Acierocolotl: Fair and Balanced

1:23pm: Champions?
Okay, lissen, two things: I'm still alive, still kicking and all that, just hadn't been up to writing which maybe I'll change and maybe I won't; there's some random nonsense I could write about if I felt so-inclined.

And in the spirit of olden posts, here are some pics of some Champions Online. They're big ass, and I'm not cutting them down. But I'll make a cut, just for you, because you are my friend.

( Seriously! )

10:32pm: Real Deal or Big Deal? You tell me.
The title gives me the hives. I made it through about a page and a half before it put it down and stopped reading it, primarily because it would have been impolite to read, but secondarily because this stuff is out of my ken.

I mean, I don't know if it's bullshit or if it's real. My entire academic career has been focussed, with laser-like intensity, on the hard sciences (and supporting scholastics). I do not know this stuff. I want to call it bullshit, but I don't know.

So I turn to you. You are each easily smarter than I. Here, then, is the exerpt.

( The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world )

7:08pm: BLOODYMARE: REQUIEM: BLOODYMARE (or the return of an AO classic-style post)
Acierocolotl: Bweeeheehee. Xfire has been shoving this "bloodiest mmo" ad at me for awhile. So independantly of xfire, I went to take a look. I am laughing uncharitably.
PurpleXVI: THE BLOODIEST?
Acierocolotl: Yes. It is called BLOODYMARE: REQUIEM, and the pictures are all strewn with red, like a kid cut loose with a red sugar squirter at a cake factory.
PurpleXVI: Hahahah. That's AWESOME.
Acierocolotl: It is a game! With blood! Also it is in open beta at the moment. I'm half of a mind to suggest we beta this thing together.
PurpleXVI: ...Wait, is it seriously called BLOODYMARE?
Acierocolotl: Yes. Just go past the age check, check out the screenies.
PurpleXVI: ...Is that honestly an in-lined video where the preview picture is red blood cels? ...And wow, I swear that the picture at the top loaded WITHOUT blood at first.
Acierocolotl: Who can tell. I can not. But I know, oh my stars and garters, that there's an open beta for it. I've no especial need to go in on my own, the thing looks laughable.
PurpleXVI: Oh God, that lower right screenshot.
Acierocolotl: Oh yes. This thing has the hallmarks of being a classic.
PurpleXVI: Whenever anyone tells me they're playing an MMO, I'm going to harangue them for not playing THE BLOODIEST MMO.
Acierocolotl: Hah! I can't help but grin. This shit is hilarious.
PurpleXVI: Man, thanks for pointing this out, I thought it'd honestly just be red-coloured dullness, but godduh, there are laughs here.
Acierocolotl: So you wanna check it out for real live screenshot action?
PurpleXVI: Oh God, man, I'm really not sure I could survive that. Though, y'know... What if it's actually GOOD? What if it's not shit?
Acierocolotl: Then the joke's on us. But come on. What are the odds of it being good.

And thus did our heroes struggle, in vain, to get signed up for the beta. Apparently, the makers of REQUIEM: BLOODYMARE: REQUIEM did not like secure browsers.

Acierocolotl: I'm'a just delete this torrent. This is too much work for too little reward. I wonder if they're gonna sit there and think to themselves, "Damn, why come nobody signed up? Don't they like BLOOD?!"
PurpleXVI: Maybe for their next one they'll try BONES. Or BRAINS. Or GUTS. Or SKIN.
Acierocolotl: BONEMARE: THE COLONING It has to have a goddamn colon in the title. It must.
PurpleXVI: SKULLMARE: THE SPLEENING

12:37am: MANswers?
Here's a brief thing, then:

When ensconsed in a hotel room and watching the telly for the first time in, shit, a very long time, we fetched up on Spike TV's "MANswers" show, which purports to have answers of great interest and importance to men, such as how one could most safely (from prosecution) seek out prostitutes, how to get inebriated as quickly as possible, or the size of breast required to crush a beer can.

It was of considerable interest and consternation that the girrul there was more intruiged by these answers than I.

