The Craig's List Experiment

Earlier this month I conducted an experiment on Craig's List. Here is the posting. It's pretty bizarre, to say the least. Also, I want everyone to know that it was only up for slightly more than twenty-four hours. So, when the above link dies, here is an image capture of the posting:

The buyer who contacted me proposed a third payment option: five dollars worth of his wife's holiday baking. I went with that in a heartbeat. More Christmas cookies and one less Cole MacGrath statue for me. The cookies disappeared quickly; I even shared with my roommate. This is the last one:

Let's talk about art. This cookie is art. It tastes as good as it looks. I would know, I'm eating right now, getting powdered sugar all over my keyboard. Festive.

Demotivational Properties of December

December has felt like a severely-off month. For the first time in my life, I'm bothered by commuting to work in the dark and returning home in the dark. It weighs on me. Makes me feel like doing nothing. Not even video games. I've been on a four day Skyrim break. After work, when I get home, all I want to do is watch T.V. or sleep. Of course, I don't actually watch television; I threw in disc 1 of the Full Metal Alchemist series and hit play all. With eight discs of this anime (I don't have, nor have I seen Brotherhood), I can continue for seven more business days. The weekends don't count, obviously. I find things to do.

During these dark times, I find myself returning to my PSP and Disgaea while bundled up in bed. Flipping between Dark Hero Days and Afternoon of Darkness takes its toll after extended stays in the item world. The Demotivational Properties of December. If this observation were a natural law, classified and categorized by scientists, it would have that title. Perhaps this subtitle: "Winter's Return to Disgaea." I'll draft the abstract as soon as winter is over. In May.

It's a scary thought, but this observation does confirm something I've long suspected. If I could only ever play one video game, that video game would be a Disgaea game. Which game in the series? Well, I'm working on narrowing that part down.

I've heard this diagnosed as seasonal depression, which doesn't seem accurate because:

1. I'm not depressed, just feeling lazy.
2. If this were truly seasonal, shouldn't it happen during other seasons too?
3. Where does the affinity for my favorite SRPG come in? That does not make sense.

Wookies don't live on Endor.

"One theory is that reduced sunlight during fall and winter leads to reduced production of serotonin in the the brain." Thanks, WebMD. Now I'm paranoid. The good news is that this laziness has not crossed into my work life. I'm just as distracted as I always am.

Anyway, here's my prescription: grind in the item world until geo panels make you hurl, return to Skyrim, kill a dragon, feel awesome, and (finally) make fun of the stupid guards.

Five Bucks, Sour Gummy Worms, Or Best Offer

It's time to start thinking about the future. I have too much shit. And I'm not talking about all the crap I have stuffed in a dresser at my house in Whiterun.

When I first moved out of the dorms and into an apartment, I could fit everything I needed into my full-size conversion van. After moving off campus, I lived in an apartment for a year with friends. At the end of the year, we packed up and moved to a new place. I did this for three years in a row. By the forth move, I had found a stable job and an awesome roommate. With so many moves under our belts, we decided to stay in our apartment for a while before packing up and moving again. Well, it's been four years. Now it's time to move again.

And I am not excited.

Eight months and my lease is up. That's plenty of time, right? Maybe. Maybe not. I need to get rid of some crap. I've amassed a strange collection of junk; assuming there's someone else out there who likes the kind of junk I like, maybe I could sell some of it.

I'm not one to toss everything in the dumpster; I'm a huge fan of thrift stores and I'll probably donate at least a couple boxes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. I'm also going to try and sell some things on Craig’s List, which will be a whole new experience. As an avid browser of Craig's List, I kinda know how it works, but I've never bought (or sold) anything on there.

I already have my first item in mind. A total splurge and fandom impulse buy, I picked up the Hero Edition of inFAMOUS 2 for the game (obviously) and for the rockin' Sly Cooper/Cole MacGrath sling pack; this special edition also included in-game items, a comic book, and a statue of Cole. I absolutely don't care about the statue. Maybe some inFAMOUS fan will really want just the statue? Maybe some crazy inFAMOUS fan will want two statues? I guess a pair of Cole statues could make good bookends. Or PS3 game case-ends?

That's my idea for my first Craig's List sale. Is five bucks overpriced? Maybe I should ask for candy, instead. Sour gummy worms might as well be currency, in my opinion.

Tryptophan Gets Everyone

I'm not going to pretend that I know all the intricacies behind Google's blogger. All I do know it that I like how it works and I really like how it keeps track of web stats. Here's the info graphic for my page-views by operating system for the month of November.

I don't know who you are PSP reader/viewer, but I love you. Seeing this stat made my day. Power to the PSP!

In other news, Lydia didn't survive the Thanksgiving weekend. To this day, I am not sure what evil creature got the best of her. She went missing for a couple of days; when she didn't return to the Breezehome in Whiterun, I began retracing my steps. What started as a hopeful and fun romp through places previously visited soon turned into a desperate search. Sadly, I did eventually find her. Collapsed into a pile of flesh and armor, she lay along a path northwest of Falkreath, Ancient Nord Greatsword still in hand. Unfortunately, there's no crime scene investigation skill or perk. I have no idea what or who delivered the fatal blow.

