JimmyWoo.net

I’m a movie enthusiast and cannot wait until the summer big blockbusters arrive, but year after year they seem to  progressively move up in the calendar.  In May alone, we have the new X-Men spinoff X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1), the new Star Trek (May 8), and Terminator: Salvation (May 21).

What makes this overly exciting is that I’m a dedicated fan of each of these series, particular Terminator.   I also religiously follow the new TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles since its first airing (Summer Glau is amazing).  For the Terminator series, it has been long hiatus after long hiatus between movies in the series (1984, 1991, 2003, and 2009), but each one is a spectacular and worthy entry.

I’m not a big fan of Wolverine, but I’m glad to finally see Gambit in an X-Men movie because he’s my favourite character.  He’s suave, charismatic and kicks butt.  What is there not to like?

Star Trek is one of my favourite TV series of all time, right up their with the X-Files, although my preference is to the brilliant TNG series (The Next Generation).  I haven’t had the chance to fully appreciate the original series but now I can.

Happy 4th Birthday, Guild Wars!

It has been a long and successful four years for the NCSoft developed Guild Wars (Prophecies), the popular MMO-based game franchise launched on April 28, 2005.   By offering free online play, the franchise has become a great and popular alternative to the infamous World of Warcraft.  Since its release, the Guild Wars series has produced two new campaigns (Factions, Nightfall) and one new expansion (Eye of the North).

NCSoft is ready to celebrate Guild Wars’ 4th Anniversary, with a plethora of new updates and features.   There’s an expanded storage system, Hall of Monuments upgrades, and even a way to edit or totally redesign your character (for a fee).  Clearly, these are just small treats to keep us interested and tide us over until Guild Wars 2 is complete.  Check it out online and in-game.

courtesy of guildwars.com

Personally, I own all three campaigns and the expansion.  I don’t play the game much anymore, due to an increasingly busy schedule and several countless hours already logged into the game.  I believe I’ve put in about 1,000+ hours into the game, which sounds ridiculous for just one videogame, however this is peanuts compared to World of Warcraft aficionados with God knows how many hours.

Anyhow, to celebrate Guild Wars, I have posted up profiles of all of my RP characters HERE.  Enjoy.

There is a CNN television show called Your $$$$$ and I saw an interesting discussion back in March.  I highly recommend everyone to watch this show, especially during this recession.  In this economic crisis, with countless home foreclosures, financial banks and automotive companies desperate for bail out packages and mass layoffs across the board, the last thing you ever want to hear is a story about how one man managed to fool and rip off so many people in a tasteless ponzi scheme.  He got away with this for years until now.

Enter Mr. Bernard Madoff.   Madoff made off with your money.  $65 billion, that is.  Some people who were about to retire no longer have that money to retire on and have no choice but to find work to survive.  Thanks for nothing, Bernie.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary online, a Ponzi scheme is “an investment swindle in which some early investors are paid off with money put up by later ones in order to encourage more and bigger risks.”

Basically, if investor #1 puts forth $10,000 to Madoff, at some point in time Madoff needs to return that investment with profit.  The question is this: where is that money coming from?  Clearly, it won’ t come from his pockets.  It comes from investor #2 (and possibly others), who(m) must invest at least the amount to be returned (at least $10,000) to previous investors like investor #1.  So what about investor #2’s return of investment?  It comes from investor #3’s investment. 

Interesting, you could keep doing this forever, unless you’re Madoff and sentenced to, what is it, 150 years in prison?  Good Lord, the man is turning 71 next week!  At the very least, we should be glad that justice was served but unfortunately it doesn’t help to undo the damages that have already been done.

Welcome!  This is my new personal website.  I will have more to come soon!

The top banner will have various inspiring quotes whenever I come across them.