Drunken Rancor

Heavy Metal Heresy

2011-04-14T17:33:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I happened to find myself at Wal-Mart ultra-late one night (hey, if Target were open later, I'd shop there exclusively!) and discovered a bargain bin in the music department. On a whim while the missus explored the depths of the cloth & sewing department, I went diving. Lo and Behold, I discovered a copy of Blizzard of Ozz for the absolutely unbeatable price of $5. Woo-hoo!

That was a few weeks ago. I took it home, ripped it to iTunes & installed it on my iPod. I finally got around to listening to it the other day (too many goddamn podcasts to keep up with--curse you, Car Talk & Bill Maher!) and I have to say...I was disappointed.

*brief pause whilst the author carefully removes any indication as to his physical location from the Internet*

Seriously though...yeah. Disappointing. I mean, this is Ozzy motherfuckin' Osbourne! The Prince of Fuckin' Darkness! And here we are...with ballads? Rock ballads, sure--harps need not apply here, thankyouverymuch--but still! Sure, Crazy Train was there & representin', and Mr. Crowley--which I'd never actually heard before but was looking forward to--wasn't bad. But most of it was...meh. Much slower & softer than what I'd been expecting.

I suppose maybe I'm just too used to the metal of the late '90s and 00's; Blizzard was released back in '81, after all. And Ozzy has evolved over time; I still need to check out his latest album, entitled (IIRC) Scream. For $5 though, it was still a worthwhile purchase for a classic metal album.

Any thoughts?

Please excuse me while I kiss this guy

2011-04-05T18:27:00.000-04:00

Mangled lyrics aside--FSM help me, I actually kinda like this dude. His name is Paul Ryan, and he's a Republican Representative for the state of Wisconsin. He's the Voice behind this latest initiative to brutally slash $1.5 trillion dollars from the budget over the next 10 years--and he's not excluding Medicare, Medicaid, or gasp Social Security!!! You can read more about the whole shebang here.

What do you think? I mean, slashing the shit out of the budget is a necessary step toward fiscal solvency for this country--and even though nobody wants to hear it, I think raising some taxes has to happen as well. (Feel free to go fuck yourself, Mr. Greenspan.) When you hear tidbits like 400 individuals make as much money as 60% of the U.S. population--look, it's not about "he makes more than me, waaaaah", it's "why isn't he paying his share?" What was it--GE? Had a bumper crop year, pulled in billions of dollars in profit, and yet pays no fucking taxes? What the fuck is that all about? I don't give a shit about how legal it is, or how everyone is doing it--fuck you, and fuck everyone else, too. Paying taxes supports the government, be it local, state or federal. Paying taxes is patriotic, in my opinion. Dodging that responsibility makes you a traitor. I think people who dodge paying taxes--and who are above the poverty line, tyvm--should be given a choice: Either submit to assrape via barb-wired firehose, or pay what you owe. It's a simple equation.

Thoughts?

Well, fuck this

2011-03-04T20:29:00.001-05:00

Based on recommendations from the online community, I went ahead & downloaded and installed FOSE, or the Fallout Script Extender. (I've talked about this before, so I won't rehash it.) Clicked the checkbox in FOMM, or Fallout Mod Manager, and launched the game via the FOSE launcher. Guess what: same fucking issue I had before with missing textures & meshes. Back to surfing the web...now they're talking about archive invalidation. News flash, children: FOMM includes an archive invalidation function built into it. So I figure, what the fuck, why not...download the original "Archive Invalidation Invalidated!" mod from the Nexus and use that (after disabling FOMM's built-in service). Launch the game again, aaaaand...

Same. Fucking. Thing.

I've posted comments on the Nexus site, I've e-mailed the mod's creator, I've even left comments on his blog--as per the modder's own instructions! All for naught. Well, goddamnit...I'm tired, I'm annoyed--actually, I'm pretty well fucking pissed off. So: Fuck you, DeMeggy. Fuck you and your abandoned fucked-up mod and your promises of a Doctor Who-filled Fallout 3 experience. The entire REASON I bought Fallout 3 for the PC in the first fucking place...

Anybody want a copy of Fallout 3 for the PC? Yours for free...all you have to do is kneecap a modder & capture it on video. I need something to watch while Fallout: New Vegas ruins the remainder of my Fallout-inspired fantasies.

The Supreme Court can now officially go fuck itself

2011-03-02T10:47:00.000-05:00

Seriously. Seriously? Get a load of this shit. I'd like to know who the one Justice is that dissented so I can send them a bouquet of flowers--and a truckload of dogshit to the other eight motherfuckers.

Anybody wants to organize a trip to Westboro, Kansas & bring a bunch of shotguns & baseball bats? Let me know. I'm totally in.

Brief random thoughts

2011-02-24T13:27:00.000-05:00

This what they call a "truism", presumably because it's proven to be accurate roughly 99.999999999% of the time. "You always want what you cannot have." My question is: Why? Why is this so? It's accurate, sure...but wtf? And how does one get past it?

Also: Is anyone else creeped out by the latest TV ad from Winn-Dixie? The kid who grew up always wanting to be a butcher? Does no one else find this truly disturbing? Check out the way he's looking at the woman accepting a package from him at the very end of the piece; you can just about read his thoughts. "I wonder...will she treat that properly? She says she knows what to do, but I don't know that I trust her...maybe I should follow her..."

Fallout Who = Fallout Wha...?

2011-01-12T21:53:00.000-05:00

I spent a solid 4 hours trying to get this fucking mod for Fallout 3 installed with no luck. Oh, don't get me wrong--it installed, but it's all kinds of fucked up. Scads of missing textures & absent walls. So many red triangles with exclamation points (Bethesda's standard "something's supposed to be here but fuck if we know what it is" marker) throughout that one begins to suspect that they're intentional, like they're actually part of the mod somehow. Notsomuch.

I've tried everything I can think of short of cracking into the GECK (the actual mod editor) and hacking away at the goddamn thing myself--which would be an unmitigated disaster, as I don't know what the hell I'm doing in there--and am still sitting with a broken mod that I desperately want to play. This fucking mod is the reason I wanted a copy of FO3 for the PC. I've e-mailed the creator & left comments on his blog, all to no avail. I got some positive response from people on the Fallout Nexus--well, "positive" meaning they responded with useful information. Evidently, Fallout Who requires another mod to work, something called FOSE, which is short for Fallout Script Extender. This changes the way things are scripted in the game--not with the intent of making things more stable or fixing bugs, but rather to enable other weird shit to occur. I'm sorry, but FO3 is already plenty unstable, and I've no intention of dicking around with some other mod just to make it work--especially given that FOSE isn't included in the list of "needs this to make it work".

In short: Huge. Fucking. Disappointment. I'm still keeping hope alive that I'll receive some positive response from the mod author, but...it's a small, dim hope. In the meantime, I have to come up with some other justification for having FO3 on my PC when I have a perfectly playable copy for the 360. Damnit.

Semi-kinda-sorta-quasi on-topic: Got to read Game Informer's lowdown on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim last night. Holy fucking shit. DO WANT.

Happy Christmas & Merry Old Year!

2011-01-04T19:27:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a pleasant solstice celebration, to say nothing of a wonderful ~~hijacked pagan holiday~~ christmas. Ideally, ~~Satan~~ Santa was good to you & left you plenty of shinies. Huzzah! Myself, I've been putting significant effort into convincing myself that Florida isn't going to slide further down the shitter 2 weeks from now and having a grand ol' time with the puppy. Haven't been able to do much gaming (*le sigh*) but what I have been able to get in has been quality. "News time, children!"

I was able to spend several solid hours with Fallout: New Vegas the week before xmas ("'Twas the weekend before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a Radscorp--shit!!!"), and I have to say...it looks good. I agree with a few of the changes, while a few others left me a little, well...irked. I didn't encounter any major bugs--which admittedly made me a little sad; I had been hoping to see some heads spinning around and other randomly weird shit--and the basic gameplay was solid. I like the inclusion of the magazines, giving a temporary +20 bonus to a particular skill. I didn't know the difference between magazines & skill books, so when I found 2 magazines that each boosted my Science I made a little "squee!" noise & promptly used them both. (Oops.) I also approve of the conversation options that allow you to see how you might alter the course of things based on particular skill levels--not only letting you know the option is there, but also letting you know how much you might need to boost something so you can beg off for a moment & go read a magazine. Grenades seemed in short supply, but dynamite is effing plentiful--and even with a staggeringly low Explosives score (mine was 17 iirc), it's fairly accurate. I used VATS, and it seemed like every throw landed Sparking Sticks of Doom at my new BFF's feet. Not complaining, mind you...just sayin'.

I kinda hate the changes to the hacking minigame. Not only is there an enforced wait while the password "resets" if you back out to try again, but it seems to me that there's even less logic in the passwords than there was in FO3. Believe it or not, in FO3, the passwords could sometimes be guessed based on what it was accessing & where it was. FO:NV, on the other hand, seems to be based on not much. The enforced wait time is utter bullshit--to say nothing of the fact that it simply takes longer for the damn hacking screen to load, period. It's like the radioactive fallout & accompanying EMP was actually good for all the PCs in the DC Wasteland.

If I didn't know better (and I'm not sure I don't), I'd say the Repair skill is broken. Everyone and their cousin early on carries a 9mm pistol, so in short order I was completely weighed down with them. I was able to use them to make 1 9mm in perfect condition. Read that sentence again: I was able to use them to make 1 9mm in perfect condition. This was with a 2nd/3rd level character & a Repair skill <50, and I was able to rebuild something into 100% Condition. Happily serendipitous to be sure, but still a "wtf?!?" moment. I do like how food & drink now restores your HP over time rather than all at once, but I think linking the amount of HP you recover to the new Survival skill is bullshit. Seriously? Knowing how to make poultices & cook mutant gecko meat somehow renders the bottled water in your pack...wetter? I don't get it.

I didn't go out for the much-vaunted Hardcore mode (this was just a weekend rental, after all), though I likely will when I finally buy the thing. The notion of ammo having weight & requiring the player to keep fed, rested & hydrated will definitely affect my willingness to go wandering through the Wasteland--which, while realistic and a nice roleplay device, is a bit depressing, given that sandbox-style games like this derive a certain amount of their fun from "hey, what's that on the horizon?" There are still locations I haven't visited in FO3, and I sure as hell wouldn't have wandered as far as I have if I had to worry about the metric shit-ton of ammo in my pack. ("What's that? Fend off a small army of Super Mutants? *loads Lincoln Repeater* You betcha!")

I've been spending the majority of my PC gaming time in Lord of the Rings Online, which went F2P awhile back...and which I may or may not have already blogged about. Much fun there--I actually went ahead & subscribed, just for the extra goodies. The community is so-so, but that's MMOs for you. Since Pirates of the Burning Sea has also gone F2P, I went ahead & jumped on that as well. It's fairly immersive--and a damnsight more welcoming to F2P players than EQ 2's lukewarm limp-wristed F2P offering. Ship-to-ship combat is challenging as hell (at least for me!) and the marketplace/auction house is damned confusing. I haven't spent a whole lot of time there, but what I have has been fun.

I didn't get much in the line of games this past holiday (*le sigh* part deux) but I was able to make off with a PC copy of Fallout 3 (yay, finally able to explore player-made mods!) and Transformers: War for Cybertron for the 360. Huzzah! I've only downloaded one mod for FO3, but it's reputedly awesome. Google "Fallout Who" on YouTube--make sure the author is DeMeggy--and you'll see what I'm talking about. Once my character is sufficiently high-level to survive a journey to the far NE corner of the DC Wasteland, I'll be able to post some insights into how that plays out. Can't wait!

Congratulations, Florida--you fucking idiots

2010-11-03T12:03:00.000-04:00

So I just read about how Alex Sink surrendered to Rick Scott in the gubernatorial race here in Florida. Apparently, Scott's victory came handed to him by the "Tea Party" fuckwits who apparently thought he was a superior choice. Really? Really?!?

Rick Scott oversaw Columbia/HCA during a period when that company stole 1.7 billion dollars of our tax money. He swears he knows nothing about it. Of course, he's refusing to release his depositions from that case, and he gets absurdly sensitive whenever anyone inquires about it...not that I can imagine why.

Let me break this down for the mouth-breathing room-temperature IQ fuckwits responsible for this insanity (not that it matters now, mind you--it just makes me feel better):

If Rick Scott, as CEO of Columbia/HCA, honestly did not know what the fucking hell was going on inside his own company, then he is incompetent.
If Rick Scott, as CEO of Columbia/HCA, knew damned well that 1.7 billion motherfucking dollars had been stolen from the federal government and then lied about his knowledge and involvement, then he is a perjurer (look it up, I can't spoonfeed all you fuckheads) and a thief.

So I guess my question is: In which version could this possibly be good for Florida?

You fucking, fucking retards.

You...shall not...WRITE (as much as you used to)!!!

2010-10-27T17:17:00.000-04:00

Okay, so, yeah...I suck. Haven't written anything in awhile...been kinda sucked away by Life, the Universe, and Everything. Flynn, of course, is a huge timesink--that sounds awful, doesn't it?--but that's to be expected. I'm still gaming, though not nearly as much as I have been in Times Past. My current fave? Lord of the Rings Online.

I beta-tested this beast a few years ago, back before it originally went live. The difficulty curve was punishing. I can remember running through the first half-dozen newbie quests, having a decent time, all's well...and then, suddenly, you're in the first real story-based quest (more on that in a sec) and all hell's breaking loose. While you could solo everything that came before, suddenly you were in desperate need of a group, and I got slaughtered so fast and so many times in the same place that it was just absurd. I gave it low marks & moved on. Fast-forward to a few months ago, and word comes out that Turbine is planning on re-releasing LotRO as free-to-play, much as they did Dungeons & Dragons Online a year or so previously. DDO has been a huge success for them since--financially even, which doesn't make sense at first glance, given that it's f2p--so expanding things to include the other big gun in their holsters, LotRO, was inevitable.

There are 3 tiers of play available in LotRO: Free, Premium & VIP. Free players are just that--free. You download the software, create an account, and badaboing: Welcome to Middle-Earth. All of Middle-Earth is available for exploration, but only the quests for the core areas (Bree-Land for humans, Ered Luin for dwarves & elves, and the Shire for halflings--err, I mean hobbits) are included. If you want to quest outside those areas--that is, take actual quests for rewards, rather than wander randomly & try not to die--then you'll need to purchase "quest packs" from the LotRO Store with Turbine Points.

...which leads us, neatly, to the next tier of gameplay, Premium. Anyone who's ever subscribed to LotRO (and since stopped) or ever purchased Turbine Points gets bumped to Premium. There ain't much for difference: You start play with 3 bags instead of 1, there's a higher limit on the amount of money you can accrue ingame, and you get 3 character slots instead of just one. *tiny flag wave*

VIP, of course, is the top tier. This is reserved for two groups of people--those who subscribe for the industry-average price of $14.95/month (and also as per usual, you pay less per-month if you sub for a longer span of time at once, i.e. 3 or 6 month blocks) and those proud owners of Lifetime Subscriptions. This latter group of gambling bastards shelled out a princely $200 or so in one fell swoop with the concept of never having to pay another dime & having unlimited access to the game for as long as the servers drew electrons. Sometimes these things work out for the best, and sometimes notsomuch; for the Lifers attached to LotRO, it's paid back in spades. You get 5 character slots, 5 bags, unlimited gold accumulation, and certain quest packs for free (North Downs & the Lone Lands are the only regions I know of for certain). You're also supposed to have priority access to the servers over Premiums & groundlings--err, F2P'ers, that is.

Disclaimer: I have a pretty damned good graphics card in my current PC. Having said that, the graphics are gorgeous. The engine is clearly shared between DDO & LotRO, so the character models are virtually identical, but aside from that--wow. Leaves flutter from trees, ravens explode delightfully into a cloud of feathers when shot with arrows, and rain spatters into the "camera" when storms blow through. Get drunk sometime--ingame, anyway--and get to see the world through "Shitface Vision". That's what I call it, at least; the camera sways from side to side (and forwards & back, as your character's level of inebriation edges upward) as your vision gets increasingly fuzzy, making navigation increasingly difficult. This was driven home very nicely during a quest I undertook recently for the Inn League: I had to haul ass from inn to inn, effectively a high-speed pub crawl, chugging 6-8 beers at each location. There were 8 locations. Halfway through, I could barely control my character, which just added to the hilarity. Sound quality is good, including an ingame music system. Any character can handle at least one instrument (the Minstrel, of course, can use any); when equipped, the 1-0 keys atop your keyboard become midi keys, enabling you to play virtually any piece of music once you figure out how, and there are several websites that have broken down damn near anything you've heard on the radio with how-to instructions. Impromptu jam sessions have been known to occur at the Prancing Pony in Bree, and I love it when I stumble into them. Players will spend hours just hanging out & entertaining the crowd.

Combat is...well, it's a modern-day MMO, so what the hell are you expecting? Each class handles differently of course, and each has their strength. Hunters are awesome at ranged combat, and can hold their own against one or two combatants in melee...more than that, however, and they fall apart. Pair a Guardian or a Champion with a Hunter, though, and watch them bring the pain. Add a Lorekeeper or a Minstrel--hell, even a Captain--and you'll be sleepwalking your way through the Great Barrow in no time. In short: Yes, you can solo the vast majority of LotRO's content, but if you can find some decent players of different classes & team up with them (called a Fellowship, go figure), then the amount of ass you can effortlessly kick is limited only by your available play time.

I've mentioned Turbine Points a half-dozen times or so without actually explaining them, so here goes: Turbine Points, or TP for short, are an ingame meta-currency used to buy upgrades, gear (decorative & functional), house furnishings, quest packs--anything, really. It's all available via the LOTRO Store, which is always just a mouse-click away. You can earn TP several different ways. The easiest (and cheapest) is to just play the damn game; as you play, you'll gradually complete various achievements, most of which have a TP reward attached. You killed 500 enemies with a particular skill? Congratulations, here's 10 TP. You've successfully located all 8 unique landmarks in this region? Gratz, here's 5 TP. You completed 30-40 quests in that region as well? Way to go slugger--here's a shiny new title for your character & 15 TP! The TP rewards are small (the cheapest item in the LOTRO Store is ~195 TP), but they add up. At any time, you can buy TP with cash (through the LOTRO Store, natch). VIP players get a 500 TP gift every month, usually within a week of their payment being processed. You can burn them bitches on whatever your blackened little gamer heart desires, or you can save 'em up. You can even buy the "Mines of Moria" expansion through the LOTRO Store, unlocking some high-level content (55+, iirc) and some other shiny nifties--if you've got the thousands of TP stored up. Almost every shiny VIPs enjoy can be acquired by f2p'ers through the use of TP...almost. It's a better idea to just suffer through, if you're a dedicated f2p'er, and spend your hard-earned TP on quest packs.

Feel free to post comments or send me a message if you have some question about LotRO I haven't addressed; I know there's a bunch more stuff that I'm just skipping over because, well...we're talking about a damned long piece here otherwise! If, on the other hand, you're already sold and are wanting to start kicking the shit out of the Forces of Darkness in Middle-Earth, head on over to the game's homepage, create an account & download the client. (I recommend the high-graphics one, but that's just me! ;) ) Send a shout out for Tinurieth, the level 30-something Elven Hunter, & I'd be happy to team up with ya. :)

Oooh, and I almost forgot: Picked up a new game Monday night, a few minutes after midnight. That's right, that game. Fable III. I've only spent a couple of hours in it, so I can't really say much quite yet...but soon, children, quite soon. Bis dann!

Transformers multiplayer--tonight!

2010-09-05T16:03:00.000-04:00

I can't imagine anyone's interested, but I thought I'd throw this up here anyway. I've got the demo for Transformers: War for Cybertron downloaded & ready to roll out (*cough* sorry), and will be on later this very evening for some multiplayer action. It should be noted that I've never played this game before and am typically very bad at multiplayer, so c'mon out to Xbox Live tonight & kill the hell out of me a few dozen times! (Please, be gentle on the mocking. Fragile ego & all that.) Don't have a time, but it'll probably be a few hours off. Also, it's the demo I'm using, so I won't be able to do private matches. (Or dances.) Come on down!

Girlfriend got more girls! (Oh, and a game review.)

2010-09-05T15:55:00.001-04:00

Okay, so apparently I'm a little behind the times here, but I just found out about Sarah Palin's apparent (yet much-denied) breast implants. That's "breast implants" as in "just got 'em--whatcha think?" From the 2 pics I've seen, I'm going to have to say, "yes, those are in fact Barbie boobs." See for yourself: linkage

It should be noted that I really don't give an airborne coitus about Sarah Palin (or her brain--err, romantically-challenged daughter, Bristol). I think she's a room-temp IQ redneck fuck in expensive clothes with insufficient personal scruples to fill a virtual thimble; as always, YMMV. In this particular case, what we have here is a diehard neo-conservative twa--err, twit, sorry--in full-on denial mode about her clearly enhanced ta-tas. And I'm a guy, so, you know...ta-tas. *shrug*

So, one shitty segue later: Darkstar One: Broken Alliance and Dragon Age: Golems of Amgarrak!

Darkstar One (henceforth referred to as DS1, just because it's quicker & easier) is a game that originally game out for the PC something like 6 years ago. Might've been 4 years ago. Anyway. It's since been recently ported to the Xbox 360, earning high praise for the conversion--especially in regards to the control scheme, which was apparently quite complex on the PC--but low marks for overall gameplay. The missions were derided as repetitive, among other complaints. I think Game Informer rated it a 6.something overall.

I, however, have been loving the hell out of it. It's a little bit buggy, but the glitches are rare and easily overlooked. The only frequent offender is one where after a pitched space battle, the sound fx of your turrets continues on--even though they're not actually firing. It can be fixed by either completely exitting the game--all the way to the Xbox "desktop"--or by entering a trade station and diddling through a few windows. In the latter case, the sound fades away as you leave the station, almost as if you've left the irritating sound behind to annoy the station dwellers. The gameplay is classic space sim: Your view is through the cockpit window as you navigate asteroid fields, fight off pirates, tow cargo, etc--whatever the hell you want to do, really. Think of it like Morrowind in space; the main quest is there for you to follow, but if you want to wander off the Yellow Brick Road & explore some, feel free--the MQ will be there waiting for you to return. In fact, the game rewards--and to an extent, requires--this. The only way to retrieve all the "artifacts" and thereby upgrade your ship (no spoilers, sorry) is to wander off the beaten track of the MQ and explore the systems that sport them. And you'll want to upgrade your ship, too; if you don't, you won't get access to the cooler tech, to say nothing of the ever-increasing apparent fragility and slowness of your supposedly cutting edge space fighter/frigate/whateverthefuckitis. That last sentence, I realize, may have been a smidge confusing. Your ship isn't fragile, per se--but if you don't collect the artifacts & continue to progress through the MQ, you will be blown to smithereens. Just sayin'.

I'm sure some people would consider the gameplay to be repetitive and the missions to be uninspired (like those at Game Informer, obviously), but frankly, I just don't see it. You can play the game pretty much however you like. Want to be a merchant, buying & selling goods throughout the galaxy? You can do that. Feel like being a pirate? Go get your aaarrrrrr on. Want to hunt pirates? Be my guest. Had a rough day at work and just feel like blowing away some cops? You can do that too. In fact, the more you do any one thing, you'll get rewarded for it. There are 6 "professions" in the game: Merchant, Bounty Hunter, Mercenary, Killer, Pirate, and Smuggler. As you perform missions or do things in-game that fit within those categories, your "reputation" in that category increases. Eventually, you'll max out (and get an Achievement!) and earn some in-game reward/consequence. When I maxed out Mercenary, I earned an increased payout from all jobs available on the Terminals in Trade Stations; when I maxed out Bounty Hunter, I earned the ire of some Bad People, so whenever I enter a Rebel system, odds are good that I'll get attacked by pirates.

I haven't completed the game yet, but I cheated a bit & did some research online; I'll share a tidbit with you here. When you complete the game & get the Darkstar One (that's the ship's name, btw) to maximum level (those artifacts again), you unlock a ftl drive that will allow you to travel anywhere in the galaxy, unfettered by the limitations of the field drives you've had to use the whole rest of the game. Niiiice.

