“Hey Tracy, do you like snakes?”

“Do I like snakes, why — WHOA.”

I’m really stunned in regards to my webhost’s customer service. They’ve been utterly remarkable. I opened a trouble ticket late last night about MT and something that had been acting up… sent them a link to an MT page that checked to see what modules were installed, etc. I was just asking about one that I said was working earlier but now wasn’t and just wanted to know if something had been screwed up with paths…

… this was the e-mail I got this morning.

Subject: ImageMagick
Domain: midt.com
Message: Hello Cynthia,

We’ve just gone through the list and installed the additional modules. ImageMagick now passes.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Kindest regards,
Phil G
4d Web Hosting

… in other words, they just went and installed ALL the additional/optional MT modules. There were at least six or seven. Granted it probably didn’t take that long, but still! :x

I feel kind of bad, because I’ve been looking at another host that allows unlimited everything and is only slightly more expensive, but gives SSH access and a whole host of other things that I don’t currently get with 4d… but 4d people are so nice. :\ Bleh.

[edit] for personal reference only… http://www.composing-stick.net/2008/07/cant-find-mt-config-cgi.html

The most annoying thing in the world is when you’re productive all day, but you didn’t get the stuff done that is supposed to be taking priority. Mmph.

So my “visual expressions” class was supposed to go up until next Saturday, but as it turns out… the prof leaves some wiggle room at the end in case he can’t teach all the topics in the time allotted. So in fact, not only is next Saturday’s class cancelled (meaning I can go to day two of BlizzCon!!) … but we got out early today.

AND today was an easy class, because mostly all we did was watch “Michael Clayton” (good flick, btw), so when we got out early, I was super relaxed.

Afterwards, one of my classmates and I stood outside the building and gushed about how happy we were that the class was over, not because we hated it, but just because it gave us time back… a commodity that all of us seem to be sorely pressed for these days. Our conversation covered over all our classes and assignments that were giving us headaches and we just vented about the things that were annoying us. I really like Ala’… he’s so level headed and … grounding, for lack of better term.

Then the light sprinkling turned into a thick drizzle and I figured I had better start walking back before the weather decided to turn into a downpour. And while I walked back, I couldn’t help but notice that this had been the most calm I have been in weeks. My workload hasn’t lessened at all and I’m well aware of my procrastinary talents, but just the concept of having more time was enough to make everything feel lighter.

Anyway… gotta run some errands, then exercise (omgomg!!)… then get a little work done before D&D tonight. :)

.

Peace of mind? What’s that??

I’ve been a lot more involved — if you want to call it that — with the whole political process this year, thanks to the Obama cheerleaders in Pokechat. I’ve not only watched the debates and read a ton of articles (on Sarah Palin bashing…), I actually turned on AM radio to listen to the VP and latest pres-candidate debate on my way home from work.

And I find that … the more I learn about the candidates, etc… the more I wish I was still totally apathetic about the whole process. Because at least then, I wouldn’t be completely infuriated and frustrated all the time.

Because I am not really well versed in the workings of the economy or theories on what social support systems work and which don’t. As a result, I find that I have become much less concerned about the issues than I am with the morals of the candidates. So it’s no wonder that I’m becoming kind of despondent.

What I would really love is some kind of program that can real time cross-reference all of these mentions the candidates make to “their record” and print out actual statistics/summaries of how these people actually voted on the issues that they keep bringing up. It’s piss off annoying that they keep referring to things that ARE factual and COULD be verified for truth, yet it’s too much trouble to actually do so and the vast majority of American people will go unenlightened about who is straight out lying to the camera.

(Might make a nice thesis project, actually, but since I hate politics… probably not going to happen. >_> )

Thank god for the Daily Show / Colbert Report, because I don’t think there is any other group that will honestly point out all the hypocrisies and inconsistencies. But not enough people in the nation watch Comedy Central.

I survived. Now my brain will be shutting off for the next three days, for BlizzCon fun. Whooooo.

:D

(but i’m kind of lightheaded now, from blowing it up. ::lol::)

Figure I better do this before we leave, in case we don’t get back until after midnight or something. Checked around for any leaked rumors about something new, but couldn’t find anything except confirmation of D3 being playable… which I had already assumed.

Wheeeee!

BlizzConnnnnnnn.