I did kill a dragon just north of Falkreath while she was "missing." Maybe Lydia helped me defeat that dragon and I never knew it. A true friend and a humble hero, Lydia gave her life so that I might slay a terrible beast and live to brag about it on the Internet. After searching the surrounding area, I found a suitable resting place. The Roadside Ruins, northwest of Falkreath. Lydia's body has long since disappeared, but her spirit warms the ruins and re-invigorates any who rest there.

Fine. So that's not true, but it's still a nice thought. R.I.P. Lydia. You will be missed.

A Follower of Foxes

So, who is playing Skyrim? I guess that's everybody on the Internet. I am playing Skyrim as a sneaky Nord battlemage but I'm slowly turning into a sneaky Nord archer. And I love Lydia. As a token of my love, I gave her an ancient Nord Greatsword, some kick-ass armor, and a horny helmet (just like mine). What does she do in return? This crazy bitch goes out and hacks everybody to pieces while I stay hidden (I'm practically invisible now) and watch from a distance. Fine, occasionally I'll shoot an arrow or something. But Lydia does most of the work.

Back in August I talked about my gaming features and distractions. Well, what I didn't consider was a game big enough to handle both of them. Skyrim is that game. The main quest of the Dovahkiin is the feature. All of the side quests in Skyrim are the distractions. Not to mention my in-game A.D.D. "Look Lydia, a fox! Let's chase it until we happen upon something interesting."

Screencap Credit: spacecatrocketship

Lydia and I chase a lot of foxes.

Regardless of what wikia has to say about them, I haven't found that following foxes directs me to my active quest target. Though I do admit, I usually find a keep or a cave or a cabin or something to check out after trailing a fox. I've never killed one (and I don't plan to) but if the foxes started leading me to cave bears, I might leave them alone.

After equipping a bow and trying to shoot things with arrows, I realized that I did indeed miss VATS from Bethesda's Fallout games. However, because being an archer presented an immense challenge I stopped my beserking battlemage act and went with the bow and arrow, Robin Hood style. I'm still getting used to the bow, but I'm ten times better and that's just with aiming; I've put exactly zero points into the archery skill. My usual tactic, besides sending Lydia in first, is to pick enemies off from a hidden position (sneaky remember, plus the 3X damage from a bow sneak attack, awesome) then move in close range with shock and flame attacks to finish off the jerks who're really good a dodging arrows.

I'm not much of a game reviewer, nor do I pay much attention to game reviews; I play what I like and I try what catches my interest. I can't say that I'm a fan of The Elder Scrolls series and I'm not going to play Morrowind or Oblivion, ever. Skyrim is awesome. Bethesda, if you keep making games like Fallout 3 (New Vegas, to a lesser extent) and Skyrim, I will keep playing them. Well done.

Now it's time to get back to it. Come Lydia. We're off to explore, loot, and horde.

Let's Put Chips In All The Children

Crotch-Rockets and Katanas

I've never been one to hop into video game forums and debate/scream about this video game or that video game and which one is better and which on is worse. I'm perfectly content letting the rest of the Internet do that.

After re-watching some Saint's Row: The Third trailers, I found myself reading the comment section of this Kotaku post. There's nothing unusual here in the debating/screaming; however, the comments forced me to look back at my experience with GTA and dissect how I played those games.

Being first introduced to Grand Theft Auto through the revolutionary GTA3, I can't really speak to the earlier bird's-eye-view PlayStation versions. My neighbor and I went to a FuncoLand (do those even exist anymore?), traded in some crap games, forked over some cash, and had his mother give her permission for both M-rated purchases. This was, of course, done without my parents’ permission; they didn't like me spending money on games (period) let alone M-rated ones. We both walked out of that store as very happy kids, we played the opening sequence and the first couple of training missions together, and then split up with our copies for the who-can-beat-it-first competition.

With Grand Theft Auto 3 it was close, but I ended with the prize, only because I spent most of my time playing the missions instead of screwing around in the open world. To this day, GTA3 is the only GTA game in which I've reached that 100 percent achievement (before there were achievements). I'm not sure why I focused on the missions. It certainly wasn't the story. Maybe doing whatever-the-eff-I-wanted wasn't very appealing. I don't know. GTA3 was a mission-based crime-spree to me, not a sandbox.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City changed all that. It's hard to pin-point where exactly the paradigm shift occurred, but I remember seeing these screenshots:

And I thought: Rockstar is going to give me motorcycles and swords! Shit is going to get crazy.

Had the crotch-rockets and katanas been in GTA3, I may have played the game in a totally different way. But that was it, I had more fun doing crazy stuff with my motorcycle and doing killing sprees with my katana, so I never finished all the missions in GTA: Vice City. That's when it happened. GTA became a do-whatever-the-eff-I-want game with motorcycles and swords. And I loved it. Plus the eighties music, awesome!

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was released in fall of 2004, my freshman year of college. I completed just enough missions to unlock the San Fierro island, but not the Las Venturas island. I would swim to that island, get the five-star wanted level, and see how long I could survive. San Andreas also came with motorcycles and swords, plus four-wheelers, planes, jet-packs, chainsaws, and I could dress-up like a complete lunatic.

