ZOGAR

Greatest Athlete Alive

2009-11-16T18:39:27Z

So I was watching HBO Sports, and they did a piece on Ashrita Furman, a man who holds so many world records he even has the record for "the most current Guinness world records held at the same time by an individual."

The thing is, these records are batshit insane. Most of them seem to involve juggling, or pogo sticks, or unicycles, or juggling while on a pogo stick, or doing all of that shit underwater. He's potato sack raced against a yak in Mongolia. He's bounced on a kangaroo ball across the Great Wall of China. He stood on a swiss ball at Stonehenge for over 2 hours. He has a record for throwing an apple in the air, drawing a katana, slicing the apple, resheathing the katana, and then throwing the next apple. 27 apples in a minute.

It'd be one thing if it was just some weird attention whore pogo sticking up stairs or juggling in shark tanks, but the stated reason for all of this is transcendental enlightenment. The basic idea being spiritualism through physical exertion. I'm not sure mystically how the unicycle figures into it...

I really dig it though. You have the HBO Sports guys who're all "boy, this sure is wacky!" and all that bullshit, but then Furman comes across as both sincere, but totally laid back about it. He's not like "Catching grapes in your mouth is HARDCORE!! RAWWR!!" Yeah, it's silly, but there's no reason why it shouldn't be.

I think he's my 2nd favorite obscure celebrity now, after Norman Borlaug.

More Powers of the Mind!

2009-11-15T13:55:22Z

If you remember a week ago or so, I posted a video about the game (This toy, by the way, is requested enough at work that I'm pretty sure it's this year's Tickle Me Elmo, and I'm fucking sick of hearing people ask for it) where you move a small ball through hoops using a headband that's supposed to measure your brainwaves, or some such shit.

Well, now there's a $300 game controller that's supposed to do the same such shit.

I'm avoiding this crap for 2 reasons, well, 3 counting I hate hearing "Where's der Mind Flex, blarg?"

1) It's either gimmicky bullshit, and therefore not worth the crazy prices they're charging for it. I've heard stories that someone's played Mind Flex by hooking it up to a wet sponge, and it worked.

2) I'm sure there's some kind of long term side effect they don't know about, because in testing they never made the subjects spend hours concentrating on moving things with their minds for days on end. Kinda like how Microsoft had no idea at release the Xbox 360 burns out when you play Halo on it non-stop for 3 days straight. I'm suspecting in a few years we'll discover all the children who've played with these are either psychic mutants or have burned out the part of their brains that let them feel love or something else completely horrible.

Okay, I'm not really a luddite, I just think it's expensive, and a novelty that'll quickly wear thin. Until Nintendo releases the Wii Brainscanner, anyway.

No, I'm sticking with old fashioned toys, thank you very much! When I started reading comics as a kid Iron Man was in the Silver Centurion armor, which gives me a certain nostalgic fondess for it. So I ended up picking up the action figure of it when I saw it at work. This actually isn't comic book accurate though, it's like a cross of movie Iron Man with the Silver Centurion stuff (red/silver color scheme, trianglur chest thing) which oddly enough makes me like it even more. There goes my purist street cred.

But the reason why I mention it is because it comes with an energy blast you strap onto his hand. Yeah, a big, yellow, clear, conical energy blast. Because that's what it is! It doesn't look like anything else!

Oh noes, Iron Man, Deadpool has turned your energy blast against you!!!

...

.....

I really have to find something more mature and dignified to do with my free time.

Terror!

2009-11-12T15:33:57Z

So, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is upsetting people who'll never play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 because there's a part where you terrorist attack an airport. Oh wait, but your guy is only PRETENDING to be a terrorist, so that makes it okay!

I can't even begin to pretend I care about this. That they'd even complain about something in the single player is laughable. Don't they know that people only play the multiplayer part of the FPS? Anyone who went to the trouble of picking that game up at midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning, I can almost guarantee they haven't seen this airport shooting scene Fox News is shitting their Depends over. Unless they've seen the ridiculous hype, then maybe they've bothered to play the single player to see it.

Meanwhile I've been trying to be more active in WoW (which is becoming more difficult because my PC has gotten laggy and prone to disconnecting to where I can't trust it to raid on) and started my second playthrough on Dragon Age.

If you remember me complaining about how bland my first character was, yeah, purposely making your guy fucked up looking automatically makes every cut scene he's in entertaining. I opted for sunken eyes and cheeks, a goatee, the facial tattoo that puts big circles around your eyes and a large hook nose. I'm kinda disappointed that there's not enough spaces provided to name him "Evil Bastard Mage", because that's what he his. It's hysterical that there's even dialogue options where I have to tell people I'm a mage. Look at my nose and goatee! I'm wearing robes and carrying a goddam wizard's staff!

Oh Noes, The Writing!

2009-11-11T14:40:15Z

So... my Dragon Age playing pretty much killed my Nanowrimo. We're almost halfway through November and I have about a day's worth of writing done. Oh well. No one else I know was doing it anyway. It seems like a waste just to leave what I have sitting on the harddrive though, so here's my awesome 1 day of a novel!

There are many mysteries and strange occurances I have had the misfortune of witnessing due to my association with Slylock vulpes, but none have brought me closer to the brink of madness than the case we often refer to as The Curse of the Wolfpires. And now that everyone who had a part in that incident is either deceased or institutionalized, I feel I can finally disclose the facts of it to the public.

It all started one unusually warm day in November. We were whiling away the afternoon in the sitting room of one of the delapidated, turn of the century houses the Cove is most notable for. vulpes claimed it was his office, for his detectiving, but I am fairly certain he's just squatting there.

I was adding more wormwood to my absinthe, when he lowered the paper bag he was huffing gasoline out of, turned to me and said, "By the way, zogar, I am expecting a client today. Her name is hetros Something or another. I forget. She should be here shortly."

"So I should ready the duct tape and surgical tools?" I replied, sipping my drink greedily.

"What? God no, I'm talking about detectiving, you organ harvesting madman!"

