Unforgotten Realms: The Remake part Deux

First of all I would like to withdraw the support I gave the remake of Unforgotten Realms on the first of May. This is primarily because the series has lost all sense (well the little that it did have) of what it is and there for has lost any appeal to me, so I am withdrawing all my support.

I Realy Want to Play D&D

The title says it all, I just want to play D&D. It has been at least four months since my last game; Which I had intended to make into a habitual series of bi-weekly events, but as always seems to happen with my life, things fall apart, get delayed, etc. this comes up primarily because I am feeling the withdrawal symptoms and because of a recent penny arcade comic.

And So It Begins, Part One

And So It Begins, Part Two

And So It Begins, Part Three

And So It Begins, Part Four

man I need to get a crew back together.

Now that I think of it every time a friend of mine wanted to DM I acted in the same manor.

Cozumel Travelogue

Now you may all be wondering why in my apparent streak of increased posting why I haven't posted the entirety of last week, other than the fact that I am incredibly lazy when it comes to updating this blog except in brief stints when and where I have nothing better to do. I was in Cozumel for the second year running; now you get a travelogue *put's on evil mustache* Muwah! ha! ha! ha! *takes off mustache*.

So the sixth began at 3 o'clock in the f''ing morning(as always seems to happen with trips in which my family flies) when my grandfather pulls up in his mini-van to take us to the Airport, the ride to the airport was nice, the seats reclined just enough to sleep if you could through the maxed volume big band music and his maniacal driving through the dimly lit streets of Cleveland. So upon arriving at the airport we were not alone, we were surrounded by other traveler's either victims of weather, staff incompetence, or were just so plain crazy as to let their grandfather drive them to the air port at three o'clock in the morning! Other than that the ride to Cozumel was fairly uneventful.

Upon arriving in Cozumel we were greeted by all the Immigration forms and what-not which kept us tied up for about half an hour, then before you walk out of the terminal you press a button to have the button god's judgement passed upon you, If it lights up green you are free to go if red, you get strip searched, admittedly it is less biased than a couple of good ol' boys sitting around picking out anyone who look suspicious but WTF how does it prevent or solve any problems, It doesn't, the button god is just probably something proposed by the pretentious button worshiping cult that controls Mexico's semi-socialist government.

Your One True God

One thing to know about Cozumel is that the taxi drivers are right out of Liberty City's driving school, driving a minimum of 20 KPH over the speed limit, turning around in the middle of the road, darting around the cornucopia of mopeds and other small vehicles piloted by locals and intrepid tourists, In their micro-bus sized vans. Oh and did you know you can fit a family of four on a moped (and twelve in the cab of a crew cab truck), strange, only in Mexico I guess.

So after fearing for my life for the second time that day we arrived at our hotel/resort thing called El Cozumeleno and were greeted by the door man and the first of many all inclusive drinks to come. but apparently they had screwed up our reservation but this was easily fixed by switching rooms with family we I was traveling with. now to the point were I tell you about the hotel, It was all inclusive (free food, drink, shows, and pool) though if you do not eat at one of the two free restaurants on the resort the food will remind you of your wort memories of elementary school cafeteria food. both of the others are adequate though, but Lex Luthor waited on our table

Compare
what you don't know is that this shot took two hours to get, he doesn't want to be found

Well he didn't actually wait any tables he was just the undisputed evil overlord of the palapa. But now an interesting story, last year when I was at the same resort; the entire restaurant was full of birds, so this year they put up fishing line on all of the openings other than the entrances and exits to keep these birds out, well anyway all they did was create an unnatural selection which allowed only the sly crow-like grackles to get inside the palapa, the interesting thing is though that they mostly take the pink artificial sweetener packets; I mean just wow, look you created a population of hyper smart crow-esque things that are addicted to artificial sweetener. I know it, it's Lex's new five step plan for world domination; 1. move to Mexico 2. breed an army of birds that you can control somehow 3.take control of your army 4. train them in the arts of combat, subterfuge, and fear (think Hitchcock) 5. use the army to take over the world.

But there is more to Cozumel than just El Cozumeleno, there are decent restaurants on the Island, also innumerable nearly identical tacky souvenir shops with annoyingly pushy owners.
But let's start with the restaurants, first of all a tip; do not eat at Carlos' n' Charlie's, not only is it full of drunken college students, the food is a heaping pile of meh and they will put a penis shaped balloon hat on your head. But at the other end of the spectrum of eating: there are a couple of restaurants in the town square that all provide excellent food in a quieter atmosphere, best of all; no penis hats. The first and foremost of these is a converted porch known as Casa Denis, it is probably the oldest eating establishment on Cozumel, officially being classified as a restaurant since 1945. Casa Denis Serves Yucatan style food, it's generally good all around and the wait staff are such asshole it makes me feel as though I am at home. Last year The group I was traveling with (I.E. my parents, siblings, aunt, uncle, cousin, and foreign exchange student)went to Casa Denis our foreign exchange student a Scott named Jordan got piss drunk as scotts are wont to do

note this is early on in the night, he already had two more of the ones in the fore ground

after the one he is picture with he turns to my aunt's video camera and says "I'm sorry mum!" then after we pay the bill he staggered off towards the street with a couple of liters of mango margarita in him as well as a couple of pounds of food sloshing around in his stomach. one of the a fore mentioned annoying pushy shop keepers Called upon him to stop in the shop,

"no gracias!!!"

"why no Gracias!?"

" 'cause; I'm pure steamin'!!"

after arriving in his room Jordan (who "never throws up") began to spew, but just as any scott he just kept on drinking.

Jordan's (or any scott's) liver

We just couldn't let him live this down so we gave him the "lexicon of Vomitology" for Christmas.

