“Don’t tread on me”, the flag read with the sun hanging high on a cool fall morning with foliage turning and a breeze flowing freely. With eager anticipation and excitement my heart rate in-creased due to exercising my right to life, liberty, and property by jogging with my dachshund –pit-bull on this free American soil. As we were increasing our cardiovascular abilities, I realized that today is one of the most important days of the year. Why this day is so important is because the one day a year that we as Ameri-can citizens are bound by civic duty to end the tyranny that has plagued America for years. When our founding fathers gathered for the common pursuit of life, liberty, and property the many free-men present, boldly signing the constitution of the United States of America on September 17, 1787. When the bill of rights, the declaration of independence (signed on July 4, 1776), and articles of confedera-tion (signed on November 15, 1777) were signed into law, the 39 gentlemen present at the constitutional convention in Philadel-phia, Pennsylvania did not desire our first amendment, second amendment, fourth amendment, among the many other certain inalienable rights that all American citizens obtain to be tread upon, torn, doused in conflict-oil and lit ablaze upon the flag. On October 7, 2010, I read an article on Infowars.com and my mind was overwhelmed …. According to this website and many others, “Microsoft would open the door for government li-censing to access the Internet, with authorities being empowered to block individual computers from connecting to the world wide web under the pretext of preventing mal-ware attacks.” In other words, certain people wouldn’t be allowed to access the internet due to a pre-conceived notion that the government thinks you will give other people viruses. On October 6, 2010 Scott Charney the Microsoft Vice Pres-ident of Trustworthy Computing said at the ISSE 2010 in Berlin, Germany, “that cyber security should mirror public health safety laws, with infected PC’s being “quarantined” by government de-cree and prevented from accessing the Internet”. He also went on to say,

“the system would be a “global collective defense” run by cor-porations, and government and would “track and control” peo-ple’s computers similar to how government health bodies track diseases.” Did you catch the “track and control” that was in his quote? Not only does that violate our fourth amendment but it also violated our first amendment as well; certain people would be denied internet access. Maybe that person would have a blog of some kind, or a website, or some kind of you tube account. Their first amendment would be revoked due to potential mal-ware serving. There are undoubtedly a lot of questions that are born from this idea. Such as, how will the government license all the computers produced? Who will do this? Unfortunately, the only way to license anything is to place said license at the time of production or by mandatory software or a firewall that would send ALL data to a centralized hub or a data harvester, (much like google’s data harvesters). When you stand in the poll line today wondering how many American citizens are performing their civic duty by vot-ing, be sure to know that you are living in republic, not a de-mocracy. A republic by definition is, a form of government in which the people or some portion there-of retain supreme con-trol over the government. A democracy on the other hand, is a political form of government in which governing power is de-rived from the people, either by direct referendum (direct de-mocracy) or by means of elected representatives of the people. So be sure to vote for what is constitutional not socialist, fascist, or democratic. Be proud of our independence and the rights that we are given for merely having allegiance to the United state of America. So when you vote Yes on 60,61, & propostion 101, Vote no on 62, Vote NO on 1A, just remember that we are not fighting our fellow Americans or our constitution… we are fighting the evil big government globalists that will do anything to destroy all forms of life, liberty and property.

2 years ago, the original Force Unleashed game was the next chapter in the infamous saga. With that being said, this wasn’t just another Star Wars title getting the basic Star Wars treatment. The games script and development went straight through Mr. Lucas so it could get his stamp of approval. The game was released and it ultimately explained how the rebellion was unwittingly formed by the Emperor and Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, Starkiller. The end of the game really shut the door on the series, leaving no room for a possible sequel. So how can Lucas Arts bust out a sequel when the main character dies in the first one? Twists and turns.

The game starts by Darth Vader reveal-ing that this new Starkiller isn’t the real one, but in fact, a clone. He then proceeds to tell you that you aren’t the first and that you are still not per-fected so you must be destroyed.

This doesn’t bode well for our “cloned” hero. He unleashes some lightning on Vader, only stunning him, giving Starkiller enough time to blow a hole out of the facility and jump to freedom. The Force Unleashed has finally begun.

