ThisBoyIsToast V4 >> October 2005 Archives

As you know, I used to spend a lot of time playing City of Heroes. Less time lately just because of, well, less time. But with the launch of CoV, I may be playing even less than usual.. as in not. It seems the game has updated itself and my system specs no longer apply. In other words, the game is unbearably slower and the only way to fix this will to be either lower my settings (thus my experience) or pay for an upgrade of my PC. Cannot do the latter so they may lose me as a player. And the GTAB Supergroup will be down one blaster. October 31 05

Even worse than guys sitting at home pretending they are elf maidens is guys sitting at home pretending they are authors.

I really like the display of Online gamers unmasked. Even today there is the perception that we are all shy, socially inept, almost-40ish guys with pot bellies living in our parent's basements. Hey, I don't live at home! I also find it interesting that the two guys playing City of Heroes (the MMO I play) are the only black guys shown. October 27 05

Holy Shote !! I would love the looks I would get at work if I wore a Totoro hat this winter. Tee hee, the older I get the younger I get. (via jer and his own hunt for a winter hat)

Today is a day where I can do anything I like. It almost didn't happen but I railed The Store into making sure I had today off. So today I don't feel guilty about all the other sloth-like slacker behaviours I usually perform on days off. It's 11am and I am still in my robe. I have only had coffee for breakfast, no healthy balance of energy and health. I watched Seven Days, my favourite americana SpecFic show, and wondered why a Vancouver cop would react positively to a flashed NSA badge and the statement, "I'm a federal agent; I need your car." Not my federal agency bucko! The dishes need washing and the floor smells like feet but that can wait till later. I am going out to buy comics and have a beer with lunch. I am not going to visit work if I can avoid doing so. I am not going to look for another job and not feel guilty about it. I will probably eat more sugar than I should. I might play some more Katamari. I might even surf some more. It's my day. October 27 05

It's funny but I remember distinctly being excited about Web2.0 but now I find myself asking myself, "O'Reilly: What Is Web 2.0 ?"

Normally I only turn the volume down so the upstairs neighbours do not hear the raunchy porn emanating from my PC speakers but while watching this video of a few chinese students enjoying The Backstreet Boys I had to turn the volume down out of sheer embarrasment. (thanks p; thanks a whole bunch)

Wow. this SF Cover Explorer is incredible. I would have loved to see even bigger covers in the zoom-in or even better -- one done with comic books.

Remember I mentioned that the anime movie Blood was going to be a series ? Well, it started in Japan and thanks to the world of FanSubs (fans of the series digitize it and subtitle it for the non-japanese and put it up via bittorrent) I am quickly addicted to this "chosen one" story of a young girl destined to kill big nastybad types of vampires. Now, I know some would think me out of character for commenting on this but I must say, however much I like the series I could do without the constant fanservice focus on schoolgirl thighs and pseudolesbian behaviour. Leave that for the hentai please. Then again, if Buffy didn't have boobs and Tara hadn't been spread beneath her Willow tree, I am sure that series wouldn't have had as many fans. October 25 05

So, I have noticed that most times I want to do a new post it desires a new category. A post about Star Wars should be in a Star Wars category, but truly Tagging posts is not technically available with my schema. Plus, going back and re-categorizing schtuff is annoying. So, I have decided to add new categories as I need them, dispense with old ones as I don't remember why I created them and not worry about re-categorizing. OK? I am sure there is a true information organization theory post somewhere in here. October 25 05

I used to wonder why Jen was doing those moodboard thingies on her website. I could kind of see why but not entirely. So today I just blundered into her original reference which was at The Unskilled Designer. I then realized that the corkboards I have had over my desk for the last 10 years or so represent the mood board in my life. Or at least they used to.

I used to put the boards up in the new apartment, every one since Edmonton, and cover them with postcards, flyers, ads, photos, notes, lists and other such paper paraphernalia. They would represent my creative state and would change regularly based on my moods and state of creative activity. The current one is a muddle of jammed on crap without any positive mood or creative venture. Yes, my current state of mind created it but I also believe that it contributes. Sort of like my boss in Mtl always considered a clean desk at the end of the day was a great way to start the next day. Time to clean up the corkboards. October 25 05

You know, the funny thing about reading a blog by a zombie is that his repetitive kind of self-absorbed posts are what blogging is all about.

Ohmigawds, this Cassette Jam '05 is incredible! All those blank cassettes just waiting to be made into mixtapes.

As I suspected, the condition is actually worse than before the eye surgery. There is more fluid behind the retina than before he operated meaning there is something more behind the problem than the congenital weakness i have in my .. eyestalk? Anywayz, more dye (more nuclear yellow pee!!) and more tests to come. He did warn me that we may have done all that can be done. Oh well, c'est la vie but at least I am allowed to return to strenuous activities ! October 24 05

There are lots and lots of words at Matt Webb's Interconnected but I would liek to read some of them.

