Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘gaming’ Category

Via Article_Dan:
Get Lamp: a documentary about text adventure games (aka interactive fiction)

Looks cool. AND as part of that project they've made a video for MC Frontalot's nerdcore track, It Is Pitch Dark, which is all about Zork and similar Infocom zaniness.

Text games are so frotzing cool. I mean, I'm crap at ones you can't finish in a sitting, and do not mention that FRIGGING Babel Fish puzzle, but they're great. In the past I've even tried my hand at writing a few in Inform 6 (sadly these died in a hard drive crashycrash episode, except for a few copies of the compiled games that may still survive somewhere).

Ree: @Suitov OBJECTION! I was actually buying the very first Final Fantasy. (Though I was tempted by a JP Chrono Trigger for $5.) #

Suitov: @Ree You need to stop all that geek stuff and come over and play Battlestar Galactica: the Board Game with us. #

Ree: @Suitov Heh. Alas, airfare to Britain is beyond my budget. I could name my Black Mage "Herm" though. Best I can do. :/ #

Suitov: @Ree Why does everyone think of me as a black mage– brb hadokenning a village of orphans #

Ree: @Suitov Black mages gets offensive spells. Like Ice, Ice 2, Ice 3 (or Blizzaga if you're a weeaboo). Otherwise, take your pick of classes. #

Suitov: @Ree Ftr1/Wiz{focused transmuter}2/Spellsword1/Abjurant Champion5/Master Specialist10 #

Suitov: @Ree …which I suspect makes me Red Mage. http://bit.ly/dps9oV #

I still intend to create that orc (with the build above (or maybe conjurer for Abrupt Jaunt)).

No idea if I could play him well, of course. I have close to zero experience with D&D, but I tend to read a lot, and perhaps you can't go wrong with polymorph (unless your elf-and-nature-obsessed human wizard keeps turning things into unicorns, cough, Actually Happened™).

Were the 'mad' heroines of literature really sane?

Tch, woman! To the attic with you.

edit: Inserting two I forgot: USA, we don't hate you any more and elusive assassin-kitty caught on film

Bolivia backs circus animal ban

Australia plans tough Great Barrier Reef shipping laws

Two girls saved from forced marriage. Sadly, their brothers had already been forced to marry – otherwise, it looks like the court wouldn't have been able to rule that the girls were in sufficient danger.

Friends 'more important than family' in retirement

Bolivia hosts talks on rights of Mother Earth. Apparently she's to get the vote, as long as she can prove her age.

Behavioural rewards 'work like drugs' for ADHD, a study involving a computer game has indicated.

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Without citing-and-shiting any particular studies (let's just say there have been some painful test cases very close to what passes for my heart), I've known computer games to act as rewards in themselves – and addictions. MMORPGs in particular; I don't see ADHD brats having any problems concentrating on levelling six of their deathknight alts to 80, kek chiz chiz.

(Cult speak above was used for great justice as a hint as to which game particularly annoys me at the moment. Translation of the last clause into non-culty-speak: "I don't see any ADHD brats having trouble concentrating while they're making lots of stupid 'characters' and wasting huge amounts of time making them more powerful.")

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• Also, SingStar Disney – I have never sung *Jasmine's* part in A Whole New World before. I did rather badly. I only know Aladdin's harmonies. #
• See, yeah, I am keen on Disney, punk rock, Eurovision AND metal, and I know more ABBA lyrics than probably 95% of my mates. So what? ;) #
• Some Like It Hot. One of the best films evar. Gangsters, transvestism, Marilyn, shockingly gay-positive ending, Marilyn… #
• A cat just entered the room. Not the cat I expected. Not even my second guess. It's Professor Mousington from across the road. #
• I have zero resolutions, except my nebulous "get published before I'm 30" grand plan. #
• Annual (late) Mega Drive fest. Stimpy's Invention and Golden Axe I. Now Pizza Hut, later Mega Swiv, Zero Wing, Sonic & Knux etc. #innerchild #

