Old
News: April 8, 2005 to May 1, 2005
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7:09
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1 May
2005 (Sun); Post #590
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So in GURPS we destroyed some classified records in France for the
leader of some cult. He's the guy who turned Nathan Troy into a
child... seems he can heal ppl too. Anyway, Deadeye got nabbed,
so we had to break her out of a Paris hospital. Then we went back
to New York and talked to Uncle H about a reward for saving him
from Werner. We're building a subterranean fortress near lake Seneca
and Uncle H is paying for all the labor. We bought a section of
lightly wooded land and paid a San Francisco architecture firm to
draw up plans
(10,000 sq. ft., includes 5 ft. thick reinforced concrete walls
around the entire complex and an elevator for vehicle access). Oh,
and we ran an insurance fraud/arson scheme with Vincent Young that
netted us about $51K (and that's in 1927 USD, remember).
Beefy and I got Hanwool to buy WoW. So on Friday we all played night
elves together on the Dalaran server. I was a druid, Hanwool was
a priest, and Beefy played a warrior. On Saturday Hanwool and I
played humans (paladin and mage). My main character, the troll hunter
on Draenor, got up to level 18 this afternoon while Beefy and I
were in the Stonetalon Mountains working on the "Protect Kaya"
quest.
Beefy, Hanwool, and Hank's night elves.
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4:53
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28
Apr. 2005 (Thu); Post #589
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Oh man, World of Warcraft is awesome. I'm up to level 13 now. At
level 10 I got the ability to tame pets. I went through a couple
boars and a plucky scorpid, but I didn't really get the whole loyalty
system so they kept disappearing. My current pet is a raptor (the
pale yellow kind, forget the exact name). Been feeding him a steady
diet of tough jerky and boar meat; got his level up to 12 and his
loyalty to 3 (I think 5's the max). Got some cool stuff through
the auction house, like this magic chest armor that gives bonuses
to strength and stamina. And I got all these neat abilities, upgraded
some old ones to rank 2. Anyway, great game.
BTW, the MS
AntiSpyware Beta is really great. Got a few things Spybot couldn't,
including this annoying Trojan that kept reappearing on my system.
For the past week or so I've been stopping at Jack in the Box on
the way home from the gym at night. I always get a large iced tea.
They're running this promotion right now where large drinks have
a ticket you can peel off for a 50% chance of winning some food
item. So far I've won a Breakfast Jack, an Ultimate Salad, and two
regular tacos. Think I'll be eating JITB for a while... the food's
not great, but you can't get a better deal than free, right? Okay,
gotta sleep.
Wajoongo, lvl 13 Hunter, and Prawgash, lvl 12 raptor.
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1:28
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27
Apr. 2005 (Wed); Post #588
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Okay, World of Warcraft is way better than I thought it would be.
Very fun. I played through a ton of quests and managed to get my
Troll Hunter, Wajoongo, up to level 7. I'm on the Draenor server
if anyone wants to team up sometime or anything. I only stopped
playing just now cuz I've gotta go to the gym. Here's a screencap
of my character:
My Troll in front of the Razor Hill barracks
in Durotar. [1280 x 1024; 230 KB]
Beefy's an Undead Rogue. When I logged off, he was level 5. Seems
like some of the classes level slower. Can't wait to party together;
then maybe I can handle those dang Dustwind Harpies when they gang
up on me. Great game. Everyone buy it and join the Draenor server.
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8:19
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26
Apr. 2005 (Tue); Post #587
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Right now I'm downloading the World of Warcraft 1.4.0 patch... the
game uses some kind of P2P system for patch distribution, so it's
not as fast as one might expect. Beefy says he's gonna pick up a
copy of WoW tonight. He, Nick, and I are all gonna get on the same
server (Draenor) and play Horde races so we can party together.
I think I'm going to play a Troll Hunter.
I got my "Viva la Relativity!" T-shirt (from ThinkGeek)
in the mail today. I really like it; fits well.
