Hiiiii!

Lego Popup Kinkakuji...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:41:26 GMT

That pretty much says it all.

Seeking Frustration?

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:33:45 GMT

Lately I appear to be attracted to things designed to be frustratingly difficult to the point of brain breaking. I guess this is a form of masochism?

The first is an old old game called NetHack. First created over 20 years ago (yes, that's a "screenshot" at that link) it now, fortunately, comes with some graphical upgrades. It is still by far the most difficult game I think I've played, perhaps largely because of perma-death. That character you just spent several hours on? Dead. Try again?

In my 10-15 attempts, I've only made it as far as Sokoban or Mine town once (each)... :/ I have a loooong way to go.

The second form of frustration was a set of puzzles I found links to yesterday (via the ToothyWiki). The CISRA Puzzle Competition is a yearly puzzle contest in Australia. The puzzles are all single pdfs, usually a single page each. The interesting thing about them is there are no rules. The puzzle rarely, if ever, asks an actual question. It simply gives you an image or some text and you're expected to go from there.

If you want to participate in some brain mangling, you can see this year's puzzles, last year's puzzles and 2007's puzzles, all with solutions. Of the ones I tried I actually managed to solve 2 of the 2008 ones: Wordoku (with the hints) and Cranial Anatomy (without hints! Which I'm proud of even if it was classed as easy).

NyQuil

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:14:50 GMT

NyQuil NyQuil NyQuil. Big N, small y, Big Fuckin' Q.

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:18:00 GMT

This is why I'm going to have to buy a PS3 and this is why it's going to suck.

(by the people who brought us Ico and Shadow of the Colossus)

Fun with YouTube

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:26:39 GMT

Randomly browsing AMVs on YouTube brought me to a work of art:

Pride & Prejudice, featuring the cast of Card Captor Sakura

The same artist/producer also came up with an interesting Labyrinth AMV and the thoroughly brain breaking Darth Maul's Bringing The Sexy Back

Killlllllllll...

Mon, 18 May 2009 01:03:42 GMT

An ice cream van (very) loudly and constantly playing Christmas carols through its tinny music system outside our door. Deck the halls, Jingle Bells. The list goes on.

No jury would convict me, surely?

On a completely unrelated note: I want to believe.

Stresstaxmoneycrap

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 03:35:01 GMT

So, running very late this year (with some excuses but not really), I finally stepped into an H&R Block to see about filing taxes. Previously, we've been doing them ourselves but with the purchase of a house in December it seemed like a good idea to get some assistance.

$355 (or more).

WTH?

Seriously? Over $350?

But I guess the question is, am I grouching over nothing? What do you (residents of the US) do? Self-file? H&R Block? Lawyers who spend all year slaving over your personal finances?

I'm debating doing it myself again this year. Of course, first I have to find all the paperwork that got lost in the move...

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:39:54 GMT

Can't get this song out of my head...

Daft Punk - Technologic

(Warning: Video is creepy and contains what I'm assuming is Chucky without his skin)

Tales of a house owner...

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:43:22 GMT

On a much more amusing note, while I was trying to remove some of the more offensive weeds from the front garden this morning, a group of people were wandering around handing out flyers for some kind of concert to promote their church.

I took a flyer, had a brief but civil conversation ("Have you found Jesus in your heart?", "Uh, no.", "But you know what I mean, right?", "Uh, yes."), and he moved on.

It wasn't until much, much later that I realised what t-shirt I put on this morning... http://shirt.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=2902579

I wonder if he noticed?

Tales of a house owner...

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:28:26 GMT

So, no-one ever told me that part of being a home owner was removing dead critters from the property :(

Our next door neighbour is more that a little paranoid about people going through his back yard, which is fair enough given that there is a park behind us. He takes it to extremes though, with at least one guard dog and barb wire and razor wire across his back wall. All this is his business though, except for the bit where the razor wire loops around a tree in the corner of _our_ backyard.

And that razor wire found a victim sometime in the last couple of days (at a guess). We're assuming it was a possum but, well, it wasn't anymore. It's corpse was hanging from the wire against the wall and the freakiest thing was that it didn't have a head... I... don't really know what happened and I don't really want to think about it too hard 'cause it's freaking me out but it just kind of had an elongated bit where the neck would be and the head was entirely missing.

One pair of gloves and several trashbags later and the thing is waiting for garbage pickup (thankfully, Tuesday morning so not much longer).

That. That was not fun.

MS Paint Adventure

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:48:51 GMT

Perhaps one of the most bizarre stories/games I have encountered on the Internet.

