Continuing my trend of being thankful for things on their birthday, since today is the Marine Corps birthday, I’ll speak to my thankfulness for their service, and the service of all men and women in uniform. They are willing to put their lives on the line in service to their country and to protect the rest of us.

I have a lot of respect and gratitude towards those willing to put on the uniform. I myself was even going to be in Navy until an injury disqualified me. I have an uncle whose a general in the army and still several friends in the Navy (Go Navy!). The men and women who serve and their willingness to serve is something I support wholeheartedly.

Now, I normally find sentiments such as  ”support our troops”, wearing an American flag pin, putting a yellow ribbon on your car to be pretty trite. It’s normally just a form of empty patriotism used for political purposes. It’s supposed to mean something, but it ends up being about pointing at the guy not doing it and calling him unpatriotic. Patriotism that is forced is meaningless. At least in a country that is supposed to be about freedom. I really hate the pledge of allegiance said in schools on a daily basis. The pledge should mean something, repeating it every day because you have too is just brainwashing.

I should also be clear that I also believe that supporting the troops does not in anyway mean a support of war (in general or a particular one), the structure or size of the DoD, or government’s use of the armed forces. There’s a big difference between hating the troops and hating a war. You can also disagree with and condemn actions taken by particular soldiers or their leaders (torture for instance) while still supporting the rest of the troops and the institution itself. They are not synonymous.

In fact, I personally find it MORE patriotic, respectful and supportive of the troops to question the need to send them into harm’s way. There is a reason it’s the Department of Defense and no longer the Department of War. I don’t support the troops just because they wears a uniform, I support the troops because they stand up for the principles of freedom and democracy, because they are willing to defend those rights and their fellow citizens with their lives.

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…that I got into the SWTOR Beta test this weekend.  Actually, that is the only thing I can confirm.

I just saw my weekend disappear into the ether. From being productive around the house to playing for 48 straight hours. Before, I was actually glad I hadn’t gotten a beta invite. I don’t want the game spoiled. But now that I have an invite, game on.

As for the NDA, I think they are dumb. It makes sense in terms of press, beta’s are by definition an incomplete product and you wouldn’t want news spreading about something that you’re not done with. Since blogs are sometimes considered press, I probably won’t make a post about my experience (even though not all three of you readers will care about SWTOR).

But, I still think NDA’s are stupid and senseless. They don’t stop anyone from talking about the game. And when they do, everyone understands it’s a beta and everything will change. What’s really dumb, is that people who love the game will the ones more likely to follow it, because they have good feelings towards you. The ones who tried it and decided they didn’t like the game, you’re NDA is meaningless to them. There’s no legal penalty you can exact on them, except dropping their beta access, which they clearly no longer desire. So those people are going to tell everyone they know that the game sucks. While the people who love it, are keeping quiet.

In general, I am against secrecy anyways. National security secrets I don’t buy. Details about a currently ongoing military mission, yes absolutely withhold those while lives are on the line. However, once a mission is complete, all the details should come out. If you don’t want the fact that you did something to be public knowledge, then you probably shouldn’t have done that thing in the first place.

But that’s a whole other rant. For now I just need to decide on a class to play. My starting characters are going to be Jedi Knight or Smuggler. So should I play one of those to try them out, or one of the others to see something I won’t see at launch?

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