu Suzuki.

Now while gamers enjoyed an idyllic time in which studios created brilliant games to gain market dominance, one fact had become clear: Sega was falling behind. Nintendo had the mascots and Sony had massive 3rd party support, but Sega was stuck with a library for their Dreamcast console that just couldn’t gain a foothold. Sonic and the gang simply failed to bring in sales from this volatile market.

The opening of Shenmue with the murder of Ryo’s father

Fortunately, Yu Suzuki had been developing an idea since the previous generation for not just a new IP, but a new kind of game that didn’t really have a genre yet. Yu Suzuki had been at the frontline of the console wars for some time, but the game he was about to pitch for the Dreamcast had grand ideas worthy of Sega dropping an initial budget of a whopping $47 million. This game was Shenmue.

Sega’s killer app

Whereas Shenmue is more typically remembered for introducing modern, quick time events to the gaming world, which indeed it did, its true legacy lies in how Yu Suzuki had conceived the world’s first, 3D, open-world game. His team at Sega AM2 used their astounding pile of cash to invest not in action or explosive set pieces, but in pushing the boundaries of the player’s immersion.

When their masterwork finally released in 1999, gamers found themselves entering a world that was more than just a digital playground for the protagonist, Ryo Hazuki. The town of Yokosuka was a fully-realized, mini-universe filled with distinct characters, various side activities, and a day-night cycle which was all woven into the core of a beat-‘em-up, kung fu adventure. Truly a feat for the 90’s.

In short, Shenmue’s world and its revolutionary graphics felt like a reality not just to play in, but to live in. Yu Suzuki had a vision of making players a part of his game by giving them the freedom to progress at their own pace. Shenmue had therefore become a paradigm for how a new generation of games should represent the open-world genre, and its legacy is clear in everything from Grand Theft Auto to Assassin’s Creed.

Today this looks rather sterile. In the 90’s this blew gamers away

The neverending story

In terms of the actual narrative, Shenmue shares many characteristics with those 80’s Jackie Chan movies I used to watch as a kid on Friday nights. You play as Ryo Hazuki, a budding martial artist who witnesses his father being murdered over an ancient artifact named the Dragon Mirror.

The murderer in question is the formidable kung fu master, Lan Di, who journeyed to Japan from China once he learnt of the artifact’s hiding place in the dojo under the tutelage of Ryo’s dad. After forcing his father to hand over the mirror with his dying breath, Lan Di then returns to China with his prize, leaving the fire of vengeance burning strong in Ryo’s heart.

Ryo and Shenhua in a cave next to huge depictions of the dragon and Phoenix mirrors

The stage is set, and Ryo pursues his father’s killer starting with only the scraps of information he can salvage from the villagers of Yokosuka. He eventually picks up the trail of breadcrumbs and encounters some nasty people willing to defend the secret of Lan Di’s whereabouts with their lives. So, like Jackie, Ryo uses kung fu to pound some answers out of them, and thus improves his own fighting techniques along the way.

Sadly, our hero appears to be broke, which is where the infamous forklifting gameplay came in. Shenmue used its open-world as something of a pragmatic diversion where Ryo could earn some moola by doing mundane chores, such as forklifting for cash. Yet all work and no play makes Shenmue a dull game, which is why Yu Suzuki filled the game with various side-missions also, such as going to actual arcades in the town.

Enter Shenmue III

Again, this was the nineties and the first time gamers of the day could switch seamlessly between the game’s key story missions, the monotony of work, and fun side-activities within a single, cohesive package. It was far from perfect, as the tedium of just waiting or working did outweigh Shenmue’s fun factor (and the core gameplay) at times. The novelty of it all did make plenty of room for misfires.

Yet, the substantial following garnered by Shenmue and its sequel is testimony to how innovative the experience was. Yu Suzuki could not save the Sega Dreamcast, but droves of gamers loved the freedom of just exploring unrestrained through both games, helping Ryo with his detective work, practicing kung fu moves, or just trying their hand at all the mini-games. People wanted more.

So why the drawn-out pre-amble you may ask? Well, it has been 18 years since the release of Shenmue II, but I have to say I have never played a game released this many years after its forerunner, only to resemble it so closely. Shenmue III is such raw, undiluted fan service, so devoted to its source material that it seems utterly inseparable from the bigger picture.

