Article: Woman Burnt To Death By Would Be Muggers For Having No Money On Her

A violent gang of thieves in Brazil burned a woman to death after stealing her credit card and finding she had less than £10 on it. The teenage thugs burst into the office of dentist Cinthya Magaly Moutinho de Souza, in Sao Paulo, shortly after midday on Thursday while she was treating a patient. They demanded the 46-year-old hand over all her money. But when a petrified Ms de Souza said she had none she gave them her credit card and PIN. One of the criminals held her and her client hostage while the others went to a cash point to empty her account – only to find she had less than £10 in it. The furious men returned, doused her with alcohol and set her on fire. They put a hood over the head of the patient, who heard Ms de Souza screaming at her attackers: “Don’t do it.”

LINK

This is absolutely horrendous. Imagine being at work when suddenly a few gang members burst in and minutes later you're screaming in agony as you burn to death. And to think that one of the offenders was a mere 17 years of age. Unreal. 

FPS Gamers Inadvertently Shooting Themselves In The Proverbial Foot? Cost of FPS Games to Double?

My brother sees an ad for a Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 map pack and shouts at the TV "Ah ya, dude, the new map pack is out!" He looks like a little kid on Christmas I think to myself.

"Oh ya?" I pause, debating whether or not to feign interest. Before I can decide I find my stupid mouth getting ahead of itself as it has so many times in my life and out tumbles a response: "Nice."

Nice? Ugh. Great job there, mouth.

"B-"

Hey! Don't you dare talk back to me! You just shut your goddamn whore mouth, mouth.

Whoa, jeez I'm supposed to be blogging. Sorry about that, folks. It won't happen again, I promise. Now where was I? Oh ya, the Call of Duty map pack thing.

Catherine, Herbert Schaible's Second Child Dies After Parents Use Prayer, No Medicine

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A couple serving probation for the 2009 death of their toddler after they turned to prayer instead of a doctor could face new charges now that another son has died.

Herbert and Catherine Schaible belong to a fundamentalist Christian church that believes in faith healing. They lost their 8-month-old son, Brandon, last week after he suffered from diarrhea and breathing problems for at least a week, and stopped eating. Four years ago, another son died from bacterial pneumonia.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that a decision on charges will be made after they get the results of an autopsy.

Catherine Schaible's attorney, Mythri Jayaraman, cautioned against a rush to judgment, and said the couple are good parents deeply distraught over the loss of another child.

Full Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/herbert-catherine-schaible_n_3138001.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Impressions

Well, a year after the whole 38 Studios/State of Rhode Island fiasco I finally got my hands on (rental) the game at the centre of it all: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Greg Horn (Father Filmed Horribly Beating His Daughters) Arrested! And My Thoughts On People Defending Him

Language Warning: This situation has infuriated me so expect a bunch of swearing.

Greg Horn aka "The Asshole Who Whipped His 12 and 14 Year Old Daughters On Camera" has been charged with child endangerment and corporal punishment. Link:

http://abc22now.com/shared/news/top-stories/stories/wkef_vid_12329.shtml

Here is a picture of the piece of shit child abuser:

For those not in the know what happened is two sisters (aged 12 and 14) were making a 'twerk' video ('twerking' definition) to post on Facebook when their father walked into the room and proceeded to whip them with an audio/video cable while they screamed, cried and pleaded for mercy. Here is the video of the event in question (warning: it's fucking disturbing, probably doubly so if, like me, you have a daughter):

Nice, eh? (Yes, I'm Canadian). So he beats them and gets arrested. He will likely end up in jail (especially give that this is not his first child abuse charge.....classy). Disgusting, but at least it's over now, right? We saw it, we felt the emotion, maybe discussed it with friends/family, and now we, along with the news cycle, can move on, right?

Well, no. Not me. This whole thing is driving me absolutely batshit insane and I can't stop thinking about it. I have been reading comments from people about this situation posted on various websites, and discussed it a bit myself on a forum/message board I frequent, and even though I knew it was going to happen, I still found myself feeling absolutely astonished at the fact that there are actually people, large numbers of them even, defending this scumbag's actions! This horrifies and infuriates me of course, as we are talking about the vicious beating of two little girls by the person who is supposed to be nurturing and protecting them, but what I feel even more strongly than the horror/anger is a profound sadness at just how little people seem to think/know about/understand their own  kids (or just kids in general).

