Guess the Password.

There was certainly no password.

2009-06-22T06:35:00.000-07:00

Stuff's packed. Moving to another blog. Thanks to Blogspot for the fun memories, even if they weren't updated often.

Let's hit the road.

Crunch Busting Idea #420

2009-02-13T01:20:00.000-08:00

Borrow roommate/flatmate/family alcohol, unplug your internet cable and any drunken online ordering will be foiled.

This idea brought to you in honour of my Dad, the number one drunken Spurs ordering guy.

"childrenofsin"

2009-01-30T12:03:00.000-08:00

They finally got the hot water back on by turning a single screw. This makes me happy. Well, better to have to do the hot then cold then hot again dance in the bathroom involving nothing but your dignity and a 180 spin every 30 seconds, than to have no hot water at all. You know what I'm talkin' about, friend with family who likes to play with the kitchen sink during showing. The beast within the drain has also been slain (hehe, that rhymes) and somebody is getting a talking to. You know, before she dropkicks me.

I'm yet to discover why I'm always ill when I return from Poole to Southampton. Reverse culture shock? Memories of the past awakening to chew on my brain? I dunno. Either way, I've been ill for a few days and finally feel well enough to do things again. Mostly. Nothing work-related, y'know.

I woke up about an hour ago, thus confirming that the sleep cycle is off again. My girlfriend's birthday is in three days, so I'm going to have to fix that, else hang from her ceiling the entire time. Like I usually do, har har har.

My own attempts at post-sleep creativity are obviously failing, so I'm driving my bandwagon onto Brawny's, for a super triple happy Rai-Brawny-Teeny-childrenofsin bandwagon extravaganza! I suppose people have been harping about this Credit Crunch (dramatic music) for some time now, and to be honest I've not noticed that much difference, not that I should have. As Brawny points out in his blog (by the way, these people I refer to are in my comrades list to the right somewhereish) the exact people targeted by it, I don't need to reiterate. Hello, laziness.

Seriously though, three bottles of cola in ASDA for a quid. Much better than the "brand" option.

Literature

2009-01-20T13:39:00.000-08:00

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813

I like to refer to the book opening of Pride and Prejudice as "the literary cover". To be honest, I think that it's the other way round, and that women (at that time anyway) would rather marry someone for money than for love, and without wanting to betray my own gender, I think that a lot of rich men might be inclined to have some...fun before settling down and losing all their money even faster.

Random sexism over. Onwards with the blog!

So life's settled uniwards again, with new modules cropping up, insane lecturers who alternate from pre-school to warning you of the consequences of punching your friend and fondling your girlfriend in class (long story, hence warning not punishing and nothing about not punching your girlfriend and fon...enough said), and a vending machine that long ago gave up all hope on life and will never work ever again. Ever.

One of my Noo Yars Revolutions was to read more, which I have been doing albeit the face that one of the times was when the stubborn residence internet died, and so far so good, to quote Bryan Adams. In a bid for more culture, I have acquired a Nintendo DS game by the name of "100 Book Collection", which works out epicly cheaper than purchasing the entire booklist for my course, and comes with background music from bus to airport. No other game can claim to give you the feeling of reading A Christmas Carol in an airport. I've been catching up on my George Orwell, having read Animal Farm and contemplating reading 1984 when I get a free moment of non procrastination. Reading is the other tool for a wannabe successful writer, because nothing is original. As Sarah Bailey, questionable alcoholic lecturer stated, lying is the tool of the writer. Write about people you know, but change facts? Hide all solid links? Bingo.

I'm currently planning something on the side novelwise, but to be honest I'm still getting over writers block. Today for fun, I took my girlfriend's peaceful paragraph about a mother and her two daughters in the kitchen, brought in Gus the psychopathic bus driver and butchered them all in nice ways. Oddly enough it was considered a successful piece of writing. Not sure who to be more worried about really.

Note - if you plan to keep an ideas notebook...get an ideas notebook.

So what are you glorious deviants reading at the moment then?

2009

2009-01-08T13:11:00.001-08:00

Technically it was 2009 eight days ago, but I doubt anybody would care. I certainly don't. Perhaps it's just part of getting old.

Having finished all of my work, a peace which will last approximately four days, I have decided to post about what I hope to accomplish this year. So without further ado, a list of things which will never happen!

1) Blog more - Apparently it's healthy to keep a diary/journal/blog of some kind. Lies, but it would be handy.

2) Finish reading Pride and Prejudice - Never gonna happen, but it's the thought which counts.

3) Write more in my spare time - Due to my crappy attention span, bananas.

4) Learn who my flatmates are... - ...and if they really exist or I'm just imagining them.

5) Get further than KC in Animal Crossing - That game is her other love and that makes me sad.

6) Warcrafty Shit - Schmoogle schimeegle you're not actually reading this part due to lack of interest, and who the crap can blame you?

7) Cut down on the cola - Must research other forms of caffiene.

There are probably a lot of other things that I've forgotten, but I'm gonna keep this list to seven for now.

I hope this year is better for you all than last year.

Princiles > Starving Children

2008-11-02T13:41:00.001-08:00

To the surprise of a lot of people, despite being an atheist, I do not go around telling religious people that their views are wrong. So instead of my normal "OMG THIS IS BADZZZ" approach, I'm going to let you decide for yourself what to make of this.

Gaming Charity Auction

Essentially, a Christian charity devoted to aiding children in suffering countries by providing them with food and shelter turned down a $17,000 donation raised at a charity event for the sole reason that some of the money was raised through the selling of Dungeons and Dragons products.

