ThisBoyIsToast V4 >> February 2006 Archives

So this guy takes the game World of Warcraft and tells us it is teaching the wrong values by comparing it to a fighter, and how that is teaching us the right values. Doofus.

Most just see this as a monitor you can interact with but I see the potential of fully mapped keyboards and interface tools. Well that and fingerprints all over your monitor, "Who had the PEANUTBUTTER !?!?!"

Question. Do you wash your dustpan? Tangentially, how does one wash a broom, if one decides the broom needs cleaning? February 26 06

It took me a while to wrap my head around monthly fees for a game. But spending $1000+ (real dollars) on a virtual island seems freaky.

On a daily basis I want to lodge complaints against TTC employees -- bad drivers abound there with their self important attitudes and horrible manners. But the TTC sending a cease & desist order to RobotJohnny for his TTC Anagram Map is just unforgivable.

I don't know why I am surprised but this news story about asking for a Police Complaint Form scares the bejeebies out of me. (boing)

Group Hug is for confessions like this one but it needs comments so you can say, "Duuuuude, this IS completely normal at 14. Or at 40 for some." (via jer)

Wooo hooo, now I would have probably done better in calculus if it was Bikini calculus. Yeah, probably not. (via random gta blogger 'confessions of a science librarian')

I have always said that companies should give me stuff in return for blogging it. Of course, the category will be "wink wink nod nod". At remember it's not about who reads your blog, but who reads the blog by the people who read your blog.

Yep it's a katamari damacy made of wool. I really need a Katamari category.

Question. How long do you use a bath towel? Do you use it once and toss it in the hamper? Do you use it for a couple of days or a week? Do you use it it until it smells funny? February 25 06

Y'know, as a PC/Windows user, you think I might get a gloating giggle over this Apple Keynote Bloopers video but I don't. It just sorta depresses me that the once "works without fail" reputation that Apple once had has fallen to the "if it works most of the time" trap that MS has laid for the world. Actually, it is probably more like "if it works some of the time."

Having recently acquired Civ4, I thought this Oasis game was intriguing; it is essentially Civ done highspeed.

I think my head is going to explode. Starting last night, I seemed to have lost the ability to look at a computer screen for any length of time. As you know, not so recent eye trouble gives my brain a unique way of seeing things. The left eye sees blurry, distorted images while the ever-weakening right eye sees ok images. Using both eyes leads to strain, headaches and occasional merging of distortion and normal site -- looking at straight lines often causes them to go bendy for a few seconds. But this headache/strain-y feeling has been about 24 hours. I am hoping it's other stresses just aggravating normal behaviour but... Image me not being able to use a computer? February 23 06

I am not sure if I want to help find Maria's mitten; that thing is sca-aaaaa-ry looking.

Does anyone even go to the Greater Toronto Area Bloggers page anymore? Is it just me or do we seem to have died as a group?

Tom's relating of WoW progress just tells me the difference between such games and my CoH/CoV experience. No creation (what was the term you used Nood?) aspects exist in my game so it's all about leveling and power maximizing.

One thing the Internet, and Wikipedia, is good for is learning about some new frakked up behaviour. Of course, it's mostly anime/manga related.

This is a neat, and ongoing, story about checking Best Buy receipts. The Store doesn't check receipts even if the customer has it in their hand; a nice amount of trust is going on.

I always said that you shouldn't install the new Microsoft OS (xp, 98, whatever) until 6 months after it is released. And they know that; it's just not safe. So why would they release Halo 2 PC on Vista only ?

OK, I have a new obsession to add to my already well known one with Ghost in the Shell. Having watched all three DVDs & bought all four english language manga this weekend, I must have these Genshiken Trading Figures. And I mean all. (heard about em from nood, got the link from dubdubdub)

J likes the Japanese language so I thought she might like this article on Mistyping Japanese names.

