I got distracted. These things DO happen, the reason for my distraction is worth note thought, I am enjoying this part of the book to the point where I want to save it so I can mull over it at work tomarrow afternoon when I read it at lunch. Weird no?
Books are funny things, or rather they can do funny things to you. Me? I know the communist manifesto. I know communist thought, rhetoric, and all that other stuff that Mr. Marx wanted us to know and talk about. It wasn't just the amount of time I spent reading the Communist stuff in Lit theory, it also played prominatly in several of my classes throughout the year. It is a piece of literature that keeps bounding back to me like an old friend. "Against The Day" Pynchon's 1100 page romp through history is very much into the idea that all of human history is the history of class struggle. It litters the books in all sorts of ways that conjures up one of my easy relaxed smiles as I snuggle deeper into the chair. It is some good stuff, and at more than one point I kind of want to dredge up the communist manifest and give it a read through. I might just do that the next time I get a few days off. So yes all of that had a point.
See at one point in the book a father shows his union card to his soon to be fatherless kids, on it is written, "Your labor has value". Plain, simple, and stunningly pure. I look out over the way me and some of my friends get treated at thier jobs and I know that some where along the lines these words are forgotten. This doesn't even go so far as standing up to abusive bosses, but rather people letting thier jobs steamroller over them to the point where work becomes their life and then their life becomes work. Perhaps it is the nature of my job, but man I can usually think of 22 million things I'd rather be doing than working. Every time someone tells me they just got a job because they are bored I just can't under stand what that would be like. I mean jobs are just so unpleasent.
Of course my favorite board game involves 2-4 hours of play time at the end of which you might loose due to randomized disasters. So who knows.
What I do is valuable, and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone think otherwise.
I was going to write about work for a bit but I've decicded to switch directions and instead write about my past...by starting with the present oddly enough.
SO I bought Arkham Horror, along with a couple of expansions. God damn am I excited! I love this game in the way I love few other things. Yet the game where I abolished its virginity... I didn't enjoy very much. It wasn't the fact that I got cursed on the first turn. Or the fact that the elder god ate me, or the fact that we lost. Nope. Instead it was the people I played with. I could go into a detailed account of what went wrong over the course of the game but I'll leave it at, having someone second guess you for relentlessly for an hour and a half really sucks. Especially when they are wrong half the time...and that was only one of the players.
Rude gamers. A blog entry all on its own let me tell you. I can handle body oder, social awkwardness, and autism. I can not handle rude gamers. They piss me the hell off. Today I was wondering as to why I just don't handle the situation, why I let them get away with it, and I realize that it has something to do with "the luke thing". I realized it when I thought about how many times I've brought it up in the last few weeks. So I guess it is time to put some things to bed.
I have certain instincts. I suppress most of these certain instencts because fuck, if I didn't bad things would be happening all around me all the time while I laugh. I dunno. I get worried when people listen to me. A large part of this has to do with the fact that I lost a group of friends over them listening to me. It sucks. I don't ask to lead anyone, it just sort of happens. I get skiddish about taking charge of certain situations because I don't want it to happen again. I realize now though that this is nothing to be afraid of. I can't let the actions of a couple of mentally unbalanced people haunt me. I mean shit, not cool. Especially when it comes to Arkham. It isn't so much the fear of hurting thier feelings it is me being worried about having to keep doing it.
THe thing is though that this is gaming and there are a lot of ass hats.
The wierdest thing is that I talked to mr "I'm going to second guess you for the whole game and sit in a corrner" and he enjoyed himself. We related fun and interesting moments talked of the game and how diffrent things affected this or that. He had fun, he just made it so no one else did. Isn't it wierd how things like that work out?
Back to the start of this all (bet you didn't see this coming!) my labor has value. However that is only part of the story. My recreation also has value. In fact it is a value that increases or decreases based upon my labor. I love my games, I love how we "supposedly" work together twords a common goal, and how we rise and fall in our struggles. The thing is that it is more than easy to toil alone. Labor is almost a uniquely solipsistic endevour. You can work with someone all you want, but at the end of the day the closest you are going to get to working together is pouring your labor into the same pot so that it can be wasted by some other burgeosise asshole. Recration? Well just as labor is uniquly solipsistic recration is just as much a group endevour. This is wierd coming from me, the ultimate recluse. But hey it is true.
I smell that I may have lost some of you on this last point. Its cool, it is out of left field. Looks like I really will be busting out the commie manifesto to clear up the solopsistic nature of labor especially when contrasted with fun frantic frivolity that is recreation. Crazy, this could get big. Busy week though don't know when I am getting around to this one.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Sticks and Stones
So just in case anyone was wondering I totally bricked my DS while putting it back together. I did it at the last possible opertunity to do so. I swore violently for about 5 minuts while ordering a new one off of amazon. It should be here tomarrow because I paid extra for the 2 day shipping. If it isn't I will shit several bricks and build me a new house made of my shit bricks and mortar of pain. I just realized that tears would go well with the drywall instead of just calling it "the other stuff". And there is decorative trimming and everything. Confused? Go watch Sport's Night. You have no excuses to miss Sport's Night Reffrences.
I go to work at 4 today. Hence this update. I am happy about this actually. I like going in at 4, the reduction of hours is slightly sad but it isn't that big of a deal actually. I also know it is only a temporary thing so whateva.