So this is the morning where the eye specialist tells me how things went. The cynic in me, and a realist part of me that remembers the last round, feels that it is not going to be good news. I still have a few weeks of retinal healing but still, things don't seem right. Will I have to start over? How long can I wait? I don't have time available from work, having used most of my vacation time to do this round. Oh well, I will know later today.

Work. Well, work is weirder than ever. A full third of the staff has moved on; from part-timers to diehard senior managers, many have left The Store. It hasn't affected me so much as I am used to the periods where we never have enough staff and it was the cutting of hours that solidified the leaving for many. For some it was the direction The Store is taking, a direction many customers have commented on, and not happily. But as they expected, some of the customer base moves on and others replace it. But I don't believe the revenue is being replaced.

Some people assumed that with open vacancies in management, I would be the first to choose. I have the requisite time to become management and I do perform an adequate job in the eyes of the staff. But my committment is obvious to everyone. Why invest more time and money in me when they know I would be gone at the first offered opportunity. Plus, my opinion is not appreciated -- i do have a mouth on me. But I have assumed some more responsibilities, one in particular that has been the death knell of all previous holders of it -- anyone taking the job on usually gets in trouble because it is managed badly on the head office side and there is never enough time to do it. Oh well, I am used to that sort of responsibility and they really don't want anyone else handling it. Once again, time shall tell. October 24 05

The knitted yoda head wouldn't be as funny if the kid didn't have such a goofy expression.

I expected as much but I haven't done any throw away link blogging let alone more personal blogging. What I have done is go regularly to the moderated comments on my Photoblog and deleted lots of big penis spam. I don't know what J has been telling them but she has been telling me size doesn't matter for years. October 23 05

Ed (in his new home) does some reading about Virtual Worlds so I don't have to.

LMAO.

I can remember when someone pointed out that what I was doing with my personal website was this new catch phrase called blogging. I saw that it did describe me somewhat and joined the cult. Then people started telling us about 2000 word minimums and weblogs having to have a focus or topic and I became confused and disenchanted. What was wrong if I only posted a link and what I thought of it? Then recently people started doing that again, probably because they didn't have much to say having already too much to read on other people's blogs. They called this remaindered links and often had it on a sidebar or in a different style(sheet).

But now there seems to be a movement to describe what we all did about 6 or seven years ago and are calling it Tumblelogs. So once again, if I do mostly my lazy short piece Link Fodder, then I am now tumbling. I don't ever think I will get this concept right. And if I can't be right, can I at least be popular? October 19 05

Gee I just remember Sarah Silverman as the girl in that Voyager episode where they go back to 90s San Fran.

This little list of dealing with Overload and the interrupt-driven lifestyle just leads me to believe that people who rely on a list of coping mechanisms will become addicted to the gathering and attempted uses of these tricks, while not ever actually accomplishing the goals these tricks are created for. (via ed, a man all about productivity)

When I was younger, oh about three years ago, I used to ponder life after The End. That has begun to change. I have always been fascinated by Post Apocalyptic fiction and I have mentioned it here before. A bit of the interest came from the "cleaning house" concept that I imagine I share with alot of scary New World Order types. But the main fascination was heroes surviving by their wits and people making a new world out of what was left. A recent read (Dies the Fire, SM Stirling) drew together many points as to why I would never consider it cool to see the world as we know it end. The book illustrates how quickly disreputable but powerful types would take control and how decent people would have to let others die in order to survive. No tragic hero of the people. We'll talk about the prevalence of wicca and SCA types in the book later.

I just watched Land of the Dead and this also covered the fact that the world would take a long long time and a lot of people dying in order to become a cleaner house. And who says we as average crappy people would ever let it get better. The fourth zombie movie doesn't find the gleeful rednecks of the ending to the first. It finds rich powerful people setting up strongholds and using the common folk as a meat shield against The Stenches. We get a little story in this Fiddler's Green about a few heroics and the end.

Zombie movies both fascinate me and scare the (un)living shit out of me. You would think it would be easy to avoid shambling mounds of moaning teeth. But it never is; there are always so many and just when you think you are safe another one comes through a window and bites your neck. Being blindsided by circumstances is something I understand and fear.

This movie is only as successful as a Romero movie can be. The many ways to have your flesh torn off and eaten gets tired pretty quickly as do his menagerie of The Recently Dead. So all we are left with is a roadwarrior style shootem up with big fancy vehicles and tough chicks with guns. As a followup to his scientifically investigating Day of the Dead, I would have preferred to see a movie on a grander scale where we explore the rest of the world. Perhaps a road movie where a group of years seasoned travellers are trying to reach a mythical safe zone. I would want to see how things have changed around the world and hear pseudo histories. Are we all inevitably going to be eaten or is there a possible timeframe as to where the zombie masses can just decay and fall apart? October 18 05

Yeah I would love to be able to draw like GrantGoBoom and I would have all my D&D characters drawn if I could. The 12 year old boy who had a glass topped desk covered in sketches is still very much alive.

