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Post by Afgncaap5 on Mar 27, 2009 22:05:24 GMT -5
Okay, so, two, maybe three, years before Valve's Portal was released, a friend showed me the trailer. And the trailer both wowed me with the gameplay, while simultaneously making me laugh. I'd never thought of a game like that before (it was the only first-person-shooter at that point to really look cool to me.) I never thought that I'd be able to play it, because my computers are perpetually behind the times. But hey, I double checked as the release date approached, and my computer was fine! But then I learned: it comes packed with two other games. Well, I'm perpetually low on cash as well, so I figured I'd scratch that off if I had to pay for three games. Then I saw a few months back that it was available as a single game for a bit cheaper. ...and now it's now. Why haven't I bought that game yet? People keep giving me spoilers for it. I need to buy it before it's entirely beyond the freshness date.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Mar 28, 2009 8:45:53 GMT -5
Okay, so, two, maybe three, years before Valve's Portal was released, a friend showed me the trailer. And the trailer both wowed me with the gameplay, while simultaneously making me laugh. I'd never thought of a game like that before (it was the only first-person-shooter at that point to really look cool to me.) I never thought that I'd be able to play it, because my computers are perpetually behind the times. But hey, I double checked as the release date approached, and my computer was fine! But then I learned: it comes packed with two other games. Well, I'm perpetually low on cash as well, so I figured I'd scratch that off if I had to pay for three games. Then I saw a few months back that it was available as a single game for a bit cheaper. ...and now it's now. Why haven't I bought that game yet? People keep giving me spoilers for it. I need to buy it before it's entirely beyond the freshness date. Birthday cake.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Mar 28, 2009 22:08:09 GMT -5
Ah-HA! Your attempt at a spoiler was failed by the fact that someone else spoiled it for me! Take that!
Also, I bought the Orange Box today. I was lookin' for just the game Portal, but...well, I couldn't find it, and hey, even if I've got no interest right now in the four other games in the box, I might later, and ten bucks isn't a bad price for four games. Plus there's the in-game commentary and the included soundtrack.
Maybe I should buy Half-Life 1 at some point to familiarize myself with the game before I begin the Half-Life 2 stuff.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Mar 30, 2009 14:55:01 GMT -5
Okay, I considered making this entry a [glow=red,2,300]THIS! WEEK! IN! WEBCOMICS!!![/glow] update, but it really isn't. Instead, it's just a nod about my thoughts on Family Guy. See, for a long while now I've felt like as a country (by which I mean we people on the Internet) we're letting our standards slip. There's room for stupid, random, insanity-based humor, there is. But there's a difference between the times when that style of humor is well thought out and when it isn't. For a long time now, I've struggled to come up with what I want to say, but Real Life Comics by Greg Dean just did it a whole lot better than I could. When Family Guy started out, I thought it was an okay show. I wasn't a huge fan of it like most people, but I thought it was sorta funny. I didn't watch it much, though, because I'm opposed to excessive uses of coarse language and gratuitous nudity on prime time (I don't say this as a judgement or as a finger wagging, I just don't like it.) Needless to say, I just kinda shrugged when Family Guy got cancelled. I saw it coming for a while before it happened. Then after a while it came back on the air (and I want to add: so many of the shows cancelled in that time frame deserved to be brought back more than Family Guy did.) And you know what? It was noticeably, noticeably worse. Most people attribute this to the fact that the humor of the show has moved almost entirely to the "let's cut away for five seconds to a minute to show an exaggerated example of the kind of thing that we were making fun of with our casual reference" style humor. I don't think this is the case (although I *would* like to see some numbers for what the average percentage of the show devoted to those cutaway jokes is). Rather, I think that the plots are just bad. I think they're formulaic, recycled, predictable TV scripts from the sixties to nineties but with the "rawer" humor stylings that the show depends on as a crutch. The show uses shock value to get cheap laughs. Now, let's compare two shows that I consider similar. Scrubs and Robot Chicken. I'm a fan of these two shows (note: I know Robot Chicken has stuff that's just as bad (maybe worse) as on Family Guy, but I'm more of a fan since I know that it's not really prime time. I have to work to get it. That's a flimsy reason, I know. Sorry.) Anyway, on Scrubs you have cut-away humor very similar to Family Guy. However, before you have any of that, you have well written, deeply emotional plots to drive the stories and humor. The Jokes are great, but that's the icing for the cake. Move away to Robot Chicken. Robot Chicken has no plot (except when a plot would be funny.) Robot Chicken consists *entirely* of cut-away humor. The difference as I see it here? Well, for one thing, I think the jokes are better. For another thing, the absence of a real plot except within the clips themselves (unless you count the Robt Chicken aspect as a plot) allows the show to really focus on what it's doing. Also, Robot Chicken doesn't pretend to be what it's not: it's disposable humor, if I can steal a phrase from Kris Straub (who, if memory serves, stole it from someone else.) The humor within Robot Chicken is like a ninja that jumps out at you, hits hard and fast, and then vanishes in a way that almost makes you unsure if it had actually been there at all. Family Guy needs to learn from these two shows. Stop straddling the line between good plots and no plots, Family Guy. Pick one, please. It's not too late: you have talent. But you're selling yourself short for the sake of cheap laughs when you have a chance to do something better. And no, it's not an excuse to say, "Well, see, it's good for me to do this because I know that I'm bad. It's on purpose, so that makes it funny, right?" My answer to you is no, Family Guy. No, it doesn't. Shape up or ship out. Please. And bring back Lone Gunmen. Okay, rant over.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Apr 10, 2009 4:39:28 GMT -5
I'm a big fan of puzzles, both solving them and making them. And a lot of the time when I make a puzzle, the place I put it is at the welovepuzzles website (a place with a sad and tragic history that will, hopefully, one day be made better.) I just finished making a puzzle tonight (err, this morning, it's almost 5 AM now that I check the time) and in addition to the forum goers there I thought I'd drop it here as a Happy Easter message to anyone who happens to stumble upon my blog who likes puzzles. www.welovepuzzles.com/permalink/puzzle/23637/And I mean it: no cheating. :-P
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Apr 14, 2009 12:06:36 GMT -5
So, what's been stealing all of my time lately? There's so much stuff that's happenin' right now stealing my time away from this place and Legend of the Green Dragon. But what are they?