Einstein/Che Guevara-parody T-shirt.
Did you see that #TVTorrents
died? There's just this brief message on the site now:
Sorry, but TVTorrents is down. No, I will not return.
Sorry for any hassles. Thanks for all the memories and good times
we had together in #tvtorrents. As of now, the channel will remain
open, but stay +m (no talking).
Again, sorry for having to leave, but it became necessary.
If you can donate to help with the pending settlement, please
do so!
So I guess he just succumbed to some **AA lawsuit. Really sucks...
they always had the best selection of recent shows. Not as fast
as BTEfnet, but more variety.
AFAIK, they were the only place you could DL the Modern Marvels
episodes (I snatched just about every one of em, something like
7 GB total).
Beefy just told me the Serenity
trailer has been released. Will view it when I finish this blog
post. Oh crap, Scrubs is on... TTFN. BTW, Family Guy Live in Las
Vegas is awesome... the TV Medley and "But Then I Met You"
songs are really good.
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9:40
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25
Apr. 2005 (Mon); Post #586
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Just got back from Anthony's, that new seafood restaurant
near the Columbia Point marina. I had a salad with shrimp and bleu
cheese dressing, a couple medium-rare yellowtail tuna cuts, a pilaf
with almond slivers, some asparagus spears, and a blueberry cobbler.
It was all very good. Would definitely like to eat there again.
I went with my parents cuz today's my dad's 50th birthday. I got
him a DeWalt plate joiner which I think he liked.
GURPS wasn't super exciting, but it was productive. We recovered
a lot of the loot Kamikaze had stolen from us (roughly half the
cash, most of the safety deposit box contents), then collected "tax"
from everyone in Charleville-Mézières (which, despite
being a city of ~60,000 was a tiny village in the Sinclair setting).
Then we tortured Werner until he oathed himself into servitude.
Then we went to Zurich, bought a car, set up some Swiss bank accounts,
and fenced a lot of jewelry. Later, we ripped off some jewelry shops
in Antwerp and took a zeppelin back to the states. Oh yeah, and
we made the mayor of Brussells swear a Werner-oath to us (obedience,
secrecy, etc.).
This ("RentMySon.com")
is just wrong. At first I thought it was a joke, but it looks like
they're serious. Ick.
Hey, did you know Marge Simpson's mother's name is Jacquelin Bouvier?
Which, of course, was Kennedy's wife's maiden name.
Beefy posted a bunch
of LoTR pics, so here:
An old 4chan "Mordor" pic.
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3:23
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23
Apr. 2005 (Sat); Post #585
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Wow, we just had the worst thunderstorm I've seen in a long time.
It was most intense around 2:40 pm I think. Hey, didja see Family
Guy 4x01 was leaked? Yup, I've got it a full eight days before it's
sposed to air. Woo. You want a link? Too bad! Aw, okay, here.
This TypeDrawing
thing is fun to mess around with for a little while. Okay, gotta
get ready for GURPS.
A dumb/funny random 4chan pic.
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1:48
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20
Apr. 2005 (Wed); Post #584
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Just got back from the gym. I can actually feel those muscles next
to my shoulders... the pectoralis minors I think. Anyway, I stopped
at the 10th Avenue Jack in the Box on my way home for an iced tea
like I did the night before and when I went to grab my credit card
the guy said, "Oh no, that's okay, sir." Hah! So, yeah,
the Kennewick 10th Ave. JITB... nice staff. Left some feedback on
their site.
Free JITB iced tea, woo.
Not having to GM has given me some extra time/energy for GURPS stuff.
Now that I've finished the design, background, and illustration
for my current character, plus the groundwork design for a backup
character, I've started working on Jovia
stuff again. I'm in the progress of writing two articles for the
setting: one on god mechanics and motivations and another on demons
(origins, powers, etc.). The first one's about done. Ought to help
players roleplay and understand future plot a little better. To
do's: general timeline, individual country profiles (detailed maps,
brief histories, government details, major city details, population
statistics, etc.), religion write-ups (holidays, customs, important
places, notable saints). Oh yeah, and something on thaulites (the
name I made up for Jones' anemone/barnacle-like creatures that grow
on ley line ship thrusters).