• #vss Weakly, he smiled from his hospital bed. "You make my heart sing." The ECG began playing the Super Mario theme. She gawped. "H-how…?" #
• #vss "Do you go on about how she has a byootiful white neck like a swan's?" "Inadvisable. The last swan we saw was undead and attacking us." #
• #vss "Have you screwed up yet and called her after your latest book instead of her name?" "I don't love books to the exclusion of ALL else!" #
• #vss "Has she admitted yet that she just wants you for your money?" "Why are you so determined we're dysfunctional?" "…'Cause I hate her!" #
• #vss "Ish twenny ten, bashtids!" slurred Mike. "Whurs mah hovvacar?" Up above, a 'hovercar' caught his New Year joyride on camera. @metaltax #

Paul's getting me excited over again about Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.

Mainly, it has to be said, over Deadpool. I like this look. The seams and construction details are nice, and if he moves like the animators talk about in that interview he'll be brill to play.

My painting arrived and it's awesome and brilliant and fabtastic. ♥

Overtures

I lick my nose and turn my head askance
to let you know I mean you only well,
and duck my head in playful bow: let's dance.
Oh no? Your choice. So, care to have a smell?
Well, let me sniff your bottom — what's amiss?
I'm friendly, look: my tail is whizzing round;
let's — gracious me, whatever was that hiss?
You heard that, right? Extraordinary sound.
So anyway, you want to see my toys?
Or run around and bark and bark at bikes?
Why, there it is again, that hissing noise.
Ignore it; let's play chase. I'll get you — yikes!
I didn't know you had a bunch of those!
That hurt, I — Mummy, help, she got my nose!

I'm currently listening to one of cubicgarden's trance mixes. If this thing rickrolls me, I'll have to vanquish him on Monday.

Oh, and as soon as the healing springs faerie heals my Lupe I'm painting her Spotted, because I just got the PB and the spotted Lupe looks just like an African Wild Dog, for which I'm a sucker. (So she'll be a literal Painted Dog, then…)

Slen and I played Arkham Horror round at someone's house last night. It's great fun! We had eight players plus the host, who GMed (doesn't need a GM, but it was very helpful because some of us hadn't played before). In fact we stayed so on top of things that it was really easy to win, despite the GM doing his best to, erm, 'liven things up' for us. Also, I got some odd looks from cooing in delight over the Hound of Tindalos.

During the game I went and talked to the Black Man for a laugh, seeing as my character had a sanity bonus so couldn't die during that encounter. I failed the roll but couldn't be devoured, found it much funny and didn't think much more of it.

So later last night, erm, I had some dreams.

Very, very whacked-out dreams. And I woke up with a non-existent and horrendous pop song in my head, a song that IMO could have come from nowhere but R'lyeh. It seriously took me about ten minutes to stop being very very confused. I was glad of that sanity bonus.

Am now in perfect frame of mind to have a go at fixing mum's Inspiron.

EDIT:

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omg omg omg omg omg omg omgeekgasm.

squoo.

LOLZ, Microsoft, Chuck Norris jokes never get old!

(In case you missed the reference in the title, and there's no reason you shouldn't have, experience Natols. BGM heaven.)

I dreamed we were setting up a new board game, but I was tired and knew I wouldn't be able to take in the rules.

This dream confirms two things:

1. My Tuesday night activities are seeping into my subconscious,
2. I am feeling professionally insecure.

I also recall someone in the dream saying this was a cooperative game (i.e. "players against game", not "players against each other" – e.g. Pandemic), which tantalised me, because I've never played a co-op and would very much like to try one. If only to keep from inadvertently pwning Phil.

Currently reading: Women's Work for Weft. Just finished Elizabeth Bear's Dust, about which I hope to post more in future.

Currently wondering: if it makes sense for a hypothetical humanoid, pre-industrial silk-based economy to make some kind of toy that was a hybrid of spindle and yo-yo.

First sketch of Sankmarray ninja and pirate (crewpir, not king)

I'm not happy with the pirate — pe needs to be a bit more doggy as well as chimpy — and I still have no idea about head hair growth on either of 'em. Luckily you can't see the ninja's hair anyway, thanks to ner headscarf.