Next up, we have Dragon Age: Golems of Amgarrak. This latest (but not quite last--more on that in a moment) DLC release picks up some time after the defeat of the Archdemon, though I'm not sure how long. I'm also not sure where it fits in the timeline between Origins and Awakenings. I suppose it doesn't really matter; more of a nitpicky thing on my part. Anyway. Concept is, there's a pack of about 20 dwarves that've gone missing. They got a lead on a lost thaig called Amgarrak, wherein the original residents (before the thaig was lost to the darkspawn) were trying to replicate Caridin's research into golems. Now, if you've played through Origins--and honestly, if you haven't, stop reading this and go play the fucking game--then you know a thing or three about the origins of Orzammar's golems and what Caridin had to do to create them, hopefully leading you to think that maaaaaaybe this isn't such a good idea. Anyway, a pack of 20 dwarves can't just completely vanish (*snicker*), so the brother of one of the missing sends the Warden (aka you) a letter begging for help, and off you go!

Amgarrak was billed as the baddest of the bad, the most hardcore of the DLC's to date, far more difficult than any content previously released. It was advertised that you'd need every last ounce of your strategic capabilities just to make it through alive. Well, I'm here to call bullshit. I didn't see any of it as any more difficult than any other portion of Dragon Age: Origins, Awakenings, Darkspawn Chronicles or any other damn thing they've released. (Disclaimer: I have not yet played through Lelianna's Song.) Now granted, the character I used to play through has already been completely through Origins and Awakenings and was level 34 at the beginning of the adventure. He's a Human Noble Warrior specced out for sword & shield, with bonus classes of Templar (complete) & Guardian (1 of 4 at the beginning). I damn near soloed the Archdemon with him. The rest of my party was there, but they were mostly occupied with the random darkspawn all over the place. It was just me & my carefully hoarded healing poultices, and I kicked its ass. So maybe using this character as an example of how not-so-hard Amgarrak was is a poor choice, but whatever.

There are 4 achievements that come with Amgarrak, and I unfortunately only got 1 of them. There's the one for completion (natch), one for beating the Big Bad on Hard or Nightmare difficulty (you know, the modes the game uses for outright cheating), one for finding all the diary entries (which I honestly thought I had, but oh well), and another for acquiring some...something-or-other that I never saw any sign of. Who knows.

Bottom line: Unimpressed and more than a little disappointing. Amgarrak was little more than a standard dungeon-delve with a unique & briefly entertaining mechanic involving lyrium and phase-shifting (think DA:O meets ST:TNG and you're about there). You wind up doing a lot of backtracking and there's a lot that goes utterly unexplained--and not in a "ooooh, mysterious" sort of way, but more of a "eh, we can't think of a reason to have this here, but it's fuckin' cool, so YEAH!" kind of way. Also, the ending is fucking cheap & utterly nonsensical. I'm having a hard time thinking of why Bioware would bother releasing this--period--save perhaps they needed the cash for development on SW:TOR. Whatever. If you're a DA:O fan that simply can't wait for DA2 to hit shelves & need your fix, or if you're just a dedicated completionist, then Golems of Amgarrak is for you. Just expect to be disappointed. This is not up to the par we've expected from previous DA outings, and certainly not up to Bioware standards.

Ere I forget, there's one last item: The last DLC for DA:O has been announced. Can't recall the name (if it's been released), but it involves Morrigan. Apparently, it's been a year since the defeat of the Archdemon & Morrigan's subsequent vanishing act, but the hawt witch has been spotted up in the mountains somewhere. Go get 'er! I'm tentatively curious about this one. Morrigan was always one of my favorite characters, and the possibility of finally wrapping up that plotline has me intrigued. Unfortunately, Amgarrak left a bad taste in my mouth; here's hoping Bioware's not asleep at the wheel again for this one.

How do you spell "cunt"?

2010-08-26T12:18:00.000-04:00

Apparently, it looks a lot like M-A-R-Y B-A-L-E. Funny, yeah?

Douchebag Deluge!

2010-08-25T23:40:00.000-04:00

It's funny. Okay, it's not--ironic, maybe? I was just about to write a post about how I'd successfully vanquished the Phisher King...and then I opened my Spam Inbox.

Holy fuck. Looks like my thrown gauntlet has been picked up--and some new venues opened.

We'll start with bart_de_rijck (at) hotmail.com. He says that due to suspicious activity, my Battle.net account has been locked! Apparently, I tried to access my account from "several different IP" on 8/17. Not IP addresses, mind you, or IPs, just IP. Also, Bart de Goatfucker is a time traveller--his e-mail was received by me on 8/16. Does it bear mentioning I don't actually have a Battle.net account?

Moving on: The next quadruped-fellater on the list is alberiov4 (at) solwest.com, who tells me that DHL was unable to deliver a package to me because of " Incorrect Address ". Well, no shit, Alberio--probably because I'm not expecting any package, and I'm sure as shit not clicking on the download you sent. You may continue fucking your sister.

The French are evidently pissed off at me as well, at least according to the inbreeding enthusiast known only as jorix77 (at) hotmail.fr. At least they've wised up to the fact that I don't have a Battle.net account, instead going after an account I actually (used to) have--a NCSoft account. Not anymore, though. I suppose it's still floating out there, waiting to be reactivated...which isn't very fucking likely. Played City of Heroes and City of Villains long enough, tyvm, and the new "Going Rogue" expansion just doesn't blow my skirt up. However, they stumbled coming out of the gate by informing me that my password for Aion has been reset! Oh noes! If only I actually played Aion. Ever. Go back to your mother, Jorix--her legs are uncomfortable in that position.

frimous_300 (at) hotmail.com actually has a very well-assembled e-mail. It looks quite official. Evidently, some details of my World of Warcraft account have been altered using the official Account Management website tools. If I did it myself, then don't worry about it, 'cuz this is an automatic notification anyway. If, however, I didn't do it--and believe me, I didn't--then I should click on the thoughtfully provided link in the message, thereby providing me with all the keyloggers and kiddie porn my tiny little mind can handle. The sad thing is, I'm sure that this will actually nail some people--it looks quite good. Damned shame. This kid has a future...too bad it appears to be self-fellating.

barraco.n.1 (at) hotmail.com unfortunately appears to have copy/pasted the exact same e-mail that Bart de Goatfucker used--except s/he tried to spice it up a little, make it a little more exotic. Hir message was actually (ostensibly) from "WoWAccountEU" (emphasis mine). Thank god for the Europeans! At least someone is looking out for the integrity of my Battle.net account...oh, wait. Better luck next time, Barraco. Unfortunately, your name is sufficiently unisex that I'm unable to insult you properly. Very disappointing. Just like your attempted scam.

Equally disappointing--though for different reasons--is that Yahoo! is no longer permitting me to forward these things to the proper authorities. Everytime I try to send these things along (for instance, to hacks@blizzard.com), Yahoo! stops the message cold and pops up a warning telling me that my account has been prevented from sending yon message because it "tripped our spam filters". YA FUCKIN' THINK?!? They're very sorry for the inconvenience, though. Very sorry. You can't imagine. I've had this e-mail address for 7 years now...thinking about ditching it over this bullshit. Not the spam messages, mind you--this is pure entertainment--but the inability to send them on to the people who need to know about them. Thoughts?

Here...comes...another one...

2010-08-02T23:10:00.000-04:00

*sigh* The infinite stupidity of the human race continues to astound me. William Hedrick Correll was kind enough to sign his Today's Douchebag entry personally (literally--here's the addy: williamhedrickcorrell(at)hotmail.com). Kind of neat, actually--hit Facebook, look him up, throw a handful of shit on his wall! Lord knows I'm thinking about it. It's a pretty specific name; how many William Hedrick Corrells can there actually be?

Bet he adores reality TV, too. Goat-fucker.

And the beat goes on...

2010-08-01T11:21:00.000-04:00

The guys at hacks@blizzard.com are going to be tired of hearing from me soon...'cuz here's Today's Douchebag!

Staveisle(at)hotmail.com actually went to the trouble of making hir e-mail look pretty official, so bonus points for that. Doesn't change the fact that s/he's a goat-fucking asshat.

See, here's what gets me: This shit must actually work some of the time. It has to! Otherwise, there'd be no point. Some fuckheaded retard out there, somewhere...some 12-year old shit-for-brains says, "o th3r3 i5 s0m3th1ng wr0ng w1th mi bl1zz acont...btr ch3k it 0ut and f0ll0w t3h 1ink!" Lo and behold, some goat-fucker somewhere actually hits paydirt for...something. I dunno. Thing is, it's so obvious that these things are fake that you've got to have a room-temperature IQ to fall for it.

But then again, since I did just describe 95% of the global population... *sigh*

Douchebag Phishers R Us!

2010-07-31T00:18:00.002-04:00

Hi. My name is TimeLord75, and I used to play World of Warcraft.

(Hi, TimeLord75.)

So, yeah. Like, 2 years ago or so. Tried it, hated it, came back months later intending to give it a fair shake. Shook the crap out of it, still didn't like it, cancelled it & moved on. Now here we are, years later, and I'm suddenly getting my ass phished off with people trying to get my (very very dead) account information!

I've forwarded all this stuff to hacks@blizzard.com (and will continue to do so)...but frankly, I don't expect anything to be done about it. So, I've decided to go all Dark Ages on their asses: Public Pillorying! That's right, phishers--I'm calling you out! Your e-mail addresses will be placed publicly here on my blog, as well as forwarded on to the fine folks at Blizzard.

Today's rectal fuckhole is lynnsweb(at)hotmail.com. S/he wanted me to go to the you've-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me web address of www(dot)blizzahmilliyon(dot)com. Seriously? Could you not even be bothered to make it look real? Go fuck yourself, lynnsweb.

Guns In Spaaaaaaaace!

2010-07-25T14:17:00.000-04:00

Just got official word (by way of the News Channel on my brother's Wii--I'm in Seattle, did I mention?) that Bioware has confirmed that there will be space combat in Star Wars: The Old Republic. To which I have to say:

YEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAA!!!

At any rate, it's good to see that there'll be more use to our ships than mere decoration & playing Pazaak with...well, whoever the hell among your "Companion Characters" plays Pazaak. Whatever. Still! PEW-PEW!!!

I LOVE this guy!!!

2010-07-21T00:42:00.000-04:00

So Allstate is running a new series of ads that I only just discovered tonight. (It feels ironic to me that I found them while watching clips from "It's Me Or The Dog" on animalplanet.com, but whatever.) I've always thought that mayhem was more an actual sentient force rather than sheer randomness...and now I have my proof!

For some reason I can't quite grasp, I love this guy. He's sheer Chaotic Evil, just randomly destroying shit for the pure joy of it. Go Team Mayhem!!!

"Batman: Year One" starring Kal-El!

2010-07-15T20:01:00.000-04:00

I found this on MSN.com, and...holy shit. I can totally see it. Check this out. "Wrapped around Superman" indeed. Day-umm.

This Just In: Child-Fucking Okayed by Swiss Courts!

2010-07-12T11:32:00.000-04:00

What's that you say? You raped a small child and don't feel like facing the consequences? No problem! Just haul your ass over to Switzerland; they'll protect you! And hey, who knows--you might even pick up an Oscar while you're there!

Fuckheads.

So wrong, but oh-so...yeah, still wrong

2010-07-03T15:34:00.000-04:00

Just had to share a .jpg a friend of mine sent me. Too funny. As an American and a fan of Doctor Who, I have to admit that it's highly likely that this is how America would fuck up the good Doctor. As a cartoon parody, however...I love it!

A new Wonder Woman!

2010-06-30T19:14:00.000-04:00

And I have to say, me likey! Sure, I'll always have a fondness for the breast-displaying Bustier of Justice (I'll save the jokes involving the Lasso of Truth for another time) costume, but this is nice. Of course, you can tell this is Jim Lee's work; her tits are just a smidge too...oh, who the hell am I kidding--she used to fill out that bustier just fine, so nevermind.

So, sorry Superman...now you'll have to be a little more obvious when you're undressing her with your eyes. ;)

Fucking Pandorica...

2010-06-21T20:18:00.001-04:00

No, that's not a Facebook status (although...!)--rather, it's my opinion of this most recent episode of Doctor Who, namely "The Pandorica Opens". Man...holyshitWOW. If you haven't seen it yet (and I imagine many haven't), then get on your filesharing service of choice and DO. It's truly an amazing episode, probably one of the best stories I've seen in quite awhile.

That's been increasingly true, by the way, since RTD went back to...whatever the hell he does when he's not promoting rampant fuck-anything-that-moves sex on Doctor Who. Seriously. The original series (1964-1989) had very close to zero sexual content. I mean, sure, there were hot girls--Lalla Ward was cute, and whatever the actress' name was who played Peri was niiiiiice--but there was never any thought of potential hanky-panky going on behind the TARDIS doors. Then here came the series revival & RTD, and zooooooom--suddenly I wouldn't have been even remotely surprised to have a scene with Rose leaving the Doctor's room still bearing sex-hair. The new guy (gawds, why can't I remember his name?!?) has done wonders for the show--as well as ramping back the show's libido to something...manageable. Yes, Karen Gillan is smoking...but there's no fear of her & the Doctor locking themselves away in a cupboard somewhere and remodeling drywall. Even the Doctor's interactions with his uber-sexy Companion have changed--for the better. At the end of that 2-parter with the Weeping Angels (sorry, writing this from work so my research abilities are sharply limited), when Amy starts coming on to him, he's all "yes, of course, right there with you........no, actually, sorry, no fucking idea what you're talking about." And I LOVE IT!

Anyway--sole problem I find with the episode comes right there at the end. (Oh yeah--spoiler alert.) We've got Daleks, Cybermen, Autons, Sontarans, Silurians, Judoon (who I thought worked for the Shadow Proclamation...oh well, two-timing fuckers)...and 2 or 3 species I've never seen before...all working together to fuck the Doctor. They've gone out of their way to engineer this trap for the Last of the Time Lords, all because they think he's responsible for the end of Life, the Universe and Everything. So what do they do? They lock him up. What??? Why not just, oh, I dunno...fucking kill him? Seriously. I don't see the logic in leaving him alive, locked away for all eternity (or the remainder of the universe, which appears to have been roughly 45 seconds anyway). Surely they've learned the dangers of not eliminating him over the years & many foiled plots...? Were they suffering from Dumbass Villain Syndrome? Or was it just a sense of responsibility to the Last Child of Gallifrey? Maybe they're afraid they won't be able to save the universe on their own, so they're keeping him in cold storage just in case? I don't know. Doesn't make sense to me. Still, looks like everybody's pretty much fucked, so I'm waiting for next week to see how this can all possibly be put back together again.

Oh--and who else was absolutely fucking jazzed to see Rory again? *raises hand* Rockin'!

SW:TOR announcements at E3!!!

2010-06-15T00:28:00.000-04:00

Two to speak of. One is the new cinematic trailer, Hope--which is definitely worth watching, immensely cool...but not my primary focus. My primary focus is here. Sure, they announce info about PvP & battlegrounds, which I could maybe give half a fuck about--BUT!!! The big news:

Each player character will have their very own starship. From the image shown in the video (go watch the fucking thing already!!!), it's bigger than a fighter (read: X-Wing/TIE Fighter) but smaller than a bulk freighter (read: Millennium Falcon). This will be used to not only travel from system to system and explore the galaxy, but--
This starship will serve as the player's home. THEY HAVE PLAYER HOUSING!!!

Those two little snippets (fitting neatly into about 45 seconds of video, tops) compose the single largest geektastic SQUEE!!! of my adult lifetime. SO HAPPY!!!!!!!

Overkill is underrated

2010-06-13T11:56:00.000-04:00

Got to go see The A-Team this past Friday night--opening night, tyvm, even if it wasn't first showing--and had a profoundly good time. "Rollicking", I think they used to say. I couldn't help but notice this morning that some fuckhat named "Tom Charity" gave the movie a C+. Mr. Charity, I'd just like to point out that by your fourth paragraph, it's painfully obvious that you weren't paying attention to the fucking movie. Look, kid, I'm super sorry that you didn't live through the 80's--or if you did, you were still too busy breast-feeding and shitting your diapers to notice much. For those of us who did live through the 1980's, however--and DID see the original TV series--and DID pay attention to the fucking movie--it was an appropriate balance between homage to the original while providing a completely original storyline & backdrop. Much like J.J. Abrams miraculously managed to do with Star Trek, Joe Carnahan has successfully brought a much-beloved fave back from the dead with 21st century sensibilities. (Guess what, asshole? We are at war, and room-temperature-IQ morally-challenged "soldiers of fortune" are out there fucking things up for the average American--and the American soldier!) Was it the single greatest piece of American cinema since The Godfather? No. But was it a fantastically good time--so much so that even the wife (who doesn't care much for testosterone-laden blow-'em-up flicks) really enjoyed it? Fuck yes. So Mr. Charity...go back to watching Sense and Sensibility. Again. The rest of us will be avidly enjoying watching a plan come together.

Now, where was I...oh yeah! Fallen Earth!

Fallen Earth is a MMO that launched this past September based in a post-apocalyptic world much akin to Bethesda Softwork's Fallout 3. There are a few key differences, of course: You're a clone instead of a Vault survivor, the world ended not by nuclear fire but by mysterious & possibly genetically-engineered disease, and a lot of people have at least one beneficial mutation. (Fallout 3 would've had a much different vibe if you could have shot lightning from your fingertips.) The community seems fairly positive overall--which is a bit sad, given that the company responsible for Fallen Earth appears to be in some minor death throes. There's a rumor that Atari may be acquiring it though, so that's something.

I'm just playing the free 10-day trial, so there's a lot of content I can't access. I can't trade with other players, for instance, nor can I access whatever auction or trading house may exist. I am unable to send in-game e-mails (though I am able to swap /tells), nor can I access the in-game storage facilities. I was invited to join a guild fairly quickly, but had to decline--after all, the odds of me staying on & actually subscribing were slim to none.

Don't misunderstand, now--Fallen Earth is well worth your time. The crafting system is really quite deep, and from what I understand, player-crafted items are at the very least the equal of the finest bestest most bad-assest gear you can loot. It's the best crafting system I've seen since pre-CU SWG, which should mean a hell of a lot to those who were there. (*raised fist*) Things take a certain amount of time to make, which can be shortened by having access to the proper facilities--i.e., make guns in the Weapons Shack, not the Medical Tent. The difference is maybe 10% of the overall time, but when it can take 150+ hours to build a motorcycle, I imagine 10% is a nice discount. This time continues to tick away no matter what you do, so you could start crafting stuff--you actually have a queue, so you can have multiple things going--and then go roaring off into the Wastes to harvest more goodies...or just kill stuff.

Combat is FPS-style, so if that's your thing, more power to ya. Me, notsomuch...it's okay, but I kinda sucked at it. The only real piece of ickiness in the whole thing is the method by which you switch weapons. Here's how it goes: You have weapon slots scattered all over your person. Left back, right back, left hip, right hip...and possibly left and right holsters, can't remember for sure. Anyway, in order to swap between those, you either have to remember which CTRL+number is for which item, or hold CTRL and roll your mousewheel. The mousewheel is probably the shittiest choice; I experienced some unpleasantness where my character would either refuse to switch weapons or resolutely equip & unequip the same one over and over again. (That was the one time I died.) I finally just decided to keep one weapon out at all times--whichever one was proving to be most useful at the time--and that seemed to work okay. Note that there's a typo in the downloadable manual: It says to press CTRL+Fkey (F1, F2, etc) to switch weapons. That is a lie; it does not work. You want, as I said before, CTRL+number.

This isn't any sort of in-depth review, just a sort of quick-and-dirty "feel" kind of report. Oh, almost forgot--there's this nice overarching storyline they offer you, starting with the opening tutorial and proceeding on after. I don't want to give anything away, but they do a pretty good job of having you interested and wanting to follow up and see what comes next. It seems a bit grindy overall, but it's forgiveable--much like Fallout 3, this is an open-world sandbox. Go where you want, do what you want, live your life as best you can in this blasted wilderness. Go forth and conquer!

On second thought, maybe it SHOULD be about sex...

2010-06-01T19:53:00.000-04:00

ZOMG!!!

I can't get over this. I just found this over at cnn.com and...wow. Just...just fucking wow. Go read this. Right the fuck now, go read it. I'm totally getting in on this once it goes live. Not because I'd be looking for a "PlayDate"--because I want to be one. At those rates?!? Holy fucking shit. Get outta my way--I needs me a webcam. Who cares how much I suck at Halo or Modern Warfare--I'd fucking learn for that. I would hire one of my more-1337-than-I buddies to train me. Hell, I bet I could even get the wife in on it. She's not that much for gaming, but hey, the "I'm not so good at this...could you maybe show me...? *flutter eyelids & smile*" totally gets guys. Works on me, anyway.

So anyway, yeah--hold off on those MSP donations for right now. Maybe Doc Cyber needs hisself a better avatar... ;)

Why my gamertag doesn't reference sex

2010-05-30T23:03:00.002-04:00

The wife made comment on my Xbox Live Gamertag again the other day; it's bothered her from the very first time she saw it. "Doc Cyber". See, here's the thing: It references one of my characters from City of Heroes. That's it, that's all. She, however, thinks it's something, well...dirty.

Just in case you flat don't believe me, here's a pic of the character back when he had a beard (disregard the assault rifle--don't know where he picked that up):

See? "Doc Cyber"--the man with the cybernetic arm, eye, legs, and spleen. (That's right, spleen--replaced it with a nano-scale particle accelerator. Obviously.) He holds a Doctorate in Cybernetics...thus, Doc Cyber.

However, she's thinking something else altogether. Something more along the lines of this or this. And goddamnit, that's just not the case!!!

Let me bottom-line this for you: All the good names on Xbox Live are gone. Taken ages ago & held by 18-year olds. (That's because they took them when Xbox Live first came out when they were 14 or so.) I would love to have TimeLord75 as my gamertag, but alas...nothing like that was available when I was creating my gamertag. All I had left was my character names from CoH, which are admittedly utterly unknown to 99.999999999999999999999999999999999% of the Xbox Live populace.

If someone were to pony up with the requisite MSP necessary for me to get a new gamertag, I'd be all over it. I'm not particularly attached to "Doc Cyber". I'd also need suggestions for something as close to "TimeLord75" as possible. (n0 1337 5p34k, plz) I'd be very grateful, and I'm sure the wife would be ecstatic. So--any takers?

Could we PLEASE find a different word?

2010-05-27T16:53:00.000-04:00

"Metrosexual". I've been thinking about this word a lot lately, especially since the wife & I stopped by one of the bigass outlet collectives just outside St. Augustine this past weekend and I picked up a new pair of shoes. Skechers, you see--leather uppers and insoles, deep brown with canvas accents and a wicked-cool print-of-some-sort of a dragon/phoenix on the outer edge of the upper. I wasn't looking for shoes, but she was...and the rest is history.

Also, my brother has been unanimously declared by most who know him as metrosexual, so there's that.

According to my preferred online reference, metrosexual simply refers to a man so interested in fashion & his appearance that one might think him to be gay--only he isn't. Fair enough. What concerns me, however, is that the word doesn't make any fucking sense. I mean, think about it:

Homosexual = one who has sexual relations with someone of the same gender
Heterosexual = one who has sexual relations with someone of different gender
Metrosexual = one who has sexual relations with...?

I mean, c'mon--break the word down. Who/what does a metrosexual have sex with? Cities? Transit systems? Or do they just go cruising for promiscuous meters?

Bothersome.

The Eleventh-and-Six Hour

2010-05-20T16:12:00.000-04:00

Finally got access to the latest Doctor Who episodes. It's been maddening! I mean, I got to see maybe 20-30 seconds of Matt Smith at the very end of "The End of Time, Part II", plus the free 9-minute excerpt of "The Eleventh Hour" that iTunes posted...but aside from that, nothing! I'd been reduced to scouring Wikipedia for episode summaries!

Fortunately, I have a friend who is every bit as fond of the eyepatch as I am (albeit not quite as rabid about Who as me) who was able to hook me up with an invite code to a Website That Shall Not Be Named. About 1 1/2 hours later, I had every episode from "The Eleventh Hour" all the way through to the most recent, "Amy's Choice". I stayed up WAY too late last night watching the first one, and am planning a marathon viewing session tonight when I get home.

