Saturday, October 20, 2007

| MONG KOK

That's the best fuckin name, I'm totally stealin that for my next MMORPG! Nah dude, WoW is way uninstalled. Love the game, it is a CLASSIC for sure, but just couldn't do it no more. Now, really just a little oblivion, some phoenix wright: ace attorney (on my DS emulator) and occasional fps action from HL2 or like old Wolf:ET. Got back into reading, more into that lately.

Haha, I'm not like reading Shel Silverstein or CYOA books now, but I was trying to remember shit that I used to be into and was trying to stump the site hehe. And don't even like that first one, Cave of Time, but I don't wanna add EVERY one I did, cuz I pretty much read most of em. There's some weird as fuck sci-fi shit I read as a kid from the library, but I'll never remember what it was. It prolly wasn't even considered "good" but I remember being all intrigued. This one that was like a post-apoc earth/world but like warrior dudes.. fuck if I ever remember it, it was kinda hard to understand as a kid, but I remember being all into it. Probably some anti-nuke bullshit but I wouldn't have picked up on that as a kid.

| I'm fine dudes!

Theoretically the odds of being the 92 in the blast would have been a .000092% chance which lightning would have technically been more frequent.

Nice Poem rude! I haven't read any Shel siverstein books since I was 10 MUHAHAHA or any choose your own adventure books (does that count as reading? like comic books, anyhoo), think I donated my shel copies to a thrift shop. Cool site though overall.

My Hong Kong trip:
Hong Kong is pretty pricey place. Some notable places to go
- Fo Tan - This place has a really famous street market/food place. Not really clean, it's like eating at the fresh market near the oceanside (except for said ocean). The food is great and cheap. 5 of us ate for less than $50 bucks usd.
- Stayed at SHA TIN, in the royal park hotel. nice, had flat screen TV's in the room. Waaaay better than the convention. Do they have a game convention in Hong Kong? I should check the next time i'm around. I know they have those blizzcons in korea.
- Shopped at Mong Kok? street. .. no it's not for pleasure tools, i think it's a famous street vending street where you get stuff from China, oh wait? why don't we just go to China to get stuff from China? i dunno. Maybe it's cause you get shafted by the prices. More Kok anyone?

I miss games.

Ruday you still playing world of warcraft?
Too much to respond to, time for some stream of consciousness: bombs bad, ballot fixing badder, tabula rasa the worst. Dumbledore gay, half-life 2 choo choo train gayer, pricey video games the blurst.

Yeah, I never got back into HL2 a few chapters past where you mentioned Jon. I like the game engine a lot, feels good shooting dudes, but yeah, its just super linear and I think I watched the ending on YouTube so that's done.

Played the Tabula Rasa demo/beta awhile back Den and that shit was crap. Something about all NCSoft games that seems familiar in graphics/UI - Ohh man, just horrible.

After I discovered the /kill command in Oblivion's console, kinda used it a few too many times and it killed the game for me. I just loaded a shit load of mods for it, so gonna restart it someday and not cheat and see if I can get into it. At least that first weekend was super awesome and I got my 30 bucks worth.

Almost done with re-read of Game of Thrones - what an amazing book. That dude rocks. Still can't stand certain chapters (Danys, Sansas, sometimes Catelyns) but I know you gotta slug through em, so it's alright. Still mostly into the Jon, Bran, Arya and Tyrion chapters.

That show on NBC Life is really good, Heroes I can't get into at all (but I'll watch it in one massive go on dvd or something later on down the road.) BBC Robin Hood started up again overseas, thats a fun d/l I'm gonna watch.

I think I sent you a link or mentioned awhile back Eric, but did you ever nab the Radio-Show of Flight of the Conchords? They go to London instead of NY, but its pretty much the same songs they ended up using in the HBO show. Like the first episode has the LOTR song "Frodo, don't wear the ring.. i know its very tempting!" "many spies.. have many eyes.." Hahaha, good shit. And its narrated by the comedian who plays Garth Marenghi from a another brilliant euro-comedy show. This generation of euro-comics are awesome. Does NZ count as European? LINKy

Sports are still super gay.

Turned in and got approved/signed-off on my transfer to the Scientific Investigation Department (division? SID, whatever that stands for) at work, so start that whole new job mid Nov. That'll be interesting.

I know MySpace prolly aint most of you dudes thing, but theres another cool site I joined called Good Reads and you put all the books u read and u can review em and all that kinda shit (maybe like how BGG works?) Here's my profile: PC LOICERS
Late-Breaking News!