The other restaurant is know for being a pizza joint of all things, now I don't have a hilarious story about this one so bear with me. First of all the food was excellent, the wait staff was efficient, and it had all I wanted that last night: some peace and quiet. Now to a more rowdy affair; the famous "Coconuts", Coconuts is a restaurant on a cliff overlooking the beach, It is quite nearly out doors, and It would be If it were not for the palapa constructed on the bluff. Before anything you need to know that coconuts is basically a dive crossed with a college fraternity, meaning that it is full of drunks partying on till all hours and that it's wall are covered with strange collections; put bluntly, the clothing of people who have eaten there before O_O. Now my first reaction was to the signed T-shirts plastered upon the underside of the palapa's roof, I that's kind of cool if a little creepy, then as I looked around I saw that there was also underwear hung upon the support beams of the palapa; at that point I realized the true depth of debauchery that Coconuts housed. It is unknown to me whether or not the clothing items were taken with or without the permission of their original wearers, but considering that a half-pissed middle aged "lady" tried to expose herself before her "friends" took pictures, laughed, and held her down, after this I am inclined to think that the items were removed of the wearer's free will but were taken by some random employee.

But better than any restaurant prior or after; La Casa del Pescador (The House of the Fisherman), put in short the food (steak, lobster, and shrimp) was well and beyond any to be expirenced in Mexico or most places in the U.S., the prices were more than fair ( they were equivalent to anywhere else we had eaten in Mexico), and there was an f***ing Crocodile; yes that is what I said a wild crocodile in a little pond just outside the building; in fact you had to cross a little bridge over the pond to get to the restroom. After we left the restaurant we were asked to stop and come around to the side to watch him feed the various meat scraps the wild four foot reptile that resided in their decorative pond, apparently the croc known as Claudia had moved in recently and they had been feeding her the leftovers, so of course Claudia decided to stay.

during our stay in Cozumel we had intended to dive as we did last year (which is the reason we had decided to come to Cozumel in the first place), but we had forgotten our dive cards, and when we finally got things sorted out so that we could the weather took a turn for the worst and we were left without any opportunities to dive. Though our original purpose was lost we still found entertainment. first and for most we had a day cruise on a trimaran called the Toucan,

Sydne (my sister) and Poy (my forign exchange student-sister) hanging off the mast of the good ship Toucan

this was by far the most bang you can get for your buck. First and foremost on my memory is the excellent food on board; by far the best Mexican food while in Mexico (od considering it was all prepared on a small charcoal grill hanging off the end of a thirty foot boat), second was the spinnaker ride; this entailed waiting for a strong wind, putting you on a small seat tied to the end of a loose sail, and letting the wind thrash you around until either the wind died down or the crew of the good ship toucan managed to wrestle the sail down.

Clay rising up on the spinnaker

The other family that came with us on this voyage happened to be from our area of Ohio (huh small world), THe mother of said group got completely smashed (notice a pattern); and on the spinnaker ride quite nearly lost her top, but her dignity it was gone.

Over the course of our trip we had left for the mainland town of Playa del Carmen, this was overall pretty enjoyable, but not nearly so to write an entire passage on so some highlights. A man that looked strikingly like inspector Cluso from the pink panther movie snuck-up behind me and put an iguana on my head,

notice the homicidal gleam in my eye primarily because of mr. Cluso's ambush secondarily because I hate having my picture taken


We ate at an interesting if not terribly good restaurant known as Hemingway's Palapa, yes the Writer Ernest Hemingway (I know it does'nt make any sense).

at Hemingway's


We trekked all over town to find a dive shop so that my uncle could buy a t-shirt (It happened to be in a section of town that resembles San Francisco in spirit), saw a shop that sold realllllly weird crap

simply put I have no words to describe it other than WTF

Oh and we almost missed the last ferry back to Cozumel that day.

Then the day came to leave, we took yet another crazy taxi back to the airport (or should I say concrete strip in a jungle), signed in, got on the plane and were greeted by the pilot saying that there was some maintenance that was "mostly paperwork" so 15 minutes later he announced that there was "something dripping out of the engine" and "it will be just a few minutes" thirty minuted later we taxied out on to the runway only to turn around again, It turns out there was another problem; apparently one of the maintenance staff had pulled some of the cockpit circuit breakers and neglected to tell the pilot, um okay; now I feel safe. So after an hour we were on our way, they opted to give everyone on the plane a complementary set of headphones as an "I'm sorry I shook your faith in our airline" gift. Upon arriving in Houston we went through customs quickly and smoothly, missed our flight, got reassigned (that day thankfully), and ran from one end of the terminal to the other in the never ending game of musical chairs that is the airport terminal fortunately we got on our flight home. Once on board we taxied out onto the runway only to find that someone forgot to shut the cargo hatch (well actually secure it but whatever), again, wtf; no never mind I just have lost faith in continental. Upon landing in Cleveland the plane just about landed diagonally; the cross wind was so bad that the plane wobbled severely all the way down. We arrived: alive and relatively unharmed, after continental, and Cozumel's taxi service my a fore mentioned crazy grandfather was a nice change of pace. I arrived home at nearly one o'clock in the morning, passed out im my bed and woke up for school at 5.30 in the morning.

Game Damage

After the endless hours of trolling the web for the most mildly interesting things; I found a new series staring Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, for those of you who may not know (and I'm guessing that's few of you) the Zero Punctuation series of game reviews featured every Wednesday on The Escapist. This new series is what could be described as "totally fucking awesome", Yahtzee remains as much as a prick as ever, and hes co-stars certainly fill the rest spectrum leaving Game damage a well rounded show rather than the opinionated rant of one man or the slightly pathetic solioque of another.

Game Damage's skits certainly fit into spectrum of British (well in this case Aussie) humor, I.E for those of you who have never seen anything by Montey Python "completely bizarre scenarios with people acting rather normally in them". Anyway, this series has much talent for future entertainmet, I should be watched.


Game Damage: A new show featuring Yahtzee, Yug and Matt

Zelda paper hat

While surfing the net (well the fifteen sites I go to) I found this little oddity a Wearable paper Zelda hat.

Take a look

How do I keep missing all of this stuff?!?!

I had never heard of the web series By Felicia Day called "The Guild" until recently, even then I just marked it off as something that I only minimally wanted to see. I just spent almost an hour watching the first season on Youtube out of curiosity and all I have to say is: c'mon how do I keep missing this stuff, literally 2 things that I now think are completely epic within the small span of one relatively busy week. Damn I need to start following this MMO Phenomenon (even though I an an Anti-social Ass) or else I will miss out on all of this awesome stuff.