Screencap Credit: sebilden on Flickr

Eventually, I did have to complete the missions to unlock Las Venturas to play with some of this stuff. Seriously though, the most fun I've ever had with San Andreas was just doing the craziest shit in that sandbox of a game.

To be honest, I bought a PS3 for the sole purpose of playing Grand Theft Auto 4. I even have the silly lock-box (I'm a sucker for pre-order swag, remember), but I haven't completed all the missions as Niko. And I haven't touched the DLC (probably never will). I enjoyed the game, but it's probably my least favorite GTA to date. The portable titles don't count; I haven't played them. The humor and satire in GTA 4 was amazing and kept me coming back to the missions. The chaos and destruction I could cause kept me sandboxing. Plenty of motorcycle fun. But no katana.

For whatever reason, I came up with sound excuses to skip out on the Saint's Row series. When Saint's Row first arrived, my reaction was: "I'd rather play Grand Theft Auto. One crime-spree sandbox is enough for me. Thank you." When Saint's Row 2 arrived, I just didn't care. Maybe I missed some awesome gameplay (and if what I'm seeing with Saint's Row: The Third is a clue, I probably did), but I just wrote them off. Now that November 15th rolls in, I'm getting more and more excited about The Third. All their crazy trailers made me remember all the fun times I had in Vice City and San Andreas.

All I want from Saint's Row: The Third is what I grew to love in Vice City and San Andreas. Crotch-rockets and katanas, please. With a side of pedestrian cannon.

I can't find a screenshot with a sword. Does a hoverbike make up for the lack of swords?

Because I Can

My Favorite Video Game Villain

Destructoid had a community blog topic about villains and I missed the deadline. Damnit! Here's my two cents:

Too often these days, villainy is all relative. Fallout, inFamous, and the Fables. In every one of these, I'll always slide down to my more devilish side. Given the choice, I'll usually follow the "evil" path, grow the horns, and proudly wear the title "Agent of Chaos;" where do I get that belt buckle?

What I'm saying is that, lately, I haven't met a villain who has motivated me to be heroic and vow vengeance on his/her evil ass. So I'm gonna dig deep in the bargain-bin/ratty cardboard box in my closet filled with jewel cases and cartridges to find my favorite evil-doer.

My loyalties to various game series have tapered off over the years, but one series has remained constant: Resident Evil and that is solely because of one man, Albert Wesker. Most of the heroes and villians introduced outside of the original Resident Evil and its sequel, I hate. Most of the badies crawling around (besides zombies and hunters) piss me off. But as long as I can still stick it to that manipulative, back-stabbing, power-tripping sonovabitch, Wesker, I'll keep playing Resident Evil.

I'll admit that one of my many mistakes in life was playing Resident Evil 2 before playing Resident Evil. I was young and didn't know any better; still, I managed to get through RE2 without learning too much about the "mansion incident," which means nothing in RE2 spoiled RE1 for me. Even though I searched his desk for bullets and saw S.T.A.R.S. group photo behind that desk, I didn't meet Albert Wesker until popping the dual shock version of Resident Evil in my Playstation.

And this is what I saw: Albert "Iceman" Wesker wearing his sunglasses at night. How badass is that? Anyway, the fearless leader and commander soon turned into someone I completely despised. My motivation to play and my interest in RE's story altogether grew from my general loathing for this character. Hell, I even read the S. D. Perry books to find out more about him. Then I went back to playing the games. Resident Evil 3 was a fun game, but I was disappointed by the lack of Albert Wesker. Nemesis was no Wesker, but the goofy recurring boss battles just turned into: Nice try Nemmy, maybe next time. I'm sure there will be one. Between Code Veronica and Wesker's Report, I decided that my real nemesis had his evil little fingers pulling strings in both RE2 and RE3. He wasn't there, but he was.

I can't say much about Resident Evil Code Veronica. It's my least favorite game of the series; I played it and beat it on the Sega Dreamcast and I never touched it again. It was awesome to finally confront Wesker as Chris, but in the back of my mind, I kinda knew things weren't resolved. Then the remakes came out and my hatred for Albert was rekindled. When Resident Evil 4 hit shelves, I was salivating for more story, more character development, and more zombies. Therefore, RE4 was a disappointment for me, but (and this is a big but) it was still fun to play. Like RE2 and RE3, Wesker was there, but he wasn't (And I'm not talking about the mercenaries, arg). The string-pulling was even more apparent with Ada flitting about in her pink dress and machine gun.

To wrap things up (probably not) Capcom sent Chris and Wesker to Africa in Resident Evil 5. That was way back in 2009, so yeah, by then I was ready for another rematch. I should have seen the ending coming, because what happened to Wesker happened to the entire rogues gallery (William Birkin, James Marcus, Lisa Trevor, Jack Krauser, Osmund Saddler, Ricardo Irving, Excella Gionne); he mutates into some crazy-ass monstrosity right before you kill him. And just when I'm settling into my couch, Wesker jumps up, grabs the helicopter, and I have to mash a button or two to kill him again. The end. If you're keeping track, Wesker dies once and comes back, he dies a second time and comes back. This is his third death and lava or no lava; I'm guessing he'll come back for another rematch.

