Well that was fast...

Hmph, it's New Year's Eve already. What the hell just happened? Anyway, I've been noticing the atypical trend of new year's resolutions. The one I've seen the most: "I resolve to take all things in moderation." WTF kind of resolution is that? You may as well just not make one. Or maybe that's the whole point.

So anyway, after getting the last of the bloody honor I needed for my HWL staff in WoW, I needed a well deserved break today. Well, actually, I needed explosions. Big explosions. So I continued replaying Half-Life 2 as I had started last week, and got to the levels in the canals with the airboat. Man I love that level. Things were falling off the walls as I was taking down the helicopter by the dam, as it dropped hundreds of hydromines. Fun stuff.

Now I'm off to the New Year's party. Happy New Year to all!

Dick in a box

Golden!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmdwBmmuaNE

Worst Office Name Ever

Gen Italia


You know, when I saw this, I really thought I had read it incorrectly. But no. What a terrible way to abbreviate Genoa, Italy.

It's almost as bad as the tourist website for Lake Tahoe, NV. Their slogan is "Go Tahoe!". So, their website is www.gotahoe.com

GOT A HOE!!!


I'm such an adolescent.

Tis the season...

Went shopping Friday night, finally. I took my Mom, my sister, and my brother-in-law with me, since shopping with my family always ends up being a memorable experience for any number of reasons. Almost getting thrown out of Giant Eagle for playing lightsabers with the gift wrap tubes was an especially nice touch.

As we were wandering through Wal-Mart, I happened upon these unique chairs. Personally, I was going to buy the pink ones, but we settled on brown. See below. All we need now are some fuzzy cupholders and we'll be set. Gonna take these to tonight's party. Oh yes.

FEAR XP End

I finished this game at around 5:00 AM this morning.

All I gotta say is WOW. I hate the fact that nothing was resolved, and I learned NOTHING new. Obviously, they plan on making another one. Going past that, however, the final levels utterly blew me away. This game has surpassed The Suffering as the scariest I've ever played.

The screenshot above from the morgue level should pretty much sum it up. Picture that drawer coming open super-fast as you approach it. Undies soiling material right there.

RIP Mary Blum

September 2, 1918 - December 19, 2006

She will be missed.

Does this look like Ernie Hudson to you?

More F.E.A.R.

When I played the original F.E.A.R., there were many aspects of the game that I really, really enjoyed. Two of these were the incredible slo-mo gunplay and the knack the game had for scaring the shit out of me. I was hoping both of these elements would be present in the expansion pack, and I wasn't disappointed.


The game picks up exactly where the original left off: the horror moppet climbed into your helicopter and crashed it, and now you're in the middle of a ruined city and must make your way to the extraction point. Things, of course, are never just that easy. Somehow, the main villain that you killed in the first game isn't quite dead, and his army of clones are on the rampage again. Major slo-mo gun battles ensue.

One particular event in the game has stuck with me so far. After the incident in the first game, there were three members of the F.E.A.R. team left, including the playable character. You catch up with one of these other team members, and actually play through a whole level with them. Then, you get to watch him get torn apart by an invisible attacker that you can't see nor kill. You're helpless to do anything to save him.

This sequence reminded me very much of the end of Prey, where you have to kill the girl you've been trying to save for the entire game. I really enjoy when games are able to evoke emotions like that -- it makes the gameworld all the more immersive and enjoyable.


All in all, this game is equal to it's predecessor in every way. The only complaint I have thus far is a strange bug I've experienced 3 times now -- It seems that certain objects make my computer lag really bad, turning my FPS into a slideshow. It's been triggered by a car in flames, a crashed plane in flames, and a boss-fight. When I would face the car, plane, or boss, by frame rate would take a dump. Turning my back on the objects would fix the problem. Very strange. It certainly made beating the boss much more difficult, but it's only happened these three times so far. I'm not sure what's causing it either. On the plane, when I got closer to it, the problem stopped.

Other than that, it's golden.

Click Me

I heard the buzz when Click first came out, and also all the negative reviews from critics. I finally got around to watching the movie today, and overall I would say it was a good movie. Predictable, but good. I was able to guess how it was all going to end about 15 minutes into it. To me, they made it painfully obvious. But maybe that was their intent, to drive home the message of the movie. It doesn't matter that you know how it's going to end...just enjoy the ride.

All the usual Adam Sandler moments were present, and as usual he surrounded himself with his usual cohorts (especially Henry Winkler and Sean Astin). Especially entertaining was Henry Winkler comparing his penis to a tic-tac at birth.

"C'mere pops, lemme freshen your breath."


Hahahaha.....ewwwwww.

...

My grandmother isn't doing so well. Got a call around 2:30 AM yesterday informing us that her heart rate has become irregular, and that she's sometimes going nearly a full minute without breathing. Obviously, she doesn't have much time left.

We've been doing shifts at the nursing home since last night while waiting for the inevitable. Sadly, it could be days still. There's just no way to know.

I knew I liked Lou Dobbs for a reason...

Good article, have a read:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/Dobbs.Dec13/index.html

What the hell is this?!

OMG! The unthinkable has happened.....

I made a new Counter-Struck! comic. Oh yes.

Check it: http://www.pastatdude.com/comic/

The Midget Story

Every once in a while, something so unbelievable happens that you could probably win the Powerball 100 times before anything like it will happen again. Today, such an event occurred.

I was talking to one of my team members today, and the subject of our visitor was brought up. One of the product managers from our corporate office is visiting us this week, so I was explaining what he did, what his title was, etc. I then jokingly added, "He's sitting over on the other side near Ed. Just look for the midget operating a laptop and cell phone."

Some time passed. Soon I noticed Mark go outside for a smoke, and I continued on with my work as usual. Suddenly, he comes running into my cubicle with this wide-eyed expression on this face.

"You're an asshole!" He exclaimed.

"What now?" I asked, trying to recall if I had performed any such practical jokes that would justify such a proclaimation. He then pointed out my window, and I turned, looked, and my jaw then dropped onto my desk. Leaving the office building at that very moment was a midget.

"Are you fucking with me on purpose?" He asked.

I was laughing too hard to even respond, and also in shock at how SLIM, ANOREXICALLY SLIM, the odds were of what just happened. I can just imagine the confusion he had when he walked outside for a cigarette to see a midget standing in front of him, after the joke I made about our product manager. Absolutely golden.

Later on, I told him that I considered paying the midget $20 to walk back to his desk, just to hear him scream like a girl.

"Yep, I would scream like a girl. Actually, I probably wouldn't even be able to handle it."
"Well you don't have to worry, he's gone now. Or *IS* he?"
"Dude, that's not funny..."


We'll be talking about this for a long time. The day started out so small and insignificant too. (Pun intended.)

This is your wake up call...

For some strange reason, this morning I just couldn't wake up. It took me so long to drag my sorry ass out of bed that I was nearly late for work, which I found odd because I didn't go to bed any later the night before. Things did not improve when I stumbled into work either, as I found myself constantly nodding off at my desk. Taking matters into my own hands, I proceeded to consume 2 cans of cherry soda, a package of chocolate chip cookies, and two excedrin migraines. Problem was solved about about 20 minutes, although I'm sure my fellow co-workers were getting pretty annoyed with me bouncing up and down in my chair for the rest of the day.

The Exorcism of Rate Builder

Among many of the job titles I have at work, one of them is Product QA Analyst. Which, naturally, is a glorified term for "tester". We have a product called ORB, which has an SQL structure and a web-based front end.

We're releasing a new version soon, going from 6.1 to 6.2. Anyone who works in the software industry knows that when it comes to software versions, a number change directly to the right of the decimal point signifies significant changes. Oh joygasm.