Well, to get the “bad” news out of the way first… Dev’s film was nominated for best drama, but lost to what was also the grand prize winner. I’m going to not go into the details because I think I’m kind of bitter about the whole thing, so there. >_< Still, at least RS2 was nominated… cause for a while we were worried that it didn’t place as a finalist at all. XP

I basically just camped out in the big hall and watched the panels that occurred there, which was all the big ones… Diablo 3 class discussion, WoW class discussion, general StarCraft 2 talk (where they announced SC2 “trilogy” XP ), and a general D3 talk. Overall I’ve decided that Blizzard is intent on sinking their claws into their customers and make it impossible to love anything else, because I am now excited to play ALL THREE FRANCHISES when I was formerly only enamoured of one. Gah.

I’m disappointed that they didn’t announce their new MMO, though… in fact, there weren’t ANY really big announcements at all. :( Very frustrating, but oh well.

The cocktails/contest was pretty damn amusing again this year, for more of the same reasons. I think the general quality of all the contest entrants was higher, though… and the MC was pretty entertaining most of the time. It was the same guy as last year and the BlizzCon crowd gave him SUCH a hard time last year because he clearly had never played any of the Blizzard games. But he totally took it all in stride, cause he dared to come back this year and it seemed like he really LEARNED stuff for this year because he made way fewer gaffes for the fanboys to pick on, ahahaha.

One of the costume contest’s entries was someone dressed as Rick Astley, even though it was supposed to be Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo stuff only. :X He had a little white stereo with him, even. But the costume that won was this girl who actually build a freaking turtle mount that had its own motor and she could sit on it and drive it around and everything. O.O

Anyway… we’re going back for day 2 tomorrow, so woot. Think I want to actually try the Diablo demo. :) SC2 can wait, especially since the beta keys we got are for SC2…

Got to see the finals of the WoW Arena 3v3 tournament, which… was exciting, but not all that interesting, since it’s really hard to tell what’s going on most of the time and the only useful information is the health bars going up and down.

Also got to watch the finals of the WC3 tournament, between Lucifron and Lyn… that was really fantastic. Lucifron is an amazing micromanager and there were tons of crazy tactics going on… e.g. blocking a rushing hero in so that he can’t escape, creepjacking, stalking an enemy base to destroy essential buildings when they’re being built rather than after they’re done, etc.

What else… oh. Went to the panel for The Guild. :) THAT was really funny. Felicia Day and the dude who plays her stalker/guildmate did most of the talking, but Vincent Caso / Bladezz did a magic trick with an audience member’s cards… (three of aces… ahahaha XD )… and Jeff Lewis / Vork interjected with hilarious deadpan comments fairly frequently.

(Vork also did a short stand-up at the contests thing the night before and had one really excellent WoW joke that had everyone ROFLing… “How is World of Warcraft like high school?” “You start out weak and get beat up all the time. Then you graduate, get a nice sword, and come back and kill everyone.” XD XD )

They also showed a sneak peek from season 2 of the show. :)

Mmm. Tried some Diablo 3! Mega long line for short game time of course, but at this point there’s kind of precious little left to do at the con, so we went for it… besides, who knows when people’ll get another shot at D3. XP The game is very pretty, but you don’t do much besides clicklciclcklckilcilciliclkcliclkcliclk right now. :x

And thennnn… caught the WoW Arena tournament winners go up against Blizz employees, which wasn’t really that exciting cause Blizz got creamed of course, but it ended up being funny to watch, since the pros were just SO good that they were toying with the Blizzard team by picking three DPS, etc… ::lol:: At one point, they actually tried to 2v3 and Blizz won that one. :X And in the fourth match (out of five), as they killed a Blizz team member, one of their own would drop out to “make it even” again… so in the end, it was a Blizz ret paladin vs a partially out of mana mage from the pro team… and the mage eked out the win. ::lol::

Then we watched the ending concert… which was more or less terrible. Oh, there were two comedians at the start (one of them was the guy who played Remy’s voice from Ratatouille! that ended up being surprisingly decent). But I hate Level x Elite Tauren Chieftain and was basically covering my ears for that whole part of the program… and when Video Games Live came on, it became PAINFULLY apparent that NO ONE had checked what the acoustics would be like in the back portion of the hall, so that was really annoying and made it pretty difficult to enjoy even that part. The lady who does Sylvanas’ voice was there, though, to sing “Lament of the Highborne”… was nice.

After BlizzCon was more or less over… about 15-20 of us related to the whole machinima thing squished into a Hilton hotel room where someone hooked up their laptop to the widescreen TV and we watched several of the machinima films, because all of the participants were kind of bummed that we didn’t get see them in the previous night. So we had our own “private showing”, which was amusing.

And thennnnn… all five of us came back to my apartment and I finally got to make Dev and Sander play Munchkin. XD Took them to the airport and Vinny back to his apartment after that.

