Internet Trolls and the Ring of Gyges.

NY Times article about Trolls.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=2&ei=5058&partner=IWON&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The Ring of Gyges

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges

It's always going to be the same. If anyone has anonymity they will not act moral.

If you find a ring that makes you invisible you will eventually rape the queen and kill the king.

If you can make any kind of comment you want then you will.

Eventually it all turns ugly.

Paul Robertson'a art featured in free game "RPG"

http://kotaku.com/5031844/hikkikomori-quest-is-not-only-free-but-great

http://visublog.mechafetus.com/

http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2008/08/freeware_game_pick_hikkikomori.html

Check it out!!!!!

The enemies from the Mario games get fed up.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Why Japanese Box art is better.

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/why-japanese-box-art-is-better/a-20080729123833874037

I already mentioned this phenomenon in Dreamcast box art.

Now that I have Japanese PS2 games I can honestly say the Japanese box art is almost always better.

Top 13 Female Vampires in Movies

http://www.hecklerspray.com/top-13-vampire-babes/200815416.php

I was happy enough with this list.

They missed a few good ones though.

Watch my friends new movie trailer!

Ralph made his first feature length movie!

The trailer is pretty good but I thought it could have been a bit more snappy. The finished product is gonna be more comedy that drama.

Please comment and give him some encouragement.




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

Kid from Nirvana Cover Wishes it was the 90s

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92833535&ft=1&f=1021

"These days, Elden says, his peers concentrate on "playing Rock Band on Xbox, like, that's not a real band! That's the difference between the '90s and kids nowadays; kids in the '90s would actually go out and make a [real] band!""

Yeah. The 90's were pretty kick ass.

Every time I try to tell someone that though they just focus on all the negative crap that went on there. Like pop music and shit. You know what? Pop music was bad back then but at least there wasn't a freaking INDUSTRY setup to promote underage Disney stars. Yeah we had one or two back in the 90's. But it wasn't as bad as today.

There was more cool music on the radio.

I think overall people have a lot more excuses about how they live their lives today.

Lego is pretty sweet.

Secret Pants Skit Comedy

Lotsa talented skit comedy folk out there.

It's too bad we have to watch reality shows on TV instead of decent comedy.

Ah well. Screw TV. There is nothing on anyways. I am glad I don't pay for cable.




http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1507785343/bctid1496501139

Today was a busy day

The Dark Knight.

Really.

Good.

Movie.

High Tension - A great movie. A bit of a rip off?

High Tension was an AWESOME movie.

However, when I was watching the beginning I was struck how similar the first part was to Dean Koontz's book "Intensity".

Here are all the things that are the EXACTLY the same in the beginning of the movie and in the book.

-Two college friends, both female, are driving to one of their homes. One of them complains about the driving of the other.

-They meet the family.

-Later on during the night a large killer comes to the house and kills the family but not the female guest.

-The female somehow hitches a ride with the killer they go to a truck stop.

-The killer kills the truck stop employee (There were two in the book).

-The female sneaks into the stop and takes a gun. She then goes after the killer.

-The killer later approaches the females and the gun is useless because he has taken the bullets out.

Of course there are some major differences. In the movie the other female is not killed but kidnapped. In the book the killer already has another girl trapped in his house.

I mean I dunno. I suppose it's easy enough to come up with a movie script if the setup has already has been done before. The movie makes up for it by including a HUGE PLOT TWIST that I did not see coming. The twist really makes the movie and raises it above the normal horror movie genre. Kudos to the Producer for changing the ending and letting the movie run 20 minutes after the twist is reviled.

Makeup and special effects were great.

Acting was superb.

It's a really great DVD and I recommend watching it with the original French audio.

Beer fest! Burlington VT.

I am going to take some pics soon of all my new stuff I got at garage sales.

However, I had to work today because everyone called in sick. PLUS I went to Vermont this weekend to Beerfest!

Mirco Breweries!

So much awesome beer.

I drank Stout, ale, lager, red, wheat, Lots.

So awesome. There are so many kinds of beer with awesome names.

My personal favorite was a Gruit that had a real herbal/medicinal taste to it.

There was also a beer that had a French name from Quebec that was a rye beer with peppercorn in it. It was called Diablo something it was interesting.

There was cherry wheat beer at that booth that tasted so sweet and mild.

It was a pretty awesome day.

The only problem was the sun. It was so hot and there was not a lot of shade set up.

I was sweating so much I never had to take a restroom break.

I got a stone coast beer glass and you get to keep your sample glass.

Perhaps the best garage sale find EVER?

I got a Japanese PS2 with a cool logo on it along with 60 PS2 and PS Japanese Games. (Also 3 Japanese Saturn Games)

Pretty rare ones too.

Here are a few of the titles.

Wild Arms
Persona 1 -3 (and P3 FES)
Valkyrie Profile
ZenoGears
Tales of Legia (and a bunch of the "tales" games on the PS2)
Lunar Silver Star
Shadow of the Colossus
Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2
Shinobi
Devil May Cry
A bunch of Gundam games for the PS2
Final Fantasy X International (Which I can play in English)

A bunch of others that I cannot remember. Most of these are in MINT condition. Like NEVER been played.

All for $100.00!!!!!!!!!!!

I mean Final Fantasy International was a Japanese release that goes for $30 used.

So add that to the Japanese PS2 and I already have made out pretty good.

I hope I can sell some of the other games.

Oh and the carton also contained a WonderSwan.

You really shouldn't give Mice Cookies.

Would the vampires survive a nuclear holocaust?

I am betting yes. And with the Nuclear blast dust blocking out the Sun they would have a fun time taking care of the over-population problem.

Wow. Starcraft is still going.

What a great game. I should totally play some mods. It's too bad I can't play online anymore.

And I should include this game in the video game Tourney.

Man this got me riled up about RTS.

Human robots....Why the Hell do We Keep Building Them???

http://www.cracked.com/article_16462_7-creepiest-real-life-robots.html

Those things are really beyond my scope of creepy.