A fellow tester and myself were given 14 test cases, so 7 each. 9 of these 14 failed. I swear, it was like something out of a horror movie.
The script would look something like this:

Me: Hello ORB, how are you today?
ORB: Just fine thanks! I've been upgraded with many new features!
Me: That's great! Let's try the first one, shall we?
ORB: Yes, just press this button, and I will perform the function flawlessly.

*I press the button*

ORB: YAAAAAARGH! LET JESUS FUCK YOU! MMMMMMRAAAAAAARGH!
Internet Explorer: ¡SOY MUERTO!

*Internet Explorer dies*

ORB: RAAAAAAARGH! YOUR MOTHER SUCKS COCKS IN HELL! GRRRRRRRRAAGHR!
Windows: AIEEEEEEE!!!!!!

*windows dies*

ORB: GRAAAAAAAAGHRGH! TSEIRP EHT REAF! RRRRAWWWWWRGH!

*ORB's head spins around completely*


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a debugger. (Which translates to "GET ME A BLOODY PRIEST AND SOME HOLY WATER! WE NEED A FUCKING EXORCISM HERE!")

Bleh-ger

Blogger has been a little bitch lately, and I'm about to slap it like one. It kept timing out when I tried to publish last night's post, yet today when I tried to re-publish it, it was already there. I guess this is what happens when Google takes something over...

Peace Be With You

I was listening to the radio on the way home from work today, and I caught this news clip about a woman who hung a wreath in the front of her house for Christmas with a peace sign in the middle of it. The homeowner's association threatened to fine her daily if she didn't take it down because they claimed it "offended the relatives of soldiers serving in the Iraq War" and "can also be considered a sign of the devil".

Excuse me? Did I just get teleported to Retardsville, USA or something? When the FUCK did the peace sign become a pentagram? Or the number 666? If you'll pardon the verbal repertoire, what the HELL are this people thinking? I don't know what religion they belong to, but in MINE, Christmas is all about the whole PEACE ON EARTH GOODWILL TOWARDS MEN thing. Which I guess needs to be updated to goodwill towards everyone.

What's next? Religious atheists?

"I'm an atheist, I swear to God!"

Turkey Day

I hope everyone had a happy turkey day. Mine was real nice, did all the typical Thanksgiving day activities, including watching some football, playing some games, and looking at all the ads for tomorrow's big shopping day. Given the current hour that I'm writing this, it should be pretty obvious that I'm not going this year. (I would have to be waking up in about 45 minutes if I were.)

In other news, if you haven't heard Lips of an Angel by Hinder yet, you really should. It's a great song. I believe it's featured in the TV show Grey's Anatomy if I'm not mistaken, and they've been playing it on the radio here pretty regularly. I also think Hinder is a new group, as Extreme Behavior is their first album. I've yet to listen to the rest of the album, but I'll get to that real soon.

Anomaly

As many of you probably already know, Incubus is my favorite band. They belong in a very short list of music performers who, when they release a new album, I generally enjoy every song on it in one way or another.

Incubus' newest album, "Light Grenades" is no exception. While I will point out that it's not going to be my number 1 favorite Incubus album, I will say that it's better than some of their earliest work. Morning View remains my album of choice.

The first single off the album, Anna Molly, is currently my favorite track, followed closely by Diamonds and Coal. The chorus to Anna Molly is typical Incubus -- they write some of my favorite lyrics.

I picture your face, in the back of my eyes.
A fire in the attic a proof of the prize.
Anomaly, anomaly, anomaly.

You can hear it now on my playlist.

New! Improved!

In Google's neverending efforts to take over the world, they've redone the whole blogger program. Of course, all I see are shiny new buttons that do the same thing the old buttons did. Go figure. I really don't see what all you can do with Blogger. I mean, really, you type in a window and post. What else is there?

ANYway, I got skynet back on Thursday. I really don't know how I was surviving this past month without it. And for the curious, the first thing I did when I got it back was delve into my old emails, looking for proof that my system really was under warranty. And lo and behold, I found the emails, and forwarded said information to Alienware with a "WTF, mate?". Confirmation was soon received that my warranty is indeed good until 2007. Boo-ya! No charge for repairs. Mwa-hahahaha.

And I don't know what the hell they put in my liquid cooling system, but the damn thing is running about 20 degrees cooler than it did before. Whoa.

Now I'm off for dinner at Applebees. Mmmmm, Applebees. I like anyplace where I can have BOTH good food and booze.

Skynet's Impending Return

It's been, what, a little over a month now? Honestly, had I known it would have taken them this long to fix my computer, I would have just done it myself; warranty or not. But alas, these are the lessons we learn.

There's one piece of information in the email I received that has me terribly worried:

Your system is undergoing the Alienware® Repair Depot Quality Control process. This
stage includes the reinstallation of the operating system, drivers and any
applications that are specific to the system you ordered.

Hm? From reading that, it sounds like they're wiping my hard drives. Why?! They replaced the POWER SUPPLY, there's no reason to do that. Needless to say, if they did wipe my drives, I'm going to have a lot of work ahead of me. Given the wording of that paragraph though, I'm hoping this was simply an automated message. "Specific to the system you ordered." I didn't ORDER anything, this was a repair job.

But anyway, the scheduled delivery date is Friday. I guess I'll find out then whether I'm going to be sifting through hundreds of discs and redownloading a bunch of shit. *Sigh*

Someone likes it...

I've written several stories now. My desire to write stems from having certain ideas in my head that I realize would create a story that I would like to read, and thus I put the ideas in a notebook until I eventually have the material needed to create a full-fledged, flowing plot. But I don't write the stories so that I can show other people and ask them what they think....I write them because I want to know how they're going to end.

As such, I never really cared to have anyone read anything that I've actually written. This is coming from a person who was actually thrown out of high school for a full two weeks because of something he wrote. (Long story....ask me about it sometime.) This resulted in a particular disconcern for other people's opinions of my creations. This is not necessarily an unhealthy attitude, but many people began pointing out to me that if I'm going to create something, I should at least share it. Even in anonymity.

So, I decided to load a few of the things I wrote onto Fictionpress. I expected a few hits, maybe a few reviews saying "Ok, not great..", and that would be the end of it.

Instead, I got thousands of hits, dozens of reviews, and over 50 people adding the stories to their favorites list. (The site is cool, you can track all that information...) Here's the most recent review I've gotten:

Astonishing...this is by far the best story I have ever read on this or any other site. The fighting is well done, the characters are all different and interesting, and your writing style is great.

Honestly, I never thought anything I wrote was all that great, because like I said I just wanted to tell the stories for my own sake of completion. But I do appreciate that other people enjoy them as well, that's pretty cool.

Mmmmm, forbidden donut...

So I'm driving into work this morning, and as I merge off the main expressway I end up behind a Hostess/Wonder Bread truck. That's nothing new, there are quite a few convenience stores around my office building. We get to the stop sign and are waiting to merge onto the main road. As I'm sitting there, I noticed something on the rear bumper of the truck -- it's 4 packages of donuts! Oopsie.

I was kind of hoping they'd fly off and hit my windshield, so I could grab 'em. I could have gone for a donut this morning. =)

Gesundheit

A lot of people in my family have allergies. I was lucky, however, and don't really have any. I'm not allergic to cats, or dust, or pollen, or mold, or whatever. So unless I have a cold or something, I hardly ever sneeze.

Except at work. The air filtration in this office must really suck, cause I'm always sneezing for no reason. It's less of a problem now that I've gotten a new cubicle (window seat!), but it still happens occasionally. Today, I went to the bathroom, and suddenly had a sneezing fit while taking care of business.