The money went to a charity to do with military housing instead - but to turn down money which would provide starving children with food and water? Talk about fucked up logic.

Karoshi Suicide Salaryman

2008-10-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

Put down your PS3 controller, lock your wiimote in the cupboard and rent a forklift to move your xbox controller...well, you'd be hard pressed to find one that could lift it so let's cut the crap and get to the point.

Sometimes simple games are best. Sometimes killing yourself is fun. Karoshi Suicide Salaryman is a flash game that combines both - and it's actually fun. The puzzles are outside the box and it's worth a go, if only to release some pent up anger that you were saving for the neighbour's dog.

Karoshi Suicide Salaryman

Danger - Penguins In Sunglasses

2008-09-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

The interestingly titled "Danger - Penguins in Sunglasses" is a five-track EP from Michael "Brawny" Braunton, the creator of the infamous comedy cult classic Norwich and Saggers. As this is an EP, I'm going to take the lazy route and just talk about each of the tracks. Due to listening to them on Soundclick, I don't know if this is the correct order or not - if it isn't and anyone complains, suck it.

The first track is "Music Sucks", which provides a chuckle and an interesting view on the current status of popular mainstream music. I loved this track, which has a memorable tune and catchy lyics, and Amy Winehouse bashing - which is always welcome. Even though there's a moment of Brawny's own-self-glorification, he deserves it.

For "Loud Guitars and Backing Vocals", Brawny has cheated and stolen his own music from Norwich and Saggers, which is a good thing - considering how it was one of the most memorable bits of the film, providing the music for an "exciting chase scene". Definatly one to rock out to.

"London" continues the comedy theme, speaking many truths about the UK's capital, from the viewpoint of someone who lives there. I agree with this song a lot, and the music is also memorable.

"Can't Stop Smiling" is your typical lovesong, and is the black sheep of the EP. I personally believe that compared to the rest of D-PIS, it's the weakest by far, even if there's a lot of visible thought and real emotion put into it.

"Equilibrium" is a fun ending to the album, with awesome guitar and makes up for CSS entirely. The lyrics are interesting, even if the song needs to be made somewhat louder...

I heartedly recommend that everyone gives this EP a listen, and it gets a 81% rating from Guesst The Password.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=878043

Griefing

2008-08-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

For once, I'm making a serious post. It won't be funny, but it's something I bumped into on Youtube and it really needs to be mentioned, if not just to shame hundreds of jackasses who use the internet.

As some people know, I occasionally play World of Warcraft in order to pass the time, and because I have a few friends on there that I like to play with. This is normal for the ten million or so people that play the game, even if it's frowned upon for being "antisocial" - despite the fact so many people play. Sorry for the geekery, but I need to explain a few things about the game first. There are two "factions" in the game that players can join, to fight each other - Alliance and Horde. Alliance are your typical fairytale humans, dwarves etc, while Horde is made up of undead people, orcs and strange bull like creatures. This story is an example of what happens when people, even if not obsessed with online gaming, think that they're safe behind their keyboard and can get away with anything.

On one of the US servers, a girl was well known in the game and had a lot of friends. She died (outside of the game, to be absolutely clear) and through a family member or friend, they found out. Out of respect, they decided to hold an in-game funeral, lots of her friends' characters meeting together to pay their respects and talk about the girl. It might seem a little bit strange to people to do this, but their hearts were in the right place so I can't see any reason why anyone should blame them for it. So they posted about it on the forums, informed the girl's friends, gathered a few people together - about thirty-ish, all Horde due to the fact that was the girl's faction in-game.

Occasionally in-game, people organise "raids" against the other faction, to kill everyone and gain honour. A group of Alliance players got together, organised a huge attack party, and proceeded to track down the funeral in-game, killing everyone present. This is just the start of the train of disrespect. The culprits of the attacking party made a video covering the event - which was accompanied by comedic music. This could be interpreted as disrepect to the idea of an in-game funeral...but it gets worse. On the page for the video on youtube, as linked in this post, the comments...well, look for yourself:

"Well i dont feel bad for the horde their. Its fucking payback for all the bullshit in Quel'Danas. They called alliance pussy Bassicly. for those horde who knew her im glad that bitch died, so why dont you go make a raid group and camp people in Quel'Danas some more then bitch, Peace out"

"....looks like they got ALOT more funerals to line up now.."

"Who gives a fuck if some girl died irl. Lots of people die. fucking bastards I woulda raided that "funeral" also."

This has to be one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. As my friend Luke says - and I totally agree: it's a shame that these sort of people weren't the ones who died.

My condolences go to the girl's family and friends.

Review: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

2008-07-11T05:37:00.000-07:00

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (hereby referred to as SSBB to avoid confusion and infuriate fans of the full stop) was announced about two years ago, in the form of a trailer at E3. Fans of the series rejoiced, and then fell into a stunned silence by the news that Solid Snake, infamous protagonist of the Metal Gear series, was returning to Nintendo for a brief cameo after years of hanging around Sony HQ, hiding in cardboard boxes and smoking enough cigarettes to make the oil industry rise again. Naturally, the director of the game, a Mr. Sakuri, began taunting fans of the game via the official website, which updated once a weekday for many, many months, each new day bringing one small detail about the game, which made the wait so much more painful for fans of the first two games, Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64, and Super Smash Bros. Melee on the Nintendo Gamecube. At last, the long wait is over and the number one spot has been secured for a few weeks at least.