Tranquil village life. This is probably the best world in the Shenmue universe thus far

Seriously, I played both the remastered ports last year to see what the fuss was about, and rather than feeling like a separate game, my time with Shenmue III often felt like an expansion pack, or perhaps a upscaled textured pack. On the one hand, this works in the game’s favour since this really is a true sequel in this eleven-part saga. On the other, certain aspects of the game should have been modernized a bit.

Why it works

As if nearly two decades haven’t passed, Shenmue III takes off right where players were left hanging with the previous game. Ryo has since made it to China in his search for Lan Di and finds himself in Bailu Village, a remote little hamlet nestled in the mountains known for its culture of martial arts and stonemasonry. It is also here where both the Dragon Mirror and its companion, the Phoenix Mirror, were created.

Ryo has also befriended Shenhua, the daughter of a stonemason involved with the mirrors’ creation, and in the words of the only friggin’ loading screen, “their fates becomes entwined”. As is the modus operandi from both prequels, the gameplay is once again centered around searching the village one small clue after another taking Ryo ever closer to Lan Di.

Shenhua

The Dragon Quest games are more generally regarded as by fans as the most chilled franchise and I have played almost all of them, but for me it is Yu Suzuki’s beloved series. Every time I launched Shenmue III I inhaled, exhaled and just relaxed as I luxuriated in the bliss that is fundamental to how the game unfolded before me. It is like Tai Chi transformed into a game.

Bailu Village is one of two main hub worlds that the game opens with and it is an absolute Shangri-la of green mountain fields, majestic peach trees in blossom, and villagers just going about life. While lacking the the more complex textures of a AAA title, the Unreal Engine 4 does the job beautifully here, and it it augments the game’s tranquility and total lack of stress.

Such tranquility

As Ryo continues his search of Lan Di’s whereabouts, and learns more of how this opening setting is a crucial component in the path leading to his father’s murder, the player is never rushed, or urged to progress. If you get tired of talking to people, or beating up the thugs harassing the villagers, go fight some of the monks at the local dojo, help the old shopkeeper chop some wood, try your luck at the various ‘pop-up casinos’ to buy Ryo some new threads, or… drive a forklift hahahaha.

Like I said, this is a thoroughbred entry in the Shenmue franchise and these fun (if perhaps somewhat meaningless) mini-games one again reinforce the idea that the player has left the real world behind.

You get to see Ryo not in over-the-top action scenarios, but is a variety of smaller, more routine situations that we ourselves could actually relate to, bringing the player closer to his character.

Yes you can race turtles!

There have been a few minor tweaks to the formula as well. Aside from the obvious graphical upgrade, Shenmue III sometimes lets the player skip ahead to an objective’s location and time. The fighting also feels much more responsive and easier to master since Ryo now executes moves automatically with deadly force once the player becomes skilled in executing a technique.

Why it doesn’t work

For all the occasional forklift driving, quick time events, casual character interaction, kung fu and other staples of the Shenmue franchise on display, the very character of the third installment also represents its biggest weakness. While Shenmue III smashed Kickstarter records, and while a dedicated fan base still upholds their beloved franchise, this game belongs mostly to them.

See, the problem with this kind of sequel where the only true change lies in the presentation is that the game very easily succumbs to its forebears’ weaknesses and shortcomings. Shenmue III is no exception.

Turtle racing!

I get that Shenmue was originally conceived as a sixteen-part epic, which was later cut to an eleven-part story covering four or five games, but the narrative just does not feel like it moves much further from square one. Ryo hardly makes any substantial progress towards avenging his father, and the overall plot is beginning to show signs of fatigue. I think Suzuki needs to consider wrapping things up.

The relaxed and tangential gameplay is also likely to ring hollow with players who like to see their grinding translating into something more substantial as with more modern RPG’s. It is true that the martial arts training is useful to Ryo to a certain extent, but even my nostalgia failed to cover up how I was often doing something in the game only to wonder what the point of this activity was.

Again, it must be remembered that Shenmue III is attempting to make a seamless transition with the first two games which took shape in a climate that had never seen any of this before. Bringing this forwards to the current generation creates a charming sense of continuity, but also gives Shenmue III a noticeably asynchronous feeling when placed next to the hoards of games it inspired.

I don’t really have an issue with the graphics given that this game’s budget places it on the lower, middle shelf. In fact, at times it even puts other releases with five times its budget to shame. Yet, I imagine many players would likely be put off by the slightly robotic look of the NPC’s regardless. Where I see old-school charm, others are guaranteed to perceive certain aspects of the visuals as dated.