Boy, are the cleaning people going to be unhappy with me. >_<

Rainbow Plucking

I've posted this before, but I was reminded of it today after a conversation here at work somehow spiralled out of control into the area of twangers and plucking.

The Peek-A-Boo Pole Dancing Kit

So, yesterday I was listening to the radio again on my way to work, since my car was still in the shop. (Incidentally, I have it back now and the repairs are all done.) Amazingly enough, I actually heard a SONG. On the radio! In the morning! That never happens. It was something I'd never heard before, and of course the DJ didn't allude as to the band or the title of the particular track.

As a result, I went to the station's website when I got into work since they have a lovely "Recently Played" list that shows you what songs have aired in the past 30 minutes or so. After discovering the song in question (Through Glass by Stone Sour), I noticed a strange looking picture at the bottom of the page.



The morning show host always posts links of strange websites he finds, and this one was a doozy:

http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/product.asp?ID=1117

The Peek-A-Boo Pole Dancing Kit.

If you do nothing else, you MUST watch the commercial at the bottom of the page. Golden!

Apparently, this stripper pole was originally a CHILDREN'S TOY over in Europe, before finally being banned and only sold in adult stores. A children's toy! WTF!

Boogie Men

And no, I don't mean John Fucking Travolta.

I drove my mother's car to work this morning, because she is taking mine to HER work so that my brother can look at it. For those who don't know, my brother owns an auto repair shop, and my mother works there as the secretary. It's good for me, because I can get my car repaired for the price of parts.

ANYway, I'm driving to work and of course don't have any of my CD's and was forced to listen to the radio. And, since it's morning, of course no one is playing any music and I was forced to listen to a local radio show. I guess I picked a good time to send my car to the shop, because the topic of the day was horror movies. My favorite!

The host was reading a list of "Favorite Horror Movie Killers". I forget which website he pulled the list....Rapid-something.com....but some of the choices were weird.

Number 3 was the house in The Amityville Horror. Huh?

Number 2 was Angela from Sleepaway Camp. HUH?!
While I will admit that movie has one of the greatest plot twist endings of any horror movie, ever, the killer herself (himself) wasn't all that memorable outside of that. (For those of you who don't know, Angela was the killer but at the end of the movie she's standing naked on a beach with a severed head and we find out she's a guy cause you can see...ahem...his MACHETE.)

The other ones were all good though. What was interesting about this list was that they provided a sexual orientation for each killer.

Freddy Krueger = Pedophile
Jason Vorhees = Anti-Sex (cause he kills people who are having sex)
Leatherface = Transvestite
Angela = Crossdresser
Michael Myers = Confused
The House from Amityville = Home-o-Sexual (Oh come on, you saw that one coming, didn't you?)

Freddy Krueger was #1 on the list. (How sweet...)

So I guess I'll create my own top 10 list:

1. Freddy Krueger
2. Pazuzu, the demon from The Exorcist
3. Jason Vorhees
4. Pinhead
5. Ghostface
6. Michael Myers
7. Evil Ed (Bonus points if you tell me what movie this is from!)
8. Jigsaw
9. Leatherface
10. Zombies! (Night of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Land of the Dead, etc, etc, George Romero FTW)

Bad Fido!

When you own a cat, there are certain things you must do that normal people who don't have cats would find bizarre. For example, when I get home from work, I place all the items contained in my pockets (keys, cell phone, loose change, etc.) on top of my refrigerator. Why? Because my cat can't reach them up there and therefore can't HIDE them.

I certainly can't leave my belt laying around either, that thing would be gone before it even hits the ground. I have a hard enough time trying to put it ON with the paws batting at it.

My cat knows he has no claws too, because he makes heavy use of his teeth. I don't nickname him SABERTOOTH for nothing.

Well, I sure hope he likes soup. Cause that's all he's going to be able to eat after I rip his teeth out. Yesterday evening, I came home and see that my headset was on the floor. I thought nothing of it and just placed it back on the desk where it belongs. Later on, after I sat down in front of my computer and put them on, I could only hear out of one ear and soon thereafter realized that the microphone wasn't working at all. Upon inspecting the cord, I found it had been chewed in several places clean through the rubber coating AND the copper wire.

So, now I have to go buy a new headset after work. And a pair of pliers to pull some teeth. And a tranquilizer gun. And those tranquilizers they used on the T-Rex in The Lost World. That might be enough...

Seen Saw?

Saw 3 came out this weekend. I didn't actually go see it, because I have better things to do, but I did read a summarized version of the script. (That's usually what I do when I'm interested in a movie, but not interested enough to actually watch it.)

The writers always make a big deal how the stories in Saw are different from other horror/slasher films in that they have clever plot twists and substance. And, a trilogy in the horror genre (as Scream 3 so eloquently put it) is quite rare. While I will agree that the first movie did break new ground in this regard, it seems now that it's just the same thing over and over again. Honestly -- who is going to see these movies for the story? No one. They're going to see the gore, and to see the creative ways that these poor bastards are going to die. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But, from what I've read, Saw 4 is already in production. So much for this being a trilogy. Let's see, in what ways HAVEN'T people died yet? Well, most of the traps in the first 3 movies have been mechanical. Maybe they'll go organic in part 4.

How about a tank of piranhas? Someone could be encased within a huge airtight cube of beef jerky, and submerged in a tank of water full of thousands of piranhas. The subject only has until the fish eat through the jerky to figure out how to release a lever somewhere in the tank that will electrically charge the water -- enough to kill all the fish but only seriously wound the subject. Then, after the subject escapes the tank and jumps out, a rabid PUMA attacks him and bites off his head. You taking notes, writers?

Horrors!

For those that know me well, you know that it's not often that I'm left utterly speechless. So when it happens, it's always a story worth telling.

First, some backstory. There's a particular employee that works in my office, who we shall simple refer to as Wookie. I have other names, such as Chewbacca, Sasquatch, Cousin It, Nairwolf, and many others. But we'll just pick Wookie for this story.

Anyway, the Wookie is a piece of work. As you can probably guess by the nicknames, she's got more hair on her body than a French woman's armpits. She can grow a better beard than I can, probably has more leg hair that I do, and as for the other regions...I'm guessing if anyone would want to tap that, they'd have to roll her in flour and look for the wet spot.

All these disgusting traits aside, however, she does provide the office with some much needed entertainment -- because she also has absolutely no idea how to socialize with other human beings. We're talking zero social skills here, people. So of course, when she accidentally runs into the door of the office and then says "Oops, sorry." to it, I can't help but laugh.

The comedy is so golden that this particular co-worker was the subject of issues 3 and 4 of my Uncorporate America comic strip. (You can find the strips here.)

Okay, with the backstory out of the way I can get to the issue at hand. Today, we had a meeting with the big guy, who was announcing several changes coming about in our office. Several people were promoted, including myself, and a bit of restructuring is taking place. Typical office stuff. I'm now the Rate Builder Team Lead, in addition to my Supervisor of Calculable Contracts position. I'm also inheriting the Account Implementation business. Yay for me.

After these announcements, the big guy then explained how anyone interested in any of the new positions should make it known to their managers, and further emphasized that he already had his eye on a few people to eventually assume different roles in the company. He then looked over at the Wookie, saying "And I know for a fact that with your skill set, Steve has you on his list. Right, Steve?"

Speechless. Utterly speechless. I think I may have tried to respond to that, and it must have somehow resembled a "Okay", because he then moved on to the next subject, leaving me standing there with this voice in my head screaming "What the fuck just happened?!"