In fact, I'm counting on it. This maniacal, yet cool and composed, super villain is the best thing about Resident Evil, especially since they ditched the zombies.

To Make A Meme

Random question: is there a prinny meme out there?

I feel like prinnies are funny enough and random enough that they would fit the bill for a meme. After spending about fifteen minutes on the meme generator, I could photoslop something together.

I'm thinking something simple, like: "Dood! Yeah, dood!" This first one is positive, paired with a happy/excited prinny. The second one is negative: "Dood. No, dood." Pair this with an angry/horrified prinny.

The meme generator was helpful, but mostly a distraction. The socially awkward penguin stood out as a possible template. However, I'm seeing this as a corner-comment in a larger image of Barack Obama or Scarlet Johansson. Maybe that's too much work.

One of my favorites is the Philip J. Fry (or Futurama Fry) meme and it comes with an image and a formula: "Not sure if X" at the top followed by "or just Y" at the bottom of the image. The formula for a stand-alone prinny meme is the complicated part. Maybe it's not so complicated: "Dood! (something awesome)" at the top followed by "Yeah, dood!" at the bottom. Let's try it out.

EXAMPLE: Dood! ScarJo pics are real. Yeah, dood!

OR: Dood! My office power is out. Going home early. Yeah, dood!"

Yeah, Dood! I like it. I threw it into quickmeme. We'll see how it does.

Everything is Better with Dinosaurs

Sometimes I go out into the wilderness of the internet specifically looking for something. Hunting, if you will. Sometimes I head out there just to see what I can see; this is the 'just a walk in the park' mentality. In either case, one thing will always stop me. Dinosaurs.

Lately, all the hype associated with dinosaurs has been surrounding the new sci-fi television gambit Terra Nova. However, I don't watch that much television. But I do play los videojuegos. And video games with dinosaurs will stop me in my internet-surfing tracks.

It all started with this article about the blu-ray trilogy release of Jurassic Park and the girl who played Lex in the amazing film (and it's craptastic sequel). She and Timmy were the best parts of the movie, besides the dinosaurs, that is. Anyway, allow me to map out this discovery in a series of links:

Jurassic Park Blu-ray Trilogy Article (includes video of grown-up Lex)
Famous Kitchen Scene on YouTube
Trailer for Telltale's new Jurassic Park Game
Spinosaurus Boss Fight from Jurassic: The Hunted
New Spino vs. T-Rex Video - What is this?
It's called Primal Carnage. It has dinosaurs.
    Hrm. Looks pretty, but what is Primal Carnage?
Holy Crap! You can play as a Tyrannosaur and eat people!
Awesome. Raptors. Team Dinosaur vs. Team Human.
    Who would play as a human? We're so lame.
Going to the real website now...
Play as a raptor, in the jungle.
    I want to attack, not from the front, but from the sides.
What is Primal Carnage really about?

Or, perhaps: "Shut up and sign me up for the beta!"

Wow, that's all I have to say. Just wow. I've loved dinosaurs since I was a kid. Little Foot and the Land Before Time. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. Turok. Trespasser. Dino Crisis. This is all in-addition-to Michael Crichton's amazing books and the movies spawned from them.

Bring on the Primal Carnage! I can't wait to play as the raptor.

On Dragons

Welp, the two week hiatus is up. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm not yet in the post-game of Disgaea 4. Have I failed as a Disgaea fan? Maybe, but I'll keep chugging along. My army of gunners and skulls is not going anywhere. I do admire those of you who have obliterated the game already; kind of wish I had that kind of time on my hands.

Unfortunately, I don't. And I won't have that time until the end of September. Then I can really game it up. It's terribly disappointing that the folks at Nippon Ichi Software didn't have the BYOL (levels) feature enabled right out of the box. Still pissed that I couldn't build right away.

Remember the pre-order goodies?

In crazier news, I played in my first official MTG tournament with surprising success. An ultimate victory it wasn't, but three rounds of defeating my opponents in two games (we played best two out of three) can't mean I'm horrible. I made a fatal mistake in the first game of the fourth round; suffering from blood-rage, I swung at my adolescent advisory with all my creatures, leaving none behind to block. Dumb-da-dumb-dumb.

The tournament was a variation that I hadn't heard about or seen before, but I'm fairly new to competitive MTG. It was always goofy friends doing goofy things with fantasy cards; we didn't try to kill each other like in Monopoly.

Everyone in the tournament started with a booster pack and three of each colored mana. Without looking at our booster packs, we opened the booster and shuffled in the mana. That was your thirty card deck. You played round one without knowing what was lurking in your deck as well as your opponent's. If you won your round, you were given another booster pack and had to construct a forty card deck. The more rounds you won, the more booster packs you were rewarded. But you couldn't go over the forty-card limit.

I'd like to take a moment and give special thanks to my partner in a three-round winning streak: the Volcanic Dragon. He was, by far, the best card I unwrapped out of all three booster packs.

All my rares sucked; plus, this dragon reared his hot little head and helped me win four out of the six games I won.

Getting Back To It

Puzzles. I like puzzles, especially the complex ones that challenge me to understand the how and why something works. If it’s extremely complicated, I love sifting through instructions with detailed explanations. Anything from simple Lego instructions or cooking recipes to how-to hacking guides or circuit schematics (which still look like weird little maps to me).