(PS: The most efficient, gearless inebriation can be had by had by enema. Which I already knew anyway.)

10:16pm: Amateur Accountants
So I know that the whole point of this LJ exercise is to not ever write anything of any clear value, ever. For me, I mean. You gotta write about what you gotta write about, and far be it from me to judge (though I reserve the right to chide or mock at any time).

Here I will share some of this "reality" business with what's been going down over in AO-land, strictly because it's so patently absurd that no comedian could outstrip it.

You probably have not noticed my absence, for I am quiet and discrete like that. The absence has been real, however, and forced upon me over the last few weeks. We'll call this "ISP Shenanigans."

For the last few years, I have made use of a certain, small ISP in this city, which promissed a superior service. It being a small company, it appeals to my fierce independant bullshit personality.

Over the last few years, they'd often not bill me. Surprisingly, this wasn't because they valued me so much, but simply because they forgot. Rather than admit they'd forgotten, they'd come up with some sort of lame, "Oh, we tried to call you and see what was going on," or, "Your bank wasn't working," excuse, but only after they'd terminate my service and I had to call in to see what the hell was going on.

Still, you know, they were giving me free service, even if it wasn't the most reliable, went down at random intervals and then would get arbitrarily cut because they'd forgotten to bill me. I was okay with that. The last disconnect, however, was from them stating I hadn't paid them (no surprise) but they had, in fact, remembered to bill me; I was looking at my electronic bank statement while talking to them. Accounting errors are only to be tolerated if they benefit me!

And, really, an ISP with randomly disconnecting service and accounting errors really doesn't need my support; my name should only be attached to the cool and competent, that sort of thing.

Now, back to the irregularily-scheduled wacky hijinks.

7:11pm: Merry Shmas, folx.
"Shmas," that's what I've been calling it--pronouncing the "x" in "xmas" the way the Aztecs might, because what the hell, "Shmas," sounds just absurd enough to catch and it caught.

Wishing me a merry shmas, She (the girrul, of course) informed me that the Santa Claus Performance Review Board (SCPRB) did deem my performance throughout 2008 to be sufficient to merit a bottle of Oban 14yr as a reward (which is damn tasty), and the silliest of toques--in the form of a fish, whose fangly maw is chewing upon my head. When it wore it, she couldn't stop laughing. Pictures will follow once I look a little less dishevelled, of course.

Now, the chief reason for this little writing isn't really to vaunt my superior performance in the eyes of the SCPRB, but it is to share a small, tiny, and (in the context of this here journal) briefly serious post.

My friends (and those other weiners who might read this), I confess to you a brief fear: that my job and other things has encouraged me to become more than a little dull. It is a deathly fear, one that, inspired by a couple mind-numbing years of large-dollar report writing, have sort of quashed any desire to do anything outside of going home and shutting down. I need only see how this journal has languished to better appreciate these worries. Getting that problem licked would be the best Shmas present of all time.

7:21am: Time for the once-in-a-timeperiod update (Fallout 3 flavour)
( There's screenshots behind the cut. )

10:23pm: She probably thinks I forgot about Ell.
Oh, the joys of bad voice acting!

It turns out that, completely unintentionally, I can do a spot-on impersonation of that really terrible voice actor who voices the bear-druid-thingie that gets killed off in a bit of nerdish culture. By bending tropes just a little, I reduced her to the Aching Ribs of Unstoppable Laughter.

"ELLANEE. I NEED... I NEED TO DO SOME CALCULUS ELLANEE. YOU GOT TO HELP ME, YOU GOT TO GET ME SOME PAPER ELLANEE. I CAN'T WRITE THE DY/DX ELLANEE HELP WHAT DO I DO CAN YOU HOLD THE PEN FOR ME? MY BEAR PAWS CAN NOT HOLD THE PEN, ELLANEE."

You don't have to be there. I make no excuses for my humour.

9:36pm: A letter to the Ten Ton Hammer fora:
Your "please come back to the forum!" e-mail reminder was written by a lonely bearded man who has never touched the skin of a woman.