One for the fans

So there you have it. Despite the community thinking Yu Suzuki’s most passionate project had died with the veryconsole it was trying to preserve, here we are, eighteen years later, thanks to the magic of crowdfunding. Instead of trying to establish itself as a new JRPG force to be reckoned with, Shenmue III seeks to pay tribute to what players loved and remembered about it.

Unfortunately, to those that have never played the first two Shenmue games, or have little interested in the legacy of this series for our beloved pastime, this very fact makes Shenmue III a hard sell to newcomers. Standing by itself, this game is bound to raise more questions than answers, and looking at several early reviews, it seems that players just weren’t feeling it.

As a recently converted Shenmue fan, however, I enjoyed my time with it in spite of a few frustrations. It was so relaxing to play and I can practically sense Yu Suzuki’s passion within every aspect of the gameplay. They will not get away with this formula for a fourth time though, so Shenmue IV had better try to introduce a few modern, open-world mechanics to bring it up to speed. For now, we can allow one last homage to the past I think.

Pure fan service

Decent variety of mini-games

Tranquil tone

Looks good for AA game

Needs more fast travel

Some boring grinding

English localization sucks

Dull side-missions

          PC Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an XBox One controller

The post Shenmue III – PC Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

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[waterarcher8-blog]

Here’s What We Know About the Schellenger Homicide

Absolutely nothing.The biggest crime story of this summer, the death of Streamline CEO Sean Schellenger has one overarching theme: the local internet couch potatoes know absolutely nothing.

The facts that we do have available are still quite vague, so let’s process what we have:

Fact:  The homicide at 17th and Chancellor was road-rage

Three men in a BMW were stuck in traffic at the intersection.  Inside the car was Schellenger the murder victim and also two other men: Philadelphia restauranteur  Norris Jordan (owner of Lou Bird’s and the Happy Rooster) and Uri Jacobson, another small business owner.

News reports all seem to agree that all three men were inside their vehicle at the time that they encountered Michael White.   Schellenger was killed outside the vehicle.   In a story where Jacobson talked to the Inquirer, his version is that Schellenger got out of his vehicle to get a vehicle ahead of theirs to move.   If true, this alone is behavior that is that is highly aggressive.

Oh, and speaking of aggro, let’s go into this because why not…

Fact: Everybody’s Got Criminal Records

Michael White has one misdemeanor for pot possession and petty theft.

Sean Schellenger’s criminal record is a bit more extensive.  Schellenger has a criminal history including arrests in Chester County and Florida, including a 2008 arrest in Florida for disorderly conduct, battery and trespassing although charges were later dropped. He was found guilty of disorderly conduct in 2009 in Chester County, and previously charged in Chester County in August 2001 with burglary, resisting arrest, criminal trespassing, and theft.

Not to be outdone, Jacobson has felonies as well.  Uri Jacobson got 30 months for an IRS tax fraud scheme and he has a prior conviction of assault.

Norris Jordan doesn’t appear to have a criminal background.

Fact: Two people who aren’t being charged with anything hired lawyers

This one just sticks out to me as a red flag.   Jordan is likely using his go-to lawyer who is also repping him for this homicide, but Jacobson went straight for a crim-dem lawyer.  Both Schellenger and Jacobson have prior assaults in their criminal records.  They’ve been accused in crimes before of being aggro.   This matters.

Ok, that’s the end of the facts.  Let’s move on to all the internet arguing.   For starters: Schellenger being stabbed in the back

This is the most stupidest argument that has ever existed in a knife crime.   Being stabbed in the back doesn’t indicate shit.   Being shot in the back when the gunman is 20 feet away matters a whole hell of a lot, but less so at point blank range.   Being stabbed in the back is mostly meaningless.

I’ll give you an example.    Suppose you are 3 feet away from Michael White and you’re screaming at him for denting your car.   You get even closer.  Now as you’re less than 2 feet away, the knife comes out.   Michael White is quite muscular, and that knife is coming at you with the force of a tricep contraction that can easily carry 60lbs, except that it’s a knife that barely weighs 30 oz.   If you see the knife, you’re going to turn away from the knife–starting with your torso, since your legs will take longer to react.   Now part of your back is facing Michael White and the knife goes in.

Stop making it sound like Michael White was stabbing Sean Schellenger in his sleep 40 times.   Being stabbed in the back doesn’t mean shit.  If the videotape shows White walking across the street and White runs up to Schellenger while he’s unaware the knife is coming, then you have something to talk about.

But you don’t have the videotape, do you?   So right now you’re just talking shit.  You should probably stop.