...and that one dude needs to stop poking them in the face. Dumbass.

AAAAAAAAUGHHHH!!!!

http://www.jeffbridges.com/images/somethingtodo1.gif


AAAAUUUURGHRHRHRHHHH!


*edit*

OK, you CAN make your foot go in circles clockwise if you concentrate hard enough.

Scary Stuff.

Interesting Internet Reading: Don't eat it Steve!

Steve eats 14 year old cereal, dog treats, Prison Toilet Wine, Mexican Corn Infection and Silkworm cocoons.

Here is a short exceprt from the last:

"Someone recently told me they don't eat peanut butter because the FDA permits it to legally contain a certain amount of insect parts. This person might not want to buy a can of Silkworm Pupas. The amount of bugs in here is downright wacky."

Steve Don't eat it!

Excellent reading. I really want to try my hand at wine making one day. One the neighbors near our camp made his own wine.

Indy Game dev team still making that RPG for the Dreamcast.

Snipers invade Goodwill store.

I was bidding on some PREMIUM Dreamcast stuff and some jerk tried to snipe the price with less than a minute left to go.

Luckily I still won the auction.

I really hate price snipers. These jerks have no life.

The 2008 Olympics are going to be damned joke.

There is a ton of messed up crap going on in this years Olympics.

I feel bad for all the athletes who trained so hard only to get gypped into going into a messed up country like China. I dunno who I dislike more. The Olympic committee that didn't take China's pollutions problems into consideration or the US corporations who have allowed China's ruling class to destroy their own country with pollution and ignorance.

So besides the obvious air pollution issues there is a bunch of messed up crap that going to possible ruin the games.

For some insane reason China won't allow countries to bring food for the athletes. This means that they will have to eat Chinese food which even by the lowest standards is sub-par.

A US caterer said this about the chicken "We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive,"

It's a damn shame. Chinese protein sources are also full of insecticides and illegal veterinary medication. If you think the problems of Chinese goods shipped to the US are bad just consider what kind of shit they are serving to their own people. It's a lot worse than the stuff the US gets.

They are even having trouble getting enough ice for the competitors.

Such a shame for the athletes.

http://www.slate.com/id/2194608/pagenum/2

Sega seeks to return...

http://www.castle-vidcons.com/page/14/

Sweet comic.

Speaking of July 4th.

Kate Beaton explains why being an American is rad!

http://www.katebeaton.com/Site/Welcome.html

I found Sam and Max in my local Walmart!

Only in the small CD section. There were only 2 left on the shelf!

I think I only got episodes 1-3 which is kinda lame. I had hoped to get the entire season.

Ah well.

I got it yesterday and I really didn't take a look at it yet. I have heard you can buy the entire season one in a bigger box in some stores.

I also got the limited edition platinum version of "Prey" on clearance for $19.00. Yeah. A bit much. But it's a big metal box. I am a sucker for big metal boxes.

Damn that's too bad. Science explains away another cool thing.

...and I thought I had psychic powers all this time...

http://www.liu.se/en/news-and-events/startpage?newsitem=19689

More links to time wasters.

I feel so awesome I live near Canada after reading these NY city quotes.

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/013655.html

Really. NY City should be it's own state. I don't like paying for all their shit.

I am probably never going to go to that stinky dump and I shouldn't have to pay extra taxes to support the wealthy NYC lifestyle and the low class scum that lives there.

I am from the North Country.

Deal with it.

Discovery Channel ad turns into a meme

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Since 1951 the Wilhelm Scream is still going strong

If you have ever watched a movie you probably have heard it.

The Wilhelm Scream.

Read this list of games that use the scream and then take a look at the video which shows just some of the movies that have used this audio gem.

http://kezins.com/2008/06/weve-all-heard-it-the-wilhelm-scream-video-games/1736

Last "Wanted" Post.

Yeah so I saw the movie yesterday do to my lack of air conditioning.

It had NOTHING to do with the graphic novel.

The movie itself was rather cool and the very few scenes that were from the graphic novel were great.

Other than that it was a completely different story with different themes.

It's a nice looking movie and it has a lot of flash. It's like they wanted to do a real adaptation but then someone who was funding the movie decided to make sure that Marvel and DC couldn't sue so they changed the entire story.

The story is LAME. Lame, Lame, Lame. The whole plot involving how the guild of assassins chose their victims is beyond stupid. In the graphic novel the main character made friends despite being surrounded by traditionally evil people and he found out that there are certain layers to evil and he ended up battling the more chaotic "evil" people that just wanted to destroy the whole world for fun instead of ruling it behind the scenes. In the movie version he basically just kills everyone. For some reason ALL the assassins deserve to die and he kills them all. There are no layers of evil here. No lawful conquering evil VS self destructing chaotic evil. No real plot. Just a shoddy plot device that makes very little sense and pretty much goes against what made the graphic novel great. LAME

The acting was pretty good.

The action was superb. This was an action movie. Lots of gun porn. VINTAGE gun porn even.

All in all this movie is a great $2.50 rental. I wouldn't bother buying the DVD. Watch it in the theater only if you happen to have no air conditioning and are in the mood for some mindless action.

This movie shouldn't have been called "Wanted". It's a great shoot'em up action flick but had nothing of what made the comic so special.

They had all the money, stars, special effects and promotion to do a REAL adaptation of "Wanted".

This is not it.

The mainstream media chickened out again since we live in a litigious world where decisions are made solely on whether or not you *might* get sued.

A note about my last rant. (Wanted)

I don't want to contribute to Internet hate. I really don't.

I have not seen "Wanted" yet and maybe it will turn out to be good movie.

Also, I want to stress that I am not looking for a frame by frame adaptation of the graphic novel.

However, I also want to try to express my disappointment about the HUGE changes made in the plot.