In the future I plan on actually writting updates on tuesdays this is more happy drift in space time for me right now. Currently I am looking at Laptops. I feel kinda sheepish when I look at the price of a used laptop in comparioson to what I have been wanting. So yeah I forgot Craigslist excits. Sue me. I also saw a super sweet briefcase, still looks brand new, BLACK leather. That excites me. However, one thing at a time though.
Hey lets pretend I think about things that are actually interesting!
Well interesting to me at least.
Arkham Horror. So I bought myself a copy of the big bad board game. It feels wierd, I gotta say and I am not sure why. Mostly I think it is because it makes me think of my past.
See I remeber this moment where I was hanging out with Lior at my house and we were running black metal through my decent house speakers. We were talking about getting older and still listening to this stuff when we are like 50 and generally just still being crazy. The crazy part is true, I'm still that. I don't really do the black metal anymore though. I have a deep abiding respect for the genra but, at the time I had certain needs that I needed filled. I no longer have those needs, which means I no longer, randomly pop in a black metal cd and rock out. Prolly for the best too because I listen to music mostly in my car which means someone would definatly die.
Every once in a while I think I want it all on my computer again, and then I realize the irrelevence of it all. Not the music itself but my need for it. Does that make sense? Well the only way to really REALLY explain it is to say a whole lot of things about myself that I am not quite ready to smear all over the internet. So we will just have to leave it at that.
See while my taste in music...well it didn't really change at all I just don't listen to black metal now...I guess evolved is the word. Gaming still runs strong in these veins. Of course two of my favorite childhood books was Dietiy & Demigods and the Monster Manual from 2nd edition AD&D so that might have something to do with it. There is more to it though than that. I guess comparing gaming to musical tastes is a lot like apples and oranges. However, they are both things I am expected to grow out of and I never planned to. It is just that for one of the things I did.
Gaming is nice though, there are times where I have walked into a darkened room, and didn't even bother exchanging names with the people around me I instead just called downs. Over time I've realized that as long as you are not an asshole not even comparable skill levles matter, just the ability to have fun. Lots of fun. It gets to the point where when I watch normal people, or even people I can sorta relate to, interact I just feel so utterly alienated.
This brings me back to my friend Ian's 21st birthday party. Sasha used to tell these jokes about people who claim that Jonny Cash is thier favorite artist and then they will rank his top 5 cds, and it will always been the same 4 cds and the one edgy one to make them diffrent. At that party I overheard that exact conversation. Frightening. Obsucre social reffrences aside I am not entirely certain what people do and talk about. I spent and evening hanging out with 30+ hipster kids who spent most of the night talking about buying each other on myspace, which made me wonder if I was missing something deep and increadbly fun about the activity. NO no I am not.
So yeah I don't think I'll be giving up the game thing any time soon. I mean why would I. I like Jonny Cash but I have no deep abidding love for his music. It is good stuff, not to much more or less. If I want to listen to songs about bad people doing bad things, well Nick Cave does it better. At that point I just united every Jonny Cash fan in the history of ever against me. I'll take comfort in knowing that once they have disposed of me they will claw at each other and there will be an orgy of violence over my dead body. Man one can only hope right?
Things like this disapoint me though. Ranks, pissing contests, pecking orders, I don't understand thier use. Which is funny because I engage in activities which are inherently competative. Mayhaps there is also the distinct realization that our competition ultimatly means nothing. Or maybe it is because when we meet someone who "doesn't get it". I suppose I should point out that there is no grand utopia in the video gaming world. Maybe that's it. You can tell more about someone playing with them for an hour than you can through a year in coversation. It is hard to be "fake" while gaming and maintaining a front is even harder. If you are some sort of cheating cunt, that will come out. If you are an impacient asshole, that's coming out to. If you are the sort of person who is willing to sacrifice everyone elses fun at the expense of the people around you well you know how that happens. Anyway, it is much easyer to tell if someone is a dooshbag or not while playing a game.
All this rambling leads back to Arkham right now. See Arkham isn't a competative game. It is a game where a group of people try to take down the game itself. It is hard enough so that you need everyone to be focused on the task at hand which is beating the game. Failure to pay atension for more than one turn could, and nearly has spelled disaster for all of us. Yet when it is all said and done we come out the other side, amazed that we are still alive and happy to have played. Or we loose and declare the desire for bitter revenge. It is something I can see myself playing for the rest of my life. 'Tis the point. Because while a wild untamed teenage rage is something I have given up on, playing with a group of friends against something that seems nearly insurmountable is not.
I go to work at 4 today. Hence this update. I am happy about this actually. I like going in at 4, the reduction of hours is slightly sad but it isn't that big of a deal actually. I also know it is only a temporary thing so whateva.
In the future I plan on actually writting updates on tuesdays this is more happy drift in space time for me right now. Currently I am looking at Laptops. I feel kinda sheepish when I look at the price of a used laptop in comparioson to what I have been wanting. So yeah I forgot Craigslist excits. Sue me. I also saw a super sweet briefcase, still looks brand new, BLACK leather. That excites me. However, one thing at a time though.
Hey lets pretend I think about things that are actually interesting!
Well interesting to me at least.
Arkham Horror. So I bought myself a copy of the big bad board game. It feels wierd, I gotta say and I am not sure why. Mostly I think it is because it makes me think of my past.