Hilarious Double Dragon II XBLA Game Description (PIC)

Check out the hilarious description on Xbox Live for the newly released Double Dragon II: 

"That's Gold, Jerry! GOLD!"

How Do You Feel About Love/Relationships At This Point In Your Life?

This was a forum topic I recently encountered and the following was my response:

At this point, having been married, single and everything in between, as well as seeing the experiences of people around me and reading about these things online, I have to say that I am opposed to relationships in which the two parties are living together. At least for now. I own my own house and am perfectly content being alone in it. I have absolutely no desire to live with another woman at this point (I have lived with 2 in my life).

As far as relationships that don't involve cohabitation go, I am not necessarily opposed to them but at this point in my life I don't even want that. To be honest, I have much more fun hanging out with friends/my brother than I ever did with a girlfriend/my ex wife. Really, if you take sex out of it, you have a friend, but in most cases, one that isn't as fun to be around as are your male friends since females and males are often so different (what they consider fun, the conversations you can have, etc). Of course I am generalizing here but that's the nature of the conversation.

I really believe that despite what we tell ourselves, access to sex might really be the biggest/most potent motivator for the forming of relationships. Not many relationships survive without it and guys will go to extreme lengths to put up with **** that they would NEVER take from friends and the reason for that is sexual desire- which, if you really want to deconstruct this, is simply the biological urge to procreate. I believe that alone is the basis for all of it, and everything else is  a nice little narrative constructed around it.

Theism and Belief: Why is the Burden on Us?

An atheist and a theist engage in a friendly debate about the topic of god; specifically, whether or not one exists. The crux of the atheists' argument is essentially that the evidence for the existence of a god is lacking and has not led to the acceptance (on the part of said atheist) of the hypothesis that such a being exists. The theists' bottom line sentiment is that the evidence is sufficient for people all around the world (him or herself included) and it is up to the atheist to accept this evidence/open their heart/be open minded etc (there are many platitudes that are used in this situation).

This discussion has taken place innumerable amounts of times throughout history, and I don't see any reason to believe that it will not continue to do so for at least the foreseeable future. What I find particularly striking about this fact is that the existence of god is one of the few topics for which it is acceptable to claim that the burden of belief/being convinced lies not on the strength of the evidence put forth to bolster the claim but rather on the target(s) of said claims. A few other topics for which this is true are UFO's, bigfoot and the Illuminati/New World Order. Would anyone care to venture a guess as to what it is that these topics have in common? 

There is no proof that any of them exist (none of them do in my not so humble opinion). 

11 Years and 1000's of Hours of Gameplay Later I'm Still Learning How To Play Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden (Xbox) released in 2004, and since then I have played it (and its various incarnations) for thousands of hours. Literally. And even still I find myself, from time to time, learning new things. Either through experimentation or by watching videos/reading other people's forum posts. Just a couple of minutes ago I learned a new boss fight strategy while watching a Ninja Gaiden Black karma run video (Master Ninja difficulty) on YouTube. (For those who play the game(s), if you didn't know, you can OL UT Murai (if there's essence available) by first hitting him with >Y. Then simply OL UT him on the comedown.)

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying this depth is exclusive to Ninja Gaiden. Nor even video games.  Nor is this the only (or even close to the biggest) reason I love the series. It's just a small aspect of it that I find to be really cool and part of the reason I keep playing after all of these years. 

And for my long time readers, yes, I am still yammering on and on about Ninja Gaiden. It will never end so 

The Reality Of Working From Home

I have been working from home for the last two and a half years or so and despite what you may think, it's no paradise. When you think of working from home you might imagine waking up at noon, commuting to your office downstairs and proceeding to work in your pyjamas. Sitting at the laptop outside on a sunny day, sipping a coffee and listening to the radio. Lunches eaten in front of the t.v. Maybe a quick sandwich followed by 45 minutes of Call of Duty multiplayer. Taking half days off (or maybe even full days) whenever you damn well feel like it.