Anyhow here Is a link to the first episode on Youtube

The Guild - Episode 1: Wake-Up Call

Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain: Rocks!

As I have been following several games in development religiously and disowning Blizzard's bastard child WoW, I have been very nearly blind to developments in geek/nerd/gamer culture that seemed from blizzard new poster boy. Until today I have been completely unaware of the band Level 70 Elite Tauren chieftain, and now that I have found It I am sorry I was; this band Combines many a thing that I love Heavy metal, humorous references to video games, a decent base line, and competent musicans.

Here are some links to some of their popular songs

Level 70 Elite Tauren Cheiftain-"Storm, Earth and Fire (Power of the Horde)"

Level 70 Elite Tauren Cheiftain- "I am Murloc"

Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain live- "Raise Some Hell"

Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain-"Rogues Do It From Behind"

Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain: Rocks!

Those Damn Deer

Well today is the first day of deer season and as such It made me think of a penny arcade comic I read a while back and which reference constantly (in my first life), Penny Arcade! - The Deerly Departed.

Peta: the Unauthorized Video Game

"there's a place for all of god's creatures; right next to the mashed potatoes and gravy," Ted Nugent

Now if only I can stop laughing long enough to post this; Peta members are in the habit of being completely Bat shit-crazy Eco-terrorists. These Wacko's most recent endeavor has the making parodies of games they claim to represent the "evil" in the world, their ploys often backfire but few do so so hilariously.

This endeavor is to discredit the "cooking-mama" franchise, for those who never heard or don't care the cooking mama games are are a series of mini-games for the DS in which you help good ol' mama prepare unnecessarily elaborate meals to be greeted by the cheering of "yay! Better than Mama!". so PETA for some reason or another that preparing animal based dishes in a game was evil and took it upon them selves to put out propaganda, oh wait I'm sorry "message enforcement" against poor lil' mama. One thing they didn't count on was how stupid their idea was and how It provides more entertainment value and positive enforcement with the "yay, Meaner than mama" than it antagonizes it.

Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals

This game was very good up until the "bonus level" when mother becomes a vegan and you are forced to create a tofu turky.

The face of the evil corporations

Star Trek: Boy Band

Look at this Picture

Willy Wifters

The Only thing I have to say is wtf. Well actually that's not the only thing I have to say right now but that's not the point right now, anyhoo this is the promo picture of the upcoming Star Trek movie-remake-thingy, and If I had not viewed the title I would have immediately associated it with a new boy band rather than A Remake of Star Trek. But that is not just theory It really happened; my parents (perhaps bigger Star Trek buffs than I) Without reading the captions asked me If that was "some boy band or something" to which I replied "nope, Unfortunately it's the new Star Trek remake", then the comment was raised "then why do they all look queer", which launched us into how in every early star trek (the original and Next generation) every male character was a man's man, hell even Data had more testosterone than all of the guys in the front, any way I'm off topic again.

So after boning up on this neglected topic I found out that it will have more akin to Enterprise than It will to the original star trek; I.e. showing the beginnings of the characters, early contacts, ect, ect, ect which I suppose was just a half assed excuse AS to why they cast a bunch twenty (I suppose the one I suppose is McCoy looks older) something nobody to command the enterprise. It was also stated that this movie would try to reach out to "New audiences" supposedly with it's leaner, meaner, and more realistic view of the future (which Is what I liked about Enterprise) which I suppose I can appreciate, but the twenty-something boy band-looking command crew will attract screaming teenage girls and as those who know me best can say, I hate screaming teenage girls, so when This remake is the most popular thing with the Teenage girl Demographic I won't be surprised though I surely hope that it won't. So I will go to see the movie (Maybe) out of loyalty, but I will not expect any more out of it than either Deep Space Nine or Voyager put out.

Oh, and By the way Enterprise was great

True heirs to the franchise

I Knew It!

I apologize for my previous attempt at this post; how could I have known that the sites moderators would decide to cancel and re-release the episode online, and I an sorry about linking to the wrong page and depending on you using your common sense to find the episode, but any way....

I knew It, look

About Last Night...

Back in the U.S.S.A.

Welcome to the USSA

I had intended to post this when our current socialist presidential elect was voted in by the unwashed masses. Now my "regular" readers may point out that I despise talking politics because doing so involves a lot of "paraphrasing" and a bullshit sense of Faux Intellectualism; this much is true, but, since I am an alpha-"Isolated nerd with a tenuous attachment to reality" (in the words of the Ask-a-Ninja Ninja) I must post my opinion.

First of all congratulations Morons you got what you deserved; an Inexperienced socialist puppet controlled by the idealistic far left. you could probably have gotten the equivalent leader by putting a Che Guevara sock puppet on a college sophomores' hand whilst said sophomore repeats every recorded thought that sounded "good" and takes no action on the ill conceived thoughts. Yes I said " takes no action" because Obama's talk is just that Talk; I know you might have started praying to a deity you warship or planing to fake your own death so you could live the rest of your days as a hermit in the great northern Alaskan wilderness communing (and consuming) with the animals, the land, and quite possibly Sarah Palinn(Oh great Off track again), because even the media has started to pull their hair out as they mumble "oh my god, we've created a monster". But there are are numerous things keeping Obama from doing anything; namely the presidents office not being a policy making position, the supreme court, various parts of the constitution, a divided house of congress, most of America's seniors(one of the largest groups of voters) being firmly against socialism after that cold war "thing", and most importantly our "glorious leader" not having any superior skills other than rabble rousing (I mean look seriously, he roused a massive amount of lazy-stupid-disorganized-pot-smoking-Che Guevara wearing college "know-it-all" Hippies to vote and preach for him en masse).