See I remeber this moment where I was hanging out with Lior at my house and we were running black metal through my decent house speakers. We were talking about getting older and still listening to this stuff when we are like 50 and generally just still being crazy. The crazy part is true, I'm still that. I don't really do the black metal anymore though. I have a deep abiding respect for the genra but, at the time I had certain needs that I needed filled. I no longer have those needs, which means I no longer, randomly pop in a black metal cd and rock out. Prolly for the best too because I listen to music mostly in my car which means someone would definatly die.
Every once in a while I think I want it all on my computer again, and then I realize the irrelevence of it all. Not the music itself but my need for it. Does that make sense? Well the only way to really REALLY explain it is to say a whole lot of things about myself that I am not quite ready to smear all over the internet. So we will just have to leave it at that.
See while my taste in music...well it didn't really change at all I just don't listen to black metal now...I guess evolved is the word. Gaming still runs strong in these veins. Of course two of my favorite childhood books was Dietiy & Demigods and the Monster Manual from 2nd edition AD&D so that might have something to do with it. There is more to it though than that. I guess comparing gaming to musical tastes is a lot like apples and oranges. However, they are both things I am expected to grow out of and I never planned to. It is just that for one of the things I did.
Gaming is nice though, there are times where I have walked into a darkened room, and didn't even bother exchanging names with the people around me I instead just called downs. Over time I've realized that as long as you are not an asshole not even comparable skill levles matter, just the ability to have fun. Lots of fun. It gets to the point where when I watch normal people, or even people I can sorta relate to, interact I just feel so utterly alienated.
This brings me back to my friend Ian's 21st birthday party. Sasha used to tell these jokes about people who claim that Jonny Cash is thier favorite artist and then they will rank his top 5 cds, and it will always been the same 4 cds and the one edgy one to make them diffrent. At that party I overheard that exact conversation. Frightening. Obsucre social reffrences aside I am not entirely certain what people do and talk about. I spent and evening hanging out with 30+ hipster kids who spent most of the night talking about buying each other on myspace, which made me wonder if I was missing something deep and increadbly fun about the activity. NO no I am not.
So yeah I don't think I'll be giving up the game thing any time soon. I mean why would I. I like Jonny Cash but I have no deep abidding love for his music. It is good stuff, not to much more or less. If I want to listen to songs about bad people doing bad things, well Nick Cave does it better. At that point I just united every Jonny Cash fan in the history of ever against me. I'll take comfort in knowing that once they have disposed of me they will claw at each other and there will be an orgy of violence over my dead body. Man one can only hope right?
Things like this disapoint me though. Ranks, pissing contests, pecking orders, I don't understand thier use. Which is funny because I engage in activities which are inherently competative. Mayhaps there is also the distinct realization that our competition ultimatly means nothing. Or maybe it is because when we meet someone who "doesn't get it". I suppose I should point out that there is no grand utopia in the video gaming world. Maybe that's it. You can tell more about someone playing with them for an hour than you can through a year in coversation. It is hard to be "fake" while gaming and maintaining a front is even harder. If you are some sort of cheating cunt, that will come out. If you are an impacient asshole, that's coming out to. If you are the sort of person who is willing to sacrifice everyone elses fun at the expense of the people around you well you know how that happens. Anyway, it is much easyer to tell if someone is a dooshbag or not while playing a game.
All this rambling leads back to Arkham right now. See Arkham isn't a competative game. It is a game where a group of people try to take down the game itself. It is hard enough so that you need everyone to be focused on the task at hand which is beating the game. Failure to pay atension for more than one turn could, and nearly has spelled disaster for all of us. Yet when it is all said and done we come out the other side, amazed that we are still alive and happy to have played. Or we loose and declare the desire for bitter revenge. It is something I can see myself playing for the rest of my life. 'Tis the point. Because while a wild untamed teenage rage is something I have given up on, playing with a group of friends against something that seems nearly insurmountable is not.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
8 Little Things
1) So my poor little portable keyboard is kaput. This is a grave misfortune. It occures to me that I have been running in circles on this whole issue. While do like my pocket pc there are wide variety of strange and constant problems with it. It ate my novel for one. It relies on that keyboard. It is impossible to edit text with. This is pretty much my dilemea. I also really wanted an ebook reader. I wanted one hard. So I want two diffrent things with infinate portability OR one item with less portablility that does everything I want it to and more. Yeah Laptop. So I looked at ebay. Ebay really isn't the place to buy electronics. Electronics are things you need to hold, test, fiddle with, and ultimatly gamble with. However, the alternative is craigslist (fuck a new laptop). I found pleanty of servacible laptops in the 200-250 range. Seems good, people upgrade, getting rid of older modles and they are just selling off thier old crap. Crap which is my gold. Again the whole thing is less portable but I have a suspicion that the whole thing will work out much better than my current arrangement. Having a decent file sysytem will help emensly. Oh well hopeully this will work out. There are TONS of listings for cheap laptops that are decently powerful. Its good I spend all that time learning 8 tons of software piracy because now I can get the older versions of the programs I need that will actually work better.
