STOP - Do NOT Read

Would you rather have your dick cut off with a knife?

2005-01-21T20:55:49Z

MMORPG nerds today seem to be up-in-arms about a story in the news of a pissed off japanese girl who deleted her ex-boyfriend's Linage II characters:

http://rpg.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=7173

For those of you who need to be brought up-to-speed, MMORPG stands for Mind-Melting Online Repetitive Process Game. Lineage is a game such as this that millions of asian people chose over their dreary, uneventful lives.

The article doesn't say why the boyfriend broke-up with this girl. Maybe it was because he was married to three different female players using different characters. Maybe it was because she was getting in the way of his Lineage II playing. Whatever the case, it's obvious that this girl hit him where it hurt - Right smack in the balls of his MMORPG lifestyle.

Quite possibly the most fascinating part of this story is that the police are involved. It's making me rethink my outlook on my nerdy past. Back when my little sister overwrote my saved game in Zelda because there wasn't a free spot for her to start a new game, I should have clearly called 911. If I would have known that this was an option for me back when I was 11-years-old, I probably would have!

I guess I can understand how we're coming to this. I mean, Lineage does have literally millions of subscribers. So really I should be thinking of this in-terms of an angry girl taking an axe to her bastard ex-boyfriend's TV satellite dish. I suppose you would call the cops in that case, but destroying something with an axe is definitely a thousand times cooler than clicking a delete button.

But will anybody bring back his brave Level 47 Elven Warrior Kapon.F? I don't know, maybe those Lineage guys keep backup tapes...

Sometimes the right game in the wrong place can make all the difference

2005-01-18T18:12:51Z

There are moments where I realize that I have been playing far too many video games. Sometimes these situations can be hard to resist, like the one I'm in now where I received several awesome video games at once for Christmas. To make matters worse, I was already playing World of Warcraft about 100 hours a week at the time I got these new games. This caused a dilemma for me. I was already having so much fun playing World of Warcraft which made it hard for me to tear myself away to play these newer games.

Somehow I overcame this hardship and started playing Half-Life 2. If you haven't played Half-Life 2 yet, then you should go get it RIGHT NOW. I know it's been out for a while and that you probably tried to play it and didn't have a version 5.1 Vertex Shader video card, but it's a seriously sweet game. I only have one complaint, and that's that you cannot shoot friendly non-player characters, not even during the cut-scenes! Man, I miss listening to everything a whiny scientist had to say right before shooting him in the face. That was one of the most fun parts of the original Half-Life. I guess otherwise they figured there would be way too many "I'm sorry, you shot an important character and now the game needs to end abruptly" moments.

(NERDY QUESTION OF THE DAY!!!! - There was only one instance in the original Half-Life where killing an NPC ended the game. Do you know what it was!?)

What made me the happiest was that some awesome elements of the game were still the same, especially the head crab. Sure, he has more death animation and flails around more realistically as you continuously smack him across the floor with your crowbar, but he still makes the same little cute alien noises right before he eats your brains out. Watching those little guys crawl around just makes me feel all warm and squishy inside. Warm and squishy.... WITH TERROR

After playing Half-Life 2 for far too long yesterday afternoon, my dog "asked" to go outside. I got up, put on her leash, and took her out. She began to prance around the snow, having a grand time when I realized that I had been imagining her as a domesticated head crab. I know a head crab looks nothing like a miniature schnauzer, but for a moment there I was convinced that I had a head crab for a pet.

Yes, my friends, these moments are when I know that I need to do something else for a while... Or at least remind me that I need to think twice before I join the NRA...

The Mouse and the Pizza Stone

2004-11-24T19:36:32Z

We've had a little trouble with mice lately. On monday I was at work talking to Jae on the phone when suddenly she belted out a blood curdling scream. Her scream was so horrific that all I could imagine was that either a zombie had entered the apartment or a murderer had arrived. It's interesting to me that I thought of a zombie first.

After she was done screaming, she explained to me that a huge mouse had run across the kitchen counters. "Molly, our dog, is a ratter", I immediately thought. "Have Molly kill the mouse", I told Jae. But Jae decided to talk to the landlord about it instead.

Our landlord apparently has an affection for mice since he gave her a couple wussy humane mouse traps that simply shut the mouse into a small gray box with air holes. His plan was to then have his maintenance men go let the mouse free in the large field next to our apartment complex. Since this would surely result in the mouse traveling back toward human civilization, possibly back toward our apartment, Jae and I both decided to seek out a more fatal mouse-catching device.

Later that day Jae purchased a couple of mouse traps that resembled large potato chip bag clips. She heard the mouse moving around on the stove and in the oven so she places one by the stove burners and one inside the oven, both traps baited with peanut butter.

The next day I picked up the trap on the stove and saw that all of our bait had been completely licked clean. This mouse was apparently not only as terrifying as a zombie, but also a complete and total bastard.

I then made a trek to Target and purchased a DCon Mouse Slaughter House (tm). This contraption was a large black box with a small food dish perfect for even more peanut butter. But to get to the food dish, the mouse must first depress a footpad that then activates a spring-loaded trap to crush his tiny little head. Around midnight that night, there was a long black tail coming out the back of the DCon Slaughter House.