Thus far, I have to say I really kinda like Matt Smith as the Doctor. I had some real reservations about him going in--I mean, look at his hair--but he's since proved himself capable of carrying on. He reminded me of Tom Baker in "Robot", all manic & grins & gravitas just hidden beneath the surface. I'm also quite fond of the new companion, Amelia "Amy" Pond. Really, she could be the shittiest actress ever to grace a television set, but given that

she's a redhead, and
she's Scottish

...really, it doesn't matter what comes out of her mouth.

Four concerns about this new series merit mention.

The new series logo. Hate it. Just...bleh.
The new opening sequence. The graphics are fine, no biggie, I can get used to those. But the music...! I positively loathe the new theme music. The old music is there underneath it all, if you listen real close...but I can hardly stand to. It fucking blows. Fortunately, my media player allows me to fast-forward.
The Time Rotor isn't anything at all like any previous TARDIS console design that's come before. I suppose that's the point, but...wtf?!? It's like an oversized clear glass Christmas ornament that bobs all on its own, rather than the crystalline column that goes up & down (or meshes, top-to-bottom) that has graced all previous Doctors. I like the crystalline column. This clear glass thing...I suppose they're trying to be original, but for fuck's sake, stop trying so hard. While I like the rest of what we've seen of the new TARDIS interior, this new console detracts from it so much that it's difficult to enjoy the good.
In "The Eleventh Hour", there was a nice little bit towards the end, when the Doctor confronts the Atraxi. We got to see a holographic progression of all the previous Doctors, starting from William Hartnell all the way through David Tennant. Nice touch. But honestly--who the fuck picked those images? All we got to see of Tom Baker was an extreme close-up of half his face! Out of seven solid fucking years in the TARDIS, all the BBC could come up with was some shitty half-image? Way to drop the ball there on a nice piece of continuity, shitheads.

I realize it sounds as if I really kinda hate the new season w/the new Doctor, but that simply isn't so. I enjoyed it immensely--just those things really stuck in my craw. It's sad that the new theme music sucks so much though--that's probably my biggest beef. I've always enjoyed the Doctor Who theme, all the way back to Ron Grainer's first composition through to the most recent version used for David Tennant through "The End of Time, Part II". But this new one...it's just...shit. Just shit. Sad.

Anyway: Looking forward to my marathon tonight. Figure I'll swing by the Gate & grab a six-pack of something; six beers, six episodes of Doctor Who--coincidence? I think not!

Kill innocents! Burn Denerim! Wince at bugs!

2010-05-19T10:47:00.000-04:00

Downloaded & burned through Dragon Age: Darkspawn Chronicles last night. It released with minimal fanfare on Xbox Live at some point during the day, and I promptly ponied up my $5 for MS points & downloaded the 340+ MB. I think it took me about as long to download the damned thing as it did to play through it.

Don't get me wrong--it was fun. There's a certain twisted fun to chasing down NPCs named "Frightened Man" and "Terrified Elf" and "Innocent Woman" in the street and slaughtering them. There were several bugs that reared their ugly heads, like damage not actually being counted for several seconds--that's damage on them, by the way, not on you. Damage inflicted on you is tallied up promptly. Enemies spawn from (quite literally) nowhere, and will occasionally turn invisible. The Taunt power doesn't appear to work, and neither does War Cry. The "Enthrall" power (used to bring other Darkspawn under your control) is kinda neat, but to be honest, it seems a bit tacked-on. Its only purpose is to be able to swap from your character to the other Darkspawn (i.e., Shriek, Emissary, Genlock, etc.), just like you did in the main game to control, say, Lelianna instead of the Warden. Other Darkspawn you encounter will follow you of their own accord, but you won't be able to give them any specific commands.

Like I said, it's a damned short DLC. You begin as a Hurlock Vanguard (a Darkspawn type I can't recall encountering in the actual game), leading the charge into Denerim. You receive mission updates directly from the Archdemon itself, its voice whispering into your mind (and showing up as text floating across the screen). It's basically the Dragon Age: Origins endgame all over again--except this time, you're the Darkspawn. You encounter (and kill) all the major players: Arl Howe, Bann Teagan, Sten, Wynne, the Mabari, etc. Oghren leads a squad of Drunks (who were actually startlingly resilient). You eventually lead your tainted band all the way up to the top of Fort Drakon--conveniently skipping all the levels of the Fort & heading straight for the roof--and fight to defend the Archdemon. Alistair is there, leading Morrigan (?!?), Lelianna & the Mabari. Kill Alistair, and the rest is cake. A nice cutscene at the very end shows the victory of the Darkspawn. You get 1 25-point Achievement and supposedly some special item unlocks for Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Origins: Awakenings.

Is it worth $5? Maybe. I suppose. It's quick & easy, and there's that item unlock (which I don't know what it is or what it does)...eh. Fix the bugs, maybe, and we'll talk. 'Til then, not really.

Old things made new again

2010-05-15T01:31:00.000-04:00

Got the new PC up & running, which means I've been spending entirely too much time on it. For instance, today I completely disregarded any and all sense of personal hygiene for a solid 9 hours after getting out of bed just so I could focus all my attention on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

That's right, you read that right. I'm playing Oblivion. And I still love it.

I first got into the Elder Scrolls series back with Morrowind. I didn't even really know it as a PC game; I got into it courtesy of the Xbox. Hell, Morrowind is the reason I bought a Xbox. It was breathtaking: For the first time ever, you had a RPG that allowed you to create a character and then...turned you loose. Literally. Just like the Microsoft ads used to say: "Where would you like to go today?" You could, if you so desired, haul ass from the docks of Seyda Neen straight to Red Mountain as a fresh-faced level 1 insert-class-here. (And that's the other thing--no classes!) Of course, odds were you'd die before making it too terribly far, but hey--that's Darwinism at work, baby. I got seriously hooked on it, so much so that--and this sticks out in my memory with disturbing clarity--I found myself in the parking garage at work, peering through foliage at the street below and marvelling at how much like Morrowind it all looked.

When I got home that night, I took the disc out of the Xbox, set it aside, and left it alone for awhile.

When word began to break about a new Elder Scrolls game, I was beyond psyched. I couldn't wait. This time, I decided, I was going to do things right; I was going to play it the way the designers had actually intended. I was going to get it for the PC! So there I was, in the hospital, the wife having surgery to remove her appendix...and I was upstairs in her room, using the nurse's PC to preorder the Collector's Edition of Oblivion.

Of course, my PC wasn't exactly up to snuff. It played, but not well...and I didn't care. It was gorgeous, and I drank it in. I didn't much care for the levelling system, or the way critters were handled, or...well, let's face it: in all aspects save graphics & physics engine, Morrowind is a superior game to Oblivion. Modders have helped significantly in this regard--tweaking the economy, fixing metric shit-tons of bugs...generally making it a better game. I downloaded & added a number of these (doing my sub-par PC no end of bad), and didn't realize exactly how much they were aiding my gameplay until I acquired a 2nd-hand copy for my Xbox 360. (Figured, hey, I've already got the 360, sooooo...?) Suddenly forced to use nothing but official mods, I quickly realized how bad Oblivion really was. But goddamn, was it pretty!!! Playing it on the 360 on my bigscreen LCD TV, HDMI cable truckin' along...oh, man, was it ever sweet. Almost made up for the icky bits.

So fast-forward a couple of years, and now here I am, sitting at home in front of a brand-new PC running Windows 7 and cranking along at 3.8 mHz w/6 gigs of RAM with a 4-months-out-of-the-gate NVidia graphics card, and *joygasm*. Suddenly I find myself faced with an Oblivion that is not only just as fucking gorgeous as the Xbox 360/LCD TV combo, but has all the mods a boy could want to make it the game it damned well ought to be. It's like Locutus of fucking Borg, man--the best of both worlds. Sooooo happy. It's even stolen my attention away from Mass Effect 2, which should in and of itself be a capital crime.

Speaking of capital crimes: Star Trek Online. My would-be love has failed me. I made it all the way to RA5 in jaw-dropping time (swear to FSM, I wasn't even trying), only to find...nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nichts. I'm just floating out there in Borg space w/jackshit to do. Sure, there are missions available--they're effectively task forces, requiring 4-5 other players to complete. This after very effectively soloing the whole rest of the game? Blecchh. I really feel bad after having pressured the wife to let me get it & play it. I mean, I laid it on thick--and this is what I have to show for it? A (I think) very skilled captain and bridge crew flying a well-armed-yet-ugly-as-fuck starship...with nothing to do and nobody really caring. I'm still subscribing on a month-to-month basis, but I'm contemplating letting it drop. It's $15/month going to nowhere save for the vague hope that something will happen. Sure, I could roll another character--a science-based captain & ship, maybe. But it would just be the same fucking missions all over again, just different powers backing up the phasers & torpedoes. Klingon play doesn't even remotely interest me, given the utter lack of PvE content. Soooo...as sad as I am to say it, I'm afraid Cryptic Studios may have fucked the pooch on this one. Champions Online turned out to be a long-term bomb for me, and Star Trek Online is just...empty. Whatever Cryptic's next project turns out to be is most definitely getting a jaundiced eye from Yours Truly.

So what's next on the MMO horizon? Well, if you've been paying even the vaguest attention to this website (and let's be honest--aside from me, who is?), then you've noticed the news ticker about halfway down on the right with items from *drumroll* Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's from Bioware, which pretty much means it's going to fucking rock. I'm unaware of Bioware releasing anything that wasn't 115% awesomesauce. Ever. Besides which, if there's even the remotest chance that it could stomp the shit out of whatever's left of Star Wars Galaxies and piss on its grave, then I have to be there. Anything I can do to assfuck SOE as thoroughly as they did that game's players.

On a somewhat more personal note, one of my best friends is graduating from college this Sunday. The man has a blog, check it out. I'm damned proud of the man. I won't get into specifics--I respect him too much for that--but I really hope this whole adventure helps him get his life together. He deserves some stability and--dare I say it--some sanity. All my best, man--well done. Congratulations!

Midnight showings ftw!

2010-05-07T19:06:00.000-04:00

Iron Man 2 fucking ROCKS.

That is all.

I love lazy weekends!

2010-04-27T15:56:00.001-04:00

Haven't had one of those for a long time. You know the kind--where you roll out of bed sometime around 1100 & don't bother shaving...or even showering. You spent the day just wallowing in your own filth & playing videogames. Glorious. That's how I spent this past weekend, and I imagine it'll be the last time I get to do that for quite awhile. I didn't get shit accomplished, but I really don't care. On the plus side, the sheer torpitude of the day meant I got to spend an alarming amount of time playing Mass Effect 2--which is what brings us to this micro-review!

A few disclaimers, before we begin:

I have not finished the game. I'm not even into the final act yet, I don't think.
I have played the living hell out of the original Mass Effect, completing it 3 times (and I still don't have all the achievements!).
I am one of the 5 people in the entire world that actually liked the Mass Effect inventory management system.

Bottom line: If you enjoyed Mass Effect, you're probably going to like Mass Effect 2. Several things have changed, but the basic gameplay remains the same. You've got guns, you've got tech & biotic powers, you play as Commander _________ Shepard and you fly around in a starship named Normandy generally being a badass/ultra-nice guy and saving Life As We Know It. It's how you go about achieving these things that's changed.

For starters, you now have to keep track of ammo. Well, technically they're "thermal clips"; instead of firing like a NRA fanatic with Tourette's until your weapon overheats (then waiting for it to cool down), you have these thermal clips that allow you to fire uninterrupted a certain number of times. You then eject the filled heatsink, pop another one in and keep firing. The net result is a more rapid rate of fire, but once you're out of thermal clips, you're hosed. Fortunately, anyone shooting at you with projectile weapons (read: 80% of your foes) tends to drop a clip or two when they die, so as you whack badguys and advance through the battlefield, you'll get more ammo. If you happen to use all the ammo you have for one weapon, no worries; Shepard carries several, and you can switch at any time just like in the first game. Of course, there's also your tech and/or biotic powers, which don't have ammo but do have cooldown timers. Another plus here between ME & ME2: Tech & Biotic cooldown timers are way faster. Instead of 45 to 90 seconds, you're talking more like 3 to 9 seconds. Love it.

Another irritant--okay, it's two irritants, and they both stem from the good ship Normandy. Navigating the Galaxy Map is handled almost identically to the first game, save for how you get from system to system inside a sector. In ME, this was a simple point-and-click, wait for the loading screen, voila. Now you actually have to fly there manually...and you're burning fuel. You actually have to purchase fuel at fuel depots (typically situated near the mass relay for the sector) and keep track of it; if you run out of fuel while exploring, you start burning your precious minerals. That actually brings me to the other thing: Mining. In ME, mineral collection was an entertaining little sidequest. While romping around in the MAKO, you'd find little collections of elements & metals you could mark for later harvest by the Alliance, and this would earn you a little cash. Now, mineral collection is essential. You use these minerals (element zero, palladium, platinum and iridium) to make upgrades for yourself, your squad and your ship. Improved weapons, armor, shields, etc--all these stem from research performed aboard the Normandy using minerals collected from random planets. To collect these minerals, you have to enter into orbit and start scanning. This brings up a nice holographic grid around the planet--but only while you're holding down the left trigger. Move the crosshairs around the planet, and when the scanner spikes, fire a probe with the right trigger. (Oh, and you have to buy those, too. Limited supply of them aboard. Have fun.) Minerals are automagically uploaded to the ship. This is fun the first few times. A few dozen planets later, and you're not giving a shit so much. In fact, you're starting to wonder why you've lost feeling in the pad of your left trigger finger.

As I read back over this, it occurs to me that you might think I really dislike Mass Effect 2--honestly, that couldn't be further from the truth. Gunplay is far more satisfying (and accurate!) than in the first Mass Effect, and I am simply adoring the vastly reduced recharge times on powers. You have fewer powers overall than in the last game, and only so many skill points to go around (so pay attention & plan ahead a little)--though there is a mechanism in place where Shepard can "respec" his skills & powers, so you're not screwed if you drop 5 level's worth of points into a power only to realize it doesn't do what you thought it might. The cover mechanism feels much smoother this time around, and your teammates seem infinitely more useful (save for one side-mission where the krogan & the asari decided to haul ass to god-knows-where while I fought for my life--fuckers), using their powers to good effect (if your settings allow) and generally keeping your ass alive when that varren comes around from behind and starts gnawing on you while your attention is focused on the 3 pissed-off krogans on the other side of the room. (Guilty.) The new Normandy is significantly larger, the uber-annoying elevator rides are conspicuous by their absence, and the new "e-mail" messaging system makes for endless laughs (and occasional deep discomfort).

There's already a scad of DLC available for Mass Effect 2, and most of it is definitely worth it. In this particular case, it's definitely worth acquiring a new copy rather than used, because the new one includes a free code for access to the "Cerberus Network", essentially a gateway to all the other DLC--and which costs ~$15 by itself. You'll get a bunch of free DLC with that, including the mercenary Zaeed Massani (read: fucking badass) and some other goodies. If you got the Blood Dragon Armor for Dragon Age: Origins, then you also got it for Mass Effect 2--and may I say, it looks way cooler in the latter than in the former. One DLC I can't recommend is the Hammerhead vehicle. It kinda sucks. It's more maneuverable than the MAKO, sure...but nowhere near as resilient or as easy to guide. Its key mechanic appears to be leaping really high, so the missions that accompany it are basically a platforming section wherein people occasionally shoot at you. Meh. Skip it, grab everything else. I haven't yet gone out for that "Stolen Memories" one, with Kasumi What's-Her-Name; my team is plenty bloated as-is, so I'm unlikely to try it. (Not in this playthrough, anyway.)

I've run out of things to talk about for now, so when I inevitably think of what I've forgotten, I'll write more. Now leave me a comment, damnit!

Humanity reaches a new low!

2010-04-20T19:42:00.000-04:00

*sigh* Just about the time I think people couldn't possibly surprise me, they turn around and provide yet another shocker. You might call me a cynic; personally, I prefer "realist".

For instance: Douchebags!

I just don't fucking get it. Why the hate? What the hell did these soldiers ever do to you? You honestly think there's some fucked up quasi-religious overtone to American (or any other nationality, btw) soldiers being blown to smithereens by motherfuckers not-far-removed from the Stone Age?

It's simple logic, kids: These cocksuckers are claiming that this falls under "freedom of speech". Hey, fuckwit--who do you think is guaranteeing you that right??? The Constitution is a very nice couple of pieces of paper. I've seen one of the copies in person. (Yes, there were multiple copies made. And yes, they're on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. I recommend a visit.) However, it is only paper. (Or is it vellum? Hmmm...but I digress.) It is only by the willing sacrifice of our brave volunteer soldiers that these rights which we hold most dear are defended. I'm fairly sure Congress doesn't want most of us to have most of them, and the Supreme Court is proving itself to be a pretty shitty caretaker.

I don't give a damn where you stand on the war in Iraq (I opposed it from the beginning) or Afghanistan (not sure where I stand on that one), but for fuck's sake, support the troops!!! These guys are making shit money to put their lives on the line for people who do not want them there in a hostile environment. These men and women are heroes, and any cocksucking fuckfaced son of a bitch who can't see that needs to either be shot in the face or deported to...hell, I don't know where. Antarctica?

I support you and your cause, Mr. Snyder. If there were some way I could aid you, I would. Unfortunately, I am a man of limited means many many miles away. I doubt you'll ever read this, but if it should somehow reach your attention, please...let me know if there's anything I can do to assist you in stomping these motherfuckers into the earth.

The President goes to NASA

2010-04-15T15:48:00.000-04:00

...and does a helluva bang-up job. No, seriously. I got to see the majority of his speech (damned work), and really really liked what I heard. I approve of the plan he's set forth, and I really think that this will work out for the best for everyone, both NASA & the private sector. The sole concern I have is that the $6 billion he's setting aside for NASA over the next 5 years; according to the discretionary spending freeze that's been enacted, that money has to be accounted for. It has to come from somewhere. That's what worries me--where's it coming from?

Aside from that? Well done, Mr. President. Well done.

Fun for the whole family!

2010-04-06T17:04:00.000-04:00

Everyone's made such a big noise about the Nintendo Wii, how it's such a family-friendly console. The vast majority of the games out there are more kid-oriented than anything else, and even among those that aren't, they're geared to be kid-friendly--PG-13 at worst. Besides, let's be honest: Grown-ups need the superior graphics power of the Xbox 360 or the PS3, because tits & gore just look wrong when they're all pixillated like that.

Just for fun, I thought I'd run a little experiment. Purely to demonstrate the "wholesome fun-ness" of the Wii, you understand. Go ahead & boot up your console and load the Internet Channel. (If you don't have it, shame on you. They gave the damn thing away for free for several months. Even if you do have to pay for it now, it's totally worth it.) Once it's finally loaded (get comfy), open the Search function and enter a web address for something utterly harmless like, say...this, or this, or this, or maybe even this. What hijinks!

Something to think about next time your 6-year old wants to play Wii Bowling with you. You're welcome.

Vote for me!!!

2010-04-05T20:35:00.001-04:00

An interesting (some might say "revoltin'") development over in Star Trek Online. Cryptic Studios has instituted this new thing called the "Advisory Council", which...well, is a long story which I will get into momentarily. Bottom line: Most people on the official forums think that this is a catastrophically bad idea. I happen to agree with them. So what's the next logical step? Why, apply for membership, of course!

The original article is here. The flamefest starts here. I can't recommend reading the latter, unless you find yourself with a massive amount of time on your hands and feel like losing a certain amount of faith in humanity.

People on the forums, in short, are pissed. They feel as though this is something being forced on them--a "council" that "represents the community". Of course, there was no prior discussion of this from the devs, and the people ("Charter Members") selected to be on it were just that--selected by...well, nobody knows. Evidently there was a 3rd-party PR firm involved. The devs are basically talking about how this is just one more method of getting the word out about STO to the world at large, as well as one more avenue to get info from the community to Cryptic. The forumites feel that something like this requires discussion--open, honest discussion, to be precise, and a transparent democratic process wherein the council members would be selected by the players.

There's also the specter of SWG to consider. Sony Online Entertainment, aka SOE (Latin for "We Fuck Donkeys") instituted this thing where certain players were selected to be "Galactic Senators", with the outward appearance of being just what this Council is for STO. However, it wasn't that at all. It was essentially a way for SOE to say, "Hey, we listen to what the players want! We listen to our community! Galactic Senators, see?" Meanwhile, the "Senators" flamed, ignored and sometimes outright banned anyone who dissented with the view presented by the devs. The whole thing was a clusterfuck which culminated in the release of the "New Game Experience", aka NGE (Latin for "Watch Us Fuck Ourselves Up The Ass"). Google that sometime, I dare you. It's a trifle less eye-searing than "Two Girls One Cup", albeit not by much.

Basically, people are afraid that this is going to be just another "shuck & jive" from another dev team, and that this Council is either going to be a fanboi gestapo or an utter clusterfuck along the lines of EVE's council-whatzit. It might turn out to be either one of those...but I'm hoping it won't. I'm actually intrigued by the notion of what it's supposed to be, which is why I tendered my name for membership. I don't expect to actually make it in, but I look at it thusly: I always sharply rebuke anyone who refuses/neglects to vote yet bitches about how things are run in this country. Either put up or shut up, as it were. So, I'm going for it. Wish me luck.

Too-rapid advancement?

2010-03-31T19:25:00.000-04:00

Just realized: I started playing Star Trek Online in late February. We are now on the very cusp of April. I was a wee Lieutenant when I first posted about it. I am now a Captain, grade 8 (of 10). I haven't exactly been grinding this. Days go by when I don't play it at all (though the wife refuses to believe this), and even when I do play, it's usually only for a couple of hours at a time. So I'm many hundreds of light-years removed from the dedicated EQ- (or WoW-) heads, situated firmly in the realm of "casual player". However, I have virtually rocketed through Starfleet's ranks, and am now on the very verge of making (what should be) the heady ranks of the Admiralty.

As exciting as it is to level up and learn new abilities, gain access to new ships, explore new areas, etc...is this all perhaps going by too quickly? I'm soloing the vast majority of the game (95% at bare minimum), so consider that as well. What happens when I hit the cap? Sure, there's something called "daily missions" (which I presumably will hear more about when I get there), and there's PvP (which could crash into a deep abyss for all I fucking care)...but aside from that? Roll an alt, I guess...Science gets all the fun skills anyway. I'd really like to try playing as a Klingon, but 98% of their gameplay is PvP, so...blecchh.

As much as I hated the long-ass slog to 50 in City of Heroes, it certainly felt worthwhile when I finally arrived. It was an event. Who knows...maybe they were onto something after all. I guess we'll see.

Awakening Deep Blue Oceans! (Or something.)

2010-03-30T20:27:00.000-04:00

Okay, so the title sucks. Sue me.

Picked up Bioware's latest expansion pack, Dragon Age: Origins: Awakenings. (Note to Bioware: make titles less awkward, preferably with fewer colons. Dragon Age: Awakenings would be sufficient. Kthxbi.) Also, there's a new title for the Wii (yes, I said Wii): the Endless Oceans sequel...It's called Blue World. I'll touch on both, in the order I started playing them. Allons-y!

Awakenings has been damn near brilliant thus far. They say there's about 16 hours of gameplay in it; I've only been in it for maybe 4.5, but I feel like I'm in way over my head--but in a good way. Let me explain. You can begin this expansion as either an existing character ported over from Origins (i.e., you completed the game and survived--not that Bioware cares, more on that later) or as a brand-new Grey Warden newly-arrived from the neighboring empire of Orlais. I opted to import my Elven Mage character, and so far, so good. You've been granted the title of Warden-Commander, and are in charge of the arling of Amaranthine. If you played through as the Human Noble origin, then this region may be familiar to you: It used to belong to the Couslands before Arl Howe came through and slaughtered your family under Loghain's blessing. (And oh yeah, spoiler alert.) You get to make all the Big Decisions, like: Where shall we focus our troops--the city, the farms, or the trade routes? What do we do with the guy who stole bushels of wheat from the Crown? What about the noble who may have murdered your one best hope of uncovering a conspiracy against your rule? There's a lot riding on your decisions--not just the lives of every commoner (and noble) in Amaranthine, but also the political reality of being the first Grey Warden to actually hold a title and rule lands.