The WHOLE PLOT of the graphic novel revolved around villains in a super hero universe banding together to beat all the heroes and take over the planet. I loved this plot because I always connected to the villains in comic books and graphic novels rather than the heroes. The graphic novel was the sort of thing I would create in my imagination when I was 12 after reading a comic book. (If only the villain had done this or worked together with this villian he could have gotten away scot free)

If you take away the superhero universe because of potential legal problems then you take away what makes the graphic novel special. You take away what made the story special.

So yeah, I suppose printed media is your best shot if you want a real story.

So go read the graphic novel "Wanted".

I dunno if the movie is going to be any good.

Once again copywritten ideas ruin a good movie (WANTED)

Such a damn shame.

"Millar: I was when I saw an early draft of the script, before Timur came on board. The super-powers were removed and the whole thing was a very straight crime story. The producers felt we could have legal problems with the super-villain stuff in the book as so much was analogous of Marvel and DC characters and history, but Timur came up with an interesting way of giving the killers powers again. Once he was onboard I knew the property was safe. He just absolutely got it and kept about 70% of the book. There's a lot of new stuff he came up with for the middle act, but the first hour and the last half hour is the same as the book for the most part. And the changes make it better."

So basically that means they couldn't make a REAL film adaptation of "Wanted" because it *MIGHT* piss off Marvel and DC. A bunch of Hollywood execs didn't have enough balls to do the real movie and paid the original creators enough money to bastardize their creation. It's getting to be that print media is just about the only truly free medium left.

The whole friggen point of the comic was that the super villains win. Without the comic book style heroes and villains there is actually not that much of an awesome factor.

I will probably go see the movie. I just don't know if it's going to come close to how good the comic was.

It just sucks. Half the people in Hollywood should grow a freaking backbone and do something without worrying about the repercussions all the time. The other half needs to stop being paid off and make their decisions based on making quality media and not money.

Where the hell is Matt?

Such a great idea for a video!


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Wow. I suppose there are attractive women where I live now.

A nice looking young woman just asked me a reference question. Picture Christina Ricci with short brown hair.

Wow.

Must retain aloft professional librarian status...

The Strange Way MY Life Works.

1. Watched a trailer for "Wanted" on TV. Angela J looks nice and tattooed up. But then I get pissed off when I realize that they dropped the whole "planet full of super villains with no super heroes" theme. They replaced the awesome original plot with some lame "guild of assassins" thing. No mention of super villains. I was disappointed. It does get me thinking about the original comic and how I need to score a copy of it.

2. Take Steel Head Trout and two sliced of bread to work. Forget to take any dressing.

3. Look in fridge and see a container of Washbi mayo.

4. Remember in the graphic Novel of "Wanted" the main character orders a fish sandwich with Wasabi Mayo. (I think it was salmon).

5. Made my trout sandwich with Wasabi Mayo.

6. One of the best fish sandwich's I ever ate...Awesome.

So in retrospect Wasabi Mayo IS really good on fish sandwiches and I would had never tried it if I didn't happen to see that trailer.

Boring? Yes well I didn't get much sleep last night.

Other People agreed I was right #1

In an earlier post I mentioned how I didn't like the new "I am Legend" movie.

On of the main themes of my argument was that the movie took away the point of the book which was that the surviving human was now the evil "legend". Which the dumbass director screwed up by not making the vampires "vampires" for some reason.

It looks like Cracked agreed with me.

http://www.cracked.com/article_16258_5-awesome-movies-ruined-by-last-minute-changes.html

Cracked Even called the creatures VAMPIRES because that's what they freaking ARE! The book had VAMPIRES in it and it turned out that the sole human left was the evil Legend.

THUS THE BOOK MADE SENSE AND HAD A POINT.

And the movie didn't.

Thanks for agreeing with me Cracked.

Steampunk makes everything cool!

http://weburbanist.com/2007/11/11/extreme-urban-retro-10-creative-steampunk-designs-modifications-and-inventions/

Maybe Beans was right!

http://nobodyscores.loosenutstudio.com/index.php?id=348

Probably not...

But Steampunk is pretty awesome.

The first "Internet" was a huge card Catalog

...Until the Nazis tore it down anyway...

It was really a steampunk style Internet!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Did Jesus ride Dinosaurs? I would like to think so...

Gore Vidal shows what a verbal assault REALLY is.

Best Interview Ever.

About William Buckley dying:

"I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred."

What do you think is your own best novel?:

"I don’t answer questions like that. Ever. And you ought not to ask them."

I hope when I get that old I can be half as cantankerous...

Sega Nerds Speak the Truth.

Read HERE.

Yeah. It really seems like the golden age of gaming is gone. This was supposed to be a list of the greatest games OF ALL TIME. But instead we get CoD4 at #1 and Wii Fit at #29. Really??? #29????

I blame this squarely on younger gamers who just don't get it...

...in fact screw it. I am not a "gamer". I am a 26 year old dude who likes video games. If everyone else wants to support a subculture that celebrates all that is new without respecting the basics then screw it. I don't care.

It's plain to see that there is a generation of "yes" people growing up that have NO CONCEPT of reality.

Has our consumer culture mincing pot really created such hapless sheep?

Shame on you.

T.a.T.u.

Is it wrong to like music videos featuring foreign singers dressed up in burlesque style costumes?

No...no it's not.



If this would have been in English I don't know if I would have liked it as much.

I am glad the Burlesque look is coming back. Those were the days when everyone wore HATS. And hats are friggen awesome. Everything would be better if everyone wore hats again...

Nowadays nobody wears hats except lower class hicks with baseball caps (I don't like Baseball caps at all) or cowboys. WTF happened to fedoras? AZ took (borrowed) mine. I have nice Austrian leather hat as well as black felt on that kinda looks like an Amish hat. Everyone should wear hats again.

Anyways back to T.a.t.u.

When the skank Britney Spears came out with her first music video she dressed up as a Catholic schoolgirl and really pissed some people off. I made a prediction at that point that soon we would have a music video featuring young female singers dressed up as Catholic school girls who would then kiss each other during the course of the video. Not only that but I predicted that they would be much better singers than B.S. (get it? B.S. Britney Spears? Good one Caleb...) But that part of my prediction wasn't all that hard since most pop stars singing ability is a joke.