First and foremost, I'm playing that new Zork game. It isn't in the classical style of Zork (I mean, it's a browser based RPG, not an Adventure game for a computer), but I'm enjoying it. The artists and writers have caught the flavor of the lighter aspects of Zork very nicely. My only real complaint is that the Rat-Ants are identified as Rat Ants. *Sigh* It's a very important hyphen...
Meanwhile, City of Heroes' Issue 14 came out, unveiling the Architect system and the ability for players to create their own missions for other players to try out. The writer in me loves it. (And my own personal writing has been suffering thanks to it.)
Finally, I'm still wringing playability out of Portal now that I've bought it. The Advanced Maps are over and done with, so only the Challenge Maps remain. And I have to say: the Least Portals challenges? They make sense. They're reasonable.
Least time? Least footsteps? No. Those are not reasonable. At all.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on May 9, 2009 3:46:27 GMT -5
Well, after my boss retired from the store where I work, I wasn't sure what to expect of the new boss from corporate. No one was. And he probably wasn't expecting us, either. I mean, hey, it's a new experience for everyone involved.
I think he's done a good job so far. He's not been trying to "replace" the old boss in any way (apart from, you know, fulfilling the managerial duties that he was hired to do), but at the same time he's not trying to assert his dominance over the new domain.
Still, it does feel like the transition is taking a bit longer than I expected. We're still in what feels like "shakedown mode" and it's been over a month now.
It's weird, though. I was just about to quit my job there and move on (not from disatisfaction or anything, it's just time, you know?), and then I heard that my boss was going to retire, so I decided to wait it out a few months. Now it's time to start lookin' for a new job again, I guess.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on May 13, 2009 10:11:10 GMT -5
Okay, apart from my obsession with webcomics I try not to post news about stuff that I enjoy that I think others will have absolutely no interest in. Interactive Fiction and Text Adventures fall into that camp. I mean, news stories about Infocom, Zork, The Xyzzy Competition and such don't interest many other than myself. However, one of Infocom's implementors (AKA game designers) is of great interest to the world at large: Douglas Adams. Not only did he co-design Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game with Steve Meretzky (one of my favorite game designers and Implementors ever), but he also started the ball rolling on a game called Beaureaucracy for Infocom (I'm just learning that he didn't have time to finish it entirely, meaning that the rest of the Implementors had to pitch in, explaining that weird easter egg in the game.) I personally always though that Beaureaucracy was one of Infocom's greatest games ever, so I was sad to learn that it was a financial bomb for them. Hitchhiker's Guide was probably the most famous Infocom game after the original Zork. The book's popularity might have helped that somewhat. However, as is the way of such things, great games that promise sequels don't always deliver them. And the promised sequel to this game, Milliways, never arrived. I just found a news story about the history of Milliways that not one but four implementors have commented on. It's fascinating to me, and while I kind of feel like I'm violating Infocom's privacy, at the same time it's a great read (I've not even finished the article, it's that great.) Anyway, don't know if anyone else'll be interested in the history of IF, even with the promise of some nifty tidbits from Douglas Adams' life and stories. But man, I think it's great.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on May 16, 2009 22:17:42 GMT -5
I've always been a tiny bit concerned about my emotional reactions to things. The optimistic way of putting it would be that I'm detached.
I was just informed of the death of a friend. He wasn't a close friend, and there was even an aspect of rivalry between us at times, but he was a friend. More to the point it was a sudden, unexpected, violent death.
My first reaction was an attempt to remember which of my friends it was (I have a problem with names, last names especially. I was right with my first instinct, but I went through the mental check to be sure.) Then I felt sorry, I think.
I feel a bit worse now, I admit. But still, my initial reaction wasn't really...a reaction. It was a thought process. Telling myself what the emotional reaction should be and telling myself to display that emotion.
I felt roughly the same way when my mother was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer. I can't honestly remember feeling afraid about it.