Knives are illegal in Philadelphia

Well no shit, Sherlock.   Philadelphia is one of only 8 places in the entire United States that have total knife bans.   If you want to get a glimpse of how ideal gun control would work in the city, Philadelphia’s cutting instrument ban is a great indicator of how effective bans are.  The bans do shit as prevention measures.

Most people who violate the city’s cutting instrument ordinance have no idea that there’s a knife ban here (we also have a partial state ban as well).

Why would people carry knives?   Knives are super-cheap and they don’t “print”.   Concealing a firearm (which is legal in the City with the correct license) is actually quite a difficult task.  You have to wear clothing with enough “give” so the firearm isn’t obvious.  You have to wear shirts and blouses with enough overhang outside of winter.  And even then you could bend over to pick up your car keys in the Target parking lot and a stupid shit-for-brains calls in a “man/woman with gun ZOMG!” to the police and suck 30 minutes out of your day.

Knives in the right hands can make effective self-defense weapons, provided you have fast reflexes, have a good grip, and know where to strike to be effective.   The trouble with knives is there are very few people who give any training on them.  But they do give some of the safety comfort that carrying a firearm does without having to deal with the fear of firearms.

People who work in dangerous parts of the city, like food delivery people–need some sort of protection.   In Philadelphia you only have two offensive weapons to choose from: pepper sprays and gels, or firearms.   That’s it.

Apparently nobody told Michael White that this city targets people they don’t like with knife ordinance violations.  No retired Philadelphia cop with “knife butt” (if you sidepocket or backpocket a knife regularly you know what this is) ever gets stopped and clicked for a knife violation.  Cutting instrument violators also face a scant amount of jail time just on that charge alone.   It can mean a few more months or a year as an accessory charge or can put you back in jail on a VOP, but that’s about it.

But let’s pretend for a second that the city’s silly cutting instrument ban didn’t exist.  What then?   For starters, it makes Michael White look far less guilty.   Three dudes in a car vs. one dude with a messenger bag and a knife.  Yeah, Schellenger didn’t walk into the knife–but he got out of the car, in traffic, to mess with Michael.   It could quite possibly turn out that self defense was the root of Sean’s homicide.  Michael White would then be sitting with one charge left, the knife ordinance.

This Whole First Degree Murder Bullshit

This needs to be unpacked.  First Degree Murder is pre-meditated homicide.  The word “meditate” is exactly what you think it means: you planned this shit out, you gave it some thought.  You wanted this person to die, he needs to go… now’s your chance to kill him.  These are your Law and Order cases.   The reason why we classify homicide into these categories is because we as a society believe that not all homicides are the same and the facts that went into the killing do matter in how punishment is doled out.   People who plan out killings get the worst punishment we can dish out.  People who kill when being pushed into a corner under extreme duress get less time.

Regardless of what Sean’s mother said, it’s not Murder-1 based solely on how you feel torn and left void by the loss of your son.

If Michael White was trying to rob the men in the vehicle (which Jacobson didn’t seem to mention to the Inquirer), told any of the men he was going to kill them or had planned to kill any of them–how can this be murder in the first degree?   Michael White could have been held on murder-1 charges, sure… but that charge would be downgraded before trial.  At some point someone has to prepare a trial in this case and has to present a murder-1 to a box of 12.

If  you don’t have premeditation then it’s not murder-1.  It’s not even murder-2 if White wasn’t committing some other felony when killing Sean.

These are obvious things.  They’re elementary things to understand the Pennsylvania criminal justice system.   If you do not know this you should not be licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania.

I mean, you can come on my Internet site and blather all the bullshit you want, but you’re not going to change a process that’s existed and well-known in this Commonwealth for over 250 years of publicized homicide prosecutions.   These are things laypeople should know; that’s why the news media doesn’t print “What types of Murder Are There?” info boxes next to crime stories when discussing sentencing.

Besides:  It’s not the DA who determines murder categories.  It’s the prelim hearing judge who does this.

Our Shitty DA

Last but not least is the District Attorney himself.   Krasner is terrible and he’s already pissed off several homicide victim survivors and just added another one to his disappointment trophy case.

Downgrading Michael White’s case to Murder-3/manslaughter is correcting a mistake.    Based on what facts are available, White isn’t a Murder-1 case.   The District Attorney can argue for upgraded charges just as easily as it can argue for them to be downgraded.   What should the DA do if there’s no pre-meditation?  Lie?

