Legend

Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye.

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:45:38 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA

The Doomsday Meme

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:33:47 GMT

It's a rare time when I actually sit down to type up a live journal entry. It's rarer for me to pass on a meme, and rarer still for me to actually attempt to start one. But here I am, sitting here at 4 in the morning with something on my mind, hoping that maybe some responses here will help me work through this.

First, some light reading. Do a google search on "runaway global warming" and read some of the articles that come up.

Done? Good. Now imagine for a moment that humanity will be gone in 20 years. Maybe even 10, or 5. If you knew The End was coming, what would you be doing differently, knowing that not only will you be dead, but also that no one else will be around to remember you?

I realize this is heavy stuff, but I'm honestly curious what people think. Pass this around as much as possible... I'd love to see some thoughts.

Frantically posting to LJ does not get my attention.

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:29:47 GMT

I hardly ever read livejournal. Hence, posting to it isn't going to get my attention, no matter how many times you do so.

Apparently my life would be directed by...

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 07:30:01 GMT

Woody Allen

Your film will be 66% romantic, 41% comedy, 30% complex plot, and a $ 35 million budget.

Be prepared to have your life story shot entirely in New York City -- though lately Woody's been loving shooting in London. Also, your music soundtrack is all jazz from before 1949. Filmography: Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust Memories, Everyone Says I Love You, Match Point, Scoop, etc. Woody has released one film per year consistently for the past 35 years. For the past 15 years he's been trying to make films like his older, funnier ones, just like characters in his Stardust Memories film suggest throughout. Regardless of his personal life, his films are American classics.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 95% on action-romance
You scored higher than 77% on humor
You scored higher than 19% on complexity
You scored higher than 58% on budget

Link: The Director Who Films Your Life Test written by bingomosquito on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 07:20:06 GMT

Interesting that I would get this one... :)

Mystic Theurge

44% Combativeness, 26% Sneakiness, 94% Intellect, 61% Spirituality

Brilliant and spiritual! You are a Mystic Theurge!

Score! You have a prestige class. A prestige class can only be taken after you’ve fulfilled certain requirements. This may mean that you’re an exceptionally talented person, but it probably doesn't.

The Mystic Theurge is a combination of a cleric and a mage. They can cast both arcane and divine spells, and are good at both, making them pretty terrifying on the battlefield. They have more raw spellpower than just about any other class.

You're both intelligent and faithful, but not violent or deceitful. I guess that makes you a pretty good person.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 26% on Combativeness
You scored higher than 24% on Sneakiness
You scored higher than 95% on Intellect
You scored higher than 79% on Spirituality

Link: The RPG Class Test written by MFlowers on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I like this meme.

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 09:39:29 GMT

I'm going to lift this little meme... I could use some fun writing challenges.

Give me one of my own stories, and a timestamp sometime in the future after the end of the story, or sometime in the past before the story started, and I'll tell you what happened then in at least 100words, whether it's five minutes before the story started or ten years in the future.

Alternatively, give me a time and a character from an RPG.

Go ahead, give me a tough one. :)

Why I canvas in the rain

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:44:42 GMT

When I wake up tomorrow morning, the Democrats will have control of the senate.

Steak and Ale Pie

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 03:02:31 GMT

2.5 lb angus eye of round, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
4 onions, cut into medium sized pieces
1 12oz container of sliced mushrooms
3 cubes beef bullion
about 1/2 packet of fresh thyme (leaves only, no sprigs :)
1 pint can of Boddington's
2 heaping tablespoons of flour
generous portions of salt and pepper
2 pie crusts
5 green onions, diced

Put olive oil in a pan, heat to hot, and then fry steak until brown on
the surface. Add onions, green onions, and mushrooms. Cook for a little
while longer and then pour in beer. Add salt, pepper, thyme, and
bullion cubes. Cover and simmer on low heat for an hour and a half.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. When filling is ready, put in pies and bake
for 45 minutes.

Makes 2 pies

The art meme

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 22:08:34 GMT

So, I'm doing the art meme. First five people to reply to me will get some piece of art, writing, etc, by me and personalized for them. Eventually.

If you reply, you have to put this in your own LJ too.

Rockin' corn & roast pepper salsa recipe

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 22:04:03 GMT

3 cubano peppers, roasted (poblano would probably work, or even green bell peppers)
4 roma tomatoes, fresh
1 lb corn cut off of the cob (preferably fresh, but I got it frozen)
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 large onion or 1 medium onion
2 tbsp olive oil

Directions:

Roast cubano peppers in oven at about 400 degrees until skin browns and peels off of the pepper easily. Peel off skin. Chop onion up into itty bitty bits and sautee in olive oil until slightly brown. Chop up fresh tomatoes and roast peppers. Mix onions, tomatoes, and peppers in with corn. Add salt, sugar, oregano, and apple cider vinegar. Refrigerate until cold.