SSBB follows the format of the first two games, being both a fighting game with a twist, and a tribute to Nintendo gaming history. Unlike most fighting games that involve randomly mashing buttons until either the controller or the other player dies (in-game or literally in both cases, due to the sibling rivalry that often ensues - Glen, if you're reading this, I hate you because you ruined Street Fighter forever for me at the age of 6), Smash Bros offers a different style of play. The characters are located in arenas based on the setting of various games from Nintendo history, which vary in size from a claustrophic nightmare to arenas rougly the size of Liverpool, except with less violence (har har har). Each character has their own set of special moves, ranging from projectiles to your basic punches and kicks, and instead of a health meter, each character has a percentage for their health that begins at 0% and rises to stupidly high levels as they take more and more damage. As the percentage rises, the characters become lighter, until knocking them off the stage results in a point or loss of life.

As predicted in a Nintendo fighting game, the characters (bar two - we'll get to that later) are all from various Nintendo series, from the olden days of Super Mario to the newer franchises such as Pikmin or Pokemon, also visiting japanese-only games to further torment european gamers, such as Fire Emblem and Earthbound. The roster, including secret characters, spans 35 different characters, 10 higher than Melee's final cast, with five characters removed from Melee (Pichu, Dr Mario, Roy, Young Link and Mewtwo for those who care - although all four characters are clones of others except Mewtwo, who has been replaced by someone else in this game, so they can get the hell out). There are two guest characters this time round, the aforementioned Solid Snake of MGS fame, and Sonic the Hedgehog, of...umm....Sonic the Hedgehog fame. However, both have to be unlocked through the eight hour story mode in order to be played in multiplayer, making the hype about them somewhat unsatisfying.

The story mode's plot is detailed and interesting enough to keep you playing, and the combination of platforming and fighting through the varied environments makes it an enjoyable experience, even if the difficulty curve is crazier than a bulemic fire-eater, and can also be played in a two-player mode, for those who can't stand playing alone - or those that don't have the choice. The boss fights are challenging enough to make you care, and the final level takes three hours to complete and involves visiting segments of the past levels in the game, something which is a novelty at first until you realise you need to repeat them several times to get things you've missed, but this is forgiveable.

The game was originally developed by Hal Laborities, creators of the Kirby series of games, which is extremely noticeable. The three characters from the Kirby series present - the pink ball himself, the mysterious and too-cool-for-school Meta Knight, and King Dedede, who is a giant penguin with a hammer. His name is instantly forgiven because he is a GIANT PENGUIN WITH A HAMMER. However, the story mode, despite having 32 hero characters (35 with the three super duper secret replay-and-find-me unlockables), results in most of the characters being obliterated and turned into trophies, resulting in the Kirby characters to save the day at one point, which seems a bit egotistical.

The game is bleeding with replay value, from the 500+ trophies to collect, the Stage Maker (which features a daily download from Nintendo, who choose the best submitted stage for playableness), all the characters, Classic Mode (which involves beating the stupid out of a series of characters one by one), another secret mode in which you fight every character in the game with one life and limited healing items, a target breaking mini-game, a game where you smack around a sandbag character and see how far you can launch him in the time limit, and much, much more. The game shines in multiplayer, but even if you don't have any real-life friends fear not, because the one player options have been expanded, making this a fan for any fans of the previous games.

It helps a great deal to at least recognise a few of the characters - people who locked themselves in a cave with a Playstation twenty years ago and never heard of Nintendo may find the experience less enjoyable, but the game itself is still enjoyable. There are four control methods - the wii remote on the side, the wii remote with the nunchuck attachment, the classic controller and the Gamecube controller - but I want to make one thing clear. You play it with the Gamecube controller. No other methods are worthwhile. If you use them, I will eat your soul. Saves battery power too.

Colour me biased as a Nintendo fan, but I really enjoyed this game, but it's not without fault. There are a large variety of random items to use in battle, which sadly range from useful as a chocolate fireguard (like a paper fan) to self-destructive-megaownage (a smart bomb which takes up a quarter of the screen and kills anything that goes anywhere near it), so a player with the controller in his mouth might get lucky and throw a bomb at a champion player, who will proceed to wipe himself up off the floor. This, known in the media by gaming critics, as "Mario Kart Syndrome", is present in a lot of games these days, but the game makes up for it by giving you an option of which items to turn on and off, and how often they appear. One new feature of this game is the Smash Ball item, which appears once in a while and floats around the stage, like a Steps fan at an Iron Maiden concert, before being smashed apart until it breaks, like a Steps fan at an Iron Maiden concert. Unlike a Steps fan at an Iron Maiden concert, when it breaks, instead of blood and presumably glitter, the person who hit it the last time before it breaks begins to glow strangely. This glow can be knocked out of people easily, but a simple button press is all it takes to activate the Final Smash, a move of UBEREPICNESS which results in death for a lot of people. Each character has their own Final Smash, which range from completly unfair but totally awesome (like Samus firing a huge cannon that takes up the stage, and Lucario jumping up in the air and firing a huge beam of energy downwards, killing anything in its path) to completely sodding useless (like Princess Peach making everyone fall asleep and having - get this, it's GENIUS - peaches appear). Avoiding some Final Smashes is near impossible, but the clawing and screaming whenever a Smash Ball appears makes for an awesome experience, even if you claw someone's eye out.

It's not my fault that Jigglypuff is one of my best characters - rai-thunder@hotmail.co.uk

A.I.

