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C. Ockwald Blaster II, CEO and President of Stabco
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| shit |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|12:46 am] |
It's 1AM and I feel like my icon.
Glad I changed it, glad it works out, and I'm glad I'm down with accurately representing absolutely nothing about myself with things I'm honestly attracted to.
I'm floating in this sea of ink and fabric like texture. Close my heavy eyes now, give me sleep. But the only thing I've got is time and I feel the need to use it doing anything that isn't closing my eyes to the world around me.
Last night, Jordana and I went to this ridiculous party.
I realized a lot about myself and my interests while tied up
And getting spanked with a rubber chicken (oh no, that's not really possible)
And I have begun to wonder what really the future holds for me?
What ever it is, it certainly will be entertaining!
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|10:32 pm] |
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I turned 25 last Friday. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|09:10 pm] |
Today I went clothes shopping- clothes shopping often makes me feel drained and vaguely wistful- wistful because I know that people of my gender are supposed to have a flock of lady friends to go clothes shopping with and this is supposed to be an enjoyable thing to do. But for me I want to be finished with clothes shopping as soon as possible, I only enjoy *finding* the clothes so I can leave rather than enjoying the process of shopping. Most of the times I've gone clothes shopping with a friend, I get impatient because it takes much longer and I get bored. And whether or not I'm with a friend, not finding anything I like or can afford during a clothes shopping excursion makes me feel defeated and as if I've wasted a lot of time. Sometimes I can be fun while doing other things, but don't go clothes shopping with me- I'm a real stick in the mud.
However, there is one part of clothes shopping that I really enjoy- the mannequins. I love mannequins or most any automatons. I love anything that is the same size and has roughly the same form as a human, but is not alive and not a human. The last time I went clothes shopping at the Cambridge side Galleria I found this at Macy's:
I wasn't the one who pants-ed her, but I wish I was. Also odd that somebody bothered to put shoes on her but neglected her pants.
That day in Chile when Jon and I still had no luggage and had been wearing the same clothes for three days we finally ended up going to the mall for clothes and found these:
Since they're naked they're obviously not showcasing any of the clothes at their store and so they must be trying to sell bagpipes to the Chilean teenagers. I wish I had plaid skin.
I liked her, the happiest mannequin in all Greece-
I've heard that the Thai mannequins have the same expression as she does. I think it's commendable! Why do people in the US think that mannequins have to look so ticked off all the time, anyway? I've been searching on craigslist and eBay for many months now, off and on, for a mannequin of my very own, but I haven't had much luck because so many mannequins seem so standoffish and resemble the sort of girls I would never be friends with. If I'm going to adopt a mannequin, she needs to look like she and I could be compatible.
Today at Macy's, while clothes shopping and hoping I would be done with it soon, I found these mannequins-
I would never buy one of these- they have no heads! Not only that, but there's something else wrong with their basic anatomy. They look like the Padaung Hill Tribe women visiting a western shopping mall for the first time after their brass neck coils have been removed. Though maybe these wouldn't be such a bad choice for me. I could make heads for them! I could make them as friendly and approachable as I wanted to! Or if I was feeling lazy, I could just take the giant eyeball Residents heads I made for Jon and myself for Halloween. How lucky would I be to have my own Residents mannequins?
To cheer myself up after clothes shopping, we went to the zoo. Today was the day that they were unveiling some shaggy French mammoth donkeys, which I hear are >800 lbs and aren't terribly amenable to moving out of their shipping carts and will be jackasses about it for hours on end. Nevertheless, they were very friendly to us, the zoo visitors.