Now I have question how many bigots voted him in because he happened to be black... answer to many, fist why would you do such a thing; either you are on the death list of the NAACP, you have so little personality that you take racial guilt personally, you are intolerant of people who are not of your color, or you took Carlos Mencia seriously. If you answered yes for any of theses you are officially demoted on the Hindu karma wheel to be reincarnated as a banana slug(or lower if you where already that{but take heart, you had the brain of one anyway}). well anyway I've met my quota for bashing self-righteous morons for today.

Now I under stand that 65 percent of the population of the united states(and probably 90 percent of the western world) will hate me for this post, but that is why I dissabled the comments the first day of my blog so

I have no Intention of answering to the neo-KGB

Apocolyptic Music Mix

With my acquisition of fallout 3 impending I have decided to post more music to set the mood.....
The Apocalypse is pending!!!!!

Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper
The ultimate apocalyptic tune, due primarily to The Stand

REM End Of The World As We Know It
Obviously

AC/DC - Highway to hell
Great song that could be potentially linked with the road warrior

The Red Elvises - Siberia
From Six-String Samurai

Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell
Apocalypse happening

Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Road warrior music

Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
Road Warrior-esc.

Muse - Knights of Cydonia
Post Apocalyptic awesomeness

Fallout 3 Fever

I have been perfectly miserable with some unidentified possibly viral disease for about a week, which ironically enough began exactly one week before Fallout three's release date; so now I humorously am referring to it as Fallout fever. Now to the point the game that I have been slavering over for just under a year is coming out tomorrow, Now unfortunately since I lack means of personal locomotion I cannot attend the midnight release at the Mentor Game Stop. that coupled with my lack of a reserved copy leaves me in a state of limbo; note I a sure I will get it tomorrow since the Madison Wallmart never sells out any games that don't involve set pieces ripped directly from the Alien movies and presented in a shooter format. So with the release of my most anticipated game of the year looming six hours from now and getting my hands on it around 22 hours from now, installation within the hour, them a cattatonic state that could last at least a month; ah good times lie ahead for me. You can expect a reveiw sometime in November.


Once more into the Wastes dear friends!

And now to set the mood

YouTube - The Ink Spots - I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire

Or for the old school intro

YouTube - Fallout Intro Movie

Me as a south park character

Today I made an avatar of myself on SP-Studio's South Park character generator. I personaly liked the tool and will probably use it in many future posts, so without further ado I introduce you to my real world Identity......

Mason Nielsen

Here's a link to the tool

South Park Character creator

And now Tomb the Dwarf
my raging slightly festive side

Time for Some Campainin'

This video is hilarious, It provides an interesting cometary on our society as well as an equal bashing for all. Huzzah!

http://www.jibjab.com/originals/time_for_some_campaignin

Subliminal Elvis Presley

X-play has recently been showing a serial 'Todd time' in which Todd Howard; the lead developer of fallout 3 talks about subjects that may or may not have anything to do with the upcoming game, but that is n0ot the reason I post. I post because a picture of Elvis Presley was flashed several times over the course of the most recent episodes, don't believe my ever so unbiased mouth look for your self.

http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/videos/29311/Todd_Time_3_Rules.html

Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher just your Friendly Nieborhood Bum

The developers game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Redemption decided to take the game's art "In a new direction" this being said what they mean is they will make the entire color palate for the game indistinct gray and brown and make the hero Sam Fisher look roughly the part of a partly bedraggled bum (which is ironic considering Tom Clancy has had his hero's hide amongst the homeless before)

Fisher's new wino look

This give's a whole new meaning to the term "bum rush"



Fisher forsakes stealth in favor of his freshly honed bum fighting skills

So It is less the art style that bothers me but rather the fact that good Ol' Sam Fisher has gone from your run of the mill super agent to your "edgy and unique" wino.

Again I am Sorry

After my last post I intended to begin writing more frequently; unfortunately school, and salivating over bits of information on several games like some broke crack addict waiting for a dealer to take pity on him. Anyway in my trolling I found and article by a " sothothyog" an author of the Prima stradegy guide; suffice it to say the article is hilarious due to the use of petty legality for humor.

http://primagames.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/fallout-then-fall-over/

Whoa

well I broke a promise to my (1/2) faithful readers, at the beginning of the summer I said that I would post more and 3 posts In 3 months Is certainly not more that five posts a month, so sorry for the...... uh.....

Look! A DISTRACTION!

Six-String Samurai

Six-string samurai is an obscure low-budget post-apocalyptic science fiction epic released in 1998, it has won a cult following over the years; defanatly less than it deserves, but still enough to have 127,000 hits on Google ( for comparison Halo receives 110,000,000 hits). The epic tale of Buddy goes something like this.

In 1957 the Russians nuked the US then took over the smoldering rubble, the last bastion of freedom; Los(t) Vegas stood alone in the wasteland and Elvis was crowned It's first king (of rock 'n' roll). Now it's 50 years later Elvis has died and and every Guitar strumming sword swinging opportunist is trying to make it to Lost Vegas to succeed him, including The Six-String Samurai; Buddy (Jeffrey Falcon) a hero who combines the best aspects of a 50's rocker and wandering warrior Into one uber-epic Package. Buddy must fight his way through the post-apocalyptic wasteland to Los(t) Vegas and ditch a bothersome urchin (Justin Mcguire) If he is to ever become the next king of rock 'n' roll. Along his travels he must deal with a windmill-worshiping cult, bounty hunting bowlers, a cannibalism family, and even the Russian Army; with his katana in one hand and his six-string in the other eventually leading up to an epic rock-duel with the metal-shredding Slash-Esque Grim Reaper (Stephane Gauger) over the child's soul.

Six-String Samurai has won a place in my top 10 favorite movies of all time (bah, who thought those bloody Indies and I would ever agree). The soundtrack by The Red Elvises is absolutely superb, and the various other scores made were also top notch. Dispite cheap filmmakeing; it is my favorite movie I have seen this month (and that includes the X-files and Batman). So from the synopsis you can tell that this movie is utterly bizarre but believe me when I say that despite the Insanity and humor, this movie Is utterly epic, completely, as well as being bizarre, wilst still leaving room for traditional drama.

