Welcome to the Jungle.

I hope the people on my floor like Zeppelin!

2009-03-13T17:16:00Z

I bought an electric guitar, and I'm teaching myself to play it in the middle of the night with my amp plugged in! If I were someone else living on my floor, I'd be pissed!

Aloha, fools!

2008-08-02T18:32:43Z

So I got my orders last week: 3 years shore duty in Hawaii.

These are awesome orders, but I was initially disappointed that I hadn't gotten Japan, San Diego, or Italy, my top 3 picks, and I made the mistake of complaining about said orders to a couple of my classmates...who were being stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. It's only by the grace of whatever god they hold dear that they didn't stab me!

cannedweasel @ 2008-06-08T17:05:00

2008-06-08T22:05:29Z

So Pensacola's pretty cool. It's beautiful down here but it's hot as hell, too. The other day I figured I was either getting used to the heat, or I was so dehydrated that my body was shutting down and death was quickly approaching. But I'm still here, so I guess I'm getting used to it!

Yeah, we get a decent amount of free time, and there's actually a lot to do. We have a rec center with like 15-20 computers you can use the internet on, although you can't download stuff, there's a bunch of plasma TVs with PS3s and 360s you can play games on (they have games at the counter, you just have to give them your military ID to hold onto until you return the games); there's a pool, a gym, a bowling alley (they're all free except the bowling alley, which is like a dollar a game if you're in uniform), like 3 different NEXs (Navy Exchanges), there's a CT and an IT lounge next to the CT and the IT living areas that has a big TV you can watch, vending machines, some more PCs (but you pay to use them, so meh)...yeah, there's a fair amount to do. And next Friday I should be getting off-base liberty so I think I may go to the beach and go parasailing or something else ridiculous.

Still working on getting a laptop; we get paid Friday so I might buy a Toshiba or a Vaio I've been looking at, but that leaves me like no spending money until the next payday, and I'm still looking at getting a phone, because the only place on-base to get one is T-Mobile, and they bite big wind. I was getting bugged by NEX employees to sign up for a Military Star credit card, because you get 10% off all purchases the first day you use it; the line they pushed was that I could get the card, buy a PC, get the discount, then pay it all off in one day. So I finally get the damned card, and they approve me for $600 credit. Thanks, fuckers. Now I can finally get that 1.3 GHz Pentium II I've been dreaming of! So I'm looking to spend like 14-1500 next weekend on a laptop then shut myself in my room like a pantless hermit and download things. It promises to be good times. Wow, 10 weeks without a computer and I just vomit forth a large stream of words, eh?

Greetings, from beyond Thunderdome!

2008-06-03T22:56:51Z

Well, howdy. It's been like 65 days by now, if my grasp of time is the same as it was before I left for basic. As I write this I'm in the USO lounge at the Dallas - Ft. Worth airport, with a couple of shipmates from Basic, because our flight from Chicago was delayed, and as a result we missed our flight to Pensacola. So we're spending the night here and flying out in the morning. Good times! How the hell is everybody? I'm out of the loop on like everything. I spoke to Boolo for the first time in two months on Sunday, caught up on Penny-Arcade comics today, and apparently there's some new Indiana Jones movie?! I demand answers to these, and so much more!

But yeah, Basic wasn't so bad. The worst part was being cut off from everything from two months, really. But that's over now, and as soon as I get to Pensacola I should be able to order a kickass laptop, then when I get to A School and find out if they're monitoring the internet or not, start downloading things like crazy. So, anything happen in FFXI or anyone's lives while I was gone? I know Boolo moved in with his girlfriend, and I also know that Tyr is into me for like 2m gil by now. Also, I intend to find out whoever spent all of my shit and then I'm going to town on them. Just sayin'. I eagerly await responses!

P.S. I seriously haven't gone a single day wearing dress whites where I haven't stained them in some way or another. My favorite was blood stains the day of graduation. More on this later.

Oh god!

2008-03-28T20:10:20Z

I leave Monday for Basic, after which I won't get to a computer probably for 3 months. If you've got any goodbyes to say, say 'em fast! And lemme reciprocate with:

See you in like 3 months!