Beefy sent me this link: Nintendo
Acapella. A little goofy, but amusing. I like the Zelda part.
Added 7 new O RLYs to the O RLY Gallery
(they're at the bottom). I especially like the Bob Dole O RLY.
Here's a really awesome Lord of the Rings picture I found on 4chan's
new "high resolution" image board. K, gonna go play a
little BF1942... I did really well on Operation Aberdeen earlier
this evening.
Gandalf riding towards Minas Tirith. Click thumb
for full-sized version. [1300 x 933; 164 KB]
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9:07
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18
Apr. 2005 (Mon); Post #583
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Was just talking to Sanders. Mostly 'bout the Disney DDR game (apparently
it's really rare now; going on eBay for $90). He told me about Battlefield
2, which I hadn't even heard of. The screenshots and videos
look amazing. Oh yeah, and his wife is pregnant! They don't know
the gender yet, but probably will soon.
I signed up for six months at Club 24 in Kennewick. It's this 24-hour
gym. Their key-cards are really neat; you just hold them near a
sensor and the door unlocks... must be some RFID thing. Much cooler
than the usual magnetic strip. Price was really reasonable. Will
prolly go there tonight and try it out.
Here's a link I missed in post #582: MacBidouille.com's
transparent screens. Fun trick to do with a digital camera.
Do you want a banana?
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5:47
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18
Apr. 2005 (Mon); Post #582
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So GURPS was... interesting. We met up with Jack Tucker (one of
Abelson's goons) in Central Park and found out he was planning a
coup. Got some info from him on Mac Werner and a thirty-five year
old six year old (long story, I'm sure), then killed/mousified him
and his men. Nathan, the contact, turned out to be a super with
the ability to locate things (like Comopaise from the Theomundi
campaign/setting). Paid the kid $10,000 (in 1927 USD!) for Werner's
location and took a zeppelin to England. Found Uncle Henry being
tortured by Werner and some thugs in an old factory (they wanted
him to agree to a contract because Werner has the power to force
ppl to obey oaths, like Horkos from Theomundi). Set him free, killed/mousified
everyone else. Pulled off an amazing bank job in Liverpool
(no witnesses, no evidence, even convinced the on-duty guard he
had done it). Walked away with the contents of all the deposit boxes
and a few hundred pounds of bills (roughly $200,000 by my estimate).
Took a ferry to France.
And that's where Beefy ripped us off. The whole thing is incredibly
shady... apparently his character (who doesn't speak French) found
an English-speaking bum capable of driving and hot-wiring
a car. Needless to say, we hunted him down and killed him. Though
he blew up all the loot just as we caught him. The scheme was out
of character and pointlessly wrecked a lot of stuff. First of all,
Kamikaze (Beefy's character) knew we had access to a super
who could locate him pretty easily, no matter where he hid. Secondly,
what the heck did he hope to accomplish by stealing from us and
running away? Even if he had succeeded somehow, he would have had
to solo-session without the group for the rest of the campaign.
Thirdly, supposedly the whole thing happened because he critically
failed a self-control check on Greed; this seems like a bad call
because (a) self-control rolls are, AFAICT, pass/fail, and (b) based
on the group's behavior, he'd have to have known he'd be putting
his life at risk (and Greed isn't worth enough points that it should
result in suicide 2% of the time).
Anyway, it's going to be hard to integrate any new character into
the group; trust issues aside, we're supervillains. Thanks to our
careful planning and stealthy execution, we're not known
criminals. So even if someone wanted to join a group like
ours, they almost certainly wouldn't know about our team. Plus anyone
who shows up wanting to join at this point will most likely be suspected
of being a Legion spy, undercover government agent, or mafia hitman.