Overall this Is a movie that should be seen (probably with copious amounts of alcohol for best results) and if you can't(find and watch it); you are an Idiot.

Ok that surpised me

"Fox Developing Cowboy Bebop Live-Action Feature Film"

My first reaction upon seeing this was simply a jaw-drooping, skeptical; wtf. The language and shock are due mainly to the fact Cowboy Bebop Is an anime, and name one animated show that was successfully converted to a live action feature............ none huh, and that Is because said entertainment was developed for the media and format in which it was first created for; an example is the LotR trilogy was not as good as the books, or Serenity(movie) was not as good as firefly(tv Series), and the d&d (movies, video games, TV series, books, etc.) are no where near the calibur of the venerable paper and pen rpg. So for those of you with skulls thicker than the armor plating on a naval carrier; this worries me because Cowboy bebop was one of the only animated serials that could truly be considered a work of art, and I am afraid that if they attempt It they will (for a want of an equally accurate but more socially appropriate phrase) screw the pooch and create a monstrosity that can not in any way match up to the mold from wich it was modeled.


PS. on different formats being worse anime girls to cosplay


Faye Valentine

http://www.peregrinefox.com/Pix/AnimeExpo2004/AnimeExpoManFaye070320040008_std.jpg

Cosplay Faye
(this Is to disturbing for put on my blog or even setting up a link to it)

Diablo III

Hell just froze over!!!!

Look...

Diablo III

Simply put Diablo 3 has just been announced today and the official site has been opened, so I guess I have to eat my own words from a previous post; and I do so happily.

this announcement was definitely the most stunning and unexpected of the year, truly not even the announcements of a couple other sequels of great decade old games (StarCraft 2 & Fallout 3) didn't even compare. The release of this game screws up several of the count downs I have made namely The wanted games and the unlikely sequels. The secrecy of the game's development was what truly surprised me; the only mistake was asking the diablo 3 rumor site to change It's IP 'quietly' which was later blurted out of the sites mouth like some gargled turrets click ..... But you don't want to hear about my reaction to blindly stumbling across this you want to hear the so far mentioned details; and I will for all of you who are lazy enough not to click on the link and go to the official site to read it for yourselves (you lazy bastards).

First of all the game is still an isometric hack 'n slash RPG that takes place in the world of Sanctuary (twenty years after the events of the last game), but you could figure that due to the title. Now to the known differences; first and most obviously the game will be I 3D, It also appears that your hero will not be fighting the prime evil this time around; but rather a completely new enemy. There will be five classes, but only two have been revealed: the old limb-chopping, head-removing, spleen-eating barbarian Is back, and a new comer: the witch doctor, the name says it all a cursing, murdering freak-from -way-back. Many characters featured in previous titles will make a come back in this installment (hopefully not as a zombie though). According to Blizzard there will be more randomly generated events, quests, and encounters throughout the game. The sound design has been significantly improved, of course just about anything would be an improvement over the crappy sound of the original two.

From what I have read this gore coated, testosterone filled (an interesting term considering all classes so far can be played as a female), and loot covered Installment will challenge the masculinity of the previous two, and them crawl down to the bar and order a couple of Shirly temples.

And the chunks start flying!

Could've been better

I have recently downloaded the free version of the Spore creature creator and it was....... uninspiring; the editor was a little to simple and I was just a little to cute and fluffy. I admit I was fun, and probably would be even more enjoyable If I had bought the full version, but I won't For I am a cheap bastard, I will just wait for the the full version of the game to come out, though at this rate I will not buy it until the price has plummeted. My Opinion of the game has changed though; It is no longer on the list of 'games that I really want but do not want to wait for' but relegated to the sub layer of 'games that I sort of want and am willing to wait for' due primary to the excessive cartoonishness and the sharp turn away from the original semi-realism of the game seen in the original trailer(original Spore Official Trailer), my only question is wtf happened, if it had stayed to that formula It would've been awesome not just the sugar coated game it is shaping up to be........ sigh.

Semi-Historical Awesomeness

I was Browsing You Tube a while back when I came upon this awesome video, have a look(It's nine minutes long):

Crusader - Chris de Burgh

Don't Mess with the Zohan

This movie can only be described as a 'hilarious sex-filled parody of the modern world with an equal bashing for all, Huzzah!', but on a slightly more objective note; this movie was 'good', just a few flaws shy of 'great', (I would normally use the segue "due primarily to the fact," but I won't because that would be to obvious so I'll settle for a simple) "because" of It's extensive use of crude bedroom romps, bedroom humor, hummus, and Adam Sandlers Bare ass (the worst of all). What Don't Mess with the Zohan did well though was giving every ethnic and social group involved an equal and well deserved bashing, not caving into political ravings, and fake Yiddish swear words, I mean seriously : oi lok at that boottahken over there......

..... agh! not again!

But seriously I believe Zohan is was an attempt by Sandler to see how far he could push the movie rating system as he could, there will probably be an unrated edition with only one or two things that just didn't fit under the bar of rated R. But enough of this pointless speculative soliloquy, you as a (friend, consumer, 'Regular reader' hopefuly) want to know whether to watch it or let It gather dust in the bargain bins of tomorrow; first of all I'd tell you to jump off a cliff or stop being so Black and white then I'd tell you that It is a movie that should be seen, not a movie to form a cult about, not one to buy stolen tickets, or even to love (unless you have a fetish of Sandlers Bum or hummus). If your are uncomfortable with any of the afore mentioned thing then you had best stay the hell away.



Avoid the dvd!

Schools Out For Summer!

Well schools been out for About 9 hours and fifteen minutes, and do you know what that means.......... well for one thing it mean a lot more non-intellectual work (even though school could hardly be considered an intellectual exercise), also it means more posts more often (my non-existent readers).

This song just about sums up my feelings on this matter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH_vVy0g4ZQ

Indiana Jones: and the Carnival of Unlikeliness (spoiler alert!!!)

Indiana Jones: and the kingdom of the crystal skull was a poor substitute for an Indiana movie, whilst it was a top shelf movie it does not stand amongst the pantheon of truly great movies in which the first and last (crusade) Indiana Jones are members of. Over all the movie was good but flawed.