You might imagine yourself designing you own custom work schedule, something much different than the typical 9-5, Mon-Fri. Perhaps you think you would work twelve hour days for three days in a row and then have four glorious days off each and every week. Or perhaps you'd work five hours or so a day, seven days a week. Work everyday but much shorter days. But, hey! You're working from home, so you don't even need a stupid schedule! Just work whenever and however you want, totally on a whim with no pre-programmed schedule to follow.

You might imagine these things and you might think that it all sounds like absolute heaven. What you wouldn't  imagine, however, is the reality of it.

PS Vita Review

Alright, let's just get this out of the way: The Vita is gorgeous. I mean, just look at the damn thing!

Eye Candy, anyone? 

That's a sexy piece of hardware. And seeing it in motion, with that 5-inch OLED (multi-touch capacitive) (touch)screen displaying high fidelity graphics in ridiculously sharp, crisp detail is something else altogether. I absolutely adore my Nintendo 3DS but just look at it:

It's cute and all but it's not even close. If you were to poll the average consumer as to which portable they believe to be the most pleasing to the eye the Vita would come out on top almost every time. Sleek lines, no wasted space, amazing screen....it's a beauty. 

Now that we got that out of the way, let's dive into this review, because "looks ain't everything, kid." 

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus (Vita) Ninja Race Mode Tips

I have thus far only completed Ninja Race 01 (there are 5 courses) but I can offer some tips. These tips are for playing as Ryu Hayabusa; I have not yet tried playing with any of the secondary characters.

-Lunar Staff is obtained after beating Chapter 1 in the story mode- do this first.

-The Lunar features quick combo kills using weak, weak, strong. This is much faster than square, square, triangle, shuriken cancel, triangle with the dragon sword.

-The Lunar is also fantastic for crowd control, unlike the DS. Standing neutral strong, either stand alone or chained into a combo is good, as is the standard weak, weak, weak, strong strong. A good one for quick limb detachments is chains starting with towards and square. This is a poke with range and power and like the other combos mentioned above it seems to grant some crowd protection in the same way that VF combo strings do. The dragon sword does not carry this advantage.

-The Dragon Sword does have the flying swallow, but it whiffs too much sometimes and therefore wastes too much time. There's no whiffing with the Lunar staff.

-Minimize ET/UT usage. Keep it to the purple essence or health if you don't need it. You'll definitely want to avoid using the green essence for them as green grants time bonuses. The white essence grants speed and power bonuses so try not to utilize that for ET's/UT's either, unless you're at max speed/power or you're in trouble.

Random Thoughts: Divorce and Kids

I'm not divorced but we're separated (about 18 months now) and it was and has been totally amicable. I love that woman to death but we were not right for one another and now we're both better off. Our child (who is 4) is perfectly happy as there is no animosity and we even still do things together with her so that she still gets that 2 parent experience. Not a bad word is ever spoken about either parent to her and she knows that mommy and daddy love one another.

I believe it's when parents communication is fractured, bitterness sets in and the children become pawns in a childish chess match that "children of divorce" end up negatively impacted. Now, am I deluding myself to a degree? Quite possibly. It might still be better for her to have us both around at all times, but hopefully if that is true it is counterbalanced by the fact that I am much happier now and can therefore really be the dad I aspire to be.

Just keep the bullshit to a minimum, ALWAYS keep it away from the kids and remember that at the end of the day life is messy; there's multiple ways to live life. If you're happier separated and the kids are happy and get time with both parents, then fuck societal expectations and the guilt that people (many of whom frankly regret their decisions but won't admit it) try to engender in you for not living the "right" way. Your life and your happiness are important too. Happy people make happy parents.

Building A Comedy Blog/My Absence

To Whom It May Concern,

I am in the process of building a comedy blog, which I will link to when I am damn well ready :P While building said blog is taking quite a bit of time (I am trying to build a backlog of content before launching it; I'm like 16 posts in which is great, but not sufficient) it is only partly the reason for the absence of posts lately (the other reasons are illness, injury, laziness and a lack of inspiration). That being said, I have a few drafts in the works for this here bloggidy blog, so worry not; you'll be hearing from me soon. I haven't abandoned my baby.

Yours truly,

Seinhor Banana

P.S. If you're actually reading this and care....seek therapeutic intervention before it is too late. Wait....no, don't. For my sake, stay insane and keep this page bookmarked. Your mental health is less important to me than your readership.