I am not sure how Murder-1 and zero bail gives any comfort to Sean’s mother, much less his friends.   I think what will hurt more is if White’s prosecution is fucked-up to the point of a hung jury or jury nullification, something the DAO could still do.

I know how bad everyone on social media wants to be a Facebook Juror in this case, but let’s just admit to ourselves: nobody wants to be a real juror on this thing.

Source: https://www.philadelinquency.com/2018/08/02/heres-what-we-know-about-the-schellenger-homicide/

[luckybouquetnachous-blog]

Southwest Airlines Low-cost Flights

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[sonodaten]

Personal Write-Up of the 5/10 for Mass Effect: Andromeda

I know I promised this a while ago, but I just finished my second playthrough last night because I wanted to make sure I covered everything.

TL;DR: Mass Effect: Andromeda, though extremely fun to play, runs into A LOT of problems when it came to writing and plot. Spoilers under the cut.

Let’s start with the good. 

- The updated combat system is phenomenal and works very well in the latest installment. It reminded me a lot of the Fate system from Kingdoms of Amalur:  Reckoning with the synthesis of pre-existing classes and the ability for you to change your profiles on the fly while in battle (and having a favorites system to allow you to switch your profile and selected abilities). For me, this really allowed flexibility and adaptation while encountering enemies over the course of a long firefight. The barrier I was using for cover gets destroyed? No problem; just switch over to the Explorer profile and use the combat barricade to make my own. A high-powered enemy just appeared? Change profiles to Tech specialist and bolster myself and my party members to eviscerate armor. I was skeptical when I first heard about the jump jets and the inclusion of hovering as a way to maneuver about the battlefield, but it really is a good way to flush out enemies who are camping behind cover and force them into your party members’ (or sometimes your party members forcing them!) line of fire.

- For the levelling system in general, I was really happy with the abilities they gave the party members, especially the ones that can be used to bolster yourself and other party members. I never felt like I was wanting for ability points to spend. If anything, for the amount of ability points we were given, I felt like there just weren’t enough abilities to use them on. Once you achieved loyalty with your party members and upgraded their skills to level 6, they levelled and just had more ability points that couldn’t be spent on anything. Maybe the devs intend to add more if there’s DLC planned for the future? That’d be nice to see.

- Of course, with Frostbite, the level designs are absolutely gorgeous, if a bit choppy with loading times (even on my PS4 Pro, some textures took a good minute or so to load up). And the devs really went out of their way to increase exploration not only horizontally, but vertically as well. I am still slightly miffed that they saved the best and hands down the most beautiful world--Meridian--till the very end where you just haphazardly tear through it in the Nomad, and even after defeating the Archon, you never actually get to explore it, just look enviously out a window at the world you only scratched the surface of (literally) but can’t touch anymore.

- The one good thing I’ll say about the writing is that it managed to maintain the kind of humor (mostly in dialogue) I’ve come to expect from the writers over at BioWare. I’ll even admit they even got me to laugh out loud a couple times.

And now the bad.

- For me, personally, it felt like Andromeda was supposed to feel completely new. That you through the PC were going to be exploring worlds that had never been touched by human hands before, see stars that we’ve never seen before, and encounter species that we could never have imagined possible before now. And for a single glorious moment in the prologue, during your ill-fated expedition to Habitat 7, we did. We explored a world that was totally and completely knew, threw everything we thought we knew was possible against a wall, our time spent exploring allowed us to have extra dialogue that expanded upon what we were seeing and it’s implications, and we stumbled upon a mystery:  the kett and the Remnant. And then it never fucking happened again. Exploration was rewarded with a few bits of new dialogue for the PC and your present party members, but could never be brought up in dialogue or decision making. Worlds we were exploring had been already been trampled by humans before; we already knew what we were expecting. Which leads me to my next point:

