Brian Stricklin

Fun with serial killers!

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:18:02 GMT

A couple of Persona 4 comics I found out about, a very spoiler-heavy condensed coverage of the first few hours of play, here and here.

I started watching the Giant Bomb endurance run (Let's Play) of Persona 4 earlier today... pretty funny so far. The best part so far...

...is when MC and Yosuke encounter Teddie at the end of Part 8. The players are just chatting, obviously expecting Yosuke not to be able to pull Teddie's mask off because it's really his body, oh it's so cliche and annoying... and then the mask comes off revealing an empty shell. "OH CHRIST." "WHAT... JUST... AAAAARGH." Freaking hilarious. :D

omg lol

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:52:22 GMT

Creative plans!

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:22:45 GMT

When I'm feeling a bit more centered, I think I'm going to write a series of stories that've been running through my head lately. The theme?

Disgaea meets Touhou.

Yeah. There's some choice interactions available right there. :D

First, though, I wanna put something in for the CoH Architect Contest they announced. I have a couple of existing ideas that kinda work with the 'hero doing evil for the greater good' theme, but not really perfectly. Will have to give it some thought.

...and... breathe.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:14:06 GMT

As some may know, I was told last Tuesday that the contract position I'm currently on was going to be ended this Friday. This... kinda hit me at a bad time, emotionally speaking. Anyway, I went in to my temp agency last Thursday and tested for another job opening (apparently the only one they had available), and I was told today that I'd been accepted. It's at the same company and building, too; I almost suspect my agency doesn't work with hardly anyone else.

It's... weird. Yesterday, I was a total wreck. Even started hyperventilating a bit at one point. This morning, though, I came in to work unusually... focused. Dunno why, but I was able to concentrate on things more than I usually am. But after I was told I would still have a job after all, I nearly fell to pieces again. Just the emotional whiplash hit me pretty hard, I guess.

Anyway. I'm back on track, more or less, though I'm still far from 'okay'.

I've been spending my time offline this week, just because I'm in the mood to catch up on my huge backlog of unfinished games. Currently in rotation are Diablo 2 - going with a Summonancer, which is a highly lazy playstyle - and Disgaea 2, though bets are being taken as to how far I'll actually get before getting distracted by something else. One day I'll finish an NIS game. You'll see.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:13:15 GMT

So tired of feeling like this all the time. So very tired. It's like if anything goes wrong, any tiny little thing turns out different than what I wanted, it sends me into this downward spiral where I just feel like total crap. It's stupid and it's pathetic and I'm sick of it.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:43:39 GMT

I jumped in on the Champions Online free trial this weekend, and... I think I'll get it, it's pretty fun in its way, but it's probably not worth a long-term subscription.

One of the main problems is that it *feels* like a video game, even more than other MMOs. In WoW, you have this huge sprawling world with thousands of places to go, and in CoH you have huge city zones with people walking around, mobs who almost seem to have their own life, and so on. In CO... you have a choice to start in what pretty much amounts to the Desert Level and the Snowy Level. The cel-shaded graphics work against it in this, I feel. I dunno if I'm explaining myself well on this, but that's my impression.

Second, the fact that it has only one server is a mixed bag. Sure, it'll cure the perception of some servers being better than others, but thirty or forty instances of a single zone with 100 people each means that there's not much chance of building up a community. And you have lots of choices of powers to take, but that just makes it easier to shoehorn yourself into a bad combo. Admittedly, the respec feature counters this and lets you remake yourself up to and including your initial power choices, as long as you're willing to pay through the nose in game currency.

So... yeah, fun, but CoH is the better hero game, I feel. But it is fun to walk my literal tankmage (Power Armor/Sorcery combination) right up to a supervillain and drop my Disc One Nuke (Sigils of Arcane Fire) right in his face.

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:30:44 GMT

So.

In the middle of getting caught in a rainstorm... no, wait, that isn't entirely accurate. While being mugged by the heaviest rain I've seen in a while, part of my already-broken car door handle - specifically, the bit I was using as a handhold to open it - decided to break off even further. Opening the door from the outside has become twice as hard, and opening it from the inside (the inside handle broke off long ago) is impossible without twisting around in the sheet and using both hands to scrabble at it. In, as noted, the rain.

Whee.

The classic easy way to replace something like that, I'm told, is to scavenge one from a junkyard, but I have zero automotive mechanics skill; I wouldn't even know where to begin. I highly down Pep Boys keeps model-specific door handles in stock, so I'll probably have to go to a dealership, which will take money that I don't actually have.

The other option is to try to jury-rig a handle by gluing/screwing something into the remaining bits. But given my past history with such things and my tendency, despite all intentions, to give up when I get tired and say 'good enough', this route is fraught with danger.

My life sucks.

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:18:20 GMT

So, just a few days until NaNoWriMo starts, and I haven't even decided on an idea, much less developed it. So, as usual because I'm stupid and lazy, I won't be participating this year. Not that it matters because I'd never finish it anyway, and even if I did nobody would want to read it. So yeah.