Of course, it's not all just wine & roses. The Darkspawn have mysteriously failed to go *poof* after the death of the Archdemon as was expected; instead, they've actually been banding together and carrying out organized raids on surface farms and towns, all supposedly under the leadership of a Darkspawn that talks. This looks like a job for the Hero of Ferelden!

It's been fun so far, but I have to confess I have this overwhelming sense of loneliness. Almost all your friends from the first game are absent. Oghren is there (never really cared for him, honestly), and at least one other character makes a brief appearance. Your actions from the first game may make a difference as to which character that is; I don't know. (It was Wynne for me.) But aside from them, it's all strangers. I suppose it's a good job of demonstrating the so-called "loneliness of command", but damn, it sucks. After having spent so much time and energy getting to know those other people, it's almost as if you can't imagine not going into battle alongside them...and yet, there you go. Maybe this feeling will lift after a few more hours of play, but I'm not hopeful.

Aside from all that, what's the bottom line? Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening is more Dragon Age. If you liked the first one, you'll like this. If you didn't, you won't. Nyah.

Now! Endless Oceans: Blue World (what the fuck is it with the colons everywhere?) is an entirely different kettle of...ummm...fish. (Sorry.) If I had to boil it down to just a handful of words, I'd say "diving sim with a plot", but that seems like I'm selling it awfully short.

A brief segue: It seems to me that the Wii's limited graphics appear to have become its defining characteristic, as opposed to the groundbreaking motion-control system. Any game that comes out for the Wii always has the same qualifier: "It's quite pretty, for the Wii." It's profoundly annoying to me, perhaps doubly so because it's true. Wii games are never as pretty as what you'll find on the 360 or the PS3, nor will they ever be. That said, however, are graphics all that's required for a good game? Can you ship a game with shitty graphics that has truly mind-blowing gameplay and the most involving story since Citizen Kane or Knights of the Old Republic and have it sell? Lord knows there's plenty of evidence for the contrary--games that are so breathtakingly gorgeous that your soul gets sucked out through the controller, but unfortunately it's a one-way trip to hell because the game itself is an unplayably buggy sack of shit not worth the plastic the DVD is made of. Anyway.

*ahem* Endless Oceans: Blue World is really quite pretty, for the Wii. You spend the vast majority of your time underwater, exploring tropical grottoes and deep sea trenches, searching for...well, I'm not entirely sure what. You're tasked with curing sick sea life, transplanting coral, exploring areas and filling in maps for future divers, stuff like that. Along the way, there are SO many sights to take in. Each and every fish and animal you might find in the real-world oceans is in the game (okay, so that's probably a slight exaggeration, but it feels right) and all you have to do is find them, click on them and discover their names and fun little facts about them. The game keeps track of all your discoveries, as well as any mysterious golden coins or salvage you find strewn along the ocean floor. I've found a few shipwrecks as well, which are of shocking, horrible beauty to behold. There's an overarching plot line that involves tracking down something called the "Song of Dragons", which I know very little about but everyone in the game seems terribly excited about. The only purpose it seems to serve thus far is to provide a reason to travel from dive site to dive site, urging you to explore more in the hopes of finding something else new & shiny.

At first, your time in the water is disturbingly short, but this changes quickly enough; as you spend time underwater and dive deeper, your Dive Level increases, allowing you to spend more time underwater. You do have to keep track of your air, though I'm not sure what happens to you if you let yourself run out. There are some hostile critters down there--I've run afoul of a tiger shark and a great white, myself--but they're easily enough dispatched with a nice little handwave-device called the "Pulsar". This is where the serious suspension of disbelief comes in: The Pulsar is a Taser-like device that can only be used underwater, fires at range, and can be used not only to fend off hostile animals, but also heal sick or injured sea life. What??? Yeah...bothers me too, but it's fun enough that I don't care overmuch. You also get an underwater camera, some sort of sonar-like widget that lets you locate things underneath the sandy floor...fun stuff. You can feed some fish from your hand, and when you do inevitably run low on air (there's a cheery little alert noise in case you're not paying any attention), returning to the boat is a matter of a simple button select. You can even dive right back in, no questions asked!

It's a very simple game thus far, but unquestionably fun. The only limits to your explorations are your air supply and the dive spots the game's plot has unlocked for you. It's calming and exciting at the same time: Oooh, what's over there? Is there sunken treasure anywhere around this wreck? Wow, look at that underwater cave--I wonder if I have enough air to explore it thoroughly? How deep can I go? And what the hell was that that just swam past me? ZOMG, a humpbacked whale!!! You get paid for various tasks, earning monies you can then spend on upgrades for your employer's private little island, for your private reef, or for your own diving equipment. I don't know that getting a different tank or wetsuit provides any in-game benefit, but I do it anyway. It's all about being pretty, anyway. ;)

I know, I suck--but Texas sucks worse!

2010-03-16T18:28:00.001-04:00

Yeah, so I haven't written anything lately. Just not too much going on. But, how can that be? you wonder. All these new games are coming out, some of them even on the 360...so what the hell? Yeah, well...blame Cryptic Studios & Star Trek Online. Motherfuckers have me sitting inside Romulan space manning a Heavy Cruiser. I'm a Commander (grade 8, which means Captain ain't far out) and having a fantastic time duking it out with Romulans, Remans, Hirogen, random previously-unknown aliens--and even a few Klingons! *sigh* Some guys get all the luck, lemme tell ya...

...kinda like these motherfuckers over in Texas. These sonsuvbitches want to completely rewrite American history so it fits better with their neoconservative agendas. Follow the link and read the article. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now, c'mon...seriously?!? These asshats want to do away with Thomas fucking Jefferson?!? Any historical political figure that wasn't somewhere 10k lightyears distant from just left of centrist is being completely excised, and Joe McCarthy is going to be elevated to just south of the Pope. And I don't care much for hip-hop or country-western music, but they're certainly as worthy of recognition as Van Halen. Oh, and the whole "our Founding Fathers were guided by Christian values" bullshit? Yeah, look that one up...I dare you. Look for actual quotes from the likes of Washington, Adams, Franklin and Jeffer--oooh, wait, nevermind...forgot he doesn't exist anymore. (Psychotic motherfuckers.)

If I didn't know better, I'd say this was some sort of prank from the likes of the Onion. Unfortunately, I do know better, because my mother-in-law is one of these people. I'd say god save the Union, but I'm pretty sure the Union is already pretty much hosed.

Saving the galaxy as we know it

2010-03-01T17:43:00.000-05:00

Been having a hell of a time playing Star Trek Online lately. I'm already a Lieutenant Commander 7 (each rank--aside from Ensign--is broken up into 7 "grades", allowing a constant-but-gradual leveling curve that provides for continual advancement & a sense of accomplishment as one proceeds), flying a modified Excalibur-class cruiser with my (not by me) gimped bridge officers and generally phasering the crap out of any Klingons/Nausicaans/Orions/Gorn that get in my way. Along the way, I've really enjoyed a few of the stories laid out by the developers--stories that were not only engaging, but served to dip into the deep well of Star Trek canon and lore. They were deeply satisfying stories, and based on what I'm seeing in-game right now, I'm on the cusp of another bunch.

Oh, and should it need be said: SPOILER ALERT!!!

It all started when I was introduced to the (now-grown) daughter of Tom Paris and B'elanna Torres from Star Trek: Voyager, one Miral Paris. 1/4 Klingon & 3/4 human, her DNA was of tremendous interest to a power-mad Klingon ambassador, and Klingon society referred to her as something called the "kuvagh'magh", a sort of messiah/destroyer figure. She just wanted to be left alone to do her job as chief of security aboard the U.S.S. Kirk. Anyway, fast-forward a bit and we're notified that Starfleet has received a distress signal from the Kirk, and we're dispatched to assist. Upon arrival, we find the ship besieged by multiple Klingon starships. Blew them out of the stars, then beamed over to the Kirk to help repel boarders...just in time to watch someone beam away with Paris! :gasp:

We beamed back over to the ship straight away and gave chase...to the Gateway Planet. That's right, boys & girls, the very same planet James T. Kirk & the original U.S.S. Enterprise visited 150 years ago, which has been under the strictest quarantine ever since...the home of the Guardian of Forever. We fought our way through several squads of Klingon warriors...though not quickly enough to keep Ambassador B'Vat and his prisoner--Miral Paris--through the Guardian! (This was the high point: When I ran up to talk to the Guardian, it wasn't just text--there was a voiceover. It sounded just like the voice of the Guardian from the series.) We were able to follow B'Vat into the past--and somehow, the Guardian enabled us to retain the use of our starship! We were dumped immediately into orbit around a strange planet--and witness to 3 Klingon D-7 cruisers fighting the starship Enterprise--the original one! We came to the rescue (and were rewarded with a voice-only message from Commander Spock :squee!:) and then beamed over to the Klingon command ship. We confronted Captain B'Vat, who had already met his future self and was bemoaning his fate as a total psychopathic fucktard. He pointed the way to the Ambassador, who I was all too happy to whack.

After rescuing Miral Paris, I discovered the whole damned thing was a predestination paradox. Remember from the original series, how all the Klingons had smooth foreheads? Turns out the reason Miral Paris was honored as the kuvagh'magh was because she had already cured them. Go figure. We got ambushed by another group of Klingon battleships before we could return to the 25th century--only this time, the Enterprise came to our rescue. Another voice-only communique from Commander Spock indicated he knew we were from the future ("I know something of time travel," he said) and wished us well. We passed back through the Guardian & returned to our own time, to much cheering and accolade.

How awesome is that?!?

The next mission involved me investigating a base where the Klingons were working on experimental weaponry. We took out the resistance in orbit, then beamed down to the surface. We fought our way through several squads of warriors, tagging experimental torpedoes to be beamed up to the ship as we went. Once we got them all, we returned to the McAuliffe in time for my tactical officer to identify the torpedoes as...well, I can't remember what she called them, but they were effectively "planet-cracker" weapons. Once charged with a certain amount of ferromagnetic energy, they could blow a hole through, well...anything. Good thing, too, because long-range sensors identified an honest-to-god horror chewing (literally) through the planet's moon: a planet-killer. One of my bridge officers (god, I love those guys) had the idea to fly the ship through the remains of the moon, very close to the moon's core--that would charge the planet-cracker torpedoes we'd just confiscated, which we could then fire down the gullet of the planet-killer. You wanna talk about nerve-wracking? Even better, the torpedoes would only be effective on the thing's innards after it had already fired. So we had to take it for the team, in the face (kiss that shield arc, along with 50-60% of the ship's structural integrity, goodbye), three times before the goddamn thing gave up the ghost.

Now that was thrilling!

From the way the story seems to be moving along, I think I've done all I can do to assist Starfleet in the war against the Klingons. (Hell, I've already done in one of the chief architects of the conflict!) My assignments seem to be coming from a Vulcan admiral on a starbase just outside the Romulan Neutral Zone, and I had my first skirmish with a Romulan Warbird. I also got thoroughly used by Section 31--but that's a story for another time.

So, yeah...am I having fun playing Star Trek Online? What do you think? :)

A pause for condolences

2010-02-25T19:46:00.000-05:00

For those who haven't been paying attention, actor Andrew Koenig (son of Star Trek alum Walter Koenig) has been missing for nearly 2 weeks. He'd been on antidepressant medication, which he stopped taking about a year ago. The last anyone saw him, he was visiting friends in Vancouver, B.C. Authorities announced today that they believe they've found his body.

All my hopes, wishes and condolences to the Koenig family should this prove to be true. (There's supposed to be a press briefing in about 15 minutes.) Please take a moment of your time to pause and reflect, and send positive energies to this embattled family.

Boldly going where no game has ever (effectively) gone before!

2010-02-21T14:41:00.000-05:00

And it's true! There have been a LOT of different Star Trek games, all of them managing to fuck up the IP in one form or another. They've all suffered from variations on clunky controls, shitty graphics, storylines that didn't make any sense, etc. It's actually been a bit like Batman--lots of attempts with a 100% failure rate. However--again, just like Batman (see: Arkham Asylum)--this time, a game publisher has managed to catch lightning in a bottle with Star Trek Online.

The whole thing kicked off with Perpetual Entertainment back in 2004, when they announced that they'd acquired the IP rights to Star Trek and would be developing a MMO based on it. These are the same folks who were supposedly publishing Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, which actually managed to go as far as a beta test before collapsing mysteriously. Anyway, a lot of people seemed a bit unsure about how Perpetual intended to handle the franchise, seeing as the Guy In Charge was actually quoted as saying, "This is not a game for Trekkies." This, of course, raises the question of, "Well, who the fuck is it for then?!?" Fortunately, Perpetual took a dump (no big shocker there) and sold the IP rights to Cryptic Studios, the same group that released Champions Online and the parent studio that originally produced City of Heroes. The IP transfer happened in '08, and Cryptic set to work using their own proprietary engine. This month, they launched. (If you have the soundtrack to Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, please play track #6 now.)

Once you create your character--a process every bit as personalizable as Cryptic's previous aforementioned offerings--the game opens with a voiceover from Leonard Nimoy. A nice touch (and there will be several more as you play through the game), but a bit strange, seeing as the events in-game supposedly happen after the events of the recent Star Trek movie, so Spock is presumed long dead. Anyway. You find yourself an Ensign assigned to a random Miranda-class starship in the midst of a battle with the Borg. As the voice of new-Spock (aka Sylar, aka Zachary Quinto) in the guise of an unnamed EMH guides you through the tutorial--ground movement, combat, and interaction, menus, space movement, combat and interation, etc.--you gradually learn the basics of play. You'll acquire your first Bridge Officer, and by the end, you'll be assigned command of your very own Miranda-class starship and be turned loose upon the Federation. It's a fairly straightforward affair, and covers the basics well enough, even if there are (as you'll discover) many more advanced things left uncovered.

Starship movement and combat feel right, and it's a far more interactive affair than most any other MMO out there--including the primary big name in sci-fi MMOage, EVE Online. You'll receive missions from Starfleet brass over subspace radio, as well as receiving the occasional distress call as you explore the sector map. At random places across the map, you'll find "Enemy Sensor Contacts", which allow you to access areas infested with Klingon starships that need culling. A lone starship can easily get overwhelmed in these areas, which is why they operate as--and this is a wonderful thing--Open Team Instances. Basically, you "warp in" to the area, and whoever's already in there--bam, you're on their team. If someone else enters, bam, he's on the team. You can see one another on the map easily enough, communication is simple (all typing though--no built-in voice communication)...in fact, the hardest part is making sure everyone's headed toward the same patrol! At all times during space combat (at least, thus far in my admittedly limited experience), you have full control over ship speed and direction. X, Y and Z axes are available for your pleasure--except there's no direct vertical movement like Kirk in the Mutara Nebula. Phasers wear down enemy shields, photon torpedoes do kinetic damage (almost useless on shields, but damning on bare hull)...there are disrupters, quantum torpedoes--you name it. If you've ever seen/heard it on an episode or in a movie, it's there. You can swap out equipment on your starship anytime outside combat, and you've got fore and aft weapon slots. Four shield arcs (fore, starboard, port and aft) ensure that you'll want to keep moving--both to keep your strongest shield toward your foe, and to maneuver yourself towards his weakest!

Ground combat isn't my favorite part of the game, but it's also handled well. You beam down with an assortment of Bridge Officers (or random security officers, if you don't have enough Officers) to explore and occasionally engage in combat with enemy forces--which, by the way, respond appropriately. You begin the game with a regular hand phaser and a phaser "sniper rifle" (more accurately, "phaser rifle with laser sight") and can acquire different (not always better) weapons from fallen foes. Different Bridge Officers have different abilities they can bring to bear in combat--for instance, my Science Officer can deploy some tachyon-thingy that devastates enemies' personal shields. My Engineer can restore my own personal shield (thank you, thank you, thank you) and my Tactical Officer can leg sweep even the largest Gorn. I have another Engineer who can deploy chroniton mines--not only do they do damage, they slow the victim(s). Different specializations have different abilities; my character is a Tactical Officer, so my stuff focuses on attacks primarily. I teamed with an Engineering-based player last night, and she was able to deploy an immobile shield wall we could use for cover, as well as phaser turrets and some gizmo that would actually regenerate our health. If you go down in combat (and you will), you can either opt to respawn (if solo) or press the "Call for Help" button, which alerts your fellow player that you're sucking permacrete and could use a hand. Every player has the ability to resuscitate a fallen comrade, so that's nice.

Not every mission involves combat. There are actually missions you'll be assigned which involve going where no man has gone before. I found planets in need of emergency supplies (which you can either buy from wandering traders or salvage from fallen foes), as well as ruins on planet surfaces that needed exploring--or ancient planetary defense grids that need deactivating so starship traffic in the area won't be imperiled. My favorite one so far was an abandoned Klingon listening post--nothing but exploring and searching computers, all the while wondering if we were going to get jumped by Klingons or Borg. I had another one last night, a research facility that was under attack by the Gorn. This one did involve combat, but it was also on fire; I had to acquire an extinguisher and use it to put out flames so I could clear the facility and rescue the scientists. Great fun!

I know, I know...I've babbled on for a long damn time, but I just wanted to give you, Dear Reader, a good understanding of what the game is about. It is also a damned fine game, and Cryptic Studios has done an exceptional job of fully grasping the IP and opening it up for everyone who has ever wanted to sit in the center seat of a Federation starship and explore strange new worlds, seek out new lifeforms and new civilizations, and boldly go where no man (fuck you, political correctionists) has gone before. I'm only a Lieutentant right now, but I've got a promotion coming any day now, and I can't wait to see where my orders will take me and my crew next!

Fawlty Towers! (No, the other one)

2010-02-20T12:20:00.000-05:00

I've been on vacation all this past week; I had more than enough hours saved up in my PTO bank, and frankly, my mental health demanded it. Didn't have any real plans, save for a slowly growing (as in, over the past few months) desire to go visit the Kennedy Space Center.

So we did.

I hadn't been there in ~25 years--you know, back when the whole "space shuttle" thing was this shiny new-fangled whatzit. I did some looking around online & discovered they'd expanded considerably since the last time I was there, and was eager to go. We set about looking for hotels in the area & couldn't find much that wasn't obscenely overpriced (near the beach, I s'pose)...and then we found it. Fawlty Towers. Named for that grand old comedy series from the BBC, this place did, in fact, have absolutely nothing to do with it. The website explained that the owners were British, and the wife spoke with someone on the phone & insisted the person on the other end sounded British, but the only folk we physically ran into were just this side of WT. Nice, but WT.

The rooms (yes, plural...come to that in a moment) were smallish, dimly-lit and 100% tile floor--which, it needn't be said, is fucking cold first thing in the morning. The beds were...well, I can't say the most uncomfortable ever--having previously stayed in Cassadaga--but were certainly right up there. At least they had cable. Mirrors in the bathroom were hung by someone around 4'10", but I certainly can't say much bad about the showers. Hot, hot water, in apparently unending supply--which is a godsend to someone like me, who simply can't get enough hot water soaking, or anyone else whose feet simply need thawing out after hitting the cold-ass tile floor in the morning. The shower in our first room had the entertaining hobby of holding onto water for awhile before letting it drain out, turning each shower into some grotesque game show of "can I finish bathing before the bathroom floods?" We reported this to the front desk, they came & checked it out, and decided it required professional help and moved us to the room next door. This room was completely identical to the other one, save that

all the furniture was arranged in a perfect mirror image of the first room
the shower worked
the toilet didn't

We only stayed there two nights, so it was all tolerable--and to be honest, it was all very clean and I don't think you could beat the price anywhere nearby (at least, not one that didn't require signing several waivers and your very own body-fluid-detecting CSI light).

Disclaimer: The wife is standing immediately behind me and insisting that I add, "I would stay there again." This is strictly added as a form of editorial control and has little or nothing to do with the author's original intent.

There were several fairly entertaining stores very near the hotel--literally, within football-throwing distance--including a self-described "stripper store" and a 24-hour Ron Jon. There was also a really good (and very friendly) pizza joint that somehow got omitted from the hotel's "nearby restaurants" papers. I mean, literally, you can't help but pass the place on your way into the hotel, but there's no mention of it whatsoever on either their "walking map" or the ubiquitous folder-thing containing ads & suggestions for nearby eateries. Some sort of feud, perhaps? Anyway.

Kennedy Space Center turned out to be every bit as much fun as I'd hoped, though we ran out of time before getting to visit the Astronaut Hall of Fame. I even came away with a few packets of freeze-dried ice cream--a must, and well-worth trying if you haven't already. I had the opportunity to buy an honest-to-god meteorite...for the bargain-basement price of $12,000. We hit the IKEA in Orlando on the way home & came away $150 poorer but with a bunch of new doodads, including a new lamp and a sexy new hanging cabinet for my bathroom. Good times.

So anyway, I'm back home now & waiting with a growing sense of dread for this upcoming Tuesday, when I have to return to work. At least I have Star Trek Online to pass the time. Wait--did I not mention that? Damn...next time.

Return to yawn Ostagar!

2010-02-09T19:05:00.000-05:00

Okay, so Bioware finally unfucked & delivered the latest DLC for Dragon Age: Origins, namely "Return to Ostagar". It's a smart little number for 400 MS points or so, a good deal for those who (like myself) are hip-deep in Ferelden and aren't quite ready to come up for air yet. However, it seems a bit...how shall we say...light on content? And some of it doesn't make a whole helluvalotta sense.

This DLC essentially does, as they call it across the pond, just what it says on the tin. You uncover rumors of another survivor of the battle of Ostagar; when you go to investigate them, you find this guy (who you may have spoken with in the camp just prior to said battle) in the process of getting killed by mercs. Whack the mercs and find out that this guy knows where a secret cache of weapons and documents may be found back in the King's Camp in the ruins of Ostagar--and he's the only one who knows where the key is.

Of course, like any quest in DA:O, you can bring any party members you like--but I highly recommend bringing Alistair and Wynne. They were both present for the original battle and can provide some very poignant (and occasionally humorous) insights as they chat back & forth. The entire camp is explorable, as is the area on the ground where King Cailan and Duncan made their final stand against the Darkspawn. Inbetween the two is supposedly the basement of the Tower of Ishal--remember when the soldiers talked about how darkspawn had come up from the lower levels, and once you were inside, you found the bigass hole in the floor? Yeah, you're going down there. (This is, incidentally, where things go a little not-quite-right with this DLC--more on that later.) There are 3 objectives to accomplish while you're here:

Retrieve the secret stash of weapons, armor & equipment from the king's campsite.
Recover the body of King Cailan, as well as his sword, shield (*cough*) and armor.
SPOILER ALERT!!!

The King's gear has been scattered amongst the "generals" of the darkspawn force holding Ostagar, so you'll have to hunt them down and kill them to get the goods. Now, if you'll remember--and if you don't, that's what YouTube is for--the king was using a two-handed sword during the battle and in the preparatory meeting(s) beforehand. Maybe the gear changes based on what the main character is most skilled in, because my character was a sword-and-shield warrior, but who knows. There's a helmet to recover as well, even though I remember Cailan's death quite well and his head was definitely bare. Whatever.

The ickiness I mentioned before? Yeah, here y'go: If you've played through the origin story for the Dalish Elf, you'll recognize the basement level of the Tower of Ishal. It's essentially the same goddamn map as the cave ruin you explore during that story, only with different enemies and lighting. Some areas from that map are inaccessible, but it's the same map. Blah. I recognized it straightaway, and pretty much knew where the spawn points (no pun intended) would be. Profoundly disappointing.

Also disappointing is the king's gear. I mean, it's not bad...but my character already had armor WAY better than what the fucking King of Ferelden had. (Note: It is totally worth it to take the time and risk to kill the High Dragon in the Temple of Andraste. Take the Dragon Scale to the armorer in Denerim. You're welcome.) Also, remember that metal you took from Kal-El's rocket--err, that is, the asteroid? Mikhail What's-His-Name forged Starfang for you? Yeah...that's a better weapon than the king's sword. Especially once you stick some decent runes in it. I think I wound up giving all the king's gear to Oghren. Go figure.

