2:58 PM  
The meme has spread, and my friend Jon has joined the ranks of the blogging. Soon we'll be so busy reading each others blogs that there'll be nothing left to write about in blogs but blogs...

At long last I got a lot of sleep last night, and while I'm much refreshed there are two lingering aspects of my recovery:

1) Two hours after getting up, I still have a pillow crease in my forehead--now that's some hard sleepin';
2) I have a weird headache that feels like I slept too much. An alternate theory is that I have at long last developed a caffeine dependency, and that my neural pathways are screaming out for chemical succor. I'll test that and get back to you.

In the meantime, go visit the crazy man with too much time on his hands.

1:43 AM  
Since I'm doing a sequential series on my cam, thought I might set up a crude cam archive.

Now, off to sleep. I promise to write something substantial tomorrow that will overcome your nagging doubts that you're wasting time reading this page.

5:40 PM  
Four days and 35,000 words after my trial began. . . DONE.

Now....collapse or go play games? Agent Under Fire came out today; maybe I'll try to do both simultaneously.

Either way, I think I'm taking tomorrow off.

3:56 AM  
Holy crap! Thanks to Cecil and his canny squatting in cyberspace, there is still evidence on the Net that I was at the E3 goon meet in May. (Right Click, Save As; for those who don't know, I'm the one in the blue shirt on the far right.) I'm not sure anyone beyond JP knew who the hell I was, as I was only lurking at the time. But I knew who all of them were, and it was nice to put faces and voices to the people whose words I'm still reading--albeit now usually in blog form.

Remember how I said I'd stop bitching about work on Thursday? The bad news is that Thursday isn't over yet. The good news is that the work is almost at an end, whether I want it to be or not (never thought I'd be thankful for deadlines.) Then, tonight, if my Thursday night RPG session remains cancelled, I will suffer the choice between the siren songs of MGS2 and the Xbox (if I can get close to it...)

By the way: I hate that "If you like Pina Coladas" song, but Rupert Holmes' "Terminal" really started growing on me...and then: I guess I just started listening thinking it was about someone stumbling on the love of their life, then realized it was--but only because he was cheating on his 'kids and wife'. That violates everything I believe in and think I could handle in real life, so even in the fictional world of the song it taints the song. I'm still listening to it a lot, but I wish there was some alternate version of the song somewhere, something I could pull into my optimistic heart.

2:24 AM  
Want a secret identity?

(Don't tell anyone, but I'm secretly Destructo...)

1:21 AM  
THERE AINīT NO SECOND CHANCE AGAINST THE THING WITH FORTY EYES
--from "Thriller"

And people say Michael Jackson isn't one of our generation's wisest men. I mean, that sounds pretty smart; if I saw a creature with forty eyes, first thing I would do is start to figure out how I'm going to explain my ninth-grade profanity habit to the bouncer outside whatever afterlife I'm about to visit...

Currently I'm in the middle of a game of "Who Will Get Annoyed First?", trading Thriller references, pictures, and web links (including some Neat-O Thriller MIDI) with somebody here at work. My holy grail would be to find a copy of the video somewhere on the web, but thus far no dice. If you know where to find one, email me.

9:59 PM  
So why is it that every time I see a picture of the Pope these days, I feel like he's about to yell "Get off my lawn, you darn kids!"

In a link from a similar source, go visit the front page of Yahoo quick, because I don't even want to guess when the next time might be that you'll see the words "ancient erotic frescoes" on there. (Sadly, they provide no pictures of said frescoes.)

2:50 PM  
Thanks to Penny Arcade (which got a nice plug in the piece by Scott McCloud in this month's Wired) for the basis of today's cam image.

Must work quickly. Metal Gear Solid 2 awaits, and in just a few short hours--the Xbox...

1:26 PM  
Remember yesterday's link to They Fight Crime? (By the way--thanks to Jon for clueing me in to the page in first place.) I don't just tell you about these things; I sent it in to Blue, and today it's one of the day's featured links on Blue's News. Yeah, yeah, it's no big thing--but it is the third time this year for me. My goal--to appear as often as American McGee and for better reason. Actually, I think I might be there already.

2:11 PM  
Tonight is the next episode of 24.

I tell you this valuable piece of information because the first episode was far enough from sucking that I am willing to say the second will be worth my--and your--valuable time. The jury is still out on whether the real-time thing mightn't go horribly awry, but I like the show enough that I'm avoiding reading spoilers--though you can if you feel the need for further persuasion.

Got to go and work out for the first time in about three weeks last night, and it appears I've lost a great deal of the progress I was making. Sigh. I could just wait until after Thanksgiving, but I think procrastination is the last thing I need right now. So it's back in the saddle, working on cardio and the machines. Then, after the Dread Holiday,....freeweights!

It appears my cam is now also on SAGoons.com, buried neatly in the middle of the pack. So that's another place to avoid if you don't want to see my face.

Finally, in the continuing tradition of bring you, the reader, the finest in simple entertainment, I give you: They Fight Crime!. I like this a lot, and I'm teaching myself a bit of Javascript just so I can rip the code apart and play with it.

12:08 AM  
To make up for posting a link to the Scooby-Doo trailer, allow me to direct you to the series 'Sweet J Presents' in the Comedy section of Screenblast. Produced by Seth Green and some of the folks at ToyFare--who brought us "Twisted Mego Theater", it's (so far) three episodes of slighty-disturbing stop-motion action-figure fun.

8:32 PM  
Observations from the middle of a game of Zombies:

1) There are a hell of a lot of zombies in this town;
2) The plastic zombie figs make this game;
3) The dynamic board layout (you discover the town by laying it and it's zombie inhabitants out tile by tile) is very cool.