What I never noticed about the zoo before was that at some point somebody decided it would be fun to pepper a series of CLUES all over the zoo. I love finding clues! My favorite clue was this one- look in the tree:
I thought this was a surprisingly macabre clue for a family zoo and I fully approved. Using this clue, you were supposed to deduce that a leopard had dragged his prey up into a tree to keep it away from competitors. |
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| Review #294 - 12 pages on a fucking PC game! |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|01:04 pm] |
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http://www.alexanderlucard.com/wordpress/?p=1513  Still Life 2
Publisher: Encore (Microids in Europe)
Developer: GameCo
Genre: Adventure
Release Date: 08/11/2009
Ah Still Life. Such a complicated history. The original Still Life was the second game in the Post-Mortem series by a French/Canadian (as opposed to French-Canadian) development studio called Microids. The first Still Life game was met with rave reviews as you not only didn’t need to have played Post-Mortem to understand it, but it was quite popular due to the mixture of supernatural, occult, detective and CSI-esque aspects. The real kicker was that fact that the game never outwardly revealed who the killer was. There were lots of red herrings and several big hints, but nothing that could be cemented. The third game in the series was never to be as in 2005, Microids, or at least all their staff was purchased from M2 by Ubisoft. As such, in February of 2006, I tracked down some of the original PM and SL teams and told them that the game was making my “Top 30 Spookiest Games of All Time Countdown” and that I wanted to do my readers a service by revealing the killer. As the game was never to be made, they agreed and with their help, we revealed the killer and how the game was meant to be an homage to the classic occult-detective story, “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” by Robert Bloch. I won’t ruin the story for you, but the motis operandi of the original SL killer was for the same reasons Jack the Ripper killed in that story. If you want to know who the original killer was supposed to be and how he did it, click through to the spoilers.
 In 2007, M2 announced the relaunch of the Microids brand, which could be done as Ubisoft only took the staff, not the intellectual property. What we have received over the past two years are some really crappy Adventure games making a buck off with the Microids brand name and the churning out of sequels to their classic franchises made by horrible dev teams that have sullied their good name. Cheif of these is Dracula 3: Curse of the Dragon which is not only a bad adventure game, but it has nothing to do with the previous Dracula titles and it played like ass.
So imagine our (the original Microids team and myself) surprise in late 2007 when we learn Still Life 2 is announced and is being handed over to a company that has never made a video game, much less and Adventure Game before. Okay then. Then imagine the controversy when GameCo said they were going to ignore the original killer and the whole supernatural/occult themes of the first two games and go into an entirely different direction. Uh-oh. However, even though Still Life 2 is “Saw” to Still Life’s YT,JtR mixed with “The Portrait of Dorian Gray,” we all still had confidence that Dracula 3 was a one-time misstep by the new Microids.
 In late June I received an offer from Encore via Facebook (I know, right?) to get a review copy of the final game. However I was warned that even though this was the final version that there were some downloading errors with the game along with some noticeable bugs. Even though I have a high end gaming computer, it took two weeks to get the game to work properly and even then it was jury rigged with certain errors (See the screen shots in this review!) that would constantly pop up in the script. Please note that some of these errors appear to be exclusive to the downloadable version of the game, but a lot aren’t. As of July 9th, 2009, Encore is still hard at work trying to figure out what is causing these issues, but until I hear otherwise, I’m going to recommend if you want this game, get the boxed version.
So, we know that we have a new dev team ignoring the continuity, story and characterization set down by the original Microids teams and that the game chose to reveal a different person as the killer than intended along with taking the game in an entirely different direction. That doesn’t necessarily mean the game is bad after all. It just means there will be issues where it doesn’t jibe up with the first two games in the series. Now, after all that exposition, does Still Life 2 bring a worthy end to the SL series, or was this as bad as Kheops handling Dracula 3?
( Read more... ) |
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| DVD of the Day #193 - Lilo And Stitch |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|11:39 am] |
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http://www.alexanderlucard.com/wordpress/?p=1470  You know, I’ve never been a big Disney fan. I’ve never “gotten” their films. They generally bastardize both history and fairy tales, leaving little of the truth intact. However, this tends not to be the case with original Disney pieces. Things like Kim Possible are amazingly witty and both kids and adults can enjoy it. I’ve heard amazing things about Lilo and Stitch and have friends that consider it their favourite movie of all time. However until I got it for free on Swapadvd.com, I never had a chance to pick it up. Now that I’ve seen it, I have to say this is easily the best movie I’ve ever seen come out of Disney’s studios.