I dunno. Maybe my initial reaction is denial and I stick with it a lot. (And since my mom's cancer news was pretty much nothing but good news after the initial "your life is in danger" stage, my denial was arguably justified. For the record, she's not had a trace of cancer for over seven years now.)
I suppose some aspects of dealing with loss or tragedy involve taking stock of how it affects you before dealing with how it affects the people more directly involved. Maybe I'm beating myself up about this needlessly.
I will miss my friend, though. It's going to be a rough week.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on May 17, 2009 2:29:31 GMT -5
Okay, wow. I just finished playing through the first episode of Sam & Max (still haven't played their original game from 1993, I'm afraid. Still, good gaming was had.) I have to say that I loved this game.
It felt a teensy bit slow to start. But once I got through the initial stages and got into the groove of the game, it was just wonderful from there to the end.
And man, it feels good to play a point-and-click adventure game again.
Not as good as a text based adventure game maybe, but definitely wonderful.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on May 22, 2009 21:59:24 GMT -5
A certain News Story caught my story (though calling something news when the focus of the article is over a year old is stretching it quite a bit in my opinion) about someone who won a lottery through (drumroll, please) the "power of positive visualization." Now, I can understand why people might believe that our beliefs have a kind of psychic resonance that can affect the world around us. Evidence of this kind of thing on the small scale is certainly abundant (talking to plants to make them grow better, moms kissing their kids' injuries and them healing faster, etc.) and while there's not much that I'd call evidence of it on a large scale, it's certainly a popular feeling these days (I have a gigantic rant prepared about fantasy writers who've jumped onto this 20-year plus bandwagon whereby gods are somehow dependant upon the beliefs of humans. While some authors can pull this off well (American Gods by Neil Gaiman, for example) most other authors just can't.) Anyway, the point of my post here isn't a critique of a belief in the power of positive thinking and visualization. I'm an optimist (or at least I like to think I am) so far be it from me to discourage people from focussing on goals and then working for them. My gripe, rather, is a single line in this article where the writer says "Well, have you won the lottery?" On the surface this is a fair point. But the more you think about it, the more you have to realize that this writer isn't taking into account something called Statistical Significance. Similarly, this writer isn't accounting for that old statistics postulate, "Correlation does not imply Causation."Let's put the shoe on the other foot: there are some Christians out there who have won the lottery. I'd be willing to bet that among that number of Christians (and maybe even among the number of non-Christian lottery winners) you'll find some who have prayed to God that they could get the money. I'm a big believer in the power of prayer, but if I claimed that "prayer was the way to winning the lottery" then any number of statisticians and mathematicians would point out the fallacy in my argument. I think the best that we can say about "positive visualization" is that it won't hurt your chances at all. Now, what might be more convincing is if this lady won another lottery with such staggering precision (I mean, getting precisely 112 million on the nose? You've gotta admit that that's intriguing) then maybe you'd be on to somethin' here. It still wouldn't be statistically valid as evidence, but it'd sure be closer to it.
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Post by Captain Hygiene on May 24, 2009 7:47:00 GMT -5
It's pretty easy to claim that you won the exact amount you visualized, after the fact.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on May 25, 2009 16:05:36 GMT -5
True, but if you've been doing things like writing the number down everywhere, there should probably be a little evidence that you were shooting for it (admittedly, easily faked evidence, but still evidence.)
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Jun 2, 2009 2:11:21 GMT -5
Okay, so, I've not historically embraced things that are popular, especially not early on. I kinda get bullied into it by societal inertia. Facebook I joined *relatively* of my own free will, but that was always more of a "keep track of your buddies" thing than anything else. Myspace was another issue, though: Myspace didn't strike me as something good to have so much as something that it might look suspicious if I didn't have it.
It's weird how popularity can build cynicism within me. I know that's not exactly unusual, lots of people hate stuff exclusively because it's popular. But still, it's weird. Do I really want to disapprove of things just because they're mainstream? Case in point: I was positive that Rat Race would be a terrible movie. The previews demonstrated lots of big name celebrities in "zany antics" and "shenanigans ensuing" in a manner that screamed about how terrible it would certainly be. Then I watched it, and oh did I love it. It was well written, well paced, and while the plot wasn't exactly original *cough*madmadmadmadworld*cough* it wasn't following a formula because it was a formula, it was following a formula because it was *funny*. As the song goes, "They'll be standin' in lines for those old honkey tonk monkey shines."
Do I really want to be the guy who hates things because they're popular? To automatically assume that lowest common denominator equals garbage? To tell those kids to get off my lawn? Nay, I say nay.
...anyway, this is a roundabout way of saying that I decided to get a Twitter account.
I opted not to go with my standard handles of Afgncaap5, Afgncaap, Affy Person, Affy or the like. Rather, I went with CraterLabs. I've been thinking about branding a lot lately and what it will mean if I'm succesful in becoming an author, so I need to start now. My work in and with Crater Labs has been a huge part of my life, and as such I figured that if I do have a "public face" for myself online apart from my real name, Crater Labs would service as a good option.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Jun 12, 2009 16:31:41 GMT -5
Man, I hope the Penny Arcade folks continue Lookouts. I mean, I want this Automata story to continue as well, but Lookouts just looks amazing.
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