| So, Yeah...

Just set up a test Minecraft server here... yes that's right, Minecraft.

IP address is:

(78 - 7) . (190+8) . (116+100) . (122+20)

No idea if it will work, but imma log in right now and see what happens.

Man oh man, do I love the Legos.

LEGOsssss!

Yah mon, Minecraft is freaking incredible. It's even more fun when you play with a group of people and start building huge cities, roller coasters or whatever the hell your brain can come up with :)

Also, discovering dungeons and then getting a group of buddies together to go explore it is a hell of a lot of fun. There's a serious tension in the air when you can't see any bad guys and all you hear is the undead moaning and screaming somewhere in the pitch black ahead of you (or through the wall you're about to knock down, lol).

Also, stupid creepers. lol.



In other news.. It looks like I've passed all the screening for Nationwide Insurance. It's been a really tough decision to make, but I think I'm going to take the plunge and pass on the Casino General Manager position. The Casino is offering a very stout salary and crazy good benefits package (holy shit, 100% matching up to 10% of gross pay.. no cap on matching!?)

But, I have a meeting with Nationwide tomorrow to do all the final interview shiz and get the paperwork rolling. Looks like I'll be a self employed jerk here in a little while (actually, don't get stuck with a 1099 until out of the 18 month training program).

Pretty excited! A little scared, but overall, confident that we'll get this done and begin the next big chapter of life.

| ps

I ended up getting Minecraft the other night. I could have probably stuck to the free version that's on the site because it's pretty fun, but I wanted to use custom skins and be around for it's eventual real-release. Awesome awesome game. Looking at the various mod packs too and now people are making adventure maps n stuff, so should get a lot of mileage off this thing. Thanks for pushing it Art!

Do you really get the steam version for free? Where'd you find that out? If you're gonna buy it for console, Amazon has it for $55 pre-order and then you get a $20 credit towards a future video game purchase which is pretty good. They also have the PC version for $45 which is slightly less than Steam. I think it looks like a great game and I'll def be getting it. It's all co-opy, so we gotta play!

My sister and her kids are visiting and I've got 4 controllers hooked up to the xbox so we've been playing tons of co-op N+ and Castle Crashers. They get so worked up because N+ is so stressful, but when we beat a level there's cheering and hi-fives. :) :kids:

Any of you jokers picking up Portal 2? It'll probably be a day one purchase for me. The coop campaign sounds pretty promising, too.

Sounds like the PS3 version may actually be the best version to buy, as it also comes with a Steam version for PC!

A less savory sort would tell you that every show is up for downloads the night after they air, so it's really not too hard to keep up with cable shows. DO IT! Breakin the law, breakin the law. (JUST KIDDING BIG BROTHER!)

Cool free rogue-like to try if anyone is interested is called Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup:
http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/
It's got a nice tile-set so you don't have to look at asci stuff (but you can if you want), and like tutorials and stuff - it's very user friendly.

Zombie game was pretty cool! Blendo games also made that space game I really love, Flotilla. I think it's basically a one dude operation, so his games are pretty sweet in that regard.

Atom Z. Smasher does look real fun Aeryk! I dunno though, the demo is not all that compelling, in the sense that it goes to a white screen then immediately crashes to desktop... either the demo is too short or they didn't QA the OS X version quite enough.

I'm getting myself wayyy too hyped for the HBO Game of Thrones series considering I will not be able to watch it for quite a while since I have to wait for the DVDs. I'm on the second book now. FUCK YOU JOFFREY!

After getting totally hammered by 1:00 PM, we went to Roller Derby last night. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was really fun. Sort of a WWF theatrical vibe to the endeavor, people were flying out of the ring left and right (which looks like it hurt) and at one point a coach got hit with a steel chair. Good stuff!

| eLzar STDs

I too had a similar incident happen a few months back from my Hotmail account, which has no phone or email client configured to access it. Web access only for that account.

I think the vector is via someone else's infected computer/email client. The address book is harvested and then email(s) is/are sent from various users in the address book addressed to all the email addresses in said infected email client's harvested address book. Either that, or a mass email I was cc'd on was picked online by TCP/IP sniffers or an infected server. Either way, I did not have record of the email sent from my account, which means it was likely sent via some spam SMTP/Zombie server somewhere, spoofed under myname@hotmail.com.

The story seems even more likely when I looked at the cc list on the email sent to look as it came from me. Many of the people I knew, but a lot I didn't. And people that I emailed most were not included, such as you fine Action jArks.

Either all that above, or eLzar has gonorrhea of the mouth. Probably the latter.

My two cents.

D>M>

| To All the Spam I've Spammed Before

Not my computer, but rather my phone, or gmail itself.

I have no local email client configured, so an infection there wouldn't compromise my gmail account. One of Leslie's co-workers sent out the SAME messages from his gmail the day before, he has a Droid. I have a Droid. The Droid was pushed an update the morning after I 'sent' the email.... seems convenient.

Also, there is no record of a sent mail in either my phone, or the web. What is interesting is that it is also not sending to any contact list I have on my phone, it seems to have sent to any email address I have ever sent to from gmail, evar!

Long live the Cloud!

PS As a side note, I have been too lax in using my regular email account in the world, so I have created yet another new email junk account: thisisnotmyemailaddresseither at gmail dot com. I thought it was funny anyway.

| Elrock's Email has Web Aids

But seriously, your gmail account is sending out product spam. Get thee to a spybot / malware scanner, stat!

| Best Money Ever Spent

http://store.steampowered.com/app/55040/

Atom Zombie Smasher.

Hard to describe, but a little bit like a zombie apocalypse simulator and a rts (which I HATE), and Pandemic, and Dungeon Lords in a game for $8.99.

I tried the demo at about 9.30pm last night, immediately purchased the game, and then the next time I thought to look at my watch it was after 1am. Great game, fux0rz day at work as a result.

Do it!

I have no one to play with (if you don't count Robert Cop 3) so I'll just wait to check it out at the con.

I started typing a bunch of stuff about MoM and then got bored. It's a solid game, pick it up if you think you can get players for a sort of long, strongly Lovecraft-themed game. $56 is way better than the $80 + tax I paid for it, so... yeah. :(

The double-whammy of the upcoming new book and the HBO series has me finally finishing my reread of Game of Thrones that I started a year ago or so. I left off just where things start getting crazy when the king dies (spoiler) and it's so frustrating going back and reading it in hindsight, and seeing how EVERY SINGLE DECISION Eddard makes is bone-headedly wrong.

PS Aeryk, I am polishing off one of your tasty microbrews!