And of course the Wookie was all happy and excited and bouncing up and down in her seat upon hearing that. It's time for me to take the boss out for a drink and a "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!" conversation. He must be getting even with me for cracking jokes at how he threw his back out last week.


In other news, when FedEx says "2 Day Shipping" they mean "One Week". I got an email from Alienware today stating that they received my PC. It's been 8 days. Suck my pole!

Classic Mom Stuff

My mom is a typical mom. She worries about the most minor of things that happen to her kids, yet doesn't worry about the really important stuff happening to HER. Case in point:

I still don't understand why she feels that she has to keep telling me, "Sorry about your computer." Huh? You're sorry? For what? Did YOU blow it up? I don't think so... Besides, it's a COMPUTER. It's not like I had something amputated.

As a continution of this example, this following conversation ensued last night. She started it.

"Are you okay?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're not sick are you?"
"Nooooo, not that I know of. Why do you ask?"
"Earlier this week you looked stressed out. And you've lost weight."
"Are you on crack?"
"Maybe you should go get a physical."

At this point I was laughing my ass off. But, of course, I had to explain myself thoroughly to get her off my case.

"First of all, I was stressed out earlier this week because the whole damn house was filled with smoke and I had no idea WHY until I noticed it was bellowing out of my computer. Secondly, yes, I have lost weight, because I am 6'2" and weighed 200 pounds, which is above the average BMI for a person of my skeletal structure. I'm now down to 180 pounds, which is a perfectly acceptable weight, although I would like to be more around 170-175."


The long explanations do the trick every time. I'm surprised she noticed I lost weight though -- typically when a person loses anything less than 30-40 pounds, only people that don't see them everyday can notice it.

Joys of a Backup PC

When using a spare PC, it's amazing how many little things you discover that you use every single day. The first time I wanted to check my bank accounts online, I of course had to look up my login information, install a security plug-in, and switch a security setting in my web browser. Making a post on my blog? Again, had to look up my login information, install a java plugin, install an embedded video plugin, and adjust my firewall to allow permissions to publish.

The best, however, was when I went to download something from my newsgroup. First, I had to remember the URL to the site, and my login. After that, I had to install GrabIt, which is the program that interprets the NZB files from the site and downloads the stuff I need. After installing GrabIt, I had to provide it the newsgroup information, which including ANOTHER username and password. This I couldn't remember, and thus had to have it reset and emailed to me by the newsgroup. After getting that setup, I finally was able to download my shit. But, the nightmare just wasn't over! The files were .RAR, and of course I didn't have WinRAR. I downloaded WinRAR professional........and it was packaged up in .RAR files. BRILLIANT!!! So I had to download the free version of WinRAR so I could extract the real version and install it. Then I had to download and install QuickPAR to verify the RAR files before unextracting them.

It took me about 1,837 times longer to get READY to download the little program I wanted than it did to actually download it.

New Backup Computer

Not as beefy as my main, of course, but here are the specs:

AMD 64 3800+
1 GB RAM
250 GB HD
Dual Layer 16X DVD burner with LightScribe

Gonads and Strife

Have you ever seen it? The little flash movie I'm referring to in the title of this post?

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee.php


I think of this little clip everytime a catastrophe happens in my life. I dunno why, really...probably because it makes me laugh. And, you know, strife is kind of appropriate in times like these.

ANYway, on to the topic at hand:

Last night I was minding my own business, playing some WoW. I began to notice a very faint burning smell, which was noticeable enough to make me investigate around the house for the source. Finding nothing, I contributed it to it being the first time the central heating had been turned on. Probably dust in the ductwork making it's way out.

As the night wore on, the smell got considerably stronger. Soon, I noticed a light tinge of smoke near the ceiling, and was now clearly concerned. I went and turned off the heat just to be safe, and began looking around for the cause of the problem. I came back downstairs to find smoke pouring out of the back of my computer, which then immediately shut itself down. Good heavens!

So, after examining the situation, I came to the conclusion that the power supply had blown up. The smoke was coming from that box. Also, before the computer shut itself down, I noticed the temperature gauge read a very normal 97 degrees fahrenheit. Which means that the CPU itself didn't overheat -- good news.

I called the support department for me PC, only to have them tell me my warranty had expired. That didn't change the fact that I need to have the machine fixed, so I packaged up the tower and got it ready to send back to them. Later, after calming down and thinking for a bit, I distinctly remember extending my warranty to be a total of 3 years, which would mean that I have 1 year left. I still need to find my documentation on that, but I'm pretty sure I'm right and will hopefully not have to pay anything. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on that.

As I was on the phone with customer support, I was installing WoW on my backup PC, which is considerably older. Tonight I came to the conclusion that it will just flat out NOT run the game. It's too old.

Therefore, it's useless to me as a backup, and will be replaced with a new backup computer tomorrow. A vast majority of people will call this any number of adjectives, such as "stupid", "obsessive", etc, etc. Your opinion. It's not the way I see it. Look at it from my perspective:

I have a backup computer for a reason -- to use in the tragic circumstance where my main computer is temporarily out of commission. If said backup computer can't do the things I need it to do, then obviously I need to replace it. I can't think of anything more logical than that.

Besides that, if I ever decide to have another LAN party, I would obviously need a computer that can run the damn games. Otherwise it's kind of hard to do MULTI-PLAYER with ONE computer.

So I'm going shopping tomorrow. Whee!

Fixed!

This stupid thing has been broken for about 2 weeks now. For some reason, I had to switch the publishing type to SFTP from FTP. Why, I have no idea, but it's working now.

Even more fun at the supermarket...

So I needed a few things today, and went grocery shopping. Cereal, some snacks, iced tea....the essentials. I can never find the cereal aisle in that damn store for some reason, and end up reading every fucking sign until I finally find it. As I'm looking around, I pass the personal hygiene aisle and one of the items listed on the big sign was "facials".

I'm pretty sure everyone who saw me laughing hysterically to myself thought I escaped from some asylum.

Viewage

Sorry for the lapse of entries, but I really haven't had anything interesting to speak of lately. Of course, having something interesting to speak of would require me doing something interesting. Obviously, playing WoW in my free time isn't going to leave much opportunity for that to happen.

So after today, I'm on vacation for a week. Notice how I'm keeping busy here at work waiting for this day to end. =) I thought about going somewhere, but ultimately decided against it. Instead, I'm going to save the money I would have spent in travelling and use it towards the new computer monitor that I want to buy.

And for those of you whom I have not told about my new favorite song, go listen to it now!

Er?

I'm confused. This was an ad on a website I was reading. Just a simple Google-sense ad. But wtf. It states "create Hollywood-style special effects!"......yet it has a picture of an anime character on it.

I had a Fonzie moment...

I went upstairs for dinner, and was filling up my plate when the red light went out on the stove. This stove is a GE electric stove, and is quite old. Prolly around 25-30 years old, as a matter of fact. Anyway, this red light does nothing more than inform you that one of the burners is on. My Mom goes, "Hey, what happened to the light?"

I then proceeded to smack the countertop with my fist, and the light came back on. I felt quite Fonz-like.

The Birds......part 2

Remember the story about the bird that nearly flew threw the windshield?

This morning, I was headed home with my Mom. She was driving. We're almost home, and there are these two large black birds on the road. They flew to the right, away from us, as we approached. Remembering the experience a few weeks ago, I yelled loudly in mimic of the way she reacted to that said bird. This, of course, scared the shit out of her and she screamed as well. Which was quite funny in itself. But, then one of the bird made a u-turn and flew in front of us, and she screams again. THAT was just hilarious.

Please leave a donation...