The challenge has always been the draw for me. Can I do it?

Under normal circumstances, the answer is yes, but with a little help. I'm ok with that, which is why I love sites like gamefaqs. Their all-text guides and forums are usually my go-to-place for videogames that have me stumped. Similarly, instructables is a great place for DITY guides and advice; I turn there for ideas on how to do anything and everything.

The puzzles that have confounded me the most as of late have been the hacking of current and recent game consoles. The long gone, but not forgotten, Sega Dreamcast was my first successful excursion into the world of console modding. Not sure why I held onto that old girl, but I never traded in my Dreamcast nor my three favorite games: Code Veronica, Jet Grind Radio, and SW: Demolition. After finding a boot disc iso and the right burner program, my library of DC games went from 3 to whatever the internet has to offer.

High off the fumes of success, I turned my sore little fingers (from hours of button mashing through Marvel Vs. Capcom 2) to my phat PSP. Hacking that little bugger was much more difficult, even with the guides. After two weeks of step-by-step trial and error, I finally bricked my PSP-1000. Eighty bucks down the drain. I did buy it used, but I was still pissed. Eighty bucks is big money to me.

Failure is part of life. I still have that bricked PSP as a friendly reminder.

The next target was and still is the Xbox (the first one, the old one). Why the Xbox? Well, I was initially going for the XBMC set-top box. That was the goal when I started. Now, the ultimate achievement is XBMC with retro gaming functionality. I’m talking emulators and roms from NES to N64, maybe some PS1 (if that’s even possible).

Using the Splinter Cell and Action Replay dongle softmod trick I installed/accessed the replacement dashboard Evolution or Evox. Success, right? And I stopped right there, not wanting to screw something up.

Therein lies the greatest barrier: I had to be willing to fail and completely destroy my Xbox. At the time, coming off the PSP disaster, I wasn't ready to brick another perfectly functional console. Frozen and afraid to try. Afraid to continue. It's basically the same as failing. So, time to get back to work; I found a good place to help pick up where I left off.

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.

~Michael Jordan

Gaming this Fall: Features and Distractions

After much consideration I've decided not to endorse your park. No wait. That's not right. After much consideration, I've picked my fall gaming line-up. It was tough. Skyrim. Rage. Arkum City. Gears. Saints. The Old Republic. I can't play them all at once.

With plenty of backlog to go, I had a hard decision ahead of me. But I have a system; not a schedule, a system of features and diversions. The feature or features are the games that occupy most of my screen time; I let go and get sucked into these gaming worlds.

My features for this fall are Skyrim and Disgaea 4. I didn't put D4 in the opening list, because it was a given. I'm kinda hoping Skyrim will be my next Fallout 3. Bethesda, I'm throwing you a bone here. You surprised me with your take on the Fallout universe. Having never touched an Elder Scrolls game before in my life, all I can say is I hope your dragons do it for me. But seriously, I want the world and its story. However, if the dragons disappoint, I will let you know.

The real measuring stick for Skyrim's success will be how much it pulls me away from Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten; this game drops on September 6. There's an event in my google calendar and a bookmark in my graph paper notebook where the map designs start. Skyrim will only stand a chance because it lands sometime in November. That'll give me plenty of time to break my controller playing D4. And (hopefully) enough time to find another PS3 controller.

This time around, the diversion was the most difficult to pick. In my system, the diversions are games that I turn to when I need a break from the feature. Rage and Gears of War 3 were the two biggest contenders this year, as shooters usually fall into the diversion role for me. Stirrings of madness often require me to blow hordes of enemies into steaming piles of fresh and bone for my sanity's sake. Aka, I like diversions that help me blow off steam.

After seeing more videos then necessary, I decided to pass on Gears and Rage for Saints Row: The Third and I must shamefully admit that the man-a-pult car had something to do with my choice. It's like the cannons in Mario 64, but rated M. Like Elder Scrolls, I have never touched a Saints game and I don't give two shits about its gangland story; I just want to reek havoc and be goofy. Goofy. That's what I want in this fall's diversion title.

On a closing note, I'm just choosing to wait on The Old Republic and Batman: Arkum City. I cracked open Arkum Asylum about a year after it dropped and loved it. Hopefully waiting (again) will make the bat and the cat that much sweeter.

Fun With WiFi

There is an unsecured wireless network in our apartment complex; it's the free internet that everyone uses. Having recently killed our internet, my roommate and I use the unsescured "linksys" for all of our internetting needs.

Lifehacker discussed some scary wireless network names via this story. The two posts got me thinking of funny/scary names for wireless networks. Here is the list...

c:\virus.exe

rapeU@midnight

WeCanHearUHavingSex

ICanWatchUFroMyPC

c:\d_firewall.exe

w32/kilonce.b.worm

Warbiest_Terminator_v.2.0.exe

unmarked surveillance van

Trojan.Downloader-647

Win32/Nuwar.N@MM!CME-711

botnethasu

IdRathrbphishing

W32.MyDoom@mm

virtualvahjj

These wireless network names are meant to deter others from sapping your wireless bandwidth. Of course, the other option would be to secure your wireless network. Duh. And remember kids: just because you secure your wireless network, doesn't mean you have to settle with the default "linksys" SSID. Be creepy creative.