Lucas Arts spend no time introducing their new element into the game play, the free fall. This element of game play is pretty much in it’s name. You are falling and you have the ability to chuck your two light sabers at objects or destroy them with your force push. Free Fall adds a nice pacing and excitement to the game which usually concludes in Starkiller slamming into the ground launching your foes helplessly into the air. The ground combat has really changed too much. The grapples go into a great looking cinematic and the nice addition of dismemberment adds a “real” flavor to the game. T

The animations of the force powers look smoother and more visible then its predecessor, showing you the full power of the force. A charged up force push will fling Storm Troopers back while blowing pieces of the armor in every direction. The force lightning at its highest level with cause your foes to catch a blaze and stay stunned for some time. The new force power that was added was the famous mind trick. Using this power will make your enemies fight each other or they will simply end their own life by running into barrier shields or leaping off cliffs. The force grip has really stayed the same but they changed it up a bit when it comes to the environment and bosses. For instances on a few occasions you can grab Tie-Fighters and crushing them into little metal-lic balls of doom; flinging them into starships, build-ings, hell, even storm troopers. When you activate your “rage” mode you can easily grip an AT-ST and compact it’s size to a small suv. The “rage” mode was also a nice addition. When using any form of attack it ups it and changes the animations. With the sabers, they dance around you while lobbing heads off your victims. The push disintegrates your enemies and lightning bakes them. They kept things too close to the foundation though.

The mini bosses have recycled death animation’s which becomes extremely annoying when you face the same one for the third time in a matter of 10 minutes. Before the initial release of the game Lucas Arts announced multiple death animation’s but I unfortunately saw the same ones every time.

Outside of the combat aspects, they made the loading times faster and added a nice U.I. (User Interface) to the leveling and customizing your lightsabers. You can get different crystals for your saber allowing different effects to happen. The green will give health, the blue will give you more force, the yellow will add lightning damage, so on so fourth; giving you the ability to become an invin-cible killing machine. All in all Lucas Arts is definitely heading in the right direction with this release. The downside is is that it is painfully short; hitting at about 3-5 hours through the first play through. With the economy still being the way it is I would say buy this if you are a hard core Star Wars fan, even then I would say rent it before you buy. With the title being 59.99 new and only providing a hiccup of game play, it may be smarter for some to just rent it.

The Fallout I.P. is arguably the favorite amongst underground gamers from the late 90’s. It took Bethes-da Studios “Fallout 3” to put the I.P. on the map. For most people it was their first experience roaming the wastes, seeing the post-apocalyptic world in a fully 3D rendered environment. It gave gamers the taste of freedom and “anything” goes type of game play. If you have played Fallout 3 you more than likely signed a secret contract with Bethesda for your soul. It was an engrossing, vast game. Needless to say when Fallout: New Vegas was announced, the gaming community got a little excited. Was it worth the excitement? Or just more time spent in the wastes?

Right when the title loaded up on the screen, I immediately began to feel at home with the famil-iar music and fonts. The character creation is a little bit more simplistic this time around and wastes no time throwing you into the game. You don’t have to deal with escaping a vault or anything of that nature. Instead, you are a courier for the New Vegas mob who gets the short end of the stick and a bullet in the face. With the marvels of post-apocalyptic medical technol-ogy, a Dr. saves your life and repairs your face to your liking (Insert character creation here.) After a little chit chat with the Dr. he sends you on your way to hours of questing and V.A.T.S. abuse, or so you’d like to hope so.

The game looks exactly like fallout 3. Obsidian Entertainment took no liberties in changing the look of the game, more than likely wanting players to feel right at home. With that being said, the combat is pretty much the same with a nice new addition of iron sights. The iron sights definitely make it easier to shoot some wolves in the face or to cripple a glowing ghoul’s leg allowing you to run and scream like a little girl. This of course works great when everything is working the way it’s supposed to. Ten minutes into the game and I saw a guy, for no reason at all; launch 20 feet or so into the air only to get V.A.T.S. on his way down. The wonder-ful A.I. couldn’t seem to figure out how to run around a rock or why the corner of the room wasn’t dying when they shot it X amount of times. I hate to say it but this game is a bloody mess of technical issues, which kills anything the game has to offer.