Fast Forward a couple of years and that EXACT scenario happened. I was so pissed I never wrote that down.

Then of course there was "controversy" about Tatu and people saying that they weren't really into each other.

WHO CARES? It's entertainment. This bullshit way most people look at the world just makes me angry. Stop providing the paparazi with a job. Stop looking into EVERY facet of the singers and actors you like. Just stop.

It's just entertainment. Enjoy it or don't.

Don't get me wrong I normally like my music angry and loud. In fact lately I have been listening to alot of punk/Grunge genre music. I don't know if I would ever buy their whole album or anything but I might buy a couple of songs.

I would never buy English Pop Music. Does liking foreign Pop Music make me a hypocrite?

No more than most I assume.

Tour Guide Skit.

One of the first skits I wrote.

Nigel the Skit Comedy Show Episode 8 is up

A few people asked why I didn't upload some of my really old skit comedy stuff.

Well here it is in all it's crappy editing glory. The first horrible cut of the skit comedy I did for GSTV4. Episode 8. (Removed a lot out for Youtube upload)

You can see me in many different hairstyles in this from shaved head to white hair.

Daria Console Wars

http://kotaku.com/5011906/analyst-wii-to-lead-hardware-ps3-to-lead-software-by-2012



Daria was such an awesome show.

Between that and Undergrads I really wonder what the hell kids in high school are watching for decent entertainment...I mean really is there anything that can compare? Daria ended when I was in my second year of college and I still loved it. Is there anything remotely as cool going on?

In any case kudos to Kotaku for coming up with this image.

Never Microwave your cell phone

Holy crap! I wonder if they used a mix of puppets and CG for this?

For all my complaining about the lack of good stuff being produced in the digital age I am glad people are getting the tools to make cool stuff like this.

God Hand is AWESOME

I picked it up for cheap at a local rental place yesterday and I played all night.

What an awesome game. It's hard but not too hard.

It's basic beat-em-up actual with some great features.

Clover really did well with this game. I don't understand why some reviewers gave this a bad score. The graphics are nothing to rave about but the gamplay is solid.

Long Weekend. Memorial Day.

My new job actually has Holidays!

That means I will be relaxing for a long weekend.

I got a ton of Dreamcast and Saturn Stuff to try out and a ton of DVDs to play with.

Besides that I will be jogging and trying to make a video project as well.

Have a nice Memorial Day Monday everyone! (I don't think they have Memorial Day in other countries besides the US though...)

Honor our soldiers and hope that we can get them all back safe.

A few quick thoughts about Snatcher for the Sega CD.

Snatcher is pretty nice. Interesting bladerunner style plot intermixed with awesome little shooting segments that work well with a common controller. Overall it's simply a masterpiece.

Finding a backup copy that will work on an actual Sega CD system is a chore. All of the copies I originally found were THE SAME ONE. And that one had been formatted to ONLY run on an emulator. It will "sort of" run on an actual console but then it will have no sound in spots and freeze up. That's because people encoded the music to .mp3 format and never made a cue sheet so the image could be correctly burned onto a CDR. So it will ONLY work on an emulator properly. That's lame as hell.

If you happen to look towards the "canines who are low" site you will find the makings for a working copy.

It's the same version as the others that are floating around but there is a separate download for a small .cue file and instructions on how to reformat the .mp3 files into .wav files. Once you change the .mp3 files to .wav files just put the .iso, .cue files and the new wave files into the same folder and run an image burning software on the .cue file.

Now you have a copy that will work on a Sega CD console. The one I made works perfectly. So awesome!

I am somewhat upset at people who use "backups" on an emulated system. If you REALLY like the games you should get the actual hardware. Sure emulators are OK but backups are only legal if you have the ACTUAL system and game. So making "backups" that WILL NOT RUN on an actual console without major tinkering is stupid.

In cased someone missed this.

http://www.katebeaton.com/Site/Welcome.html

Kate Beaton makes some awesome comics about history and other stuff.

Great stuff.

Project Dead Sky Homebrew RPG is Still Alive!

Project Dead Sky is a homebrew RPG that is being created for the Dreamcast and PC. From this update I can see that these guys are pretty serious about making this a reality. The game itself seems to be an interesting mix of RPGs. I would be pleased if they used more gameplay elements from Chrono Trigger. In any case it will be great to have another RPG on the Dreamcast considering how there were only about a half dozen released on the Dreamcast in the US.

http://thechaosrift.com/

Another Update! This one is a bit dry and only interesting if you like programming (or Mountain Dew). Feel free to check out some of the other videos the team has made.

The White Chamber

The White chamber is a NICE game. I had it downloaded on my computer for a long time and never played it. But last night I installed it and I played it all the way through!
It's classic point and click with a decent horror story. A lot of the game is collecting items and figuring out the best way to use them. There are a few "action" segments of the game where you have to quickly tap the mouse or click on the right thing to avoid gristly death. Sometimes the game gets very surreal and you think you are stuck only to walk into a room and find something that was not there before. Other times the rooms change into hellish versions of themselves. So if you happen to get stuck in the game make sure you double check rooms you were just in and look for things that appear out of nowhere. The ending caught me off guard but worked. There are 8 ways to end the game. I got the "redemption" ending which somehow features the female lead in a bikini...

All in all it's a great little game with interesting art. If you like old school point and click games and space horror you should check this out. Short and Sweet.

Best of all it's Free! It was made by a gathering of university students as a way to display their talents.

http://www.studiotrophis.com/

Muahahaha! Web Urbanist has some cool stuff up.

I like the "graffiti" created by cleaning public surfaces.

I am less a fan of flash mob which is generally annoying.

I thought I liked S.T.A.L.K.E.R....

http://kotaku.com/390649/stalker-cosplay-earns-a-standing-ovation

http://www.webpark.ru/comments.php?id=35729

Russians don't mess around with their cosplay.