In typical Disney fashion, there is no mother in this film, but they’ve also done away with the single father cliche. Instead Lilo is raised by her older sister, who appears to have dropped out of school to raise her sister. However, Lilo is a little bit well, mordily insane. Sure it’s in a cute way, as is any kid who is doomed to grow up and discover the Cure or Rosetta Stone, but to deny that Lilo has some severe anti-social tendecies is pretty damn hard to do.
On the other side of the universe it turns out that a mad scientist has created a new genetic lifeform code named experiement 626. This creature is genetically coded to basically destroy everything and create mayhem wherever it goes. It’s also highly intelligent and so on its way to exile on a barren asteroid, the creature escapes and pilots a ship to Earth, which we learn is a planet filled with primitive creatures and also a breeding ground for an endangered life form known as Mosquitos. Of course Lilo and Stitch meet up by sheer accident and it’s a match made in hell. Can Stitch learn to control his impulses or are we truly more Nature than nuture? Most of all the film really looks at what family is all about.
This is a great film through and through with loveable and realistic characters. My two favourites were Lilo’s older sister as you really feel for here. She’s still a child herself, obviously in her late teens, but is just trying to do the right thing for her only living family member, even if it costs her her own social life and well being. I also liked the social worker who again, is treated very realistically and is a lot of fun as the straight man “Your knuckles say COBRA.”
I also generally ignore special features on films, but I enjoyed Lilo and Stich so much, I had to watch these. The best is a mockumentary showing Stich showing up in other Disney films, which reminded me a lot of the commercials that aired for this movie before it ever came out. Great job through and through.
I think this is actually the only Disney movie I own (although if Song of the South ever comes out on DVD that’ll be #2). This is one of the best American made animated films I have ever seen and it truly deserves all the love it gets.
Is It Worth Keeping? Yes
Rating: 9/10 |
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| Chicago foodz |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|10:44 am] |
totally makes me think of spicy falafel sandwich from Sultan's |
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| book review: "Foxhunt!" by Rich Hanes |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|11:40 pm] |
 Foxhunt!, Rich Hanes' debut novel (Arkham Bridge Publishing, 2009) is, yes, a furry story. But don't let the anthropomorphic animals scare you away; you'd miss out on an enjoyable read.
Sebastian Valentino is a veteran of interstellar war, a mercenary who had it all. When he loses his assistant captain and best friend Adrian on a botched infilitration mission, he begins to unravel, mishandling Adrian's sacred funeral rituals and berating his new first officer in front of his crew. Matters grow worse when Sebastian's favored target, weary of his constant attacks, declares a bounty on his head. With Sebastian struggling to survive as an interstellar pariah, and an old enemy with a vendetta in hot pursuit, the Foxhunt! is on.
Set in a distant, furry future of spaceships, mecha combat, and rock bands, "Foxhunt!" follows Sebastian Valentino, a genetically-engineered humanoid fox, as his life as the captain of the galaxy's top mercenary unit falls apart.
Taking place in Hanes' "Wildstar Universe," Foxhunt! introduces a number of space-faring civilizations, all based on human-like animals: foxes, wolves, dogs, raccoons, and more. But this is no silly yiff story; the furry creatures here are deadly serious, caught up in a very human (or humanoid) story of loyalty, greed, and revenge.
Each civilization is fleshed out with a surprising amount of detail that walks the fine line between stereotype and archetype, rarely faltering. Foxes are tricky, canines are ever-loyal, coyotes are the ultimate survivors, and the rare human is able to view the "animals" with a detached objectivity, but none of the characters are slaves to their creature instincts.
A lot is packed into the 342 pages of Foxhunt!, including space battles, family drama, robot mecha fights, spirituality, and personal introspection, but Hanes mostly manages to avoid the long, clumsy information dumps found in bad sci-fi. A romantic subplot is somewhat skimpy and rushed, but it works to emphasize just how disconnected Captain Valentino is from his own feelings.
The supporting characters drift in and out -- this is Valentino's story, not theirs -- but they leave their marks on the story and on Sebastian's soul. They're complex enough to avoid being stock characters, and they manage to maintain their own voices -- including a young, precociously gifted child, and that's always a hard trick to pull off right.