Let me explain, the story was crafted of only the strangest conspiracy theories , Russian alien/psychic research, el Dorado as an alien Built city, Roswell, flying saucers, inter dimensional beings, most blatantly the crystal skulls, and the list continues on. The only reasons I think are possibly for this idiotic dribble of a plot is either; 1. It was just a ploy to get money, 2. the entire premise of making the movie was to make fun of good ol' Indy, another possibility is that (3.) they just stamped the story with the good professor's name and called up Harrison(this is probably the most likely), or my personal favorite (4.) they hired a Invader Zim fanfic writer to come up with the premise or maybe they got high just before they started discussing plot, any way the result was the same, a really good movie that should not have been created using the Indiana Jones license. Second was (SPOILER ALERT!!!!) the most obvious plot twist in the history of plot twists the (don't recall his name) is Indiana Jones' son, I mean c'mon they were setting him up the entire time, the friendly (yet not fatherly advice) gave the entire thing away; I mean hay his first appearance I pointed him out and said " thats probably Indy's son". BAt my biggest grievance was the fact it was a carnival of unlikeliness, from all the senseless theories that come from college students and raving lunatics that will go climb mt. Everest if you said there was a UFO crash site at the top, to the increased dependence on Indy's Incredible luck, to the crazy spider monkey-ninja-unread-amazonian things, and surviving three 100 foot drops in a histrionically inaccurate Russian amphibious boat. But all this is nit picking, unless you cannot tolerate conspiracy (In a similar manner to my hatred of their senseless idiocy), if not you will love this movie: just don't think of it as an Indiana Jones sequel, and even if you can't stand conspiracy theories you will like this movie still.

Games That Deserve Sequels

For many years I have thought of the games that deserve sequels, fortunately many such hopes have come true and the various sequels are coming within a year or two such as fallout 3 or Starcraft 2. Unfortunately many sequels to great games that deserve a sequel are not in open development (or any development for that matter). so without further ado:

the top four games that deserve a sequel

4 . Age of mythology- Age of mythology was and is a truly unique take on a rts, with all the mythological heroes and creatures it is a game for the nerd population to revel in. A sequel of this title could be easily made because the game is not story driven in the least, so even with a story that is the equivalent in depth and quality of the writing to a romance novel (a literary cheesy poof) the game would still be loved if it's game play lived up to the original.

3. Diablo 2- there is always room for this classic hack and slasher in my gamer heart, and it can be readily made into a sequel unlike many games

2. Chrono Trigger- this game is a jrpg, but despite this drawback It ranks among my favorite games of all time. Chrono Trigger's story centers around time travel and the end of the world but despite the contrived plot the games story telling is fresh. This game featured the best soundtrack of any jrpg ever conceived (and one of the best outside of jrpgs), it was also one of the first true rpgs to feature a semi-real time combat system and an early proponent of multiple endings. though making a sequel will be nigh on impossible due primarily to the multiple endings, in one the main character dies, in another the time traveling ship is destroyed. this makes it difficult for a sequel unless you abandon all previous conceptions of the story and make a freakish lurching monstrosity of contrived science fiction and illogical paradoxes. On the other hand a Remake would be just as readily accepted as the original.

1.Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura- this game was truly a masterpiece, from the epic storyline, excellent dialogue writing (even though the amount of dialogue was on the meager side), and the mournful song of a string quartet paying over your character's trek though the steampunk-high fantasy world of Arcanum. Though you could not truly sequel the story of this game (again due to multiple endings), you could create a new story that takes place in the same setting.

None of these except Diablo is ever likely to get it's well deserved and much needed sequel, but I can only hope.

The Drawing of the Dark

What do mythological creatures, king Aurthur,vikings, Suleiman, and a drunk Irish landsneckt have in common, well for one thing they all are featured in a hidden gem of a book called the Drawing of the Dark, which despite it's stereotypical sounding name for fantasy, is the one of the most unique and certainly one of the best books I have ever read.

The story goes something like this;It is the year 1500-something and Brian Duffy an Irish Landsneckt (a mercenary, for those dolts who can't even tell you what the holy roman empire was) gets steaming drunk in the streets of Venice and up fighting, and kicking the asses of of three nobles who's father he called 'the bastard pimp of Suleiman. a passing.........( well at first you don't know what the hell he is, but it is important to the story so spoiler alert) sorcerer, called Aureleanis, who wants Duffy to be the bouncer for a tavern recently converted from a monastery famous for brewing Herzwesten (western heart) beer in Vienna, Duffy accepts this at an unusually high pay rate. so he travels north to Vienna along the way encountering bandits, demons, Dwarves, and a hunchbacked swiss artillery officer. upon arriving things get even weirder, he defends the brewery and the so called king of the west against the turks who mean to destroy it and therefore wipe out the western world, and he does it mostly drunk.

This book is truly great; It combines great story telling, witty (and not so much) humor, memorable characters, and it combines the best elements of all western mythology to create a completely interesting explanation for the western world (I'll give you a hint it has something to do with Fin Mac Cool and beer). If you have never seen this book find it and read it, for the drawing of the dark is a one of a kind read.

Kittens!?!?

Following the abandonment of two kittens on our porch by a local barn cat, we quickly 'adopted them' and soon things went to the kitten side of things.

the first of said plump, insane kittens is a calico of gray, orange, and white known as gremlin, It is the most psychotic of the bunch; constantly clawing everything up. Then there is 'Chalupa' a barn cat that looks remarkably like a 'poofy' Siamese it is far more laid back than the psycho-kitten called Gremlin, but compared to that one the Tasmanian devil seems calm. so on to the first of my 'kitten tails'; my first encounter of the kitten-kind occurred yesterday when I was arbitrarily chosen to construct the holding cell for the kittens, unfortunately the box I chose was not high enough to ensure kitten keeping potential, so I taped the flaps up to stop a potential jail break; the second the porcine rat heard the tape unwinding the bolted across a room with a fair covering of nails, hand tools, and various other tetanus inducing objects, needles to say this resulted in several wounds to my feet. When The kittens were finally detained, they stared muling I, the 'expert pet care technician' that I am had no idea what these hell spawn wanted, they each had devoured a can of wet cat food apiece (easily as much as they 'used' to weigh) they continued this well past midnight . Today the the kittens were 'paying' on the couch whilst I was lying there, and the demonic badgers that they are, began burrowing into the back of the couch , it took several minutes to recover one, but the second one was lost for much longer and it was accompanied with cries of "you lost the kitten" in a joking manner, we had to it the couch over and remove the bottom to recover the muling spawn of our barn cat "spud".

