About Death
With October being the month of spook and horrors, I have decided to post verses and stanzas relating to death; whether it is death itself, the struggle to live, mourning loved ones, spirits, and what ever may come. These words will not be mine but rather from great writers. The first one is from P.K. Page.
Green Collar Baseball
OMG! My first (probably only) game of the season and I had a chance to watch my team win tonight to clinch a playoff spot! It has been years since the A’s have made it to the post season and they are hot!
Here’s a view from our seat tonight that I shared with friends and family.
Let’s Go Oakland!
Beyond Wonderland – Bay Area
This past Saturday in Oakland there were almost 400 noise complaints for a rave that was happening at the O.co Coliseum. This rave that lasted till 2 in the morning had headliners that consisted of Avicii, Alesso, Sander van Doorn, Chuckie, and much more. This rave that caused so much noise that can be felt and heard for miles was called Beyond Wonderland. And what a wonderful experience it was!
Beyond Wonderland has been around for sometime however this was the first time that Insomniac has decided to bring it north to the San Francisco Bay Area. The line to enter the venue moved fast, the weather wasn’t to cold, the Dj’s were killing it, and my ears were ringing till this afternoon đ
I have included a map (courtesy of Insomniac) of the venue below so you can get an idea of the venue. For those of you unfamiliar with O.co Coliseum and the Oracle Arena, the O.co is the home of both the Oakland Athletics and the Oakland Raiders while the Oracle Arena is the home of the Golden State Warriors. The O.co is set to the East of the Oracle Arena where they are both flanked by parking to the north and south. The venue was set in the south parking lot. There were 3 stages; the Caterpillar Garden which was to the north east of the venue, the Madhatter’s Castle set in the middle, and the Queens’s Domain to the south. There was a ferries wheel, drinks, and other “attractions” that were set between the Madhatter’s Castle and the Queen’s Domain.
With the name Beyond Wonderland I was coming to the venue expecting to go down the rabbit hole and find myself in a whole new world. Instead I ended up at the Madhatter’s table sober. Beyond Wonderland was like a bad regurgitation of the Electronic Daisy Carnival. I didn’t feel energy in the air, the ferries wheel and the picnic area seemed like an afterthought, and there wasn’t enough lights… What I mean by not enough lights is that the physical experience wasn’t all there. This is my opinion and I know that it aint fair to compare Beyond Wonderland with EDC.  With that said, the sets were amazing! Which is the very reason why people come to these events/raves/festivals. To hear and see their favorite DJ’s perform and fuck them sideways.
Oh man, where do I start? I saw Avicii for the first time and his set was crazy! Craziest part of it was that in the middle of his set, someone ignited a tear gas or let lose a fire extinguisher. I was to the right side of the tent when what ever it was went off and as soon as it did, many of us cleared the tent fast! People were running while covering their face, some were chocking and coughing, and there were still people enjoying the music. So I’m sure that what ever it was, was not tear gas. If it were, I’d be dying and more people would had been affected. The music kept on going and once the ominous cloud cleared, everyone went back in the tent to enjoy the night.
I can’t stop saying how wonderful the DJ’s were. Cazzette, Thomas Gold, and all the other DJ’s that I saw that night. I wished that there was better timing with the different set times and less overlapping. Since there were overlapping set times I caught the tail end of some sets. For example, after Aviccii I went from the Queen’s Domain to the Madhatter’s Castle to catch the end of Chuckie‘s set. I wished that I saw all of Chuckie’s set since he was killing it.
The best DJ of the night would be Sander van Doorn. This. Guy. Killed. It. WOW! Sander’s set at EDC was one of my favorite form that weekend. But the set that Sander played for Beyond was a godly amount better! Holy shit! Can you say wow! Damn, damn, damn. Here’s a tease of Sander’s set from my girlfriend.
I’m thankful that Insomniac brought Beyond Wonderland and these wonderful DJ’s to the Bay Area. Over all the night was bad ass! I know that I’m being ignorant for writing that my ears were ringing the next day but I earned those damage ear drums. Next time I’ll bring ear buds. Which means that next time Beyond Wonderland is up here in the Bay Area, I’m going.
8.0 Update
Well… Wargaming.net has finally released an update for World of Tanks (WOT) that actually changes the game. Update 8.0 was released a few days ago and for the most part I like it. No. I love it.
For those unfamiliar with World of Tanks, WOT is a Free to Play (F2P) tank based MMO game where you can select tanks from World War 2. There are no factions but you can join clans, be in a platoon or company, or play by yourself. Once you start the game you are placed on a team and are pitted against another team to either destroy all the tanks from the opposing team or capture their base. That’s the basic general idea of the game.
The biggest change of the game is the physics. Prior to 8.0, as a tank you’re unable to go over an edge and fall. Now with the update you can drive up to the edge of a cliff and slide down the cliff side or plummet to your death.
