Sharessa

I figured I should mention to you guys that I started a music blog on tumblr. It's based off a thing I was doing on Facebook that people seemed to like. The concept is that every day I post a piece of music from a variety of genres and write up a paragraph or three on the history of the band or song or genre or whatever.

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/musicaldailydose

Anyway, I'm just posting this here in case anyone is interested in following it or bookmarking it.

And me too, I guess.

Lost my job today. Applied for unemployment already. I have about $10 in the bank, half a tank of gas, low on food, and $1600 in debt.

Needless to say, I am not in a good mood.

The First Day

So, I just got back from PAX. This was my first con ever, so it was a pretty big thing. It's weird, because all of my friends are big con goers, and they (and everyone else I met) were amazed that I was a first timer. Hotel arrangement was a bit spotty. I was originally supposed to just stay with some of my friends in one place while my other two friends (husband and wife) stayed in another. Then my other friend's girlfriend decided she was going to stay the night and arrangements got weird. I agreed to move over to the other hotel, and really it worked out a lot better because not only was that room a lot better, but the hotel was RIGHT ACROSS THE FUCKING STREET from the main convention and had two of the panel rooms downstairs. It cost me $200 for my share, but I guess it was worth it. Oh, and the other hotel was about 12 blocks away and had tiny rooms.

Friday I pretty much spent in confusion, not knowing what the fuck to do. I tried to get in to see Wil Wheaton' panel, but the line was already full up half an hour before it started. I did walk past him in the lobby, though, and he is a very small man. My friend, his friend, and myself instead went into the panel next door, where the Retronauts dissed everyone's favorite games. Basically, they just had people line up to list off their favorite games so they could tell them why the game was bad. It was pretty funny, actually. I was sad that there was only one guy on the panel who really knew computer games well enough to pick them apart, but I was also happy when people mentioned Planescape: Torment and Star Control 2. No one mentioned Doom, surprisingly, though many of the classic console games were mentioned.

Friday Night Concert

After that, I just followed the two of them around and ended up at the end of the day going to the concert at the Paramount that night. There were a bunch of bands there that I had heard of but never actually listened to. Video Game Orchestra (VGO) was pretty good, though (like 99% of video game cover musicians) they only did console games so I had to ask my friend what they were playing a couple of times. For instance, I didn't know that the song they opened up with was the Street Fighter II theme, and when my friend told me, I mentioned Guile's Theme Goes With Everything. He hadn't heard of it so I had to explain it. Right after that, guess what they segued into? I lol'd.

Anyway, MC Frontalot was next and he was actually pretty hilarious. Annoyingly, the sound mixing was terrible so I could only understand half of what he was saying. Guess I'll have to look him up on Youtube. Also, he played some clips from Friendship is Magic on his screen, so lol. After him was Metroid Metal, who rocked pretty hard with their wall of guitars, but not being a Metroid fan, I didn't recognise the tunes except Brinstar. They threw out some beach balls modded into metroids for the audience to bop around during their performace, which was pretty entertaining. Then the Minibosses came on but my ears were so fucked at that point that I couldn't tell if they were out of tune or my eardrums were indented. I didn't recognise any of their music, either any my friend was passed out. I spent most of the performance just staring that the ornate ceiling of the theater while I lay sprawled across two rows of seats.

Full Swing

The next day, I was left to my own devices when my friends all wanted to see the create-a-comic panel and I wanted to see the Dead Gentlemen instead. I'm a bit sad I missed that panel, because apparently the resulting comic was of Gabe's wife suddenly turning into Derpy Hooves after he warns her not to accidentally sleep with guys cosplaying as him. I hope this gets uploaded. Yogscast was also streaming into a panel from the UK, so I was pretty much torn 3 ways. Anyway, the Dead Gentlemen panel was pretty hilarious. They showed Journeyquest then had a Q&A. All the guys (and ladies) were pretty cool and hilarious people. They made Dorkness Rising and Journeyquest without any kind of real profit and all work normal 9 to 5 jobs, so I'm really grateful that they even bothered making these movies at all. I ended up getting a signed copy of Journeyquest at the end, so that was fun.