Jae and I rejoiced. The mouse was finally dead. We could go into our kitchen once again without fearing the disgusting vermin. But our victory lasted only a mere 13 hours because, after I came home from getting my oil changed today, Jae noticed something rattling around behind the pizza stone.

I immediately, without hesitation, smashed the pizza stone against the wall. Thinking that since I felt no resistance, there clearly was nothing there. But then I saw yet another long black tail slowly curl out from behind the pizza stone. Another mouse had made its way into our apartment.

I scooped up the remains of the pizza-stone-smashed mousey and put them into a Wal-Mart bag. I carried the bag over to our landlord to show him my trophy kill, and to demand that he look into the gas line going into our oven.

Soon a fat and/or redneck maintenance man will arrive to pull out our oven and check for unwanted mouse entrances. I secretly hope that as soon as he pulls the oven out, he reveals an entire mouse city. Waiting quietly underneath our kitchen floor.

The Battle of The Dumbasses

2004-11-17T23:12:22Z

It's November and it's finally time for two games that I assumed wouldn't be released until 2006 to hit the shelves. In the left corner, weighing at 200 pounds, we have the one, the only - EverQuest 2! And in the right corner, a new contender in the world of games that drive you to smash your baby's head in a closet door - World of Warcraft!

Being a complete, total and worthless nerd, I am very interested in these two games. I played the original EverQuest off-and-on for about 5 years of my life. It sounds like a failed marriage, or possibly a prison sentence when I talk about my time with EverQuest. Eventually the game would get a little too redundant, and the players became a little too irritating for the game to possibly produce any more drops of liquid fun for my brain to feast on. At this point I would quit playing and vow never to play again, only to be later drawn back to it after several months for one reason or another.

The last time that I played EverQuest, I started up again because I thought it would be fun to play characters with Jae. We had a good time with the game. We enjoyed the new Lost Dungeons expansion, plus we had a blast meeting people and getting into fun groups. But then it happened again. Once we hit the higher levels, which in my opinion are around level 40 and higher, we found ourselves spending more time trying to puts groups together than actually playing the game.

Countless hours were spent trying to convince other players that we could in-fact successfully complete a dungeon even if we didn't have an enchanter. It became obvious that the "Best Practice Method" of playing EverQuest was still alive and well in the hearts of the players. This translates into, "Never do anything, anywhere in the game of EverQuest unless you have at least 1 Cleric, 1 Enchanter, 1 Shaman, and 2 Fighters". Well, when your Enchanter friend decides that she's going to watch Oprah on TiVo instead of play EverQuest at the exact moment that you want to play, you find yourself wasting time or putting faith in another Enchanter being played by a complete reject who will ensure that your group will die while he runs off to safety.

Shortly after I decided that EverQuest sucked my balls yet again, I was accepted into the World of Warcraft beta test. I was immediately consumed by this game due to its brilliant artwork, well-done story line, and fun gameplay. Now I admit that I haven't gotten much higher than level 20 in World of Warcraft, but the word on the street is that you can solo or group successfully with ANY kind of group no matter what your level is! Holy shit, now that sounds like the kind of game where I'll never find myself wasting my time with trying to convince dumbasses that we could have fun with the game! In fact, I don't even have to talk to dumbasses at all, I can just go have fun soloing if none of my friends are around.

Well Sir, this article just hit the web recently and it's causing the EverQuest 2 community to get pissed off.

You see, a man by the name of Mike Mikucki decided he was going to do an unbiased review comparing EverQuest 2 to World of Warcraft. The article has 4 parts. Part 1 is an interview with a Level 50 EverQuest 2 Beta Tester, Part 2 is an interview with a Level 60 World of Warcraft Beta Tester, and Parts 3 and 4 are Mike's analysis of the games.

When all was said and done, Mike came to the conclusion that World of Warcraft won over EverQuest 2 by a small margin. Here's what he based his judgments on:

Graphics - He determines a Draw between the two games because EverQuest 2 succeeds perfectly with a beautiful "realistic" look while World of Warcraft also succeeds perfectly with its "cartoonish" look. (I personally prefer a cartoon-look over a realistic-look in fantasy games)

Character Customization - Mike declares EverQuest 2 the winner. This is not a surprise since World of Warcraft's character customization options are an obvious weakpoint. (I would argue that character customization plays a tiny role in how fun a game actually is. City of Heroes had the best character customization I've ever seen in my life and the game bored the shit out of me!)

NPC Interaction & Questing - EverQuest 2 is the winner here too. Mike says that EQ2's character interactions are much more immersive due to the voiceovers during NPC and monster interaction. (I do admit this does sound pretty cool, I wish WoW did something similar)

Combat - EverQuest 2 wins yet again. While both games provide much more depth compared to older online RPGs where you simply hit attack and watch, EverQuest 2 apparently had more depth to it for Mike than World of Warcraft.