Here I am in my Tetrarch tank demonstrating what the physics engine can do. I honestly was hoping to kill myself to rob the enemy the gratification of a kill and experience points that they would gain from my death. Sadly my death counted as one of their kills. At the end of this post you can find a YouTube video that reviews the physics of the game.
Another aspect of the physics upgrade is that now you can drown in your tank. Before you would drive over water and have your tank barely submerged. Now you can literary drive your tank into the deep end and never come back. During the first day of the update release there would be at least one player in each match killing themselves by either driving off a cliff/bridge or going for a swim lol.
Then there is the graphical aesthetics of the game that has  been rendered beautifully. Even though I run the game with the graphic setting at the lowest that it can be, you can see how beautiful the landscape can be while playing WOT. And if you run the game at a higher visual output, there can be a lot more details that you can see.
The sounds of the game has been improved as well. Shots fired from tanks sound more real now than before, giving the game a more real life experience of what it would be like caught in the middle of a tanks squaring to each other. The lingering bass from an SPG’s and low tier tanks with auto-cannons sounds pretty bad ass!
One of my favorite feature to the game is the battle report. Before the update players would only have a few seconds to see how they fared in the game; how many tanks they destroyed, which tanks they hit or detected, see how much experience and credits they gained, and to see who earned some medals from the game. Now after the match you are thrown directly to the garage and see an overview of the battle.
If you’re a numbers guy and wanted to see a more detailed report on how well or bad you did in the game you can now select ‘Detailed Report’ to view all that information. What is great about the detailed report is that you can see how much total damage you did, how much damage you received, how much gold you will receive after repairs, how much gold and xp you could had received if you were a premium player, and much more. How you interpret the date is up to you.
With the update comes some nerfing. One of the tanks that was nerfed was my favorite PzKpfw IV. The nerf took away the Darth Vader turret from the tank and replaced it with a Scmalturm turret. The PzKpfw IV also lost it’s snipping ability. This is good and bad. I just now have to play my favorite tank in a different style.
So far, the only thing that I don’t like about the update is the cost for painting your tank. You would, if you want but not necessarily, purchase a paint scheme for 3 different season for your tank. Then there is a cost per emblem  (max 2) and to add a saying to the tank. Well, I guess that Wargaming.does need to find a way to the game profitable with it being a Free to Play (F2P) game.
For more information about the 8.0 update you can look at the release notes for a full detailed list from the game play option, tank rebalancing, fixes, and more. Like I said above, I do love the update since it made the game feel fresh like a new game.
Please note that some of the images above shows the game altered with some mods from Beals. If you would like to download the mod pack you can download it from here: Â http://beals.forbesthosting.com/beals/beals_8.0.zip
Grace Cathedral
A few weeks ago I went to the  I went to Grace Cathedral. Technically I also went to the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints that same week but didn’t really take any photos, just a few Instagram shots of the church. Anyways, at Grace Cathedral I was able to take numerous photos of the amazing architecture and space.
Below is my attempt at capturing a panorama of the interior of Grace Cathedral.
The panorama was taken at the apex of the labyrinth and was stitched together with Photoshop. Since the panorama did not start at the center of the nave, the cathedral appears to turn toward the end of the labyrinth. In truth the cathedral runs straight from the altar to the narthex. This panorama was also taken free hand with just my POS 12.1MP Canon Elph 100 HS, not by a DSLR on a tripod. I’ll come back here sometime in the near future to try this again with the proper gear.
The Stick
Last Sunday I went to the San Francisco’s 49er home opener against the Detroit Lions for Sunday Night Football. The energy of the stadium was great. I even though I am not a San Francisco 49er fan, I did enjoy the game and cheered on the Niners. Hanged out with friends, tail gated, eat good, drank good, my fantasy football team (s) won, Arizona beat the Patriots, and the home team won. What more can I ask for?
Playing SPG
I’ve been playing World of Tanks, a F2P game, for a few months. WOT is  an MMO action game where you drive a World War II tank and engage in field battles with other tanks. WOT is a pretty fun game where you can play with other players in PUG’s or join a clan to play with friends or even participate in clan wars. The clan that I belong to is an easy going fun group called RE8EL where our motto is “Resisting over serious gamers in a province near you đ !”
After playing for a while, I have decided to try out the SPG class again. SPG’s (Self Propelled Gun) are the artillery of the game providing support for their team. I’ve played with the German Sturmpanzer I Bison but this time around I’m playing with the Soviet SU-18.
Tonight I got my first kill by taking down piccolocro. If I was quicker I probably could had saved MessengerofDeath from being killed from piccolocro. As you can see from the image above, I took piccolocro down only right after he took out MessengerofDeath. Oh well, I just need more practice to be a decent SPG player or else I’m going to be looking like the image below and with a lot of repair bills.
Monochrome Monday – The Arlington Theatre
One of my favorite architectural buildings in Santa Barbara, CA. the historic Arlington Theatre.
johnydecali 