2) Against the Day. For some reason I have this thing with long books, I always have. One could argue that serialzed fiction is another type of long book but really? There are a great number of diffrences. Little diffrences that matter to me. I mean its the english major in me. So yeah long books. Having finnished The Kindly Ones and taking a brief interlude with Everything is Iluminated I am back on the road with a 1000+ page gigabook called Against the Day. I am only 100 pages in and already more has happened than in most other books ever. It swoops between reality and magical realism, high flying pulp fiction, and gritty reality. Heh its funny because the pulp fiction part of the book is involves a troop of balloonists who travel the world under the command of a secretive organization called the Chums of Chance. I can see what is happening in the book. It is about change. The world is becoming less pulpy, the rich are terrified of the workers unionizing, the poor are blowing up the rich, tesla's technology is bearing fruit and the whole world is changing. I have a feeling that I cam going to hate this book by the time it is over. Things are going to happen that these charecters don't deserve, not even the most horrible old lady shooting charecters. Specifically, World War 1. Still it is the journey that fascinates me. I'll swipe off another hunk of it in a little bit.
3) Kingdom of Loathing! Man this run is starting to suck. My most recent Accordian Thief run went smooth as a baby's bottom. This one is going like pain. Horrible horrible pain. The weapons I need aren't droping and the items I want are coming to me slow. Still I just hit lvl 7 and I am about to kill the Boner Dragon. I think after this run I am going to pick a class, maybe spellcaster maybe muscle, but a class, and do some of the end game content. I think right now I am just tired of the ascension race and I want to do something eles for awhile in the game. The real tricky part is picking which class I want to go with. No matter I have time to puzzle it out for awhile.
4) I miss my DS. I was just getting ready to play FF Tactics Advanced 2 again. Sniffle! Oh well I will either fix it or break it as my last post mentioned. This is where I am going to take a moment though and rail on everyone who wants everything to look like an Ipod. FUCK OFF. The original ds desighn? Like a fucking tank. That thing has been dropped off of stairs, down stairs, I've dropped it onto concreate then dropped my briefcase on top of it, I've watched it sail 8 feet through the air over my head and back onto concreate, and many many other terrible things. The top screen only broke when both hinges went and the lack of support caused it to crack. I should fix it actually now that I am thinking about it. Oh well no matter. The DS lite? It just fell the fuck apart. But people wanted smoothlines and soft wuss plastic. And they got it, along with a product that has a highly fallible amount of durability.
5) Oh I finnally finnished watching Carnival. Man that was a show. It's sad how it got cancled though. I can see why though. The sad thing is that it was just before its time. I mean were the show being made now it would do so much better. It is just that the whole "HBO is the house of non shit TV" hadn't really caught on yet. Oz wasn't doing so hot after the second season, everyone may of loved the Sopranos and 6 Feet Under but Carnivale is definatly the odd duck of the group. Now though? Now? Now it would work. With True Blood, Lost, Twilight, Heros, and Harry Potter all skipping about in the mainstream this would be the perfect time to introduce Carnivale. Instead it will remain one of the greatest stories never finnished. To bad.
6) Werk. I don't mind my job really. It is okay for the most part. But fuck, FUCK do I work with some stupid stupid stupid people. That is what kills me about working there. It isn't the job itself but the sheer incompetence of the people I work with and around. Normally I don't let it get to me, I know how to make them ignore me, and I have gone for months without talking to any of them. But holy hell. Okay so I work with this man. His name is Lee. Lee is the sort of person who worries about loosing his hand to the garbage disposal but then doesn't turn on the saftey switch before sticking his hand down there. Most recently though. He wears sneakers to work so his feet get wet. This happens. His sneakers also don't fit him right so he gets blisters. This has never happened to me. Then one of his blisters gets infected and he ends up in the emergency room to get it lanced. He is out of work for a couple of days. So he comes back. YOu know what he is wearing? Oh yeah the same pair of shoes that caused the problem in the first place. So what happenes next? The infection moves to the other foot and he is out of work for a whole week. All because he is a 44 year old man who can't buy himself a sensable pair of shoes and take care of himself. Now I have to cover for him. I hate paying for other people's incompetence. I really do.
7) My head has been hurting a lot. I assume it is a brain tumor. Oh well.
8) Hrm. I'm not sure what I should do for #8. I think nothing. HA!
2) Against the Day. For some reason I have this thing with long books, I always have. One could argue that serialzed fiction is another type of long book but really? There are a great number of diffrences. Little diffrences that matter to me. I mean its the english major in me. So yeah long books. Having finnished The Kindly Ones and taking a brief interlude with Everything is Iluminated I am back on the road with a 1000+ page gigabook called Against the Day. I am only 100 pages in and already more has happened than in most other books ever. It swoops between reality and magical realism, high flying pulp fiction, and gritty reality. Heh its funny because the pulp fiction part of the book is involves a troop of balloonists who travel the world under the command of a secretive organization called the Chums of Chance. I can see what is happening in the book. It is about change. The world is becoming less pulpy, the rich are terrified of the workers unionizing, the poor are blowing up the rich, tesla's technology is bearing fruit and the whole world is changing. I have a feeling that I cam going to hate this book by the time it is over. Things are going to happen that these charecters don't deserve, not even the most horrible old lady shooting charecters. Specifically, World War 1. Still it is the journey that fascinates me. I'll swipe off another hunk of it in a little bit.