They'd probably be killed or mousified soon after we met them.
Blah. Okay, there's a bunch of links in my blog.doc, so here's a
bulleted list.
- Subservientchicken.com.
Type an order and the chicken does it. Weird. I tried fly, peck,
and dance and they all worked. Kind of amusing.
- How
to destroy the Earth. Not just wiping out life-as-we-know-it,
but actually physically destroying the planet. Lots of interesting
suggestions.
- Kameo:
Elements of Power is a game for the Xbox that's sposed to
be out in the fall. Looks really awesome. I saw a preview/sneak-peek
thing for it on X-Play on G4TV. You play this character who
can shapeshift into like ten different kinds of monsters that
all have different abilities. Going to pick this up when it
comes out.
- Johnny's
GHDB. A bunch of Googlehacks. Stuff for finding hidden webcam
feeds, MP3 files, ppl's passwords, vulnerable bulletin boards,
etc.
- iSketch.
Free Flash-based multiplayer Pictionary-type game. Wasted an
hour or two on this in the past week.
- Family Guy: Live
in Vegas. A new CD with songs by the voice-actors from the
show. Funny stuff, and some of the tracks sound really catchy.
Comes out April 26th.
- The
Doctor Demento Show Digital Archive. A huge collection of
old Dr. Demento shows. You have to register to listen to em,
but it's free. I'll have to remember to burn some of em to a
CD for my next long car trip.
Random Fifth Element awesomeness.
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6:53
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14
Apr. 2005 (Thu); Post #581
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ZOMG you guys, I got a webcam! Now I can be a camwhore, just like
those famous 4channers Joe Barborak, Dash Billions, Era, Cracky-chan,
et al. I'll be sprinkling cam pics throughout today's post for your
viewing pleasure.
Hanwool called me this afternoon with an amusing story. Apparently
he's been downloading a lot of anime through Streamload
and pulled down a couple gigs last night. This morning he realized
he didn't have any net access. After a lot of calling around, he
found out his connection was cut by WSU for excessive use; they
suspected he was using some kind of P2P program. The only way for
him to get his connection back, they said, was to have them scan
his laptop for viruses and copyrighted material. The cost for this
service? $25 plus $25 per copyrighted file found (and
removed!) . I don't know how they decide what's legit and what's
not... but it would basically mean he'd have to format his notebook.
Of course, we discussed means of circumventing the university's
block. We decided it was probably based on MAC addresses and the
insertion of a router between his system and the network or the
installation of a new (USB/PCMCIA) NIC ought to get him back on
the internet.
Some lady from the east coast called me yesterday for help with
sound editing. Some deal with a girl scout troop needing a song
to be a minute shorter or something. Anyway she just found my phone
number on the site and called... she was like "Hi, this probably
doesn't have anything to do with your web site, but you look kind
of knowledgeable about computer stuff. How can I blah blah blah..."
Kinda weird, huh? Anyway, I sent her CoolEdit96 and walked her through
some stuff.
4/11's Daily Show was really funny. I especially liked Ed Helms'
"colored ppl in Panama City" piece.
Here's a really cool page
on the process of creating a composite image from photographs and
Photoshop painting. This
"progression" is also pretty neat.
Oh yeah, I got a Costco card today. Woo, now I can buy 24-packs
of Coke for $6.00. Or a gallon of mustard for $3.19. The gallon
of mustard was actually 20¢ cheaper than the squeeze-bottle
versions and they were only like 18 oz. a piece or something. Crazy.
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12:33
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12
Apr. 2005 (Tue); Post #580
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Ahh, thank god I'm no longer under any obligation to make daily
updates to this damn web site. Beefy won the IMBC (Iron Man Blogging
Challenge) Sunday night/Monday morning at 12am when I failed (i.e.
forgot) to update. We'll probably do the IMBC again sometime, despite
lack of interested visitors.
