Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Tommy Mac
“A lot of this revolves around a small time gangster named Tommy MacGregor.” “Tommy Mac, he just runs numbers and is into small time protection racket, what does he have to do with the big Triads?” Skinner was both confused and nervous. This whole tangled web of events was starting to take an interesting turn. He had assumed that this whole thing revolved around the Triads and Yakuza. But apparently it covered much of the organized crime, big or small, across the city. “Well I’ll get to that, but it’ll all become clear by the end of the story.” Shin Lao looked down into her glass. She wasn’t much for alcohol as it tended to dull the senses, and in her line of work that meant the difference between life and death.

“Well you see, it all started with the Viper’s contract on Tommy MacGregor’s life.”

The job was supposed to be simple. Boss Tanaka wanted the competition out of the way. So far he had been unable to shake the Yakuza out of his territory, and this vexed him incredibly. There were things that needed taking care of and he could think of no better people to dispose of them than his own “adopted daughter” and the hired gun he often used. He sat down at his desk and made a quick phone call. “Yes, Mr. Burke. There is a matter that I must discuss with you. I would like to see you in one hour. Standard rules apply.” He hung up the phone and paced the floor a little more. He had started growing increasingly dis-satisfied with the Viper of late. He had taken a decidedly negative slant in his opinion. This would quickly be remedied after he ousted the Yakuza from the surrounded neighborhoods.

The Viper’s warehouse headquarters was quite a sight to behold. He had taken the rundown building just upstate of New York City and turned it nearly into a mansion. Downstairs his garage held several very expensive and very fast cars. The workbench to the left of them held over two dozen license plates. They were all legal and were switched out when they needed to be. Upstairs was his living area. All of it looked very Spartan in comparison to a normal home, but he kept to the essentials. He had built a training area when he practiced several different styles of martial arts and had a shooting range installed, sound proofed, and sealed off from the rest of the space. He looked to the case files that he kept in his desk drawer and found the one he was looking for. The tab at the top read “Burke, Jennifer and Benjamin.” He thumbed through it like he often did, though this provided no additional result from any other time. His family was still gone, he still had no idea to where or if they were even still alive. But it kept him going. He picked up his two modified Desert Eagle .50’s from his desk and grabbed a handful of clips from another drawer.

Jogging down the stairs he grabbed the keys to the sleek black Aston Martin V-12 Vanquish parked in the middle of the garage. This one was by far his favorite. The purr of the supercharged engine was relaxing. One of the few things left to him that brought a smile to his face. He liked things in their proper order, and the sound of the Aston Martin was one thing that was as it should be. A small button on the console opened the door behind him and he squealed from the garage bay. He braked hard and cut the wheel when he cleared the door, sending the car into a controlled skid that left him facing the road. Another button closed the door and set the high tech alarm that he’d had Iceman install for him some months ago.

Eighty Five. Ninety. One Hundred and five the speedometer read, and still the tach didn’t ping about four thousand. “The English sure know how to build em” he thought out loud as the stretch of highway between his base and New York City sped by in a blur. New York City crept up on far too quickly and he was forced to slow to the speed limit. He state cops wouldn’t mess with him on the highway, but these city cops wouldn’t think for a second about pulling him over, and that would be a bad thing. He passed through some of the roughest neighborhoods of New York and thought nothing of it. Most of the people around here knew him, and knew that he was no one to be trifled with. He had done many of the worst element around here many favors in his life so they owed him at least that much.

Boss Tanaka’s estate was something straight out of a Hong Kong action movie. The Viper often wondered if he had just been caught up in the cliché or if it was a conscious effort. Though it occupied nearly an acre just outside of Hell’s Kitchen, it looked to be a Japanese styled abode. He twelve foot brick wall that surrounded the estate was the only thing that was out of place. However inside of that small bit of protection all appeared lush green and tranquil. Reflecting pools and atriums nearly littered both sides of a pebbled walk that surrounded the house. The Japanese architecture of the building itself was something of a paradox considering Boss Tanaka’s decided attempts to hide his mixed heritage. It was a very sore subject to discuss his Japanese family. His name and his home were both very indicative of the Japanese, yet he insisted that he was wholly Chinese. This was never discussed as the last person had had his tongue pulled from his body and pulled behind a speeding car through Hell’s Kitchen and finally disposed of on the island.

The Viper parked the car in a shower of gravel near the house. Walking to the front entrance he was quickly patted down to ensure he wasn’t carrying any weapons. “You know I know better than that. This isn’t my first time you know.” “Yes, but you know the reasons. Boos Tanaka is very paranoid and you are not family. You’re just some hired rat who does whatever Boss Tanaka wants for a piece of cheese.” The Viper simply smiled. This singular trait was the main reason that he was still alive, despite many people’s attempt to the contrary. He was very cool headed and didn’t take to provocation very easily. “Very well Tien, I’m here to see the boss. You wouldn’t want to make me late would you?” He was allowed to pass after some words the guard spat at him in Chinese. The Viper understood everything the man said as he spoke fluent Chinese, amongst other languages. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” he flung over his shoulder as he walked through the door.

He strolled through the house as he often did several times a week. Boss Tanaka in his increasing age was becoming desperate to gain as much strength as he could in this neighborhood before he died. This led him to want to be rid of as many people that opposed him as he could, thus keeping the Viper very busy. This was good, because dead gangsters meant money for him. He knocked on Tanaka’s office door waiting to be called in. He wasn’t disappointed as the elder man’s serene “enter” was heard through the heavy oak and steel door. “Good afternoon mister Burke. I see you made it without issue?” Boos Tanaka always seemed to state things as a question as if he wasn’t sure what went on outside of this office. “As always I made it easily with time to spare I notice.” The Viper prided himself on his efficiency in all things and being late was one of those things he couldn’t afford in his line of work. “But there is business to attend to and I do not want to keep you too long. This man, Tommy MacGregor has become a problem to me. I want him eliminated. Standard fee, standard conditions. You’ll bring Shin Lao with you. You’re bound to meet some…interference. You’ll leave at once. You have three days.” Boss Tanaka got right to the point and said no more after that, simply sliding the file forward. The Viper picked it up without saying a word and exited Tanaka’s office. Shin Lao was waiting for him by the front door, duffle bag slung over her shoulder and the hard plastic case he knew held a powerful HK227 rifle in her hand.
“Let’s drive.” He said with a small smile. He liked these particular jobs.

Several city miles later he broke onto the interstate and kicked up the engine to a dull roar. “I don’t know about this one Shin. It feels wrong.” He trusted her completely. They had worked together on close to fifteen jobs now and had become quite close. They now often flirted back and forth playfully to pass the time waiting on the job. “What do you mean?” she asked. She knew that if his instincts were telling him something, than more than likely something smelled bad. She’d come to respect his shrewd eye and his uncanny knack for detecting bullshit. “This guy, Tommy MacGregor is small time. He’s nobody in the grand scheme of things. Why is this simple hoodlum on Tanaka’s radar at all? There’s something somebody’s not telling us and I don’t like that. Not one bit.” The Viper hit the clutch and pushed the car into sixth gear, the tachometer rising up sharply for a brief second and then falling back down to a comfortable 4500 rpm. “Tanaka’s been pretty secretive lately. He’s been calling out hits on a lot of people. I think he’s becoming too paranoid of late.” Shin recounted the story of how she had recently killed a small time gun dealer on the island because he had refused to deal with Tanaka for a “bargain price”.

“It’s getting kind of scary Elias. The man has slowly been slipping further and further into his own paranoia.” “That’s what makes me worry about this particular job Shin. Something doesn’t feel right. We’ll do the legwork on this before we act. I’ll have Iceman pull some information and we’ll see how we go from there.” The pulled into the lot at roughly one hundred and twenty miles per hour and skidded to a halt just in front of the warehouse door. The Viper stepped out of the car and looked around. Something just wasn’t feeling right and he reached into his jacket, his hand resting on the Desert Eagle in its holster. He peered around the front of the building. Shin Lao became worried by the intense look on his face. His instincts were not often wrong and she pulled the small Glock that she kept as a back up piece from her duffle bag. “Speaking of paranoid.” She whispered playfully. “shhh” he hissed quietly. “There’s somebody here.” He flung the door open and noted that the alarm didn’t make its traditional beeping. It had somehow been deactivate. “I’m gonna need to speak with Iceman about that” he thought as he peered around the darkened garage. He hit the lights and found nobody.

They spread out and searched the downstairs quietly but no sign of anybody being there was found. They both crept upstairs, the light on in the Viper’s office. The feeling of warmth when you pass shortly behind someone could be felt at the door as the Viper forced it open quickly and brought his gun to level on the man sitting in his chair, puffing strongly on one of his Cuban cigars. “Dammit Edgar!! You almost got several holes punched in you. I told you that I’d come around next week to see what you’ve got.” “Yeah, but this old man might not be around next week, so there’s no time like the present. I’ve got something that your lovely lady might be interested in this time as well.”

Edgar Oswald was a small time gun dealer. He had to be well past seventy but still lived his life like he was twenty. He drank often, and much. He smoked those damn Cuban cigars that the Viper couldn’t stand. Edgar Oswald also supplied much of the Viper’s firearms and had a very good mind for the type of work that he was in. “One of the Seven Dwarves put out a new toy for you, as well as for your co-worker there. The cloud of smoke that surrounded Edgar’s head always seemed to be there. Edgar wasn’t an impressive man physically by any means. His thin grey hair was combed over his balding scalp in a futile attempt to hide the face that he was mostly bald. He reached over and popped a few antacids into his mouth. “Is that ulcer still giving you hell?” The Viper found Edgar amusing in his little routines. He was generally a kind man, reminding him of the friendly grandfather in the holiday movies. Unfortunately that type of thing never happened in the real world. “You know it boy. If that ulcer doesn’t get me than the smoking probably will.” The man’s doctor had been telling him for years to knock it off, but he never listened. Indignant didn’t even begin to describe Edgar’s feelings towards the medical community. “Now let’s get down to business”

Unfortunately the weaponry itself didn’t interest the Viper all that much. He had a well stocked room with the things that he most often used and none of the new toys really stood out. Although some of the new AET rounds that Edgar brought interested him unbelievably. He generally used the standard .50 rounds but these new ones Edgar tested out in his range and the damage piqued his interest. “I’ll take a box of them for now. If I like them I’ll pick up more in the future. You know the deal; I don’t take anything out on a date unless I’ve fired several hundred rounds.” The Viper was very picky about his weapons and tended not to stray too far from what was tried in true. In the middle of a firefight wasn’t the time to find out just how fragile that new sub-machinegun really was. Nothing interested Shin Lao however and she told Edgar maybe next time. Edgar packed up his things smiling to himself, happy that he was dealing with true professionalism unlike some of those other thugs and goons that walked through his door. These two were the real deal.