Last night after having beer & wings and such at Tortilla Flats (the biggest, juciest, crunchiest wings I know) we decided to take a cab home instead of our usual walk to a subway. It was -20 C and we were wimps and it was warranted. But as most people who know me, I don't do well with the driving habits of cab drivers. All the starting and stopping, velocity and sudden braking makes me nauseous. I came home, head swimming and stomach not happy. And I went straight to bed. Sleeping was not happy, nightmares and disturbing dreams abounding. Now I am a few hours awake and I feel all woozy headed, still in a dream state. So much for a restful two-day weekend. February 19 06

I like this Whatever: Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing. The point that stands out for me is the "Try to write well every single time you write". At some point in my writing/noodling I stopped using point form for ideas and started writing sentences again. Now do I write this blog well?

So not so long ago a blog emerged that was using people's photos (via Flickr) of Hawaii to represent her trip; because her camera was lost in Hawaii. Well recently she found out who found her camera and it only get's worse from there. People are such shites.

I will link to the Kottke 'Victoria's Secret catalog from 1977' link rather than the actual links cuz... well, no point in recreating the wheel. But I will say that the 70s actually found a way to be sexier then current times. What ever happened to sheer?

This is how I do the Homer-ish drool over a toaster. (via ultra supremo jer)

I am curious; even now, some fifteen years later, I am still receiving "Enlarge Your Penis" spam. Are there that many people buying it? I understand their are that many tiny willies out there and that many embarrassed men ("hung like a slug," to quote mackinnon) but can so many men be clicking the addresses in the spam to keep them so active? i get less poker spam then penis spam. February 17 06

I don't play D&D all that much but at almost all times I am wanting to play D&D. Part of the trouble is finding the time to produce a game whether it is for J or is for the gang. I need some structure to motivate me to play as my brain doesn't function the way it did ten years ago when a single image could produce a gaming session that was fun & successful from my point of view. Now, without intense preparation, all my games are bad low-ink photocopies of each other. So I occasionally read the Gaming Theory sites for ideas. When I am not cringing at how seriously they take their fun I find stuff, such as this Using Flags in Play discussion.

If I understand it correctly, you create a list of elements of the player characters while creating the character. These are not just stats but story elements such as motivations, background elements, personality traits, etc. Every session of a game played should touch on one or more Flags to allow the story/game to progress. This is the way I want to play D&D, as a story, not just as an exercise in rules systems.

Now rather than actually just skimming these articles I am going to have to read them throughly and get out of them what I want. Sure, I can create a nice map from Photoshop brushes and write down a few town names and have J create a cool ranger. But until I actually create the style of play I want, actually work hard on it, I am not going to actually play. In other words, start taking my own fun seriously. February 16 06

An old issue of X-men described their suits as some sort of couple-of-molecules-thick material that provided incredible protection as well as flexibility, not just run of the mill spandex. Seems that olympians have it too. (via the boy with the broken blog)

Oh I should have ordered these "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" Valentines for J to show her how special she really is to me. (via crown dozen, via rob)

I was thinking about updating the blog in the last few days but communicating seemed like such an effort. It most often does these days. I think I am becoming the antisocial geek that I have described myself as but never really considered myself as such. I even find myself falling into my own head when out with friends recently. I don't know how far I am into this state but it seems like a point of no return.

It's about not really having the energy to communicate in positive turns when I don't really feel all that positive very often. Blogging should be fun and I don't really have the readership or energy to dedicate myself to a LiveJournal whining site. Yes, I still like to take digs at LiveJournal. It's about wondering what is the point. You might think this is a typical blogger ennui but really it's a life based ennui. When I was down, in the past, I knew I could ride it out and then come back to a sort of stable, sort of OK kind of guy. This funk has been lasting years, literally months going by without me feeling the least bit OK. Oh, I can fake it and laugh my ass off at the goofiest movie but something is missing, a real tangible enjoyment of things comparible to when you lose your taste for your favourite food.

So dear friends and readers (yes, you three) it is not you. It is me. Emails will continue to sit in boxes cuz I got nothing good to say. Packages will takes months maybe years to mail cuz I don't have anything good to put in them. I will forget birthdays, anniversaries and exactly how much I cherish my friends. Because right now I cherish very little but losing myself for an hour in some distraction or another or those 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep I occasionally get. Yeah, that and toast. I still cherish toast.