Organizing A Digital Life

I have a netbook that I consider to be my primary computer. If my apartment were burning to the ground, this netbook is one of the few things that I would grab and shove into my backpack as I scramble away from the searing flames. The netbook contains most (if not all) of the silly little writing projects I'm currently juggling. Devoid of music and pictures, I use this mobile writing machine for note-taking, free-writing, and brain-storming. It's also my primary e-reader. Not in the same vein as a nook or a kindle, but if I'm going to read something electronically, I'll probably read it on this little guy. It's great for blogging and surfing; plus, it has Doom and a GBA emulator installed. All the fun I need right there.

Just as dust builds up on forgotten bookshelves, so does crap collect on this computer; it's time to clean it up and clean it out. Messy.

The same could probably be said for my other computers, but right now I'm just worried about this netbook. The horror stories circulate of crashes and data loss; they've finally scared me into backing up my stuff. Now I need to figure out the best way to do the backing. My instincts tell me external harddrive. And if it's just a matter of copy-pasting every month, I'm cool with that. However, in this day and age of "There's an app for that," I feel like I could hunt down, well...an app for that.

For a small amount of back-up and syncing, I already use Dropbox. This little application killed my use of and dependence upon USB flash drives. I still have one floating around here somewhere, but it's contents are just as messy as my netbook's.

Some interesting options that I've found are SugarSync, Amazon CloudDrive, and Crashplan. Now, to be completely honest, I'm a flickr nut. That network is my home for photographs. The problem is that I take way more pictures than the ones that I post to my free flickr account. What do I do with those "B" images? That's where SugarSync comes in. Dropbox has some of the photo sharing functionality that SugarSync features, but it can't beat SugarSync. The five gigs of space that SugarSync provides (for free) are dedicated to all the crazy, weird, crappy shots that don't make the cut for my flickr page. Occationally, I dig into those gigs for photoshop inspirations of the crazy and weird category.

I'm still very much an iTunes dude; my iPod touch still gets around. Amazon's CloudDrive with it's five free gigs was a bit outside my comfort zone. Then I realized I could buy one album and bump those five free gigs to twenty gigs (for a year). So I jumped, signed up, but still haven't purchases the el cheapo album to qualify for the extra free gigs. I'm hoping for something that I like that's also under three dollars. It hasn't happened yet.

Last is Crashplan. I first read about this guy on Lifehacker; they covered the app in detail, but I had to play with it first. The free features sold me initially, but when I grow up and get a job, I'll shell out the jeffersons for the cloud back-up features. I've no momentary shortage of external media; imagine a nifty mosaic made out of SD and pro duo memory cards. Don't tempt me. Seriously though, I have a big external harddrive that I'm using for now.

Because of the no internet thing, I've been spending much more time with my little netbook (as I carry it to coffee shops, the library, and occasionally campus) and I want to make it a more efficient and safe machine. Being outside or sharing a table with a fellow laptoper has been a nice change to my dark, dank bedroom that serves as the center of my computer prowess.

Hurricane Mary

Death has never been an unsettling thing for me. It's a part of life. A part of living. Sure, it's jarring when it's unexpected, especially when it's a child or a young person shuffling off this mortal coil. But old people? I know and I know they know that their clock is ticking. So when somebody old dies in my family, my grieving process is incredibly short.

Given the spiritual state of my family, I believe that when a loved one has passed on, she has gone to an infinitely better place compared to the broken world in which we live.

The body, the leftover flesh, goes in an expensive box that goes in the ground. The living bury the same decaying organic matter as everything else on this planet. What goes in the ground is not who we are. We are immortal beings; our spirit or our soul or our light leaves a physical body behind that was nothing more than an earth suit.

I don't grieve the loss of a ripped shirt, torn pants, or worn-out socks. Why grieve the loss of an earth suit?

In every death there is a radiant birth as our soul transcends the boundaries of this physical world. Free of its shackles, our light returns to the light.

My Computer Wants More Attention

Oh shit, it's that time again. I can feel the primordial urges swelling up inside me, tearing away at my civil, organized, and laid-back nature. No, it's not a full moon and I'm not transforming into a werewolf or some other shape-shifting beast. It's time to dive back into PC gaming.

It's a vicious cycle; my PC gaming history dates all the way back to Myst and Doom 95. If you were to plot my PC gaming with a fancy graphing calculator or just scribbles on a white board, it would look like your average sinusoidal wave. Complete with crests and troughs; large, wide troughs representing valleys of console gaming and sharp, peak-like crests representing my periodic ascension to WASD greatness.

So, maybe it's not as sequential as I'm imagining it, but there is a clear pattern here: new computer. Our first family computer, my first personal computer, my first laptop (for college). Those are the three peaks, right there. The odd thing about each peak is that I carry games from new machine to new machine. Myst kind of died with Windows 95, but I've installed Doom on every PC of mine that I can. I picked up Diablo 2 and The Sims with my first personal computer. That machine was also where I first played Fallout (such a special place in my heart). The Dell XPS that traveled with me to college was my first high-end gaming machine. Unreal Tournament 2004, Far Cry, Dungeon Siege 1 and 2, and Paraworld spawned from that dorm room desk.