The next stage of the job was reconnaissance. Never walk into a situation blind, which was always the Viper’s motto. For the next leg of their job the Viper contacted his man with the information. Someone named the Iceman. “I never met the Iceman face to face, nor have I ever heard his real name.” Shin Lao explained to Skinner. Skinner was totally enthralled in the tale thus far and recognized several of the names that she had mentioned. The Iceman had never shown up on his radar though, so there was doubtfully any hard information. “It’s getting late, perhaps we should continue this story tomorrow, and maybe away from a police station. This is a dangerous situation on both of our parts.” Shin Lao nodded. Her thoughts were obviously on the past six years throughout the telling of the story. “Yes, perhaps you’re right detective. I’ll be in touch.” She stood and headed for the door. Her lean athletic body moved with the grace of a cat as she reached for the handle and turned her head slightly towards Skinner. “You’re the only one on this entire force that he trusted Skinner. He was certain that the rest of them were on the take. Watch your back.” Before he could say anything she had silently slipped through the door, leaving him alone with two empty glasses and nothing to go home to.

Another Day...Another Chapter

Chapter 2 Days Gone By
Shin Lao had met the Viper close to 6 years before. Her parents had brought her over, with the help of the local Triad boss, Boss Tanaka. Unfortunately for almost everybody involved, Boss Tanaka had gone back on his original deal with her parents and raised the price of her immigration. When her parents, humble owners of a small store in Brooklyn, had been unable to meet the price Boss Tanaka simply kept her, not even offering them the chance to pay for her eventual release. What Boss Tanaka saw in her however was a young bit of clay to mold. Of course she had tried to run away on numerous occasions, but the beating and desolation, punishments for her transgressions, had eventually left her loyal and ready for what the aging gang boss had in mind. She was trained, both mentally and physically, to be an assassin. Her young body and mind were shaped quickly into a killer. At the age of 20 he sent her out on her first kill, coupled with the Caucasian he often hired.

The Viper and Shin Lao, who went by the moniker of Ghost we sent out to kill a local store owner who had gotten the police involved when he was told to pay the protection money or lose his store. Of course the police proved a minor inconvenience and were quickly persuaded that there was nothing illegal going on under Matsuo Tanaka’s roof. Unfortunately for the store owner, that was far from the truth. This was Shin Lao’s first kill and she was terrified. Despite all of the Boss’ training and programming, she still didn’t want to kill anyone. The rifle in her hand had shaken wildly as they discussed the plan. “Think of this man as the worst person in the world. Imagine him as the person you’d like to put a bullet in the most. I find that helps most of the time.” The Viper had told her. “What if it doesn’t?” the young girl asked, still frightened of taking another human life. “If it doesn’t then that’s what I’m here for.” He cocked the two hand cannons that he had taken from his shoulder holsters beneath his overcoat. She was instantly frightened and nearly began to cry. He put his arm around her shoulders and smiled. “Don’t worry sweetie, these aren’t for you. I just meant that I’m here to finish it if you can’t. Don’t worry about Boss Tanaka if you don’t have the nerve.” This had been the first bit of warmth that she had been given in nearly 8 years and she smiled a little, her narrow brown eyes shiny from the tears that almost had fallen from them.

The plan had been simple. Shin Lao was to sit on the adjacent roof and wait for the man to leave for the night. If she missed or he didn’t come out, then the Viper was to finish things “up close and personal”. Shin Lao looked over the picture that had been given to her of the target. No name was in the file on the job. The Viper had told her that that was the way it was so that no one got too involved in the target. “It’s just a nameless face that had committed some wrong to the family. No family, no friends, no personal involvement. Just a face and a gun.” He had told her. She wondered about this man, and how he had become so cold and such and able killer when he wasn’t so much older than herself. However she didn’t have much time to ponder the other man’s back-story as she heard the bell of the store’s door jingle. She peered over the buttressed roof and checked the face of the man leaving the store with her picture. They matched and she leveled her rifle.

The man peered around, as if expecting what was about to befall him. He had gone against the Triads and knew his days were numbered. The police had called him and told him of their findings and that it was dangerous to bring such slanderous charges against someone who was such a large contributor to the community. But he knew differently and so he wasn’t surprised at all when the hushed shot came from an unseen elevation, hitting him square in the shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to the ground. He went into shock before he had time to be surprised by the tall white man that walked up to him and declared “Boss Tanaka sends his regards” and fired several rounds into the man’s skull.

Shin Lao had of course imagined this man was the one person on this planet that she had wanted dead, Boss Tanaka. However her hands still shook and her eyes were still bleary with tears, sending her shot down and to the left. Through a great strength of will she had pulled the trigger and fallen behind the buttress to hide from the scream of pain the man had let out. She didn’t want to see. She heard the voice of the Viper, the man who had comforted and reassured her not a half hour ago. It was now cold, and sounded like Boss Tanaka’s. “Boss Tanaka sends” his regards, then came four of the loudest noises she had heard in her life as he emptied the rounds into the man. She had had only moments to cry when the light footsteps of the other killer were heard coming through the rooftop door. She opened her eyes to see him kneeling in front of her, his dark glasses slipped slightly down his nose, showing two dark brown rings around his dilated pupils. She then realized that he was scared as well and she smiled. “It’s never easy taking another life, no matter how long you’ve been in this business. Only the truly wicked and insane relish this type of job. I do it for the money…and other reasons.” “And what reasons would those be?” She asked, slightly emboldened knowing that she wasn’t alone in her fears. “Personal” He replied and pushed his glasses up. “Now let’s get out of here, those shots were loud enough to wake up hell itself.”

That night she had cried herself to sleep. She didn’t want to be a killer, but she really had no choice. Boss Tanaka owned her and she had to do what he wanted her to do. That was her first job, and her first run in with the Viper. Six years had passed since that night and there had been hundreds of jobs since then, both solo and coupled with various others of Boss Tanaka’s henchmen. But she had loved the times that she had to run with him. He didn’t leer over her like the others did. At twenty six she was gorgeous by most people’s standards. Tall, lean, well muscled her body was well a product of her training and knew it drew attention from the twisted bastards of Tanaka’s gang.

So here she stood, in a Detective’s office, a free woman thanks to a man that was just recently dead wishing it were otherwise. She cried in this man’s office, whom she had only met twice. The Viper’s words from her first job kept coming back to her whenever she had a moment to herself. She had very much loved him, but the job had kept them apart in that capacity. “Mind if I have a seat Skinner, I have a lot to tell you.” “By all means fill me in.” He poured her a glass of his whiskey and she sat in the obligatory, incredibly uncomfortable chair in front of his desk.

Enter the Viper Pit

Well, as promised I'm starting to post my NaNoWriMo 2k5 novel. I'm going to post a chapter a day so it'll take close to a month to put the whole thing up on the interweb. So without any furter ado I present to you...Chapter 1

Chapter 1. Anonymous Posting
The veteran detective couldn’t believe what was shown on the monitor in front of him. Detective Leonard Skinner had a blank, shocked look upon his dark face as the EBay listing in front of him had been something that he hadn’t expected when he opened the envelop that had been sitting on his desk when he came in to turn in some paperwork from a recent homicide case he had been working.

The screen in front of him showed exactly this: One pair of collectors Desert Eagle .50’s with intricate scroll work across the barrels of both. Due to the graininess of the photo you couldn’t make out exactly the work that was done, but to Detective Skinner he knew those guns all too well. He continued to read the description of the well modified firearms. “Not your off the shelf hand cannons, these guns have been modified with gas vents on both pistols, gel cushion grip and have been rebuilt nearly from scratch to reduce weight, yet still balanced enough to reduce kick back. One owner.” The name of the seller was HKBOluvah, whatever that was supposed to mean.

The 38 year old policeman rubbed his eyes tiredly. It had been one hell of a week and now there seemed to be one more thing wrong. “You’ll know when I retire.” The young man had said to him over 3 years ago. “I’ll put down my guns when I’m either dead or out of the game. But until then I’ll do what I do, and you do what you do, and neither of us will have to suffer.” That’s what the Viper had said at their first “meeting”. It wasn’t that it was so much a meeting, but that Skinner had finally caught up to him after many, many attempts.

The Viper was obviously an alias, and it had taken quite a bit of work on the detective’s part, but he had finally managed to find a record of the man’s existence that hadn’t been wiped out. What else had he to do than to hound perps now? After Ellie had left him 12 years ago, he had nothing else to go home to besides an empty house and a growing caseload.

He opened the drawer just to the left of him and takes out a bottle of fine Irish whiskey. The half empty bottle reminded him that he had said he was gonna quit this stuff years ago. But with cases like the ones he ran, it was most likely the only thing keeping him sane. He poured a glass and sipped at it while he stared in disbelief at the computer screen again. “So the bastard’s giving it up eh. At least my caseload will go down after this.” He had been trailing the Viper for years. After he had left a trail of dead gangsters and pimps and the like, the cases started to pile up on Skinner’s desk. Forensics had proven long ago that the same man had killed all of them, and not by the unique rounds that they had found lodged in the victims, but by the casings that lay littered around the crime scenes. All of the casings had the same etchings on them, of a coiled snake baring its fangs.