That being said, I have done some things that will need real updates. Spent a night in Barrie where there is real snow, not that fake stuff they put under our streetlights here in TO. I played with a puppy and remembered how much I liked Tokyo Godfathers. I almost broke the funk. I am back to playing Bad Bad Boy as CoV corrects the no-missions bug. I cracked my back top molar in half and spent today in an emergency filling session at the local dentist. My nose is even frozen. We finished watching Last Exile and I once again felt that the biggest failing of linear anime stories is the endings. They never can wrap up things with the wonder and attention that they start things. Speaking of anime, Gantz, may or may not be an interesting series having started with lots of big boobs and a dog's nose stuck in the crotch of naked half aware young girl. I almost turned it off just for that but I am well aware of anime's fascination with humiliating young ladies. But Genshiken is absolutely spectacular !! It's a non-action series about otaku or nerds and the club they all hang out at. We are also still watching the continuing series Bleach and Blood +, currently running in Japan. I recently attended Maria's Canadian Citizenship party where I recognized about five bloggers. I am so out of the circle. And I don't remember much else. February 14 06

You know, I don't remember the Cthulhu themed Lego set. (via that clever guy)

Oh fuck this, I am disconnecting the keyboard and wiping it down with all purpose cleaner. i cannot buy a new one everytime it gets too dirty. February 09 06

So on the outside it's a link to a neat story about a cool zombie making wasp. But the bottom leads to a link for the book. And the three big guys, jKottke, Slashdot & BoingBoing all lead readers here. Yep, blogging is biz. February 09 06

Ouch, my head hurts. At Jkottke's place we have The case of the plane and conveyor belt. Read it. My answer? Plane not fly. We are assuming the tools being used are magical. The conveyor will speed backwards at an infinite speed relative to the wheels. The wheels are going to be spinning gawd-awful fast because of the force acted on them by the jet engines/turbines/whatever. But as many of the commenters said, without that wind flowing over the wings, plane no fly. The real question of physics, which one intro course in college won't help, is whether the wheels can cancel the forward thrust of the engines enough? The energy has to be transmitted somewhere and that should be through the wheels. But my brains itch with this. February 09 06

OK, I did it again. I wiped a harddrive and rebuilt the Windows XP Prof from scratch. And once again I seemingly unwittingly deleted all previous email. But... but somehow I recovered the previous iteration of deleted email. Yep, all of March 2005's lost email came back but I lost they last few months of saved email.

Why? Well, I did it. I disassembled and reassembled the pooter from scratch taking J's previous mobo and transplanting it into my box. I then took that snazzy DVD install of XP Prof that I DLed and used it to create a mostly already installed with software I want machine. Of course, the next piece of software installed was CoV.

So it's faster albeit only a little and stronger, having 2gig of memory. I have a stack of CDs next to the monitor of software needing to be reloaded and a couple of save games ready to be inserted once the games are there again, namely Doom 3 and Dungeon Siege 2 (non Uwe Boll). As per usual I have a hastily scratched sheet of paper with needed software that I created by going through my Programs dir and seeing what I actually use. Next most important needed SW is a BitTorrent client and this time I might upgrade from my usual Shadow client circa 2002. Then come the usual CS suite but I might seek out newer versions now that Flash has been added to that mix. Of course, I like my old standby of Dreamweaver MX so that will not be upgraded. The more they add to that sofware, the less I like it. And one final thing I need to do is to strip the pre-install of Symantec Firewall from the system. That piece of not very configurable crap closes down more than it protects and I have a hardware firewall so...

I have to say, for my first experience of pulling every bloody cable and plugging it back in, it was pretty painless. I still don't know if that extra front end USB port works as it required a single-wire to single-pin reinstall. But I have enough in back now so no worries. I like that I did it; it's about time. So, now I have an extra mobo & P4 chip so maybe that linux box should be created and the two P3 boxes under my desk should be retired to the computer graveyard that my apartment tennants have made my locker room.

OH SHIT, I need my Anapod iPod software !!! February 08 06

Rannie, slower.net was the photoblogger I was talking about and this is a perfect example of what I was talking about. Not that I remember my train of redwine induced conversation.