I'm not really spoiling anything here, since other news sites (including the Escapist) have already covered it, but the real culmination of the DLC is when you face a darkspawn necromancer (where the fuck have they been hiding this guy?) and an undead version of the same Ogre that killed King Cailan--and was in turn killed by Duncan. And yes--this is a spoiler alert--Duncan's weapons are still there, stuck in the beast's chest. They're...okay, I guess. I guess it makes sense that Duncan and Cailan met such sad and pathetic ends; their gear kinda sucked.

There's a bunch of shit in here that doesn't make any sense--not least is the so-so equipment of two of Ferelden's Most Powerful. The darkspawn necromancer--why the hell is there only ONE of this guy? If they've got necromancy, why the hell haven't they completely overrun Orzammar already--to say nothing of the world? Most of the darkspawn you'll encounter here--and there are a lot of them--are "grunt" status, meaning if you look at them cross-eyed, they'll crumple like Haitian architecture. What's up with that? Did they just decide to leave all the retards in the rear-guard? Alternatively, if this was in fact the power level of the darkspawn that initially attacked Ostagar, then maybe all those motherfuckers deserved to die--because they composed the single most incompetent army in the history of Time Itself.

*sigh* I know I'm making it sound like I really hated "RtO", but honestly I didn't. It was a nice little sidetrek, a quest taking me back to a portion of the world previously sealed off to me. The atmosphere was solid, and I really did feel like I was running a tiny little suicide mission. I'd heard that there were "secret documents" belonging to Loghain as well, but I couldn't find them. There was only one achievement for this DLC, which was a bit of a letdown, but whatever. It was fun but short; if you're going in for spoils, it's not worth it. I put on the King's Armor just once, just so I could see what it looked like. I then promptly took it off and put my good stuff back on.

I'm trying to end this on an "up" note, but I just can't think of one. "Return to Ostagar" is worth the 400 MS points, I guess...but not a penny more. Here's hoping Dragon Age: Awakenings is more attention-worthy.

Swamp wading!

2010-02-04T16:55:00.000-05:00

Peoples of Earth, please attend carefully...the words that follow are of vital importance to you all:

I have, in Dragon Age: Origins, finally gotten laid.

(*insert cheers and wild applause here*)

It was a goal of mine with my first character, the elven mage; I'd decided that she had the hots for Alistair, but things never got off the ground. We kissed and flirted like mad, but things never actually ignited. Anyway, I decided to focus on that aspect of the game with my next character, the human noble warrior--and boy, did I get lucky!

*dodges fruit*

I've read elsewhere that Morrigan's romance subplot is as difficult to access as a cheerleader on prom night, and this is not an inaccurate description. I only had to get her up to ~65% approval, though I did have to make certain to catch certain dialogue options. (Make sure you inquire about loneliness and childhood. Psycho swamp-dwelling witch-chicks dig that.) Before long, she was all complaining about how cold her bedroll was, and whatever was she to do??? (*insert Groucho Marx eyebrow-waggle here*) Lelianna, on the other hand, was a much tougher nug to crack--and that's not a typo, that's a hint to those interested in some hot Brit/French archer action. I had to get her approval all the way up to 100%--meaning head-over-heels in love with me--before she'd pony up with the cutscene. Somehow, that made it more meaningful; all that effort suddenly made worthwhile, and while I'd always liked Lelianna's character, this made me even more attached to her. Strange.

Something interesting I discovered--quite by accident, mind you--was that even though you only get the nooky cutscene once, it's assumed that your (not necessarily) romantic interludes continue behind the scenes. After I scored w/Morrigan (Witch Gone Wild is the achievement, which earned me an enthusiastic cheer and high-five from the wife), I turned my attentions to Lelianna. I didn't seem to be making a whole helluva lot of progress, but when I initiated a conversation after rescuing Arl Eamon, she was pissed. Well...maybe huffy is more like it. She commented that she'd seen Morrigan going into my tent, and she was...irked, to say the least. I found this interesting--not that she was irked, but rather that it was "assumed" that one's relationship continued offstage even if the player didn't make it a point to chat up the other person on a regular basis. That particular conversation with Lelianna didn't end well, though it did have the very best line of the entire freaking game: "She...you...you two...you were...you were wading through her swamp!!!" I was pretty well incapacitated for several minutes after that.

After finally landing Lelianna (Wine, Woman and Song), I discovered I had failed to contemplate the implications of my earlier discovery--namely that relationships persist--and was confronted by my new beloved about my continuing relationship with Morrigan. This, while we're I-don't-know-how-many miles down in the Deep Roads. Perspective, woman!!! Honestly though, she wasn't being all that unreasonable. "Just give me some respect. Give us some respect." So, yeah...I broke up with Morrigan. She knew it was coming, so she said (and why not, seeing as Lelianna and I had just had the conversation less than 10 feet from where she was standing), and while her feelings were clearly more hurt than she would say, she said she was glad it was over. (Minus 13 approval from Morrigan, thankyouverymuch.)

All in all, it's been an entertaining experience. I'm looking forward to seeing how this relationship plays out through the rest of this game. Either I, Alistair or (insert mystery guest here) have to die this time fighting the Archdemon--no Old God babies this time around!--so maybe I'll get to see a cutscene with a mourning Lelianna. Nothing like a nice ego stroke on the way to the crematorium. ;)

D&D fo' shizzle!

2010-01-26T20:16:00.000-05:00

So get this: There's a guy in Madison, WI, who just wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons. He's 33 and had been playing since he was a kid. He had a bunch of friends--3 or 4 of them--who were willing to play with him as the DM. He had all the books he needed, as well as several magazines (maybe Dragon, maybe Dungeon, doesn't matter) and a 96-page adventure he'd written all by his onesie. All he was lacking was chips & soda. Ready to rock, right? There's just one catch: Our Hero is an inmate at Waupun prison in Madison, WI.

Here's the original story for those who are interested.

Evidently, someone was pissed off they weren't invited (maybe he killed their character last time around?) and sent an anonymous letter to prison officials, who promptly tossed the guy's cell and confiscated all his gaming gear. (Pause for collective gamer rage.) Our Hero, aka Kevin Singer, sued the state of Wisconsin for, basically, his right to play D&D. Needless to say, he lost. Prison officials said--and I don't care if you followed the link or not, 'cuz this is worth repeating--Dungeons & Dragons "promotes fantasy role playing, competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviors, and possible gambling."

Well, let's see...the former is a gimme. "Promotes fantasy role playing" was probably figured out only because someone happened to read the back cover, where it says something about "Fantasy Role Playing Game". Kinda like "*gasp* NASA promotes space exploration!" Props to Captain Obvious. "Competitive Hostility"--huh? Only if you're running the kind of campaign where things inevitably go sideways and the players' characters all wind up trying to kill one another. (Like mine. Unfortunately.) "Violence." Notsomuch, really. Maybe they're counting when your dice repeatedly betray you and you fling them across the room in anger? Or are the prison officials just feeling sympathy for the orcish hordes? "Addictive escape behaviors." No, no no no. Dragon Age: Origins promotes this. Batman: Arkham Asylum promotes this. Dungeons & Dragons? Err...no. It's fun, but not that fun. Last, but certainly (unintentionally) least, "possible gambling." I figure this one had to come around because they discovered dice in his cell. I can just hear the discussion now: "Hey, sheriff...how ya think they use them thar funny-lookin' ones?" "Beats me. This'uns got 1...5...10...12...fuck, lotta sides. Prob'ly satanism. Book 'em."

So, bottom line is Dungeons & Dragons promotes gang-related activity. Really? Have I just been, I dunno, fucking missing out these past 25+ years? I can't recall once tagging a wall with "Natural 20" or "Suck my crit!" Sure, there was that one time we gang-raped that elf chick, but there was a gnome involved so I'm pretty sure it was legal. And if it matters, I know a guy makes regular runs across state lines with dwarven ale (PM me for details).

Now, don't get me wrong: I do not condone what Our Hero did to get himself put behind bars. He bludgeoned a man to death with a sledgehammer. (Perfectly understandable, according to my dwarf friend--but I digress.) I'm just somewhere between irritated and amused with their reasoning behind banning D&D. Being, as I said, a 25+ year veteran of the game (props to the AD&D 2nd ed. crew!), I'm pretty fucking sure all their claims are 110% bullshit. I just thought we'd left this shit behind back in the 70's. *sigh*

Rocket scientists in Texas!

2010-01-26T13:43:00.000-05:00

Okay, so check this out. Evidently, there's a bunch of homes in San Antonio (as discussed here) that are in the process of being sucked into the earth as a result of shitty planning, overdevelopment and people with more money than brains. The former two claims are self-explanatory. The lattermost? Well, check these enlightening quotes out.

These come direct from the article, and are just too good not to share. Mr. Kenny Crawford has this to share: "Of course, property values are going to fall." No shit, ya think?!? (Does Crawford + Texas = brain damaged? I'll let you be the judge.)

Another personal fave of mine comes from Lakeika James, age 41. She says she noticed "odd noises" in the house over the 3 (!!!) years that she's lived there. Here's her quote: "I would hear, laying in my bed at night, grumbling and vibrations. A few nails popped out lately." Oh. My. Gawd. At what point did you think that maybe something was terminally fucked up about this?!? If nails are popping out of the wall, either you've got a seriously pissed off poltergeist, or...christ, I can't even think of an alternative. (Clearly, the answer is "your house is being eaten", but still.) What did she think was going on? Had she installed a MRI machine in the room? "*praaaang* Aw, hell...forgot to turn off the magnet again!" I just...I can't comprehend the level of...apathy, I guess, is the best word. Either that or total fucking retardation.

The bestest part of all of this? These whackjobs paid $10k more for those lots. I wonder how much it's costing them to salvage what's left? (Hey! Maybe that's what those damned association fees are for!!!)

Get off my lawn!!!

2010-01-25T17:10:00.000-05:00

I'm writing this simply because I feel the need to get it off my chest. Maybe, if I put it out there into the universe, something will come of it. (Hopefully, something good. I'm not holding my breath.) We'll see.

There's a surgeon I work with on a semi-regular basis. I provide radiologic service to him during his cases. I'm not the only one who does so; the whole team rotates through surgery. We've had a rocky history, this physician and I: One of the first cases I had with him, I damn near laid his ass out on the floor. I was this close to just throwing my career away and just not giving an airborne coitus. Fortunately, things have improved--marginally, at best, but improvement all the same.

This arrogant fuckwit has the gall to instruct people--including me--on how to perform our jobs. These are things that he has no personal experience with--and when I say "no personal experience", I mean he's never fucking laid eyes on the equipment on his own and couldn't work the goddamn thing if his life depended on it, nevermind the patient on the operating table. He's gone up against everyone from anesthesiologists to lab techs.

I did a little digging the other day, and discovered that this particular fuckwit (and no, I'm not going to name him, nevermind how much I'd like to) graduated from medical school on 5/29/1999. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand correctly--and assuming he went straight from high school to college to medical school--that means he was a sophomore in college in 5/1995. (It's possible my understanding of the length of medical school is wrong, and he was actually just graduating from high school in 1995. Not sure.)

I graduated from radiologic technology school in 1995.

That means I've literally been doing my job longer than he has.

I think on this, as he's berating me for something of which he clearly has no comprehension. He rants and raves and carries on, and I am, in every possible definition of the term, his professional elder.

Cocksucking motherfucker.

Dragon Age Part II (+1/2)

2010-01-20T18:59:00.000-05:00

Started my 2nd playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins the other day--a Human Noble Warrior, as advertised. Much fun! I'd intended to make him a 2-hander specialist, but after playing Sten during the final battle at Denerim, I decided that sword & shield might be a better powerset. Don't get me wrong: Sten + Mabari Hound = target dead before your spell even arrives, and Sten does just fine on his own, but actually controlling him was an exercise in frustration. "Okay, enemy targetted, open the radial menu, select Talent, press A--whoa, where the hell'd the Darkspawn go?" Enemies literally hauled ass right past the big scary dude with the Taunt aura active, so by the time he'd brought that massive effing sword down, he wasn't cleaving anything but turf. So yeah--sword & shield. Much fun.

I made it all the way through Lothering and 3/4 of Redcliffe before coming to an impasse. I'd intentionally been doing many things differently, particularly because I wanted the Achievements. (Yeah, I went there.) So when the option came to use Blood Magic (or not) on wee Connor, I opted to head for the Circle of Magi to get mages & lyrium & do this the old-fashioned way. Dumbass me ran headlong into the "Broken Circle" quest, wherein one must choose whether to support the Mages or the Templars. I had wanted the Templars, and I had wanted them bad. So I went with the general conversation options that selected Templars--but whoa, hold the fuckin' phone: Didn't I come here to get mages for Connor? Fuck. So here I sit, with 2 saves--one before heading to the Circle tower, and another just after siding with the Templars. I'm still trying to figure out if I effed myself...we'll see.

In the interim, whilst waiting for something useful to drip out of Yahoo! Answers, I decided to go ahead and start a third playthrough--this time as a Dalish Elf Rogue. I'd have to say that the Dalish Elf has to be my favorite Origin story thus far. Don't know why, but it really appeals to me. My first character (Elven Mage) was sort of a "go-along-get-along" type...this guy is a "fuck all you humans!!!" type. I even told off the King--and to his credit, he managed to turn the conversation around into a compliment to the Dalish people. Damned good diplomat there. Poor sod. Anywho--my big hope this time 'round is to get laid. The Elven Mage had a nice simmering romance with Alistair, but that priggish fuck never quite got 'round to putting out. The Human Noble has his sights set on Lelianna (sp?) and Morrigan both; my Dalish will take either one. He'd prefer an elf, obviously, but barring that...eh, whatever. Zevran...no. Just no.

Oh, and note to self: Do NOT include a mage when storming Redcliffe Castle. I wanna see what happens there. ;) And if anyone knows how to side with the werewolves, do let me know. It seems to me that every conversation option leans toward the elves, and my Human Noble totally wants some lycanthrope action in his army. :)

Thought for the day

2010-01-20T13:12:00.000-05:00

This was sent to me by a good friend from Colorado. He doesn't know who the originator was (and neither do I), so no idea who to credit here. Let me know if this was yours or you know who did it & I'll be sure to post it! In the meanwhile:

Dragon Age: Origins--the first playthrough

2010-01-13T17:08:00.001-05:00

That's right, I said it: The first playthrough. Because anyone who only plays through this game once is NOT doing it justice.

I hemmed and hawed considerably about my first character, finally vacillating between a Human Noble and a Elf Mage. I eventually went for the mage, seeing as I'm playing a human noble in a tabletop Eberron campaign right now, and duplication seemed silly. I was worried about the inherent difficulty in playing a mage in a melee-styled game (typically this equals instadeath in far too many encounters), but as it turned out my fears were completely unnecessary. While there are parts of the game where you're solo and need to rely on your own skill & power, the designers seem to have planned for this and have scaled the encounters appropriately. Besides, most of the time you've got a full party, so you're guaranteed (unless you intentionally set yourself up otherwise) to have at least one good tank/meatshield with you. I imagine the same would be true of a rogue/archer type; I've not tried that yet. Maybe for my third playthrough. ;)

A primary reason for the multiple playthrough advice is that each race/class combo (or Origin, thus the title) has its own content. That is, the Elf Mage has a different first few hours of play than the Human Noble. The Dwarf Noble is different altogether again, as is the City Elf and the Dalish Elf. Presumably, the Human Mage is subtly different from the Elf. All I can speak for thus far is the aforementioned Elf Mage, obviously, and that Origin kicks you into the action straight away--not quite in media res, but close. It was actually a bit disorienting at first, because there were lots of buzzwords and in-world references that your character would find familiar but that you, the player, are utterly unfamiliar with. It all worked out though, because it quickly became a crash-course in terminology that you would be intimately familiar with by the end of the Origin story. Also, it made for a fantastic tutorial; the player is able to learn their way around the basic controls while experiencing what feels like mortal peril (but probably actually isn't).

One shining point of DA:O is the tactics options. You can only control one character at a time, and while you can swap back & forth between them at will, that can quickly get confusing--and besides, the other characters need to know what they're supposed to be doing! You can customize each character's in-battle AI to your heart's content, updating it as the characters level up & learn new abilities. For instance, you can instruct your characters to consume a health poultice when their health drops below 75%. Or 50%. Hell, live dangerously, let 'em hang 'til 10%. You can command them to use certain abilities under specific circumstances, like casting Glyph of Paralysis when under melee attack, or activate Shield Wall (I think that's what it was called) when people start shooting arrows at you. It's great fun (and makes things stupid easy) to have a mage with lots of healing & buff spells with their overall behavior set to avoid combat at all costs and fire healing spells as needed. Sure, it means you technically only have a party of 3 instead of four, but you'll leave without a scratch on you. :)

Changes in the difficulty level are exponential in nature. I started out at Normal difficulty and had a fairly challenging time; when I started having (imo) more than my fair share of reloads, I kicked the difficulty down to Casual. It was then that I became a god, laying waste to dozens of Darkspawn at a time and fearing nothing save orange-con Elites. The game allows you to change the difficulty setting at any time, and when you do die (as you inevitably will), one of the offered options is to change your difficulty--sort of a backhanded "Awww, you really do suck...let's change that, shall we?"

You've probably heard a thing or two about gore in the game. The Escapist News Network (google it--I'm too lazy to provide a link right now) had an amusing piece about how the upcoming expansion pack would include a spray bottle and several gallons of stage blood. They're not exaggerating by much. Every melee fighter in your party will end every encounter spattered with so much blood that it looks like someone took a dead cow to a Gallagher concert and sat in the front row. It's entertaining in a gruesome sort of way, and I took a certain amount of pride in how my mage managed to spend 99% of the game absolutely squeaky clean. Just before a crucial story bit very near the end of the game, you have a fight with an Elite and her minions. Immediately after the fight, you walk into the next room and address the assembled Nobles. Let's see here...the guy who wants to be King is spattered with blood and gore, is wearing full armor and carrying a sword he clearly knows how to use. Are you gonna say no to this guy?!? :D All kidding aside, if you find this offensive (and if you do, you're clearly playing the wrong damn game), you can switch it off in the Options menu.

Speaking of potentially offensive, I have to make a quick mention of sex in the game. I didn't have any. Not for lack of trying, mind you...it just never quite made it. Out of your potential party members (8 in total? Maybe nine?), 4 have ~~romance~~ sex options. Two are heterosexual and two are bisexual. Of the bisexuals, one is female (natch) and the other is male. That's right, you read that correctly--it is possible to have gay male sex in Dragon Age: Origins. Speaking as a heterosexual male, I am very proud of this. I think it's well overdue, and I applaud Bioware for making this brave choice. Bravo!

My sole complaint about the game stems from one specific encounter. About 3/4 of the way through the game, there is an event that requires you to fail in order for you to be captured by enemy forces. It's evidently an important part of the story; if you don't get captured, then events that follow don't make a whole lot of sense. Thing is, the encounter is designed in such a way that it seems truly irrational. You find yourself in possession of two people with zero combat ability who must be kept alive at all costs. They do not appear as part of your party, so you can't track their health and can't heal them. You are confronted with an Elite and at least 18 soldiers--soldiers which, by the way, are about 10 times as tough as any soldier you've already torn through earlier in the game. You'll reload previous saves multiple times before you finally say "fuck it" and let the "Your journey has ended...(boy do you suck)" screen come up--only to find that it doesn't and there's a cutscene explaining what just happened. I find this to be cheap in the extreme and shitty design. Maybe I'm just overlooking something, but engineering an encounter in such a way that the player doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell when the rest of the game is all about choice and superior tactics winning the day...it just seems shitty.

That one (sizeable) nitpick aside, I had a fantastic time playing this. The wife seemed to enjoy watching as the story unfolded, and would occasionally look things up on the Dragon Age wikia to suggest certain courses of action. 60-odd hours later however (that's how long it took me to complete this playthrough--just shy of 70 hours), I was instructed that I was not allowed to "start another game of the crack" for at least 2 days. That was...Sunday night? It's Wednesday. Time to roll that Human Noble, baby!

Thought for the day

2010-01-06T13:05:00.000-05:00

You may not have known this, but Fred Rogers was a Methodist priest for most of his life, encompassing the period when he produced his world-famous children's television program.

Now, just for fun...imagine him as Southern Baptist.

You're welcome.

Damn you, Bioware!!!

2010-01-05T19:59:00.001-05:00

I'd just like to take this opportunity to go on record with my personal experience of sleep deprivation at the hands of Bioware. Those soulless sons-of-bitches responsible for the production of Dragon Age: Origins have heartlessly stolen multiple hours of sleep from me in the past several days. If not for Bioware's cruel machinations, I would likely be well-rested as I type this, and not bleary-eyed and body-achy. Bastards.

Terror politics

2009-12-29T12:36:00.000-05:00

I wanted to write something about the latest dimwit would-be martyr who tried to take out that airplane en route to...Detroit, was it? Anyway. I wanted to talk about him and the new ramping up political response. But then, this guy beat me to it. Not only that, but I think he did a much better job than I could have. Here's the linkage. As far as I'm concerned, this guy is 100% on the money. Go read it, then come back & let me know what you think.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to get in some gaming tonight.

Christmas booty, arrrrr...!

2009-12-28T12:18:00.000-05:00

Hey y'all! Here's hoping your Christmas was both bountiful and prestigious, and that His Noodly Appendage did bless your pirate internet connection. I made out like a freakin' bandit, and I'm actually feeling a trifle guilty about it all. Can't really explain why, save that I know people spent a lot of money on me while my economic situation sharply limited what I was able to spend on them. Also, my wife won a very clear victory in our ongoing unofficial "who gives the better gifts" competition. She didn't just win; she soundly kicked my ass. I did okay, I think...but she clearly won out. Plenty of new video games to explore (well, new to me anyway): H.A.W.X., Prototype, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, and last but certainly not least, Dragon Age: Origins. Oh, nearly forgot: Champions Online! So in summary, lots of good gaming ahead, but possible marital strife as a result of minimized face-time. *sigh*

A brief sidetrek though, something I feel I simply have to address: JSO sucks. That's right, you read it here--JSO, aka Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, sucks. I hate those guys. I used to think being a cop meant you were this upstanding paragon of goodness...and then I moved to Jacksonville. These guys harrass, they intimidate, they break traffic laws left & right--just because they can. Take, for instance, what I encountered on my drive into work today. A JSO cruiser was heading down I-95 southbound ~0950, just before the JTB exit. Now, nobody in their right freakin' mind wants to pass a cop. That's just suicide. It's akin to rolling down your passenger side window so your buddy can hang half outside the vehicle and scream "TICKET ME, MOTHERFUCKER!!!" So you don't. You drive the speed limit--if you're ballsy. Otherwise you're like most folks and you just keep your foot off the accelerator so you stay behind the cop. This works fine, so long as you're not behind the cocksucker I had to deal with. This guy wasn't driving the speed limit. He wasn't driving 5 mph under the speed limit. He was doing 50 mph in a 65 mph zone. That's right. Cruisin' along in the middle lane, 15 mph under the speed limit. He had one arm hangin' all gangsta-style over the passenger side headrest, totally chillin', takin' a Sunday (Monday) evenin' (morning) cruise. WTF? And he knew what he was doing to traffic, to the drivers behind him. He had to have known. How could he not? Just randomly fucking with everyone behind him, just because he could. Fuckhead.

So! Champions Online. I got to try this game out twice in the last several months when Cryptic Online offered free weekends to interested parties. And let me tell you: I loved it. It's everything City of Heroes ought to be, in my opinion. The only difference between the two is that CoH is a little more transparent about how things work--like how to improve your character, how one acquires new costume slots, etc. ChampO makes the information available, I think...but I haven't found it yet. I know the loot you pick up can be added into individual slots to improve stats & whatnot, but I'm not sure how. Likewise, you can customize your power selections to really make the hero you want, but it's super-easy to gimp yourself. The best defensive powers seem to be buried in other power groups; for instance, Super Strength meshes very well with Invulnerability (both scale with your Strength stat), but Invulnerability is a single power that's under Force Field. (?!?) I guess the concept is you just have to pay a little more attention. I dunno. Bottom line is, it's fun. More fun, in fact, than CoH. So, sorry guys...ya done lost me. I've been with City of Heroes for ~64 months...been with City of Villains since beta. Can't say I didn't give it a fair shake. I will miss some parts, and I'll miss some characters, but on the whole...it's past time to move on.