The Exhibition Halls

Anyway, by myself, I wandered the con for most of the day. Honestly, I had little interest in the main exhibition hall. It was loud, packed full, and pretty much consisted of booths for generic big name games with half-hour (at the very best) lines to get maybe 5-10 minutes of play and honestly it just didn't seem worth it. The worst was the KotOR MMO, which had (from what I heard) a 2-hour line, which is hilarious because I have a friend in the beta and I've seen plenty of gameplay already. Skyrim looked interesting, but not long-ass line interesting. I only had a morbid curiosity in Rage. The one interesting booth there was the EvE Online booth where they were selling some awesome minis of the ships and having discussions about both EvE and their new console game that's tied in with it, which looks....interesting. Honestly, my interest was piqued enough that I may reactivate my account. Avoiding the exhibition hall was probably the reason I left the con with less swag than my friends, though. Apparently they were handing out free stuff while hidden away in all the crowds of people there. Oh well, lesson learned for the next con, then.

I did buy some trinkets, though. I got a hand full of TF2 buttons for $5 and then a bunch of gimmick dice from one of several dice vendors. Namely, I got a d16, a d24, a random weather generator die, d10s with 100, 1,000, and 10,000 slots increments, and a couple d10s with the numbers spelled out in German.

As opposed to the main exhibition hall, the smaller upper exhibition hall was much more interesting. For one, it had a lot more vendors selling stuff. I was tempted to buy a board game but never got around to it. There were some pretty good deals there, like Arkham Horror and its large expansions for $40 each, the small expansions for $20 each, and Twilight Imperium for $70 (it's normally a $100+ game). I was mostly interested in this Civilization game, but didn't know anything about it so I just held on to my money. Also, that floor had all the indie game on it, of which there were some interesting ones. There was one called Chasing Aurora which is in very early development. They had multiplayer working, which basically amounted to a big game of flag tag with origami birds. It was cooler looking than it sounds. Allegedly there is going to be single player and more multiplayer modes, but it was fun as it was. There was also A Flipping Good Time, some game that was trying hard to be Portal with a glove pulling blocks around instead of a gun shooting portals (it was pretty fun though), and some game claiming to be a bullet-hell game in reverse but actually being a guitar hero clone in disguise.

Oh, and there was the Mojang booth. The latest unreleased build of Minecraft was there. It has skill points (dunno what they do) and some crazy fucking mobs that look like nighmares and will teleport to you full of death and vengeance. There also appeared to be new items. I was a bit more interested in another game they were demoing there called Cobalt. It was basically a platformer where you could pick up items to use them to solve puzzles. It also involved clinging on to walls and punching rockets. Let's just say it's pretty damn fun. Oh, and Notch. I ended up running into him about 6 times the whole weekend. He even showed up unexpectedly at then end of a panel I sat in on.

Grown Men Playing D&D And Other Nonsense

After that, I went back to the Paramount where I saw the Acquisitions, Inc. show. This was probably the highlight of the whole trip. I have been following their podcasts since they started and pretty much half the reason I came to the con was because of this. It was pretty epic because everyone in the group was dressed as their characters, and they had an epic miniature set (as Gabe said "we have way too much fucking money"). Tycho came on wielding a his weapon/holy symbol, Scott smashed through a wall in an epic dynamic entry, Wil showed up on stage drowning in a vat of acid (how his character died two sessions ago), Gabe was...well, Jim Motherfucking Darkmagic, and Chris Perkins was dressed as the Mad Hatter. They also had Paul & Storm as their bards, who had songs for their critical hits and misses among other things. After hearing it on the podcast so many times, it was great actually getting to watch it in person just to see the expressions on their faces as they rolled terribly and gaped at the incredulousness of their supposed teammates. Speaking of which, Jim Darkmagic is a huge fucking dick. :P Hopefully (and probably) this will get uploaded as well.