My first game isn't over (in fact, I may yet be screwed), but I'm already looking forward to my second. (The rules could use a really good set of errata to clear up some wording and timing, but I think they can be homebrewed up with little problem--we certainly can't count on Journeyman to do it since their idiot owners at USPC fired them all just before the game came out. Morons.)

6:27 PM  
Allow me to read your mind:

"What am I in the mood for tonight?" you're thinking. "Should I go to all the trouble of making spaghetti, or just go down and steal food from the elderly in the mall food court?"

No? Let me try again:

"Gosh, I sure wish someone would make some Metal Gear Solid 2 porn."

Yeah, got you that time. Don't try and deny it.

3:39 PM  
Allow me to reccommend you avoid the trailer for Scooby-Doo at all costs. If only William Castle and Smell-o-vision were still around, you would be able to smell the approaching excrement hinted at by a mere thirty seconds of celluloid (or in this case, ones and zeroes--but Castle would have still found a way.) As it is, you'll have to take my word for it--or click the link above, if you must. But don't say I didn't warn you.

[[EDIT: Link to trailer removed because it was broken. Consider yourself a richer person.]]

5:05 AM  
Work alloted for weekend complete. I will now catch a few hours of sleep before going to do Monday's work.

Mentions of how freakin' busy I am will end by Thursday. Honest.

2:27 AM  
Apparently the return of True Meaning of Life is even nearer than I thought. Through means I will not disclose (edit: somebody asked me why I won't disclose the means; the answer is so that the path can't be followed by others if it wasn't meant to be travelled) I accidentally (honest!) ended up upon what I thought was a fully-active TMOL, and excited to once again seek the wisdom of the Gurus, registered and asked a question. Then I got shunted back out to the actual front page. So, if the Seeker is wondering who the hell that was and tracks me down via my reg information to this page...that was me. Sorry if you were only testing things. Everyone else...you should go read the TMOL archives and join me in my anticipation.

2:15 AM  
Ran the game, stealing quite libreally from both Robert Heinlein and the RPG Unknown Armies, and it went quite well. I could explain what I did, but it would probably take more text than you care to read, even if you are a fellow paper gamer. Maybe I'll talk more about it later.

Afterward, I came home and wrapped up the single-player storyline of GTA3. In a spoiler-free manner, let me say that the last mission is tougher than hell, and I felt severely handicapped when the game stripped away the massive arsenal I had been accumulating over the course of the game (including more than 10,000 rounds of Uzi ammo.) Sure, it made sense narratively, but it had never been done before in the game and made that mission at least twice as difficult. Perhaps that was their intent--and I did eventually succeed--but it ticked me off enough that I thought I'd complain to you.

Happily, there is still plenty more of the game to mine--I have yet to complete one mini campaign on each of the islands, haven't done either of the Patriot minigames, still have thirty hidden packages to find...the list of things I have left to do seems longer than what I've accomplished. I love that depth, and hope that any game I ever helm has the chance to come even close. DMA really took the core mechanic of 1)Steal and drive any car, 2)Beat up anyone, and 3)Move around in a living city and played out an incredible variety of variations on that theme. Better, it's a strong enough concept that I can see even more things they could have done (a pizza delivery mini-game, the seemingly-inevitable Twisted Metal parody that didn't happen when I commandeered the ice cream truck...) By the time you've put any significant amount of time into the game you do start to see the loose threads around the edges (e.g. the engine filling in the world and traffic just inside the limits of your vision rather than just outside it), but everyone I know is having such a good time that to talk about such things feels like nitpicking rather than flaws that should have been fixed. It's a solid, pioneering game (even if it is the third title in the franchise.)

One more paragraph on GTA3 before I go climb into bed. Despite the amorality that's enabled--indeed, encouraged--by the game, my need to develop internal story has apparently pushed me to build a weird personal code of honor as I worked the mean streets of Liberty City. Early on my M.O. was to work the docks in Portland and beat up hookers because they often carried more money than other people. Now, I've noticed that I've moved up the food chain and am beating up pimps--especially I catch them beating the hookers. Weird.

3:55 AM  
Leaving work late again--due mainly to completely screwed-up sleep schedule this time, though I still have work to do. On the plus side, I've been watching the excellent Cowboy Bebop movie, which less than a half-hour in has the classic line "I was only 500 points away from meeting Spooky Donkey!" Plan on many screencaps in the near future.

I forgot to say earlier that at some point during the week my copy of Uplink arrived in my mailbox. I'm just starting to dig into it--not even really past the kind of things I was doing in the demo yet--but I did get a warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feeling when after I installed the retail version the game asked me to pull out the enclosed hard-to-read, hard-to-photocopy black-on-black codegrid and cross-reference two numbers as its anti-pirate scheme. It reminded me of the box of old Apple ][ and Mac software doo-dads like that--the Dial-a-Pirate, the Bard's Tale IV chronomancer wheel, that kind of thing--I have somewhere in my closets. Why can't Windows XP have something like that--Dial-a-Bill!--rather than making you call them up every time you change your clock speed?

Already the OD backlash has begun: my friend Jon wrote to indicate that he would rather not be stalked, as was previously indicated in my Links. He has been appropriately moved, and the legions of scantily-clad women that were closing in on his home should all abort; Operation Pickle Rain has been canceled--repeat, cancelled.

My verbal torrent may actually slow tomorrow, folks. I have a game to run tomorrow night, and despite six weeks to prepare I have only a vague idea that needs to be nurtured over pancakes.

1:15 AM  
The counter I added at the bottom of the page has begun to click forward--meaning that people are actually beginning to read this page. A couple have even emailed me.

I am terrified of the awesome power of the World Wide Web. And Blogger. And garlic-flavored wok oil.