2008-07-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not talking about the film either. (It's been years since I watched it and paranoid childhood fantasies of my brother not being human aside, if I want to watch a film I'll just watch Futurama again)

I'm once again talking about the A.I. present in video games (well that and wondering why the hell I don't make this a gaming blog - oh right, because then I'd want to rant about Tron again or something), something which just occured to me a few seconds ago. If you have the ability and/or resources to make a video game, and do so for a living, then you should come up with some decent A.I. for the enemies. I'll admit that it might be hard in certain situations, but if you're playing some heavily interfaced RPG like Guild Wars or World of Warcraft, or even a more traditional single-player RPG, with macros and calculations being performed all the freaking time, surely it's not too much harder for them to include basic logic into enemy habits?

For example, say you're fighting a goblin. This particular little goblin, who I'm going to refer to as "Joseph", because I don't know anyone called Joseph and I'm being random, is a caster goblin. Casters, as anyone with an IQ of over 7.5 can work out, is an enemy that "casts" magic (as opposed to "shoving" magic or "funneling" magic or "toasting" magic or something retarded like that) in favour of melee combat. Now, most RPGs are programmed so that the goblin will begin spamming you with fiery spells and crap when they first spot you, and switch to hitting you with their rhythm stick/mace/hammer/fish when you get close, if they cannot escape. This is fine, it's more like common sense than logic - you wouldn't blast someone with a fireball at point blank range. Enemies in video games nowadays (hell, in the past too) are either completely defenseless or overdefensive. For example, Joseph begins a battle by throwing fireballs at you from a long way away, which are unavoidable for most. Having a distain for the character classes that involve running up to people and smacking them repeatedly until they die, and being terrible at managing those that involve remembering fifteen hundred different spells, three of which you will ever use (and I mean that quite literally), I prefer the Rogue class, simply because it's fun to hide from people. Rogues use daggers, sometimes swords and even sometimes maces if you're just plain stupid (not being opinionistic, honest). In this case, I went with my usual tactic, once spotted, of running straight up to dear old Joseph (who's probably died of old age by the time I get round to actually getting to the point), and rearranging his internal organs with the aid of two trusty daggers.

It's natural for him to want to try and protect himself. My daggers are not enchanted, mearly coated in a dangerous poison that will kill Joseph more painfully. So WHY IN THE NAME OF EVERY SINGLE OFFENSIVE RELIGIOUS COMMENT EVER MADE does Joseph decide to use Flame Ward and other spells that render him immune to fire? Surely it'd be easier for programmers to make them increase their blocking ability, or even try to run away before they've got so little health that the cough of a butterfly on the other side of the game world will kill them?

Wow, this was an anti-climax.

Email me telling me how my mother is an anti-climax: rai-thunder@hotmail.co.uk

The Voice That Sunk A Thousand Ships

2008-06-17T05:20:00.000-07:00

Today, we have a very special Guess the Password. Someone I know has decided to follow the trend of trying to achieve internet fame, by hitting myspace and showing their talents. This attempt is made by Goymer, prophet, bear wrestler and Olympic walrus-thrower*. On his myspace page are samples of his singing, accompanied by the song in the background on a visibly lower level than his voice.

So what does Mr Goymer have to offer? Luckily for him, he has a good voice for slower songs - The Fray's overplayed hit "How to Save a Life" suits his voice almost perfectly, "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol is also blessed by this, and his 'cover' of "Shadows and Regrets" (of Yellowcard anti-fame) is my personal favourite.

While it is hard to imagine Goymer growing a long beard and hair, jumping on stage and living the life of sex, drugs and rock n' roll (no offense to those who actually live this life), his voice is indeed suited to slower songs. At my first preview, I heard a cover of "Almost", by Bowling for Soup, and to be entirely honest his voice didn't suit the song at all - especially during the bits he forgot the words, but I suppose most people missed the opportunity to listen to it as he has replaced it with another song.

So kudos to Goymer for giving it a shot, and I wish him and his slow melancholic voice all the best. Feel free to spam his myspace page.

Haha, I don't have a myspace page! rai-thunder@hotmail.co.uk

Lidl

2008-05-16T04:03:00.000-07:00

Or Aldi, depending if you were born before the meteor wiped out the dinosaurs or not.

To those who are not aware, and a reminder to everyone who couldn't care less, yesterday was my birthday. Being a sucker for chicken while hungry, I was dragged through no less than four supermarkets, so to call one of them more unbearable than the rest takes some credit. Enter Lidl.

Lidl's philosophy is "cut everything for minimum prices". There's no visible downside to this. Everything is dirt-cheap, meaning that your average Joe university student will be shopping there occasionally. So why do I complain about it?

Firstly, half the products will give you food poisoning of some kind. Go on, try it. Conduct research - invite your best friend/glovemaker to a party, present him/her/Michael Jackson to a bunch of Lidl food and try to duck the projectile vomit.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. Then again, on reaching the checkout it became apparent that the store didn't contain a single carrier bag of any description. Which raises the question - how are you supposed to carry every tin, bottle and electromagnet purchased within the store the distance to the car outside?

Clearly this is part of some global conspiracy. By making people carry things (or dare I say it, bring their own carrier bags), Lidl are classified as slaveworkers. Anyone with this classification is a stone's throw away from "Supreme Overlord".

However, luckily for all you people, Lidl will never attain the position of Supreme Overlord. I called dibs.

Wish me a happy belated birthday and hurl abuse at me for not telling anyone: rai-thunder@h0tmail.co.uk

Food or Contact?