I have never participated in your fora before this message, I have no interest in your fora, and I find the e-mails desperately clingy. Please leave me be.

I'd prefer not to spamblock, and would have preferred just to unsubscribe, but I don't see that option readily apparent and am disinclined to seriously commit to a hunt for it, so that leaves me here.

This is my not-precisely-polite (note the sarcasm please) attempt to have my account deleted and the e-mails cease. I trust you'd permit people to delete their accounts more readily, or for heavens sake, QUIT IT with the whining e-mails.

Really. It's grossly unprofessional (as is this message).

You're cordially invited to flame this message all you like; I have no intention of logging back in to reading replies, and would be seriously pleased if my account were deleted in its stead. If not, I suppose I'd be forced to write another of these posts. (I don't mind, it's kind of cathartic and juvenile.)

Yrs,
Acierocolotl

12:21am: Flat Out: Ultimate Carnage
So, uhh, yeah, it's out for the PC now. It's Flat Out 2.5; you know exactly what you're getting if you get this. It's just even shinier.

I'll seeya in a few weeks or some shit.

11:11pm: Here's one to lighten the AO drought.
Not just anything will do after all this time not writing, so here's something of a bit of a classic in terms of feel.

In walking to a Very Important Place, the girrul and I were about to pass abreast of some woman walking towards us. Well, the sidewalks were a bit narrow, so somebody would have to yield. It wasn't about to be us, as we are Very Important.

Clearly she was Very Important as well, for this woman this woman simply lifted an outdoor sign that was in her way and put it aside without breaking her stride. Nobody yielded! Hoorah.

Man, I got nothin', I'm sorry.

11:50pm: Eight (8) (huite) signs your partner is addicted to porn.
The girrul sent me some Foxnews link about the BMW prototype model that's got fabric fenders and such. Well, that was neat, but what really caught my eye was the article with the eight signs that my partner was addicted to porn. It was too good to pass up.

( What got me was the old I'm not sexist. I just use 'he' because basically only guys are porndogs! tone. )

9:57pm: Wii.
I got one of them newfangled wii-thingies the other day, and having an oldschool wire-style network, I couldn't hook it up to the Intertubes because that there wii-thingum came only with wireless.

Just on a lark, though, I checked for wireless connections. Several popped up! Most were unlocked. Which one did I take? The one marked "private", of course! If you're going to have a private network, try closing it off, I sez.

In other news, I'd like to reccommend Dark Wind to all y'all, if you were the sort to want to play Car Wars without a goddamn degree in accounting. Car Wars, but fun! The girrul even likes it, and you know how much she hates things.

3:33am: So it's May I guess.
( I'll update once a month and you'll LIKE it. )

5:58am: Context-free livejournal
"Before you stands a quadrepedal spider-like thing. Well, except that it has a monkey-like head! (which is ridged). It clearly hasn't been eating well because it looks quite skeletal! Oh my! It has big, huge flat black eyes, all the better to see you in the dungeon. It has a big, trunk-like nose. It smell likes sweat! Ew! It has human-like arms, except they're irregular; it probably favours the left arm. It's clawed, so I can't imagine it was using those arms for *that*. This spider is scaled like a lizard, except the scales are orangey. Except that it also has a mane. Maybe it's lion-like? And its back limbs, they are like unto a stork! So there's no goddamn wonder why this thing was starving! Oh yeah, there's some kinda rubbery goat taily thingie, but seriously, are you taking this thing seriously? I call it STORKEPHANT. BEWAAAARE!"

Yes.

6:34am: Screwin' around with video.
It's a bit of a convoluted process, and I'm making headway. My goal is to be able to render any arbitrary bit of video footage into sort of a cel-shaded effect. Automated cel-shading, if you will. It's my foray into CGI effects.

In the interim, as preliminary experiments, I have a clip of a car made as an oil painting and as a coloured pencil sketch. It was all for insight on the process. Said clips are uploaded to Youtube for the sake of convenience and lower bandwidth, though it does take away some of the magic.