A friend of mine bought the new Penny Arcade board game and it was pretty fun. If anyone has played Ascension, it's a lot like that, except you end up saying stuff like "I'll grab another Scrotuum, they work best in pairs" and "anyone want to reveal their Wieners?". They had special cards for the game that were PAX exclusives that my friend snagged too, so that's cool.

Expo Wrap-Up

At the end of the night, it was concert time at the Paramount again and this time it was Paul & Storm and Jonathon Coulton. Paul & Storm were actually fucking hilarious. They were really more of a comedy act than a band and did a LOT of fucking around. At one point they brought out just about every musician there (JoCo, MC Frontalot and his band, the string quartet and guitarist from VGO, half of the Minibosses, and a few others) to play an epic song about vaginas. When they found out they still had 15 minutes left at the end, they ended up dragging out their last song for that long and blaming the audience for it. JoCo was okay, but he was about as interesting as you'd expect. I'm not that big of a fan of his, so the only songs I recognized were Still Alive, Want You Gone, Skullcrusher Mountain and re: Your Brains. He also played a bunch of new stuff including one or two first time songs he revealed for us at PAX.

Sunday was just a lot more of the same. Panels, games, walking around, Notch. I played some Monopoly-style game for the Wii that used Mario and Dragonquest characters. It was fun, but I can't remember its name. Ate at the Cheesecake factory across the street. Finally went home and showed my friends the horribleness of the Pony Thread Simulators and Story Mark Crusaders on the way back. This post is taking way too long.

Cosplayers

Okay, what's left? Cosplay. PAX apparently isn't a big cosplay event, but there were some good ones. My friends, for example. My friend was a Techpriest and got a lot of complements from fans of 40k, and his wife had a really good Tali costume. So good that the people at the Mass Effect 3 booth let her cut in line a couple times and gave her a bunch of swag. Oh yeah, and she was being swarmed by guys ALL THE FUCKING TIME. So many pictures were taken of her that I think that I'm probably in the background of over a hundred pics now. Check everyone's PAX Prime 2011 pic folders for the guy in the flat cap looking bewildered behind Tali. Between Paul & Storm and JoCo, we were down on the floor of the theater and my friend and I were talking and we turned around and she literally had a whole semicircle of guys around her taking pictures. It was weird. Oh yeah, and the bus full of call girls that stopped her on the street to ask if she wanted to work for them. Now that is fucking creepy.

Oh wait, I was going to talk about other cosplayers, too. Aside from my friend, the only other 40k cosplayer was a guy with the most badass Black Templar outfit ever. There was also Gordon Freeman, who had a fold-out presentation and brochures for Black Mesa recruitment. There was a guy with a pretty awesome Link costume, a ton of TF2 characters (especially snipers, engineers, and spies), the Eleventh Doctor (with mop and fez) with Amy Pond, a gaint piece of bacon handing out bacon salt, Carl from ATHF, a bunch of Homestuck trolls, and some ponies (namely Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, and Vinyl Scratch/DJ P0N-3). Those were the most memorable. There were some professionally hired ones, as well. Everything from the ones dressed as zombies for some Kinect zombie game who looked bored and pissed off from at least when I first saw them at 2 on Friday to the pretty awesome colonial marines guarding the booth for some new Aliens game (Aliens: Colonial Marine, I think its called). I think the tank commanders they got for promoting World of Tanks were pretty spot-on. They looked like grizzled army vets, and it really worked. It helped that they brought their own tank, though.

Other Crap

There was also some awesome statues. I'll start with FireFall. There was a running joke at the con that the convention was called "FireFall Presents: PAX" because ads for it were fucking EVERYWHERE. They were even plastered all over the city. It was the first I had ever even heard of it, so maybe this was its big reveal or something. Anyway, they had an awesome animatronic doohicky outside of the main entrance for the main exhibition hall. There were big statues of basic male and female PC models standing on either side of this big drop pod or harvester thingy or something. It kept opening up and making these booming noises with its pistons like a giant thumper from Dune or something. The next coolest statue was the motherfucking life sized dragon Bethesda dragged along with them. It was really fucking impressive. Wizards of the Coast had big statues of both Drizzt and Jace. The new Bioshock game had some sort of critter coming out of its booth's wall. The new Jurassic Park game had a JP jeep parked next to it. Rage had a buggy in front of it. I think there was a Gears of War statue.