You gotta have some real issues to go running around Chernobyl with airsoft rifles digging around in the dirt and stuff...

...Damn...

Fun is one thing but did they really have to go to Chenobyl????? Really?

It looks like they had fun. I hope nobody got a bad dose of radiation.

Lackadaisy webcomic review.

OK so normally I do not go for art that has animals walking around like people.

Really the Egyptians did it and that was fine and all but it seems like nowadays people take it WAY too far. Honestly, some of it is only a step above furries ( I won't even go into how messed up that stuff is).

Take a gander at Lackadaisy...It's a comic set in the gangster era of the roaring twenties right near the end when the depression starts creeping up on everyone and the crime world becomes more violent. All the characters are dressed in period clothing and everything is historically accurate...

...and all the characters happen to be cats.

But this does NOT take away from the story or setting! The cat-characters sometimes have interesting expressions on their faces which in all honesty crack me up. That's pretty much it. Besides that they act just like the alcohol providers of the 20s.

The only way I can describe this comic is to imagine if Disney made a movie about gangster cats during the 1920s, but left in all the violence.

The main draw for me is one of the main characters who seems like the sweetest little kitten ever until he gets near guns. Then he goes bat shit crazy.

http://lackadaisy.foxprints.com/exhibit.php?exhibitid=12

http://lackadaisy.foxprints.com/comic.php?comicid=49

Another example there is this touching scene where two hitmen are taking a guy for a ride (not the nice kind of ride either).

http://lackadaisy.foxprints.com/previews/preview_0016.html

Holy Crap! Did they just kill that guy and leave him in the cornfield? You bet they did.

Or this scene where Rocky sets a farm on fire and laughs maniacally.

http://lackadaisy.foxprints.com/comic.php?comicid=21

Overall this comic has quite a gimmick going and I can't wait to see what comes next.

Got some new games and Ordering new books for library.

Went back to the North Country for a bit and picked up some good deals.

I got Shinobi, Star Wars Battlefront 1+2 AND Chronicles of Riddick PC all for $3.00 Each!!!

No cases or manuals but these were not your Standard disks...MINT condition.

There was this guy who collected EVERYTHING and somehow the pawn shop got the bid to clean out his home. I looked through the piles of stuff he had. NUTS! This guy musta have had like EVERY system known to man. Including import stuff! Not to mention DVDs and books. I have alot of video game stuff..but holy crap...no-where NEAR the amount of stuff this dude collected. Not too much Sega Stuff to my dissapointment.

However, I didn't have alot of money so I grabbed a few cool things and left the rest.

Hmm I think the only other stuff I grabbed was an Evil Dead 2 DVD and Zelda 4 swords for the Gamecube.

Cute robots and Segata Sanshiro.

Only Persona from Mechafetus could pull together such themes for a video.

http://persona.mechafetus.com/

Oh forum flamers...how many robots did you cause to commit suicide?

Handsome Tom Leaves Screwattack.

Good for him. The rest of the dorks at Screw A are worthless. He was the only real gamer there.

So now there is offically no reason to visit Screwattack.

He is now doing his own site:

TheGameHeroes.com

Myths of the Mind

I knew many of these were myths.

http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/04/10-mind-myths-do-any-of-these-catch-you.php

The psychology one sort of made me upset. Psychology is highly over-rated in our culture and ALOT of it IS common sense. Much of the field is bullshit as well. Some of the most screwed up people I have ever known have gone into that "science". This is a system that went from drilling holes in people's heads to shutting down every major facility for the care of the mentally ill. So now in America the vast majority of the extremely mentally ill just live where ever they want. They wander our streets instead of living in a place where they can be safe and cared for. And who decided this? Psychologists. Now they work on normal people and ignore the growing insane homeless population and veterans. Instead of doing a service to society they tell society that they are crazy and need to pay them money. They have made a mockery of medication that should have been left in the hands of real doctors. Now parents are afraid to give their kids medication because psychologists over-prescribed meds to too many teens.

Who really knows how much guesswork is involved with this field? It's too bad the only people truly against it are wack-jobs and scientologists (Same thing but organized into a cult).

But I agree with the myth though. Psychology is not common sense. You can generally depend on common sense.

Awesome article on video game packaging

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3167646

Further proves my theory that modern video game packaging sucks compared to the retro stuff.

One of my favorite books is now a rare book.

Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward.

Awesome book. It's a shame she didn't write more.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812522281/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

I love it when you find a book that you never knew about...

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman wrote a book together! Way back in 1996!!!

I can't believe I didn't know about this!

It's amazing when you can find a book by one of your favorite authors that you never knew about before.

It's a good read.

Nice Atari box art

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/04/21/fun-from-yesterday/

Anagrams

Anagrams rock.

An anagram for my name is "Blame Heroics". Thats so awesome.

Also:

Lamb Cheerios

Alchemies Orb

Reaches Limbo

Chaser Mobile

Camisole Herb

Heal Microbes
Heals Microbe

A Hombre Slice


A Somber Chile


A Mob Chiseler

Embrace His Lo


Becalm Hero Is


Basic Helm Ore

Cobra He Smile

Able Crimes Oh

Able Cries Ohm

Blame Rice Hos
Blame Cries Ho
Blame Cries Oh
Blame Rices Ho

Blame Chis Roe

Amble Score Hi

Aloe Besmirch

Blogger claims top five worst consoles includes 4 Sega Products.

Uh...Wow...

This guy claims that the top five worst consoles include...

...holy crap I just can't believe someone actually wrote this. This is INSANE...