And it was just then that there came a knock at the front door. I opened it to admit a distraught looking young woman who bore a disturbing resemblance to the Virgin Mary.

"Mr. vulpes?" she quiried.

"No, no," responded my friend, lighting the dry edge of his gasoline soaked bag and throwing it out the window into the street, for the neighborhood children to play with. "That is merely my dubious associate Dr. Zogar. He often accompanies me while I'm solving cases. And writes me prescriptions for Lortabs. Can I offer you anything? Ether? Cocaine? Airplane glue?"

"Errm, no, thank you," hetros replied, looking somewhat uncomfortable in our presence. That is an altogether common reaction, truth be told. "I was hesitant to come here, with the things I've heard about you, Mr. vulpes, but I'm desperate and no one else I've turned to in this matter will help me."

"And just what have you heard about me?" he asked.

"That you're a genius in the field of deduction who for some unfathomable reason pretends to be a drug addled lunatic."

"Or perhaps," vulpes said, grinning ridiculously, "I am a drug addled lunatic pretending for fathomable reasons to be a genius in the field of deduction."

I'm sure he thought he was being very clever, and the fact that his version is closer to the truth by far, but it was really embarassing. There was an awkward silence afterwards. Ms. Something or another looked even more uncomfortable, if that was possible.

"I... I need your assistance to find someone. Should I provide the details of my case?" she queried.

"There is no need," exclaimed the horrible detective,"for I have already deduced them. From your manish clothing and the grime on it I can tell you are a lesbian, who works in a factory. Obviously the person you want me to find is your offspring you had through artifical insemination, whom your homosexual life partner has abducted because she did not approve of you raising the child in the Jedi religion, as evident by the padawan braid in your hair."

"Amazing..." she said.

"Yes, my powers of deduction are second to none, as I'm sure I've just proven," he boasted, stealing my absinthe and downing it in one gulp.

"No," hetros clarified, "I meant amazing how unbelievablly wrong you are. I work in an office, and the manish clothing is partially due to wanting comfort and mostly due to years of peddling lingerie in my youth has left me with deep seated insecurities about my body. The jedi braid isn't a religious observance but merely a light vanity to distinguish myself from the countless other office drones I work with. And the dirt on my clothing is from having to change a flat tire on my drive over here. As for my sexuality, I am almost loathe to even admit that I am heterosexual, because it implies you could be someone I might be attracted to, which is surely the most abhorrent thought that has ever occured to me."

"Ah, still in the closet I see," he managed to gurgle, since at the time I had him in a headlock and was kneeing him in the stomach for stealing my booze. He then managed to reverse it and threw me through his bookcase full of pornographic Japanese comic books. "Very well, then, relate your case the way you see it, and I will try to adjust it to fit with the facts I've already decided on. Please leave nothing out."

"Well," she started, "It all began with my younger sister hanging out with mopey, pale teenagers at the local Hot Topic and spiking her hair with gel in peculiar ways. A few nights ago, after a bout of familial intoxication, I allowed her to stay the night at my place, only to find her completely vanished the following morning. No one has seen any sign of her, and I've tried to get the police to investigate, but they claim they're too busy trying to solve a rash of organ thefts and child incinerations currently plaguing the city."

"Ah yes," he said, with an all too familiar manic gleem in his eye. " Was there anything left behind in the room?"

"Only this," hetros responded, producing a small bundle which she unfolded to reveal a large amount of what appeared to be glitter. "I found this scattered all around the room she had stayed in."

"And what do you make of this, Dr. Zogar?" he asked, clearing setting me up for his damnable oneupsmanship.

"From that story I would say vampires," I replied, extracting myself from the ruined bookshelf. "And glittery ones too, the worst kind."

"Ahh, but my dear raging dumbass," vulpes said, "look, there are also animal hairs in the glitter."

"Wolfpires," I exclaimed.

"Wolfpires?" hetros asked.

"Tell me," the detective said in mock seriousness, "What do you know about wolfpires?"

"I don't know anything about wolfpires," she answered.

"That's funny," vulpes said, reaching for a silver plated wooden stake, "That's exactly what a wolfpire would say."

And They All Lived Happily Ever After, Except The Dead Ones

2009-11-09T21:34:25Z

When I started playing Dragon Age, I was looking at it and thinking oh damn, I have played a RPG like this in a while now. Look at all these places on the map to go, and macguffins to chase. Normally I beat everything in about a week, but it's going to take forever to get through this game!

.... and then I just beat it this afternoon. In all fairness though, I was playing it a disgusting amount. I mean, the game itself has me logged at about 40 hours, and that's not counting all the reloading to try fights again, which sadly there's too much of.

Still want to do two more playthroughs though, for a totally evil bastard mage and.. I dunno, maybe a dwarf or something. And definitely not for ridiculously long marathon sessions anymore.

So.... overall, really good. All my complaining about dark fantasy before... yeah, I think it's because I was reading Warhammer stuff at the time. In the beginning of the game, the darkspawn struck me as "Okay, monster guys, whatever," but then you come across some other things later on where I think they really hit the horror stride right on. I'm pretty sure anyone who's played it will agree with me that the lead in to the Brood Mother boss fight is creepy as fuck.

Now for bitching: The guys in my party's AI really bugged me for a while, I found it annoying that I constantly had to cycle through and basically tell the bastards what to do. And then after looking at it for a bit I realize that the "tactic slots" are just more lines of if a then b and that bugged me. Making the AI less retarded is a fucking point upgrade system?

Sorry, can't learn more herbalism Morrigan. Your points are going to have to go into making you less stupid.

And then reading up on the difficulty settings, oh, having to pause the game to strategize what the fuck you're going to do next is apparently part of what you're supposed to enjoy about this game. Your party members aren't supposed to be able to do stuff on their own!

I normally play all games on Normal, but for future playthroughs I guess I'm dropping down to Easy since I'm too ADD for this tactical pausing bullshit. vulpes said he's playing on Hard because that's what the developers originally intented, until some overlord at EA demanded it be easyed up for the masses. Well, good luck to him on that. Enjoy the pause menu!