I may be an atheist, but...

2008-02-23T06:03:50Z

Thank you, God.

"Jack Thompson Served With Order to Show Cause by Supreme Court":
http://www.dailytech.com/Jack+Thompson+Served+With+Order+to+Show+Cause+by+Supreme+Court/article10819.htm

Oh, if only they could put him in a hole in Guantanamo Bay for this so I never had to hear from him again.

Drinky drinky!

2008-02-16T08:56:37Z

Tonight( or I guess by now last night) we celebrated Boolo's 21st birthday in grand form, mainly by going to Dave & Buster's and playing games we wouldn't normally spend money on (House of the Dead, for instance) for several hours before a few of us retired to a hotel room he and his girlfriend rented, where they all drank (I stuck to a delicious orange soda!) and we played Wii sports. Boolo went through a lot of Jaegermeister in a relatively short period of time, and we ragged him mercilessly when he went to go throw up, and then later when he sat on the plate containing a piece of his ice cream cake, unknown to him, and it stuck comically to his ass. Then the remaining two of us guests left so that Boolo and his girlfriend could get to what I'm sure was awkward drunken sex. It was a good night.

Oh yeah, World in Conflict is a great game. It's an RTS for people that don't even like RTSes since you don't have to really deal with resources, and the action is pretty fast.

Happy birthday, buddy!

I finally found the silver lining!

2008-02-13T00:35:22Z

Finally, a good point about EA buying Bioware in a soul-crushing move that left gamers weeping.

EA's gonna release Mass Effect for PC! They can't resist, it's too ingrained in them not to take a title and spread it wider than a wishbone.

Here's hoping they get involved somehow in The Force Unleashed and get that ported to PC too, since it's going to be for everything else. I'm not kidding. They're releasing it for the fucking N-Gage but not PC. Seriously, what the hell is that about? "Let's release it for the N-Gage, a system that anyone you spot with one deserves to be forcibly sterilized, but not the PC, a large market AND a great way to get free bug fixes!"

A boy can dream.

I have seamen? Where's the boat?

2007-11-22T08:47:47Z

Yeah, so Tuesday I walked down to the Navy recruiting station at about 9:30 in the morning, and I didn't get home until Wednesday at about 5 pm. It happened pretty fast, but I'm now signed up as an Information Systems Technician in the Navy, scheduled for departure March 31, 2008. Apparently they're very eager to have you if you score well on the practice ASVAB (For example, you would need a higher score to get in with a GED than someone with a high school diploma, and that "higher" score is a 50. My practice test was a 91.) and have never done drugs or alcohol in your life. I scored a 96 on the real ASVAB, and my recruiter wanted me to take the Nuclear test, which I'm told is the hardest school in the Navy and requires a security clearance. IT needs a security clearance too, but I'm not sure if they got around to issuing mine!

It's not as easy as every movie you've ever seen shows it, though, where you just sign one thing and you're in. I spent like 4 hours filling out forms and getting records before I even went to the MEPS station for processing. And then I spent 10 hours standing in lines for various tests, and a physical, the details of which I'd like to never have to speak of again. >.>

All in all, pretty good times.

Fuck EA Games in the neck.

2007-10-13T00:25:42Z

EA Games now owns the only (in my opinion) decent RPG company in the industry, Bioware.

Just because you can buy companies to lessen competition with your shitty products doesn't mean you should.

Oh well, at least this means we'll get to see Jade Empire 2,3, and 4, and KOTOR 17.

cannedweasel @ 2007-09-07T15:29:00

2007-09-07T20:33:45Z

I finished Atlas Shrugged yesterday, and damn, that's a long book.

Changed my thinking on a lot of things, though, but I had thought that it might when I started.

I'm not sure that I agree with every point, but I agree with the overall philosophy of Objectivism. It was a hell of a thing to have it pointed out that every moral code I'd ever heard of was based on the concept that man was evil, and that his own pleasure should be the furthest thing from his mind, and it was pretty refreshing to find one that expressed the opposite.

I sense a revolution.

2007-08-22T15:00:53Z

So, Bioshock was released yesterday. Now, when I say "released", I mean officially and legally, so really only the PC version. The Xbox 360 version has been on the internet for about a week already.