My Youtube account.

7:44am: Protest. Icons.
My chief reason for this post is to participate in this supposed "LJ walkout"--as a scab. A picket-line-breaker.

Whichever side of the "strike lines" (believe me, I just chortled typing that) you're on, the issue remains a microtempest in a thimble. It's interesting strictly because it's so tiny and ineffectual.

(And I wouldn't have even been aware of it had it not been for some weird-ass fifty-year-old writing to my girlfriend and posting up little "protest icons". He didn't even have the decency of a hey-hey-ho-ho chant, fercrissake.)

11:37pm: Wintry Storm '08 pics
Early this week, this entire region was buried under a half-meter of snow, adding to the profuse abundance we already had. ( Pictures and snarky commentary follows. )
I hope this gives you a little perspective on winter.

12:06pm: Apple Turf Wars
An apple crisp was made. As it was cute, apparently, to mangle words (lord knows we never do anything cute around here), the girrul elected to call it an "apple crips".

An apple crips? I free-associate the way some people breathe. In my fridge was also "apple butter". This is made by basically reducing slightly sour apples to a fine pulp, adding a bit of apple juice to smooth it out, and then as much cinammon as you like for flavour and colour. This was no longer "apple butter", it was "apple blood".

And so the apple bloods and the apple crips had a gang war on our plates. It looked like the apple bloods were getting on top, but in the end, the only winner of that turf war was us. Yum.

8:51am: The Exciting PONYSTARS conclusion
This is a bit longer. It is likely to cause you pain. Generous and thoughtful that I am, I shield you with this cut. ( Click only after you put on some welder's glass shades. )

4:03am: PONYSTARS UPDATE, WHEE!
Insomnia is my friend. Work's been just busy enough I haven't had enough time to really give this the attention it deserves; there will be more content updates as it comes available. However, for the sake of your personal sanitation, all text lies behind a cut as this stuff is so saccharine, it will (re)infect your eyes.

( I AM TOTALLY SERIOUS, DO NOT THINK I AM KIDDING. )

10:40pm: One for the March.
So in the spirit of older entries:

Me: Hey! Check this out! I've just been accepted for the PonyStars beta!
Her: The what?
Me: PONYSTARS!! The game for people who love ponies!
Her: Uhh, is there something you need to be telling me?
Me: Yes. I LOVE PONIEEEEEES!!

I was shrieking like a schoolgirl. PONIES!

12:59am: Heresy of the basest sort.
I have earned a new respect for superspeedway racing.

The short version of this post is that when exposed to super-grognard-levels of superspeedway racing (which includes a good drafting model), playing strictly against other humans, well, I can't describe the situation any better than 300 km/hr politics. It was humbling; I am a poor 300 km/hr politician... so far.

(I would then race most of these suckerfools on a highly convoluted, muddy rally course with a grossly underpowered, shiny nauseatingly pink car and hand them their butts on a silver pink platter.)

This is Project Torque, by the way. It's very shiny. (The above was shot at minimum settings and has convinced me to upgrade the computer sooner rather than later.)

7:54pm: In the spirit of the Flipside of yore, back in the giddy days of Ottawa Fidonet, I present "babby".

(Looping flash, has sounds, can not be appreciated without those sounds so wait 'til you're home from work if you must, then thank me.)

5:56pm: An Experiment
A number of folk I work with have made statements along the lines of them thinking global warming is a myth. Their memories fade very fast at sweltering summer days, and the smug lines come out during any slightly-colder-than-normal day. (Let's also skip the fact that it's properly "climate change", as it would get in the way of excessive smugness.)

Today, in this so-wintry town, it peaked at 10 degrees. That's Celsius for you moonmen from the US. The normal high is -6 for this time of the year. This weather has persisted for a few days now, resulting in considerable thaw and an immense, city-wide fog as all the rivers and snowbanks have been steaming in exactly the sort of way your freezer might on a muggy day.

So with the heat, I approached several colleagues and asked them what they felt about global warming now. There was, I'm sure you can imagine, a lot of topic changes.