He’d seen the type before. They were marked bullets, often used by local Yakuza lords to give to their assassins so that the victim’s organization knew who was responsible for the death. But this particular one had been unique. The case had originally been steered towards a new crime syndicate in his beloved New York City, but his own perseverance had proved otherwise, at least to himself. There was something charismatic about the guy, and even though Skinner was a seasoned cop, he just couldn’t help by sympathize with the hitman.

Skinner had often had thoughts of doing what the Viper did after his daughter was kidnapped and never found. He had become frustrated by the inability of the police force to find his daughter or who was responsible for her disappearance. No body had ever been found and it had been considered a closed case. But he was a man of the law and couldn’t perform such vigilante actions, and so here he sat in his old swivel chair, sipping Bushmill’s, staring at a computer screen that told him that there was a hitman that was either dead or retired.

It was after 20 minutes of this line of thoughts that the knock on the door came. He hadn’t expected anyone, most of the people who would require his attention had left hours ago. He checked the silhouette against the frosted glass and lettering of the door and noted a tall slender figure on the other side. “Come in!” he shouted, not really concerned with getting up. He turned off his monitor before he noted the face of the young woman that walked through the door. “You know that you’re in a police station, right?” He asked her. She was almost as ballsy as the Viper had been. “Yeah, once you’ve seen one PD you’ve seen em all.” She retorted, the saddened expression on her face almost changing to a small grin, but not quite. “So, is he….dead?” Skinner asked hesitantly. These two were close, partners in a sense. “Yes, he’s dead.” She managed to whisper out before the sobs racked her lithe body.

My Case Fan Sounds Like a Boeing

That is all.

In Other News...

Rakion is going live December 1st, with open beta right up until the launch date. Woohoo and all. Can't wait to see if they're ironed out the class balances and all.

Mahalo

Observations

Every time I wipe my hard drive I seem to get a little nostalgic. So I went through my old back up cd's and looked at stuff I'd made or written years ago. And so I went through my web spaces and found There are little bits of me all over the Interweb.

Of course several of those sites harkened back to my time with Vampire: Redemption and one of those many of you will remember from my infancy on the internet. And all of them were before I learned CSS, if you can't tell by the sizing issues and frames and tables that I used prfoundly. But all in all they're a part of me.

How many of you can remember your first web address? We've all built a web page at one point, whether it was more recently in the form of a blog, or way back in the day with the geocities page builder. What was your first web address? Mine was www.geocities.com/paris/metro/6409/. This was also followed shortly by my fortune city account which the next to original ORTWAS site was found on. There are several other sites still on that fortune city address, but I'm not able to log in to them anymore so the early ORTWAS site will have to do for that shard of my life. Many of my early sites don't exist anymore because the services have gone out of business or been bought out and removed, so that's pretty much all that's left.

Mahalo

Computer Viruses and The Art of War...

As you can tell from the title I've had a trying 24 hours ridding my computer of various viruses and such. It was an epic battle and in the end I emerged victorious, though there were many casualties.

"While heading the profit of my counsel,
avail yourself also of any helpful circumstances
over and beyond the ordinary rules."

So I had to remove my Anti-Virus program for a brief period of time. I had bought a cheap one because my McAfee CD was nowhere to be found. So I uninstalled the old one when I found my CD and installed McAfee. For some reason my McAfee AVP would crash and so I was left with the sole defenses of my firewall for a scant few days. Apparently that was all that was needed for the insidious forces of the interweb to crawl its way into my system. It had some help though, I believe.

"If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him.
If he is in superior strength, evade him.

If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to
irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them."

So with McAfee finally working last night I was incredibly surprised to find a huge alert pop up from both my AVP and firewall almost simultaneously saying that things were going very foul indeed. Running the scan produced the horrible finds of not only Browser Hijacks, Trojans, and several other nasty things. I was forced to lock down the network to try and contain everything and then I got to work on removing things. I had to split my tricks between my Spyware cleaning, registry cleaning, and AVP. I had to do this all simultaneously because as soon as one stopped and cleared it would pop up on the next scan. I had to hit everything at once. I was growing frustrated and tired at this point. It was going on towards 2am before I set up Virus Scan and went to bed, all traffic blocked and my computer removed from the network.

"In the operations of war,
where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots,
as many heavy chariots, and a hundred thousand
mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them
a thousand li, the expenditure at home and at the front,
including entertainment of guests, small items such as
glue and paint, and sums spent on chariots and armor,
will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day.
Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men."

I had to break down and buy the latest version of Virus Scan last night in my battle. I got to the point to where my older version simply wasn't picking anything up and Ad-Aware was also coming up with nada after probably the 15th scan, but still I was getting desktop pop-ups and browser hijacking. So with my troops in place I went about the ordeal of scanning, finding, editing the registry and scanning again.

"It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted
with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand
the profitable way of carrying it on."

The viruses had the advantage in that they didn't need to worry about getting tired or frustrated. I kept a cool head and continued my attack on the invaders that had held my computer hostage.

"When you engage in actual fighting, if victory
is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and
their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town,
you will exhaust your strength.
Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources
of the State will not be equal to the strain."

I had laid seige to my own computer for close to 24 hours now and I had come to a certain point where neither of us was budging. I had decided that enough was enough and I fired my final salvo...I formatted my hard drive. That's not to say that the invaders didn't go down without a fight. Somehow the F1-12 keys were disabled on my keyboard and made it incredibly difficult to continue into setting up a new Windows installation. That would be when I had to get inventive. I stole a page out of David's book, a trick I saw him do a long time ago...I reprogrammed my keyboard. Through an act of High Geekery a while ago I had learned the ASCII and binary values for such an act, and I remembered David doing something of the like several years ago and so I went about the act of kludging together a small config script in the dos shell I had to install. Don't ask me why I still have DOS disks but I do.

"Thus the highest form of generalship is to
balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent
the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in
order is to attack the enemy's army in the field;
and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities."

So needless to say I'm back and pretty well drained. Why, you may ask, did I not just reformat from the beginning. The answer is simple...I didn't want to. I was determined that I could beat this thing without resorting to the Great Wipe. However in the end it was that sort of short sighted arrogance that led to about 24 hours of me fighting this thing to a standstill. And so that was my weekend...how about you?

Mahalo

NaNo...Epilogue

Well I officially verified my word count this afternoon and I'm an Official 2005 NaNoWriMo Winner, as you can tell by the small graphic to the right. Yay me. Now to just get everything else back on track. *sigh*

NaNo...Day 22

I finished my story this morning, weighing in at 52,631 words. It'll probably shrink some and grow some over the next couple of weeks as I edit it a bit. It is very much an unpolished diamond at the moment, but all in all it turned out pretty decently. That is all for today.

Mahalo

NaNo...Day 21

And I made it!! I crossed 50,000 words this morning and still have about two chapters left to write to wrap everything up. I may not push it past or even to 55,000 but it'll probably be pretty close. I'd have kept writing this morning but my mom showed up to do a little christmas shopping. Looking through friends' blogs and LJ's I noticed that a friend of mine is in the same boat that I was in last week a la "Loathing...There's no Fear to it." It seems to be a common ailment according to the forums and such, but the only advice I can really give is stick through it and the story won't turn out nearly as bad as it appears from inside the jar. My opinion of my own story went from total crap to pretty cool, in my opinion. That's not to say that it isn't total crap, but to me it turned out kinda cool. So in a couple of weeks I'll be posting it up chapter by chapter and you guys can tell me whether I just wasted a month of my life or not ;)

NaNo...Day 20

I'm at roughly 47.5K words as of this morning. Yes I could have finished it this morning, but I want to plan out the last chapter a little rather than flying by the seat of my pants. I have a lot of things to reveal and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to make it all unfold. I have at least four major plot points that absolutely have to happen nearly simultaneously and I have to try and bring them around without just making them sound corny as well as make them sound plausible. I'm not going to reveal exactly what, since I'm gonna make everybody wait. I'm going to post the story here after I've given it a little bit of polish. But other than that things are about normal around here.

Mahalo

Nano...Day 18

Well as of yesterday morning I had crossed the 40,000 word mark. It was a great relief, especially since the words just seemed to flow yesterday and I had 4,000 words under my belt before I even knew it, which was my goal for yesterday, just so i could break 40K and take maybe a day or two off. There's a story or two that I've been neglecting since I started NaNo and I should really get back to those. I need a change of venue for a day or two.

Mahalo

Loathing...There's no Fear to it...

I'm happy to report that i've crossed the 36K word mark this morning, which leaves me with some easy going for the next couple of days. I'll still write be sure of that, but I don't feel nearly as rushed lately. But there's something that I must get off of my chest. I heart NaNo and everything like that. no biggie there, but it's kinda like, at this point, I hate writing the story. That's more than likely my inner editor giving it one last go to fuck me up before I complete this thing, but let's be honest at this point. I've been writing this story, gun to my head, for a little over two weeks now. It's not the story that I dislike per se, but the fact that I'm doing it just for the word count. The big thing is that I'm ready to wrap up the story, on more than one front, but I'm gonna have to drag it out for another 14,000 words, which Is doable, but it feels like I'm almost throwing fluff in there at this point just to stretch it out a bit and that's why I'm not so much in love with the story as I originally was. The exploits of Elias Burke, aka The Viper are many and varied, and I planned to reflect that a little more than I did, but the story kinda took itself over and didn't really lend to me giving out one or two more flashback types of deals. Now that I'm past the point of no return, and wouldn't anyway at this point, I'm discovering that there's a few characters that I meant to showcase more than I did, and certainly wanted to breath a little more life into through backstory and such, but it seemed that I was doing that a little much through the first half of the story and so it just seemed to get into repetitively ending chapters of "lemme tell you a story about..." So I steered more and more away from flashback and went more for the here and now, and in the process people like Edgar, even one of the other main characters Shin Lao, and Detective Skinner got chopped down. Now I've told a great deal of the story through Skinner's eyes so he's kind of become fleshed out throughout the book, but Shin Lao at one point was a fully fleshed out character through the many adventures, and I won't hesitate to mention she was pretty fecking cool. Unfortunately through the NaNo process she got chopped down from a bad bitch of an assassin who could kick anybody's ass on her own to a kind of a sidekick type character. This disappoints me, but will be addressed at a later moment.