Iron Man

I watched Iron man on mother's day with my mother, I know awesome mothers day right, and it can be described as one thing: Epic.

First in my trademark reviewing process I will complain first. well, all I can say is that i don't believe political messages and entertainment should mix, though Iron Man was not particularly political as Hollywood film-making goes; it still left a sour taste in my mouth. well I can't think of any other complaints except the 'I-world' vision of the future and why would he reveal himself, I mean c'mon he is the most pathetic superhero outside of the suit, so why would he put himself at such a risk, even the chances of people sueing him for damages are huge. So without-to-do: here's what I liked.

Iron Man was truly a good movie, acting was great, production values were great, and the technology (minus the arc-reactor) was realistic and obtainable. also here's an enjoyable tidbit of information the actor that played Stark, was like stark at the beginning of the movie, but by now he has made a turn around, not quite as extraordinary as Iron Man, but Interesting none-the -less. Also for once there was a truly despicable Bad guy not like lex (the weakling who wants revenge) ,the green goblin (a misguided druggy, with two personalities)or the Joker (stab you in the nuts lunicidal{insane, homicidal, somewhat funny}) but a perfectly sane man willing to sell out every thing (friends, country, followers) every thing for a quick buck (kind of like an 'E-Bayer' who went totally overboard), he may have been despicable but he was to much of a political statement for me. Over all this one is a must see, rent, and buy.


Lunicidal- Loon-ie-cide-al- the act of being completely insane, homicidal, and somewhat humorous

WTF! 4th Edition

D&D 4th edition promises to do alot to take away from the d&d experience; for one thing, they have eliminated 2 key classes, the bard, some people like playing as a Tom Bombadil loook alike, or manipulating the class to be more like an Olmsford with the wish song(me), and the barbarian, I mean c'mon it's a classic, who doesn't like going 'Conan' on your foes *ss*s and leaving a trail of severed body part were ever you go. Then there is their self-righteous 'improvement of combat' by leveling monsters down to improve 'flexibility', or 'redesigning' the mechanics of certain monsters act more like themselves, WTF! 4th ed. do you think that DM's are idiots or do you want to make the 'throne' of the DM accessible to the average nitwit, if it is the later your a bunch of greedy bastard wizards (of the coast), and if it's the former I'll fire bomb your new head quarters! so were was I; ah the race changes: The addition of the Teifling was just a poor choice by wizard, due primarily to the fact that Teiflings are an uncommon race and the player races should represent the most common 'civilized' races in the d&d universe, and Teiflings should not be common unless 'fornicating' with extra-planar evil beings is a common thing, which it hopefully is not. Then there is the addition of Dragon born, which my only objection to it is the same as the former (not common enough) unless you adjust your campaign setting accordingly, and that I have already created a similar looking race and acting race of endothermic humanoid reptiles for my campaign setting. but in a totally different direction along the line of races I am 'Incredibly' happy that they finally did away with gnomes a player race (though I did that months ago for my games). Another thing that I have to say 'finaly' on is the Halfling background being changed to peaceable river folk, rather that clans of midget gypsies, though I hope they correct their horrible mistake on a Halfling's looks Halflings are short plump folk with overly large and hairy feet (think hobbits, since that is what they are) not perfectly statuesque ethnic midgets. They also are removing all the sub-races in many cases considering them mere social differentiations of the same race, wow! WTF! Has 4th Edition gone completely liberal forsaking that races have different innate abilities, c'mon think for a second an elf that has been raised in a High Elven city is going to have different abilities than an elf that was raised in the nomadic life style of a Wood Elf, even if they are genetically identical (which i doubt they are), they are going to be different, and these differences are represented through the stat and ability changes. Finaly I am nearing the end of my complaints, The 4th Edition has decided that it will change it's cosmology 'Again' to a 'sea' instead of a 'wheel', yet another example of liberalism; here what seems to be going on they decided they didn't like that alot of plane where classified as minor planes so with this 'sea' all the planes are going to be like crappy little islands floating in the the astral plane, see no difference they are all equal, Bah! My belief is that the wheel is how they chose to represent it because it shows the players perspective on the planes (their plane is the most important and the center of their personal universe) in comparisons to other planes, or maybe I'm insane and they think their players where too 'Neanderthal-esque' to figure out the principle of a wheel. So thats it, 'you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here'.

Zero Punctuation

If you have never watched Ben "yahtzee" rant psychotically on zero punctuation, or seen anything else by him: you should, sure he may hurt your feelings with his reveiws, that is if your the lapdog of reveiwers.

First of all: the complaints, as always............... um................. well i guess some times he pisses people (not me) off.

Now what i like; he is completely mad, in a good way, he is honest in his reveiws (even though it may seem that he is taking cheap shots), finally he is genuinely funny; his wit is fresh, he uses verbal/visual puns, and dishes out plenty of verbal abuse.

over all he is great, though you should not use him as your only source for reveiws, though he should always be 'a' source, because he always points out every single flaw in a game.

you can find Yahtzee's Zero punctuation series at http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation
and any thing else by him at www.fullyramblomatic.com.

Del Torro to direct The Hobbit

WTF is this "Mexican-born filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has been named as the director of the film version of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and its proposed sequel" f' you Del Torro! Why Del Torro! what imbecile was put in charge of of choosing director! I'm the first to say I've hated every movie he has directed, so what idiot chose him to direct this movie with such great potential! You have to know he is going to change the setting the modern day, change Bilbo into some crazy obese guy who thinks he is going on an adventure but is actually walking down a hall to a firing squad in a Mexican jail then with his "childlike sense of wonder" he'll wonder why he's number one on the hit list of every geek on earth, even if he dosn't do this, or better yet not truly chosen director, this thought has ruined my entire morning! so f*** you Del Torro! I hope this means alot to you!