- The story started way too fucking late. If the writers had wanted to give their players a sense of newness, the whole thing with the Arks being late and the Nexus rebellion, and the exiles ruined that feeling. I understand where they were trying to go--first contact was ruined by these “exiles” and their bad behavior and now you have to convince the local alien populace (which is literally just the angara? I have a whole other thing about them, just wait) that #NotAllHumans on top of trying to carve out a niche in this new and unfamiliar galaxy which, by the way, was not the job you were trained extensively for like your father. But it just completely overshadowed and took away the rush of being on the bleeding edge of a new galaxy. We missed finding these planets raw and uncut, we missed out on that absolute rush and giddiness of exploring new planets for the very first time because there was no point. People had already explored them. We were just retracing somebody else’s steps, but doing it better because we had an AI in our heads that could read Remnant. You get to the Nexus for the first time and tell everybody that Habitat 7 was a bust? Well, meh, everything was already shit before, so there’s no real impact to finding out one of the golden worlds was a dud. It would have been much more effective to start as the Initiative was initially intended to start. Ark Hyperion reaches Habitat 7; it’s a bust and your dad dies and makes you Pathfinder. You return to the Nexus, full of groggy but hopeful workers who are just so excited to see one of the Arks return with news about one of their golden worlds--one of the places they could potentially be calling home in Andromeda. And you just drop the bomb on the Initiative leadership:  it was a dud and your Pathfinder is dead. And then Nexus leadership drops the next bomb:  the other Arks haven’t shown and they can’t locate them. So then there’s the question of what you do to go from there:  do you tell the people the truth, maintaining transparency but potentially inciting panic, or do you lie to them, keeping them hoping for a home that might never come? You still retain the tension of having to find a home for the people on the Nexus and the Hyperion, but you aren’t stuck having to retrace somebody else’s footsteps. Or fix something somebody else has already broken. It’s all new.

- Andromeda is awfully empty. I mean species-wise. There are hundreds of planets and a ton of systems to explore, but there’s a devastating lack of alien life. I’m a little rusty because it’s been a while since my last astronomy class, but I think the Milky Way is like 3 billion something years younger than Andromeda? Or maybe that’s just arm formation? Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the Milky Way has shown to be home to at least 8 (that I think of off the top of my head) different, civilized alien species, but Andromeda only has . . . 2. And one of them is not even from the galaxy, but conquerors from another. So, one native, sentient species:  the angara. Were there other species before, but they fled the galaxy to escape the Scourge? Did the angara ever have trade or alliances with other species, but any Unless so, it was pathetic to try and pass off that a galaxy with as many systems and planets available as Andromeda is home to literally only one other intelligent species until the kett invaded. I’m sorry, but it was just lazy. If they come back and say that the other species were exalted by the kett and records of it were lost because of the Scourge, maybe I’ll forgive them. Probably not, but maybe.

- The Remnant. Or specifically, Ryder/SAM’s ability to interact with Remnant technology. First of all, the Remnant are adorable and I hate that there’s not dedicated stealth system to sneak around them because I hate having to destroy them. Throughout the plot, SAM has been accessing Remnant consoles via Ryder’s omni-tool (at least, from the game, that’s what I assume is happening). But then once you find Meridian, and the Archon severs your connection to SAM, Ryder . . . can still interact with Remnant technology? I mean, it’s cool and all and makes for an inspirational “SAM-isn’t-what-makes-me-special!” deal, but there’s literally no logical explanation for it? Unless Ryder has been learning (whether actively or subconsciously) the Remnant language while deciphering codes during the plot and not telling anybody? And then they could literally pull it out of their ass after coming back to fucking life thanks to their sibling to open a door and weaponize the Remnant ship/city? It was cool, but it was kind of a weird Deus Ex Machina.

- Also, what the fuck was that shit with the Remnant fighters having the Scourge follow them to disrupt/destroy the Archon’s fleet? Like we still don’t know what the fuck the Scourge even is? But Ryder can somehow use it in this battle suddenly with Remnant ships that I’m assuming she is controlling with their mind somehow? Like the above point, it was really, really cool, but doesn’t make a lot of sense in retrospect?

- The mandatory animations while travelling through the galaxy. I know they added a skip option to some of the animations, but there are others that are still mandatory and it takes up a lot of time while trying to explore new systems and planets with very little reward in terms of XP gained and materials gathered. And very few missions triggered by finding things floating around in space.

- The open world was too open. Yeah, I know, I never thought I’d fucking say it either, but here we are. I’m a huge fan of open world. I practically died when I heard BOTW was going open world. But for a game that pushed for exploration, it gave very little weight or reward for actually doing that exploration. In my first playthrough, I completely discovered the entire map of each planet’s explorable area. In my second playthrough, I only went to places required for quests. And I think between the two, there was maybe one or two quests that I found in my first playthrough that I didn’t in my second playthrough. And there was a decent amount of map left uncharted in the second playthrough. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times:  if you are going to make an open world that players are going to want to explore, for the love of all that is holy fill it with something worth finding. I’m not saying you have to pack it hundreds of fetch quests or detailed side quests, but open environments should also be used for more than just “hey, it’s nice to look at.”