I donated blood today. I've done so a million times before and it's never that big of a deal. They threw me a curve today, however.

"Would you like do the red cell plasma donation?"

Excuse me?

I've never donated anything other than whole blood, so I had no idea what she was talking about. I found out that they simply separate the red blood cells and plasma out of your blood as you donate, and put the rest back into your body along with a nutrient solution. It was actually kind of neat, because the fluids going back into my body were below room temperature, so I felt all cold on the INSIDE. I've never felt anything quite like it before.

I kinda wish they would have told me it took twice as long though. =/

Adventures with the Stupid

Common theme it seems. I typed in that title and it's on autocomplete. Golden!

Anyway, I had to stop and get a gallon of milk after the visit to the nursing home this evening. Sadly, the GOOD supermarket in my town closes pretty early in the evening, so I was forced to go to this crappy convenience store over a few streets. I hate this place because it seems to attract all the trash in a 30 mile radius. Tonight was no exception.

I knew I was in for an adventure when it took me 5 minutes to find a jug of milk that didn't expire TOMORROW. Finally, I find an August 11th one, and I make my way to the counter. I should note that my sister was with me here. Now, I get to the counter and there's this little skinny old-ish man buying cigarettes. My sister goes over the magazine rack, and I wait in line. The man starts talking, and it's not coherent. I soon realize that this guy is thoroughly intoxicated. After paying and mumbling something about gas money, he turns from the counter to leave and loses his balance. He wavers around wildling, almost falling into me. He was so small that he wouldn't have even moved me anyway, so I just stood watching him, making no attempt to catch him. I would have derived pleasure in seeing him bounce of me and onto the floor, but alas he somehow managed to stay on his feet.

After some more incoherent mumbling, he starts trying to find the door. (Which is only 2 feet behind him, I might add.) I go up to the counter to pay, and notice the cashier (teenage girl) looks kinda worried. I think she thought this guy was actually going to do something, so I lighten the mood a little bit. "Hey, are my sunglasses okay? I think his breath melted them a bit..." This lightened her up a bit.

I turn to see how my drunken friend is doing, and he's still trying to find the door. A woman comes and opens the door, who I'm guessing is this man's wife or girlfriend. She's holding the door open for him, but is standing IN THE DOORWAY. I then realize she's also smashed. My sister sees that I had finished paying, and comes over from the magazine rack, not knowing what had been going on.

"Why are you stopping?" She asks, and I say to her very loudly:

"These people here are drunk off of their asses!"

The woman gives me this nasty evil look, and I turn and look right at her, saying very slowly so her drunk mind could process it: "Yes, DRUNK OFF YOUR ASSES."

We then walked passed them and to our car. As we pulled out, I noticed the guy was actually driving. He nearly ran over a pedestrian and pulled out in front of a car on his way out of the parking lot. Fool.

I can paint, too...

So I get this email today from someone I don't know, working for someone I've never heard of, for this website that I never knew existed.

Apparently, they are planning on making their own web-based DBZ series, and would like me to be an artist on the show. Because they liked the artwork I drew on my site.


They fail.

Mmm, vacation...

Today was a weird day. It started at breakfast, when I see this very, very weird looking moth in the parking lot of the restaurant. Check this out:

Now, I didn't put anything beside it for scale because I didn't want to risk it flying away while I took its picture with my phone. However, it was probably SIX INCHES long. (15 CM for you metric people). Fook!

Next, on the way home this morning, there's this big bird (probably a buzzard) munching on a dead animal in the road. It flies off as our car approached, but for a second looked like it was going to go right through the windshield. I'm still having some trouble hearing out of my left ear after my mother screamed into it.

Then, on my way home this afternoon, a tree nearly fell on me! I was driving home, and I look over to my left and see this tree coming at me. It missed me completely, but as I looked in my rearview mirror I could see a huge cloud of dust in the road. Yikes.

Cool stuff

So I got all these neat little php scripts today - here's one of them.......a MUSIC PLAYER. Coooool.

Death by Ball!

BOOM! BALL SHOT!

GUN JUGGLING!

Humorous Video

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Mine are big enough, thank you."

Prey No More

Similar to the aliens in Independence Day, an entire civilization of extra-terrestrials came to earth in a giant sphere-shaped spaceship, which then orbited the planet as the inhabitants abducted millions of people and began to eat them. Those that weren't eaten were turned into cyborg-like fighting machines, sent to make my life miserable as I tried to fight my way to the leader. This game is host to one of the most horrifying experiences I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in a computer game. From the moment the aliens attack, I had one objective in the game: Fight my way to my girlfriend, Jen. 87% of the way through the game, I finally find her, only she's now half monster. The monster half is hell bent on ripping me apart, while the human part is crying hysterically and telling me to run. I kill the monster part, but the girlfriend part is still alive, albeit barely. I then had to put a bullet in her head. This game's got SUBSTANCE.

After that, you can imagine my character wasn't a happy camper. It was then on to find the boss lady, the leader of it all. After fighting my way through an arena, where I had to battle every single monster I had encountered before one by one from weakest to most powerful (nice touch), I then had to fight about 20 of these huge "keeper" creatures. They fragged nice. Then, I was face to face with HER.


She was happy to see me.

No, really, she was, cause her plot was to have me take her place as leader of these aliens. Instead, I spread her innards all over the arena. Then, in a rather cool ending, I flew their huge sphere of a spaceship right into the sun. Boom.

I feel dizzy...

Walking into a room and then falling onto the ceiling is bad enough. But then, I find myself in this huge cube, and the only way out is to keep pressing buttons on the wall to spin the cube in all kinds of different directions until I fill up this little line thingy with this glowing blue orb thingy. I thought I was gonna puke...

....and why the hell is the room spinning??

Over-frapping...

I forgot to tell this story in the last post:

As I was playing Prey last night, I was happily snapping screenshots at all the cool stuff I was seeing. Nothing out of the ordinary there. So, after I was finished for the night, I went to the directory on my hard drive where fraps stores the screenshots. I looked. And then I looked again, not quite sure I was seeing what I was seeing.

Number of screenshots: 1,130

Then I remembered that the last time I used fraps, I had set the "Repeat taking screenshots every 1 second" setting. Ooops. So then I had to sift through them all to find the cool shots. It was kinda neat though, because if I wouldn't have loaded all the images into a flash animation, it would have been a nice movie of me playing the game.

I prey it will rock...

What do you mean I have a cavity?!

Prey is out, and I couldn't be more excited. Especially since I just played about an hour of it. Such gaming goodness to be had.

The game's premise isn't anything overly original, but I must say I don't think there's anything quite like it. You play a Cherokee indian living on a reservation. You're not really happy about it. Then, aliens arrive and start abducting everyone, including your grandfather and your girlfriend. You find yourself aboard the alien vessel, watching a lot of people, including your grandfather, getting skewered and killed in any number of gross yet can't-turn-your-head-away-because-of-morbid-curiosity ways. Then, you fall. The fall should have killed you, but instead you end up in this strange place where you meet your grandfather and he tells you it's time to remember your heritage. Apparently, you have the power to leave your body and walk around as a spirit, and this particular technique comes in quite handy when you are faced with a door you can't open by normal means. Also, when you're walking around as a spirit, you get to use a cool bow.

The coolest part of this game up to this point is the gravity, by far. There are certain areas on the alien spaceship where the gravity is just fucked up, and you can run up walls, walk on the ceilings, etc. It's infinitely enjoyable to shoot a bad guy who is walking on the ceiling, and watch the sorry son of a bitch plummet to the ground afterwards. The monsters are pretty neat looking.

Oh, I just shot you in the face with a plasma gun. My bad!