For those interested

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:32:55 GMT

We're mostly (sort of mostly) set up in a Wizards of the Coast community group. The campaign group is called The Enemy of My Enemy, WotC lets groups set up individual forums and wikis, so feel free to look around. You'll need to make a community profile to join, but it's free. Send a message to the GM, Ash2Dust and tell him LaserShark (moi) referred you. He should send you an invite to join the group.

Once you join, you'll probably also want to join the Google group we used to use, named for the old campaign, Knights of Andriocht. We don't use it much except for email notification/reminders when the game's due to start.

You can also check the Obsidian Portal page that never really got off the ground for character creation rules.

And as I noted, we use Ventrilo and MapTools, currently the .56 version of the latter.

The general consensus is that a smallish group is best, so they probably won't want more than one or two more players. Shouldn't be a problem, since only two people have expressed interest, but I thought I'd put it out there. :D It's probably too late to set up characters for this Sunday, but if you'd like to sit in on a session just to get an idea, that should be fine; we've done that before.

Players wanted

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:42:15 GMT

Not for a game of my own (yet), but the 4e game I play on Sunday evenings is currently running with 4 players and could use one or two more. We've recently started a new campaign (one of the players took over DMing) and it's going okay so far. Just thought I'd put it out there in case someone wants to join; we play Sundays from about 6-9 Central time, using Ventrilo and Maptools. We're level 2 currently, and the party consists of a Tempest Fighter, a Rageblood Barbarian, a Cosmic Sorceror (me), and a pacifist Cleric. Let me know if any of you'd like to know more, and I'll give you more info.

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:18:47 GMT

So, logged into CoH for a bit just now. Nobody noticed, even after I said hello, but that's kinda par for the course. Been too long since I played, it seems; the controls don't feel right. Power customization is okay; did some tweaking on Chap, who now has orange brain lasers, yay.

Mainly, though, I accomplished little except for deeply depressing myself again. Watching everyone chat and make plans and a bit of TEH DRAMA and have fun... I suppose I could've said hello again, but as I have for, oh, the last year or so of active playing, I just feel like an outsider, not really, really part of anything the group as a whole does. So... yeah.

Interesting to note, though: published stories remain available even if your account is cancelled. I had wondered about that.

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:39:28 GMT

It's a month-old link, but be warned: Puppy-Amaterasu will make your head a splode from cuteness.

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:16:20 GMT

OH GOD WHAT

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:56:02 GMT

...

...due to the aforementioned bowl-stealing incidents, I've been leaving the food for the mama kitty in hiding behind the front door of the building. Someone's been using that space for dumping their junk mail recently, which has been annoying but no big deal.

I went out there with a bowl of food this morning, though, and find what is undeniably... a vibrator.

There being only two people living in this building, it's gotta belong to the landlord's daughter. What the hell it's doing out there, we may never know. I left it right where it was, though I'm still oddly stunned by the discovery.

-_-#

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:41:37 GMT

All City of Heroes and City of Villains® players who maintain an active account from 15 August 2009 to 16 November 2009 will receive special rewards for their loyalty:

- Exclusive loyalty badges: "Vigilant" for Heroes and "Determined" for Villains

- Closed beta access for City of Heroes Going Rogue™

...well. Thanks for telling me, Cryptic. Thanks so much for telling me ON THE EIGHTEENTH OF FREAKING SEPTEMBER. I might've reactivated just to get to the Rogue beta if I'd known.

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:14:01 GMT

Bleh. After about a month of being okay, I had to leave work pretty early today due to my shoulder kicking the crap out of me whenever I moved my arm. I hate doing that, not least because I can't afford to lose too much work.

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:37:01 GMT

I think I'm going to try NaNoWriMo again this year. Well, that's not a completely accurate statement, as it implies I actually tried in previous years. The closest I ever got was lots of ideas that never even made it to paper. This year, I need to plan ahead, which is why I'm starting my brain to working now.

I already have one idea which is fairly fleshed out and would be fun to write, though it's darker and less comedic than my usual fare. The only problem is that it's, technically, fanfic; set in the Fallout 'verse, in fact. Not that there's any rule in NaNoWriMo against that, but I kinda want my finished product to be, with luck, marketable. The experience would be good even if it isn't, but still. Oh, I know the obvious solution is to set it in a Fallout-inspired setting, but my brain is defective and doesn't work like that. For one thing, once I come up with an idea I get stubborn about it, and transplanting it would be tough. And second - and more importantly - is that I suck at from-scratch creativity. This has been the case ever since I started writing; I can do fanfic fairly well, I'd say, but I just can't make a compelling, believable world and cast of characters from nothing. It's annoying. So, the choices are 'Fallout' or 'something like Fallout but crappy'. Bleh.