3) Kingdom of Loathing! Man this run is starting to suck. My most recent Accordian Thief run went smooth as a baby's bottom. This one is going like pain. Horrible horrible pain. The weapons I need aren't droping and the items I want are coming to me slow. Still I just hit lvl 7 and I am about to kill the Boner Dragon. I think after this run I am going to pick a class, maybe spellcaster maybe muscle, but a class, and do some of the end game content. I think right now I am just tired of the ascension race and I want to do something eles for awhile in the game. The real tricky part is picking which class I want to go with. No matter I have time to puzzle it out for awhile.
4) I miss my DS. I was just getting ready to play FF Tactics Advanced 2 again. Sniffle! Oh well I will either fix it or break it as my last post mentioned. This is where I am going to take a moment though and rail on everyone who wants everything to look like an Ipod. FUCK OFF. The original ds desighn? Like a fucking tank. That thing has been dropped off of stairs, down stairs, I've dropped it onto concreate then dropped my briefcase on top of it, I've watched it sail 8 feet through the air over my head and back onto concreate, and many many other terrible things. The top screen only broke when both hinges went and the lack of support caused it to crack. I should fix it actually now that I am thinking about it. Oh well no matter. The DS lite? It just fell the fuck apart. But people wanted smoothlines and soft wuss plastic. And they got it, along with a product that has a highly fallible amount of durability.
5) Oh I finnally finnished watching Carnival. Man that was a show. It's sad how it got cancled though. I can see why though. The sad thing is that it was just before its time. I mean were the show being made now it would do so much better. It is just that the whole "HBO is the house of non shit TV" hadn't really caught on yet. Oz wasn't doing so hot after the second season, everyone may of loved the Sopranos and 6 Feet Under but Carnivale is definatly the odd duck of the group. Now though? Now? Now it would work. With True Blood, Lost, Twilight, Heros, and Harry Potter all skipping about in the mainstream this would be the perfect time to introduce Carnivale. Instead it will remain one of the greatest stories never finnished. To bad.
6) Werk. I don't mind my job really. It is okay for the most part. But fuck, FUCK do I work with some stupid stupid stupid people. That is what kills me about working there. It isn't the job itself but the sheer incompetence of the people I work with and around. Normally I don't let it get to me, I know how to make them ignore me, and I have gone for months without talking to any of them. But holy hell. Okay so I work with this man. His name is Lee. Lee is the sort of person who worries about loosing his hand to the garbage disposal but then doesn't turn on the saftey switch before sticking his hand down there. Most recently though. He wears sneakers to work so his feet get wet. This happens. His sneakers also don't fit him right so he gets blisters. This has never happened to me. Then one of his blisters gets infected and he ends up in the emergency room to get it lanced. He is out of work for a couple of days. So he comes back. YOu know what he is wearing? Oh yeah the same pair of shoes that caused the problem in the first place. So what happenes next? The infection moves to the other foot and he is out of work for a whole week. All because he is a 44 year old man who can't buy himself a sensable pair of shoes and take care of himself. Now I have to cover for him. I hate paying for other people's incompetence. I really do.
7) My head has been hurting a lot. I assume it is a brain tumor. Oh well.
8) Hrm. I'm not sure what I should do for #8. I think nothing. HA!
DS Lite Repair
This is just a happy little over hold over post for information reasons. See now the hinge broke on my DS . This involves a large amount of both sadness and annoyance on my part. The DS is essentially unplayable in its current condition. So I have three choices.
1) Repair it as it
2) Repair it and sell it back to eb games for a new one
3) Put on a new face plate.
It occures to me now that this was an annoying way to frame this problem. No matter. This leads to all sorts of awesome cool possiblities. Chiefly amongst them is bricking my ds. However this is the way I look at it. I ended up paying 20 bucks for my ds. If I fix it, it will look like this:
See badass red that's what I like to call it. Or something like it. I was considering metalic pink, as well as just normal pink...and there was this bright as fuck yellow that seemed nice too. But nope I'll be sticking with this one.
Now for instructional videos!
The nice thing about this video is that it gives me the other resources I need to do it and things to worry about! Woo alrighty that shit is going to happen in a couple of weeks from now when I get my replacements parts from hong motherfucking kong. Stupid china.
1) Repair it as it
2) Repair it and sell it back to eb games for a new one
3) Put on a new face plate.
It occures to me now that this was an annoying way to frame this problem. No matter. This leads to all sorts of awesome cool possiblities. Chiefly amongst them is bricking my ds. However this is the way I look at it. I ended up paying 20 bucks for my ds. If I fix it, it will look like this:
See badass red that's what I like to call it. Or something like it. I was considering metalic pink, as well as just normal pink...and there was this bright as fuck yellow that seemed nice too. But nope I'll be sticking with this one.Now for instructional videos!
The nice thing about this video is that it gives me the other resources I need to do it and things to worry about! Woo alrighty that shit is going to happen in a couple of weeks from now when I get my replacements parts from hong motherfucking kong. Stupid china.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Post Number 47
Just in case you were curiouse. Man it has been awhile since I've done this which upsets me just a little. THere has even been things I've wanted to write but I just haven't been able to set aside the time to write them, this includes now but whateva.
So this will be one of those fun little generic "what have I been up to?" posts that I make every so often. So lets see.
Inbetween this post and the last one I have both started and finnished a book called Everything is Illuminated. If you haven't read it cease your current activities because they are no longer important and go read Everything is Illuminated. It is one of the most starkly beautiful books you will ever read in your entire life. So sad though. One of the sadest things ever. It was exactly the oposite of what I wanted after the Kindly Ones but it had been kicking around my bookshelf for far to long and Sasha did give it to me, and I felt bad about not reading it. So I did. Its a nice quick read too, it will slide right off of the page, into your brain, and deep into your soul where it will cheerfully give it the equivalent of purple nurples for the rest of your life. READ IT.