The top five worst consoles include:

2. The Saturn

"the original games were easily forgettable further establishing Sega as the company who didn’t know how to create good games"

"One had to rely on sub-par originals like Shining Force 3 and Dragon Force"

3. The Dreamcast

"Games like Chu Chu Rocket and Space Channel 5 were just plain stupid"

"the Dreamcast game library is highly overrated, especially some of the games that are held so highly by the Dreamcast fanboys - Soul Calibur for instance. It’s nothing but a button masher with swords" (I suppose that's why they are re-releasing it, because it's so *overrated*)

"There are people who actually say that the graphics on the Dreamcast were just as good, or even better than the Playstation 2. These people really need to go to Wal-Mart and have their eyes examined"

4. 32X

Ok this one I can understand. It had like 2 good games. I can't defend the 32X.

5. Sega Genesis / Megadrive !!!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!

Honest. The Genesis was his pick for worst console of all time!!!!

"The Sega Genesis games were utterly forgettable"

"the Sega Genesis was the kid from school who tried to be cool, but everyone knew he was a loser"

"It’s with the Sega Genesis that the definition of a bad gaming system first becomes conspicuous"

WTF!!?!?!?!??!

I honestly cannot believe that someone sat down and wrote this...

Pen and Paper.

I didn't have a laptop in college.

I didn't even have an up to date computer for Grad School... That THAT was one of the REQUIRED things you needed. They clearly listed what sort of a computer you needed for my program and I did not have it. I was still using a Pentium 3 running windows 98 SP2 that I had gotten from an ad for $100.

I do own a crappy Pentium 2 labtop now. I dunno why. The battery is shot and I would only be able to use it for old video games. Shame.

Kids in the Hall are having another tour...

I am so going if they come to Montreal.

SNES REtro video game collection on shopgoodwill HOLY CRAP $$$$$$$!!!!!

Wow.

There was an auction on shopgoodwill that included MANY of the rarer SNES games in original boxes. All the SNES Final Fantasy games, Earthbound, and Chrono trigger still in the original box.





The price?

$637.99

And thats NOT EVEN A DAY of the auction being up.

Retro game collectors are going librarian-shit over this stuff!

ANOTHER Dreamcast unveiling.

People really love getting Dreamcasts from Ebay because they are always making videos about it.



I hope that the Kiss headgear is ironic though...

...seriously do you really want to listen to a band that has had like 3 good songs and whose only goal is to make money? Not in my top 10 to be sure.

Are people that complain about racism in RE5 the ones who keep racism alive?

That's what a lot of people commented when N’Gai Croal made some statements to the effect that the game was indeed racist.

http://kotaku.com/378535/clearly-no-one-black-worked-on-this-game

Later there was a whole backlash against the more ignorant/vile comments.

Hmm.

It's hard for me to comment on stuff like this because I do not see what Mr. Croal sees. I may never. The game may indeed share some similarities in tone to racism. But what doesn't? Racism is in all of us. In everyone. It's the same basic fear of the outsider, the unknown the ones that are not of our tribe. It's the fear that kept us alive for a long time.

It could be argued that the producers of the game were going for that original fear that we all have and stumbled upon the more recent themes of racism as well. Maybe they shouldn't have made the game set in Africa. It makes some people like Mr. Croal upset.

Yet others don't get that at all. Others don't seem to understand his feelings because to them racism doesn't matter anymore. Race doesn't really matter anymore. So is that a good thing?

Is it better to let racism fade into the past and hope it never comes back?

Or is it better to make sure the next generation knows how bad racism was and still could be?

A ton of kids in the next generation are still racist. The crap that goes on chat rooms and X-box live chats proves that.

Racism will always be with us to a degree. Humans are hardwired like that. We will always look upon other groups with suspicion because we CAN'T all live in harmony.

As long as it doesn't impede anyone's rights or economic prospects does that make it OK?

Do we need to ban a game because it brings up themes of racism?

Do we need to ban a person complaining about the themes in a game because he is "keeping racism alive"?

Do we need to ban the people making nasty comments about this person just because of his views?

Should we just ban everyone or no one?

Superman is lame.

I always hated the idea of Superman.

He is just some random alien that learned some backwoods morality from a couple of rural hicks.

Surprisingly this did not lead him to be a violent racist super honky somehow.

This article highlights many of the main points of why I don't like the fictional ubermensch.

http://www.bamkapow.com/bk-feature-why-superman-will-always-suck-1189-p.html

I got some great deals on video game stuff.

Found a decent swap shop near my apartment.

The only bad thing is that she is only open from 10 AM to 4 PM. No Sunday Hours. What a rip.

I got some cool Dreamcast games from there. Shenmue $5 (no manual). GTA 2 $2 (Full!). Tony Hawks pro Skater $2 (Full!). She had a copy of Magnetic Neo but she kept it for herself!!!! Everyone likes the Dreamcast I suppose.

I also got some good deals online for some Japanese Saturn games.

SpongeBob Deathnote.

Deathnote is an anime about a kid who finds a special notebook. Anyone whose name is written in the notebook dies.

Someone decided to mix the audio with the cartoon SpongeBob.

Amazing results.

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable

Excellent Article on Cracked.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html

Google is gonna send us all to mars.

http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html

Mars! Oh Yeah.

WOW on consoles!

What a great April Fools.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/moltencore/

Watch the video. It's so worth it.

Move in any of 8 different directions!

Skinning a Bear Aggros Bears up to 40 feet away!

With a heavy heart...

I am so sorry.

Freakiest Robot Dog EVER....

This comes straight out of Silent Hill...

...Cure for Cancer? No.

...Freaky Robot Zombie Dogs? Yes.

Run Cowards!

Kings of Power 4 Billion...Wow....

Just downloaded it.

http://probertson.livejournal.com/

Amazing stuff.

I loved the Violence Kings.

If he made an offical T-Shirt he could make some serious scratch.

New Dreamcast back up on SHopgoodwill.

Looks like someone couldn't pay that $300.00 offered before.

The NIB Dreamcast is back up!

http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3489607

I am hesitant to post this on the Dreamcast Junkyard as that might lead to another Kotaku post and yet another swarm of people willing to pay EXTREMELY HIGH prices for video games.

I gonna bid.

Wow.

I just noticed a kid was watching a video on youtube of Guitar Hero...