Also, I think they kinda trick you with the seemingly plethora of choices. When you first come across a situation it seems likes there's a dozen different ways it can go down. But afterwards you kinda figure out... no, just two. I'm not hardcore complaining about that, I know putting a bunch of different options in there would be too expansive design wise, just that if it comes down to flipping a switch, I wish it's labeled ON/OFF.

SPOILER!!! You get to select the ruler of the kingdom, either your Gray Warden buddy who doesn't really want to be king anyway but is a royal bastard (literally) or the Queen, who has no blood claim to the throne but is a skilled administrator (old king didn't like ruling either). I thought I was being all clever by hammering out "Okay, you two get married!", but then that falls apart at the last second and it ends up with me deciding one or the other anyway.

At one part the villain in the game accuses me of being a puppetmaster, and at that moment it dawned on me that he's absolutely right. Oh sure, it's all presented as quests, just me going after macguffins, and whoever I side with just some quicky moral choice thing (do the right thing or... golem army!) but all of these ended up putting people into power, or getting certain groups slaughtered. Really, the whole fucking kingdom in Dragon Age dances to your tune. Even if you're playing goody goody, everyone else is still just a pawn in your game. I wasn't even trying to be a total bastard, as far as moral choice meters in video games go, but that bit made me realize I was much more of one than I gave myself credit for.

Anyway, damn, time to go to work.

Horror and Dark Fantasy

2009-11-04T13:40:46Z

So I saw Paranormal Activity w/ H and the cop from Sabotage (after the last couple of Halloween parties that's who I think of him now as). The reviews I've heard have been kinda mixed. I liked it, but yeah, if the atmosphere of this movie doesn't draw you in, then it is pretty much 2 hours of watching these two people sleeping. If it does, well, I hope you won't miss restful sleep too much. Let's just say I'm grateful there are no stairs in my house.

Heather was somewhat surprised Sherlock Holmes is a Christmas release. I reminded her that our last Christmas was I don't like egg on my face! She says she's been seeing way too much of me lately and not to talk to her again until 2010.

Also picked up Dragon Age, even though I had to send the electronics girl into the back to get it. My copy has a code for the Dragonarmor! I thought you only got that with a pre-order. Hmmmm....

So far I've enjoyed it. There's only 3 races and 3 starting classes, but then they also throw in some more background stuff to vary it up. I selected elf, rogue, then city elf and started out the game where I lived in elf ghetto. Yes, the elves had been freed from human slavery, but were still treated as second class citizens. So on the day of my arranged marriage the human earl's son shows up to go all Braveheart on us.

"Fuck party back at the castle! Grab all these elven bitches!" And then the fucker sucker punched me.

So naturally from that point it becomes slaughterfest at the castle. One of the things I enjoy in Bioware games is some of the conversational options that come up. And then one of the little touches they add to this game is your guys becoming bloodsplattered after fights. This makes certain exchanges comical.

"What are you doing in our castle, knife-ears?"

I'm the new elf servant here!

My guy is covered in blood. Strangely, the guard chooses some other reason to make me kill him.

Oddly enough, I'm not as much of a bastard in this as I am in KOTOR. Maybe it's because the asshole dialogue options aren't as funny, or I think, more likely, because the NPCs don't annoy me as much. I mean, if there's an option I think is funny I'm definitely clicking it, I just don't bother to tell everyone else in the game to go fuck themselves. My elf isn't even half as thug lyfe as I was planning on making him during the city elf intro movie. Even though as city elf you can pretty much choose to end every sentence with "human" in a negative, racist way if you really want to.

Probably one of my favorite exchanges is with the king.

"Ah, so, where do you hail from?"

One of your elf ghettoes, milord.

"Oh really? Say, what's it like in there? My guards never let me go to one."

I had to kill a earl's son because he was getting too rapey.

".... Wha?"

As for the things I dislike.... Tycho said you had to be careful with character gen to make sure you really like your guy or you're going to get sick of him. The problem for me is the fucker has the same bland facial expression, ALWAYS. Even when you're telling the earl's son he's about to get gutted like a pig, same neutral look as every other exchange. I would've at least at some point liked to of been given the option to make him look angry.

Also the interface isn't as smooth as I'd prefer. I think WoW has spoiled me. Having to hit a button to see how two items compare seems like an annoying extra step.

Graphically, it's only alright. Then again, anything after Batman: Arkam Asylum is probably a letdown... but still, there's a part where the elven elder tilts his head, and his front braids stay perfectly ramrod straight. It was annoying, and worse, every time I'd talk to him afterwards I'd just stare at those fucking braids.

And this is purely on me, but I don't have a HD TV so I can never read all the journal entries they notify me about. All I know is what people actually say. Meanwhile my journal is packed full of all this info about Darkspawn (bad guys) or the Tranquil (lobotomized mages) that I'd probably like to know.

Today is today!

2009-11-03T13:29:51Z

Last thing I'll say for... about a month concerning neomaxizoomwritey... one of the people who're in my region (Northwest Florida, Panama City isn't writey enough to get it's own region) suggested writing descriptions to pad out the word count, and for when you're stuck on trying to decide what happens next. That kind of irks me because I realize my descriptions are weak and to this asshole that's considered the throwaway bit.

Seriously, I am very much like "The dark castle was dark."

But anyway, today I have to go to the dentist to get a permanent crown: That sucks.

And Dragon Age comes out today: That's ...good? Probably? Only a couple of advanced reviews are out.

I've also been reading a book called World of Warcraft and Philosophy, which I like better than the Batman philosophy book not because of subject matter, but because not every essay in it is harping on utilitarianism vs. deontology. There's actually a few I've found very interesting, like 1 that goes into describing the Auction House as an economic model, and another that's about the ethics of ninja looting.

And all this shit makes me realize I've got a busy day and am probably going to be falling further behind on my word count. Oh noes!

Paranormal Activity? Good, Bad?