2008-05-09T03:35:00.001-07:00

It's a well known fact to the people that know me (and soon to to be the creepy stalkers who read this blog anonymously - I hope you're out there) that when it comes to shoveling food substances down my *insert clever scientific word for gullet here*, I do not do it as much as a lot of people, due to my need to stay out of the light, haunt the shadows and devour the souls of small animals for energy.

However, the last few days I have noticed something. Well, I've noticed a lot of things, such as how quickly one person can become dependent on their medication, or how another still doesn't understand that if he doesn't eat his pizza within 48 hours of receiving it, somebody else will. When playing a game - of any sort, kind or description (which on reflection are all the same thing), many distractions may come up. The two I am relating today are a) receiving a text message, and b) eating a bowl of Coco Pops.

Why is it, that while playing a game with other people, I am more than capable of picking up the bowl of Coco Pops, savouring the chocolatey goodness, finishing the entire bowl and putting it down again, and not losing concentration on the game in the slightest, often with no noticeable difference in effort, while a mere text message will throw me off balance as I try to reply to it and end up either crashing into a Chain Chomp, aggroing a bunch of Amani Trolls or arranging a shotgun wedding between the L-block and the Square Block? (Spot the references and win bugger all). Is it that human beings crave social contact, no matter if it's as minimal as a text message, to the extent that nothing else is important? On the other hand, on a holiday with my family, if given the choice of getting up at stupid o' clock for breakfast after going to bed approximately ten minutes before, and a war between food or sleep rage, food surrenders dramatically before being drawn and quartered in front of a live studio audience.

Tell me why the Darkspears rock harder than the Amani: rai-thunder@hotmail.co.uk

Online Gaming

2008-04-28T01:54:00.001-07:00

When I was young, I remember imagining something like this. Masses upon masses of video game connoisseurs, joining together on separate consoles/machines, playing together from a distance for an enhanced experience. While I put the flag down, I'd just like to say that sometimes I look back upon my younger self with disappointment and wonder what the hell he was thinking. You know, besides "maybe if I spend another three hours playing Sim City, something might actually happen".

Online gaming has been around in some form for a few years now, even if at first it was only available to rich people and 80s computer nerds, and at some point between the invention of the Internet and this morning, the latter realised (NO, BLOGGER SPELLCHECKER! REALISE IS NOT SPELT WITH A Z, YOU TWIT!) that they could use the Internet to make online gaming a reality, and the former realised they could use it to download porn to make their long lonely lives slightly less long, then paid the latter to make it available, at which point they rebelled and made online gaming instead.

Online gaming nowadays can be classified as one of five types. Well, maybe more or less, but I'm classifying it as five because they're the ones which spring to mind. The first consists of people who use the Internet and their PCs (no, not their Macs - people with Macs are too busy spending time staring at the screensaver with psychedelic content) to play First-Person Shooter games online. Battlefield, Unreal Tournament, Quake...the genre's been around for years, since the days of Doom and the original Quake, which is much better than any of the ones in the series since the fourth one and the jump to online play. Which is ironic really. Of the five online gamer types, I would say that this first group (hereafter referred to as "Moleyites") is probably the most mature, as anyone who takes the effort to get their computer up and running with enough power to work a nuclear reactor (the amount it takes to run a FPS with all the fancy visual settings disabled to increase game speed), so they can be forgiven for screaming over Teamspeak for their rivals to eat lead, and most of them have enough self-control not to Teabag the corpses of their deceased rivals (and in some cases, teammates - you bastards). Then again, this is probably because Teabagging someone leaves you open to sniping, and if you actually complain about being sniped in the head while Teabagging someone - then you fucking deserve it.

The second group is known as "The Jocks". This is similar to the Moleyites, with the exception that the screaming and Teabagging occurs via an Xbox 360 console and Xbox Live. As all Xbox 360s are capable of playing online once connected to the internet (that's if they haven't crashed and suffered the Red Ring of Death), not much effort in the term of setting up an expensive PC is needed, and the trigger happy alcoholic wannabes can log straight in and get to screaming at their fellow man. The Xbox Live community is well known for being full of miscreants, vandals and adult men living in their mother's basement at the age of 45 who have still not yet hit puberty.

Group three, also known as the "Mangled Housewives", are those who once in a while turn on the online function in their Playstation 3. Once all the bandwidth for five miles around have been sucked up and then stabilized again, they can access Sony's online Home service for hours of fun with their fellow man. OH WAIT, THEY CAN'T BECAUSE SONY HAVEN'T ACTUALLY RELEASED IT YET! What they can do however is play such online gems as the Metal Gear Solid online beta...if they can be bothered to register three accounts and cry through the lag. Note that so far I have not mentioned the online Playstation 3 games that actually work online because they are all Resistance: Fall of Man and they are all in the same category as Moleyites and The Jocks anyway. The reason I refer to this group as the Mangled Housewives is because while a lot of Sony gamers will sneer behind their monocles at gamers who loyally follow the sequels to their childhood games instead of heading online, they have no right to do so - Sony seriously needs to start listening to their fans and tending to their needs, rather than launching plasma screen televisions through the air and taking aim at them with the high-tech laser cannon originally designed to be the Home server. Basically, Sony gamers will wait for their loving company to stop doing unspeakable things to them and actually get on with it.