....watching a video of a video game where the player plays a fake guitar...

Damn.

I think that in the future I will be glad that I was not one of these people who got swept up in all this fake instruments things.

...Samba de Amigo. Now THERE'S a game. You actual shake the maracas. Like Maracas...

Much more badass.

A quick story

http://www.terminus1525.ca/exhibits/niedzviecki/en/index.php?content=comeau

It's by the guy who writes "A Softer World".

http://www.asofterworld.com/

Shopping for a Dreamcast in 2008

Someone needed a Dreamcast and made the trip down to the local swapmeet.

They find a re-packed Dreamcast for $60. With the Wild Thornberries video game! (They knew that it wasn't a game for the Dreamcast. They were just making fun of it. But they really didn't know what a RFU adaptor is...oh these kids today.)

My favorite quotes.

"Why do you want a Dreamcast?"

"Because the PS3 sucks."



This mirrors alot of my experiences with buying Dreamcast stuff. (It's mostly Russian or French and not Spainish being spoken though) You have to go to these places though. You never know what you can find.

I should document my next trip to a local flea-market to find Dreamcast stuff.

People still want the Dreamcast though. That is clear.

New Zero Punctuation takes on FPS

He makes good points. Plus he mentions Blood!

Got Shinobi SMS in the mail!

Shinobi for the SMS is kick ass.

I friggen hate the fact that most US gamers I talk to think that the SMS is some sort of joke.

For some reason everyone is under the impression that the NES is graphically better than there are no good games for the SMS...

Bull.

Phantasy Star
Shinobi
Golden Axe
Fantasy Zone
Super Wonder Boy
Alex Kidd
Zillion
Space Harrier
Alien Syndrome
R-Type

That's just off the top of my head.

There is also another RPG that I forgot the name of that I bought recently. I will have to try it out soon.

New Job...not doing much else. No cable.

Well not much happening for video game or media stuff this week.

My new job is interesting.

Alot of people are talking about bringing video games to the library. That will be interesting.

Besides that I won a Game Gear with a Master Gear converter on it on the Shopgoodwill website. It included 12 games. One of them is the original Shinobi which I always wanted to play.

I still have not done that video I wanted to to do about playing Playstation 1 games on a GameGear using the TV Tuner in my car.

The TV tuner is actually pretty bad ass. I can watch picture perfect broadcast TV on it. I will feel bad in 2009 when there are no more analog transmitters...I can't believe I got it for .50 cents at a thrift store. That's just so sweet. I wish I had that thing when I was in high school. I would have been cool as hell.

Speaking of TV I have no cable at my new apartment and with all the taxes (FU IRS), car upkeep and a bunch of other one time expenses I incurred while moving.

I find that I do not miss cable all that much. I can still watch broadcast TV for free. Lost is the only show I am following and I can still watch that.

I have to screw around with the bunny ears to make the thing work.

I just can't justify spending money on TV I suppose. I have been watching some TV shows on DVD lately. I got some full Buffy the Vampire seasons that I have been watching. It's amazing that got them so cheap since they seem to be a collectors item now. That show was pretty funny in some spots. I am almost loath to allow other people know that I happen to like it though, because the fans are a bit rabid.

I have been cooking alot lately and in fact I have not eaten out in about a month and a half. I did eat a sub at quiznos... But besides that I have been making all my own food. I seem to be eating healthier. When I make my own lunch I always pack like 2 pieces of fruit and I try to have a salad before my dinner.

The most healthy thing I have been doing is walking to work. It's about .75 miles to work from my apartment. It takes me about 15-20 mintues. (Lots of ice and snow so i have been going at a snails pace).

So that means I am getting a total of 1.5 miles of walking in 5 days a week. As soon as I get a YMCA membership I can add swimming, lifting weights and running to that. I might just get back into respectable shape again soon.

I am so glad I can walk. I was sick and tired of all the damned driving from my other jobs. That was like a minimum of 2 hours of driving and a maximum of four hours 6 friggen days a week!!! Damn that sucked.

I do have to drive to my prior occupancy this weekend to get the rest of my stuff. Hopefully I can make one trip of it and call it a day. I miss all my retro videogames and random crap...

Caleb

Are board games "cool" again.

I really only got into chess a bit when I was younger.

I never got into checkers.

However, my boss at the library I work at just told me that he had a lot of interest from kids and young adults in board games like checkers and chess.

Hmm...

Did I miss something?

Younger kids today seem to be all about racism and board games. Are we just raising up another group of Depression age era youngsters from the 1930s?

In any case we might be considering buying a "Wii" for the library.

I dunno how that is going to work out. Besides people stealing crap I dunno how much interest people are going to have. Playing Wii games in nursing homes and libraries seems like kinda a fad to me...

Finding obituaries...

A huge part of my new job is finding old obituaries.

It's sometimes a bit of a pain.

For example one person told me the first name was Isabella.

For some reason the tri-county directory had her listed under her maiden name.

It was listed in the tri-county obituary directory as "Isabell".

It was listed in the actual obituary as "Isabelle", with her husband's last name.

It was not listed at all in the online newspaper archive.

This is all a normal part of genealogy research.

Shopgoodwill.com already infested...

It seems like whenever I find something good on the Internet it is soon gone.

Such is the case with shopgoodwill .com.

You don't need to use credit card info to shop online there. They *used* to have good deals.

I never knew about it before and now that the countless hordes from Kotaku know about that site all the prices for video games have gone SKY HIGH.

I suppose it's good for Goodwill and all but it sucks that the prices there are rivaling Ebay's.

I am going to try to low bid on some of the cooler items but I am not filled with hope...

It's like ebay and craigslist. People willing to spend way too much money are ruining it for all of us.

A Tooth for an eye?

Wow. Now that's interesting.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/irelandbritainhealthoffbeat

After all this scientific debunking of old myths we are now letting people see by putting teeth in their eye sockets.

Sounds like High Tech Sorcery to me!

Got your Xbox signed? Don't send it in for repairs.