2009-11-02T13:17:44Z

hetros mentioned at the party that Jojo's put pictures of up on Facebook that she's going to go see Paranormal Activity this Tuesday (when it's cheap). I've heard mostly positive things about the movie, although one person I know did say they thought it sucked. Hmmmm....

This NaNoWriMo thing seems kind of weird to me. They spend all this time telling you to just hurry up and write and don't bother editing or what sounds like any sort of attempt to make it... good. "This is just the first draft! You can go over it in December! blarg!" I managed to get 500 words in an hour, and that was after wasting half that time fiddling with which font to use and alt tabbing out to look at online dictionaries. Even now I've pretty much decided to scrap that and start over, because it wasn't very good and kinda hard to write. My new idea should be easier. And faster, now that I'm fully commited to 12 point Verdana.

Still, assuming my speed is doubled and to hit 50k words in the month means 1600 words a day, you should be able to do 2000 words a day without difficulty. I mean, 2 hours is the average for daily TV watching, isn't it? Shouldn't that be kinda easy? Write instead of watching TV. Instead of how the website is harping like it's horriblly gruelling and you'll be crying and pulling your hair out by the end of the week.

Gearing Up For November

2009-10-31T14:11:43Z

So last night I was talking to vulpes, who originally said he wasn't going to do NaNoWriMo (even though he actually remembers its name, while I still call it "Writer NAMBLA") but then said he might, talking about a story where the setting is various lost ships lashed together to make some kind of floating Bermuda Triangle community.

I responded that mine was going to be about a poor rogue who's challenged to complete a dungeon by an evil wizard for 20 million gold pieces. The wizard doesn't expect the rogue to have any chance of solving any of the puzzles in the dungeon because of his impoverished background and lack of education, however it turns out that each puzzle's solution is actually something that the rogue has come across in his life, such as knowing about an ancient ruler because when the rogue was a child he found an old coin that was imprinted with that ruler's picture.

Maybe it was my poor acting skills, or George laughing while I was describing this, but vulpes doesn't believe this is my totally original idea. I guess the most amusing thing for me though was that he couldn't place it. Usually he's the first one to pick up on a pop culture reference unless it's super obscure, like My Horse Is Amazing.

And then we watched My Horse Is Amazing and I completely forgot to admit that my description is just a Dungeons & Dragons version of Slumdog Millionaire.

btw even though I said it was bullshit I did register on the official Writer NAMBLA site in case anyone else I know is doing it, so they can friend me and stuff. User name is (surprise!) Zogar.

NaNoWriMo Sounds Like A More Complicated Form of NAMBLA

2009-10-29T16:13:07Z

National Novel Writing Month is one of those things I always here about after it's already started. Seriously, if Melissa hadn't of mentioned it I could promise you I'd of first heard about it this time most likely around November 10th.

The Official Website
So da rules!

•Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
•Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people's works).
•Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you're writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!
•Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.
•Write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.
•Upload your novel for word-count validation to our site between November 25 and November 30.

I really have no inclination to upload anything to the official site. Why? So some asshole strangers on this website can add 1 to their count of participants? Or tell me I suck/am awesome at writing? Nope, don't care at all.

Really I think it'd be like a 50,000 word version of the shit I give you chumps every Jan. 27th. I'm almost tempted to fill out every character's name in lj user tags. Or maybe use The Hero with a Thousand Faces as some kinda madlibs.

"Hello," the voice on the telephone said. "This is Adventure. I'm calling you."

"What?" exclaimed vulpes, "but I am just an ordinary citizen or the ordinary world. How can I possiblly gain supernatural and fantastic powers to obtain mighty MacGuffins and become Space/Narnia Jesus?"

And then the call got disconnected. The next day Adventure called back and admitted that he had been drunk dialing and that someone else, shik, was actually the legendary hero, and was already 2 or 3 cycles into it. He apologized and, after an awkward silence, hung up. vulpes cried.

And now I just wrote an awesome intro I can't use because it's a few days too soon! Damn!

But the rules say I can outline now, right? What should my stupid story be about? Heatherine fanfiction? trite fantasy about Dungeons & Dragons characters, like Zounds Punchfist? Or just 50k words of whatever I think of after downing lortabs with whiskey?

zogar @ 2009-10-29T08:48:00

2009-10-29T13:49:00Z

Gaming Is Like A Second Goddam Job

2009-10-26T14:34:41Z

Though in my case, gaming's probably first and it's my real job that's the second one.

When I ran in vulpes he told me I should be playing Brütal Legend, which is easy for him to say, since the only game he's bought this year is Rock Band 2, since you can't find plastic guitars... on the ground, where he gets everything else.

"Yeah," I says, "but I heard it tries to do too many things, so the gameplay isn't particularly good at any of them." I read alot of reviews now.

His response was that "It's more of one of those games you play for the story." Which I guess he has me there. I certainly didn't pick up Soul Reaver 2 because I loved block puzzles.

It makes me kinda wish I had taken Chris Arrant up on the local newspaper's game review gig years ago when he mentioned it, then it'd be like a mature adult responsibility to burn all my money on video games. But then they'd probably would want me to not use the word "fuck" so much, the fucking commies.

Then there's Dragon Age coming out in 2 weeks, which I guess I'm going to go ahead and get. My dental appointment for the permanent crown is on the release date, so I can go get that done, buy the game, and play it while fucked up on painkillers, which I'm sure will make my character creation very interesting.

Batman: The Musical!

2009-10-24T15:00:02Z

So, this morning, I kinda sorta wake up (late night) and turn on the TV to this:

I specifically looked for the part of the episode that starts off with singing. This whole episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold is a big musical. You have no idea how relieved I am that I found this on youtube and it's not some insane hallucination on my part.

Warning though: Batman doesn't sing in any of this. Be prepared for that little disappointment.

Also, POWERS OF THE MIND!!!

Edit: Also also, Music Meister is Neil Patrick Harris.