SO GOOD!!!
In other news I decided to seriously investigate getting an e-book reader. My Palm has shit battery life, and the DS has tiny annoying screens. More than that though, I can get some seriously amazing books off the interwebs both leagally and ill. It would also be amazing to be able to carry around a whole theoretical reffrence library with fully searchable text in my bag. That could be increadbly/useful awesome. And hey pirated rpgs ftw!. However, ebook readers have fallen into this trap that I first noticed with the PSP. The psp is a gaming system that does a bunch of extra shit that I don't need it to do. As a result the extra shit goes unused and just ends up costing me more. As a result instead of taking out all that extra crap and refocusing it as a dedicated gaming system you end up with this hodge poge piece of shit that doesn't do anything paticularly well.
No I am bringing this back to ebook readers don't you worry. Most of the ebook readers have proudly proclaimed that they can play mp3!. SO WHAT! Who the fuck cares? Anyone who has the 200+ bucks to drop on something like this already has a decent mp3 player that they are more than capable of using on thier own. They don't need thier stupid ebook reader with a paltry 2gbs of storage to play mp3s. The Sony ebook reader is now the one I am specifically bitching about. When I say 2gbs of storage you might be tempted to point out that there is an micro SD card slot. BUT GUESS WHAT? It won't read cards over 2gbs. But it will play mp3s and take over 30 seconds to load a decent sized pdf file. The Kindle 2 is auto fail because it doesn't even have a micro sd card slot, and the other options are just pretty sad.
The other options aren't much better. What really chaps my ass about all of this though is that they are charging 200 bucks for something that is over loaded with shit speacial features which are essentially worthless. When they could get rid of the speakers, mp3 playback, and some of the extra other crap they ram into the things, and sell them at a more reasonable price. Or better yet they could scrap the crap features and increase the ebook reader's functionablity. Or you know an mp3 player because that is what I really fucking need, another piece of shit mp3 player.
Oh well. I'm pretty upset about it because man o man I could really use a dedicated ebook reader. Oh well maybe in a couple of years they won't suck so much at the moment.
Well I am tired of typing so I am going to do something else.
So this will be one of those fun little generic "what have I been up to?" posts that I make every so often. So lets see.
Inbetween this post and the last one I have both started and finnished a book called Everything is Illuminated. If you haven't read it cease your current activities because they are no longer important and go read Everything is Illuminated. It is one of the most starkly beautiful books you will ever read in your entire life. So sad though. One of the sadest things ever. It was exactly the oposite of what I wanted after the Kindly Ones but it had been kicking around my bookshelf for far to long and Sasha did give it to me, and I felt bad about not reading it. So I did. Its a nice quick read too, it will slide right off of the page, into your brain, and deep into your soul where it will cheerfully give it the equivalent of purple nurples for the rest of your life. READ IT.
SO GOOD!!!
In other news I decided to seriously investigate getting an e-book reader. My Palm has shit battery life, and the DS has tiny annoying screens. More than that though, I can get some seriously amazing books off the interwebs both leagally and ill. It would also be amazing to be able to carry around a whole theoretical reffrence library with fully searchable text in my bag. That could be increadbly/useful awesome. And hey pirated rpgs ftw!. However, ebook readers have fallen into this trap that I first noticed with the PSP. The psp is a gaming system that does a bunch of extra shit that I don't need it to do. As a result the extra shit goes unused and just ends up costing me more. As a result instead of taking out all that extra crap and refocusing it as a dedicated gaming system you end up with this hodge poge piece of shit that doesn't do anything paticularly well.
No I am bringing this back to ebook readers don't you worry. Most of the ebook readers have proudly proclaimed that they can play mp3!. SO WHAT! Who the fuck cares? Anyone who has the 200+ bucks to drop on something like this already has a decent mp3 player that they are more than capable of using on thier own. They don't need thier stupid ebook reader with a paltry 2gbs of storage to play mp3s. The Sony ebook reader is now the one I am specifically bitching about. When I say 2gbs of storage you might be tempted to point out that there is an micro SD card slot. BUT GUESS WHAT? It won't read cards over 2gbs. But it will play mp3s and take over 30 seconds to load a decent sized pdf file. The Kindle 2 is auto fail because it doesn't even have a micro sd card slot, and the other options are just pretty sad.
The other options aren't much better. What really chaps my ass about all of this though is that they are charging 200 bucks for something that is over loaded with shit speacial features which are essentially worthless. When they could get rid of the speakers, mp3 playback, and some of the extra other crap they ram into the things, and sell them at a more reasonable price. Or better yet they could scrap the crap features and increase the ebook reader's functionablity. Or you know an mp3 player because that is what I really fucking need, another piece of shit mp3 player.
Oh well. I'm pretty upset about it because man o man I could really use a dedicated ebook reader. Oh well maybe in a couple of years they won't suck so much at the moment.
Well I am tired of typing so I am going to do something else.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Summer Times!
So its summer! The time for projects, possibilities, and defiance of the natural order. Of course I live in a hazy sorta perma summer but whatever.
I was going to spend some time talking about The Kindly Ones, but I think I want to write about some other things instead.