Yes, I said Paraworld. I like my RTS games with dinosaurs. Hell, everything is better with dinosaurs. Take Jurassic Park, for example, if not for the dinosaurs that movie would have sucked. I've added an iMac to that computer collection, but it's not for gaming. That's for all the multimedia editing that I do for work and freelance. I also picked up an Acer netbook sometime in graduate school. Guess what the first program I installed on that baby was? The Doom Collector's Edition. All the Doom you can handle in one neat little package. Then I installed all the crap I needed for class.

So far, there are five PC games to which I'm constantly returning: Doom, Diablo 2, The Sims, Dungeon Siege, and Paraworld. Being able to play these again will be a plus, but it's games like The Old Republic and Diablo 3 that are spurring me to contemplate a new gaming machine. Maybe I'll even build my own PC this time.

A Blog On Writing, How Meta

If you look around on the internet, especially the blogosphere, you can find all sorts of "helpful" posts about how to write a blog, how to make money blogging, or how to improve your blog. I'll just go to Google right now and search. Here's what I found

Crap.
More Crap.

Obviously there were more than this, but I only wanted a couple examples. I could read how-to-blog help posts from now until I'm blue in the face and I don't think I'd find anything helpful (for me). Is it because I'm beyond help? Well, hopefully not, but I'm also more optimistic than that.

Given absolute freedom, I'd rather do what I want and write what I feel. That's how I approach blogging. The internet drills on about framework and structure and content. Titles and take-aways. I say bunk-a-bugga. From five paragraph essays to term paper outlines, we've been force-fed this way to write and it looks as messy as orange barrels and detours in a construction zone along the interstate. Blogs need to defy that pre-fab, cookie-cutter writing mentality in exchange for exploration and creativity.

I first noticed this order versus chaos dichotomy in a creative writing class. It was creative nonfiction. I'm still not sure what that means. Anyway, we used this stupid course management system forum to post our assignments, respond to what we were supposed to be reading, and comment on each other's work. So we would all upload a neat and pristine word document, our creative nonfiction on display, then wait for classmates to respond and critique in the forum comments section. Man, I loved reading the comments; regardless if my work was ripped to shreds or placed on a pedestal. That class's forum comments section was a primordial cesspool for real writing. Raw writing. Some of the craziest shit I've ever read. Maybe I need to wade through some more forums across the internet. Upon entering the blogosphere, I expected to find that raw, untamed wilderness. Sad to say, but the orange barrels are already here.

A Man Unplugged

In an attempt to waylay unsavory habits of borrowing movies, music, and software my household unanimously decided to cut the cord (so to speak) and cancel the internet component of our cable services. Even though I did my best Jeff Winger, I couldn't convince them to kill everything. College football is starting again and they would have none of my just-cancel-the-cable craziness. Apparently they need football at home much more than I need the internet at home. So I lost and won.

Officially I am unplugged; it's a can't-stop-my-hands-from-shaking feeling, like an addict going cold turkey. My brain, suffering from withdraw, started listing all the things I could no longer do without the internet. Team Slayer in Halo Reach, gone. Wait, that means Xbox Live is...gone. And that means the PlayStation Network is also...gone. The shakes come back. Who am I going to lose to in Mortal Kombat? What about all those new features in the next Disgaea game? Screaming now. The lights go out. What have I done? Paying bills online...gone. No more youtube, iTunes, or flickr. All is lost. All is lost.

What have I done? Okay, relax. It's not as bad as I'm making out to sound. The disconnected life does mean that the Xbox and PS3 lose their online multi-player; there will be less idle browsing in flickr, youtube and facebook. Yeah, I'm going to miss this stuff at first, but it won't be a horrible loss. And there's one key word I want everyone to read: TEMPORARY. The plan is to flip the magical internet switch back on at the beginning of September. Think of it as a cache-clearing technodetox.

This is an experiment, in the greatest sense of the word. I want to see if I can do it. Go without the internet at home. I can still read up on things and blog during my mandatory hour lunch break at work. On top of all that, I can use my new phone to check my email and jack into the interwebs (which I won't do too often because I'm not a fan of touch screen interneting). All the bases of necessity are covered and I feel confident I can make it until August 31, 2011 before I call the cable company, half screaming, half crying for them to give us back our internet. I don't know how my roommates will manage, but if worst comes to worst...

...there's always unsecured wireless networks.

Pre-order, Prinny Please

Once again, I find myself falling prey to pre-order swag. The fourth reincarnation of Disgaea releases this September and I'm constantly reminded of the pre-order goodies from NIS America. A special "thank you" goes out to the email spam prinnies polluting may inbox with their Hades-spun advertising. Still. Art books and soundtracks are tempting treasures. Wait, what am I saying, after about a week the Disgaea game music gets annoying; I usually turn the BGM all the way down and grind through the item world to Rush or podcasts. So I'm really just interested in the art book. And where's the Disgaea 4 strategy guide (which is basically an art book with the walkthrough, character/weapon/spell/monster tables, and secrets)? Yeah, I'd rather have one of those.