That's about it really. I think I have a case of Pax Pox, and a bit of sunburn (at a con? YER DOIN' IT WRONG!)

tl;dr I went to PAX. It was fun. Ask me questions if you want.

So I spent last weekend passing a kidney stone. Let me tell you, it is in no way fun. Feels like someone stabbed you in the kidneys then kicked you in the balls, then the pain doesn't go away for about 4 days. So anyway, I'm glad I'm done with that. Now I just have to wait for the hospital bill and hope it doesn't bankrupt me. I think I might be able tog et the whole thing paid off by the government, though, considering I'm a poor bastard.

Oh, and yesterday I bought a copy of Heavy Metal for the first time. It's...interesting. I've been interested in the magazine for years, especially since I found out that Moebius did design work for every sci-fi movie I've ever loved, ever. I think now I need to start hunting down some old issues from the 70s with his work in them.

Yeah, I'm one more year closer to 30 today. And I don't have any time off to celebrate. Kind of pissed off at that. Anyway, yep it's my birthday. Happy birthday to Manc as well, if he still posts here.

So a month ago or so I failed to notice a particular anniversary of mine: the 10-year mark of me registering on these forums. I can't really believe it's been that long.

Over the years, pretty much all of the old regulars have either left or become irregulars, and some of the old lurkers are now prolific posters on these forums. The website's founders have pretty much all buggered off, but it still seems to be in good hands. I've met many people through this website, and many I still talk to, even ones who don't post here anymore. Many of these people I'd consider friends, and a couple I've even met in real life. We've also lost a few people along the way, which is tragic, but life goes on.

It's kind of funny that when I joined the site there was only speculation on weather or not there would be a Doom 3, and exactly what would be in the game. Some thought that it would be a travesty for it not to be sprite-based, some thought there should be a quad-barreled shotgun. Not long after, the Mac World video was released and speculation became anticipation. Now 10 years later, Doom 3 is old but still seems to rank right up there with modern games in terms of graphics, and now it's confirmed there will be a Doom 4. We're still waiting for Rage, however.

Speaking of long development times, Duke Nukem Forever was a joke by the time I joined up here, and look at it now, coming out in a month or two. What the hell?

As for myself, I was in high school when I joined up here. I'd browse the forums when I got done with my work in HTML class (which was always pretty quick, as that class was really easy for me). I'd like to say a lot has changed since then, but aside from graduating, growing a beard, and getting a job, not much really has. I'm still hanging out with my friend from high school, playing the same games with them, and I'm unfortunately living with a parent again (though I did have my own place for 2 1/2 years, so that was fun).

Well yeah, that was just my retrospective on the last ten years.

Turns out my version of XChat was just a 30-day trial, and it has ended. What to do...

So in this bit of news, the accused just happens to be my sister's ex-boyfriend:

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/oct/16/former-juvenile-detention-officer-arrested-on/

Hooray for professional misconduct leading to (statutory?) rape. Bonus points: the guy and his family made themselves out to be good Christians, and he was hoping to be a cop (went to school for it and everything).

So I'm getting plenty too old to be single anymore. Unfortunately, every single woman I meet is married or engaged. I'm serious. I hate bars and seem to have bad experiences in them all the time, and there's really no where else to meet people around here. So my sister suggested I try a dating site.

Anyone have any experiences with such things and can recommend a good one?

This was kind of amusing:



This inauguration makes me happy and hopeful. Happy because that asshole Bush is finally gone. Hopeful because I really hope the Obama camp will live up to their promises.

To whatever admin/mod changed my title. I was actually looking for someone to change it to exactly that. :P

Confucius say "he who hires prostitute in north Japan has Ainu sex".