Let's go through the Bioshock release day timeline:

8 a.m.: various threads from people who had just bought the game, and were wondering why they couldn't play it. Various responses explaining that you had to wait until that evening to activate your copy online. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say the annoyance level of the populace was at most a 1.

6 p.m.: various threads about how great the game was, all was well. Various threads expressing indignation that paying customers have to verify online and are being treated like potential criminals, while pirates are just going to find work-arounds anyway. Around here, the annoyance level is maybe a 3.

10 p.m.: Threads started appearing all over about people, having read through their agreements, finding a caveat saying that the online activation is tied to your hardware, and wondering what this means about future reinstalls. Discussion ensued, leading up to people announcing that, after talking to tech support, you're allowed two installations. That's right, two. Oh, and installing on the same PC under a different Windows OS counts. Outrage followed, annoyance level easily a 7.

8 a.m. today: These threads have grown. The PC playerbase, en masse, is very much upset that they shelled out 60 dollars to be treated like criminals by a game company that doesn't have the foresight to see that you might reboot your system or upgrade. Apparently, you can call tech support for a manual activation beyond the second time, but you'll be on the phone for hours jumping through hoops for something that should be your right. The annoyance is at a 10.

In essence, what I'm saying is, if they don't fix this, 2k Games might have made potentially the best game ever made, and then set it on fire through inept management. What they are doing is abusing their PC playerbase so thoroughly that the majority of the ones commenting online are sending back their copies that they had eagerly and willingly spent 60 dollars on ( and I had nearly bought one, too) to await a pirated version with a crack to negate the stupid, puerile 2-activation limits. Congratulations, 2k Games, you've probably single-handedly doubled the number of gamer pirates out there. The funny thing is, the vast majority of people were willing to pay for Bioshock just to avoid delays with downloading it, but 2k Games themselves gave those people delays downloading and playing it, and effectively bitchslapped them for good measure once they had installed.

I think this is going to be the start of something big, and if they don't remove this pointless "protection" in a jiffy, they risk losing Game of the Year and a large portion of their profits. The greatest irony of all is, that one of the pieces of flavor text for loading screens reads: "Ryan's techies can make it unhackable, but we'll still hack it eventually." Take a page from your own book, 2k.

This game had best be good.

2007-08-20T16:22:55Z

So Bioshock comes out tomorrow, I'm looking forward to it a lot.

It's got Game of the Year potential, and I love how inept the people Take2 Games trusts with it are.

Toys 'R Us is selling the game, but they fucked up and broke the street date a week early on the Xbox version, allowing for massive pirating.
http://www.dailytech.com/Oops+Toys+R+Us+Breaks+Bioshock+Release+Date/article8469.htm

Also, the PC Demo is set to come out today, distributed through FilePlanet. FilePlanet, in their infinite wisdom, decided to help alleviate the crush of people sure to try to download it by offering the demo early, with the caveat that you would only be able to activate said demo after 6 p.m. Monday. The irony here is that they've released this to their key demographic, impatient hackers; people who by definition are unwilling to wait for their arbitrary deadline, and have already hacked said demo and released it out onto the interweb.

I'm probably just going to wait for the full game, but I do enjoy how people can show their lack of common sense.

Willem Dafoe's crazy eyes!

2007-08-08T00:14:42Z

It's a funny video, but after watching it I spent the day humming along to Hall & Oates' "Private Eyes", catching myself, and then cursing loudly.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/456a15f639

Games, Part II.

2007-08-03T18:20:44Z

Jade Empire is awesome. It's KOTOR with martial arts, basically. On the con side, there's less flexibility in where to go than there was in KOTOR, but on the plus side, there's like 20 different martial arts styles, and you can swap between them and upgrade them at your leisure. Also, it has the voice talents of Brian Doyle Murray, AND John Cleese as an Englishman complete with conquistador-armor. It's good times.

I've spent about 15 minutes playing Supreme Commander. It's an RTS that's crazy on the micro-management. The mission briefing screens succeed at getting you pumped up somewhat, but then the missions themselves fail miserably to hold my interest, so it's doubtful if I'll give it any attention for a while.