I need to get back to work, so I'll drop it here and hopefully pick up later. While I did open Dragon Age on 12/24, I haven't yet played it. I've been intentionally avoiding it, knowing that once I start, I won't be able to walk away from it. Maybe tonight I'll try to put in a couple of hours, see how it goes. I've heard the game can be pretty punishing, so we'll see. Got a new 40" LCD while we were down in Ocala visiting my dad, so once I get the new 360 hooked up w/HDMI again, should be pretty nice. ;)

Oh, and did anyone see The End of Time: Part One? Duuuuuuuude...!

Tits up

2009-12-16T19:51:00.001-05:00

The Xbox 360 is dead again...and this time, it's for reals. Srsly. Red ring of death time, baby! I've run the numbers; getting the thing fixed will cost nearly as much as a new Arcade, and I'd be completely without it for however many weeks/months. So, fuck that. It's now an oversized paperweight I can take my frustrations out on at the end of the day.

"God, today fucking sucked!" kick "I can't believe they did that shit!" kick "And I didn't even get any lunch!" kickreallyfuckinghard

See? Even completely fucking bricked, an Xbox 360 can offer stress relief and entertainment at the end of a hard day!

Bright side: A friend of ours will be between homes come January. As a sort of Christmas/thanks-for-letting-me-crash-for-a-month present, he got us a new 360. Apparently my wife told him the news. So all is not lost. Assuming the red ring didn't somehow fry my memory card & my hard drive, I've still got all our saved games & stuff, so it'll effectively be a brain transplant. No sweat.

Hey! Maybe I can get him to suffer through GoW multiplayer with me!

Spoiled by Halo

2009-12-16T19:43:00.000-05:00

I'm finally beginning to catch up with the curve--the FPS curve, that is. I've finally acquired a copy of Gears of War. And as it turns out, I don't like it very much.

I understand that this is heresy. I'm okay with this. It would hardly be the first time. ("What do you mean you haven't seen Fight Club? What do you mean you aren't interested?!?") I suspect I know the reason why, though. Well reasonS, since they are plural.

I like color. Gears of War...doesn't have any. I take that back--it has 3. Grey, brown, and red. Bright, bright shiny red. (Unless you have parental controls enabled, or have changed the color of the blood. Whatever.) I find it difficult to keep track of the action when I'm grey, my surroundings are grey, my compatriots are grey, there's no direct sunlight (so everything else is...grey) and there's shit coming at you from all sides. Good thing I've disabled friendly fire, else I'd be alone very very quickly.
I don't much care for games wherein you are fucking fragile. Much has been made of GoW's "Cog of Life" thingy, and all you have to do to regain health is not get hit for awhile. Good luck there, as very early on in the game these holes keep opening up in the ground and enemies spawn endlessly out of them. The only way to close them is to lob a grenade down there...and I'll come to that little issue in a moment. At any rate, to close the things you have to put yourself in the line of fire. Hunkering down and waiting to heal isn't particularly an option, since the SOBs can and will charge your position.
The control scheme blows. The whole "you have to take cover" mechanic sounds great and looks fantastic on paper. In game, it really really sucks. The game actually encourages you to take cover...by applying gravitic anomalies to every rock, doorframe and rubble chunk. As you pass them, you can't help but get sucked in and forced into some cover-taking position. I suppose this is supposed to be helpful, but mostly it's just fucking frustrating because while I couldn't see before (see #1), now I can't see AND I'm disoriented. Fantastic!
The whole flail-style ball-and-chain grenade toss minigame. You can just quick-throw a grenade (and pray it goes somewhere vaguely related to where you aimed it) or, as the game prefers it, you can stand still in one place (whilst being shot full of holes) and swing the fucking thing around in an underhanded circle and try to aim it using some half-assed three-dimensional arc-thing. Looks cool. Notsomuch while under fire (see #2). The interface isn't what I would call "intuitive". While you're there trying to figure out how to adjust the height and/or length of the throw (or if you even bleeding can), the nearby pouring-screaming-out-of-the-earth badguys are cheerfully giving you a lethal case of lead poisoning. And did I mention they're hard to come by? So while you're quick-tossing-and-praying (and missing), you're running out of grenades. More holes continue to open in the earth, and more badguys are coming out. And evidently, you're the only motherfucker who thinks to bring/grab/take grenades. If you're willing to hang back and closely examine your environment--and let your teammates run ahead somewhere and die like the fucktards they are--you can find them on the ground. However, let me remind Dear Reader of complaint numero eins...aka "good fuckin' luck picking out the grey grenades on the grey ground in the grey lighting".

There's more, but I'm bored. I still have the game, and I'm barely 5 minutes into it (15 if you count the cutscenes), but I don't think I can muster the will to pick the fucking thing up again. Supposedly the multiplayer is balls-to-the-walls awesomesauce; I'll give that a try before I completely just give up on the goddamn thing altogether. Maybe if you're playing alongside someone who isn't just a complete headcase (and has really really good greyvision), the game might not suck. I, however, do not believe it.

Climate change & the glorification of cybercrime

2009-12-09T18:39:00.001-05:00

Just a quick note about all the hullabaloo surrounding these "leaked" e-mails from climate change scientists. (Really, given how shitty things are at work right now, I don't even have time for this, but I'm taking it.) Here's something no one is fucking thinking about: THESE E-MAILS WERE STOLEN. No one is addressing this. Lord knows the GOP made a huge fucking deal about about it when Palin's e-mail account was hacked into...but this? No, this supports our cause...this is good. 'Scuse me, but...whatthefuck?!?

I can't get over this. I can't say it enough. Let me enumerate some more, on the extremely off-chance that it might leak out into the cybersphere and SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE will spark a pair of neurons together:

THESE E-MAILS WERE STOLEN.
THESE E-MAILS WERE STOLEN.
THESE E-MAILS WERE STOLEN.
THESE E-MAILS WERE STOLEN.
THESE E-MAILS WERE STOLEN.
THESE E-MAILS WERE STOLEN.

No one is considering whether the e-mails were edited. No one is considering whether anything was changed. And nobody, nowhere, no how, is even giving a moment's fucking thought to the crime that's been committed. These fuckhats are taking information from a criminal as if it were gospel. Could someone please fucking explain this?!? PLEASE???

Is it racist to say I prefer white meat?

2009-11-26T18:51:00.001-05:00

Everytime I think about Thanksgiving, the thought process is helplessly intertwined with turkey. Ugly, ugly birds with largely mediocre meat--yet they are inescapably and undeniably enmeshed in our national consciousness as That Which Must Be Consumed, as if they were the hapless costars in their very own pseudo-zombie flick with us (humans) as the zombies. I won't be getting any turkey this year, as I'm working overnight from 1800 'til 0430 tomorrow morning. Some might say this would be ideal for those Black Friday "doorbuster" deals. I say those people are completely out of their fucking minds and can readily recommend an orifice wherein they might place said sheer insanity.

Anyway, point is, when I think of turkey I'm reminded of a TV commercial that first aired back in...was it the late '80s? It was for Pizza Hut, and as it happens, it was actually post-Christmas. The concept was that you've been through the holidays now and you've got allllllllllll this leftover turkey...and what the hell are you going to do with it all?!? Some brilliant individual sat down and recast the 12 Days of Christmas (the song) with lyrics offering truly hilarious turkey serving suggestions. My favorite--and the one that still sticks out in my mind after all these years--is the one from Day #5: "Flaming Turkey Wiiiiiiiiings!"

Regrettably, whenever I mention this gut-bustingly funny commercial to anyone, it seems I'm the only one who remembers it. I swear I didn't imagine it or make it up. If I weren't at work, I'd run a search and post a link to it. Check YouTube, search "flaming turkey wings", see what you get. No promises. (Speaking of YouTube and turkey, I understand there are some truly entertaining videos of what happens when you try deep-frying a frozen bird. Haven't seen 'em myself...not yet, anyway. ;) )

At any rate, here's hoping my night will be nice & quiet. I brought some DVDs to work with me with the intent of borrowing the TV-with-built-in-DVD-player from the conference room & watching a couple of movies. I have Taken and The Bourne Supremacy, so it should be a good night. Keeping my fingers crossed. Action flicks + cold fried chicken + a block of parmesan cheese + a Bawls guarana soda = good times!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

CNN & the case for pussified apologism

2009-11-24T17:23:00.000-05:00

So CNN published an article/interview with Richard Dawkins talking about the case for "militant atheism". Which, on the face of things, is admirable. But then you actually read the article, and things start falling apart.

Follow along with me, if you will...

Two paragraphs before the actual interview portion starts, there's a link where someone has an article defending how evolution and faith can coexist...nevermind that this is in direct opposition to what your article is stating.

A paragraph & a half later, there's another link defending intelligent design. (No, I'm not linking these. Go read the damn article. Link for that is at the top.)

Then there's the interview, and at the bottom-left, before the poo-hurling masses hammer out their frothing anti-atheist rants, the "We Recommend" section has a link to:

The original article, which you just finished reading, you fuckwit.
"Pro-Darwin consensus doesn't rule out intelligent design"--which, btw, it inherently does, thankyouverymuch (you fuckwit).
And last but most certainly not least, "Religion, evolution can live side by side".

What the fuck IS this? Did someone at CNN decide that maybe, just maybe, someone other than Stephen Colbert should interview one of the Smartest Men on Earth, only to have the Christian Right come in and piss all over the place? Or are the top brass at CNN simply too afraid to not pander to the slavering masses that they feel obligated to take a shit on what is otherwise a merely so-so article? It really bothers me, the look of all this. I'm having a difficult time coming up with a similar article wherein CNN presented a particular point of view, then peppered the whole damned thing with links to the opposition's stance. If they wanted to have a religious vs. atheist hoe-down (BYOT&P*), great; give each side a 1000-word space with which to defend their stance and try to knock the other guy down a peg--and at the end of each article, provide a link to the other side, and identify it as such. Instead, we have what appears to be CNN making a stand with milkwater praise of Dawkins, followed up with severe in-caving to the frothing neoconservative hyperreligious masses.

Now, I suppose I should back off a step and simply pat CNN on the head for even having made the quasi-effort, much like one might congratulate a small child for having spread random colors willy-nilly on a piece of paper and stick it on one's fridge. If Fox News picked this up (I haven't checked, and I've no desire to go dumpster-diving to find out), I'm sure they would've designated a painful quantity of webspace to denigrating Dawkins, calling him an unpatriotic Communist traitor faggot hippy. (Okay, maybe not a hippy.) Go ahead and read the comments below the CNN article; I tried, and couldn't get more than a few deep before I started feeling my gorge rise. What you're seeing there is, by & large, the primary Fox News demographic. Disturbing.

I feel compelled to add that I do believe that atheism and religiosity can get along just fine--in two different people. I'm an atheist, and I do have friends and coworkers who are very religious (to say nothing of members of my own family). This is fine. I have no problems with them believing what they like. Hell, they could still profess a soul-deep belief in Santa Claus for all I care; I will humor them and, while I might teasingly chide them from time to time, I shall not insult either them or their faith. I wholeheartedly support freedom of religion--all religions, save those that believe in baby-eating and/or killing people--at the same time that I support freedom from religion. Believe what you like, speak in tongues, kiss snakes, bathe in the river Ganges--just don't force it on me. (Ask my mother some time about the time she came home to find me having a deep philosophical discussion with a Jehovah's Witness. I was wearing a towel.)

*-Bring Your Own Torches and Pitchforks

How young is too young for M-rated games?

2009-11-17T18:53:00.002-05:00

It's easily the 2nd-most popular tag lines for videogames. It also happens to be the very first thing you hear in a TV or internet ad for a videogame. It's that hypermasculine voice, almost like a challenge: "Rated M for Mature." You could keep the exact same tone and cadence and replace those words with something like, "You can't handle this," or "Too grown-up for you," or even better, "Go ask your mother." Kids are viewing these things more and more frequently, and I can't help but wonder if they're intentionally targetting kids with this stuff. Question is, how young is too young for these things?

Case in point: I occasionally hang out in Yahoo! Answers, in the Videogames section. (I was about to say, "I occasionally frequent..." and realized the charming little oxymoron. But I digress.) I handled a question today from a kid asking if we (the community) thought he was too young to play Resident Evil 4. He freely admitted he was 12 years old, but he was "very mature for my age." Here's the entire body of his question:

Do you think it's okay for a 12 year old to play an M rated game? (Resident Evil4) ive played dis game b4 an i rlly like it so i wanted it for Christmas but my parents say its too violent but i think thats unfair coz im mature for my age an i dont take violent games seriously. GIMME FEEDBACK.

W311, i coldnt h31p but 4dm0ni5h h1m f0r h1s us3 0f 1337 5p34k as opposed to the English language. (I'm sorry; I couldn't keep that up for the whole sentence. I wanted to, for effect, but I just couldn't do it. My brain hurts now.) I followed up with comparisons to R-rated movies and the need for an adult escort, as well as references to scientific studies proving that 12-yr old brains are not sufficiently developed to make proper decisions, nor are they capable of handling complicated issues like "consequences". I imagine I'll still get reported for being abusive, either because I shit-talked his inability to type in English or because I did a quick compare/contrast in depth of meaning between the phrases "im mature for my age" and "my feet are large for my height". *shrugs* To make a long story longer, I advised him he was too young and should leave games like these alone.

Judging from the frequency of questions like these on Y!A, I am both in the minority and the majority. The majority insofar as the parents (I am in my mid-30's, yo) are refusing to allow kids access to these things (props, 'rents!) and the minority in that there's a huge movement in the 10-15 year-old range that really really really really really want to play these games and they're plenty mature for their age and its [sic] bullshit that their parents won't buy it for them.

Here's what the ESRB has to say about M-rated games (scroll down, it's about 1/3 of the way down the page, with definitions of specific items further down). And really, since the ESRB is the only evaluating & rating body we have here in the U.S., it's only their opinion that matters. Should kids have access to this stuff? At what point are people considered "mature"? I can't even begin to tell you how many 17-yr olds do not fit into this category. I know I barely did. I know I thought I was more than sufficiently mature to take on the world; I also know, nearly 2 decades later, precisely how wrong I was. Now, the ESRB is not a flawless body. They occasionally make remarkably dickfaced decisions, which are--since they are the only body doing this--indisputable and unappealable (is that a word?). I refer the knowledgeable reader to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which was originally rated "T for Teen". Then someone started fooling around with Construction Set files and discovered that a mesh existed within the game files for bare human breasts, meaning it was possible to mod the game in such a way as to depict bare-chested females. (It's since been done. Some are better than others.) Now, it wasn't in the game itself--knock out/kill a female character, strip her top off and a nonremoveable cloth bra appears; the same exists for the player character, should you make a female character and remove her top. The game had to be modded in order for these files to come into use--and let me tell you, having seen the unedited mesh, ain't nobody wants to be gettin' freaky with these things. Ewww. The ESRB promptly bumped the game's rating up to M for Mature...and then lamely followed up a few days later by saying it was because of the blood and gore. Nevermind that the levels of blood and gore had not changed t'all during the lengthy ESRB review process... *ahem*

But seriously, what do you think? Should kids have access to this stuff? I lean towards "no" myself, obviously. Hell, I think people should have to pass a test in order to reproduce, but I'm apparently in a hardcore minority there. *grumblegrumble*

The Gallifrey Conundrum--elegantly solved!

2009-11-15T16:41:00.001-05:00

Props to Zikar of the City of Heroes forums for coming up with a very nice solution to my problem of Gallifrey being destroyed and yet accessible to previous Doctors! Here's the link for those who want to see the whole thread in its semi-resplendent glory. Zikar gave me his permission to quote him, so here's the relevant part:

"One theory I had, and I can't remember if supported by other Whovians or not, is that Gallifrey is "outside" of time and so are any Time Lords. That is, Time Lords and Gallifrey are connected, so they will always be in sync with each other, if a year passes for a Time Lord, a year has also passed on Gallifrey, no matter where in time or space that Time Lord may be.

"Alternately, as mentioned, wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

"Edit: So Gallifrey is now destroyed for Doctors 9 and 10, but Doctors 1 through 7 (and maybe 8) can still go there at any "time" because it still exists for them... Even if Doctor 10 was to go back to the 60s alongside Doctor 1, he wouldn't be able to return to Gallifrey, but his past self would (although, the Gallifrey he returns to would be a past Gallifrey in relation to Doctor 10)."

Love it! Thanks, Zikar!

The further travails of Carrie Imatwat Prejean

2009-11-15T15:37:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I really couldn't have given a damn about the "controversy" swirling around the former Miss California. She made a stand against gay marriage based on religious beliefs--which is fine, until you place yourself in a position which is all about inclusiveness. What's-his-name, the ultra-gay dude--Perez Hilton, that's it--made himself look like a first-rate asshole, which apparently is his favored appearance with mainstream media, so all's well & good there. The Trump canned Prejean based not upon that, but apparently on the claim that she failed to make some contractually-agreed appearances as well as some "naughty" photos.

Of course, it came out later that she had more than just photos. She sued the Miss America pageant for about $1 million, give or take...and then "took all of about 15 seconds" to drop the suit and agree to settle when the defense produced a self-made masturbation video (pardon the pun) she'd made for...I don't know why. Doesn't matter. Anyway, apparently her mother even got to view it, which is just well beyond the "Holy Shit!" level of pale.

All this, I do not give a fuck about. What I do give a fuck about is her insane behavior on Larry King Live the other day. Take a peek here. I'd just like to know what the hell she was thinking. You do not go on a nationally-viewed (and in some cases, internationally-viewed) talk show and try to dictate terms without coming off like a third-rate whore.

As near as I can tell, her sole purpose on LKL was to sell her book. Period, the end. And that's fine. However...this is Larry Fucking King. The man's a legend. He's interviewed kings, queens, heads-of-state, presidents, rock stars--in short, everyone in the Known Universe that is Infinitely More Important Than You. If you get an invitation to talk to Larry King, there is only one answer, and it is not "no". (Unless your lawyer advises you otherwise. But I digress.) If there's something you don't want to discuss--like, say, a recent legal settlement--then you handle that before the cameras start rolling, and you make goddamn sure that it's understood by all parties. Prejean apparently failed that test (as she's failed virtually every other) and came off looking like a twat.

Now, I understand a certain reticence to discuss the cause of the settlement--namely, "The lawyers for the Miss America pageant produced a video that I had made for an ex-boyfriend, which he is now marketing to Vivid Entertainment--yes, that Vivid--which completely undermines any and all argument I may have had or ever will have for holding the higher moral ground." I suppose I can see why she wouldn't want to disclose that to the 2% of the viewing audience that didn't already know. Having it revealed in court is one thing; actually saying the words, personally, live on camera, well...that's completely different. It involves a certain level of personal chutzpah that Miss Prejean evidently does not possess when she's not imagining herself on a Marble Pillar of Moral Superiority (as opposed to, say, the Cellphone Camera of Moral Turpitude). Maybe that's why she kept talking about how "inappropriate" Larry was being. I dunno. To the viewing audience who didn't know about the settlement--which admittedly includes Yours Truly when I first viewed the interview--she just looks like a fucking moron who either A) doesn't understand the question being asked, or B) is a stuck-up bitch who's only there to sell her book and fuck you if you want to ask a question not immediately related to her book, why Sarah Palin is the Messiah, or why Liberals fucking suck.

I should stop now...not sure why I've already devoted so much typing to yet another pneumocephalic fuckwad--save that it fills me with personal glee everytime a "moral majority" hardcore Conservative gets caught with (quite literally) their pants down. Especially when they're basing their conservatism on faith, and DOUBLE ESPECIALLY when that faith is Christianity. Love it. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" does not mean "Have sex with your neighbor as frequently as you masturbate", folks. At least, I don't think it does. Granted, I've been out of the Church for some time. You should go ask your parish priest, see what he says.

Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, what-the-hell...y...

2009-11-14T21:11:00.003-05:00

Okay, so anyone who's been watching the new Doctor Who series knows that RTD has significantly changed the temporospatial landscape for Our Favorite Time Lord. Gallifrey is kaput, gone, destroyed, no more. Of course, rumor has it that that will all be reversed in the '09 Xmas special (and why not, the Daleks certainly survived en masse), but that's neither here nor there.

With Gallifrey destroyed, a number of things have, by default, changed irreparably. The Eye of Harmony no longer exists, so all remaining TARDISes (just the 1, so far as we know) had to find an alternate power source--no mean feat. The Time Lords themselves aren't overlooking all of Time anymore, which has actually been used as a plot device a couple of times in the new series. Clearly, visiting Gallifrey is out of the question.

How does this affect the Doctor's previous incarnations?

The answer seems simple at first blush. They're back in the past, when Gallifrey still existed, the Time Lords still held sway over Creation, yadda yadda. But what relegates them to the past? Sure, they're in the Doctor's past--the present Doctor, #10--but they're also all over time & space. When Doctor #9 met Rose Tyler on Earth in 2005, Gallifrey was toast. But what about when Doctor #1 visited Earth many years from then and found it under Dalek control? I certainly don't recall him mentioning any trouble with the TARDIS, like a vanished power source. Or how about that part of "The Trial of a Time Lord", where Doctor #6 found Earth in the completely wrong place in the far-flung future--the direct result of Time Lord interference!

Did the destruction of Gallifrey create an alternate timeline? Is it possible that the Time Lords were so intertwined with all of Time and Space that removing them actually unspindled part of Creation? It's all I can think of. I figure it has to be an alternate timeline along the lines of Back to the Future Part II, or the new Star Trek movie: Some single event occurred that so completely effed things up that time itself splintered. The "original" timeline plodded on, undisturbed, but Our Heroes find themselves in an altered version of events. Star Trek had Our Heroes as part of the new way of things, and therefore utterly unaware of the change, while Marty and the Doc (*ahem*) were intimately connected with all of it and in the unique position of being able to undo it all. Which leads to another question--if the "original" timeline is indeed still plodding along...what the hell is going on there? Does Gallifrey still exist there? What about the Daleks? Maybe they all followed the Doctor (or got sucked along with him) into this new universe. Maybe that's actually what happened; there've been multiple references to the Doctor having been the one who destroyed Gallifrey...maybe he just shunted it elsewhere.

Perhaps the undoing of all this is what The End of Time is supposed to be all about. It's nice, really, RTD undoing the majority of his clusterfucking before handing the Whoniverse off to someone else. Maybe it has nothing to do with that at all. But back to my original point--whilst I'm willing to suspend some truly astounding quantities of disbelief, this just doesn't make any sense. The alternate universe/timeline theory seems to follow, but...how could Doctor #5 bump into Doctor #10 then, if they were in different timelines? Graaahhh.

The Xbox, she is back!

2009-10-25T15:32:00.002-04:00

...and y'know, it's strange. I really missed it while it was away. Really really really missed it. I mean, it was like a gaping hole in my soul. I'd sit down, look at the wayward controller...and just sigh, in that world-weary way in which only the truly lovelorn and/or psychotic can. It's my controller, too--I mean, the one that actually came with the console, rather than the one I picked up separately later on. The nubs on the left stick are worn down to almost nothing, and I love it that way. There's nothing better to me than being in the middle of something that requires a lot of moving about and I have to quickly reposition my thumb because it's slipping off the stick...yeah, that's a good gaming session.

But now it's back. Thanks to the truly awesome people at Game Force, I had my beleaguered Xbox 360 back in my living room within 24 hours. (I could have had it within 6, but company was coming over and I didn't feel like driving all the way out there & back again.) They only charged me about $80 to install a new CD drive, rather than the $160 (plus S&H) that Microsoft wanted me to pay. So, all around, good people. Much love. The location that does the repairs is the one featured on the website, but they have another one in Mandarin (located here) that has some fantastic deals on used games. (Halo 3 for ~$30? Yes please!)