So I'm finally going to see the Legendary Pink Dots live in October. I've got the ticket and the day off and everything. Here's to hoping they're as amazing live as I hear they are.

I'm really overdue for this. Last time I saw a band live was Skinny Puppy back in 2003, or whenever it was they had they reunited. Being an avid music fan, 5 years is WAY to long between shows. I've been really itching, and this is the exact opportunity I've been waiting for.

And since all of two other people even know what the Hell band I'm talking about, here are relevant links:

The semi-official long-running fansite
The brand-new official band site with all kinds of content
The Wikipedia entry

I've been cleaning my place the last couple days. I just found the watch that Assmaster gave me when we met. It has a magnifying glass and compass rose and everything. He gave it to me apologizing that the battery had run out after he bought it. I never did get that replaced. Think I'll do that now.

Pic

Here are some things about me that probably certify me as a total dork.

- Labyrinth, Tron, and Yellow Submarine are three of my favorite movies of all time.

- I spend most of my creativity on my D&D campaign.

- I've been listening to Michael Jackson recently.

- I play World of Warcraft and I enjoy it.

- I buy CDs. Not only that, but I intend to buy pretty much every album I've downloaded that's on my HD right now, just because I hate not owning the actual album. I have well over 100 CDs right now, and intend to double that collection.

- I've turned down sex on principle on multiple occasions, though I'm still a virgin.

- I seriously have some kind of chivalric code that I follow. See above.

- Cooking and baking are a couple of my all-time favorite hobbies.

- I can recite random facts about nearly any subject, but I have no practical application for anything whatsoever.

Possibly more to come...

Really all I want to do is grow up. Unfortunately, the transition into adulthood is being a huge pain in the ass. The only thing I can do is keep at it though. What is it exactly I want though? Well...

I want a job that I feel comfortable with. Fuck that, I want a career. I'm a job that I hate and it's the kind of job that by all rights should have been out of 3-4 years ago. Serves me right for taking so long in finding one, I guess. This seems to be the real big thing though, and the one with the most obstacles. I need to get into college, but I need the money first. It's a big paradox. Should I get a second job to save up money, and hold off on college, or should I just go into college and risk going destitute? And I can't go into it blind either. I need some direction. That seems to be the hardest part. Right now I'm leaning more towards audio production than anything, mostly because music is my real main interest in life. However, I've realised that I enjoy working with people more than working alone, so I'm going to have to find exactly what combines the two the best. This should probably be the first thing I tackle.

I want to ACT grown up. I keep finding myself doing immature selfish shit and being childishly lazy all the time, and I always regret it. It's time for me to be a responsible adult, to get into action, and be a respectable person. I can't really get anywhere if I keep pissing people off and keep sitting around doing nothing.

I want a home. Where I'm living does not feel like home. It's some shelter I've been living in the last year and a half. From day one I've been telling myself I will move out as soon as I can. I haven't even unpacked fully yet. I need to get serious about moving on with my life, get all my shit sorted out, and get somewhere where I'm comfortable. This is the one aspect I've actually made progress on, though I've been in a slump lately, and I blame the weather, the cold, and my apparent Seasonal Affective Disorder. Of course, this isn't helped by my laziness in telling the landlords to fix the heater. And while I'm at it, I should probably tell them about the assholes upstairs and their fucking around all hours of the night.

I want religion. Yeah, I'm as shocked as you are, but this one is just tentative anyway. I'm at peace with my own beliefs, but sometimes I feel I'm all alone in this world when it comes to them and that I just need to share them or something. I've been wanting to go back the the Unitarian Fellowship that I went to as a kid for a while now. It would also be nice to have somewhere to go once a week to put a bit of closure to each week. I'd like to go back, just to see what they offer, though I'd feel too weird going there alone. I'd also need a Sunday morning off every once in a while. :/

I want a family. This one just looks like a long shot now, nearly impossible. Maybe if I improve one or two other things, I'll be on that path. Oh, life...