And regarding Sam & Max, according to my help searches I'm the only human being on the planet who has trouble installing it, so no news on that front.

Things my computer can finally run

2007-07-30T22:15:07Z

So I've been catching up on the years of games that my old PC either couldn't run, or couldn't run for better than 6 frames per second (damn you, Call of Duty 2!).

Neverwinter Nights 2: I had heard it wasn't that good, and also really buggy, but I played it recently and I really enjoyed it. Doesn't really have the same feel as NWN1, but a good game, especially when you control and get to upgrade your keep. It does have one of the worst endings I've ever seen, though.

F.E.A.R.: I could play this on my old computer, but not with full shadows and particle effects, and buddy, it's not the same. Fights are really tough now that rooms are completely cloaked in shadow, and when the AI throws a grenade, then flanks you while you can't see through the massive cloud. It's hard now, damn!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Shadow of Chernobyl: When I installed this before, my video card was so badly unsupported that if I turned around in-game, I was faced with a giant wall of blackness, like the Langoliers had come to devour my game. But now, I gotta say, it's pretty fun. It starts off sort of iffy, and it's hard, but I spent 20 minutes assaulting a Russian Army patrol, then fighting a rear action as they emptied their base at me down the road, culminating in a giant shootout at the Stalker outpost. Good times.

Halo 2: This was more needing Vista than anything, but still, a damned good game from the bit I've played! Dual wield good.

Overlord: Pikmin used for evil! The AI is kind of dumb, both for the enemy and for your minions, but it's awesome to guide little imps into razing towns and killing sheep. And watching them pick up pumpkins and wear them for hats is just damned fun. ( I named that one Tim.)

I'm installing Supreme Commander and Sam & Max: Season One later, and I've got a good feeling
about those two.

Only downside to this thing is that I can't copy FFXI over because of some registry files I can't seem to get to, so I have to borrow the install CDs from Boolo again and spend 35 hours installing and updating. Oh, and fuck Vista!

I'll also try Jade Empire again eventually, but if anyone can recommend me a game, I'm all ears!

I hate Vista!

2007-07-26T20:43:24Z

So I finally got a new computer, which is good times, because it lets me play all the games my old computer whimpered at. The downside, however, is it shipped with Vista, which presents a host of problems. First, the security reminders are so goddamned annoying! It's like hiring a retarded bouncer; you get added protection, sure, but at too high a cost. Oh, and more fun, Vista doesn't recognize my Gateway, so surfing the internet on this computer is slightly better than dial-up.

But hey, playing F.E.A.R. with full shadows and effects and NWN2 makes up for it.

Probably.

cannedweasel @ 2007-07-20T08:06:00

2007-07-20T13:09:04Z

Tell me this isn't the LEAST academic thing you've ever read in your life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizzle#.22Izz.22_infix_usage

But informative nonetheless!

And WAR seems like a tempting game, if only to play an orc that sounds like an English soccer hooligan.

"WAAAAAAGGHHH!"

Damn you, outdated computer!

2007-07-15T21:54:08Z

E3 looked fucking awesome. Gears of War for PC, Bioshock, and Metal Gear Solid 4?! I pray to god I can run the first two, and there's no way I'm buying a PS3 just for MGS4, but hopefully Boolo will!

Out of all the games there, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, even Resident Evil 5( lone white man killing hordes of crazed Africans, take from THAT what you will), I'm most in awe of Bioshock. You're in an underwater city exploring the decayed remnants of a society? Sounds good. You get to kill little girls for the DNA-enhancing product they hold? I'm alright with that. What? Giants with drill hands and diving bell helmets protecting them? I'm in. It's one thing to read that you kill little girls to enhance your character, but it's another to see it.
(http://www.gametrailers.com/player/13584.html)
The dark and corrupted feel to this makes it, to me, the standout game of E3.

Anyone else excited about a game coming out?

cannedweasel @ 2007-07-10T20:32:00

2007-07-11T01:41:18Z

What the hell, it's only been 8 and a half months since the last one.