So yesterday afternoon the paused blogger and I, well mostly the former - i held a few tools, disassembled the J Pooter and reassembled it with a new motherboard, CPU, memory and video card. No longer is she playing CoH & CoV with just enough. In case you are wondering, and into that kind of thing, she got an ASUS P8N-E mobo, Athlon64 3200+ CPU, 1 gig of PC3200 Dual Channel memory and a Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 256mb PCI-E video card. And it rocks.

I get her hardwaremedown parts. And now that I have watched it once, I get to do the mobo assembly on my own. Yeah yeah, after all these years I have never assembled an entire box on my own. I never said I was a hardware guy but after tonight, I will be. February 06 06

Please, join me in the grand applause as J's City of Heroes character Inukshuk, the solo-ing Stone Tank, hits Level 50. Anyone who knows MMORPGs knows what it takes to max out your level while still having a real life. Sorry Nood. >;) February 04 06

I saw the headline when I walked to work but I still don't believe Need For Speed killed that cabbie. I think idiot kids killed him cuz their peers told them that street racing is cool in real life. I grew up playing violent video games and D&D. I have not once attacked a person with a sword or wanted to own a sub-machine gun to shoot people. I have made mock images of throwing a grenade at people who deserved it, but THAT IS NOT REAL. People will continue to blame death & mayhem on entertainment because it sells newspapers and shifts the blame from the real issues. February 04 06

Watching Battlestar Galactica has completely changed the way I view TV. No, not the way I sit watch TV but the way I view the shows I like. There is very little I truly look forward to on TV these days. Now it is a mild sedative when I need to unwind or just turn my brain off. These days I need to turn my brain off alot. But BSG, I seek out.

I recently completed watching the first half of season two, having finished watching the DVD copies of season one that J got me for Xmas. I wondered if it was rewatchable, as many linear stories are not, and found out that yes, yes it is. I still got weepy with the name painted on the Blackbird, I still cringe at what Baltar gets away with, I still want to slap Helo & Tyrol for their attachments. And now that I completed the rewatching I am now DLing the latest episodes. I need to know what is going to happen with the Pegasus.

I am really wrapped up in the what is human and what is machine themes in the show. Unlike the focus in Ghost in the Shell, which is about what makes you human vs what makes you just a machine, BSG is more about what makes you deserve being treated as an equal species as humans. We know for certain that even the human-form Cylons are not humans, that they are machines, even if those machines are made up of cells, organs, blood and bodies. They do not originate from human progenitors but from artificially created organic matter. So, the question is did they gain souls or more to the point, does it matter if they have or do not have souls.

It doesn't take many episodes to see that the humans are quite capable of inhuman behaviour. The difference between human evil and Cylon evil is that the latter is about the complete elimination of the first. Cylons only see human evil ending with the end of humans. But they are attached to their sires and therefore seek some sort of merging with humans, thus the pregnancy. This doesn't scare me, it just sounds like normal species evolution.

What scares me is their play with emotion. Coldly, clinically they are experimenting with emotional interaction. It has devastating effects on the humans involved and I still question the truth as to whether it has any effect on the Cylons involved. Only briefly do we ever see a Cylon acting emotionally out of balance when no human is present, the only time it would be to their advantage to show such emotion. I want to believe Boomer has only her baby and Helo in regard and wants to reject her Cylong programming. But the hivemind aspect of being programmed scares the bejeebies out of me. Not even they can know what they are truly thinking in the long run. And only time can tell.

Now back to the original thread, this show has changed how I watch TV. I haven't done the Tivo-ish thing but gone one step further. Why ever use the original source of TV shows when I can always use the internet to access them? And how long before this becomes a viable method? They never thought movies could make money when popcorn, trailers and commercials weren't connected to the experience but obviously pay-per-view has worked. So what about only On Demand TV ? Could shows be produced for only access via some sort of internet enabled set top box? Pick & Choose TV. February 03 06

OK, it has been years since I truly diddled with writing fantasy stories but these BioWare contests for Neverwinter Nights make me want to write something. It also makes me want to installed that never before played copy I have on my shelf.