Yes, it really is that strange.

MS Paint Adventure

2009

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:01:17 GMT

Happy New Year! (yes, California does catch up eventually)

However your 2008 went, good, bad or ugly, may 2009 be better for you.

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:08:05 GMT

Here, have some cheese. It will go well with this post.

Today has sucked the suck of most suckiness. Still generally wiped out from whatever crud is floating around at the moment, being generally stressed by house stuff and then came home to find the internet is dead.

To top this off, we decided to go to the mall (day before Chrismas Eve, yeah that was smart) where I proceeded to find nothing I needed to buy and had a meal that tried to kill me (no, it didn't contain nuts but I thought it might have done after part of my lips and tongue went numb from the spicyness. Since when does a BBQ pork sandwich contain habaneros and chili?)

Came back and spent the last 4 hours getting the internet working. (Zyxel modems suck. If you're stuck with one, the key is "bridge mode" which has to be enabled through a hidden web page...). Apparently something somehow managed to hard reset both our modem and router, leaving me thoroughly baffled.

On a completely different (and considerably more awesome) note: Thundercats: The Movie (trailer)

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:50:27 GMT

From roseembolism and the Typealyzer Blog Test:

ESTP - The Doers

The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Conclusive proof that the algorithms the test uses could not be more wrong.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:51:34 GMT

Primarily for racerxmachina: 9 Dimensional Hyper-Cardigan.

5 Favourite Computer Games of All Time

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:12:50 GMT

This list was actually considerably easier to compile than I thought it would be. Which probably means I have forgotten several which deserve mention.

Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari)

Pretty sure I've mentioned this before. Now practically an archetype for a whole range of platformers with cartoony graphics but a great story and gameplay which ranges from the easy to the fiendishly difficult. A wonderfully sweet storyline and enough side pieces / hidden secrets to make it worthy of a few play-throughs.

Also the source of the icon for this post...

If you're interested, you can find it here.

Castlevania: X of Y

No, obviously there isn't a game called "X of Y" but they're all called something of something and, when it comes down to it, they're all pretty much the same. Which is a good, good thing if you happen to like this style of game. Which I do.

If you have something that can play PS games, definitely try out Symphony of the Night. If you have either a gameboy advance or DS, try out any of the later games.

Massive side scrolling platformers with (usually) good plots, great graphics and hundreds of items / souls / gadgets / MacGuffins to collect. Plays fairly heavily to the obsessive completionists with bonuses for finding 100% of something and multiple endings (here's a hint: If you didn't end by killing Dracula, try again).

Kingdom of Loathing

The only MMORPG to every hold my interest for any length of time. Over a year now in fact (and I have my "Anniversary Chutney Statue" to prove it).

It has so many things different from a normal MMORPG it's hard to know where to start. I guess it's two biggest differentiators are Ascension and turn count.

Unlike practically every other MMORPG I've ever heard of, it actually has an end. At level 13 in fact (although there's nothing stopping you going beyond that). The catch is, once you've "completed the game" (by defeating the Naughty Sorceress) you can "Ascend" and start again as a different character class. Ascending nets you various rewards but the most significant is that you get to keep one skill from your previous run.

Combine this with turn count (you only get a limited number of turns per day, which you can increase with food and booze but only by a certain amount) and you get a nice "how fast can I do this?" feeling.

Of course, that's failing to mention the humour running through the whole game, the various achievements you can go for and the various types of ascension you can try to add some variety.

Try it here. I'm Zarigani in game.

Max Payne

The sole shooter to make the list, and I can't even say fps since it's entirely third-person. Dark humour with an overblown film noir feel and a real sense of atmosphere. Some of the scenes are genuinely disturbing (though always by implication rather than the gore-fests of more recent games).

Even the gameplay felt different from most shooters. Normally, you'd wade in to a room full of enemies, take a few bullets (while dispatching each enemy with one) and keep going. Not here. Here (at least to start with) you can withstand about as much damage as your enemies and there are an awful lot more of them than you. The only trick you have available to you is bullet-time: a strictly limited amount of time in which everything but your ability to aim is slowed to a crawl.

I played this a long time ago, but I'd still recommend picking it up for the PC if you like shooters at all. I'd also recommend 1 over 2.

Final Fantasy 9

I haven't played an RPG for quite a while now (KoL aside) and I'm not sure I have the time or concentration to do so anymore but of all of the ones I played this stood above the rest. Combat, gameplay, mechanics, exploration: all were good but the thing that stood out and made it what it was were the story and characters.

