Despite my dismay of cruelty, I am a big believer in balance; without extreme or obvious opposites, it is impossible realize the merits (or horror) of something. But it doesn’t make it any less hurtful…painful…utterly heartbreaking…to see, hear or read about something like Oogy the dog.

Some friends of ours were over the other night telling us about how they saw Oogy on Oprah. To summarize, he was used as ‘bait’ in a dog fighting ring. I’m sure you can imagine what that means, but please…let me just describe it for you just in case your imagination isn’t quite creative enough.

In order to train a fighting dog, trainers will often use other animals as bait. This could range aywhere from rabbits to kittens to puppies to grown/older dogs. These animals are then used as living breathing punching/mauling bags.

They are, at the very worst, maimed in the process…and at the very best killed quickly.

Oogy’s story starts with a severe maiming, as inidicated by the picture to the left. Oogy was a 4 month old puppy when this happened. At 35 lbs, he was chained to a stake and then mauled by a pit bull. The entire left side of his head and part of his face was chewed off right behind the ear. But he didn’t die. The trainer took him and threw him in a cage and left him to bleed out. It was by some odd miracle that the police came and got him to a shelter/hospital in time to save his life.

People make me sick and sad. How can anyone look at an animal and think, “It’s going to be great to see this thing die in a horrible painful way.” It’s amazing to me to think that there are people in the world who have no emptahy towards animals, that animals are somehow ‘less’ because they are not human.

But on the same hand, there are Oogy’s new owners who took him in and made him a part of their family despite his odd looks and his checkered past.

Oogy’s new owners gave back to him what any dog has to offer his or her human counterpart…and that is unconditional love and acceptance. They did not question, they did not judge, they did not turn away. They simply acted and selflessly gave, and in return, they will always have the same from Oogy.

While Oogy will bear the physical marks of the very worst humanity offers, his owners embody the spirtual balance of the very best of what humanity offers, and so shall the two forever be intertwined in constant reminder of what humans are truly capable of.

You can read more about Oogy here.

For several years, I have avoided the Blackberry phenomenon. It’s a little weird because I have been known to enjoy the gadgets. But really, when it comes down to it, I’ve never liked the thought of being ‘connected’ and accessible 100% of the time. I’ve also always thought that a phone should just be left to being a phone. I don’t need anything super-fancy. It just has to be kind of cool looking and usable.

Then I started my new job where they pay for me to have a Blackberry…

At first, I wasn’t so OK with that because of the reasons stated above. Not only that, but I started thinking about ‘those people’ in meetings where they have their BB in one hand and they are half paying attention and how annoying that can be. I don’t ever want to be one of those people.

Now that I’ve had it for a several weeks, I’m actually figuring out that it’s a pretty useful tool, and if you use it right (like anything else) it can be something that increases your productivity and communications quite a bit.

I’ve noticed is that it actually suits my communication style a little better as well. I don’t like the phone very much at all. I make it a rule for myself to make phonecalls as little as possible, and when I am on the phone, I tend to want to cut to the chase pretty quickly.

When you’re on the phone, you’re on the spot to come up with something to say right then and there. When you’re e-mailing or BB Messaging or texting, you have some time to think about what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. It forces you to be concise as well, and that’s something I’ve had to work on for a while. I’ve been known to send out some monster e-mails…

The only thing that I’m even mildly annoyed with is the fact that, when someone e-mails me or communicates with my via BB, I feel the need to be responsive. I’m a firm believer in the idea of unplugging and unwinding so your brain has a chance to recover from the rigors of a work-week. I guess I don’t have to be responsive 100% of the time. Nobody is holding a gun to my head saying that I will be executed if I’m not super-fast on the draw. I suppose that if you are 100% responsive, you are setting yourself up for some small amount of failure in that you are creating the expectation, the appearance, that it’s just fine to ask you to do things anytime, anyplace, anywhere. That’s not fair to yourself, and to some degree, it’s not fair to the other person because you get it in your head that if you are going to be available, then they should be available too when they might not necessarily want to be.

In a world where things are becoming increasingly more and more ‘on-demand’ we need to be cognizant of the effect this has on our relationships with others. We need to be understanding that people are people are people, and that just because they have the tools to be reachable 24/7, that doesn’t mean we should abuse it or take advantage of it. Afterall, the world isn’t going to end if that Sujnday e-mail isn’t sent until Monday. Or maybe it’s that you can choose to send out the e-mail, but don’t unfairly expect a response if until a reasonable hour.

So for now, I’ll view it as a nice tool that my company has bestowed upon me and hope that everyone is just as thoughtful as I will try to be when it comes to a reasonable amount of communication.