New Favorite Passtime...

I have discovered the Joy of Albatross 18. It's something of an online Golf game that I'm digging the hell out of the last couple of days. I'm still a rookie and don't have any of the cool gear, but I've been trying to find an online gold game as Hot Shots doesn't have anything of the sort. It's got the cutesie anime type of graphics but it's a blast against other people. So far I'm 2-1 against other people. if I could only get my putting together things would go much better for me I'm sure. But that's the only gripe I really have about the game. The greens are kind of hard to read. Instead of like other golf games where it'll show you the twist and lie of the green, this one relies on dots that, in theory, will show you where the ball would lie if you putted it through the center of that particular area. I'm not quite a gold legend...but I'm working on it.

Oh and as far as NaNo goes I broke 30,000 words this morning!! Only 20K more to go and roughly 16 days to do it in. I feel i'm in good shape at this point. I'm now dropping into the intense part of the story so it should write itself before I know it.

NaNo...Day 11

Well I crossed over to nearly 22 thousand words this morning. I should be closer to about 25-28, but my mom had been down for the last 3 days or so, so I didn't get much writing done. I had also meant to write some last night, but decided to play a little CoH instead. This worked out perfectly since I really needed to clear my head a bit and relax. Hopefully I'll make up the last few days this weekend and be back on pace where I want to be. But all in all I think I'm a little ahead of the game in comparison to several thousand people. This makes me feel a little better about things as if I keep this pace up I should bit 50K by around the 23rd.

That's not to say that my story hasn't had it's share of problems. I decidedly ran into pacing problems yesterday. I realised that I'm just about halfway through the 50K and a good deal of the story had been revealed. I'm going to be forced to reveal the hook a little sooner than I'd expected, but as I lay awake at about 1am last night I worked it all out in my head so that was one obstacle worked around. Though if this were a Shakespeare play, this would be the point of the Climax, which would then start the downhill slide in the story to the conclusion, so by that pattern, I'm still good to go. All in all I've gotten a little further along than I thought I would so I'm proud in that regard. When the NaNoWriMo is over with, i'll probably post the story up here, chapter by chapter and take thoughts on it. I'm still wanting to do something of a web comic/graphic novel type of thing with it, as I think the story in my head will translate to that medium much better than it's translated thus far to words.

Mahalo

Life, The Universe, and Everything...

So while I've been writing this novel for NaNoWriMo I've been drawing inspiration from all over. Obviously due to the story that I'm telling I've been watching a lot of the Hong Kong action flicks. Some recommendations that I might make for those of you out there who haven't sat through a movie night with me before are: The Replacement Killers, Hard Boiled, The Killer, and Full Contact. You'll also note that these are all Chow Yun Fat movies, and most of them were directed by John Woo. The Replacement Killers would probably be more accessable to most people as it was produced in the west. The Killer I recommend getting the subtitled version, as the dubbed version fails in the way that most dubbed movies do.

Also, strangely, I've been re-reading the books that make up the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I just finished, as you can tell Life, The Universe, and Everything. I just started So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish. However it doesn't stop there, as there was a newer book that he wrote before he died named Mostly Harmless. I have that as well as a short story involving Zahpod Beeblebrox that I don't know about yet, but it has to be interesting. That's all for today, I have to pound out a few thousand more words before I truly relax for the day

Mahalo

A New look...

As I'm sure the couple of you who read this have noticed, but I've changed the look of the place. Mostly this is influenced by the story that I'm writing for the NaNoWriMo, but also because I had wanted to give it a new look a long time ago and just never had the time to learn where blogger places a lot of it's tags to do much. There's gonna be some more changes in the next few weeks to be sure, and possibly a new title. But in the meantime...baby steps.

First a few explanations on a few things since I know a bunch of people are gonna complain about the colors and such. First I wanted to keep it a simple scheme, I don't like a lot of clutter and streamlined is the way to go. Second, there's just something about that little Sepia Tone button that I love when using drawings for backgrounds. White seems to stark and grey just makes me wanna go hang myself. I'm purposely keeping some of the things in the light blue because I didn't want it to go too beige on everybody

Third, that handsome gentleman in the corner is one of my favorite personal RPG characters. That's a character I originally created for a game called Feng Shui, which is an action movie RPG. His name is Elias Burke, known around the mafia/triad/yakuza scene as The Viper. He is also the main character in the story that I'm writing for the NaNo. That's a sketch I did when I first started playing Feng Shui back in probably 92 or 93.

All right, enough explaining myself on my own blog, hope everybody enjoys, if not...I'm not changing it unless I come up with something better...which is doubtful

Inspiration needed...

So as I counted on I've reached a part in my NaNoWriMo story where I'm at a bit of an impasse. The real problem is that I've essentially written myself into a corner. Where I've taken the story up to this point will take an act of god to push my way through. If I do that I may not be able to get the story back on track for quite some time and will take me forever to rectify. The simple solution to this is to delete the last 500 words and re-write, which I don't want to do for several reasons, one of which being that I'm losing 500 words. The other is of course that I'm trying to strangle my inner editor for this thing. So for inspiration I've decided to watch the Replacement Killers. It's a fabulous movie aside from the fact that It kind of neatly wraps of the atmosphere I'm trying to take this story. I'll let you know in 1 hour and 35 minutes how things are going :)

It has Begun...

No I'm not talking about City of Villains...that began last saturday. What I speak of is the National Novel Writing Month. And quite proudly I've written my 3000 words for today. We'll see how things progress as the month continues. I'm writing 3000 a day so that I have some padding on days where the well seems to run dry, giving me a little bit of time so that I don't completely stress out come the 20th and vapor lock because i'm feeling so rushed to make up 10,000 words. It goes until the end of the month, but I'd like to give myself a little leeway. Guess I'll finally get to write the great american novel I've been talking about for years.

Three Hour Warning

The City of Villains headstart for the pre-order customers begins at 0001 EST. Soon I will be bable to make my greatest nemesis. mwahahahaha

Because I Have Nothing Better to do...

I've been kinda busy with the CoV beta testing as of late. They had a rather fun PvP event last night testing out Siren's Call. The heroes won the event of course, but the lag was horrible. Hopefully things will improve once everybody returns to their respective servers. Anywho, I've been playing around with graphics and such from CoH lately and came up with a semi-nifty desktop wallpaper. Now, for an explanation since I think at least one other member of the depicted SG may read this. This is our SG from Protector server, and unfortunately when I went to WoW I deleted my CoH folder and hence lost a great majority of my screenshots. So a good number of the other former members aren't shown in this. So I had to work with what I had from a couple of the screenshots that I had moved to another folder. So anyway, here it is.

Impressions...

So I've had the City of Villain beta account for about a week now, and here are a few impressions of what I've played so far.

1. A lot of the classes are inverses of CoH archetypes. Say for example that the Tanker class is Primary powerset of Defense and secondary of Melee, the Brute AT from CoV is a Melee/Defense for it's powersets. While they have some certainly interesting inherent powers and all, that's the truth that I've come to...except for mastermind.

2. Masterminds rule all. Maybe because I just have a softspot in my heart for the James Bond evil mastermind type of character, but I find the MM's just far too much fun to play.

3. Very laggy. I know it's beta and all, but for god's sake, even if there's a quarter of the CoH population between the 2-4 of the servers they have running for the beta, I should at least be able to make it to the end of an alley in under 5 minutes. I think it may have something to do with the new Mastermind class having a bunch of minions out, but something needs to be fixed before this thing goes live, otherwise it just looks like a slideshow of a really neat game.

4. Mercy Islan is a pain in the ASS to navigate around. The lag has something to do with it, but getting back to your first contact and the trainer is a pain in the ass the first couple of goes.

5. I see a losing a bunch of CoH players to CoV permanently. If they clean up the lag they'll have themselves a very very solid game, and unless a very good majority of the new CoV features find their way over to CoH, people aren't going to be switching back.

Well that's my thoughts for now. In short it's shaping up to be a very worthy purchase. That is all

Mahalo

My Day Has Come!!!! Mwahahahaha

I have seen it. Oh yessssss. The short form is this. I've been crawling the CoV beta forums, which I can say without violating the NDA agreement because this is something affecting CoH, and has been posted on the CoH page. But woot, I saw my first "Nerf Controllers" post. It must be the first sign of the Apocalypso or something...

CoV Beta

I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT! I GOT MY BETA SLOT!

Seppaku 2006

This was posted in the Eternals forums by our own Juris Est. Tell me you don't want this!!!

Sony has announced a proprietary operating system that is now
available on BluRay based machines. Instead of producing cryptic error messages characteristic of Microsoft's operating systems, Sony's
chairman Asai Tawara announced, "we have replaced impersonal
and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with our own Japanese
haiku poetry." The chairman went on to give examples of
Sony's new error messages.


A file that big?
It might be very useful
But now it is gone


The web site you seek
cannot be located, but
endless others exist


Chaos reigns within
Reflect, repent, reboot
Order shall return


ABORTED effort
Close all that you have
You ask way too much


Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that


First snow, then silence
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully


With searching comes loss
and the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found


The Tao that is seen
is not the true Tao until
you bring fresh toner


Stay the patient course
Of little worth is your ire
The network is down


A crash reduces
your expensive computer:
a simple stone


Three things are certain:
death, taxes, and lost data
Guess which has occurred


You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on
This page is not here


Out of memory
We wish to hold the whole sky,
but we never will


Having been erased,
the document you're seeking
must now be retyped


Serious error
All shortcuts have disappeared
Screen Mind Both are blank


Windows VISTA crashed
I am the Blue Screen of Death
No one hears your screams

The beginning is nigh!!