Right Time, Wrong Place

I'm generally not a person who is overly confrontational, nor goes looking for trouble. Really. Stop laughing!

Anyway....fun with traffic time:

My driving attitude was already at an all time low when I started the trek home this evening because of the bullshit that I had to go through this morning. A 40 minute drive to work took 2 hours, because of 4 magical traffic slowing entities all occuring at once: construction, mid-week, precipitation, and a disabled vehicle.

So I was already a bit miffed when I started for home.

Asshole #1 was some stupid fucker near the airport that decided the passing lane was his own personal space. I educated him otherwise.

Asshole #2 was some dumb bitch who though her shitty Prism was superior to my Malibu. I educated her otherwise.

Asshole #3 is my favorite, and I only wish I was in the position to fuck with him at the time. Sadly, I was just one car back from the incident and could do nothing. As you've heard me bitch about many times, there is a construction zone that I have to drive through every fucking day. Two lanes going into one. The general motorist doesn't know how to merge properly. Even the department of transportation knows this, because there's a big sign that says, "USE BOTH LANES TO MERGE POINT". Even so, you still have the right lane backed up all to hell (it's the lane that is open), and the left lane has almost no one in it. So, naturally, I'm one of the few that actually follows instructions, and I use the left lane all the way up to the merge point. This probably shaves 20 minutes off my drive, because I guess everyone else is too chicken shit to do it. Today, there was this car in the right hand lane. I was behind an SUV, we were in the left hand lane making out way up to the front of the line. About 50 feet before the merge point, this black car starts driving in the middle of the two lanes, so no one in the left lane would go around him.

I would have paid MONEY for that SUV to NOT be in front of me. You cannot possibly imagine how badly I wanted to humiliate this person. I seriously considered going around the SUV (who was chickening out and wouldn't go around the car), and just jackknifing right in front of that cocky little fucker. It would have made my week.

*sigh* Alas, it was not to be.

My Patience < Human Stupidity

I typically go to the supermarket on Friday after work to get the things I need for the following week. Sadly, I was at work until 1:00 AM this past Friday, and was in no condition on doing much of anything afterwards, let alone grocery shopping. Even sadder, I had to work Saturday as well, and therefore was able to do said shopping on my way home that day.

Among the items I purchased was a half pound of lunch meat, to be used for the random hunger attack during the weekend and also the two sandwiches for my lunch on Monday and Tuesday. The woman at the deli who waited on me was a very unpleasant individual who I have had the displeasure of becoming aquainted with at my church. She has the personality of a mountain troll, and I'm quite convinced that her monster of a child cannot possibly be human.

Unfortunately, the deli item was no longer in my possession when I got home, for reasons I have not yet been able to explain. So, it was necessary for me to visit the supermarket again this morning. As I approached the deli counter, I was horrified to see the same woman there, this time not behind the counter but grocery shopping herself and getting some items from the deli. If this were any other person in the world seeing me in the same supermarket at the same deli ordering the exact same item less than 24 hours apart, I wouldn't have cared. But this woman disgusts me in ways I have never been disgusted. I avoided the deli for the time being by going and picking up some cat litter, which I thankfully remembered I needed. And Medusa was gone when I returned.

As if my day wasn't going badly enough already, I was number 14 in line at the deli, which was currently serving number 9. And it took the slow mother fuckers 20 minutes to serve 5 people.

I'm never shopping there again.

Uncorporate America 004

Smell you later.

Some people really, really hate their jobs

Take the guy I overheard at Sheetz one morning this week. I was at the one fridge case getting my daily dose of chocolate milk, and he was talking to one of his buddies about his job.

"Yeah, should be interesting today. They've got us changing light bulbs."


LOL! Sad....

Just call me FUTURE BOY!

No, we still don't have transporters in the future. DAMMIT.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

From the movie Cool Hand Luke, in case you didn't know.

This movie quote is probably my most used move quote, EVER, because people as a whole don't communicate with each other very well. I see it every single day, and today was no exception. And as usual, all I could do was sit back and watch the show unfold before me.

You FAIL! AGAIN!

Quote from an ISO Hunt torrent posting:

I found it! MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis DVD-rip. It is ripped from television.

Failed!

New Layout

The drive to and from Erie was nice. Beautiful weather. Of course, on the way I nearly made a detour. I was 3/4 of the way to Erie when I see a sign near Edinboro for a new Japanese Steakhouse. Sake and steak sounded REALLY good at that point. But then, I could see the owner chasing me out of the restaurant with a samurai sword after I put the moves on his hot daughter, so I quickly talked myself out of going. Whew. Close one.

I changed the layout of Uncorporate America, putting only 1 panel across now so you won't have to scroll left and right while reading. I think this works out much better. Enjoy Issue 003, it's hiliarous.

200th Post...Woo!

200th blog entry. Gotta love a milestone....

Anyway, I'll be leaving for Erie in about 30 minutes for a meeting. It's a beautiful day today too, and the meeting will be outside. That's a bonus. I got me a new CD burned for the car. (You can see my priorities are in the right place.)

Last night, I went on a mission. I had 146 GB free on my anime downloading hard drive, and my goal was to free up enough space so that I had at least 200 GB free. After massive amounts of burning to DVD, the final free space count was...........218 GB. Yay! I'm over 1.5 TB of anime now. Yeesh.

Back later tonight......with a new issue of Uncorporate America! Don't miss it.

You FAIL!

I downloaded this episode of Marchen Awakens Romance (better known as simply MAR). It's an anime based on an RPG. Anyway, I download this episode, and it comes with 3 files -- the actual video file, a subtitles file called an .srt file, and a readme.

I have dealt with .srt files before -- they are simply a small file that contains the subtitles for the matching video file. These are especially useful with dual audio video files, or if you just want to turn the subtitles off completely.

I was curious as to what the readme file said, so I opened it up. Here, it was a guide on how to use the .srt file. I started reading through this utter pile of steamy bullshit, and just shook my head in disbelief.

They had you doing stuff, running command prompts, doing more stuff, running programs, etc, etc, doing more stuff. And then they said you can only use certain media players, or the subtitles won't show up.

Would you like me to tell you a little secret? Rename the .srt file to the exact same name as your video file, and keep them in the same folder. Guess what? The subtitles will magicially start working! With any media player! That's it!

They fail.

Reminiscing

I went out and pitched a little on the new court this evening, right before dark. Being out there got me thinking about the summer's I spent at my grandparent's house when I was a kid, back when during the summer there was nothing else TO do other than throw horsehoes.

I would throw anywhere from 150 to 300 shoes every single day. Now that I look back on it, it's no wonder I became a world champion. Comparing to how throwing a horseshoe felt then to how it feels now, it's apparent that the key ingredient in doing well at the sport (as is the case with ANYTHING) is the practice.

I don't consider myself naturally talented at horseshoes. When I first started, I would throw about 1 or 2 ringers out of every 100 shoes. After about 4 or 5 years, I was up to 80 out of every 100. These days, without practice, I can get about 40 or 50 out of 100.

Uncorporate America Issue 002

Ah, toilet humor. There's nothing quite like it!

Success!

At last! This all started with a very simple need for myself: I wanted the main character in my new comic to have different clothes. Specifically, right off the bat, I knew I wanted him to have an orange shirt. (My favorite color.) After scouring forums, I couldn't find one anywhere. So, I knew I was going to have to make my own.

And let me tell you --- skinning a model is NOT easy. Nor is it difficult. It's just......annoying. I'm not even going to begin to describe everything I had to do to figure this out, but take a look at the end result below. The model on the right is the original that I started with. The one of the left is the new model that I made with the new orange shirt.