If you haven’t seen this yet, it is probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Mom sent this to me. Thanks Mom…

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If you thought that the people who set up a room full of dominoes to have them knocked over later was amazing, you haven’t seen anything yet. There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in these images. Everything that you see happened in real time exactly as you see it.

The recording required 606 takes and in the first 605 takes there always was something, usually of minor importance, that didn’t work. It was necessary for the recording team to install the set-up time after time and it took several weeks, working day and night to achieve this effect.

The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the sequence. The duration of the video is only 2 minutes, but every time that Honda shows the commercial on British television, they make enough money to support any of us for the rest of our lives. However, this commercial has turned out to be the most displayed in the history of the Internet.

Honda execs think that it will pay for itself simply because of the free showings (Honda is not paying one cent for you to see it). When Honda senior execs viewed it, they immediately approved it without hesitation-including costs.

There are only six Honda Accords built by hand in the whole world, and to the horror of Honda engineers, the recording team disassembled two of them for the recording.

Everything you see in the sequence (besides the walls, floor, ramp and untouched Honda Accord) is part of those two automobiles. The voice is that of Garrison Keiller. The commercial was so well received by Honda execs when they saw it, that their first comment was how amazing the computer graphics were. They almost fell out of their chairs when told that the recording was real without any graphics manipulation.

By the way, about the wind shield wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are sensitive to water and designed to start working as soon as they get wet.

The same guy also did Pole Position, Pong & Space Invaders. Pretty cool, though he must have quite a bit of time on the hands…

system: xbox 360

one sentence description: tactical FPS with vegas glam and special forces style

graphics: 9 | sound: 9 | playability: 7 | challenge: 9 | value: 7 | bias: 8

total: 8.5

the low-down

ahh, vegas. the casinos. the blackjack. the poker. the high rolla’s and the low ballas. the playboys and the showgirls. the explosions, the guns, and death and destruction. how i love vegas…rainbow 6 style.

i have to be honest though…it ain’t much different than the first one friends. that’s a good thing if you liked the first one. if you didn’t, well, then don’t bother. it’s still just as hard. your AI buddies are just as smart as they are completely stupid. the guns and explosions pack a good wallop. you die just easily. it’s just as hard to see where you’re getting hit from. it feels extremely familiar.

it adds in a little extra character building in the form of unlockable armor, weapons and outfits. and the environments are, surprisingly, different than the first one. that is the area of the game i have been most surprised (and pleased) with.

you reprise your role as bishop, leader of an elite team of anti-terrorist soldiers called ‘rainbow 6′. the story is relatively simple and not worth going into save that you’re going to capture a group of…you guessed it…terrorists. and they’re going to blow up vegas.

the things that make the game great are the things that make it frustrating as well. you can’t take a whole lot of damage before you die, which adds a certain level of realism to it. on the other hand, the game has a frustrating way of sending bad guys after you from places you can’t quite pinpoint. they blend in very well with the flashing lights and the general game backdrop. combine that with the ‘quick death’ thing, and you’ll find yourself restarting at a checkpoint more often than you think.

from an audio/visual perspective, the game is top notch. character animations are smooth, framerates are high and the environments look well rendered. when you fire a gun, it emits a pretty satisfying bang…or sharp muffled ‘thunking’ sound when the silencer is attached. of course, the tom clancy series is known for having more realistic weaponry, so it’s to be expected.

i won’t lie; the game is hard. you have to really think about what you’re going to do before you’re going to do it, and you generally can’t just charge into a room and start blasting. that approach will lay you out 9 out of 10 times. however, the thinking part of it is what makes it stand out. positioning your partners at one door and having them charge in while you drop in through the glass skylight in another area gives the game a very strategic feel to it, resulting in a sense of accomplishment when you actually pull off a complicated maneuver.

i like the idea of specialties in the sense of the game allowing you to play up your strengths. for example, if you’re into tossing grenades around or blowing things up with C4, you can up your level and become more proficient there. same with marksmanship. and close combat.

adding in a pretty decent multiplayer along with the character building gives you a lot of reasons to keep playing. you get to play dress-up with your character, and as you unlock more and more, you’ll find yourself outfitting him with more customized looks.

this one is worth the purchase.

pros

• the environments are well thought out
• looks fantastic
• customizable character
• has potential to be a lot of fun with another person
• good alternative take on what i thought would be a one trick pony (i.e. the idea of running through vegas blasing terrorists)
• intense
• realistic
• sound design is pretty great
• thinking person shooter

cons

• steep learning curve
• frustrating environmental issues make it hard to find where you’re being shot from
• it’s not a run and gun game if that’s what you think it is…