At last, a hero that (while amnesiac) is actually upbeat and competent!

A long long time ago, I actually lent the FF9 soundtrack to my Mum (who works as a school librarian) to take into work and play as background music for some event that was happening in the library. Later she commented that she was surprised that several of the boys requested the final song (basically the romance theme) be played again as it didn't seem like the kind of thing they would like. My response was that when you have to play for 80 hours to "get the girl" it actually means something to them :)

Honourable Mentions to...

Dance Dance Revolution (and the plethora of rhythm games to follow). A genuinely novel and cleverly simplistic game. Also good exercise (though I wish good luck to anyone who actually can use it as a fitness routine).

Kongregate, which is not a game itself, but a collection of flash games with a scoring system to keep you interested and many good games posted each month. If you register, use this link and I'll get more points! :)

Nintendo. Also, obviously, not a game itself, but a successive progression of games which can normally be counted on to have a real level of polish to them.

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 03:23:14 GMT

I'm... confused.

I'd been ignoring reviews of Max Payne because I pretty much knew I was going to see it anyway. I'm a huge fan of the games (1 much more than 2) and the trailer had sufficiently many references to them that I wanted to see it regardless of how bad video game movies could be.

Having watched it... It was perfect. The perfect video game movie. It was filled with references, it held together the story, it even pitched new elements in that added to rather than detracted from the main story and visual effects.

Was it a good movie? That I can't say. It's hard to judge from a fans point of view. I enjoyed it and (aside from one strange anticlimax part way through) I thought it did a good job. I was expecting mediocre to good reviews. Instead I see 10% to 50% ratings. I don't know how it earned those, or the somewhat hateful reviews that go with them.

Ah well. This I will say: If you have played the game and enjoyed it, go see this movie without a moments hesitation.

If you haven't and see it anyway, let me know why it apparently sucks so bad.

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:36:09 GMT

So many different kinds of awesome:

The Mange Guide to Databases - ""In The Manga Guide to Databases, Tico the fairy teaches the Princess how to simplify her data management..."

And for $13.57 how can you go wrong?

Trying to resist the temptation to take this into the office, place it on my desk and declare that I'm ready to start work...

Bills

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:06:22 GMT

Paying them is bad enough, but then you're left with paperwork to deal with.

How do you deal with them? How long do you keep them? What method do you use to file them?

Personally, after paying, they're stuffed into a "to be filed box" until said box explodes and I'm forced to actually sort them and put them into a filing box in appropriate folders.

Unfortunately said to-be-filed box is rather large so I now have about a years worth of accumulated statements, bills and miscellanea to deal with...

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:23:06 GMT

Occasionally, xkcd takes a break from funny comics to do a funny work of genius:

The Observable Universe, from Top to Bottom (on a log scale)

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 03:28:49 GMT

How's your Japanese geography? Population density, that kind of thing?

Don't worry, mines worse and I still found this amusing: (Sorry, no idea what it's called)

Pick regions to fill up the boxes on the right. Get to the green markers and go to the next level. Orange and red markers get you bonus points. Past the red markers and it's game over.

Really, it's worth it just for the voices when you roll over the regions...

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:06:06 GMT

Guinness Commercial (warning: probably NSFW)

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:30 GMT

Things I have learned from Kingdom of Loathing:

Twenty percent of the human race can tell you've been eating asparagus from the smell of your urine. (Now if that's not an argument for Intelligent Design, I don't know what is)

Hoboes (Hobos?) are people who wander from place to place, often by hitching on freight trains and will work, thus differentiating themselves from tramps (who won't work) and bums (who will neither work nor travel). They also have their own code.

Speaking of Hobos... John Hodgeman wrote a book which, amongst other things, listed 700 Hobo Names. Given this is the internet, a project was promptly formed to illustrate said names. The illustrations are all on Flikr but you can find them all listed on E-Hobo.

Amongst the various entries I found: Douglas, the Future of Hoboing. Now how can I get that on a T-shirt...

(The artist (themonkeymind, flikr) has done several very nice pieces, including some for the Project Rooftop superhero redesigns and a Monkey King.)

Doki & Nabi Part 3

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:03:27 GMT

Doki & Nabi Part 3 (a.k.a. Sambakza, a.k.a. Cat & Rabbit) is out!

I think I preferred parts one and two but still cute.

Apparently, the series is now planned out to five parts in total...

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:21:50 GMT

Given I've spent pretty much the whole day with what I can only assume is a caffeine withdrawal headache, maybe this whole no caffeine thing isn't such a bad idea after all.

It just feels like it right now >.<
.