Note: This salsa is mild. You could probably turn up the heat a bit more by using a hotter pepper, like a jalepeno or serrano, but you'd need to use more of them.

How to name a yuppie housing development in three easy steps!

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 15:00:15 GMT

1. Pick a direction.
2. Append some kind of geological formation.
3. Tack a silent 'e' on the end. Yuppies love that shit.

On my way in to work, I drive by at least two of these: Westbrooke and Northpointe. Having discovered the secret of naming yuppie housing developments, I think I'll start a few of my own:

Easthille
Westrivere
South-southwestswampe

I'll be rich!

Birthday Meme

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 07:42:44 GMT

April 19th

Facts:
1775 - American Revolutionary War begins
1971 - Launch of Salyut 1, first human-made space station
1995 - Oklahoma City bombing :(

Births:
1978 - James Franco (Harry Osborne from Spider-Man... same year as me, too)
1981 - Hayden Christensen

Deaths:
1993 - David Koresh (That's right, David Koresh bit it on my birthday!)

Exia Wiki

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 09:21:18 GMT

I've put up an Exia wiki... If possible, stop by and add a few things. :)

http://www.otakalypse.com/exiawiki/index.php/Main_Page

You'll have to create an account first... the link to do that is in the upper right corner. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here.

Dear Squaresoft,

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 22:50:35 GMT

Although 8 years to late and a bit light on plot, I appreciate your efforts to add closure to a game that sorely lacked it. If you plan to continue along these lines, I have a couple ideas for other movies:

"Xenogears: The Fucking Second Half Of The Game," and "Chrono Cross: An Ending That Doesn't Blow."

You have my premission to use these ideas in whatever way you see fit.

Thank you,
Bart Kelsey

EsperNet update

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 14:07:13 GMT

They're aware of the issue and working to resolve it. For now, you can connect by typing the following in your server window:

/server 69.9.162.142

Anyone know what happened to EsperNet?

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 13:50:03 GMT

Looks like the domain isn't even resolving...

Tue, 24 May 2005 19:24:51 GMT

You scored as Chewbacca.

</td>

Chewbacca

72%

R2-D2

69%

Anakin Skywalker

67%

Darth Vader

64%

General Grievous

58%

Yoda

58%

Mace Windu

58%

C-3PO

53%

Obi Wan Kenobi

44%

Clone Trooper

39%

Padme Amidala

36%

Emperor Palpatine

31%

Which Revenge of the Sith Character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Sexism and Expectations in Gaming -- a Guy's Perspective

Fri, 22 Apr 2005 22:34:07 GMT

Why would anyone put worms in a can?

No matter, I'm opening it.

My wife-to-be, Daria, has been playing D&D on and off for the past 15 years or so... longer than I have. She started out playing with her older siblings (all female), and some local friends who, much like her, really weren't old enough to be getting to the point where they start being particularly sexist. So fortunately, her first experiences with roleplaying were fun, non-awkward ones.

As I understand it, though, she joined a roleplaying club when she got into college, and found that things were a lot different with older groups of players, especially people who weren't used to playing with girls. She has experienced several of the sexist roleplayer stereotypes, including the annoying guy who wants to do everything for girls and doesn't let them have any fun, and the DM who is mean and vindictive because, for whatever reason, he can't deal with the fact that there's a girl in his game.

I can see why girls have a problem with these people. I totally get it. They make me mad too, because they just can't seem to treat people with respect.

Then there's the rest of us. We non-sexist, non-dickhead male roleplayers fall into two categories when dealing with female gamers:

* Trying To Be Sensitive And PC Guy - This dude is making a conscious effort to be nice about gender issues. He's probably not used to playing with girls, so at this point he still has to work at not making stupid assumptions and not acting like an idiot. Sometimes this will cause him to do awkward things, but on the whole, his efforts should be applauded, and he should be gently corrected if necessary. Trying To Be Sensitive And PC Guy eventually becomes...

* Guy Who Doesn't Really Care What Gender His Fellow Roleplayers Are - This one is me. They treat guys and girls the same way because, well, why wouldn't you? If someone's at the gaming table, it's because they want to game. They neither require nor deserve any sort of special treatment, unless they're new players, in which case they should be assisted regardless of gender.