As I slowly recover from the eye surgery, I feel it is time I took this milestone (any of the rare times i see a doctor are personal milestones) as chance to change a few things, and if possible ALOT of things. First, I want to blog more. Blog, as in my early days of personal reflection and contribution to the web. I have a personal opinion, if no longer a personal stake, on how things on the web are progressing and wouldn't mind investing a bit more on it. I also am feeling the need to express myself again. The personal side of this personal weblog has gone missing. I have to be blunt about this but the last five years or so have been greatly damaging to my personal view of myself, a sort of spiral of negative self-reflection and loss of identity. Even when I knew I wasn't many things, I always knew what I was. Now I only see what I am not and feel my personality has become a laundry list of distractions and complaints. I want to change that. I want to know what me is again. So be prepared for a lot of introspective drivel as well as "what I ate for lunch" kind of posts.

Then I try and change some other things which you may glean from the posts. October 17 05

I like that someone has done the work for me and blogged 20 Best License-Free Official Fonts.

Seeing these Stacks of Stuff makes me grin at how big my katamari would grow if i rolled over them.

If MI6 is actually The British Secret Intelligence Service or SIS, are they really so secret if they have a webpage?

There is something stable about humour about continuous attempts to accomplish something and always failing -- sorta like me trying to get my life on track.

It's nice to know that the internet can be used to keep me up to date on stark raving lunatics.

Heather rightly says, "You're kidding me," when an art centre asks her to remove mirrorshots taken at the art centre. *rolls eyes*

I don't know how appropriate Peter Jackson is as the director of a Halo movie but at least it's not Uwe Boll.

I don't know the source of this video of plants with 3D grafts (tentacles, eyes, etc.) but it sure is neat, like watching life from another planet. (via linkbunnies)

Oh yeah, that gamer who gave me a pre-read of his adventure blogs at Texas BBQ Pit.

My current main CoH char is based on my blogging persona. My upcoming CoV char will be based on an evil version of my blogging self. Too bad the blog Burnt Toast is already taken.

I finished Katamari Damacy already?!?! Thank gawds there is so much re-playability. p.s. as i watched TV last night, I was guaging what size i would have to be in order to pick up elements of the set.

So last night we rented Katamari Damacy cuz the borrowed PS2 is still there. The rolling is neat but the music & story is truly genious.

I thought I had already linked to minature men on top of food but I cannot find it in my archives. Either I didn't or my archiving paradigm has failed.

I apologize but I forgot how much I like User Friendly the Comic Strip.

I like the idea of modding my xBox in ten minutes as long as I wait until after the warranty has run out.

Tom Coates makes a heartfelt post about his absent dad and a fake blogger from an ad campaign leaves a comment. It ruffles Tom's feathers. He gets an apology.

I must say that I am royally pissed about these kind of tactics. As Tom says, I cannot really see the value in leaving a few comments and getting a handfull of clickthrough but I imagine it has something to do with telling people you get paid to blog. It just bugs me because alot of people enjoy getting comments about their little space in the world and while we are used to spam in email boxes, in front of movies and on television, when someone tries and hide it behind a thin veil of authenticity then they are obviously not on the up-and-up to begin with. So why would you be interested in their product after they did that? With that being true then consumers are not the true desired element of the campaign but the ability to sell the idea to a client is. Most clients are stupid when it comes to the internet and having any data to show them might sell. Thus, we shouldn't attack spammers to end spam but educate people that spam does not generate interest or cash -- it's all a falsehood. October 04 05

I have to say that the new trailer for Doom is cute with it's FPS viewpoint.

The word innovation currently irritates the fuck out of me. But some innovations are just so neat.

Organizing my links could be something worth actually exercising my brain for. Remembering useful, memorable stuff by giving weight to links such as Boxes and Arrows might come in handy in picking up my feet.

The Fray was the first web based project that I thought would go somewhere, right after I discovered you could do interesting things with a website. Nice to know it's still going tres strong.

We knew he sucked cuz we saw Alone in the Dark but it's nice to know alot more people knew Uwe Boll sucks.

I have been looking for ways to inspire me to get back into web design / site building. Maybe I should take a stab at Greg Costikyan's site?

Neat, it's a gaming magazine done like a magazine online. It's The Escapist and it's a better attempt at such than I have ever seen.

Other than my successes at Gyoza, I have tried to make Okinomiyaki only once. It was a mild success, based on my experiences at Okinomi House here in TO. Basically, at least there, you have a light pancake with chicken and cabbage held together by egg. Great idea for breakfast but if J can eat cereal at 12am then I can have okonomi at 8pm. Mine was only mildy ok, as it tasted like what I had there but my batter was too... battery. I do intend on trying again. October 01 05

I am blogging Antipixel purely for the sidelinks of other blogs in Japan.