This isn't to say I don't have other ideas that take a swipe at originality - I've got a YA fantasy story I've been fiddling with for a while - but I just know that in the end they'll look flat and lame.

In other news... I've discovered Nanaca Crash probably three or four years after everyone else, via TVTropes of all things. My record so far is 5.3 km. Fun.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:34:14 GMT

Hrm. I decided I wanted to replay Fallout 3 lately, and maybe try the DLC, but after reinstalling I noticed a lot more stuttering, both in graphics and in sound, than I remember. The only difference is that I loaded it on a different drive, which shouldn't matter (theoretically). I don't think it'll be gamebreaking, but it might be annoying enough to keep me from playing. I remember having to tweak the settings a bit last time I installed, but I can't recall the details.

The latest entry for 'Dumbest Comment Ever'

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:18:34 GMT

Seen on YouTube, concerning a fictional sentai group in an anime:

Star Rangers?
Is that the Japanese version for Power Rangers?
LOL!

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:35:53 GMT

I locked myself out of my apartment earlier, due to a consistently-recurring key ring issue. (If it happened without my knowledge, that would be one thing, but I *saw* the key land on the floor yesterday, and got distracted.) However, I also found out that when I last fogged the apartment, I left a window unlocked.

It's... pathetic yet amusing when two stupid mistakes cancel each other out.

HELLS YES

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:37:23 GMT

They announced some details on the next WoW expansion, titled Cataclysm. Two things in particular are Relevant to my Interests:

First, the new Horde race: GOBLINS. (Alliance gets wolfman Worgen, but who cares.) No info yet on intrinsics, but they do get access to every class except Druid and Paladin. Which means they *do* get to be Hunters, which should be all kinds of amusing running around with a pet ten times larger than you are. Even without that, GOBLINS. As readers may recall, goblins were all it took to get me interested in Warhammer Online; it didn't work out otherwise, but still. GOBLINS. HELLS YES.

And second is something I've been hoping they'd do for the longest time; expanded class/race combos, including Troll Druids (!), Orc Mages (?), Dwarf Shamans, Human Hunters, Gnome Priests, aaaand... TAUREN PALADINS (!!). Every race but the Space Goats get at least one new class, but the prospect of a Cowadin is all I needed to hear. A troll druid will probably be fun, too, especially since they added race-specific graphics to the cat and bear forms; I can't imagine that they wouldn't do the same for the trolls.

Of course, it won't be out for quite a while, but though I was working on several Alliance characters, I've decided to shelve them indefinitely to work on my Horde presence. This shall be awesome.

[EDIT] - Did I say 'hells yes'? I mean OMFG.

I just watched the trailer, and HOLY SHIT. It looks like they've gone all out on their 'phasing' mechanic that lets them overlay different 'planes' on a single zone. EVERYTHING CHANGES. Zones and cities get shattered, there's a rift down Thousand Needles, Desolace is green... oh my god the awesome. And flight over the lowbie continents? No longer prohibited. All those inaccessible villages and ruins you pass over on flightpaths are open to exploration. And they're only boosting the level cap by 5 this time, which I think is a good thing. Oh, and I may be wrong, but it really looks like they're finally - finally - opening freaking Uldum, the ancient Precursor lab which you get teased on after finishing a mid-level dungeon. Too awesome.

And Heroic-level Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep. That's just funny as hell. :D

I'm glad they're not going for another 'brave new world' scenario. Like suddenly stepping into Northrend the moment it's available and, oh look, multiple established cities, how nice. Exploring a broken Azeroth will be a lot more fun.

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:32:01 GMT

Rewatching Avatar these days, at a much slower pace than I saw it the first time through. Toph remains one of the most freaking awesome characters in the history of everything.

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:53:40 GMT

Someone broke off the handle of my car's driver-side door last night. There's barely enough of a nub left for me to still open it, so that's something, but still... grar. Since moving to this apartment, I've had two windows broken (once, supposedly, on accident by the landlord), numerous and mysterious scratches, miscellaneous beer stains on the trunk, and the word 'FUCK' written on the trunk in pencil. And now this. This is ridiculous.

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:17:29 GMT

The bowl I put out to replace the stolen one has also been taken. At this point I suspect the culprit is taking them for the food itself, as they would have dumped any food when they took them and I haven't seen evidence of that. Someone is so disadvantaged that they have to steal cat food.

I find I can't get too angry about that. I know I've been in pretty much that same position more than once myself.

I'm mulling over my options. Currently I've bought some cheap paper bowls and hidden the food somewhat; we'll see how that goes. I'm considering, though, leaving a bowl of food out with a note under the food, offering to buy the culprit (sight unseen) a big bag of food. Kinda pathetic, I know; I don't want to see cats go hungry, even if I'm not seeing the cats at all.

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:28:54 GMT

Someone took the cheap plastic bowl I was leaving outside to feed the Mama Cat. I have no freaking idea why.