Well tomorrow begin the sign ups (from what I understand) for the NaNoWriMo. I'm going to participate this year. Matter of fact it's kinda what I thrive on. I made a comment in my old blog about being a "Combat Artist" in that I can't really perform well until the pressure is on. I'll procrastinate until the last possible minute and then I'll drill out material like there's no tomorrow, because well, there isn't a tomorrow.

So I'm gonna write a 50,000 word (approximately 175 pages) novel in 30 days. There is no try in this instance. I will succeed. It comes down to roughly 2000 words a day, which is no real problem when you stop to think about it. It's kind of a story I'd wanted to write for a while, and at one point had intended to make a web comic out of about 2 years ago. Now I'm going to be writing it, and willing, it will be a web comic as well. I'll put it up somewhere when I'm done with it, but again 50 K words is something of a lengthy post. So i'll figure something out.

Stating the Obvious...

As you can tell i've been indulging in my two favorite passtimes, graphics and CoH. But this doesn't mean that I haven't been feeding other habits as well. I've still been looking through other free online games, and so here's a brief report.

Anarchy Online: I can't believe that they tried to charge for this piece of crap at one point. crappy graphics, crappy controls...great concept.

Lineage 2: Not a bad game. The PK'ers made it sooo not worth it however. I enjoyed it a lot until i decided to leave the town and got ganked no less than 6 time by the same high level character, no matter which way I exited. This wouldn't have been such a bad thing if you didn't lose experience every time you die past lvl 5. So i got to visit lvl 4 quite a few times before I just stopped playing the game.

Empire of Martial Heroes: While this is just D.O. Online with a different name, it seems to have gone downhill since they changed to the new name.

Rakion: Fucking awesome game. Only got to play it in closed beta so it's not live yet. great, and free, game if you're into PvP games. My little archer ranked 1474 out of over 78,000 characters. not too shabby.

that's all that i've been occupied with aside from CoH and work and the family thing.

Mahalo

Now THIS is HAWT!!

See what happens when I stay up late...

Now THIS is even hotter...

Pure Insanity...

I think I'm gonna do the NaNoWriMo thing this year. I'd thought about it last year, but didn't quite have the moxie to do it. But I think I might be able to pull it off this year, so why the hell not. I might even put up the finished product online eventually. Though I do still owe a couple of people a movie script...you know who you are :)

Just continuing the cycle...

Ganked from a friend, who ganked it from a friend who...



200 movies; put an X against every one you've seen:

1. (X) Napoleon Dynamite
2. ( ) Saw
3. (X) White Noise
4. ( ) White Oleander
5. (X) Anger Management
6. (X) 50 First Dates
7. (X) Jason X
8. (X) Scream
9. (X) Scream 2
10. ( ) Scream 3
11. (X) Scary Movie
12. (X) Scary Movie 2
13. ( ) Scary Movie 3
14. (X) American Pie
15. (X) American Pie 2
16. (X) American Wedding
17. (X) Harry Potter
18. (X) Harry Potter 2
19. (X) Harry Potter 3
20. (X) Resident Evil I
21. ( ) Resident Evil 2
22. (X) The Wedding Singer
23. ( ) Little Black Book
24. (X) The Village
25. ( ) Donnie Darko
26. (X) Lilo and Stitch
27. (X) Finding Nemo
28. (x) Finding Neverland (well, I bought the DVD last week; haven't had a chance to watch it yet)
29. (X) 13 Ghosts
30. (X) Signs
31. (X) The Grinch
32. (X) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
33. ( ) White Chicks
34. ( ) Butterfly Effect
35. ( ) Thirteen Going On 30
36. ( ) I, Robot
37. ( ) Dodgeball
38. (X) Universal Soldier
39. ( ) A Series Of Unfortunate Events
40. ( ) Along Came A Spider
41. (X) Deep Impact
42. (X) KingPin
43. (X) Never Been Kissed
44. (X) Meet The Parents
45. (X) Meet The Fockers (The first one was bad enough.)
46. ( ) Eight Crazy Nights
47. ( ) A Cinderella Story
48. ( ) The Terminal
49. ( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
50. ( ) Passport to Paris
51. (X) Dumb and Dumber
52. ( ) Dumb and Dumberer
53. (X) Final Destination
54. (X) Final Destination 2
55. (X) Halloween
56. (X) The Ring
57. ( ) The Ring 2
58. (X) Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
59. (X) Practical Magic
60. (X) Chicago
61. (X) Ghost Ship
62. (X) From Hell
63. ( ) Hellboy
64. ( ) Secret Window
65. (X) I Am Sam
66. (X) The Whole Nine Yards
67. ( ) The Whole Ten Yards
68. (X) The Day After Tomorrow
69. (X) Child's Play
70. ( ) Bride of Chucky
71. (X) Ten Things I Hate About You
72. ( ) Just Married
73. ( ) Gothika
74. (X) A Nightmare on Elm Street
75. (X) Sixteen Candles
76. (X) Bad Boys
77. ( ) Bad Boys 2
78. (X) Joy Ride
79. (X) Seven
80. (X) Ocean's Eleven
81. ( ) Ocean's Twelve
82. (X) Identity
83. ( ) Lone Star state of mind
84. ( ) Bedazzled
85. (X) Predator I
86. (X) Predator II
87. (X) Independence Day
88. (X) Cujo
89. ( ) A Bronx Tale
90. (X) Darkness Falls
91. (X) Christine
92. (X) SLC Punk
93. (X) Children of the Corn
94. ( ) My Boss' Daughter
95. (X) Maid in Manhattan
96. ( ) Frailty
97. ( ) Best Bet
98. ( ) How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days
99. ( ) She's All That
100. ( ) Calendar Girls
101. ( ) Sideways
102. (X) Mars Attacks
103. (X) Event Horizon
104. (X) Ever After
105. (X) Forrest Gump
106. (X) Big Trouble in Little China
107. (X) X-men 1
108. (X) X-men 2
109. (X) Jeepers Creepers
110. (X) Jeepers Creepers 2
111. (X) Catch Me If You Can
112. (X) The Others
113. ( ) Freaky Friday (The one with Jodie Foster.)
114. ( ) Reign of Fire
115. (X) Cruel Intentions
116. ( ) PI
117. ( ) Swimfan
118. ( ) Miracle
119. (X) Old School
120. ( ) Ray
121. ( ) The Notebook
122. (X) K-Pax
123. (X) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
124. (X) Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
125. (X) Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
126. ( ) A Walk to Remember
127. (X) Boogeyman
128. (X) Hitch
129. ( ) Back Door Sluts 9
130. (X) South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
131. ( ) The Fifth Element
132. (X) Star Wars Episode I
133. (X) Star Wars Episode II
134. ( ) Star Wars Episode III
135. (X) Star Wars Episode IV
136. (X) Star Wars Episode V
137. (X) Star Wars Episode VI
138. ( ) Troop Beverly Hills
139. ( ) Swimming with Sharks
140. (X) Trainspotting
141. (X) People Under the Stairs
142. ( ) Blue Velvet
143. (X) Sound of Music
144. (X) Parent Trap
145. (X) The Burbs
146. (X) Meet Joe Black
147. ( ) Wild Girls
148. (X) A Clockwork Orange
149. ( )The Order
150. (X) Spiderman
151. (X) Spiderman 2
152. ( ) Amelie
153. ( ) Mean Girls
154. (X) Shrek
155. ( ) Shrek 2
156. (X) The Incredibles
157. ( ) Collateral
158. (X) The Fast and The Furious
159. ( ) 2 Fast 2 Furious
160. ( ) Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow
161. (X) Closer
162. (X) The Sixth Sense
163. (X) Artificial intelligence
164. (X) Love Actually
165. ( ) Shutter
166. ( ) Ella Enchanted
167. ( ) Princess Diaries
168. ( ) Princess Diaries 2
169. ( ) Constantine
170. ( ) Million Dollar Baby
171. ( ) Life of David Gale
172. ( ) 25th Hour
173. (X) Vanilla Sky
174. (X) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
175. (X) Boogie Nights
176. (X) Braveheart
177. ( ) The Anarchist Cook Book
178. ( ) My House In Umbria
179. (X) Double Jeopardy
180. (X) Monsters, Inc
181. (X) Kill Bill Vol. 1
182. (X) Kill Bill Vol. 2
183. (X) Eight Legged Freaks
184. (X) The Exorcist I
185. (X) The Exorcist II
186. ( ) The Exorcist III
187. (X) Titanic
188. (X) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
189. (X) Underworld
190. (X) Cast Away
192. (X) Waterworld
193. (X) Wizard Of Oz
194. (X) Super Troopers
195. (X) The Breakfast Club
196. (X) Robin Hood: Men in Tights
197. (X) Billy Madison
198. (X) Philadelphia
199. (X) Pirates of the Carribbean
200. (X) Edward Scissorhands

What's on your list?

BAM! POW! WHAM!

I've gotten back into City of Heroes. Got the wife her own account now so we're fighting evil together. Trying to get chad into it as well, though that has been somewhat less successful. I'm hooking back up with the supergroup that i was part of before I went to WoW, the Eternals. There's just slightly fewer people running around Paragon City than there used to be, so joining an active Supergroup is kind of a must. And you can be sure that there'll be more screenshots to come. Got my blaster, Lord Legion, up to lvl 31, and halfway to 32, and my main hero, The In-Betweener, almost to 23. Much fun

Mahalo

Can you spot the REALLY bullshit piece of junk mail?

You're a smart crowd, I'm sure you can figure it out...

How HOT is This?

The First Rule of Fight Club is...