OMG Dumbledore is teh gh3y!

| d00ds

We are now two shy of 5000 posts on the ActionTeam.org.asm. Crazy shit.

jA -El, I have to say that is an impressive amount of pr0n in one day. But of more concern I think is the terrorism bit. How close was that incident to where you reside. I think if it is near you at all, you should just avoid any and all dice. Especially two siders since your roll a 1 chances are so high.

jr0n, is that wine cube shit? I see it at Target all the time and all I can think of is how foul Franzia is. Anyway, yeah the plot line on HL2 is not nearly as good as the first. Then again that is a tall order to live up to. HL was brilliant. I do have to say that the Physics engine in HL2 is great. I kind of like the boat biz; however, it is way too long. I totally agree on the AI. There was all this buzz before HL2 came out about how great the AI would be, but it wasn't that great. Good AI is a bitch to code. Did you buy the Orange box? I broke down and bought a new video card. The previous one failed and the replacement one I had was so damn slow even in 2D mode I couldn't handle it. So I plunked down on a good mid-range card and damn, some of my games are way more playable that were marginal before.

pump: A$$ Killah666! Shit that was me. Are you writing a bio on me? E|f FuX0r69?

eLzar the Gozarian: Boo Kings. Although they did win two in the last three. I assume this is just going to be another depressing season in which they will be second to last almost all season long, and then, at the very last minute, they will win enough games to make it to 6th or 7th from last to muss up at least the prospect of a great draft pick. They can not even lose good enough.

I still have not come up with a good modeling plan for you. I have not been really inspired in that arena lately. By the time I finally have time to myself at home over the past month, I have been just beat. All I want to do is veg out at that point.

Rude: You know I do the same shit with video games. I don't buy many, although my desire to play video games has decreased dramatically in the past couple of years. I just get turned of by the $40-60 price tag.

D>M>
Damn, that's kinda scary. Was that bombing anywhere near you?

On the other hand, I love the idea that you watched eight porn movies in the last 24 hours and provided synopses. Please keep the blog informed of further developments! Hilarious!

I've eaten bagged Indian food (from Trader Joe's) the last two nights for dinner. Holy shit, I am a gas production factory today. Fortunately I have a bunch of people coming over for gaming! This could be my Bean Soup Day.

I've put some time into Half-Life 2. It's really not as good as the first one, is it? It's technically impressive, and the shooting is fun, but the storyline doesn't have the oomph of the first one. I think part of what hurts the immersion, for me, is that you never have a clear idea of what you're doing besides in the loosest sense ("go find this dude"). You just wander down the one path available to you shooting things until you get where you need to be. That seems silly in the context of being in a huge city. Also, the AI soldiers don't really seem to be strategizing as much as they did in the first game. With only a couple of exceptions so far I have been able to run straight at every opponent while firing my machine gun and do just fine.

Also what the hell is with this stupid boat, they should have called this Disney Presents: Half Life 2: Jungle Cruise Adventures.

| Not quite safe

Tragically, Philippine local terrorists rolled a one in the roll-a-one-phase. Result: "1" - unleash a small rectangular bomb, detonating it in a remote but popular location such as a mall. The devestating attack decreases population by 92 and causes a minor political stir in the country. Lose 1 faction point. Terrorists gain 1 honor point.

That's the stir around here as late. Everyone seems to be talking about it next to the ballot cheating that happened from the last election. Although it's hard to imagine Manhattan Village exploding or Galleria for that matter. Where would I go to watch toy story? It would cause quite some havoc.

Porn Movies watched the last 24 hours

One Nite IN Paris - what a title. Enuff said. It was actually pretty good for a home "blown" movie

Pirates - This was actually pretty good with a stimulating storyline. Recommended. Reminded me of Wicked women. First mate that gives all the pirates blowjobs... wow.... just wow

Gladiator I thru IV- Total nudity/porn knockoff version of "Gladiator". Honestly these storyline productions are really getting good. It was made in Italy so the voice dubovers are a bit funny. Good series.

Cleopatra I and II - Would avoid this one. The chicks are just fugly.


I could play some Wow or some board game at the moment... but my computers too damn slow.

J.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Love your text adventure idear Denis!

Just a reminder to all Action Teamsters, there's some gaming going on from 1:00 - on Saturday. There are three board gamer group dudes showing up and I know at least Tannhauser and D&D minis will be in effect, plus whatever else sounds good. You guys are welcome to show up. The theme is "roll dice and kill stuff," so more or less any game with mass slaughter is fair game.

PS Jon + Target Wine Cube + Temporary Bachelor + Long Week = trouble.
Ahoy ahoy!