So the 360 is back...and I just don't feel drawn to it. You think I would've spent the last however-long since it returned glued to the damn thing, refusing food and water until I passed out from exhaustion (or the controller batteries died, whichever came first)...but no. I've been playing more City of Heroes, especially with the wife. I just...don't feel drawn to it like I did. I don't know why. It's concerning. I still need to work through X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged, and I really need to overcome my discomfort at having had my ass kicked so thoroughly in Batman: Arkham Asylum. These games sit on my shelf and taunt me. But no...I think the only thing I've done is play a little more Fallout 3, exploring random areas I'd completely freaking overlooked before. (Have you found the downed fighter jet? I understand there's a room full of plungers...somewhere.) Oh, and downloaded the bonus Fallout 3 premium theme--a gift from Bethesda Softworks to all those peeps who bought the DLCs when they came out, rather than waiting for the GotY edition. (Bethesda: You're welcome.)

I also picked up a new game for the PC, FATE: The Traitor Soul. I'd previously downloaded the free demo for FATE (the original game) and really enjoyed it; it's a very simple dungeon crawler that has you controlling a much-too-young boy or girl as s/he wanders the dark catacombs, slays monsters and acquires gold and treasure. It has the basic tropes: You earn xp, gain levels, learn new tricks, and even learn how to cast magic spells. Oh, and you have a pet. A dog or a cat in the basic game, but later updates included new weirder options. (A wild boar, for instance. Seriously.) Your pet will try to defend you, generally follow you around, help you find stuff, and if you get completely effed, will (on your command) run back to the surface to acquire a healing potion for you. And yes, the pet can die. It's a resilient thing, your pet is, but if you leave the little bastard unattended (or send it away to save your own punk ass), it can slip right off this mortal coil. It was a lot of fun, and when I saw the box on the shelf for $20--and saw that it included not only FATE but also the game's other expansion--I couldn't pass it up. Unfortunately, I've not been able to play it. It came packaged with SecuROM--not the kind that installs itself on your machine, but rather the kind that insures that you are, in fact, playing with an original game disc. For whatever reason, it's convinced I'm playing with a copy. (I'm not.) I've scoured the SecuROM website for details, and finally wound up sending them a Launch Analysis log in the hopes of figuring out what to do with this shiny coaster I paid $20 for. Hopefully I'll be able to do something more interesting than create a mobile with it and my Fable Xbox disc.

But the Xbox 360...yeah, it's just sitting there. I can't explain why. There's been some sort of change in the relationship. Maybe things will get better. It's like when two lovers part company for awhile; when they return, there's always that slightly awkward "re-getting to know you" phase. Maybe that's what this is. Here's hoping. Batman desperately needs to get past those motherfuckers with the assault rifles who were rude enough to wire his gargoyles with explosives.

Flown in fresh daily!

2009-10-22T20:13:00.001-04:00

So the wife & I discovered a restaurant in the San Marco neighborhood the other day. I won't name them, for two reasons. Firstly, there's an official review being written, and I don't want anyone linking the two. Secondly, I'm mocking one of their employees and I don't want to deal with the potential fallout from that. Anyway.

We kindasorta just happened on this place, had lunch there and generally had a really good time. Bought a bottle of wine and everything--which anyone who knows me knows how unusual that is. (And by "unusual", I mean "it's never fucking happened before".) The food was...well, I don't know what she would call it, but I think of it as "pretentious bistro". Don't get me wrong, it was really very good--it was just fairly well-removed from my usual fare. Everything was so positive--including the great service--that the missus decided she wanted to do a review of the place.

Then things took a turn for the weird.

Her initial (official) visit apparently was ill-planned, as the Powers-That-Be weren't really expecting an actual reviewer. Being a generally unruffle-able sort of person, she shrugged it off and just ordered lunch. Her server was someone different, a very positive and seemingly well-informed young man. She had what was labelled as a "truffle pizza", which struck her as odd, given the $15 price point. If the thing did indeed have truffles, one might expect it to go for 10x that.

A brief sidetrek: I know very little about truffles. Much of what I think I know is probably bullshit. I know they're a variety of mushroom that grows underground, primarily in France. They are reputedly dug up by well-trained pigs, who will in fact eat them on discovery if not monitored closely. They supposedly do not taste like much. They are, in fact, a "status food"--something that one uses simply because they are expensive and to demonstrate your own wealth and "good taste". Truffle oil--acquired not by squeezing the shit out of truffles (like with an olive) but rather by letting truffles steep in the oil (like a tea)--is much more commonly available and infinitely less expensive. And, courtesy of the oil, it actually has a real flavor & aroma.

So anyway, she got her pizza and examined it. It had some sort of slivers of something that might've been truffle shards. She suspected truffle oil as the more likely candidate, but felt obligated to ask her server about it.

"Does the truffle pizza have actual truffles in it?"

The man evidently looked put out, vaguely insulted. "They're flown in fresh daily!" he said indignantly.

Really???

Of course, he was full of shit. There were tiny truffle shards, but the majority of the truffliness came from truffle oil. This was confirmed with an interview on the following day with the chef. There's nothing wrong with this; it's a common practice. But flown in fresh daily? What about your soda? Is your china flown in fresh daily? Tablecloths?

I realize it's not quite as funny in print as it was in the telling, but really...the ridiculousness of it all. Truffles? Flown in fresh daily? For $15? WTF? Is this some sort of philanthropic gastronomic experiment--an effort to raise the eating consciousness of Jacksonville by donating thousands of dollars of fresh French truffles to the commoners?

*sigh*

New Old Games

2009-10-14T16:53:00.003-04:00

Well, the 360 is still bricked, which has led to much sadness (at least on my part). It's kind of fouled up the dynamic in the living room. For instance, my wife has been having a blast playing City of Heroes on her laptop, and I don't necessarily want to play that after a long day at work; the normal course of action would be for me to fire up the Xbox & play something while sitting next to her on the sofa. At least we're in the same room, occasionally checking out what the other is doing and remarking on the coolness of it all. Regrettably, the 360 is roughly a week away from usability (assuming I can get the damn thing in there on Friday), so that means if I want to play anything, I have to be antisocial and go sit in the computer room.

(The name for this other room, by the way, changes with each mentioning of it. Sometimes it's the office, sometimes it's the computer room. Sometimes it's just "my room", since I'm the one that spends the most time in it. It's never the spare room, though--that's the guest bedroom/oversized storage closet across the hall.)

It must be realized that my PC is kind of shit. I mean, it works okay. I'm perfectly happy with the OS (Windows XP Home). I've got plenty of HD space, and I have a backup HD in case of critical failure--although, the law of averages being what it is, I should lose the backup first. No, the problem exists with the RAM (not enough of it) and the processor (only 1 and it's not quite fast enough). The videocard is also a bad choice (severely outdated at this point & an ATI card at that--when virtually every game on the market uses NVidea now). I have plans to build a new PC...granted, these plans have existed for at least a year and I'm no closer to actually doing anything. There always just seems to be something more important to spend money on...like mortgage, car insurance, food--you know, fluffy stuff like that.

Having said that, there are a few games that'll run okay on this thing. First & foremost has (have?) to be the Elder Scrolls III & IV--Morrowind and Oblivion, respectively. Makes sense that Morrowind would run fine, seeing as it's an older game, I s'pose. Oblivion is newer though, and does give me some problems. Actually, I'm having some problems now that I never had before; I used to play Oblivion on this same PC about a year ago and didn't have the issues I'm having now--stuff like framerate, sound (and some graphic) stutter, etc. Maybe my RAM's going bad? *gulp* Anyway. If I could only find my Star Trek: Birth of the Federation CD, I'd be livin' large.

While I have Oblivion for the 360, it's not nearly the same game on the PC--and that's thanks to mods. Ahh, modders...how I love thee. For having the patience of a saint and the dedication of....I don't know, I can't think of anyone else that dedicated--to slog through the Elder Scrolls Construction Set and slowly create, almost completely from scratch, new houses, NPCs, items, quests, landmasses...everything. You guys fucking rock. I'm running almost 30 mods in my particular game, and that's not including the official ones like Battlehorn Castle, Frostcrag Spire, Mehrunes' Razor, the Thieves Den, Knights of the Nine, Shivering Isles, etc. (Yes, I have them all.) You can change every last little aspect of the game world through a mod, and assuming they all work well together and they've all been thoroughly debugged, Oblivion can become an entirely different game for you--sometimes even literally, given the existence of Total Revamp mods, wherein the only thing in common is the game engine itself!

Come to think of it, I'm running:

The Unofficial Oblivion Bugfix Mod
The Unofficial Official Plugins Bugfix Mod
The Unofficial Shivering Isles Bugfix Mod (sense a pattern forming here, Bethesda?)
a mod to make gold weigh 0.01 lbs per coin (it's normally weightless)
a banking mod that allows me to earn interest on saved gold & rent a safety deposit box
a mod that gives me a set of camping gear, including a portable bedroll that allows me to sleep anywhere out in the wilderness (normally, you can only "Wait")
an "Anti-Extinction" mod that sort of short-circuits the automatic updating of critters in the world; instead of continually getting badder and badder critters while the old weaker ones vanish, it becomes a nice mix
a mod that updates my quest reward items as I level up; there are different versions of items depending on your level when you acquire them, and if you get an item at too low a level, you'll never get the really good version of it. This mod fixes that.
a mod that gave me a spell I can use to automatically teleport back to the Wizard's Tower (Frostcrag Spire); makes for nice easy travel, seeing as the tower already came equipped with 1-way teleporters linking it to the Mages Guilds in each town
a mod that acts as a bugfix for a major bug created by the Shivering Isles expansion; this was later corrected via official patch, but the bugfix mod and the patch both attack the problem from different angles so keeping the mod active is a good thing
a mod that adds vaults to every city in Cyrodiil, enabling the truly sneaky and thiefish to go & steal the "crown jewels", if you will. I've not yet been able to try it on my sneaky-sneaky assassin/thief character yet, but a friend who has speaks very highly of it.
a mod that adds a "Bag of Holding", as per the classic D&D item. Basically a container sitting inside the character's inventory, the bag weighs around 5 lbs while holding an infinite amount of stuff. Perfect for those dungeon delves where you just don't want to have to pick what to drop so you can still walk home!
a mod that allows me to give Mehrunes' Razor to Martin as part of the Main Quest, wherein a Daedric artifact must be donated and destroyed. It's full of horrible misspellings, but it's fully functional and it makes perfect (and deliciously ironic) sense.
a complete revamp of the game's Persuasion system. In the vanilla (i.e., unmodded) game, using your Speechcraft skill to make someone like you and thereby give you info, etc., was accomplished by way of a shitty little minigame that didn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense. This mod restores something of the Morrowind style of Persuasion and eliminates the minigame altogether. It makes me very happy.
Should they need listing: Knights of the Nine, Shivering Isles, Mehrunes' Razor, Battlehorn Castle, Frostcrag Spire, the Thieves' Den, the Vile Lair, Spell Tomes and Horse Armor.
a body-replacement mod for the females in the game. I've always been a fan of anatomic accuracy--purely for educational purposes, you understand. Eliminates the permanent underwear in favor of total nudity when all armor & clothing is removed--on NPCs and the player character. And yes, I read the articles.
a mod that makes the goddamn Porter stop following me around inside the Fighter's Guild like he expects me to steal the china

There are more. I know there are more, but I just can't think of them and I've gone on long enough for you to get the general picture. I even have mods downloaded and installed that I don't have activated so they don't technically do anything. Quest mods. House mods. A mod that enables map markers for houses I own. A mod that enables me to turn the fireplaces in houses I own on & off. A mod that allows me to short-circuit the Main Quest altogether. I am a huge mod fan. I don't necessarily know what that says about me. Oblivion on its own is a fantastic game, but it falls short in areas where it could have easily excelled. And like anything from Bethesda Softworks, it's buggy as a Florida backyard in July. So not only are these modders picking up the slack where the devs left off, they're also picking up where they clearly just dropped the fucking ball. Everything from a bug that destroys items in the world, to one that effectively eliminates one of the most useful shops in the game, to NPCs mysteriously dying, all the way to little stuff like a tree...floating in the air. Rocks and boulders, fully rendered and ready to interact with and look pretty...sitting 60 feet underground where they can't been seen nor interacted with. Weird shit. Modders have fixed all this.

I need a better PC. I need more RAM, faster processor(s), and a better videocard. A better soundcard probably wouldn't be a bad idea either. *sigh* At least I'm not completely without gaming.

Don't Ask

2009-10-14T10:27:00.000-04:00

Cthulhu fhtagn!
What a frightening phrase
Cthulhu fhtagn!
Ain't no passin' craze

It means you're completely fucked
For the rest of your days
(that'll just be a few!)

It's your sanity-free
Philosophy
Cthulhu fhtagn!

Feminazis!

2009-10-07T20:01:00.001-04:00

Okay, so by now everyone's heard all the hullabaloo about David Letterman and how he apparently has had some difficulty keeping his pants on at work. Some CBS producer (of another show) found out about it & is (or rather, attempted to) blackmailing Letterman with the information. Letterman said, "Hmm, let me think about this...fuck you" and went to the police. He's been on the air with multiple mea culpas and has talked about how he "...got my work cut out for me" with his wife--who, thankfully, postdates the shenanigans.

And then, just when it looked like everything was under control and would be left in the hands of the courts...wearing the specter of Al Sharpton, NOW raised their feminazi heads.

For those interested, I'm getting my details from here.

What gets me is this quote: "As 'the boss,' he is responsible for setting the tone for his entire workplace -- and he did that with sex." That's right folks, you heard it first here--some people think David Letterman is sexy. Even more scandalous, David Letterman has, despite all evidence to the contrary (like, I dunno, children), David Letterman has sex. With women. C'mon, you ~~diesel-dyke-wannabes~~*! He didn't rape anybody! There are, last I checked, two ways to have sex with someone. One is called "rape". The other falls under the should-be-self-explanatory label of "consensual". Is there anyone on his staff under age 18? If so, did he have sex with them? I think we'd have heard something about that, so it's safe to assume the answer to both is "no". So what's the fucking problem?!? (No pun intended.)

This is not the first time the National Organization for Women has opened their yaps about something entirely inconsequential. It is however, to the best of my (admittedly limited) knowledge, the first time they've pulled an Al Sharpton and showed up bitching about something just to get in the fucking spotlight. I say this not to be inflammatory, but honestly--that's what it looks like to me. I am neither a feminist nor a chauvinist. I do open doors for people (including *gasp* women) and generally allow ladies (and other assorted females) to go through before me. I've even been known to pull the chair out for my wife and seat her. I consider that to be chivalrous--or at the very least, good manners. If I'm wrong, well...I'm sure I'll find out. I certainly haven't received any complaints from anyone. The reason for the brief non sequitur is my attempt to demonstrate my personal intersexual (is that a word? Fuck it, it is now) politics. I am not opposed to NOW because I am male or because I believe that a woman's place is barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. (Because I don't. Put the gun down!) I am opposed to NOW because I find them to be little more than an ultra-reactionary quasi-political organization that has, much like the NAACP, outlived its usefulness. I believe that they know this, and therefore reach for any and all possible outlets that prove their "point" and thereby demonstrate some continued relevancy.

David Letterman had sex with some of his employees. Was it illegal? No. Was it unethical? Probably. Is he facing consequences for his actions--both publicly and privately? Hell yes. So please, NOW...shut the fuck up. Now.

*- This text was struck through because I have no desire to accidentally insult lesbians, lesbianism, or any real "diesel dykes". Please accept my apologies.

Please queue "Amazing Grace"

2009-10-02T13:11:00.001-04:00

Pushing daisies. Toes curled up. Tits up. Dirtnap. Sleeping with the fishes. Wearing cement overshoes. Defenestrated. Shuffled off this mortal coil. Beamed up. An ex-parrot.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have come here not to praise my Xbox 360, but to bury it. It is dead.

I'm pretty sure it's the laser. For the past week or so, we've been having issues where the damn thing didn't want to recognize discs put into it. At first it was just DVDs, but then it started happening with game discs too. Then last night, it all came to a head. I'd been having such a good time in Fallout 3 just going back around and exploring areas I'd overlooked before. You wouldn't believe the stuff I've found! All by wandering around (mostly in the Metro and the DC ruins), looking at my local map, and wondering "why did I never go over there? What's over there?" Amazing stuff. Much fun. Anyway. I'd left the disc in from the night before, so I fired up the 360, logged into my account, and..."Open Tray". Okay...opened the tray, confirmed the disc was still inside, and closed it again. "Reading"...."Open Tray". Shit. Open the tray, close it again. Same thing. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. This cycle repeated itself about 30 times before I finally decided I'd had enough & it was time to take action.

There are plenty of guides online that will instruct you on the various tactics you can take to menace a wayward 360 into acting like a proper game console. Some work, some don't. Some advice is downright dangerous. A goodly portion of it will shred your warranty. Since I had not purchased an extended warranty on my 360 and the problem was /not/ the dreaded RROD, I figured I was fucked no matter what I did, so with the wife acting as my handy Operator, we headed to YouTube to find a guide into cracking into my 360 to try cleaning the laser and/or fucking with some magnet diddlybopper. And y'know what we learned? You actually need some specialized tools to crack into that motherfucker. And I refuse to purchase tools just to juryrig a goddamn gaming console.

So anyway, long story short, I am now without my primary gaming console and, effectively, my DVD player. I'm wondering if that perhaps led to the 360's demise--our use of it to play DVDs. I can certainly see how it could shorten the laser's lifespan. The wife says she knows some people who might be able to jimmy the thing for us, maybe get it working again. Gamestop has refurbed 360s for around $160, which is still a savings over the newly-price-dropped Arcade--and since there's nothing wrong with our HD or memory card, we still have all our saved & purchased games, so no loss. Maybe a basic $40 DVD player is also an option. Maybe I could even find one of those old HD-DVD accessories...!

Christmas or New Year's?

2009-09-30T19:26:00.000-04:00

So I'm faced with something of a dilemma. I can choose to go one of two ways (don't start!), and I need to make a decision soon. It involves traveling up to Seattle to visit my mother & her husband and my brother & his wife. Yes, yes, I know...she's called a "sister-in-law". Whatever. I retyped that sentence three times trying to get it to look right and I'm still not happy with it, so fuck off.

Also (non sequitur): Why do we Americans spell the active form of travel "traveling"? I much prefer the British "travelling". Two L's. I don't know why I prefer it; I think it just looks better. Whenever I use it, spellcheck dings me--and rightfully so. We don't use the Queen's English here, and attempting it will only make English teachers make ugly red slashes all over your homework. Even so...I don't like it. I suppose I should spell it "correctly" here, seeing as this blog is my online representative of...myself...(shades of Austin Powers there, sorry) but then there's the other school of thought that says "it's your blog, fuck the rules". I'unno. Thoughts?

Okay, so /endthreadjack. My mother really wants me to come visit Seattle this Christmas. I feel like I have some sort of obligation to head up there, since she's waaaaaay the fuck out there & virtually the entire rest of the family is here in FL. This includes the inlaw section--which, admittedly, is an even better reason to head out to Seattle. (buh-dump-tish) I speak with her less frequently than anyone else (not that I'm a frequent caller of, well, anyone), I see her far less frequently, and let's face facts here: I was raised Catholic. The only way I could have more prenatal guilt would be if I were Jewish. Guilt is second nature to me.

I haven't yet discussed it with the wife (oops), but I'm giving some serious thought to this. I'm working on Thanksgiving, so that holiday's out. We can't really afford to take off any other time. If I'm going to be putting in for time off from work, I need to be doing it soon. I guess the dilemma is two-fold: Firstly, do we travel to Seattle. (This is almost-but-not-quite a foregone conclusion.) Secondly, do we go before or after Christmas? I see on the calendar that the very last week of 2009 folds very nicely into my existing work schedule; I'd only have to take 3 days off instead of 4, we'd be there for New Year's Eve & a day or 2 after and we'd still be getting home in plenty of time to start work in 2010. (Okay, maybe take an extra day to recoup back home.) Before/during Christmas is the stereotypical time to be visiting, but it'll be a madhouse. Who am I kidding--it'll be a damned madhouse no matter what! *sigh*

So I need help here. I need to figure out what I should do. I'll be putting some thought to it, and I'll let you know what I come up with. And I might even let fly with my input on nursing as a career option for the mentally disabled. Same Bat-time, same bat-channel!

Batman: Arkham Asylum (alternatively, Batman: Makes You Giggle Like A Schoolgirl)

2009-09-28T13:24:00.004-04:00

I had serious reservations about this game. I took one look at the box art, saw how ginormous the Batears were and said "yuk". Yes, as a matter of fact, I am that shallow. That art, combined with the knowledge that every single Batgame that had come out previously, ever, was crap was enough to put it aside for me. Then, one day, one of my coworkers (who happens to be a gamer) asked me if I'd played the demo. When I replied in the negative, his face lit up as if I had disavowed any knowledge of, say, Star Wars or this weird-ass thing called the "Internet".

"You've got to try it!" he insisted. So when I went home that night, before heading off to bed I found the demo & set my Xbox to start downloading it. I forgot all about it for a few days, then over the weekend when I happened to get up a few hours before my wife, I found it on the hard drive & decided to give it a spin.

ZOMG.

From the very beginning of the game, you actually feel as if you're running around in Batman's very comfortable Batshoes (Batboots?). You don't have access to all the toys initially, but patience Padawan--they're coming. The camera is pitched right over Batman's right shoulder, so you can see everything more-or-less how he sees it--until you enter combat. Then the camera automatically (and very smoothly--I didn't even notice until it was all over) pans back and gives you a nice wide shot of the action. And boy, is it ever action.

You use all 4 of the face buttons on the Xbox 360 controller in combat, though each has a discrete function. You could, in theory, get through 85% of all fights using only 2. One is Strike, self-explanatory. Another is Counter--block that incoming shot! Another is Cape Stun--fling the weighted ends of your Batcape around and briefly stun the thugs in front of you. Lastly is Jump/Dodge--press that while moving towards your foe and you'll leapfrog over him, shoving him away as you go and leaving him briefly disoriented. Press the left thumbstick in the direction you want Batman to lay down the Batpain, press the button, and watch the action unfold cinematically on the screen. No special combos to keep track of, no paying more attention to the controller than what's happening onscreen--no no. Watching Batman beat the everlovin' snot out of punks and lunatics is not only satisfying, it's fun. The sense of satisfaction I received from taking on a pack of 8 thugs armed with baseball bats & lead pipes and coming away without a scratch is undescribable.

And then, of course, is the sneaky-sneaky ninja action. This is where the schoolgirl-giggling comes in.

See, the Joker's thugs ain't all that bright. Nor are they terribly perceptive. (Most of them, anyway. The ones without sniper rifles.) Add Batman's ninja training to this and a roomful of thugs becomes an exercise in wondering how Batman doesn't give away his position by, well...schoolgirl-giggling. Lots of rooms--especially big ones--in Arkham Asylum have these stone gargoyles up towards the ceiling. As it happens, they're durable enough to support Batman's weight as well as the latch-and-pull of Batman's grapnel. Eight guys with guns is a non-issue, really--so long as you've got ceiling gargoyles. Using Detective Mode (a special filter in Batman's cowl that allows you to determine friend from foe at a distance, see who's armed, peer through walls--as well as follow chemical traces and fingerprints), you can actually make out the thugs' heartrates. Watch them start around 90 bpm as they patrol around...then Bobby goes missing. Then Frankie. Hey, where's Joe? Oh god, what the hell happened to Joe?!? And there's Bobby--hanging by his ankles from a gargoyle! Oh my god!!! Now watch their heart rates soar to 150+ bpm as they panic and shoot at shadows. Meanwhile, Batman--and the player--are picking their next targets and giggling maniacally.

As you take down thugs, discover secrets around the Asylum, solve puzzles left behind by the Riddler (didn't think he'd let you have ALL the fun, did you?), you earn xp. Every so often, you'll earn an "upgrade". There's a menu ("Waynetech") that allows you to select improvements to Batman's arsenal. Why throw just one Batarang when you can throw two? Or even three? Upgrade your armor & have more health--extremely handy in the later game. Learn new combat moves. Improve the gadgets you already have. And so forth. I highly recommend picking up the "Inverted Takedown" maneuver first. You won't be disappointed.