Expanded Universe is Retarded

2009-10-21T14:53:30Z

So I've seen on release lists that a new edition of Force Unleashed is coming our in November. Where you can fight Luke Skywalker. As much as I don't want to buy a game I already own (will the new stuff be DLC?) the idea of getting to chop his hand off personally is tempting....

Speaking of which, I've been reading some of the newer Star Wars RPG books (because Higgins is running that Fri. nights... when his relatives aren't down visiting or there's Mad Max Halloween parties. So once. He's run it once). These things are all about all the expanded universe bullshit. Which, don't get me wrong, I've followed plenty of it. Force Unleashed, Shadows of the Empire, Timothy Zahn's books, blah blah blah. But some of it is fucking insane. Bib Fortuna had his brain removed and put in a robot? WTF?

They also detail Rogue Squardon guys who aren't Wedge, who for the life of me I can't imagine anyone being interested at all except for players we're rolling TIE pilots. "Yay. I blew up Biggs's cousin!"

It also makes me wonder if the DM cares about these assholes as much as the iconic Star Wars characters. Like if you've ever tried to blow up the Millennium Falcon in game (Not that I ever have!) there's aways something that goes wrong with that. Does expanded universe get the same pass? Will the DM throw a fit if you want to throw Xisor out an airlock or curb stomp Dash Rendar?

I Gotta Get Out of This Place

2009-10-19T14:05:27Z

Work has really been getting on my nerves. Maybe the fact that I hate people in general and retail only SAVAGELY REINFORCES that opinion is a part of it, but yesterday I got written up for not taking a break because no one bothered to relieve me for over an hour (which is illegal, I want my class action lawsuit!). During that time I was on the fucking radio saying "Hey, somebody get out here, I need to clock out for lunch." And this is my fault because I'm supposed to go snitching to whoever's in charge, even though they're on the radio and can hear all this shit.

The place is run on a fucking skeleton crew. And since they've declared that the next few weeks are either time off discouraged or time off denied, motherfuckers just call out.

So, yeah, gotta get the fuck out of there.

Though the one entertaining thing with it getting cold now is watching the eatbeasts argue with whoever has the misfortune of being with them. It's around 50 degrees outside now, which is Hoth to most Floridians, but I've personally spent enough Christmas holidays up north to be thoroughly unimpressed with it. However, the register outside is in the shade and forms some kind of wind tunnel going through that area, so yeah, it's cold.

The fatties are insulated by their thick layers of blubber. Normal people with them... shit, some of them are still wearing shorts and t shirts. It's the same exchange every time, and every time it's hilarious.

Normal: (shivering) It's cold out here.

Fatty: NO IT AIN'T! ARRR NUM NUM

Rinse. Repeat.

And these fuckers have an entire shopping cart full of food (their lunch?) so it takes a while to ring them up while the sorry bastard with them is obviously suffering.

With one of them I did say something along the lines of "It's nicer out of the wind and in the sunshine," to which they rumbled "You two need some some more meat on your bones![so I can eat you!]"

That is something I don't think I've been accused of since grade school, when my parents told me they could count my ribs.

Spoilers: Just Saw It on HBO. The Mist Sucks!

2009-10-16T00:31:48Z

This is going to be very spoileriffic. But then, if you really gave a shit about this movie you would've seen it by now.

So The Mist is a movie starring Thomas Jane with Stephen King's grubby fingerprints so all over it that it wasn't a surprise to me at all when his name popped up under "based on a novel by" at the end. But then I think that's something I should of known from the beginning, since the wiki says it was called "Stephen King's The Mist"! Oh well. But it is one of his older stories, so some fans might be sad to see a notable lack of magical retards in this one.

To sum it all up as quickly as possible, after a thunderstorm the Punisher along with his son go to the supermarket to get some supplies, when a scary mist rolls in. And then everyone decides to hang out in the supermarket, and they find out monsters are in the mist, and start worshipping the crazy religious lady because that's what people do after around 2 days of being stuck in a store with monsters around, and then it turns out the military had actually opened up a dimensional portal and that's where the monsters come from.... fuck, do I really have to continue describing this? It's a fucking mess.

But strangely, that's probably why I sat through it. The story is ridiculous (I think I like Gordon Freeman a little less after watching this) and according to the wiki the writer/director was all hyped on showing how people might turn against each other because of fear. And granted, until I'm stuck in a store surrounded by Cthulhu and his buddies I'll have no fucking clue what a realistic response to that situation would be, but in my arrogance I'd like to think it'd take at least 3 days before I'd resort to psycho religion.

They also make comparisons to Lord of the Flies... which is really giving themselves waaaay too much credit. The Mist isn't really a story about civilization breaking down or humanity's darker nature. There's at least 3 instances where it's heavily stressed or monologued that Store Jesus is batshit crazy, and when the Colonel from Die Hard 2 joins her it's because seeing spider monsters has "driven him out of his mind." Maybe if she, had, I dunno, actually done anything besides quote the Bible alot I could see where she could amass her flock of murderous sheep, and then maybe at the end of the week work up to some human sacrifice. When you're surrounded by monsters and someone says "someone else is going to die!"... yeah, not really a prophesy there. Is there food in your house? Some of that food is going to be eaten! Are you going to be impressed by my prediction after breakfast tomorrow? Probably not.

Stories like Lord of the Flies have that kind of impact because if you're honest with yourself you'll admit that when you were 10 years old if all the other kids were going feral you'd probably be right there with them helping to push the boulder on Piggy. Or at least that you can see how that could happen. The Mist just doesn't evoke that kind of empathy. Out of all the crazy, panicy reactions possible, I think "feed Thomas Jane's son to Cthulhu because the local Jesus freak says God wants us to" is low on most of our lists.

The monster attacks are decent enough. It's a little heavy on a bug theme, but other than that they were pretty good.