Well I believe Project Mayhem is in full effect. Was driving up to Bath to bring my brother back and there was a merge sign indicating that the right lane was closed. SO about a quarter mile down the road there's cones blocking off the right lane. So I've already merged and keep travelling when i notice that there's nothing going on in the right lane. COnes have blocked it off for a good 2 miles and all it is is cones...no road work, no sign of any previous road work...just blocked teh lane for no good reason. This happened once more on the way up there, with several state troopers in teh median watching, like this was entertainment to them. Like they did this on purpose. I know there's nothing going on on the highway on sunday but damn, find some other entertainment guys.

Hey love crusader I want to be your space invader...

I sent this to chad god knows how long ago, and he just sent me the link back. Everybody must watch this. I command it.

Awesome Link

that is all

Another Best of...

Well it's been a while since I put up a "Best of" post. For those unfamiliar with these I'll put up a brief explanation. I originally had another blog titled "Adventures in Chronic Delirium" I would say that that blog was probably some of my best writing to date. Well it went away and i created this one as a more "honest" and "no holds barred" blog. I would occasionally post some of the more amusing or enlightening posts from that blog up here. Well here's another one. This one was originally posted August 29th 2002,

Today's topic goes along with my strange line of thoughts. it has to do with the much touted, but never really thought out use of things such as chocolate and cheez wiz in the bedroom. Now, I know what you're thinking...but it's so much fun. But that response usually comes from someone who's never really tried covering someone in chocolate and tried licking it off. Now, first of all lets think about this step by step. I mean really, I'm trying to save you people a few diabetic comas here. Lets start by covering the object of your desire in chocolate. First of all this usually demands large amounts of melted chocolate. Let's say you start at the feet, it'll become a sticky, quickly hardening mess by the time you get to the really interesting parts. The same goes really for Cheez Wiz. OK, we can move on, assuming you've covered your partner in said chocolate without cementing them to the bedsheets/Kitchen table/couch/wherever you end up. Now comes the removal process.

Now, most of you will think that this is either A) incredibly easy and/or B) incredibly sensual. You're probably right on the B side but have you cosidered the sheer amount of chocolate you'll be ingesting? Think about it really before you dive into this. You'll be ingesting on average about a pound or more of pure grade A chocolate. Now we'll start at the feet again, since most people like to start where they began in the first place. Increases the suspense, yada yada yada. Now this chocolate has dried and hardened on your poor partner. As you begin to lick it off I would say that you would get somewhere around mid thigh or if you're pretty stalwart, maybe the waist area, before all of this pure carbohydrate mass starts to hit your stomach. Kinda like when you eat too many M&M's, they begin to be slightly unappetizing. This leaves your poor partner left with a half a body full of sticky chocolate. Now sex would be next to impossible as the important aras would still be sticky, leading to not only possible infections, but friction would be hell.

Think before you act. Make love responsibly. This could save your relationship in the long run. Just doing my part to help out.

Again with the Holy Shit...

I knew you could get just about anything on Ebay but oh my god...

It's Really that Easy eh...

All that I can say is...HOLY SHIT!!

Ok it's official...

Which PA character are you?

In Soviet Russia the Air Conditioner Fixes You...

So I'm still stuck down in this nightmare job and there's no real escape. This man has abused this system to the point that everything is essentially melting down and I'm just playing catch up as things fry. In the last week I've replaced every electronic and mechanical part in his Condensing unit and replaced a thermostat and transformer in the Evaporator. We won't even go into the difficulties I've had with the Liebert unit. The place is a mess and it stems from several sources. Firstly we didn't engineer the job, they hired someone else and we were just subcontracted to put in the unit that they suggested. Secondly, this equipment isn't meant to be kept running as cold as it is for as long as it has been. Lastly there was a little lightning that helped things along. So all in all I'm ready to burn this place to the ground.

On a side note I believe I'm going to give up World of Warcraft. There's no joy in it anymore and I haven't been on in better than a week and a half. Might go back to City of Heroes/City of Villains shortly and play that for a bit. At least I'll have some peace there.

Oh, and download Rakion when it goes live from http://www.softnyx.net it's an incredibyl fun game if you're into PvP games...and it's free.

Mahalo

games...

1. Reply with your name and I will write something random about you.
2. I will then tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I will pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in.
4. I will say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I will tell you my first memory of you.
6. I will tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll then ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your LJ.

This is how the World Ends. Not With a Bang, but With a Whimper...

This is a diary about the end of the world.

No, I haven't been going over my newspaper with a highlighter, looking for signs of the end times. I haven't been studying the proper type of cow needed to sanctify the Second Temple. I haven't been contemplating the probability of a bird flu pandemic, or the effects of the Russians marketing long range bombers to the Chinese.

This is about a quieter end. An end with all the inevitable entropy-driven ignominy as that which awaits us all personally. What I'm going to talk about is not a popular thought, and not yet mainstream thought, but for some people it's starting to look like a sickeningly sure bet. For everyone who has that little achy feeling down deep in their guts that Things Just Aren't Quite Right... this one's for you.

And it starts in 1989.

Part I: The Most Unpopular Man in Science

Actually, the story starts better than two million years ago, when hominids figured out that stone plus pig skull equaled a lot more bacon for diner. Some time after that came the fire thing. Around 40,000 years ago, there was an explosion of technology -- almost the Cambrian of the mind -- and about 30,000 years after that, along came agriculture. After that, it was all just fiddly bits.

What happened in 1989 was that Scientific American writer, John Horgan, began to follow around some of the top scientists and researchers in the world. He shot the physics breeze with Roger Penrose. Discussed evolutionary science with Stephen Jay Gould. Put some hair on black holes with Stephen Hawking. And contemplated structures with Freeman Dyson.

Jealous much? I know I am. And Horgan wasn't limited to this foursome. He interviewed scores of scientists, from the old guard to the young Turks, across almost every field imaginable. He didn't limit his discussions to only the so-called "hard scientists," but branched out to talk with luminaries of the mind like Karl Popper and Noam Chomsky. He interviewed these men (and precious few women) in their homes and laboratories. He talked to them about their personal lives and their professional dreams.

In 1996, the results of his world-wide science groupie junket were published, but even the title of the book was enough to set teeth on edge for many of the people he had interviewed. Horgan called his book The End of Science.

Once, Horgan said, science had made great discoveries. Scientists had ferreted out the structure of the atom, the cause of evolution, and the nature of DNA. They had taken electricity from side-show wonder into the lab, and into the home. Where man had once lived in a state of decidedly non-blissful ignorance, full of disease and superstition, science had allowed us to understand and manipulate the world around us. Science had produced one big idea after another, and all those ideas had reshaped the world. The trouble was, according to Horgan, the well of ideas was running dry.

Where once physicists grappled with the whole idea of elementary particles, now they are reduced to seeking ever more elusive variants of quarks, and even then any discovery they made was unlikely to have more than negligible impact, even in their own field. Where geologists and astronomers had once upended the views of a young universe, they were now limited to wondering what happened in only the first fleeting microseconds of an origin pushed back billions of years. Biology had gone from understanding muscles and tissues, to genetics and increasingly well defined molecular chemistry. In short, the era of big ideas was past.

Modern scientists are limited to studying the very big or the impossibly tiny, and to make progress at either end demands experiments so expensive that they are inconceivable to any but the richest governments. Unfortunately, the rich governments are less and less inclined to support these experiments, because the returns they deliver and tougher and tougher to quantify. No one has to speculate about the return on investment of self-funded 18th century gentlemen dabblers who laid much of the foundation for today's science. But start a debate over the economic benefits of the space program, and you'll see how divergent the views can be. Can anyone really promise that the returns from the proposed (and now abandoned) Super-conducting Super-collider would really cover its multibillion dollar price tag?

The universe may be infinite, but ideas about how the universe works are not. Every idea developed is one less that can be developed in the future.

Horgan's work is not without its critics. In fact, finding a supporter of his contention may be more difficult than getting a good photo of a neutrino. But the more that people argued against Horgan's point, the more that others came to admit that there might be something in his contention. As we prepare to celebrate a century since Einstein first scribbled down the famous E=MC2 equation (please excuse the lack of superscript), the lack of such blinding insights over the interim seems at least puzzling.

Sir Isaac Newton once famously said that if he saw further because he was "standing on the shoulders of giants." Scientists today had not only Newton's shoulders to climb, but Einstein, Planck, Bosen, and a host of others. Plus, they have dandy new instruments for looking. So why is it, the things they're seeing seem so incredibly dull?

Part II: The iPod Illusion

Somewhere -- I suspect back around the time that H. erectus was learning how to nap flint -- there came a break between those who studied stones, and those who concentrated on turning out the spear points. Since then, there's been a irreparable schism between the "ivory tower" researchers and the "sell out" technologists

Even while most scientists would be loath to accept Horgan's gloomy positions, they've long been making the case that basic research -- the kind of contemplation that leads to developing one of those Big Ideas -- has been supplanted by the kind of "practical research" that goes toward making ideas into something you can purchase at your local Radio Shack. The public rarely thinks of this one as a problem. While the Big Idea guys are frustrated by the lack of bucks, the idea that the investments are going into consumer products is something that keeps us all reading the catalogs.

Here's a phrase for you, see if you've heard this one "the ever increasing pace of technology." Sound familiar? It should. It's become as big an assumption about the world we live in as gravity. Things change, and they keep changing ever more quickly. Oh, what a hectic, hurried life we live.

Everyone knows that the pace of technological change is increasing. Just like everyone knew that a heavy ball would fall faster than a light one before Galileo paid a visit to the leaning tower.

But in 2000, Phillip Longman put out an article entitled The Slowing Pace of Progress. Longman based his article on a statistic called Total-Factor Productivity (TFP). This number tracks a kind of over-all sense of how effectively raw material is being turned into goods, and how quickly new kinds of goods are coming onto the market. When you look at these numbers, the results are surprising to anyone who thinks this is the go-go high tech wonder age.
Between 1913 and 1972, TFP grew by an annual average of 1.08 percent. Then between 1972 and 1995, for reasons economists are still debating, the rate of improvement collapsed to less than one fiftieth that of the previous era, despite a widespread adoption of computers.