Petpet Park load test = slashdotted. There's a surprise…

Wincanton, the Roundworld twin town of Ankh-Morpork, steps further into geekdom (join us, come with us, we will teach you things).

So Monday night was Werewolf night, this time at the Space bar (I still can't work out if that's an intentional pun) off Oxford Road. A new chap turned up there; he goes to a gaming group that meets on Tuesdays at a place a short walk from Slen's house. This is games in the board-game and cards sense; they play lots of obscure things straight out of Essen that I've never heard of. Which is ace.

So I went along, stayed over at Slen's house and dragged him to the group. We played Tribune, which that dark equus of a brother of mine won, and then a few minutes of Master of Rules before the end. The others were playing some kind of Battlestar Galactica board game.

Lots of fun, lots of serious geeks there. Apparently they sometimes play MTG and often Werewolf. I'll give the MTG a miss, because I'm opposed to things you have to keep paying for, but Slen owns a starter deck which he's never opened, so that'd be fun for him.

edit: Miss Nobili told the BBC that the transformation from lap dancer to nun happened gradually.

Just call me Wolffinder General.

Some excellent rounds last night. At one point I finally got to be the Seer, had both the werewolves pegged even before checking… and was promptly torn to pieces after I orchestrated the first getting lynched but before I could get the second. It was great fun just watching the rest of the game, though, as the werewolf deadpanned her way through to the last round before being narrowly defeated by the two remaining villagers. The wolf hadn't even known I was the Seer, she admitted afterwards.

Another time we played "the first person to die becomes the moderator" version. I was the werewolf, but the person taking turn as moderator — my fellow werewolf, killed by lynching because "he was the werewolf the last two times" — accidentally unmasked me. I think I would've got quite far if he hadn't.

I think Slen and Kat are addicted too. We might even bring our mother next time because she sounded interested. (There's precedent. The first time, someone else brought his mum. She was initially bemused, but pretty good. Shame she wasn't there last night.) Mother is a potential threat, though. Slen and I will have to agree a strategy in case we should both be werewolves. Mothers can tell…

After last night, villagers and werewolves are tied for victories. Werewolf is awesome. I'm learning a lot from the experienced players, and I even dared to be moderator once so the game-organiser could play. I didn't screw up, either!

And now a photo I liked: Beauty in sadness
and oooohmydogsocute

Race for 'God particle' heats up. Please nobody shout Foe Yay or post LHC/Fermilab Rule 34 in the comments. This is a classy blog.

As fans of The Daily Mail know, everything in existence either causes cancer or cures cancer (example: Facebook). An extremely scientific study has begun to document these for the good of humankind. I give you The Daily Mail Oncological Ontology Project.

Also, grandmother playing Guitar Hero. I recognise the Easy difficulty of Pat Benatar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, so you can tell I'm about on her level.

edit: some artwork and photography from dA's daily selection. Dog + snow = ♥

For Anke: Hello guys, kitties and something indescribable. And this, even though the corn is wrong and makes me very sick to look at *whimpers*.

Red pandas with an inescapable Now We Are Six vibe, cuddling, cartoony pandas (interesting take on the mask), a portly and catlike take that truly earns their nickname of 'catbear', a slightly more raccoonish-mousy-feline look, unhappy plushie toys, superdeformed legless versions (good face on the left one, though), some clearly drawn by an animator, a gorgeous painting if you excuse the love heart, NINJA PANDA and hilarity ensuing (I may have posted this one before).

Amazingly enough, there's also a new pangolin since last I looked. And have a cloud pard to round off the furfest.

1.5 kilos down this week. Hurry up, man! I wanted to be under 80 by now. (I'm 80.45, so very close really.)

Seriously though, meatcarcase, can't you find more fat to drop? Because let me tell you I don't need an atlas to find several handfuls, if you know what I mean.