Next up on the firing range - I mean "examination of online gaming" is the group designed for all gamers including younger ones, but actually averages out as the same age as the previous two groups. Nintendo has been in the Great Console War longer than their rivals, the expensive Microsoft and the multitasking Sony, and the Wii's online service isn't that bad. With all my experience of the online gaming on the Wii, there has never been any lag - if the thing actually gets to connect to the online server. Nintendo gaming is known as being fun for the whole family (with the exception of Manhunt, and only Manhunt - oh and Resident Evil 4 if anyone is actually afraid of spanish people, and the racist generation doesn't play video games), and likewise Nintendo likes to make their followers wear metaphorical blindfolds, in the same way I like to don a metaphorical cape and trident and go around fighting aliens. I mean metaphorical aliens. In order to play against people online while talking to them, you need a phone or a laptop with teamspeak. Friends exchange "friend codes" - long several digit numbers, in order to play with one another. Anyone randomly met online cannot be spoken to, or speak back at you, so you need to use the language of love to talk to them. And by the language of love, I mean "make them cry at Mario Kart". I use Mario Kart as an example because it's the best example - despite not being able to actually scream at randomers to suck the ban...red shell, it's the most reliable online Wii game and actually the most fun - if you look away from Mario Kart Syndrome and the Blue Spiky Shell, an item which causes recurring nightmares in the mind of every Nintendo gamer as they sleep with their stuffed Mario. Nintendo needs to grow up a little bit in terms of letting people talk to one another. Oh, and don't think I haven't noticed Wii Fit yet - I'll tear into that soon.

The last of the five groups in this little romp through online gaming is known as the Grinder. Innuendo and euphemisms aside, I'm talking about the ones who use their PC (again, Macs are possible too - if you get away from the funkalicious screensaver) to play online Arr Pee Gees (RPGs, for anyone who didn't get it), such as Guild Wars or World of Warcraft. Approximatly 89% of Grinders are the type who will pick healing classes and then fail miserably to heal you as a bear chokes on your oesophagus. 8% are the type who will pick healing classes and them fail miserably to resurrect your oesophagus-less corpse on the sole basis that they are selfish bastards who would rather use the small portion of Mana to shoot squirrels with holy magic than bring you back to life, and I'm being entirely serious. Online gaming is supposed to be about teamwork, not making your dead allies walk all the way back from the graveyard while you take out your revenge on the nut-crunching wildlife. The remaining 3% are the ones who actually work well in a team, and I can't really criticize them. Arrogant bastards.

Oh, and FYI? Don't ask people if they want to see your Gnome Warrior.

Opticians

2008-04-18T04:08:00.001-07:00

Having returned home from the doctor today, I settled down to enjoy a nice reservance from social behaviour and engaged myself in one of my favourite online games. Shortly after jumping off a mountain to avoid death (something which, thinking about it in more detail, probably wasn't a good idea), I received a phone call from my good friend Chris, whining and moaning about his day. I for one used to actually enjoy coursework moderation day due to the lack of school, but alas, the poor lad had to go to the opticians. Being the only member of my family that does not wear glasses (besides the dog, but disturbing fetishes aside...), a fact that gets bottles thrown at me at family gatherings. However the opticians still check me out once every couple of years (which is considerably more than most females do, nudge nudge, wink wink, choking on my own pessimism) and I am no stranger to the musky smell of glass cleaner.

An awful lot of people wear glasses. Most of them use them for the practical reason of needing them to have vision that does not match that of a goldfish on painkillers (RIP, Goldy) while others wear them to look retarded for attention. Often both is the case. Either way, the only way to know if you need glasses without fancy self-diagnosis is your local optician, the man or woman who is paid to gaze into your eyes for long periods of time and shine things in them, which makes you wonder why opticians are often highly regarded as the people who make your eyes hurt the most (note that Nintendo breathe a sigh of relief at this point - give us Super Smash Brothers Brawl, you bastards!) but nevertheless. Just like being told you have fifteen and a half seconds to live, the worst part is the wait. The wait for the opticians is somewhere between paint drying in a hurricane and the wait for Super Smash Brothers Brawl in the UK (easy, Rai), which is a pretty freaking long period of time (if you hadn't guessed).

My brother is the newest 'blindie' in the family, and I recall having to wait for them to finish with his eyes the last time I visited the opticians. I passed the time with a book about optical illusions which made me contemplate suicide and wondering if the receptionist was wearing a wig. Opticians have the strange effect of making my vision actually worse for a short period of time, something which is strange considering the amount of time I've tortured my eyes over the years with video games, caffeine and hardcore insomnia. The one thing that really steams me about the optician is that my eyesight is TERRIBLE. Not many people know this, but my concentration is jiggered and this has near hindered me in the past, yet my optician claims I have 2o-2o vision. Or maybe I wouldn't, if he BLOODY CHANGED THE TEST ONCE IN A WHILE. Seriously, I can remember all the answers.

Oh, and it wasn't a wig. It smiled at me though.

Reanimation

2008-04-02T04:44:00.000-07:00

I remember a time about six months ago, when this blog was first created. It would update daily, ranting about something that displeased or annoyed me, featuring terrible drawings by yours truly that would make a four year old cry for their wasted youth. While semi-popular amongst people that had the misfortune of knowing me personally, this became too much effort and I went out into the world and got a job in your local neighbourhood record store. Ignoring the fact that Blogger's spellcheck is trying to convince me that I have spelt "neighbourhood" incorrectly, I had recently noticed that a few of the people I regularly spout insanity at had been actually updating their blogs, and I made a pact not to jump back on the bandwagon out of boredom and sheer little else to do.

This plan was, of course, a complete failure.

Note - the title of this particular blog post has absolutely nothing to do with the Linkin Park album "Reanimation", something we'd all like to forget about, and almost did until this sorry little reminder.