The thing that really made the movie for me, I mean, worth writing this much about it and looking up the wiki, is the end. Major spoilage here. After fleeing the religious nutbars in the store, everyone jumps in a hummer and hits the rookie road. Well, okay, half of them are eaten in the parking lot, but the other half hit the road. You have Thomas Jane, his son, the love interest, the fiesty old lady and the only other guy besides Thomas Jane to kick monster ass and not get eaten. So they drive until the hummer runs out of gas, and in despair, whip out their trusty revolver. There's only 4 bullets left. Thomas Jane kills everyone else in the hummer, then gets out and starts screaming for monsters to come get him. And, yeah, that's when the army comes rolling down the street in hazmat suits with tanks and flamethrowers.

That really just makes my day. It's like someone thought about the typical Hollywood movie ending and then decided to do the exact opposite of that. I'm surprised as hell that isn't just some test audience rejected DVD extra. I don't even think of it as a downer ending. It's what would make characters in downer endings grateful they're only losing everything and/or dying.

Goodwill

2009-10-13T14:29:03Z

Yesterday after the dentist I went to Goodwill with Russ, to look for jackets we wouldn't mind cutting one of the sleeves off of for the Mad Max party. Turns out that Mondays are Goodwill sale days, half off after 12 o clock. Ever seen a really crowded Goodwill. It's insane!

One thing about Goodwill that kind of hits me hard is that the place really has a strong "dead relative" vibe. And I don't mean because most of what's in there is old people clothes. I mean you see stuff on the shelves like vitamins. Really? Someone donated vitamins? It just seems more like "Grandpa's dead. Put everything we don't want in a box and drop it off at Goodwill." Like they're a garbage dump you don't have to pay for.

But Russ got a... vinyl, pleather? I can't fucking tell, jacket for $4 and was talking about besides hacking off one of the sleeves he was going to take some sandpaper to it to give it a roughed up look. He also mentioned picking up some kind of sports shoulder pads and we discussed certain pieces of other post apocalyptic armor, like car parts and whatnot. Funny enough when we watched the movies on Sunday the common clothing theme seems to be mohawks, bondage gear and loinclothes and assless chaps... but we're probably gonna steer clear of that stuff.

Dark Fantasy

2009-10-12T14:28:05Z

I've been seeing alot of banner ads for Dragon Age: Origins, and even the Penny Arcade guys are writing comics for em. Serious comics! Not, like, jokes about how you can write "STARITE" in Scribblenauts.

The game is by Bioware and is billed as a Dark Fantasy RPG, so I guess if I wanna be a surly, cynical asshole about it I could say "Ye Olde Mass Effect. I wonder if it's going to be an elf's ass we're gonna get to see this time?" But, you know, I really did like Knights of the Old Republic so I know I'll probably end up buying this when it comes out, unless all the reviews start screaming it's terrible.

I guess any misgivings I have are from the emphasis on it being "dark fantasy", a subgenre I feel rarely gets it right. The comic so far shows Templars walking through the woods and killing a peasant girl. When one of them questions that maybe it's wrong to just kill everyone in the woods because you're hunting for ~~wabbits~~ witches, one of the other Templars stabs him in the throat. And then they find the real witch, who's all in a shadowy cloak and tight black leather with open cleavage that I think if I was a Templar I'd feel like a bit of a dumbass for mistaking the peasant girl for a witch. I mean, in comparison, it seems awfully obvious. And that's all I've seen because it's like 1 page a week and the pacing is godawful slow.

So, yeah, not really sure on the dark fantasy here. You have crazy religious knights and witches.... okay. To me what kinda differentiates a masterful blending of horror and fantasy elements over, say, some heavy metal album cover inspired story who's retard creators high five each other and yell "We're totally grimdark!" is the setting. And so far all I've seen is some woods. I mean, is this the ye olde Not-England! land where unimaginable horrors lurk under every bed, ready to drive everyone insane? Or is it just certain places, like woods, you should avoid, because witches live there? Or is it just plain old regular fantasy, but they're calling it dark because the knights are religious assholes?

Partially this is my own bias too. I think sci fi has had an easier time mixing with horror. You can always just have colonists "discover" insert-horror-element, get eaten, and then the story is about the people who come along later. With fantasy it's a little bit harder to fit it in there. And still be sensical. I often wonder when I see some of these how helpless peasants can ever survive, in an ecological sense. A big town filled with yummy people to eat who share a pitchfork between them for self defense that they don't even know how to use. How can that even exist with any decent horror around to wipe it out? At least the space colonists have an excuse. You know, you come to a planet, there's no monsters there, you set up your colony, and then when the monsters do show up you can be surprised about it. In Ye Olde Fantasy Land it's like people should know better. They should of built a wall or something. But no, they're thrown in there because the monsters terrorizing helpless peasants is the cliche. And then my suspension of disbelief is totally fucked.

... and now it's time to go to the dentist for a crown. I might expand a little more on this later. Or not.

Drugs & Deth Metal

2009-10-09T14:40:51Z

So early yesterday morning I had to go see a specialist to get my root canal finished. Who's in fucking Destin. But said trip availed me the opportunity to stop by their Best Buy which does, in fact, have Dethalbum II, a CD I've really wanted since its release, so naturally, no fucking store in Panama City carries it. I even threw in the extra $3 to get the deluxe edition, which comes with a nice DVD and a couple extra songs.

And since I had to drive back from Destin, I got to listen to the whole damn thing. Pretty good. My only complaint is that the songs sound a little too samey compared to the 1st Dethalbum, but then there are bands who're alot worse about that.

I got home in time to watch some of the DVD and go to work. Then the novocaine wore off. That was a miserable space of time. So when I got home I grabbed my prescription for Lortabs and ran back there to get it filled at the pharmacy. There's a coupon for a $10 gift card when you fill a prescription there, so with only getting the generic acetaminophen laced narcotic I actually made $6 in the transaction.

And let me tell ya, even if it is generic it gets the job done. I certainly wasn't in any pain for the rest of the night. And no, you can't have any.