Player vs. Player - World of Warcraft wins this one due to EverQuest 2's lack of PvP. Sony decided a while ago to not include any PvP into their game. World of Warcraft does seem to have a decent way of handling the PvP situation for primarily PvE players, they have a PvP flag that you can keep shut-off if you wish to not participate in PvP combat. But if you ever change your mind, you can turn it back on or off every 10 minutes.

Death - This one was also a Draw. World of Warcraft used to have a great Death system, but they decided to wreck it for some reason. Now both games have fairly harsh death penalties.

Character Advancement - World of Warcraft wins this category due to its Diablo-like Talent system trees. Each class has a tree of talents that the player gets a choice in advancing. A similar system also exists in City of Heroes. You know... that terrible game.

Instancing & Zones - World of Warcraft wins over EverQuest 2 in this category. Both games provide instanced dungeons to help ease farming and annoyance issues of two groups butting heads for the same reward. However, World of Warcraft has only load times between continents which is a nice feature. Especially since it appears to be the first low load time game with a world that doesn't look like dog shit (i.e. Star Wars Galaxies)

Grouping, Looting, & Solo Play - World of Warcraft wins yet again due to factors that I mentioned up above. You have the ability to solo, but grouping has its own rewards such as "Elite" quests that are more group-friendly. Blizzard appears to have done an excellent job keeping the players in the action.

Monster Interaction - EverQuest 2 wins here. The game appears to have a lot of nice features for targeting and group fighting. Locking onto targets does sound nice so that other's can't mess around with your battles. World of Warcraft does something similar, but I admit it doesn't sound as good.

Mounts & Transportation - World of Warcraft wins here and it really is no surprise. I have seen several different kinds of mounts in my time beta testing the game, it really makes the game more interesting. Plus when you travel between continents, you travel FAST. None of that riding on the boat through the ocean for an hour bullshit. Realistically slow travel is simply not fun.

themushroom.com

2004-11-09T15:14:39Z

Does anybody remember The Mushroom? It was a parody of The Onion, possibly created by 13-year-olds who would most likely be in college now and who probably look like this:

But anyway, I remembered the site this morning and was really looking forward to reading it again. But like everything that's only minimally popular on the web, it's now gone. Sometimes I long for the days when Net Zero cost nothing because they were dumb enough to think that people clicking on sweater advertisements would be all the payment they needed. I mean there will always be tons of crap on the web for us to look at but, as long as it costs money to maintain a website, a lot of the crap will keep fading away. Now where will I go for a bad John Romero joke from 1998? God, I have no idea. I think Penny Arcade has some...

Ah, here's one... I feel better already!

UPDATE! vol_au_vent would like you to read THIS comic instead....

AMERICA ROCKS!

2004-11-08T04:42:00Z

Free enterprise bought me the carrots, onion, chicken broth, celery, turkey, bread crumbs, thyme, salt, pepper, and parsley. My individual freedom made certain the stew prevailed.

We must pass this message to the middle east, this stew is simply too good to be ignored! http://soup.allrecipes.com/az/TrkyRicStw.asp

Halloween kicks ass

2004-10-31T19:29:41Z

Halloween was last night and it was sweet. vol_au_vent and I dressed up as doctor and nurse and she was incredibly hot as a result. Phil was dressed up like a guy futilely running for office. Oh wait, that was the other Phil. The real Phil was dressed up like the Monopoly man and his costume was most definitely the best one that I saw the entire evening. And by best I mean it was funny as hell and the most original, because if we were going to say that best equated hottest then vol_au_vent's hot ass takes the cake.

But seriously folks, Phil Huckleberry was out at the bars last night apparently looking for votes. There were round green stickers everywhere, it was horrible.

But anyway, do fun sized candy bars make me a fun size?

Dude, you've gotta check this shit out

2004-10-17T20:09:39Z

I have this friend named Patrik who lives in Sweden. He just announced to me a few weeks ago that he's going to be a father in the Spring. Let's just hope that his child looks a little cuter than his fucking terrifying dog...

http://bilder.patrik.ws/?pic=/rocky/040719/IM000340.JPG

It smells like bacon right now, so try this:

Hard boil an egg, submerge the egg entirely in cold water with in a cooking pot and bring to a rabid boil. Once boiling, immediately remove the pot from the burner and let sit covered for 20 minutes.

Fry up a couple strips of bacon in a skillet, or heat them in a microwave if you aren't into that kind of thing.

Chop a few green onions.

Let the boiled egg cool, peel it, and dice it. Put a bunch of lettuce into a bowl and add the egg, crumble the bacon over it, and add the chopped green onion.

Add some kind of salad dressing to the top and slam your face downward, directly into the bowl.

Erik, what's going on with these pictures?

2004-10-17T17:04:27Z

Jae finds a small stack of pictures from our wedding sitting on-top of Erik's kitchen counter. She picks them up to examine them, but has trouble because they are completely stuck together. "Erik, what did you do with these pictures...?", Jae asks eluding to an obvious masturbation joke. "OH! Those were in the bathroom for a while...", answers Erik.

Tina.... EAT SOME HAM!

2004-10-16T18:38:10Z

"Tina, you Fat Lard, eat some ham! Don't think you're gonna get one of our steaks. We saved this ham for you and it's perfectly good, so eat it NOW!"