Persona 3. Irrationally I started Persona 3 again knowing full way that a game I really want to play comes out tomarrow. Fuck I can be stupid. Still I think I can play both games concurrently and be fine. But yeah persona 3. Persona 3 is one of those games that stands up and says, "look games can be art too". More to the point Persona 3 tells a story that really can't function in another medium. It is the sort of thing that needs that visceral simulous/responce effect of the game player. They are perpetrating these actions which have far reaching implications acrost the game's world.
Okay now to make all of that make sense. Kinda, persona 3 is a wierd game. Okay you are transfered to a new school. You get set up in a strange dorm that is mostly empty. You discover quickly that there is a hidden hour between midnight and one am where showdows come to life an eat people who are diffrent. Everyone in the dorm is diffrent. All diffrent people have a persona they can summon to help them aid in fighting the shadows. Thier persona reflects thier personality. NOW this next part is important. The Main charecter (MC) posseses the ability to summon multiple personas. Not only that but his personas gain power based on the people you associate with.
So you spend part of the game going to school and running around town talking to people. Then at night you go fight deamons in this wierd tower that only you and your friends know excist.
The thing is though is that when you befreind people you do so in a very artificial way. The main charecter has no dicernable center from which he operates. Instead he tells all the people around them the things they want to hear the most so they will like him more. This in turn levels up the deamons inside of his head. Now this would be alright but we do some things of questionable morality. We convince a school mate to keep excercising on a wounded knee to the point of hospitalizing himself, we convince a student make advances on a teacher, we carry out an online relationship with a teacher who hates her job, we also sleep with many diffrent girls.
Now the player is motivated to do this because he gets stronger and stronger head deamons when he does. The game can also be very difficult so it helps. However, these are all people with real problems, who are relying on you as a friend you are just using them for your own gain. After awhile you begin to realize that the MC is a sociopath, and yet it is the fact that he is a sociopath that allows him to progress farther and faster than any of his teamates. Which is slightly frightening and absolutely brilliant. The game very specifically encourages the mc to only give the responces his friends want to hear. Whereas another game called Steambot chronicals gives the player free rieghn on the mc's personality and lets him be an asshole or a nice guy depending on the player's whims. You are rewarded by deliberatly manipulating people to like you. Good stuff.
Unfortunatly it is hard and I forgot to save last time I played like a moron. I'll get back into it though. It is damn near a 70 hour game so I'll admit that I am more than a little intimidated. Oh well.
Next I want to tackle Vampire the Eternal Struggle or V:tes. I really like the game, but I am running into the problem where I can't effectivly build a deck or two. THe reason for this is because it is a 5 player game. If I trick out one or two decks then the other decks would have a much harder time standing a chance. I already have two decks that tend to dominate right out of the box and making them even shineyer would be even more of a pain in the ass. Oh well.
As far at the game goes. NEAT! It really is a brilliantly desighned game. Much tighter than Magic or even Netrunner. The game is basicly an excercise in resource management. It gives you three resources to work with, you hand, your pool, and your vampires. You need vampires in play to do anything other than the most basic of actions. You need to keep cards moving in your hand otherwise you won't be able to do anything but the most basic of actions. So the game forces agression in order to win. I LIKE agression. I also like how combat is not the key to winning. In fact combat has nothing to do with winning. It is just something that happens that may or may not be to your benifit. As a result playing a combat heavy deck requires the most generalized stradigy.
This is due to the pretator/prey relationship. THe way to win is to get points. To get points you must oust your prey, withdraw sucessfully, or be the last man standing. So the source of 99% of your agression will be from one person. One person who you will generally be unable to attack effectivly unless you have a specialized deck. Since there are victory points involved it is understood that you will be ousted at some point, but if that happens you still might win. Which is also something I find neat. It really opens up what decks can do and how they work. Because you need only to earn 3 victory points not murder 4 other players in the face. Whatever, I dunno.
I'm thinking I want to build a "fake stealth combat deck" basicly it uses a lot of cards that lets me control who my blockers are, but it also allows me to make combat an unpaletable experience for my prey. I'll break actual deck talk into a seperate blog entry though so you can skip it if you'd like.
Its nice that it is a little bit more focused than illuminati which is our other social game.
The other problem with building decks is my fairly limited card pool. Even after buying a booster box I have a glut of cards I am not interested in and a gap of cards that I need. Since decks lack a card limit rule I often times need 6 or 7 copies of the same card to get the deck to do the things I need it to do. This becomes even more problematic when most cards do two diffrent things so one card might be useful for 4 or 5 decks. There is also the issue of unusually good distribution. Something I thought I would never ever hear myself complaining about. Yet here I am. :-P Still I am thrilled to death to be playing it and I greatly look fowards to tinkering with the game a whole hell of a lot.
Twitter. I have come to a diffrent conclusion. I used Myspace to keep track of my friends. Now most of my friends no longer use myspace and have switched to diffrent venues. As a result my myspace account is mostly inert and something that I now only check occationally. This has become my new mouthpiece to the world. Now twitter will replace the endless survays I used to fill out for fun. So that is back. I guess. Yeah wierd eh?
Of course if I stop updating it in three weeks and loose interest I'll just figgure something else out. The day I made and deleated my account wasn't a good one. So I am allowed to change my mide. Sue me.