Tempting though those goodies may be, the one thing that has me salivating about Disgaea 4 are the PlayStation network connectivity options. Every since popping the original Disgaea into my PS2 and delving into the item world, I have wanted to make my own item world maps. In fact, I'm sitting on three designs in a graph paper notebook that will be the first ones I churn out. I even did a geo panel pattern in the carpet of a Sims house. Okay, you get the picture. I really want to design levels in Disgaea 4. But this is just one of the functionalities spanning the PlayStation network, there's also Senator swapping, Pirate customization and battling, and game data comparisons. My Laharl can hit for 999k damage. Oh yeah, my Laharl can hit for more. It's about time we had some Disgaea dickwaving options in real time. I'm tired of all the youtube anyway.

It's exciting to see all these features promoting interaction in the world of Disgaea. I'm a fan of the series (this much should be obvious to you now), but I'm a little upset that it's taken this long to implement the interactivity. Sure, Afternoon of Darkness had the multi-player option, but it was way too little for such a large world as Disgaea's. I envision Little Big Planet style of interaction and cooperation for Disgaea's Netherverse. Call me crazy, but I think co-op levels, multi-army battles, and team-based objectives would open Disgaea up and launch an immersive gameplay experience. Picture a multi-player level riddled with Deathblow, Clone, and Warp geo panels and six blue pulsing base panels, three on each side of the map; a middle no man's land splits the sides, barren, save for geo symbols. Sprites file out of each base panel, turn by turn until the set unit number populates the map. Then the battle ensues, like some psychedelic, six person, spell-casting chess game.

Maybe the prinnies are listening. Maybe I'll get my wish. DLC?

Not Doing Much

Technically, the do nothing man no longer exists. Yeah, it's sad. Believe me, I know. Besides the fact that I had no income and very little cash (I was eating out of my savings account), I thoroughly enjoyed doing nothing. My stint of unemployment lasted only six months. October, November, and December of 2010. January, February, and March of 2011.

At the end of March I was of offered a job with a software company on their development and quality assurance team. For security and privacy reasons, I'm not going to talk too much about the company, its products, or what I do. But I will say it's awesome and that I'm required to take an hour break for lunch.

This free time in the middle of the day has led me back to this lonesome blog. The Chronicles of F. S. was a collaborative idea between myself and a close friend. This guy, whom I met in a creative writing class (poetry, go figure) at The Ohio State University, set everything up for me: the name, the blog, the twitter account, everything. All he told me was: "There you go. Tell your stories."

Storytelling has always been a passion of mine, but I'm not always on the side of delivery. In fact, I look to be on the receiving end of storytelling most of the time; I revel in excellent storytelling. And I love to listen to excellent storytellers. Taking a slight side-step, I also enjoy reading reviews on video games and technology, especially when the reviewers are storytellers themselves.

So I tried my hand at some of that over at Destructoid. I promise not to re-post anything...though I may occasionally shoot a link over to that blog. What's overwhelming was the amount of attention I paid to other peoples’ blog posts while writing mine. After my posts were up, was still paying more attention to other posts; I wanted to see who commented and when. I read the posts that went up before and after mine. Additionally, I really focused on related posts that were getting more views and comments than my post. In doing all this, I realized my most adamant curiosity: How do I write a blog post that spurs attention and action from my audience? I want to get people talking, commenting, liking, disliking, or tweeting. How do I ignite that interaction? That's the killer question. Finding the answer is now my goal.

Breaking My Backlog

If you live in the northern hemisphere of planet earth, summer officially started this week. It started, but it kind of didn't. No sweltering heat, no sticky humidity. I'm almost nervous, because it's the cloudy, cool, gray, rainy, overcast weather that I like. I'm nervous because it's not what I've come to expect after living in Ohio for twelve years.

Summer is usually reserved for two things (in my lifestyle): ultimate disc and video games. I can't spend all summer in the AC playing through my backlog of games from the year, so I enroll in an ultimate league for outside time, exercise, and friendly off-line competition. So, this flavor of droll weather is much more conducive to being outside and doing stuff or things. Whatever it is that people do. Hey, I can put on my normal camouflage and blend. Sometimes.

I'm nervous because my backlogged hole is pretty deep. I'm not sitting on that many games, but the ones in my to-play stack are life-suckingly immersive: Fallout New Vegas and Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare are the big guys. Though I'm told Undead Nightmare won't take me too long. I'm also sitting on Pokemon Black (laugh all you want, but this is the first gotta-catch-'em-all game with a story that is somewhat interesting), Dissidia Duodecim Final Fantasy (WTF names), and Disgaea 3 Absence of Justice.

These are all games that I started and just need to finish or complete to my liking. I'll probably never go as deep in a Disgaea game as I did for Disgaea 2 Dark Hero Days. The total hours for the PSP port of Disgaea 2 is now most easily tallied in weeks. Crazy sad. But I love my little sprite army and I love decimating the Land of Carnage with it. Once the story of Disgaea 3 is complete, I'll probably trade in that game. D3 is my least favorite Disgaea game (counting spin-offs) so far, maybe finishing the story will change that opinion. D3 is also my least favorite Mighty Ducks movie. But that's not saying much. So, those are the summer five. Shouldn't take too long.