- Similarities to previous series. So, this one is entirely personal and subjective, but I thought it was a little redundant that the Reapers kett invaded a galaxy to harvest Exalt intelligent species to add to their own fleet genetic code in order to do it again in 50,000 years to another galaxy. 

So, for those reasons my final rating for Mass Effect: Andromeda is a 5/10. While’s it’s insanely fun to play and nice to look at, it’s hard to overlook the weak plot and blatant holes in the writing.

[genforwardlegacy-blog]

Ever done something, well, stupid that’s changed your life??

http://genforward.org/blog/what-if-how-one-decision-can-change-a-life/

Ok, let’s start today's GenForward blog here by saying that I’m pretty happy in my life right now. Yes it would be great to have a bunch more money, and to maybe have to do a bit less work, and maybe have a bit more in the way of actual family time, but hey the big things outweigh the little things.

I sometimes sit back and think about the madness that has been my life. Of how I went from being a small boy growing up in a small town in the county, to where I am now, sitting here in the USA, married to someone from another different country in Europe, doing what I’m doing and being happy. The odds are ridiculous.

My past has been filled with good times and bad, smart decisions and even more poor ones (but usually made with reasons of good intent). I have earned money in the hundreds of thousands per year, and I have been practically homeless. I have travelled all over the world and lived like a rock star, and more often I’ve barely scratched my way though to the next week.

All of it is what’s made the “me” that I actually like today. Much as some of the bad stuff I may fleetingly wish to change, I understand that it cannot happen and still give me the same end result. So instead of trying to change my past (when my son finally finishes inventing the time machine he’s been working on, with Lego and bits of cardboard box, then I may actually have a choice in changing the past, but for now...), I embrace it. I try to see what lessons can be learned and maybe passed on.

All of that being said, there are certain moments that I look back on and can see how they would have potentially changed EVERYTHING. Moments when my life would have gone on a track that was 180 degrees from where I ended up heading. Who can say where the journey might have ended in that case, maybe better, maybe worse. I think ultimately I would probably have been happier in my work for many years, however that’s by the by.

The incident in question was when I was 17 years old, shortly before I moved out of home (which is another story altogether). I had been born into the home computer revolution. All of my life I had been involved with computers, video games and electronics.

I got my first system in about 1976 or 77. It was a Binatone game system that you plugged straight into the TV.  Using this wonder of modern technology, me and my brother were able to battle it out in various “sports” involving a court with various bits filled in or missing.  There were 3 sides for squash, 2 sides with open ends for tennis, 4 sides with a hole at each end for football (soccer), and the game involved bouncing a square dot of a “ball” around with a stick of varying lengths (long for normal setting, short for pro).

Over the years I had exposure to everything from the Spectrum ZX81 with it’s amazing 1k of inbuilt RAM (you could upgrade by plugging in a small suitcase sized brick that gave you 16K), through my BBC B with which I started to learn BASIC programming, then to a series of Commodore machines (which were practically impossible to programme but had the best games).

I had always loved these things and could regularly be found down the local computer/CB radio store, acting as a pretend employee, technology expert and general gaming guru. When I hit 16 and left High School, I then picked up Computer Science as one of my Advanced Level subjects. I found it easy but didn’t do particularly well at the exam, primarily due to the mark being about 50% based on a programming exercise.

I had proclaimed that I would write a programme to catalogue my ever growing record collection. It was supposed to be carried out over several terms of homework assignments. Due to my usual fascination with beer rather than schoolwork, I ended up sitting in a corridor finishing off my project (18 months work condensed into 4 days) just as the envelopes were being sealed to send them off for marking. Needless to say, “Not his best work”, would have been a fair tagline.

So, next step was either university or work. Given that I had just spent 2 years avoiding education, my parents didn’t want to back me in going to university, to just bum about and throw away another two years or more. Besides, I wanted to go and earn some money. I had had a taste of proper money (well, over 100 pounds a week) working in a local bacon factory over the summer holidays, and I liked the feel of cash to burn.

My Stepfather was and IT Director for a big multinational firm at the time, and he was good enough to pull a few strings to get me an interview as a trainee computer programmer/systems designer, at a small IT firm about 15 miles away. This was right up my street, so I was well chuffed with the whole idea.

I went along for the interview which really consisted of a bunch of people being sat in a room and given an IQ test, followed by a 5 minute chat where I could impress them with my 3 week A level project, which had barely qualified for a grade, written in a coding language that they didn’t use.