What an insane weekend. Back to mundanity now… and my incredible pile of work. :( On a completely unrelated note, though… my absentee ballot came. Will have to remember to fill it out… :x

o/` Head under water… and you tell me… to breathe easy for a while…
But breathing gets harder… even I know that… o/`

… this one Heroes episode is so full of OMGWTF. Seriously.

So I had this dream last night / this morning… it was like a Heroes / Golden Compass crossover. And I don’t really remember very much except for the fact that I was a hero (or… villain or whatever) who had the power to split daemons and their people at a glance. o_o

So everyone was super scared of me and didn’t want to be around me cause they were afraid I would separate them from their daemon. :(

Funnily enough, I did not have my own daemon, but was seemingly unaffected by it. Hm.

Despite the fact that I have no idea what anyone is saying in this trailer, I desperately want to play this game: Ninokuni.

It totally looks like Spirited Away (which is to be expected of course…), though not as cool cause the main char isn’t a girl. :P Oh well.

I hope hope hope they translate/subtitle and bring this to the US, cause I’m going to cry rivers if I don’t get to play this. And er, hopefully I’ll own a DS by then too. >_>;;

This news is quite old, but I’d never seen/heard it before and there’s an update now… so I’m mentioning it.

Apparently there’s this guy named Eskil Steenberg who is creating his own MMO. All by himself. He’s doing all the programming and all the art. (Not sure what’s going down with sound.) Not only is this a crazy endeavor production-wise, but he has some ambitious sounding goals with the thing, too.

In Love the story is not something that is “Pre-scripted” but something that is organically created while you play. By using Procedural algorithms the game can constantly generate new events and content for you to explore. By being generated while you play, the experience can be tailored to your play style and respond to your actions. This is not a game where you are being lead down a path, this is a game where you decide the direction of the story.

Reminds me of that computer tablet thing from Ender’s Game. >_>

The follow-up interview with Steenberg is intriguing as well: A Brief Chat With Eskil Steenberg.

Anyway… the guy recently released a trailer of what he’s got so far. I’m actually not totally awed by the fact that he’s done it all himself — you can kind of tell — but the amount of hours he’s put into this must be insane. :P Especially since he has a day job. Yeesh.

:\

:(

see title

… is everyone in Heroes So Stupid!!

… draw, dammit.

Took my car in for maintenance today. Whoo.

Guitar, by Frontier Design.

My brief and informal, but glowing, review…

Oooh! Also not a game, but the most promising out of all three of these items as far as “composing” is concerned. It took me a little while to understand what was going on, but once I did, I was fascinated. This program allows you to store chords in buttons that can be selected during the play through, so when you replay your creation for your friends, all you have to do is select and strum – no string plucking required at all. What this results in is a really simple way to play accurately while you sing the melody line yourself. Really, really cool!

Again, though, the actual composing of songs needs to be left to those who can actually play guitar… or at the very least, understands composing through chords. But just about anyone with a good ear could take a created song and learn to play it through the program and sing along with it. Terribly compelling program… if I owned an iPhone, I’d totally get this thing. :)

Man. I wish Blindlight had work like that for me more often. XP Obviously I need to be working at the LA equivalent of GamePro, eh, Manda? ;_;

It was funny, cause I had no idea how it works and then I found that there were some songs that were already in the thing. So I found one that I recognized, Silent Night, and that helped me figure out the saved-chords thing. :x Didn’t recognize any of the other songs except “Motel California”… which I’m pretty sure was supposed to be “Hotel California”. :P

Anyway. Fun app. Those with musical inclinations and an iPhone… :x

o/` Head under water… o/`

… complicated choreography. :X

Whee. Official release of the full version. Check out more of my craptastic voice acting!

Redshift: Pursuit.

Self-deprecation aside, it’s quite good… mostly because it features Dev’s first foray into action… which I thought turned out pretty nice. I don’t watch a whole lot of other WoW machinima (i know, i’m just a poser), but I really like how Dev uses ACTUAL WoW spells/abilities in his combat, rather than what just about every other action machinimator does… which is just make up fancy looking stuff that doesn’t exist in WoW at all.

Plus my character ends up pwning a hunter, which never happens in real WoW. XD Even though it was through an engineering trinket. Mmph.

Btw, that’s the new filmcraft.org site that’s hosting the video. I worked my $*# off on it a while back… but it’s in pretty good working condition now. Yay MT4. :x

I was starting to like him. :(

Can’t believe I have to make one. XP

On an unrelated note, I voted. Yay!

… plug my post on limelight, because I can. The video is courtesy of Lloyd and is just utterly shocking as far as the breakdown of supporters among horde and alliance factions.

Azeroth: red or blue?

Nummy.

:(