We shall dominate your hard drive...

I recently took a gander at the total size of my STEAM folder on my hard drive. For the uneducated, STEAM is the program that houses all the Half-Life games and mods, including Counter-Strike, Garry's Mod, Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode 1, SiN, etc.

It's 20 GB!! Holy disk drive rapage, Batman!

Birth of a new comic...

Before you ask: No, Counter-Struck isn't dead. I simply needed a larger canvas for some of the ideas bouncing around in my head, and Counter-Struck is meant to be a parody on Counter-Strike, not on life in general.

The new comic is titled Uncorporate America and will follow the adventures of a typical 20-something individual who works in an office and lives in an apartment. It will basically be a parody of my own life, and mimic some of the experiences I have day in and day out with stupid people along with some of the dumb things that I sometimes do. And naturally, there will be exaggeration. Lots of it. This *is* fiction, afterall.

Enjoy the pilot: Issue 001

Christened the court...

I went out and christened the new court today by throwing out the first shoe. Even though it wasn't the prettiest throw, amazingly enough it went around the stake. I guess someone is trying to tell me I built it correctly. I still don't have pictures -- by the time I thought of it today, it was already starting to get dark.

In other news, I went over to a relative of a relatives place for a father's day picnic. For the most part, the day was uneventful. With the exception of my parents and my sister and her husband, the people there fell into two different categories for me: either I didn't know them well enough to carry on an interesting conversation, or I didn't like them. And, of course, my parents and my sister and her husband were busy talking to these people, so I watched golf on TV. Such a thrilling day for me!

But there was ONE thing that made it worthwhile. This house I was at has this deck that is kind of strange -- in the MIDDLE of it, there is a step. The first time my mother walked across it, she didn't realize there was a step there, and went flying across the deck and on top of some guy sitting on a lawn couch. Funniest. Thing. Ever.

Fun in the Sun.........and a comic

Today I finished one of the projects I started last year -- that being my horseshoe court out in my yard. Well, it's not TOTALLY finished, but now it's useable. Woo.

And, I have a comic for you. Check it.


Yes, I know I'm being brief. Believe it or not, sometimes I really don't feel like talking about myself!

Counter-Struck! 013

So while driving to work this morning, I realized I forgot to post about Issue 013. Guess that happens when you try to do 50 things at once. D'oh.


Enjoy...

It's a crime deterrent...

Counter-Struck! 012

I like how no one seems to care that I've completely abandoned any continuing plot, and just go with the utterly random.


It's okay, I enjoy the utterly random more as well. Issue 012 is up.


In other news, I saw the trailer for Half-Life 2: Episode 2. And now I won't be able to sleep........

Retro Gaming

Today was a weird day. To start out with, I didn't feel very well this afternoon and kinda just lounged around in the recliner. I was so out of it, I was even too lazy to change the channel on the TV and ended up watching a marathon of Murder, She Wrote.

After some rest, though, I felt better and was in the mood to play a computer game. Nothing new has come out lately, so I looked through my current collection to see what I wanted to play. I knew it had to be a shooter, since that was what I was in the mood for. After some debate with myself, I decided on the original Half-Life. I haven't played through that game in quite some time, and playing it again was weird. I must say, for a game that came out in 1998, the graphics still hold up. The only part about them that kind of made me cringe were the models of the human characters. They're just awful. But everything else is pretty good.

Now, I'm playing a the newest version of Half-Life, which was reconfigured and put into the source engine, which is the engine that runs Half-Life 2. So, the physics in the game is a bit more advanced that any other time I've played the old version of the game. The most noticeable part was this jumping puzzle near the beginning of the game.

There are these 20' metal containers suspended over this pit by cables. You have to jump from container to container to get to the other side. I used to be able to do this puzzle with my eyes closed, but with the added physics the Source engine provided, it was a bit more difficult. When I would jump on a container, it would actually start swaying back and forth because of my weight -- it was quite neat.

Comic #11

I redid the layout of the main page to make more sense -- the newest comic will now appear at the top, rather than the bottom. Enjoy!

Oh yes, #10

Counter-Struck 010.


*yawn* Need sleep.

Letters to the Cartoonist....

And now, ISSUE 009 of Counter-Struck!

Bite it, critics

Take my advice: Never judge whether or not you're going to watch a movie based on what anyone else says about it. Just don't do it.

I watched The Pink Panther (2006) tonight. It was the funniest movie I've seen in a very long time, and it will be one that I watch again very soon. Average review by movie critics was C. The IMDB rating is a measely 4.7/10.

Hey, people, guess what? It's not supposed to be a clone of the originals. Welcome to 2006, fools.

Really Big Rock

I was just reading a science article that was quite fascinating.

A group of scientists led by an American team from Ohio University have discovered a massive crater under the ice of Antarctica. It was caused by a meteor approximately 50 kilometers wide. 50! That's like, the size of a city. It created a crater 500 kilometers wide. ! ! !

They reported that this is probably the missing link scientists have been waiting for -- the reason why 95% of all life on Earth died 250 million years ago. This meteor is now the largest ever known to have hit the Earth -- even bigger than the 10 kilometer wide meteor that hit Mexico and killed off the dinosaurs. And, most likely, it's the reason why Austrailia, India, and South America broke away from Antarctica.

Seems like every few hundred million years, Mother Nature likes to press the reset button on life.

I'd make a lousy assassin....

I'm trying out Hitman: Blood Money. After playing Half-Life 2: Episode 1 for the second time tonight, I needed something new, and it was the first new game that I hadn't installed yet.

I've learned one thing: I'm *not* a stealth gamer. The general idea behind the Hitman games is that you sneak in, kill the person you are assigned to kill, and sneak out. Undetected. Yeah. Cut to me having a shootout with the entire Colombian drug cartel while trying to infiltrate the drug boss' mansion. NOISIEST ASSASSIN EVER!

I've also realized that the Source engine has spoiled me. (The graphics engine that powers Half-Life 2). Compared to HL2, Hitman looks like ASS JERKY ON A STICK! I feel like I'm watching claymation.

But I will say this -- completing a mission gives you a genuine sense of accomplishment, because of how difficult they are.

Know what I like?

I like reading a review of a game, seeing the screenshots, and noticing how much better MY screenshots look.



Heh.

A game so good, you have to play it naked.....

...because it's one jeans-creaming moment after another. Just ask this guy:


Okay, don't ask him. He's a liar.



I haven't been this excited about a game since Half-Life 2 came out. And a game has not so enthralled and submersed me into itself so fully ever before. Ever. And it only took me 4 hours to complete it. Normally, a game that short comes across as rushed, sloppy, full of plot holes, and generally a wasted effort. Half-Life 2: Episode 1 is the EXACT opposite. THAT'S how well constructed it was.


They took everything that was great about Half-Life 2, refined it, polished it, and crammed it all into this first episodic release. One of THREE. Yes, it's going to be a trilogy, and episode 2 will arrive by the end of the year. (Shit, need another new pair of pants......)


The game picks up exactly where Half-Life 2 left off, and let me say how much I fucking loved the vortigants saving the day as the citadel blew up in our faces. Brilliance! I don't even care that this episode didn't answer a SINGLE question that was asked in HL2. I don't care! I was having too much fun playing the game!



Never has a game surprised me this much. Take the beginning for example: you are posed with a puzzle. There's is this HUGE gorge in front of you, and you have to cross to the other side. In a typical game, you would find a way around, or find a switch to flip that will lower a bridge. In this game? You get into this old car, and a robotic dog THROWS you across. FUCKING BRILLIANT!


I'll definitely be playing through it again really soon, since it has an audio commentary track that you can play while you're going through the game. Must listen!