The game offered factions so you can pick which side you want to favor. Once again, this would have been a great idea if it would all work properly. At one moment I am loved from one faction the next they hate me and want to put my head outside their little village for no reason at all. All this can be triggered by simply walking outside or going into a new area. The game is fickle on if it wants to love you or destroy you. On top of that madness, the new crafting system falls victim to bug’s as well. There have been multiple reports that the game will freeze when you try to repair some N.C.R. armor on the ps3 and some random weapons on the Xbox.

I thought there would have been some hope with the quests and traveling but those two important facets of the game are what kill it. Quests are easily broken when the faction system decides to go against you. One quest I had I had to talk to one of the leaders of one of the factions. By accepting this quest they give you an item that allows you immunity to the faction. When approached and entered the camp with the problem. About 5 steps later the camp decided it didn’t want me to be there and began to fire at me. This resulted in self defensive and few dead men. One of them was the guy I needed to talk to. A good friend of mine had to make 4-5 new charac-ters just to get past the first 3 hours of the game. I have seen ants in rocks, your character falling into rocks, being locked into room when it was open before.

Long story short folks, New Vegas should be played by anyone who is looking to destroy some brain cells or wants to inflict a mass amount of pain onto their persons. In its current state, the game should be burned or used as pigeons for skeet. Obsidian has already released some patches for it but nothing that fixes the major issues of the game. I would expect either a big patch in a few months or a re-release of the game next year sometime. I honestly hope for a patch but for how many issues plague the game I would wait and see. If you have a friend that doesn’t plan on selling it or giving it a way, I would check with them every so often to see if the game has been patched and fixed. In the mean time, play Fallout 3 because you are getting a better and cleaner experience of the Fallout universe.

The transformation of the Rocky Mountain Pub (formerly the Snowflake and previously the Corral) is beyond substantial. From the exte-rior it seems the same, most of the same regular patrons, loyal to their bar for years, can still be seen shooting pool and bellying up at the bar on a typical weekday afternoon. It’s a strange atmo-sphere to a newcomer, but on the bar’s grand re-opening night on October 8, 2010, the Rocky Mountain Pub was far from the place it used to be. For that, we have the perseverance and hard work of local promoter Johnny Wrong to thank.The grand re-opening of the bar on that crisp Friday night was a huge success. Local favorites Jack and Jill kicked off the celebration at 5:30pm with the music continuing all night long, fea-turing all local bands including; Flat Top Reed, Wheel, Wrong Impressions, AK All-stars, and the highly anticipated return of Los Bandoleros.

I arrived just in time for the hot wing eat-ing competition sponsored by Hooter’s. It was a close race amongst the contestants but in the end it was our dear friend Joey who ended up in first place with greasy fingers and the sweet, spicy taste of victory. (It was big night for my group of PBR and music-loving friends, with Joey receiving a $50 bar tab and my partner-in-crime Stephanie Freier win-ning a PBR tent in the raffle.)Shortly after stuffing their faces full of those world-famous hot wings, the crowd enjoyed entertainment by a new local group who call themselves the Secret Club. The Secret Club consists of Aman Sircus (who’s own act is ap-propriately titled “Mind Bullets”), Jason Brad-ham, Blade Justice, and Charles King. They had the packed bar awe-stricken with Aman’s yo-yo and juggling talents put to music and light shows. Needless to say, that show put them on the map as Grand Junction’s most unique new local group.

The rest of the night was full of live music and dancing. People from all different types of groups mingled and enjoyed the night together. I could tell by the smile on Johnny Wrong’s face all night long that it was indeed an extremely successful night for both him and Grand Junc-tion’s new rock n’ roll bar. I honestly don’t think that bar, under any of its various aliases, has ever seen that much business. I asked Johnny the next day how he thought the night went, “I cried like 3 times, it was an amazing night!” beaming, he said with gratitude in his voice. Anyone who read the piece about him in that week’s Out & About sec-tion of The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel knows just what Johnny has endured in life and how hard he worked to make the Rocky Mountain Pub a place where his friends can go to see a variety of great live music. The Pub still has work to be done. It will take time for it to be fully established as a place for the younger popula-tion of Grand Junction to frequent for live music, but if there’s one thing that signifies the positive change, it’s the giant “Johnny Wrong Presents” skull logo on the red painted wall above the new stage. Mr. Wrong has officially made his permanent mark on downtown Grand Junction. Stop in on the weekends and congratulate him on his new endeavors.