I'm still alive. Not much happening here. In fact I've devolved to the point where all my free time is spent watching anime in my underwear with a tub of ice cream resting on my belly. I hear the ladies like that.

There is a new MMORPG coming out soon, Tabula Rasa. Sci fi game with nice design sense. I might check it out. It's a lot more shooty than WoW though. I'm not really a FPS gamer. I don't want to be corrupted by video games and become the crazy guy shooting up the MacDonald's. I prefer less violent pastimes, like D&D. There is nothing like playing my half orc assasin and sacrificing pixies to Orcus.

Oh yah, London Hellgate is coming out soon. They are trying to sell it like Diablo III the FPS. Can't say I'm a fan of shooty games. But I'm curious about it all the same.

Speaking of which, I already told Eric about it. I want to make Zork the FPS game. The first text based first person shooter game. Brilliant! Here's a sample screenshot:

-->East
You enter a large round room with exits in all cardinal directions.

-->Look
You see a health pack.
You see [A$$ Killah666].

-->Equip sniper rifle
You equip the sniper rifle.

-->Shoot A$$ Killah666
The rifle clicks, it is not loaded.

-->Reload sniper rifle
The sniper rifle is reloaded.

-->Shoot A$$ Killah666
Headshot. Fatality. You pwn3d the n00b.

The physics engine on this baby is going to be the Roxxxxors!

Monday, October 15, 2007

Oh yeah, forgot to mention it but this Saturday I invited the gaming group for games, basically anything that involves rolling dice and killing stuff is fair game. I'm thinking Descent, Runebound, that kind of thing. One guy has $700 worth of D&D Miniatures that he's bringing, and a warmachine demo may even be in the offing.

Anyway, Eric/Mike/Aaron, any of you dude wants to come by Saturday afternoon, feel free.
Bioshock is great! I came back to it last night but unfortunately, I think I might have to restart it, because I'm in the middle of this chapter where I don't really remember what's going on, or the layout, and so I'm kind of bumbling around and the momentum has deflated somewhat. But, I think it would be fun to restart too, so that's cool.

Eric, my offer to lock you in my back room until you have painted all my miniatures still holds, if you need something to do... I'll even prime them first.
I dunno... I can't imagine playing oblivicock with a tacky 360 controller. And only 30 bucks for PC. All about the WASD baby! It's good. I almost wanna start over though - one of those games where once you figure out how to work it, you realize you coulda done a bunch of shit different in the beginning. Like WoW. I don't think I'll be going back to WoW for a long time. It was just too gnarly, and I burned the fuck out of it this last go round. Yeah, fuck leatherworking. I dunno, all the proffesions kinda booty. Engineering was fun though.

I tried BioShock, pretty cool. On the PC. But then when I finished the demo I looked online and read like every single journal entry from the game, so like, i totally know all the twists n turns... so yeah, I killed that for me. Assassins Creed!!! That's gonna be the shit man (or its totally not, who knows?)

| More LIke BLOWblivion

- Can't get past the interface and graphics. I know the depth is there, the whole open endedness is awesome, the equipment, side stories, etc. is awesome, but I fired it up again before 'lending it' to Jon, and was kinda sad. Seriously, I was sad that I had to play this game. So I didn't, and bought Doom from XBox Live Arcade. Now THAT is a fun game!

- Bioshock is another game you should contemplate getting for the 360 Rudy. It is really fun and interesting. I mean, it is a shooter and all that, but there is enough story, and interesting bits so far to keep me interested. I am notorious for buying, briefly playing, and shelving games and this one has kept me coming back for like a week! It is pretty fun.

- Where is Denis?

- I am 9 out of 10 teams in our hockey league. Ugh. Interesting format I chose for the league. I you get a crappy draft, or a few players on the IR or DTD, it is a slow process to try and remedy the problem since changes only take effect once a week. I like it though, it is low stress and reflects kinda what I like about games which is to make the best out of what you got and not all games are gonna be balanced, etc. Fun! I think I lost this week 8 - 1.... :(

- Having fun playing around with Docnorvell, though I am considering dumping my skinning and leatherworking for engineering and mining. I did a terrible job at keeping my leatherworking up and at this point there is no incentive to leatherwork cause I can wear mail! Thoughts? Not looking forward to scoping the low level places for copper mines, but there you go. Kinda weird not having any alts on this server, too. Docnorvell comes from a simpler, more pure time in my WoW gaming.

- The Kings SUCK.