Adventures with the Stupid

People are stupid.

I got dinner from KFC tonight. I ordered an 8-piece meal, and the menu states it came with 2 sides. So, I got mashed potatoes and coleslaw. After I ordered, I look over and see this sign hanging on the counter that says that I get a free large mashed potatoes with any 8-piece meal or larger. So, I turn to the girlie behind the counter and say, "Oh, I get a free side of mashed potatoes?"

"Yes." She says.
"Oh, so I actually get 3 sides?"
"No."
"Uh.....huh. Okay well then I would like potato wedges and coleslaw."
"Okay."

I waited two minutes, my order was done, and I left the restaurant with my chicken and 3 sides.


In other news, Half-Life 2: Episode One was sitting on my PC ready to play when I got home today. So.....I'm gonna go play it. =)

What's this? Another comic?

Yeah, I've calmed down now. No more ranting. So here's a comic for you to enjoy, and it will probably be the last one this week considering I don't have any other ideas right now. This small 4-panel idea came from a conversation I had at work the other day with Marcus -- and it's about as close as I'll *EVER* get to making a political statement.

Counter-Struck! 008!

I've got my bitch stick...

...and I'm ready to use it.

First off, I'm typically not a prejudiced individual, but I'm beginning to have a very, very strong dislike of stupid people. I almost murdered three today. Maybe four. Hell, I almost wiped out a whole herd of them on the drive home from work. It seems like they're surrounding me more and more lately. And what's worse is that you can't get away from them. No matter what you do, they drag you down with them and all you can do is swear violently while it happens.

Want details? I'll give a few, but most I'm going to skip because I'm sure at least a FEW people I work with do actually read my blog.

Anyway, traffic was a fucking bitch today. It would stop at certain points for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. And naturally, this happens on the day when I want to get through with my drive as quickly as humanly possible. Fuck you, karma.

Now, on to my rant about ice cream. Yes, ice cream. I wanted a fucking milkshake this evening. There's a Rita's opening up near where I live. Now, keep in mind they bought this building BEFORE WINTER. Also keep in mind that before they bought it, the building ALREADY WAS an ice cream shop. Also keep in mind that the sign in front of the store has said OPENING SOON for months.

So, given that information, and given that this past weekend was Memorial Day and would have been the perfect weekend for a grand opening where they would have had TONS of customers since it was A.) a holiday and B.) SUPER HOT.

So are they open. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

FUCK YOU RITA'S!

So, they're not open. Ah well, we just decided we'll go to the little place right in my town. No problem.


Yeah, not open.


So I came home and made myself a glass of ovaltine. I feel like I went out to find sex and had to come home and masturbate. Same fucking principle.

Counter-Struck! 007

Seems like this is all I've been doing lately. Ah well....

Counter-Struck! 006!

The special Memorial Day issue is here!

Double your pleasure!

I have two lovely things to show you.

First off....Counter-Struck! is back! Yes, I know it's been a few weeks. Sue me. But enjoy ISSUE 005.


Next, some Garry's Moddage for your entertainment. Here.



They're gifts that keep on giving.

Slap me some skin

A new look and sound for my gun (formerly CM's gun).

No more Starfuck?

A few years ago, a software protection company developed a piece of software called Starforce to combat computer game piracy. The software is an extremely advanced anti-copy, anti-piracy, anti-everything protection program that pretty much takes over your computer once you put a game disc into your optical drive.

The software does the following: Renders any copies you make of the disc useless and will not allow you to run the game without having the original disc installed. Those two things are the two points that the company SAYS the software does. Here's a list of the tasks the program does that aren't listed by said company: Forces you to reboot your computer at least once, installs malware and spyware on your pc, damages your disc drive, corrupts your system registry, will not allow you to play the game you paid for even if you have the original disk in your drive.

Needless to say, the gaming community is not a big fan of Starfuck. And now, it seems, neither are the game developers. It was just announced that a bunch of gaming companies are going to stop using the program in favor of other protection software. Yay!

The only thing anti-piracy software like Starfuck accomplishes is creating more software pirates due to the irritations caused by having to deal with the annoyance. They fail.

Shit with a charge of neutral...

Ever have one of those days where there was nothing that went particularly wrong, but nothing seemed to go exactly the way you wanted it to either? That was my day today, and to me it feels like I should have just stayed in bed because the day was a total waste of my time.

This uselessness seems to have followed me home too, because I just downloaded a program and its not even the program it was supposed to be. Rawr!

I'll be under my bed if you need me.

No more SiN

Heh, I like ironic titles. Anyway, I finished Episode 01 of SiN, and it was de-lovely. The Source engine has never looked better, especially with the resolution cranked up as high as the game would let me. I also enjoy the fact that the game chooses the best video settings based on your computer's hardware. When I went into the settings to adjust them manually, the game had them all already cranked up as high as they would go. Mwa-hahahahaha.

The last quarter of this game was insanity -- I've never seen such large-scale gun-fights before. My favorite gun was probably the shotgun, just for the alternate fire. Gotta love the little exploding blue chips of death. The incindery grenades were also quite enjoyable, and a laughed as the bad guys screamed, "AAAH! I'm on fire! It burns! AAAAH!"

Naturally, since this is just the first of an episodic release schedule, the game ended on a cliffhanger, and also provided scenes of what was to come in the next episode. I'm looking forward to it. (If only to see if they dress Alexis even MORE scantily clad.)

Heel! Good boy...

Sign of the Times

I remember back when I was a kid, I would see displays in the supermarket for powdered drink mixes. The slogan was always, "Just add water!"

Now that Americans never go anywhere without their trusty bottle of spring water, the market for powdered drink mixes have changed with the times. The slogans now read: "Just add to water!"

The evolution amuses me.

SiN

Mmmm, naked rendering......

I never played the original SiN. It came out about 2 months before I started playing PC games seriously, circa 1998. It was immediately followed by Half-Life, and as a result the game is hardly remembered at all, being almost totally eclipsed by the gaming-gasm that was HL.

But now, SiN is back. And in a nice twist of irony, it's using the Source engine -- the same exact engine that powers Half-Life 2. This time around, Half-Life isn't killing SiN. It's helping make it one hell of a great FPS.

Contrary to what the above screenshot may suggest, no, this isn't a porno. That chick is from a weird vision the main character has near the beginning of the game. A weird....beautifully rendered.....sexually stimulating....vision....


I'll BRB.........

Delays Likely?

I laugh at road work signs. Especially the ones that read, "Road Work Ahead. Delays Likely."

Delays likely? Likely?? Let's see....for a moment we'll pretend that I'm the only person on the road, and that traffic doesn't exist. Kay? You're taking the 65 MPH speed limit down to 40 MPH. Sooooooo, unless you are encouraging me to break the law by speeding in a fucking construction zone, I would think that delays are fucking GUARANTEED. Last time I looked, it takes longer to get from point A to point B going 40 MPH instead of 65.


Fuckers.

Preloading is fun...

Unlike other game developers attempts at anti-piracy, Valve's rendition actually gives something back to the gamer. Instead of resorting to using something like Starforce, which tends to prevent you from playing a game even if you BOUGHT the fucking thing (Thanks, BiA!, nothing but love for you mother fuckers!), Valve developed Steam.

While I'll admit that Steam is MOSTLY annoying, there's one feature that I've recently fell in love with -- the preloading feature. My copy of SiN Episodes: Emergence just finished preloading. Which means the game is on my hard drive as we speak, and I will be able to play it on midnight of the release date if I so choose. I enjoy this.

Now I get to preload Half-Life 2: Episode 1.