I was going to spend some time talking about The Kindly Ones, but I think I want to write about some other things instead.
Persona 3. Irrationally I started Persona 3 again knowing full way that a game I really want to play comes out tomarrow. Fuck I can be stupid. Still I think I can play both games concurrently and be fine. But yeah persona 3. Persona 3 is one of those games that stands up and says, "look games can be art too". More to the point Persona 3 tells a story that really can't function in another medium. It is the sort of thing that needs that visceral simulous/responce effect of the game player. They are perpetrating these actions which have far reaching implications acrost the game's world.
Okay now to make all of that make sense. Kinda, persona 3 is a wierd game. Okay you are transfered to a new school. You get set up in a strange dorm that is mostly empty. You discover quickly that there is a hidden hour between midnight and one am where showdows come to life an eat people who are diffrent. Everyone in the dorm is diffrent. All diffrent people have a persona they can summon to help them aid in fighting the shadows. Thier persona reflects thier personality. NOW this next part is important. The Main charecter (MC) posseses the ability to summon multiple personas. Not only that but his personas gain power based on the people you associate with.
So you spend part of the game going to school and running around town talking to people. Then at night you go fight deamons in this wierd tower that only you and your friends know excist.
The thing is though is that when you befreind people you do so in a very artificial way. The main charecter has no dicernable center from which he operates. Instead he tells all the people around them the things they want to hear the most so they will like him more. This in turn levels up the deamons inside of his head. Now this would be alright but we do some things of questionable morality. We convince a school mate to keep excercising on a wounded knee to the point of hospitalizing himself, we convince a student make advances on a teacher, we carry out an online relationship with a teacher who hates her job, we also sleep with many diffrent girls.
Now the player is motivated to do this because he gets stronger and stronger head deamons when he does. The game can also be very difficult so it helps. However, these are all people with real problems, who are relying on you as a friend you are just using them for your own gain. After awhile you begin to realize that the MC is a sociopath, and yet it is the fact that he is a sociopath that allows him to progress farther and faster than any of his teamates. Which is slightly frightening and absolutely brilliant. The game very specifically encourages the mc to only give the responces his friends want to hear. Whereas another game called Steambot chronicals gives the player free rieghn on the mc's personality and lets him be an asshole or a nice guy depending on the player's whims. You are rewarded by deliberatly manipulating people to like you. Good stuff.
Unfortunatly it is hard and I forgot to save last time I played like a moron. I'll get back into it though. It is damn near a 70 hour game so I'll admit that I am more than a little intimidated. Oh well.
Next I want to tackle Vampire the Eternal Struggle or V:tes. I really like the game, but I am running into the problem where I can't effectivly build a deck or two. THe reason for this is because it is a 5 player game. If I trick out one or two decks then the other decks would have a much harder time standing a chance. I already have two decks that tend to dominate right out of the box and making them even shineyer would be even more of a pain in the ass. Oh well.
As far at the game goes. NEAT! It really is a brilliantly desighned game. Much tighter than Magic or even Netrunner. The game is basicly an excercise in resource management. It gives you three resources to work with, you hand, your pool, and your vampires. You need vampires in play to do anything other than the most basic of actions. You need to keep cards moving in your hand otherwise you won't be able to do anything but the most basic of actions. So the game forces agression in order to win. I LIKE agression. I also like how combat is not the key to winning. In fact combat has nothing to do with winning. It is just something that happens that may or may not be to your benifit. As a result playing a combat heavy deck requires the most generalized stradigy.
This is due to the pretator/prey relationship. THe way to win is to get points. To get points you must oust your prey, withdraw sucessfully, or be the last man standing. So the source of 99% of your agression will be from one person. One person who you will generally be unable to attack effectivly unless you have a specialized deck. Since there are victory points involved it is understood that you will be ousted at some point, but if that happens you still might win. Which is also something I find neat. It really opens up what decks can do and how they work. Because you need only to earn 3 victory points not murder 4 other players in the face. Whatever, I dunno.
I'm thinking I want to build a "fake stealth combat deck" basicly it uses a lot of cards that lets me control who my blockers are, but it also allows me to make combat an unpaletable experience for my prey. I'll break actual deck talk into a seperate blog entry though so you can skip it if you'd like.
Its nice that it is a little bit more focused than illuminati which is our other social game.
The other problem with building decks is my fairly limited card pool. Even after buying a booster box I have a glut of cards I am not interested in and a gap of cards that I need. Since decks lack a card limit rule I often times need 6 or 7 copies of the same card to get the deck to do the things I need it to do. This becomes even more problematic when most cards do two diffrent things so one card might be useful for 4 or 5 decks. There is also the issue of unusually good distribution. Something I thought I would never ever hear myself complaining about. Yet here I am. :-P Still I am thrilled to death to be playing it and I greatly look fowards to tinkering with the game a whole hell of a lot.
Twitter. I have come to a diffrent conclusion. I used Myspace to keep track of my friends. Now most of my friends no longer use myspace and have switched to diffrent venues. As a result my myspace account is mostly inert and something that I now only check occationally. This has become my new mouthpiece to the world. Now twitter will replace the endless survays I used to fill out for fun. So that is back. I guess. Yeah wierd eh?
Of course if I stop updating it in three weeks and loose interest I'll just figgure something else out. The day I made and deleated my account wasn't a good one. So I am allowed to change my mide. Sue me.
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