So expect the usual Guess the Password-ness, with lots of cynicism, sarcasm and the usual rubbish. Which is putting it in a positive light. Do not read if pregnant, driving or both.

Inky

2007-10-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm going to rant about someone who's been alive for twenty seven years. Well, dead for twenty seven years. Dead but present for twenty seven years. He is the most sinister, evil and twisted thing to grace the Pac-Man scene since...well, anything. I am referring to that which makes the children cry:

For those that have been living in a cave their entire lives (here's looking at you, Osama), Inky is a ghost in the video game "Pac-Man", one of four. Noticeably, he is the only one that really shows any form of competence. The other three ghosts are comprised of a speed freak who has very little control over his direction:

A ghost who obviously stars in the 80s video game pornographic scene:

...and the biggest idiot since Jack Thompson decided to remove his own brain and put it in a robot made entirely out of toilet paper (not pictured):

Even if the Bonnie and Clyde reference is cool. Go watch that sometime. Speaking of movies, if they make another Land Before Time film (which I think would be the...thirteen? Holy crap, it's fourteen! Thanks, Wikipedia!), I will personally drop whatever I am doing and steal the kidneys of everyone involved. But anyway...

Of the four ghosts, Inky is the one who kills me about 80% of the time. He usually works alone - the only way the others ever kill me (or most players) is by teaming up and trapping me. Inky doesn't need to do that - he's such a sneaky little bastard that he manages to outwit the rest of his team and go in for the kill all the time. He's not even meant to BE the annoying one - Blinky (the red one) actually speeds up the more Pac-Man eats, but he still manages to be less annoying than Inky. Also, a word of advice for all those that play the evil game. Avoid the cherries. Not just because they're worth about the equivalent of ten pills (which takes all of three seconds to get anyway), but because Inky guards them like a hawk, and going for them is the equivalent of:

Basically, if you go for them, he will kill you and do horrible things to you. Just like cyanide. In a way, it's a lucky thing that the creators of Pac-Man are all either really old now or dead, because they would have hundreds of appointments with the wrong end of a spork.

In a game where scoring points is key, personal vendettas are not advised. Yet whenever I get a power pill and become able to eat ghosts, I personally like to track down the little blue bastard (well, even though they all turn blue...) and put him in a world of hurt. Eating. Whatever. Insert random Matrix joke here.

The horrible realisation that Inky is actually immortal often hits like a ton of bricks falling from an aeroplane through a window factory onto a bed of trampolines, into a dynamite factory surrounded by several antique stores, while a red Indian stands on the cliff above and weeps for his lost land (that was the longest and most needlessly complicated metaphor I've ever written). Because if you kill any of the ghosts, they just come back to life again after a few seconds. Which sucks. Little blue bastard.

Here's hoping he's in Smash Brothers Brawl so I can beat the living shit out of him. Er...undead shit. He is a ghost after all.

Who ya gonna call?

Doctors

2007-10-14T08:47:00.000-07:00

No, not THAT Doctor.

Also, this rant is about normal doctors, not the kind who merely dons a lab coat, a clipboard with a funky pattern and a pair of goggles. Not that I ever do that.

Usually, I rant on a random subject about something that bugs me because...well, it's fun. Today, I'm going to make up for two days of missed ranting because of something which has managed to cripple my ranting ability. One of my best friends had to go to hospital because of Appendicitis, y'see.

This is basically what happened. When it's beneficial to remove an appendix before it bursts, with no downside or waste of resources having to do so at a later date, in addition to the pain it causes said person. It makes you wonder if most doctors actually care about the patients and all, and if they just have their heads up their own/someone else's ass.

That was one of the most worrying things I've ever drawn. Almost. So, considering that doctors are one of the people who might actually be able to save your life (hell, I do owe my The Master-lookalike Doctor... ¬_¬), what can you actually do to fight their incompetence?

Sarcasm, cliched jokes, cynicalism. Sing it loud, sing it proud.

Get well soon, Rini. <3

Tron

2007-10-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, people have good ideas.

They may be the best film concept ever. However, sometimes things may not go entirely according to plan.

Someone thought that by combining two fun things, you would get something even more fun. While this may work with a weasel and a rocket (I've not personally tried it), the promise of a film where people are put inside a "video game" is something which had many people crossing their legs with excitement. Most of those people are now dead, but that's not the point. Normal people were also interested. Thus, the idea of Tron was born. Did it work?

No.

The story of Tron is that some socially retarded programmer guy has his ideas stolen by some even more socially retarded programmer guy, who makes a lot of money with them. In looking for proof that this happened, socially retarded programmer guy #1 is accidentally brought into the computer network, or a video game, or some virtual world and forced to play video games to survive and find evidence. SO HOW THE FLYING FUCK DID THEY MAKE IT SO GODDAMN BORING?!?

Was it because computers took five hours to open a word document? Is that what Tron is trying to simulate? The games were boring, the plot actually didn't make any sense, and the bad guy is the computer world itself (or something) and in all honesty, probably spent ten hours crashing before attacking. I don't know, I fell asleep halfway through - AND I'M A FREAKING INSOMNIAC. I HOPE TRON IS FUCKING HAPPY THAT IT'S MESSING IN GOD'S DOMAIN. If you can put an insomniac to sleep, you must have some greater power. Therefore, MAKE A GODDAMN DECENT MOVIE! Oh wait, they're fresh out of them.