Also it turns out the theme for Brian & George's Halloween party this year is Mad Max, which is pretty awesome. We're going to brand "Pig Killer" into vulpes's chest, and Russ is thinking about hitting thrift shops to find a jacket he won't mind ripping one of the sleeves off of. I wonder how many Humongous's are going to be there? I mean, besides Heather, obviously.

edit: I almost forgot, me and Russ will be watching Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome this weekend sometime for costume ideas, and not because we habitually watch those movies over and over and over again....

WTF Indeed

2009-10-07T22:24:46Z

So, I had today off, and I was listless, and bored, and didn't feel like doing anything I usually do in such circumstances, so instead I ended up looking at websites that for one reason or another I don't visit as frequently as I used to. Something Awful has a section that pretty much killed my afternoon.

What the Fuck, D&D!?

They basically go through old RPG books, mostly monster manuals, and comment on them. And by comment I mean usually mock the artwork, or some of the dumber monsters. Some of them are genuinely laugh out loud funny.... and sadly I own about half of these books.

Some of these hit particularly close to home, but not in a bad way. I'm sure vulpes would love to see someone else hate on RIFTS, and when they start talking about how rules wise The Street Fighter RPG should be easy to convert for World of Darkness LARPs... yeah! We wanted to do that! Stupid Nazi storytellers wouldn't let us!

They also ask people to email in suggestions... geesh. I'm holding off on even doing that, because really, where to begin?

You Can Check Out Anytime You Like, But You Can Never Leave

2009-10-07T15:14:27Z

The News

2009-10-06T22:43:09Z

So, I've gotten my dental bullshit straightened out. It'll probably take the rest of the damn week to actually get the fucking root canal finished, since I have to go see the specialist then go back to my regular dentist for the crown, but at least those fuckers at Delta Dental are acknowledging now that they have to pay for it.

Although now they've conveniently deleted any record that they haven't been. At 10 when I call it's "you're expired. If this fanciful story of group dental coverage is true, and we are supposedly processing such a correction, try calling back tomorrow." When I call at 2:30 (because I was dogging these motherfuckers on this) it's "Of course you're covered. That's what our system says. Why would you even ask?" So, yeah, fuck those assholes. Fuck em in their stupid asses, Roman Polanski style!

Speaking of which, to throw my two cents in on that, I like The Ninth Gate. I like Chinatown. I've seen the very biased bio-documentary on him where they're all "Well, he's from Poland and didn't understand our crazy American ways. In Poland, if someone offers you a 13 year old, it's considered rude not to get them totally fucked up on ludes and sodomize em. And it was the 60s. You know, giving people drugs in the 60s wasn't date rapey. It was the equivalent of, say, offering your guests a glass of water."

So I would really like to give him a pass on it... but no, I can't. It was a really fucked up thing to do, so bad critically acclaimed and talented film director! SHAAAAME!

Does he deserve to go to jail for it? I think when it's been 30 years, the victim in the case says to drop this shit, and there isn't any risk of him repeat offending, then no. Unless she's changed her mind and wants the fucker to go to jail. Then lock him up. See how he likes taking it in the ass. I say it was her ass, it's her call. But last I heard she just wants it fucking over and done with.

Though, to my own selfish asshole-ness, I would like to see him walk just to spite Fox News. What a bunch of fuckers they are. I mean, I expect them to bitch and moan about how Hollywood is sticking up for Polanski, that's what they do, but when they're "I think what people are forgetting here is that this wasn't just sex, it was SODOMY!!!!!!!"

WTF? Like "Yeah, regular sex Fox News can understand. We'd be there right with Woody Allen if it was just regular grown man on 13 year old sex. But buttsex, no, that can't be forgiven!!!"

Jesus.

Also, the whole Obama failed to get the Olympics for Chicago thing. It's only newsworthiness to me is illustrating that this man will never win. Never. He could fix the economy, win fucking Afghanistan, provide affordable, won't fuck you over, non-communist, universal healthcare and it won't fucking matter. Maybe it doesn't help that I genuinely don't give a shit about the Olympics, but when even the fucking morning news lite is "Ho, ho, he really fucked up this one. But his utter, abyssmal failure is good, because you know, hopefully he'll stop making his big, grandiose Obama plans like he does and learn some humility from this," I think they might as well just go ahead and have the anchorman respond with "You're adsolutely right, Steve. He certainly is one uppity nigger, isn't he?"

Not that a honkey president wouldn't of caught shit for it, I'm calling racist on the flavor of shit. Because I don't think they'd bag on a white president about being a pussy for the international apology tour and not telling Afghanistan we're going to fuck them up enough, and then turn around and say "oh, and you need to be more humble too."

ScribbleNOT

2009-10-05T16:27:24Z

So vulpes is posting weird things he can make them do in Scribblenauts. I myself have found through painstaking research that the GRIM REAPER (or DEATH) will whoop both GOD and CTHULHU, but not at the same time. If GOD and CTHULHU team up, they can beat DEATH.

Also if you use CUPID he'll make hostile characters like you. So you can be friends with CTHULHU!

Again, these are things from playing with the title screen. I sometimes go back to trying out some of the puzzles, but i find them annoying and dumb. One thing they put in there to apparently counter my gratuitous JETPACK use is rain clouds (water shorts out the JETPACK). All that means is that now I have to use an UMBRELLA with my JETPACK.

Sometimes they tell you to do something without killing any of the things that will kill you along the way. Sometimes they don't tell you that, but it still applies anyway. So you find out when that thing dies and the game goes to the restart menu.

Best puzzle: There was a puzzle where I was supposed to destroy everything, so I solved it with ATOMIC BOMB. Granted, that killed me too, but the Starite fell on my corpse, so it counted as a win. Sadly, BOMB SHELTER will not protect you from ATOMIC BOMB.

And alot of the professional reviewers complain about the controls, and they are so fucking right about that. The simplest part of most puzzles is getting across gaps. And it's a pain in the ass. If you try to cross with, I dunno, a ROAD, the thing is like 2 pixels wide. Miss grabbing it with your stylus and your little retard character takes it as a movement command and runs into the bottomless pit.

btw, I guess for vulpes, here's a quick cheat sheet of items I use the most in this game:

BLACK HOLE

BAZOOKA

DRAWBRIDGE

JETPACK

SNORKEL

HELICOPTER

.... and ATOMIC BOMB!