So yeah. Red ringed and then this.

http://hawtymcbloggy.com/2008/02/28/another-gamer-screwed-by-microsoft/

It's freaking nuts. I mean the dude told the repair service SPECIFICALLY that he didn't want his console screwed with. They told him, OK fine it won't. Then they erase all of the signatures he got on his X-Box.

And a lot of people say stuff like "You can't expect that kind of service". "The workers who work on these things don't have pay attention to stuff like that".

For the amount of cash you pay for these newer consoles, YES, yes you deserve that level of service.

You deserve to have the console you send it with signatures NOT to have the Permanent signatures wiped off.

The jerks who think that this kinda stuff happening is OK makes me sick.

Back in the day people who spent money were treated right.

We had companies who respected consumers and bent over backward trying to help them out.

NOW?

Now we as consumers do a lot of the footwork companies used to do.

Now we as consumers not only accept sloppy products and customer service, WE EXPECT IT.

PEOPLE ARE DEFENDING MIRCOSOFT'S RIGHT TO DO THIS.

They say it's some badly paid hard working person who made this mistake and that some dude who bought an expensive toy can't expect any sort of customer service. You know tough shit. I have worked jobs where I never got a break during a ten hour shift. I have almost killed myself hauling out freshly cut cedar through the back woods tripping over snow and mud. But I DID MY JOB BECAUSE SOMEONE WAS PAYING ME.

That's how it works. Someone pays you and you do the job that's expected of you.

I think everyone knows that's how it's supposed to work with individuals.

But somehow businesses are no longer beholden to that ideal.

When a corp like Microsoft screws up the question asked is NO LONGER "Why?" or "How the hell do they expect to get away with that kind of crap?"

No people just say "What do you expect?"

Because apparently we have had all of our expectations taken away from us.

People should EXPECT SOMETHING.

A quick overview...

1. An individual asked a company to service his product without messing it up.
2. They said they could.
3.They messed up his product.
4. Some people on the Internet blame the individual.

God, what the hell is wrong with everybody?

People call me pessimistic sometimes because I point out the flaws in how most people live their lives through lies and self delusion. I am a drag to have around.

This situation is about a toy. An expensive, meaningless toy.

But I think my main point remains. You should be able to expect SOMETHING from the infrastructure of corporations and big business that we all are in some small way killing ourselves supporting.

We have given up our planet's health. our children's future and out very souls for the toys we all use to distract ourselves from the meaninglessness of our lives.

WE DESERVE TO HAVE THOSE TOYS FIXED TO OUR SPECIFIFCATIONS WITH A MINIMUM AMOUNT OF FUSS!

Digitial Tattoo phone runs on blood.

Welcome to the future.

http://www.physorg.com/news122819670.html

Garfield with no Garfield.

Wow. So funny.

http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/page/2

Is it just me or does Mario look awesome on the Mega Drive...?

Insane Chinese remakes on older consoles.

Titanic for the NES???? Holy Crap.

http://kotaku.com/361152/more-crazy+ass-chinese-ports-titanic-mario-lotr

My new job is going well.

Walking to work is good.

I am ordering new books. Leasing and ordering to be exact.

Checking the invoices and packing slips. And then I yell at the lease company for only sending me two copies of Grisham's new book instead of 3.

I am setting up new adult programs.

Like promoting the new Cancer documentary on PBS.

I think I am going to do a car care program during April since that is car care month. I am also setting up the display case for different themes for the months.

In fact groups actually call here looking use it promote things. Reference here is hard since I am used to SYR.

I have to watch over computer use in addition to being on the reference desk.

Blargh.

Besides that everything is ok.

-C

Post Apoco Workout.

http://www.zombieworkout.com/2008/01/day-19-hunt-the.html

Post apocalyptic Grocery Store

With moving to a new area comes new adventures.

I found a huge couch near my apartment that I dragged home. It was way bigger than I first thought though. I *Barely got it inside. When I leave that apartment I am gonna Axe that monstronsity.

A large P&C grocery store near new new apartment was going out of business and I went there to shop for their last week (I didn't know it was the last days of the store until I went in). Everything in the store was 25% off.

Apparently it was a pretty quick closure because NOBODY was there.

It was like shopping at a grocery store right after something killed off all the population. Parts of the store were completely closed off and other parts were full of stuff. So places were still neat and orderly. Others had big cardboard boxes and wodden pallets around and empty shelves.

The store was dead silent and there was nothing playing on the store speakers. There were hardly any employees around either. I could hear the wheels of the cart squeak as I walked through the store and hear the echo of my own footsteps.

It was like the grocery scene in 28 days later when they shop in the empty store.
It was really fun for me because I always wanted to shop like that.

Everything was dirt cheap too.

They had bagged up all the produce and slapped a .99 cent sticker on most of it.

I got like 12 cloves of garlic for a buck.

All the high end organic stuff was cheap as well.

I got bags of onions and potatoes.

Everything that was already on weekly sale was still on sale price plus the 25% off.

So I got a big jug of 8th con. and Silk soy milk for super cheap.

I got enough food to last for at least a couple of months.

I feel sad that the store is closing though. I really like P&C grocery because their sale items match with weekly coupons and they double the value of coupons under $1.

All in All it was a fun time.

New flag looks alot like the Dreamcast EU logo

From UKR found originally in The Times.

http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2008/02/glorious-nation-of-kosovo-considering.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3352529.ece

Uncanny....

Busy Busy

I am now at my new job and I am still getting used to it.

I am living in a new apartment. Small but nice and close enough to work to walk. A nice 3/4 mile walk is actually pretty relaxing even in the winter. No lake effect snow!

I have to learn how to order new fiction books as well as lease fiction from two companies.

It's kinda insane that I am in charge of a budget for a whole library's worth of fiction.

I also have to put on some new adult programs. So yeah. I dunno. Maybe basic auto upkeep and repair?

Reference is about the same.

Patrons at libraries are pretty much the same anywhere I guess.