The other day, my brother told me that they were making a sequel. I hope that everybody in the original film died and they rewrote it with new characters. That would be funny. Actually, I dream that they'll scrap the idea and make Pong the Movie. That would be good.

Now THAT'S cinema!

Togepi

2007-10-09T03:28:00.001-07:00

Today, I'm going to talk to you all about a special hatred. This little bastard of a Pokemon, known as Togepi, is not only an annoying little bastard of a Pokemon, but perhaps one of the most annoying fictional little bastards ever to crawl out of Japan. For one thing, it's a baby Pokemon, so it's especially bad at the things that Pokemon are supposed to do, like ripping the crap out of each other and breeding. Togepi can do neither and serves very little purpose whatsoever.

In all honesty, you'd be better off fighting the opponent yourself than with Togepi.

Or not. (A/N - You know, I seem to draw myself lying in a pool of blood far too much.)

Little bastard.

Another thing about Togepi which makes you want to stab it repeatedly until you can stab no more (which is both impossible and grammatically incorrect) is that it can evolve. However, in order to make it evolve, you have to make it happy. In the time it takes to make Togepi happy, you could turn chocolate into gold, find the holy grail, play tennis with said holy grail, find a Mac which works and probably catch all four hundred and fucking however many Pokemon there are that aren't related to Togejudas. Speaking of which, take a look at the family tree.

First, you have to spend days, maybe weeks, cheering up the little bastard. The guy seems to sit around moping all the time, and no matter how many expensive massages or tasty treats, gifts or Pokemon you sacrifice to the gods of Togejudas, he just doesn't even crack a smile. His mouth is written in permanent marker, you know. If by some miracle you manage to kill everything on Sol 3 and make the little satanic git evolve, he doesn't actually become much more useful. The only half-decent attack the little bastard learns at low levels is Metronome, a move which randomly picks a move from all of them and uses it. By "randomly picks a move from all of them", I mean "uses selfdestruct all the time and explodes in a fucking eggy mess that does crap all damage because Togepi exploding is the equivalent of an egg spontaneously combusting". Fun to watch, but doesn't exactly do much else. When Togebastard evolves into Togetic (note the imaginative names here, people), it grows wings, the shell merges with his skin (but does not suffocate...) and most amazingly of all, IT GROWS EYEROWS. Everyone knows that Pokemon need eyebrows to become able to breed, because they attract female Togetictacs or something. With the recent addition of Diamond and Pearl, Togeticks gained another evolution: Togekiss (OMFG THEY ARE GENIUSES AT NAMING THINGS). In order to evolve it again, you need to find a Shiny Stone, which is rarer than Darth Vader doing the Time Warp with Alice Cooper - on ice. Once you finally find the stone and evolve Togehasheadlice, it becomes incredibly fat, grows stupidly large wings, and SHAVES OFF HIS EYEBROWS BECAUSE HE IS HARDCORE. I hope the fat eggy bastard doesn't evolve in a portable loo or something, because he is never going through a door again as long as he lives. Fact.

The only possible use for Togepee is his shape. He is shaped like a rugby ball. Good thing Pokemon aren't real, because in addition to the entire world being eaten by rampaging Gyarados, there would be countless arrests by the RSPCLEG (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Little Eggy Bastards) on account of him being used for rugby/American football.

TOUCHDOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111115

Alarm Clocks

2007-10-08T06:59:00.001-07:00

Like a lot of people, I do not remember the day I was born. However, I think it went something like this:

As you can probably tell, there's me. Don't question the logic of having a stick person inside a womb. Inside the womb, there is safety. Outside is the least comfortable place for a person in the womb to be, as the world is clearly an evil and horrible place. After getting used to being inside...

Some horrible bastard with a pair of rubber gloves that he's not wearing and a license to pull drags you out, rips the cord and makes you live the rest of your life, starting with many years of no dignity, soiling yourself and drinking things you'd never drink again.

My dad is still known to occasionally yell this. I find it messed up and hilarious. Now that I'm rambling and you just checked the title of today's post to see what the hell I'm bitching about, you'll have no idea what this has to do with alarm clocks.

It has EVERYTHING to do with alarm clocks. It's the same principle. Alarms clocks are the personification of the doctor who dragged you from your haven when you were born. They wake you up in the morning with a noise that sounds like Satan's cat being strangled in a bag underwater full of S Club 7 CDs, force you to physically act (which I oppose doing in the morning) in order to shut them up, and to top things off, they do it the next day as well. So, let's take a look at the bastard.

This is just one example. My example. Note the two volumes: elephant and hurricane, so that you either wake up the entire town, or just the street that you live in. The on/off switch, the riskiest decision ever made. Finally, the giant button on top that claims to be able to engage itself in active conversation, but rather tells you the time. MY UNCLE DID NOT BUY ME SOMEONE WHO SAYS THEY CAN TALK, HE BOUGHT ME AN ALARM CLOCK!!! Not annotated, but shown above anyway, is the hard metal casing that could survive a beating with a brick. No really, it could.

Finally, another thing which should be cast into hell are things which sound like alarm clocks, but aren't. Only one example comes to mind, and that is an enemy from Sonic CD, of which I do not know the name. It is a bug with a circular saw on his back, which beeps in the same way that my alarm clock does, and actually made me physically turn to check that the alarm clock was off, causing Sonic to fall to his watery grave. Argh. If Mario can swim, why can't he? I was unable to find a picture of said enemy, so here is a diagram.

Thing is, the platforms are too small to roll on, so the unlucky bastard cannot be killed and is forced to live a life of misery and beeping. Sucks to be him.