After delivering your best Jon Stewart Whhhhaaattt? Sit back and contemplate one of Longman's examples. Say you took a typical couple from the 50's and dropped them in a home of today. What is there that they would not understand? Well, there's computers and... computers. The TV is still a TV, even though it might have a better image and have assorted gadgets attached to it. The stove is a stove, the oven an oven. A vacuum cleaner still sucks -- even if it does so on a zero-radius ball and a cool vortex cleaning system.

The gap looks even worse if you contemplate our technology vs. that from the late 1970's. Home computers? Check. Portable music player? Sure. VCR? Microwave? Hey, both of those were invented back in 50's couple time.

Do we have better gadgets today? Boy, and how. I'm writing this on my keen little Mac Mini (complete with iSight camera, iPod, and iLoveGlossyAppleGear). But what we have is only a refinement of what was already there decades before.

Now reverse the thought experiment. Take our 50's couple and toss them in the Way Back machine to 1900. What's left of the technology they knew? Precious little. That previous fifty years saw the rise of so many new technologies, the difference is astounding.

So why was 1900 to 1950 (or 1800 to 1900) so radically better at cranking out new tech than we are today? Far from living in a the most rapidly changing time in history, we may be living with the slowest change in technology since the Dark Ages. We celebrate each increase in computer speed, each new wire for delivering more data to our homes, or each improvement in the rate at which we can pop popcorn. But when's the last time a technology was introduced that changed the world like the telephone? Radio? The automobile?

It would be easy to dismiss Longman and his funny statistic, but other researchers have approached the problem from other directions, and they keep coming to the same conclusion. Face it, we're techno-slackers.

There are two possibilities here, and neither one of them is all that pleasant to contemplate. Either we are too stupid to make the kind of breakthroughs made by our parents and grandparents, or our technology problem is directly related to our research problem. Maybe, with no new Big Ideas, we don't have the basis for any new Big Breakthrough.

And you always wondered why we didn't have didn't have any flying cars.

Part III: Brother, Can You Paradigm?

One a road marked by a shortage of both Big Ideas and Big Inventions, there's really only one destination: doom. We've coasted for decades on cheap energy and the disparity of the global labor market (in other words, we suck at science and technology, but we've become aces at exploitation). Faced with a decline in the ready availability of energy and raw material, we're approaching that ugly tipping point where the cost of basic commodities once again becomes the primary factor in the lives of all but a very few. It's not even a matter of going back that fifty years, or a hundred, because we've already done such a fine job of exploiting the resources that made a non-technological life style possible.

To put in terms that would make any geek cry, imagine that there's not going to be any real Star Trek. Ever. Never ever. In fact, it's increasingly likely that the handful of landings we made on the moon were high tide for mankind. We lapped this far into the universe, and no farther. No warp drives. No interstellar federation. Heck, we don't even get to see BladeRunner, much less Captain Picard.

If oil really is as restricted as all the models now indicate, don't think "how much will a tank of gas cost me in ten years," think "how many burgers can you make from a dachshund?" Because not long after the supply crunch really hits, the glossy advertising-driven world we've built gets revealed as a shaky construction with a good paint job. Then we discover that the future looks more like the Flintstones than the Jetsons.

But wait! There are outs.

First off, all these guys could be wrong. Believe you me, no scientist wants to think Horgan is right about the dust at the bottom of the idea well. Nobody at Sony or Microsoft welcomes Longman's idea that they're squeezing the last drops of engineering milk. No one likes to think that the end is inevitable, no matter how many times Team Entropy cleans up on the rest of the universe.

So where do we look for some sunlight at the end of this very gloomy tunnel? Into the mystical mirror of the paradigm change.

Imagine you're living somewhere in Northern Africa around 12,000 years ago and the business of tossing rocks at meat is starting to look a little, well, old. Spears and scrapers and the rest of the hunter-gather kit have been around for a long while, and you've worked up just about every variation on how flint can be flaked and how weapons can be made. Sure, you've got new colors in the beadwork, and there's new songs around the campfire, but nothing is really improving. Worse, with a growing population of people and fewer big critters ripe for the stabbing, you're starting to worry that the whole system has a serious flaw.

Then along comes the agriculture paradigm. Bang, everything changes.

The tricky thing about a paradigm shift is, you can't see what's on the other side. Hunter-gatherer man can't even contemplate what lives in agriculture world. If he could, he'd have invented it already. Paradigms are a wall. A crazy mirror. You look toward the future, expecting more of what you've already seen. Only shinier. But with a paradigm shift, it's like an alien invasion. You can't even think like those people over there, so don't try.

So far, paradigm shifts have come along and kicked people into the next gear at several phases in history. And if we ever needed one, we need it now.

There are a couple of good potential candidates for a paradigm shift. The first one lies in that "big and little" problem facing science. Yes, physicists trying to understand the nature of reality are restricted these days to looking at the extraordinarily large and the unimaginably small. However, the two theories that describe the behavior of the large (relativity) and the small (quantum mechanics) have proved surprisingly hard to pull together. Even among scientists who study these fields, there's a general feeling that neither theory actually tells you what's really going on. Both are only sort of convenient mathematical models that are awfully good at predicting how things work under most conditions. What's really happening may be infinitely niftier.

Putting the big and the small together may yet reveal a different model of the universe, as divergent from what we understand as Newton's world from Einstein's. That alone would add at least a few inches of fresh water at the bottom of the idea well, and may actually prove to be a spring, providing a source for a lot more big ideas to come. I hope so, because while there are a few other dark corners in scientific theory that look like they might hide possible doorways into new rooms, they are precious few, and every one of them is a long shot.

The other candidate for a big shift, is a shift in the way we think. It may not be that we're running out of big ideas so much as that science is running out of big ideas. It's almost impossible to talk about this possibility without sounding like a mystical kook, but it may be that the whole "scientific method" approach is so limiting, that we're ignoring a lot of what's possible. Mr. End of Science himself, Horgan, has become an advocate of this idea, which is pushed in his latest book, Rational Mysticism.

I have a hard time with this one. Partly it's because I don't understand it. Mostly it's because I deeply resent the idea that Deepak Chopra might have more to say about the future than Hawking or Penrose. There's also, weirdly enough, a techno option on this, as some people have proposed that the flurry of information now available (through mind-bending sources like this diary) will itself lead to new ways of exercising the gray matter. Personally, while I like to think the blogs are both informative and helpful, I have a problem believing they'll save humanity.

Still, I expect we'll escape. Yes, I have that sneaky, icky feeling down in my stomach. The feeling that we've bounced a few fundamental checks and the repo man is already warming up his truck. But I'm optimistic. Or in deep denial, take your pick.

In any case, I'll spare you the semi-inevitable T. S. Elioit quote.

Buy Dammit...

I picked up Dungeon Siege 2 for Yvonne and I yesterday, and I must say that it is quite a blast multiplayer. Those of you in P'cola or wherever should really get a hold of a copy of this. need more people, and if the mod would get past alpha stage i can host up to 50 people on a server.

And the Horrible Addiction Begins...

I've been playing Rakion almost non-stop. It is an incredibly fun game punctuated by horrible experiences with mages. at the current I'm ranked 4551 out of over 50 thousand characters and ranked 940 out of over 10 thousand archers. Right now I'm enjoying the hell out of the game...the Mages are a little unbalanced as opposed to the rest of the classes, and the archers get pwned if the melee classes aren't on top of their game, but overall it's a game that is coming along very nicely.

Mahalo

Guard Your Lives...

I've found a new crack, at least until the 25th. I've been playing this game called Rakion. It's in closed beta for the moment, but I've been playing the hell out of it. It's a RPG/PvP type game. There's untold numbers of game types from what I've seen and it just gets sick when you've got 8v8 in there. If anyone wants to give it a try, go to softnyx.net or something like that, you'll find the downloader there. Oh, and I have an archer named Arynne on there. But if you do give it a try, and come across another archer named DivinityBow, you had better pray that she is on your team. When we were on opposite teams we ended up seeking each other out and were pretty evenly matched, in instances when we were on the same team, wo be the carnage that was unleashed. It was the type of thing that you warn your children about. untold swordsmen and Blacksmiths fell before our bows. I'm not exxagerating, she's surgical with that shit. The only advantage that she had was that she was 3 lvls higher than my poor archer was. but gods we hung out in the top 5 each and every match. Check it out..trust me you won't be disappointed. Oh, and don't make a mage because they are my favorite little chew toys. I friggin hate mages...

mahalo

Just a quick question...

Hey Clayson, what temperature do you keep your server rooms? I've got a really good story for you :)

Adventures in Pookyland...

I'm at a loss for words honestly. Without going into details, because I don't like to get the rumormill turning, I need to get some events off of my chest. Things like this will eat at you like a cancer, and I'm tired of feeling like I'm being eaten alive. There are things that happened in a game that seem to have changed the dynamic of a friendship that I've valued for a long time. The events of a game have me and several people whom I've called friends on non-speaking terms by the looks of it. Actions taken within a game seem to have gone grossly wrong. In what should be a fun game, a game which I've just now gotten running correctly, things have turned decidedly sour. I'm not entirely blameless on the subject, but I'm not entirely wrong either. I'm tired of not talking to people and I'm tired of feeling like a leper. I'm not going to apologise for the way things happened, in game, but I am sorry that it seems to have affected our friendship. I'm not as shallow as people might think, that running with another guild would have ended a dear friendship, but I am shallow enough to quit my own guild when I've been nothing but harassed for a while now. I don't feel any better but at least it's out in the open and I can at least start to feel better.

*phrase of the week: "Things will be different because they must be"*

Mahalo

As Usual...