Ha. Also, I am going to start eating greens and protein. I'm too desperate for them¹, and if you're careful you can do this and still stay in ketosis (aka mega weight-drop area, aka starvation). So says a friend of the family who has flirted with this diet several times. (I could draw sarcastic conclusions about its long-term efficacy in her case and her resulting qualification to give advice, but she successfully drops weight every time, and that's all I need to do. I don't do the yoyo thing too badly, not judging by holding steady for almost a year in this interval.)

Oh, and I finally have my prescription refilled as of this morning. Luckily my mother and I are on the same dosage of the same med, so there can be intercaninenecine pill-scrounging. The delay, as it turns out, is that they wanted to speak to me before refilling it, so I need to make an appt. Which means getting there and taking time off work, both of which cause me bearable anxiety.

I spent all weekend gaming round at my unbrother's house and I have surprisingly few regrets about that. Although I'm ready to make myself some art and code now. Speaking of Art with a capital A, aka Tet, I think his deadline on the art exchange is today, so I may or may not bother doing the quick sketch I'd planned. He's popular because he admins the server, so lots of ass-kissers will have given him pictures. ;)

More microformats today. I've finished converting a huge "useful contacts" table from bad HTML into better HTML plus lots of span class=vcards. My eyes are now crossing. And I've forgotten what I was actually supposed to be changing about it in the first place. Wahoo!

¹ At least, let's optimistically assume that the sustained intense urge to rip apart people/trees/Quorn roasts and gorge on their insides signifies a craving for protein and roughage. Let's have no more gentle games of rough-and-tumble with the cat only to pause and realise I'm chewing his scruff rather enthusiastically, or anything like th…
…not that I've ever done that, you realise. It was a random example, haha. Erm.
Plus, maybe I can finally stop dreaming about food. The whole "oh noes I broke my diet by accident" stress dream archetype was never cool or original, and it's looking pretttty hackneyed by now.

SPOILERS FOR: Christmas, Eragon/Eldest by Christopher Paolini, Resident Evil 4, The Sally Lockhart Mysteries by Philip Pullman.

1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters whose names begin with that letter and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

Anke, possibly foolishly, gave me the letter S. However, because I'm not feeling contentious enough to follow either my obvious first impulse to mention Satan, or a fleeting idea of mentioning Susan Pevensie because frankly she has no character beyond an Enid Blyton caricature of The Worried One Who Tries To Be Grown Up, so we're safe on the atheist score.

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Up at 06:30 for Neopets giveaway, lulz. I got the spooky site theme for me and the brother-creatures. Seem to have got in before the massive site-laggage, too. *dances* Now I can go back to bed.

I think Piper has an injury to his white eye. There's lots of gunk underneath, which I keep cleaning away, even though there's no cut visible. There's also a little dirty patch on the edge of his white ear (same side), which I suspect is a small injury too. Piper is clearly a menace to society with his hard-drinking, roustabouting, bar-brawling ways.

Since I'm awake anyway, a poem. Amphibrachic tetrameter because I can.

Country Road Meeting

An Anglian roadway in whistling November.
No sign of the taxi; no signal, no money,
A cardie from Primark 'tween her and the weather,
Suspecting she'll come to regret the stilettos.
Some headlights: the taxi? She moves to the hedgerow
And hopes she'll be visible. Funny, no engine.

It comes round the corner; she shivers. What is it?
It looks like a calf but it's burly and shaggy
And looking at her with those luminous eyeballs!
Its claws make no clicking, no noise on the roadway;
No steam from its muzzle. It's not even breathing.
"If this is a pisstake," she mumbles, "it's working."

It passes her swiftly, the muscular creature,
So close she could touch it. You're kidding. She doesn't.
Intent on its business, it wholly ignores her.
A roar from behind makes her jump. A Fiesta
With spoiler and skirts and a strip light beneath it.
A hundred and fifty or more, never slowing,
It bombs down the roadway, so close it could touch her.

The dog—was it hit? Where's it gone? Shit, she's blinded.
She rubs at the afterglow, loses a contact.
The car's disappeared and, it seems, so's the creature.
No body. No impact. No blood. Must have dodged it.
Her sobs become mist as she turns and examines
The tracks of the tyres in the place she was walking.

A few minutes later, the cab driver finds her.