Unforgotten Realms: The Remake

If you are a true fan you already know about the greatest D&D parody of all time Unforgotten Realms, you may not know that they remade the first episode last month if you want to you can Watch the first episode now.

Dogmeat has returned

About 2 days ago I heard that Fallout 3 would feature the old jugular tearing, Immortal (seemingly), Vault-dweller's best friend, and fallout favorite Dogmeat has returned to the joy of fallout fans (including myself).


Dogmeat & the new Vault-Dweller

Though I am happy at Dogmeat's return I have a few burning questions 1. If it is the original Dogmeat how old must he be? somewhere around 60 years old. 2. How did he get to the east coast (i know he had 30 years so why?)? 3. Is it a cameo appearance of the original or a new Dogmeat? I'll never know (dogs can't speak, and developers have sealed lips)but I do wonder...

Review: Bioshock (a fun romp through a strange steampunk land)

Bioshock can best be defined as a fist person romp through an underwater-steampunk-utopia that has a major problem with its in habitants mutating themselves, going insane, and trying to eat little girls. So with this little summary in mind lets get to the meat of this review.

The story of the game goes something like this: you (a nameless-faceless-dork whose only distinguishing trait is a couple of chain tattoos on his wrists, or maybe he is just a pair of disembodied arms, who cares) survive a plane crash somewhere in the north Atlantic, you swim through the wreckage to a, well I really don't know what it is, maybe it's a light house, any way you swim to it and climb up a stair case through the door only to be greeted by darkness then the lights come on, only intensifying the already creepy atmosphere, you, being the idiot that you are; go wandering around the place until find a Submersible, again the idiot that is you climbs inside and pulls a lever labeled controls the pod descents into the murky but remarkably shallow depths of Rapture, figuratively and literally.

First off, all that is bad with Bioshock, the scary atmosphere that you would think would last the entirety of the game ends roughly about the time you find your first vending machine screaming "welcome to the circus of value!" (roughly twenty minutes in) of course those severe cases of cloulrophobia (fear of clowns) or white-coat hypertension would disagree with this statement for the vending machine is right next to the medical pavilion. Second The game is to Friggin' easy; roughly from the time when you obtain you first plasmid, a gene altering substance that gives you powers like shocking people , hence the "Bio" and "Shock", later in the game you can kill just about anything with your godlike powers, there is also to many "vit-a-chambers" (revival stations) I personally never died but if I some how get myself up with 10 grenades (thats what it takes) or just stood their and let a Big Daddy pound me for half an hour I wouldn't lose more than ten minutes(minus the time it takes to die) of progress, and the shear power of you plasmids and the lack of splicers having mastery of them just makes them all fodder. third is the game's obsession of doing strange things to little girls, it's a wonder that splicers and the "nameless-faceless-dork" have not atracted dateline 20/20's attention, or maybe the Big Daddies are all Chris Hanson clones:



But enough complaining here is what makes the game worth buying, even playing on an old 24 inch tv the game is beautiful, despite the blatant lack of scariness it maintained a creepy atmosphere throughout the game, It has a calculable chance of diving you insane (temporarily, happened to me), above all the game is original and fun, FUN!

Over all 52 pickles; the game and I, are insane and I don't feel like using up one f-ing hour of my life just so you can skip the well written review to the score.

The Games That I can't wait for

After months of staring at the sites waiting for the next tidbit of information to come rolling out, like some broke crack-head I've decided to blog about the games that I cannot wait for: actually I can, but that's not the point, so correction: The games I "don't" want to wait for, wait that doesn't sound right either so: The Games That I want but do not want to wait for:

1. Fallout 3, my personal dream, After playing morrowind I decided that that is how they should make the next fallout game, with the real-time, the first person view, etc, but I gave up on that dream because the license was put in a "Vault" by Interplay never to be seen again. so of course when I heard Bethsada was making the next fallout game I was thrilled, with a measure of apprehension do to the shallowness of Oblivion. So to the hope of a proper fallout sequel not another "brotherhood of steel" (ps2).

2. Starcraft 2, my favorite rts of all time makes a return, at this point I'm confident that blizzard will come through with a game worthy of the pre-release celebrations, I just hope they don't decide to make a Starcraft mmo in the next couple of years. "My life for Aiur!"

3.Spore, what more can I say; it looks awesome (if a little to cartoonish)

4.Fable 2, Fable was good though it didn't live up to the hype, and that is a reason why many are apprehensive about this new game that sounds wonderful, so i'm hoping that it's offspring will not repeat the same mistake, or they could just bind and gag Molyneux lest he over-hype the game, wait to late he already spoke. so I just hope it lives up to the Molyneux-Hype, this time.

5.Soulcalibur 4, my favorite fighting series is coming back, all I can say is I hope they don't fail and; Yoda is awesome.

I will be posting all i Know about and possibly obssessing about these games for the next several months until they arrive.

Man I need to get more money, maybe i should rob a bank, or sell WoW gold, or start my own sect of Scientology: wait they are the same thing, taking money from idiots... well where to start...

Video games cause voilence, Bah!

Finlay a decent study so I don't have to rant about this, It is published in a book called grand theft childhood (sounds like the name of a book politicians use to prove that video games are New scourge of mankind) and it proves through a reasonable study (not play for fifteen minutes and blow an air horn kind of study).

An inter view by x-play of the authors can be found on Kotaku.com.

Introductions

This is a blog, geek nirvana, and personal rant-a-phone all rolled into one, hopefully. Though my posts will consist of reviews and rants about "media",I can't promise politics and religion will be left out (no matter how much I would like them to be left out) especially on a rant. Feel free to complain, laugh, complement, and even rant all you want, because I am not listening to you *sticks fingers in ears*.