But, yeah, other than the Dark Hollow area I dislike almost all of the puzzles in Scribblenauts. I'm going back to playing Professor Layton and the ~~Evil Vagina~~ Diabolical Box

The Zombieland of Scribblenauts

2009-10-04T20:01:47Z

So we saw Zombieland last night. I enjoyed it. vulpes says the 3rd act drags on a bit, and that's probably a fair criticism. I didn't really notice because I watch zombie movies with the expectation that every lull is merely a trick to make you unprepared for the next zombie attack. So, yeah, the whole time it was dragging on like that I was just thinking to myself Hah, they must think the next zombie jumping out will be totally surprising with this much nothing going on, but I'm ready for it!

And if the entire film had revolved around Tallahassee's badassery, I would call it the best film ever made.

Also started playing some Scribblenauts (this link will explain the entire game in comic strip form).

On the title screen you can just write shit in to make it appear. This is the most entertaining part of the game for me. I make things fight CTHULHU. So far the only thing that can beat CTHULHU in a straight up fight is GOD.

The actual puzzle part... well, I don't care for it much. Not even because I can't solve puzzles or anything, but because of the scoring. Maybe the designers were expecting us to try fanciful, amazing ways to solve these puzzles. Look, I'll get the Starite by attaching a UNICORN to a CRANE! But then you get a much higher score for the less items you create. Even though you get less moneys for items you've already used, this still leads to kind of developing a stable use of the better items. There's no point in trying to come up with some weird way to transverse a level using a bunch of different items if I can get the job done with just JETPACK. And believe me, if you play this game after reading this, you will use JETPACK all the fucking time.

Besides that, the portion of your score dealing with your so called creativity, Style, is completely bullshit. Some of the puzzles are ridiculously simple. "This guy wants something to eat, something to wash it down with, and something sweet afterwards!" I wrote CHICKEN, WATER, and CAKE and got a decent Style score for it, which to me, wasn't very creative at all. On the other hand, when I solved a puzzle only using SUPERHERO and CABER, crap Style score.

P.S. Not even a LARGE HADRON COLLIDER can stop CTHULHU.

Fuck Insurance

2009-10-02T00:31:19Z

Looking briefly through my LJ I see alot of video game entries there. In the pretty much having the entire damn week off I've had from cut hours that's probably 90% of what I've been doing. Batman, Saint's Row 2, more Batman after Saint's Row 2 was destroyed, and sporadic World of Warcraft playing. Oh, I did get out to see a movie. And've kinda been reading through the Elric book. Which by the by includes a non-Elric short story Moorcock had published back in the 50s that he probably would've been better off forgetting about.

World of Warcraft... I have to say, the current ~~October~~Brewfest thing is entertaining, just for now having a beer tankard as a 1 handed weapon, but man, I've really gotten sick of the mindless grinding. It's all about collecting goddamn badges to buy more gear, or going on raids to hopefully randomly find new gear, or doing my damn dailies to afford repairing all this gear I already have. I'd probably be less bitchy about it except it seems like they always make awesome bits of the same fucking armor slots. I'm constantly doing minor, almost insignificant upgrades because most of it is chest pieces and helmets while I've had the same crap bracers forever.

So, yeah, tired of endgame WoW, and finding it hard to even do the lowbie levelling stuff. My paladin is 4 levels away from max and I never play it I think solely because then I'd have to start getting gear for the bastard.

The one other thing I've been dealing with, besides games and minor chores, is that apparently when I went to the dentist I needed a root canal ASAP. Well, that sucks, but I have insurance from work, so okay.... Well, the dentist isn't good enough at root canals to deal with mine so after he's dicked around doing about half of it, I get passed off to the specialist. Before I go to my appointment with the specialist, he calls me up to inform me the insurance company is saying I'm not insured. WTF? So I call them. "Expired 9/30" That's funny, because, you know, this is a group plan from fucking work. Well, durr, they don't know shit about that, call HR. I do. They're busy, call back in half an hour. Or leave a message. I call again because at that point my message would've been "CALL ME OR I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!" and that probably would've gotten me fired. They are a sack of useless in clearing anything up but give me another phone number for the store's Benefits Team or some other fucking retarded term for whoever they are. That leads to a round of automated message choose your own adventure that ends with "We're sorry, but insurance customer service is in another 1 800 number." So I call that number and get to deal with the automated voice recognition bullshit. "For insurance questions, say Insurance!" It actually redirects me back to the fucking dental insurance company who I called in the beginning. I fuck with them for a bit just because at this point I think they deserve it. But it's the same thing "our system says expired on 9/30, no matter how fucking insane that obviously is. Try calling HR. Oh, you already did. We have some contact numbers on file! Oh, they're the ones you already called. Well, we're dumb and can't help you, durr durr durr"

So I call voice recognition number again and try to be as vague as possible with my selections so I actually get to talk to someone, instead of being redirected to the dental insurance company's number. The guy I talk to says according to them I'm insured, so it basically has to be what he calls a manual override: someone on our side gets ahold of the fuckers to vouch that I am, in fact, covered. He says he'll mark it urgent and call me back as soon as it goes through. Which should be soon, but no promises. 15 minutes before my appointment I have to call the specialist and reschedule to Monday morning, which hopefully is enough time to fucking sort these bitches out.

But that also means I'm spending the next few days in mid root canal with a piece of fucking play dough stuck in my tooth. I was told soup is my friend and not to chew with that side of my mouth.

So yeah, even if I'm not called in Saturday (and I'll probably tell them to fuck off anyway because of how fucking early I'm ALWAYS scheduled for Sunday and play dough tooth surliness) I'm probably not going to Octoberfest or whatever the hell else it was you guys were planning on doing then. Although Doofy mentioned a movie, and I would kinda like to see Zombieland.