While there is a story to the game, you're more or less free to roam around Arkham Island as you see fit. As you pick up new toys (my favorite remains the Explosive Gel), you can go back to areas you passed through earlier and discover new things. Alternatively, once you've completed the story & defeated the Joker's twisted plot, you can continue your saved game and explore the Asylum at your leisure. (Don't know if there are still thugs wandering around or not. Might be nice if there were. ;) )

According to the stats that the game tracks for you, I'm not quite 40% complete with the game. Bear in mind that those stats include the "Challenge Modes", which basically break down into preset matches between Batman and the inmates, either in combat or "Silent Predator"--which is exactly what it sounds like. I've been focusing primarily on the story, and having a really good time thus far. To quote the person who reviewed this game for the Escapist, "I'm fucking Batman!" (This was intended as a sentiment of how one feels whilst playing the game, not as a personal confession. Besides, as the author points out, Bruce Wayne would have to buy dinner first.) I've run into a bit of a snag, however. Joker's gotten wise to my "hang-the-bitches-from-the-rafters" ways and has had his men wire my beloved gargoyles with explosives. So instead of taking them all out from positions of relative safety, I have to get down on the ground and sneak around. Thing is, there's 6-8 of them, and they've all got assault rifles. And they're all wearing these collars that alert the others when I take one down. So while I can whack one or two of them, they quickly pick up my scent and fill me full of Batholes. Hopefully I can get past this and reclaim my beloved gargoyles. I miss those guys. Maybe if I use some Explosive Gel...

I feel kinda overwhelmed here...

2009-09-24T14:59:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note, since I really haven't time for anything more: It occurs to me I haven't checked my e-mail since before leaving for Chicago. I left on 9/14 at oh-dark-thirty in the morning. I receive an average of 10 e-mails per day--more if a certain friend of mine (names shan't be mentioned to protect the ~~innocent~~ guilty) decides to send me a bunch of porn. So let's see...carry the 1...that amounts to roughly 100 e-mails sitting in my Yahoo! Inbox, maybe 1/3 of which are actually worth reading--and 1/2 of those need responses.

I'm so screwed.

Chicago and its flaming (phlegming?) aftermath

2009-09-23T18:17:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I'm back from Chicago. I've actually been back since this past Friday night, but things have sucked SO BAD that I haven't been able to update this since my last entry. Can't write much now, but here's the basics:

We wrapped up the real sightseeing on Thursday (which was a fucking adventure from HELL, as I'll elaborate later), with the intention of visiting the neighborhood off the Damen (Blue Line) stop for a few hours on Friday before catching our plane at O'Hare at ~1800. Thing is, US Air won't take your bags until 4 hours prior to departure. And the ~~day-shift manager~~ bitch-queen behind the desk at Extended-Stay Deluxe simply refused to hold our bags. Yeeeeaaaaahhhhh...we found out that we could rent lockers at the train station--on the far opposite end of the Blue Line, natch. Long story short (too late), we spent entirely too much time on the fucking Blue Line than intended, dragging the goddamn luggage around Chicago.

Did I mention I'm recovering from the flu now? It started late Thursday night/early Friday morning (refer this back into the previous paragraph & you'll get a better sense of what a good time I had), but didn't kick into high gear until Saturday morning, once we were safely esconced at home. I'm admittedly grateful it didn't get really started until then, because the fever/bodyaches/insane quantities of snot got underway then. Bad Times. I think the highest I got was around 101.5 degrees F, which isn't that impressive, I suppose, but it sucked nonetheless. Finally went to Solantic on Monday, when I learned that I most likely had the flu. Woo, first time! >< Anyway, they cleared me to return to work once I was fever-free for 24 hours, so that's where I am now. The wife, on the other hand...well... :(

What else? Geez, so much to write and so little time. I still need to talk about Batman: Arkham Asylum, don't I? And there's a shitload of really cool pics I need to post here (once I learn how). Hopefully things will calm down sufficiently by Saturday that I can do some serious updating here. *crosses fingers* Here's hoping!

Chi-Town (Day Two)

2009-09-15T23:44:00.002-04:00

Okay! We made it through an entire day of "Fellowship of the Ring"-style touring Chicago (aka "We're walking, we're walking, we're walking, we're walking, we're walking, life sucks, we're walking...") and nobody died, had anything stolen, got injured or even mildly maimed. Not even by one another! So maybe there's hope after all.

On the whole, I'd have to say that the things we did for free or mostly-free were probably more fun than what we had to pay for, food notwithstanding. (And the food...!) We grabbed the shuttle back to the airport around 0930 & took the Blue Line into town. First thing we did was head to the Sears--err, 'scuse me, Willis Tower. Got a little turned around walking there from the tram station, but a local--dressed in a 3-piece suit and clearly on his way to somewhere else entirely--stopped and helped us find our way. Color me impressed! There's this newish thing they have up on the 103rd floor Skydeck; I forget what it's called, but basically it's these 3 or 4 small room-like spaces they can retract into the tower that are made entirely of some sort of tempered glass, enabling the overly brave and the overly world-weary both to step out 1300+ feet over oblivion and look down. The wife, to her credit, managed to step all the way out onto the glass and have her picture taken--twice even, once by the Skydeck folks and again by me. I, on the other hand, braced one hand on the available wall and peeked out to look down while both feet remained planted firmly on light-impermeable flooring while the little voice in my head screamed bloody murder and assured me that Horrible Things awaited anyone foolhardy enough to move forward another 3/4". I stepped back, giggling nervously, while a young man roughly half my age stepped all the way out to the glass wall and peered down as if it were nothing at all. (Future Darwin Award winner, methinks.)

Oh, I nearly forgot the market! There was this nice little fruit & fresh eats & flowers market we encountered outside one of the federal buildings en route to the Tower. All kinds of stuff was represented, from local cheeses to Michigan-based apple orchards to pickled mushrooms and pumpkins-on-a-stick. (What you'd do with the lattermost is admittedly beyond me.) I picked up an oversize bag of dried apples that had been coated w/cinnamon for $4; I paid about that much for a bag 1/3 that size at Target the week before back home, and no cinnamon had been involved. Good deals and nice people.

Our next stop was the money museum. Okay, technically it was the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (as we discovered, one of the Big Damn Federal Reserve Banks), but it included a Visitor's Center with impressively friendly & knowledgeable staff and some truly amazing displays. For instance, there was a large cube that contained (no joke) $1 million. In one dollar bills, all bound with those little wrappers you see in the bank. It was huge, and apparently weighed somewhere in the vicinity of 2000 lbs. Further back there was a nice display dome that contained another $1 million, this time in 20's. (I prefer 5's & 10's, myself. All nonsequential and unmarked, thankyouverymuch.) There were some nice interactive displays that helped you learn all kinds of stuff about credit and retirement savings and how/why the Fed manages interest rates, but the High Point had to be the thing all the way in the back that took your picture with you standing next to a briefcase containing (guess what) $1 million. In 50's, this time--I guess briefcases only come so large. It was a really nice touch, considering that the whole damn experience was absolutely free. I'll see about posting some pics later. Before we left, we each snagged a packet of "Fed Shreds"--a baggie full of shredded US currency worth about $364. At least, it was before it was shredded. They had hundreds of these things, and all they asked was that each person only take one. There was also a glassed-over pit (so you could walk on it) containing roughly $50,000 in coinage of various denominations. Apparently the pit was the original elevator shaft for the building. Why the coinage and where did it come from? Our guide didn't know. Some mysteries must always remain unsolved.

After that...things get fuzzy. I know we ate lunch at a restaurant inside the ~~Sear's~~ Willis Tower...Augustine's? Anyway. I had a MASSIVE NY-style pastrami sandwich. Truly huge. Freshly-sliced meat, and the dijon mustard was outstanding. The wife enjoyed her buffalo & bleu cheese chicken breast sammich. Good times. Somewhere after that came the Chicago Architectural Society. We'd have completely overlooked that, save that there was a scale model of the city of Chicago on display in a window as you walked by. As we paused to gawk at that, we noticed a sign advertising another model inside--TEN TIMES THE SIZE OF THAT ONE. And for free? Hellz yeah. Totally worth it, too; I swear the damn thing was only a smidgen too small to use Green Army Men. (Come to think of it, if you used one Army Man to represent a unit instead of a single man...it might actually work!) They even had the lighting set up to advance from morning thru to night, every fifteen minutes. Nice touch.

Let's see...what next...oh! We walked past the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where my brother earned his bachelor's degree--shameless family plug there, you're welcome) and took some nice pictures of a fountain that primarily consisted of a woman pouring water over another woman's left breast. Okay, sure. Moving on, we encountered--and this was something awesome my brother showed me a few years previous and I wanted to show the wife--the Crown Fountain. Now, I'm not going into detail explaining this (mostly because I've blathered on long enough and still have way more to go), so you'll just have to bitch me out in the Comments section & look it up yourowndamnself. Suffice to say, it was every bit as cool as I remembered. After that was Millennium Park--meh--followed by a looooooooooooooooooong-ass walk down alongside Lake Michigan to the Shedd Aquarium. Now, as impressive as the Shedd is and as friendly as their beluga whales are, their staff generally leaves something to be desired. They tended a bit towards...how shall I put this...bitchy? But not in an in-your-face kind of way, more like a "silly peasant...oh, I suppose I have to tolerate you, don't I?" kind of way. Just...unpleasant. Ah, well. The Field Museum (with a pirates exhibit right now! *squee*) was closed by the time we left, so we hopped (okay, okay, limped) back on the Red Line up to Michigan Avenue and the Magnificent Mile! Lots and lots and lots of shopping. Insanely overpriced shopping. Burberry, for instance, had a trenchcoat going for $4000. A table contained multiple stacks of sweater vests, not unlike any other women's clothing store...only these were going for $300 a pop. Three words: Fuck. That. Noise.

Our day finally concluded with a marvelous dinner at the Weber Grill restaurant. A bit pricey, but generally worth it. Most everything there is grilled--on ginormous Weber grills. I got to watch a little bit of the cooking while we waited for our table. Vast quantities of Kingston charcoal (they must have some kind of arrangement) going into what amounted to outdoor grills on Venom-level steroids. Two speedbumps marred this otherwise perfect evening: First, the Mexican who delivered our food for our otherwise-engaged waitress. English was only nominally in his repertoire, and anything remotely outside his preprogrammed tasklist threw him so far into disarray that only Basil Fawlty could possibly have become more flustered. Second, their bartender needs to be shot; the Gentleman Jack on-the-rocks that I ordered was more water than Jack, very disappointing. The food, however, was absolutely top-notch and well worth what we paid for it.

So, in conclusion, a profoundly full day, generally well-spent and a good time was had by all. My feet are considering some manner of divorce proceeding, but aside from that, all's well. Tomorrow is looking like an expedition into Chinatown (so if I go missing, you know why) and maybe the Museum of Science and Industry (which contains not only an intact German U-Boat, but also--for a limited time only!--a Harry Potter exhibition! *squee*). If we're super-lucky, we'll manage to snag the Field Museum as well...but there's a lot of ground to cover inbetween, so we'll see.

Christ, that was a lot of typing. Batman: Arkham Asylum gets pushed back another day.

Filthy imitators!

2009-09-14T23:20:00.000-04:00

It has come to my attention that there are two (count 'em, TWO!!!) other blogs here on Blogger with titles similar to my own. To demonstrate my magnanimousness (sp?), I'll even offer their addresses here and here as well. They are pale, filthy imitators. Shun them! SHUUUUNN!!! That is all.

(Editor's Note: Do not attempt to confuse me by pointing out that both of these blogs existed before mine, or that neither has been updated in over a year. Errors in the time/space continuum do not concern me.)

Chi-Town! (Day One)

2009-09-14T23:13:00.000-04:00

Woo-hoo! Yes, as per the title, I am in fact in Chicago. We arrived early this afternoon, checked into the hotel, and...promptly fell asleep. For, like, 4 hours. It was nice. I think the wife was a bit miffed; she expected we'd be going out and doing something touristy. Oh, well...

We actually got up this morning around 0515. (*sob*) This gave us enough time to catch a light breakfast, review our luggage to make sure we'd forgotten something mission-critical (always a must), bid a tearful farewell to the cat, load up the car and haul ass to the airport for our 9 AM flight. I was a bit worried about time, since the TSA continues to insist people arrive 2 hours prior to departure for security clearances, yadda yadda yadda. I figure, it's Monday morning, business travelers will be clogging the aisles, and the security chokepoint--err, checkpoint--at JAA would be a nightmare. As it turned out, there was hardly anyone there, and we breezed through. Go figure.

The flights themselves were ordinary enough. A brief layover in Charlotte, NC, then O'Hare airport in Chicago. I can't recommend O'Hare. Midway is unpleasant and dirty at the best of times, but O'Hare is confusing and poorly laid-out. Midway at least is fairly straightforward. On top of all that, Midway is significantly closer to downtown and all the real "action"--at least, that's how it appears to me. O'Hare is actually closer to a little town called "Rosemont". Our hotel offers shuttle service to & from the airport, where we can pick up the EL/subway/tram/whatever the fuck they call it here...and ride for 40 freaking minutes. This on top of shuttle service self-aborting at 2230 means that if we want to do anything even remotely resembling "nightlife" during our stay means that we'll be taking a cab from the airport for god-only-knows how expensive. In short: Don't fly O'Hare.

(Brief interlude: Vista fucking SUCKS. I'm typing this on my wife's laptop instead of my home PC. Previous entries have been written at work--on IE6--and at home, on XP/IE7. Now here I am on Vista/IE7 and the vast majority of my options are GONE. I can't insert pagebreaks--the "Read More" hyperlink--nor can I italicize or bold anything without an act of Congress. The sole differential? Vista. I fucking LOATHE this OS. Sure, it's pretty...but so is a sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean and both are equally as good at efficiently running a PC. I can only hope & pray I don't lose this entry whilst typing it, because Blogger isn't automatically saving my entry as I go like it normally does on XP. My wife is assuring me that all these options exist for her when she's using Blogger--on this laptop--for her blog [the address for which is lost the depths of her mind], which only convinces me further that Vista hates me as much as I hate it. Fucking thing.)

So anyway, we're trying to figure our battle plan for the next couple of days. We're thinking about making the Sears (*cough* Willis *cough*) Tower our centerpoint for tomorrow's explorations. Michigan Avenue is a must, as is (I'm assured) Millennium Park. There's a fountain I want to show the wife; I can't remember the name of it, but it's the one with the long reflecting pool with 2 bigass video monitors on opposing ends that sometimes spit at you. ;) There's also a Harry Potter exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry, which appeals to the geek in me, and eating at the seafood restaurant inside the Shedd Aquarium appeals to the off-kilter in me. It's all gloriously unplanned, so we'll see how it goes.

I'll keep updating this as things continue to go awry in (hopefully) interesting ways. And when I get back--who knows, maybe before, can't predict these things--I'll wax geekgasmic on the wonders of Batman: Arkham Asylum. And somewhere in the middle, I'll have to talk about Chicago deep-dish style pizza, because, well...I have to.

EDIT: Upon closing & reopening IE, Blogger decided to give me all my options back. Just to fuck with me. My wife promises me it's not her computer. I call bullshit. Fucking Vista. It's enough to make me want to look at Macs. Although, I hear Windows 7 isn't complete shite...not that it matters--I have a virgin OEM copy of XP resting comfortably at home! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!

WTF?!?, or, "Why I Wish My Car Had Missile Launchers"

2009-09-10T13:28:00.001-04:00

Okay, so maybe this is a Jacksonville thing. I don't think it is, but I'll give the rest of the nation the benefit of the doubt. (And brother, that's a lot of doubt.) I would just like to know why, between 0930 and 1000, Monday through Thursday, so many fucking people decide that it would be a REALLY good time to go for a ride. Y'know, just drive around. These people evidently have nowhere to be, no schedule to keep...they're just out cruisin'.

I, on the other hand, DO have an agenda for the day. I need to get to work. I'm supposed to be clocked in and at my station by 1000. If I leave the house by 0930, I'm there with time to spare. I can leave the house by 0940, if traffic is okay. 0945 I can do if there's no or sparse traffic. Clearly this post would not be being written if the traffic were a non-issue.

Now, don't get me wrong--I accept that some of this may be my fault. Maybe I just need to get up a smidgen earlier so I can leave the house a little earlier. I can't accept responsibility for all these jackhats, however.

"What's that sign say? Was it 65 MPH or 55 MPH? Oh, screw it--best play it safe and do 40."

"What's this stick on the side of my steering column? If I click it up or down, these arrow things flash on my dashboard. I seem to recall something from driver's ed...eh, fuck it. I'm not sure, so I'd better just leave it alone."

"I NEED to get into that other lane...NOW!!! There's a space...it's not quite big enough...so if I speed up--and ignore the stick-thing on the steering column--YES! Made it! *sounds of screeching brakes, squealing tires, honking horns and crashing fading into the distance*"

I hate Jacksonville drivers. And when I say "hate", I mean "loathe". And when I say "loathe", I mean...well. Anyway.

I want my missile launchers.

Dungeons & Dragons Online--now with 100% less suck!

2009-09-09T18:47:00.001-04:00

First, the obligatory: FIRST POST! WOO!!

*ahem* (sorry)

When I first heard the news about Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (aka & henceforth DDO) going free-to-play, I was not terribly taken aback. I had honestly expected the thing to die a slow and painful death not long after launch, once the dedicated D&D players saw that this wasn't nearly as effective a D&D simulator as they'd expected. I beta-tested this game, pre-ordered the thing, and played it live for several months before, well...I just couldn't take it anymore. The whole game was oriented almost entirely around groups--much like D&D--and had built-in voicechat support. Very nice, and a good idea for the game dynamic they had going. They had, however, failed to take into account the fact that most MMO players are, in fact, assholes.

The game was--and still is--very pretty. Even on low-to-moderate specs, it's damned shiny. That, combined with the "Dungeon Master" text (and often helpful voice-overs) made for a wonderful feast for the senses. Unfortunately, the WoW kiddies (and similar ADD-disordered MMO'ers) simply weren't interested in seeing or hearing it. There was a story there, if you cared to look--and insanely beautiful vistas to behold. Fuck that, dude--there's XPEEZ!!! *sigh* Dungeons were to be run through as quickly as possible, and if you took the time to stop and examine something (maybe, I dunno, use your Search skill to look more closely at what might be a method to disarm a trap or locate a secret door), you got left behind. If you ran ahead & aggroed monsters, you were either A) left to die and cursed at for effing up the dungeon, or B) semi-rescued by your party, which would be promptly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of evil you'd stirred up, get annihilated, and cursed out for effing up the dungeon. Insults flew aplenty, and the roleplayers simply got ground into dust.

I left. My CDs sat fallow for...a year? Two? I tried to give my account away to someone at some point; they refused to take it.

Then I received an e-mail from Turbine, informing me that DDO's f2p beta testing was complete and that since I was a previous subscriber, I qualified for a Premium account (and a "Download Now" button was helpfully provided). Evidently, the regular unwashed masses of f2p kids only have 2 character slots, limited access to chat and tells, etc, while the Premium crew have FOUR character slots & unlimited ability to annoy people over chat. I reasoned it had been a long time since I played the game, and it's free, so...eh, what the hell, right?

WOW. (Not WoW. I always feel I need to clarify this point, especially when discussing MMOs. I digress.) I don't know if the umpteen-zillion changes to the first few levels of gameplay are new to the f2p version or if they existed before the transition (but after I left); either way, it's a completely different game. It's FUN. I'm running a Paladin (highly recommended by the character creator for first-timers or would-be soloers), and I'm actually completing dungeons with more than 50% health. I'm tearing a swath through the badguys and really feeling, well...heroic! The game supports a new difficulty level called "Solo", which is a damned godsend for folks like me who A) can't be bothered with voicechat and B) are dedicated cynical curmudgeons. I'm still on the beginning "newbie" island, and there's a LOT left for me to do. Compare this to the original DDO, which had maybe 4-5 quests for the new character, after which you got thrown headlong into the game and the mad scramble for phat l00tz.

It's not all new content, to be honest--but even the old stuff has been repolished and rearranged into something truly wondrous. For instance, I readily recognize some of the dungeon maps. However, the story behind them has been completely changed, and in some instances, the goal is substantially altered. I'll admit, playing solo is limiting. As a Paladin, for instance, I'm about as sneaky as a lit Molotov and I'm every bit as good at picking locks and discovering secret doors as a dead cat...but that's okay. I understand there are NPC Hirelings available, and while I've not yet explored this option, I get the feeling it would allow the solo player to "hire" a NPC to fill in their own weaknesses. (Though the roleplayer in me readily cringes at the notion of a Paladin hiring a Rogue...!)

I only just dinged level 2, which doesn't sound like much, but DDO handles their levels a little differently. Each level is broken up into 4 "ranks", so the player gets a more regular sense of advancement than they would otherwise. (D&D only has 20 levels to it, Epics aside.) I really feel like I'm making a difference in this beleaguered island, which is a feeling I've actually never had in City of Heroes/Villains--or any other MMO, for that matter.

Yes, there are aggravating people on chat, talking shit simply because they can. They're everywhere, unavoidable. Thus far, there appears to be an almost equal split in the community--at least, the part I interacted with this past weekend. It looked to be almost 50/50 between the asshats and the helpful contingents. This has promise.

I think I'll be sticking with DDO Unlimited for awhile, possibly even taking a prolonged sabbatical from City of Heroes/Villains. That's saying something from the guy with the 60-month Veteran's Reward badge.

Drunken Rancor

Heavy Metal Heresy

Please excuse me while I kiss this guy

Well, fuck this

The Supreme Court can now officially go fuck itself

Brief random thoughts

Fallout Who = Fallout Wha...?

Happy Christmas & Merry Old Year!

Congratulations, Florida--you fucking idiots

You...shall not...WRITE (as much as you used to)!!!

Transformers multiplayer--tonight!

Girlfriend got more girls! (Oh, and a game review.)

How do you spell "cunt"?

Douchebag Deluge!

Here...comes...another one...

And the beat goes on...

Douchebag Phishers R Us!

Guns In Spaaaaaaaace!

I *LOVE* this guy!!!

"Batman: Year One" starring Kal-El!

This Just In: Child-Fucking Okayed by Swiss Courts!

So wrong, but oh-so...yeah, still wrong

A new Wonder Woman!

Fucking Pandorica...

SW:TOR announcements at E3!!!

Overkill is underrated

On second thought, maybe it SHOULD be about sex...

Why my gamertag doesn't reference sex

Could we PLEASE find a different word?

The Eleventh-and-Six Hour

Kill innocents! Burn Denerim! Wince at bugs!

Old things made new again

Midnight showings ftw!

I love lazy weekends!

Humanity reaches a new low!

The President goes to NASA

Fun for the whole family!

Vote for me!!!

Too-rapid advancement?

Awakening Deep Blue Oceans! (Or something.)

I know, I suck--but Texas sucks worse!

Saving the galaxy as we know it

A pause for condolences

Boldly going where no game has ever (effectively) gone before!

Fawlty Towers! (No, the other one)

Return to *yawn* Ostagar!

Swamp wading!

D&D fo' shizzle!

Rocket scientists in Texas!

Get off my lawn!!!

Dragon Age Part II (+1/2)

Thought for the day

Dragon Age: Origins--the first playthrough

Thought for the day

Damn you, Bioware!!!

Terror politics

Christmas booty, arrrrr...!

Tits up

Spoiled by Halo

Climate change & the glorification of cybercrime

Is it racist to say I prefer white meat?

CNN & the case for pussified apologism

How young is too young for M-rated games?

The Gallifrey Conundrum--elegantly solved!

The further travails of Carrie Imatwat Prejean

Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, what-the-hell...y...

The Xbox, she is back!

Flown in fresh daily!

New Old Games

Don't Ask

Feminazis!

Please queue "Amazing Grace"

Christmas or New Year's?

Batman: Arkham Asylum (alternatively, Batman: Makes You Giggle Like A Schoolgirl)

I feel kinda overwhelmed here...

Chicago and its flaming (phlegming?) aftermath

Chi-Town (Day Two)

Filthy imitators!

Chi-Town! (Day One)

WTF?!?, or, "Why I Wish My Car Had Missile Launchers"

I LOVE this guy!!!

Return to yawn Ostagar!