I'm probably about six months behind the times on this one but I discovered the joy of podcasting yesterday. It started with Lex and Terry (which if you can't tell by now are being Podcast)and degenerated into a frenzy of subscriptions. I know subscribe to over 25 different Podcasts in addition to Lex and Terry is Zencast (how hot is that!!), all of the Air America Podcasts, NToddcast (which you have to get from Podcast Alley and manually add to your subscription), and several others on numerous subjects. Now if I could just justify buying an iPod I'd be all right. Hello, My name is Mike and I'm a Podcast junkie. Now if they'd only Podcast Don and Mike.

Mahalo

Who Needs MMORPG's...

I decided to go old school and went back to Gunbound, a fun little Worms-esque game, again out of Korea. It's cute, it's fun and it's free. aside from that, all the 13 yr olds seem to speak just spanish so you don't have to listen to their derision when you miss your shot :)

The Verdict is in...

Well, after giving both pretty considerable time I've come to the conclusion that Gates to Heaven is by far the more fun game of the two that I mentioned. Graphically it's actually pretty superior and much more fun to me. Though they thrive on different aspects and are good in their own rights. Here's how it breaks down:

1. Knight Online: A fairly decent game graphically and control wise. Slightly harder to control than GTH. It's main thrust is nation versus nation combat in the style of say Guild Wars, though much more geared toward character development. It's a pretty good game if you're for full scale warfare PVP.

2. Gates to Heaven: My favorite of the two. It's much more stylish, has a class progression skill and charts your development on several scales. Your actual experience lvl is there to raise your abilities class. You have also Zen xp which goes towards developing your skills. I have a wind hermit atm which is essentially an archer, which I sorely miss in WoW. I mean a dedicated archer, not a hunter that's pet dependent. I like the game much more because it's prettier, it's easier to control by a small degree, and the learning curve is pretty right on.

Now both games originate in Korea, which seems to be a theme in my free MMORPG quest, so there's a bit of engrish in the dialogue, but it's not nearly as bad as D.O. online GTH has more of an anime feel to it while Knight Online has more of a realistic artwork feel to it. I'm not much of a fan of pvp to begin with so that kinf of turned me away from Knight Online a bit actually.

So in a nutshell, if you're looking for something free to have a good time on with some really fun classes, go towards GTH, but if you're looking for something that's also free but geared towards large scale warfare, then lean towards Knight Online. They're both good games, they're both fun to the right person, and they don't feel "broken and incomplete" like D.O. Online did.

Like Kane from Kung Fu...

My search still continues. I've mentioned that on occasion I've played a game called D.O. Online (now called Martial Heroes). Well when that re-launched I've been unable to download the new client. So much like the title states, I've been searching barefoot looking for a new free MMORPG to play when World of Warcraft gets to be a little tedious to me. I've come up with two of them so far, both through e-games.com. One is called Knight Online and the other is Gate to Heaven. both are kinda the same graphically, but they are pretty fun and really get things back into their proper place when WoW just aggravates the fuck out of me. So if I'm not on WoW, I'll most likely be on one of those. I'll let you know how the experience goes as I get further into each. But if you're on a budget you really can't beat either game...especially since they're free :)

I was Thinking...

Do you all remember back in Sex Ed,m or Family Living, or whatever that friggin class was where you had to carry around that sack of flour for a week and take care of it like it was a baby? This is supposed to teach the importance of responsibility and make them realise that life is much more difficult when you have a child. Well, as stated above, I was thinking yesterday and this lesson is total crap. With a sack of flour you can still go to the mall, still see a concert or a movie, or go on a date. You simply look silly is all. You wanna teach them a real lesson, make them carry around something that screams whenever it doesn't get it's way, something they have to give up social events for or that limits their ability to go to the mall or a concert or a date. Give them something that screams at 2am for no good reason other than the fact that it's awake. Give them something that shits 5 times a day. This doesn't teach them responsibility or make them realise that a child will limit their fun. ALl it teaches them is how to carry home the groceries.

Mahalo

This is Just too Brilliant...

Now, when you consider how much these "Analysts" make per year, and the fact that they have researchers looking into this...doesn't that just make this screen just a little bit ridiculous?

I just had to post this...

Aside from World of Warcraft, there's another MMORPG that I play called D.O Online. It's a Korean game that, through some miracle has been (mostly) translated into english...or should I say engrish. It's often broken or at the best incorrect english, as if it was a direct translation through Babelfish or something. It's kind of a cool martial arts 18th century type of game. Anywho I received an e-mail this morning from the advertising wing of CRSpace, the developers(?) of D.O. Online. I had to post it here, not to make fun of the engrish insofar, but it is kind of humorous:

Dear mike

Today! EMH(the Empire of Martial Heroes ; extended d.o online) is
coming !!

You will be experienced with New functions! Bigger Maps! More Items ,
Quests, Skills! and more Thrills! with the Empire of Martial Heroes(new
name of d.o)

New Functions : Great new functions!
- New relationship systems are added.
You can make brothers relationship and master-student relationship
between players.

New Maps : Bigger world! More satisfaction!
- Brand new maps are added. It will extend the game world more than 60%
!!!!!!
You will see great land and new world.

New Items : Brand new and hot items!
- Over 60 level can change their hats or cloaks.
- Facial changer items are added.
- Up to level 100 items are added more !
- Some items effect are changed.
- More Unique items!

New Quests : New and great quests!
- Over 100 level quests are added.

New Skills : Great and beautiful skills!
- Over 100 level skills are added.

And new Thrills : Open your eyes and watch out!
- Now you will drop items when your hero is killedy by monster. So, you
need to watch out more!
- Now you need to find a right monster, if a monster is higher than
you(+8 level), you will not get full Exp from monsters.

SO there's that letter. But did I mention that the game is free as well :)

Mahalo

I'm back and I'm wireless baby!!

One problem down, one to go. Got the wireless network up and running and got internet back this morning, but Yvonne's computer is down still. Need to pick up a new power supply and that should do the trick...hopefully. So this one's at least back up and running. more to follow i'm sure

Mahalo

Need I say more?

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Rail Gun of The Short Path.

Get yours.

Old-School Picture Week

At Big Kahuna's  

Hey there. Figured that I'd play a new blog game for this last half of the week. For the next 3 days I'm gonna put up old pics of myself. If you've got the cajones out there, you should do the same ;) That is all

Mahalo

Jesus are these people stalking me?!

Your Birthdate: March 15

With a birthday on the 15th of any month, you are apt to have really strong attachments to home, family and domestic scene. The 1 and 5 equaling 6, provide the sort of energy that makes you an excellent parent or teacher. You are very responsible and capable. This is an attractive and an attracting influence. You like harmony in your environment and strive to maintain it. You tend to learn by observation rather than study and research. You may like to cook, but you probably don't follow recipes. This number shows artistic leanings and would certainly support an talents that may be otherwise in your makeup. You're a very generous and giving person, but perhaps a bit stubborn in ways.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

I'm SURE the devil cried...

So, I picked up Devil May Cry 3 the other day. I must say that the reported difficulty was right on. Even on easy it about has me wanting to go cry to my mom. Though the game is incredibly cool, especially if you're into the HK movies like I am. Gunslinger style is right up my alley. Along with some of the new acrobatic type moves like slinging around a pole and nailing someone with the shotgun or slicing em in half with my sword. It's far too cool. The combos are a lot easier to string together as I can chain em with a few shots with the pistols. Capcom really made up for that abomination of a game, which shall not be named. The camera is still a little twitchy in it's conrol, but it stays close enough so that you don't miss any of the action. It's returned to the same type of style that the first game had. The reasons for being where you are are clearly defined instead of "hey i'm on an island this mission in the middle of nowhere and then...I'm in a city infested by demons that's nowhere on said island" with no reason for being anywhere. Caocom outdid themselves on this one in just the fun factor that I enjoyed in the first one. The second one tried to implement some cool additions but the camera was so screwy that you didn't even notice them or you were so irritated by the "story" that you didn't really care. DMC 2 was the Highlander 2 of the series...it should have just never been made.

Mahalo

I finally broke down...

I decided that after all these many months that I would finally break down and Google myself. And I've discovered that there must be something in the name. For some odd reason all of the entries for me revolve around Fan Fiction (which I don't write per se, but i do write RPG's so i guess it fits), comic books and creativity/drawing/poetry. It's really pretty unnerving. It all kinda ties into my theory of Infinite Selfs. I know I've tried to explain all of this to most of you before but I'll try to give the short short version for those of you who haven't listened to the litany before. I, as a 28 year old male exist in 2005. with me so far? Now my theory, which can not, and probably will not be proven or disproven in my lifetime, states that I not only exist in 2005, but simultaneously I exist in say, 3005, 1642, and 3000 BC. Now you may all say "isn't that just past lives bullshit". No but close. What I feel is that all times, past and future exist at the same time. If you follow August Ferdinand Moebius' theories than you know that he says that all points in time and space can be reached through out any other point. That's the point behind the Moebius Strip. but anywho, it comes out in the wash as that my consciousness is "stretched" across all of time and space, separated only by brief moments in time when I'm "dead". and just think...that was the short form. But so to make my point is for some reason all the other people with my name on Google share the exact same interests and habit, and talents as I do...it's just kinda creepy.

Mahalo

*sigh*

It's been an interesting week. Work aside I've been fighting off a case of bronchitis, rather unsuccessfully I might add. I signed into City of Heroes today off and on. It's not so much that I have no love for the game anymore. Far from it. I still would enjoy the game...except for the feeling of isolation. I've been out of the game for a while thanks to World of Warcraft. Where once I'd have people coming at me left and right, now the broadcast chat and my own PM's are silent. There's no one that i used to play with on anymore. It's just not as fun without people. I think this is one reason I've stuck with WoW. I need the human interaction. As much as my characters are theyre not as fun by themselves. kind of a spot to be in.