- I feel the need for a tactile, hands on, modelling/painting/constructing project. Any ideas? So far I have been contemplating finishing the Battlelore/Memoir/Battle Cry hex board as well as finishing my 15mm Battle Cry with casualties project. No one ever plays Battle Cry anymore, but the idea of ACW with casualties just seems so neat/grotesque to me. Again, any ideas?

Sunday, October 14, 2007

I guess in its defense, you can always say: goddamn movie ticket is 10-12 bucks, for maybe 2 hours, and most movies are pretty bad. Or friggen drinks at a bar, 20 bucks is pretty much 2 drinks. STILL, I can blow money on movies and drinks, but when its buyin something like a game, I get all McScrooge. And I'm still bitter they made CounterStrike a game you gotta buy separate from HL2 - and its like 30 bucks I think! Bah! I just wanna try the friggen thing.

Yeah, still liking Oblivion. If WoW had never existed, I'd probably say its one of the greatest games EVER! But man, nothing fucks with WoW, and thats with thousands of real people running around too! But, this is pretty neat. And it gives me hope of Fallout 3 being like Oblivion but post-apocostyle.
I just finished the last level of Portal and yeah, those end credits are really funny! The game has a good sense of humor through the whole thing, and the credits pay off a couple of running jokes in the game.

I guess it took me about three-four hours to get through the entire thing, and there are advanced levels and achievements to go for, etc., so I could probably squeeze two more hours out of it. Five-six hours for twenty bucks, I dunno.
Yeah dude, you got my backup on the GRRM ghostbustin if his fat crazy ass dies. I didn't even really like the last book very much, BUT I'm gonna give it another shot. The first book is reading really different to me right now, and I'm really enjoying it (still can't stand some POVs, I'm lookin at you Dani!)

I looked at the end fight and credits for Portal on utube - pretty awesome! Just like i beat it myself.
Eric lent me his copy of Oblivion for xbox, so I'll check that out soon too! I haven't had a lot of times to play videogames lately, but with my girlfriend out of town, I figure this is a perfect week to crank up the volume and blast my way through some of these games. Bioshock, I'm looking at you! I'm interested to see whether I like Oblivion or not. I didn't like Daggerfall or Morrowind, and you can't mod out the problems with the base game on the xbox like you can on PC, but still, people seem to like it. I have been getting a lot of advice like "don't make your main skills your primaries!"

I picked up the orange box for 360. So far I've been playing Portal, which I don't think is worth $20 since it's pretty short, but it's a lot of fun. If the whole orange box package isn't worth it to you right now then I would definitely wait for it to drop in price and then pick it up. I'm looking forward to finally joining the 20th century and playing Half-Life 2 finally.

George RR Martin has got to get his shit together! Obviously I hope he doesn't pull a Stephen King and just crap out the last books (I tried reading the 5th book in the Dark Tower series, but it was so crappy I couldn't get anywhere). But man, if he pulls a Robert Jordan on me, I'm putting on the tiger suit and stalking his ghost.
Art will like this: So I went and bought Oblivion today. Yeah, a little late, but I've been re-reading the first Ice and Fire book: Game of Thrones, and got an itch for some fantasy gaming. I'm surprised, it actually runs completely fine on my machine at High Quality settings. Maybe it's kind of old already? I did get a decent gfx card maybe 6 months ago, maybe thats it. On the other hand, I tried the Unreal Tourney 3 demo, and it "ran" smooth and fine, but it dialed down the graphics SO much, seriously looked like the original Wolf 3D with these horrible blocky textures. WOW, looked bad. BUT, the fps were really high, so I guess it'll scale to just about any machine.

Anyways, I just played a pretty marathon session of Oblivion. Not completely sold on it yet, but it seems pretty interesting. Not really feelings the indoor look and feel (dungeons and main city I've seen so far) but the outdoor stuff looks pretty great - real nice long view. Mostly just dicked around in town. Next time I play I'll try getting back on the main storyline to see how stuff feels.

Man, that upcoming 360 game Assasin's Creed looks friggen RAD! Oh man, that's almost incentive to buy one of those monsters. But then, that'd be like payin 400 bucks for one game. Nothing else looked that interesting to me (on pretty much any console to be honest.) Wish I hadn't just bought HL2 a couple months back, cause I would have definately gone for the orange box. Now I'm like, not gonna spend that money just for TF2 and Portal. Not really interested in the other HL episodes. NEver finished the original game. It was good, but I just lost interest I think somewhere on the highway 17 lvl. The flash game based on Portal though is pretty fun! They did a great job doing a 2-D version. Looks like itd be a good cell phone game. CLICK