Next thing I hear is that they want another talk. I am told when I turn up that although I had no experience, they were talking to me because I had scored higher in the IQ test than the guy who was running the company (had no idea what that meant then but it sounded good). I am also sure that my Stepfather probably had a finger in greasing the wheels. I was to join them and start the following Monday morning at 9am, sharp.

Well, I was there by 9am, but I wasn’t exactly “sharp”. You see I had been out to celebrate my new job on the Friday......and the Saturday.....and the Sunday night. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Sunday night had involved crossing paths with a young lady, with whom I became quite smitten (not sure if alcohol was at play here but I had been smitten by her sister 2 nights earlier as well). Being naïve teenagers, living in the country and with no place to go, we left the pub (well after closing time as we were both regulars and the landlord was a believer in after hours “lock-ins”).

She was a little older than me and actually had a car (of sorts), so she drove me home and we parked outside my house. Then, how shall I put it, time kind of got away from me. By the time I could drag myself away, I had about 20 minutes to go and get showered and dressed, and to catch the bus that would take me to my new job. At this point, sleep was simply not an option. But hey, I was 17 and could officially handle anything.

I arrive at the new job and a complete doomsday scenario unfolds.

Instead of the engaging induction into the world of the company, and computers in general, that I had been expecting, I was greeted with a book. They explained that as I knew nothing, I should start by reading bit about the basics of programming in “C”, and that till I had an understanding of that they really couldn’t do anything with me.

I was led to a room where a couple of what looked like 20 somethings, clicking away at chunky computer keyboards. Apart from the click of the keys, there was silence. The room had no windows. Air conditioning in the UK is still few and far between; in 1987....well, just no, so it was hot. The book they gave me might as well have been titled “1001 ways to be certain not to stimulate any interest at all in your reader”. It had to happen.

I probably managed about 30 minutes before my eyes started to sting and get heavy. I made a trip to the toilet to splash water on my face. Good for maybe another 15 minutes, by now the room was spinning. More water. HELP!

Next thing I knew, I was prodded awake by the HR person who kindly informed me that, due to the fact that I had fallen asleep twice, and that my snoring was interfering with the other coders, my services were no longer required. They took back their book, and I was thrown out unceremoniously into the street, to wait for the next bus home.

My Stepfather got on the phone to the firm, and tried to explain a bit and fight my corner. It got to the point where it was conceded that the boss may have overreacted a bit, but now that he had, he wasn’t backing down. That couple of hours signaled the end of my career in computing.

Although I did have a genuine passion for computers and computing, as was generally the case back then, the education we had received bore no relation to what was wanted in the work place. Although I applied for other jobs, the next thing I got offered was a job in a local supermarket. To be fair, not exactly the toughest job to land. However it was money, and given that I had just decided to move out of home (and in with the girl whose attractions had so distracted me, so maybe it wasn’t just the drink), money mattered in a big way now as I had bills.

From there, I got promoted within a week, and that was the beginning of a long and varied path to where I am today. Although I do look back on that moment as pivotal in my life, and it’s one of those where the “If you could do one thing differently” question raises its head, as I have mentioned before, I don’t regret it. It would have changed a great many things in my life I’m sure, but that’s not my story now.  It’s done. I’m happy now.

Despite this, the reason I relate this story, and I have told this to my son as well, is to illustrate how one stupid decision (and lets face it, sitting up all night before you’re about to start a new job is pretty stupid, whatever the “excuse”), can change the course of a person’s life. Fortunately for me, it worked out ok in the end and it only really affected me.

The kind of bad decisions I really worry about my son making, are the ones like taking a drink and getting behind the wheel of a car, or not having the ability to say “No” to his friends, when every sane bone in his body should be screaming at him that what he’s getting involved with is wrong.

The kind of things that really have to take-backs, no do-over’s, it’s done. The problem is, you can tell your children all day long, but at the end of the day, there’s no reason they are likely to be any smarter than you or I were at that age. It’s kinda tough to explain to them how little they really know, especially as they progress though the dangerous teenage years with temptations of alcohol, drugs and sex lying there in front of them. That's a big part of why we came up with GenForward, to have the answers there for them without having to ask directly. You might not be lucky enough to get the question from them till after it's too late so some advice beats none.

They are already struggling to create their own personality and be their own person. Old enough to think they know everything, yet young enough to know next to nothing. Well, that was me at least and, though the world has changed a great deal since those times; people haven’t so much I think.