So now that I've pigeonholed all of my fellow male gamers, I'll get into the meat of this little rant. There are, undeniably, certain physical things that only apply to female characters. Among these are menstural cycles (which we rightfully gloss over much the same way we gloss over characters going to the bathroom "I set up camp!" "I go over and take a dump behind that bush!" "I just had a really heavy period, so I'm gonna go clean up!"), and pregnancy, which frankly is a lot harder to just ignore.

It's clear from Curtana's comments that even women have differing expectations about how they want to be treated in game. The problem stems from the fact that, since pregnancy is a women-only thing, how we as male gamers decide to treat it becomes a sexism issue, as opposed to just a plot issue (note that it's in a post titled Sexism in Gaming). So now I'm drawing a blank. I did the same thing I'd do for a male player: let them decide before I make major changes to their character. Where is the sexism in that? A more appropriate place to put this problem would be in a post about treatment of players and character plots in general. Since this group is roleplay heavy, I try to let the players decide where they want their character plots to go -- and those character plots make up the vast bulk of the plot of my game. I'm not going to be making sweeping changes to someone's character concept if they don't want me to.

Forcing a character to become pregnant is in some ways not much different from, say, having them permanently lose both their legs (which, I might add, is certainly a realistic possibility) or perhaps making them take levels of a class they don't want. It's a huge change as far as the character is concerned, and as a player, I would find having a big change foisted on me to be jarring and rude. I ask players when they want other things to happen to them that would affect their character's plot. Why shouldn't I do the same with pregnancy?

Tue, 19 Apr 2005 04:51:26 GMT

Greatsword
You preferred a weapon with 56% power over speed and 27% range over melee.

You use a Greatsword.

Do the words Zweihander or Flamberge
mean anything to you? You prefer a Greatsword, a massive, heavy blade
frequently strong enough to cut down the rides of mounted warriors.
Though slow, the impressive length and heft of a greatsword makes it
capable even of breaking through armor. Your enemies will run from the
deadly arcs of your blade as you bear down on them.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 76% on power
You scored higher than 23% on range

Link: The What's Your Signature Weapon Test written by inurashii on Ok Cupid

The answers...

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 21:43:54 GMT

Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex - Touga, actually. I think he's cool because he's basically a normal guy. All he's really got are his smarts.
Xenogears - Rev. Billy Lee Black.
Half Life 2 - Gordon Freeman himself. He's just totally nerdcore.
Star Trek: TOS - Kirk. I watched Star Trek a lot as a little kid. Kirk was awesome.
Final Fantasy X - Lulu. Subtle and interesting without being as angsty as she looks.
Chrono Trigger - Robo. Maybe it's just his themesong, I dunno. :)

The fandom meme...

Wed, 06 Apr 2005 07:41:30 GMT

In the order I thought of them, not necessarily my order of preference. :)

FYI, for those of you who don't know what this is, you're supposed to guess who my favorite characters are. Some of them are obvious, some of them are not. Have fun. :)

1. Oh My Goddess - Urd (She's just more interesting than the others.)
2. Enterprise - Captain Archer (yes, everyone thinks Bakula's acting is bad, but I still like the character)
3. Love Hina - Haruka (Like her style.)
4. Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex
5. Firefly - Mal (Mal's just awesome)
6. Star Wars (episodes 4-6) - Vader (What can I say, really? It's Darth Vader.)
7. Final Fantasy 8 - Squall (despite FF8 being flawed in some ways, I connected with Squall enough that it's still my favorite game)
8. Xenogears
9. Patlabor - Gotoh (Good ol' brainy Gotoh. Always totally in control.)
10. Final Fantasy 6 - Locke
11. Half Life 2
12. The Matrix - Agent Smith (We're not here because we're free; we're here because we're not free.)
13. Star Trek: TOS
14. Star Trek: TNG - Picard (Make it so.)
15. Final Fantasy X
16. Fullmetal Alchemist - Al (Alphonse is just cool. One of the most likeable characters anywhere.)
17. Lord of the Rings - Samwise (The dependable friend.)

EDIT: 18. Chrono Trigger

And here's one by Ted

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 03:26:06 GMT

When you wish upon a star
Doesn't matter who you are
You're going to die.
You're already dead to me.

One by Daria

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 03:03:14 GMT

roses are red
my balls afre blue
it's snowing in hell
so where are you?

Just when you thought it was safe to read livejournal...

Sun, 30 Jan 2005 18:53:41 GMT

More hardcore goth poetry!

if my life were a snow cone
it would be some disgusting flavor
like dirt and road salt
or maybe black cherry

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:36:04 GMT

Never directly link my images.

Here is my replacement image, because it will no doubt be removed from "Azn_Bytch_78's" blog shortly.