Arrested Development was good Sunday. Lately, though,
I think it's been less entertaining. Ever since Buster's hand got
eaten by that seal. Still one of the better programs on television
ATM, IMHO. All the fans are afraid it won't get picked up for a
third season. If you care to, take a look at SaveOurBluths.com.
A while ago I made a character sheet for GURPS 4th edition which
I meant to post somewhere on the site, but never got around to it.
Hanwool later emailed me the sheet he made for his wizard character.
So here're both of em in MS Word format:
Hank's GURPS 4e Character
Sheet (3 pgs.) [55.0 KB]
Hanwool's GURPS
4e Character Sheet plus Grimoire (10 pgs.) [623 KB]
While reading Sandman,
which is set in the DC Comics universe, something occurred to me:
Gotham City is obviously New York... so what's Metropolis? As it
turns out, both cities are New York. I found two explanations: Metropolis
is New York during the day, Gotham is NYC at night. The other suggested
Metropolis is NYC above 14th St. and Gotham is NYC below
14th St. Of course, in the comics, they're separate places. Though
given the discord among DC writers, the burgs are about as pinpointable
as The Simpsons' Springfield and Shelbyville.
I thought Saturday's GURPS game was pretty fun. We went to Washington
DC. Justin, Paige, and I (Nightmare, Deadeye, and Algernon, resp.)
had to ditch Jones and Beefy (Chaos Knight and Kamikaze) cuz they
were goofing off and blowing our cover. It worked out well for everyone
in the end; we did some espionage, hijacked an armored car, and
stole $76,000 while the other two held a jazz concert and hobnobbed
with the mayor. Oh yeah, and before that we launched an assault
on Abelson's Rochester mansion and ended up killing Noxious and
capturing Radiation Man (we later dumped him in Canada).
Everybody disco-dancing! Lots of fun! Good time for all!
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1:39
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9 Apr.
2005 (Sat); Post #579
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Last week Hanwool gave our GURPS group an assignment: everyone was
to draw their super, complete with costume. I managed to net two
points for the attempt below. Did it in Corel Painter IX and Jasc
Paint Shop Pro 9.
Algernon's pretty awesome. He can turn people into mice (and back
again), speak to mice, "uplift" natural mice (a permanent
IQ+1 affliction with the Cumulative enhancement), turn into a mouse
himself, and detect nearby mice with a sort of sixth sense. Can
you guess his theme? Oh yeah, and he's an albino.
Under the term's of the IMBC, I'm required to include at least one
external hyperlink per post. So here's Saturday's: Zaphod
Beeblebrox's Blog. Yeah, it's Xanga, but still amusing. Only
twenty days till the HHGTTG movie comes out!
Algernon, my supervillain in Hanwool's Roaring 20s supers game.
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4:58
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8 Apr.
2005 (Fri); Post #578
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I made a page for some of the "o
rly?" images I've collected from 4chan over the past six
months or so.
Had a good pizza last night; a stuffed-crust from Pizza Hut with
pork, sausage, and chicken toppings.
Here's a History of
Perpetual Motion and Free Energy Machines I found interesting.
Been reading Sandman Book I. It's good. For some reason, it's set
in the DC universe (Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.), though the tie-in
seems totally unnecessary. So far, Vision and Mister Miracle have
made appearances. And there're occasional references to the JLI,
Gotham City, and other DC trappings. Dunno why... it cheapens the
story IMO. Would American Gods have been as epic if Mulder
and Scully had made an appearance? Or Urkel? I hate crossovers...
I can't think of a single one that was done well. The closest I've
ever come to dropping KODT was when I read the KODT/FAANS crossover.
Man, that thing was awful.
The Hedge Knight was good. I wasn't very into it until about three-fifths
of the way through, but it stayed consistently awesome afterwards.
Had some great twists.
Me and President Nixon at Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London,
2002.
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"Guilt
is a rope that wears thin." — Ayn Rand
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