It's amazing what you can accomplish in the downtime it takes to constantly reinstall and re-patch Planescape: Torment. Not that it takes that long to do, I just had to do it about 6 times. Somehow or another I got roped into reading quantum theorists go all existential on me about immortality, which has its' benefits as I get to use phrases like quantum immortality, the quantum suicide-thought experiment, Moore's Law as it pertains to direct mind-computer interface, and immortal jellyfish! I get the feeling that the farther we get with science as regards delving into things we can't prove, like the existence or structure of infinite dimensions, the closer we get to going all mystical with it, which proves my assertion that there IS a God, and he thinks it's really funny to send us all in big circles. Man, what a dick.

And to top it all off, I still can't get Planescape: Torment not to crash my computer.

Don't suppose anyone I know has ever played it? The requirements are so old they call for a "DirectX compliant 8mb video card", and pretty much everything past that is so advanced that the game shuts down and, in my case, restarts my computer, any time a graphic animation triggers. >.>

Assault weapons and Cthulhu!

2006-11-12T06:44:33Z

I was screwing around on the internet a few days back when I found an article about a guy I knew in high school who's now an Army Ranger. It makes me feel bad because the guy was this scrawny little dude who's managed to come this far and I'm still sitting on my ass! So I need to stop screwing around, and I figure I'm probably going to enlist in some capacity. Oh, I probably should have seen it coming because his last name is Benz but it turns out the guy's a descendant of one of the Mercedes-Benz founders!

Also, H.P. Lovecraft wrote creepy things, but still good! My favorite short story so far is "The Call of Cthulhu".

Better than I figured.

2006-11-08T23:20:07Z

Two posts in the same day, hell, the same year, I'm on a roll!

On a whim I got all of MC Chris' CDs today, and he's a lot better than I would have thought. He raps about Boba Fett(cruisin' Mos Espa in my Delorian, war's over, I'm a peacetime Mandalorian."), and really, what's not to like there? And his skits have such dramatic acting!

The Hammer:
"You can't get a second chance!! You are way too mean, and therefore, you deserve to get capped! I am pulling back the...thing that you pull back before you fire the gun! "

"The hammer?"

"NOW I AM PULLING THE TRIGGER!"

"OH MY GOD! YOU PULLED THE TRIGGER ON THE GUN AND THE BULLET'S FLYING OUT OF THE GUN AT LIGHTNING SPEED! AAH! OW! IT HIT ME IN THE HEAD!"

I'd recommend it, he does good work.

Mazeltov!

2006-11-08T23:02:01Z

Boredom's driven me to finally make an entry for the first time in like 10 months, hooray!

So I finally convinced Boolo to play Neverwinter Nights(only took a couple of years), and when he came over to pick it up he showed me an incredibly fucked up news item he found on the Order of the Blue Gartyr site.

Porn Investigation Leads Police To IUP Dorm

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/10153250/detail.html?subid=22100406&qs=1;bp=t

followed by:

IUP Student Faces Child Porn Charges

http://www.wpxi.com/news/10153966/detail.html

Fucked up, no? Well, here's the topper:

http://www.ffxiplayers.com/cpg1.2.1_standalone/displayimage.php?album=91&pos=53

Yes, my friends, it would seem that the guy plays FFXI on Titan, and he went back to playing after he got out on bail. One can only imagine how awkward the LS chat there is.

I will admit, there's nothing like reading a few death threat comments on a guy's FFXIPlayer's profile.

cannedweasel @ 2006-01-09T11:49:00

2006-01-09T17:49:26Z

I fucking hate Charybdis.

cannedweasel @ 2005-10-16T05:35:00

2005-10-16T10:38:11Z

Spent the day at Boolo's for lack of something better to do.

About 3 hours in, I spotted a couple of bad zombie movies on SciFi, and the day was won!

Night of the Living Dead: Necropolis and Night of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave are two of the worst movies I've ever seen. I'd watch them again if they were on.

Also, Boolo had an interesting conversation over AIM with Celestia, the contents of which I won't disclose here, but I may talk about it occasionally.

Anyway, it's 5 a.m. and I just walked home like an hour ago, so I'm gonna go to bed before my cat tries biting me again.