I'd like to get to all these things someday. I'm getting old, too old for where I am with my life right now, anyway. I'd ask for help, but independence is also something i need for my maturity. Instead, I shall ask for...advice. I'd like your advice. Somehow, I think asking for advice here is a bad idea, but what the Hell. I posted this three other places anyway.

When I was growing up there were a few movies I used to watch over and over again, and most of them ended up becoming some of my all-time favorites and they remind me of my childhood. Here's a quick list:

The Blues Brothers
Tron
Dune
Ghostbusters
Little Shop of Horrors
The Great Muppet Caper (haven't seen that one in YEARS)
Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
Pink Floyd's The Wall
Wayne's World

So what was it you watched religiously when you were kids?

Donald Fagen


Danarchy

That was before I knew anything about Steely Dan, so the pose is pure coincidence.

OMG celebrations and tribute.

Also, I'm not dead, I've just been doing some of this...



...and a lot of this...

I feel like starting another megawad I'll probably never finish, but I can't decide which idea to go with.

Option 1
A re-imagining of Doom done in vanilla Ultimate Doom with no added textures either. I'd just make the levels big and more like what they are named after but just with my level of detail, not the uber-detail people have a hard-on for these days. No shareware restrictions either, so there would be lost souls and BFGs in episode 1.

Option 2
A fairly generic Skulltag single-player megawad. I have ideas for different level themes I could make in Doom (storage area, prison, gateway to Hell) and I could just run them together. There aren't very many single-player Skulltag wads so I think it would be cool.

Option 3
A combination of the two. Re-imagine the Doom 1 levels but in Doom 2 with all the Skulltag stuff.

So anyway, I can't decide which to do, so I'm letting you decide. YES, YOU! Vote today and recieve a free* car!! Offer is good while supplies last**!!!

* Offer only good in the Republic of Montenegro
** Supplies = 0

That's right, the time has come again. This year, it looks like I'm getting a new computer.

Also, happy birthday, Manc.

So my Ultimate Doom poster is no longer in good enough condition to be on my wall, but last night I got a replacement:



It's an official movie poster, so it has the backwards printing on that back that makes it easier to see when you shine a light through it (like on the poster displays at the theatre).

Yeah, I thought it was a cool aquisition.

Just a thought...

They had a trailer for Zathura on TV, and I swear the music they were using for it is the Overture from Requiem for a Dream. I'm not too sure because they had the music pushed into the background, but that's what it sounded like. Kind of an odd choice for a kid's movie.

Other kind of interesting choices for movie trailers I've seen are Marylin Manson's cover of "I Put A Spell On You" on the 6th Sense trailer, and NIN's Just Like You Imagined in the Unbreakable trailer.

Anyone else ever hear this kind of music in trailers?

So there I was, I had just blown the S.A.M. mission for the hundredth time and I was beginning to boil over in frustration. But what's that? Someone left a police boat nearby? YOINK! So I drove around through the waves for a bit and through the channel between Shoreside Vale and Staunten Island, towards my hideout out that way. Then I decided to crash the boat somewhere and go the rest of the way by land. I found the perfect spot. A stretch of road near the water. Maybe I could crash into a car or block traffic for a white.

So I revved up the engine and went for it. I smashed into the shore and flew up onto the road, smashing a light pst over on my way. I skidded right over the roadway and then *SPLASH*. What, where am I? It appeared that I had went right over the roadway and into the tiny pond on the otherside where i could pilot my boat freely. So I did for a bit, but that got boring. Next I tried turning the boats guns on the nearby pedestrians who were way to uninterested in my cool discovery, but the rounds flew over their heads and they remained nonplused. So I parked my little ship by the roadside to get another perspective on the situation. Hmm, despite the fact that that's an armed police boat, it looked a little like a quiet fishing hole.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. I sent the boat off in what resembled a backwards Viking funeral. That appeared to be the end of that, but I was wrong. The friendly neighbourhood populace decided to give my lovely vessel some kind of wake/baptism.

Then everybody died.