Hanes does a good job of delving into the main character's psyche -- twice, literally setting the scene in Sebastian's head -- and also writes vivid fight scenes. Foxhunt! is a page-turner with a good sense of rhythm, and I'm recommending it to my friends who are science fiction fans as well as those who are furry fans. I'm definitely interested in reading more from Hanes, and watching him develop further as a novelist.
(Full disclosure: I gave Rich Hanes some early critiques of old drafts of this novel, but I hadn't read the whole thing until today.) |
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| HOT BLOODED, CHECK IT AND SEE, GOT A FEVER OF A HUNDRED AND THREE |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|11:58 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
Gawd you guys.
Today was awesome. I had my company picnic (barbecue ribs, omg), won $30 in free gas and then went to the Mallard's game with 40 of my closest business associates and their various families and hangers-on.
The Mallards are the local minor league baseball team in Madison. They have silly contests and diversions between innings, today we saw a bunch of kids dressed in fruit costumes have a race, an air guitar contest, and a dance-off in sumo costumes. Three fully-grown men raced across the diamond on tricycles to win a free oil change. Every foul ball you turn in at the concession stand earns you a free hot dog, so every time there was a foul ball the announcer (who was all super-baseball voice to hilarious effect) would call out "weiner". It took several repetitions to figure out why he kept saying it.
There was a vendor who came around a lot, a younger guy, who kept yelling his spiel in the same order. "Peanuts! Sunflower seeds! Popcorn! Beef sticks!". The people near us caught on and then every time he came back they all yelled along for "BEEF STICKS!". Eventually our whole section was, and everyone just about shat themselves laughing.
Probably you had to be there.
And we won (7 to 4, they didn't score until the 8th inning) and we saw a grand slam.
I wasn't sure if I would like it but it was totally fun and I would do it again.
Today I feel a bit like someone who is surfacing after being underwater for a long time. I have been so busy trying to accomplish so much and I've been putting aside things that I care about. Things that make me happy to be alive. This was productive and necessary, and I'm glad I did. But I am also glad that I get to relax a little now, to focus on things that are also productive, but that I enjoy more. Working that hard is possible, and I could have done it for a lot longer.
But it is not super fun.
So hooray for a day in which I did only the following: Shopped for clothes (3 shirts, new skirt), went to the company picnic, and came home and watched a terrible movie (Hot Rod) with Brian. Now it's sleepytime and everything is fabulous.
I hope you all are well.
~me |
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| live by the tone argument, die by the tone argument |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|06:58 pm] |
The ongoing shenanigans at Pam's House Blend about Fritz and "Bruno" show just how bad this whole "civility" thing is when it's used to try to shut up people talking about, for example, homophobia.
The irony that Fritz -- who compared trans people to Nazis for using the "cis" terminology -- is on the receiving end now is not lost on me.
Seriously, pass the popcorn. PHB is like this madhouse trainwreck of multiple privileges and intersectionality desperately trying to pretend the only problem is a lack of civility from trans people.
Way to go, Pam! Heck of a job, Autumn and Lurleen!
Update: I forgot to mention it before, but the people bringing out their inner anti-Semites on that thread are really quite disturbing.
Whether or not you like Sasha Baron Cohen, or think that his portrayals of various groups are wrong, this kind of stuff isn't the way to attack Cohen (who is Jewish):
I will change my mind if Cohen creates a new character with exaggerated mannerisms, let's call him "Hymie the Hasidic Jew", and takes HIM on tour to Brooklyn and North London.
WTF?
This is met with approval by Louise, apparently another one of Pam's baristas, who writes of Cohen, "He's too much of a self-serving coward to even consider it, imo."
Lovely.
(Louise is the PHB poster who wrote a so-caled guide to civility, which, I suppose, includes anti-Semitism. And it's not like Louise is some kind of paragon of civility herself.) |
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| Let's send the Urban Scientist (a black woman science blogger) to Antarctica! |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|05:53 pm] |
Via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) voz_latina:
Urban Science AdventuresThere is an online contest sponsored by Quark Expeditions to become the Official Quark Expeditions Blogger. The winner gets an all-expense paid excursion to Antarctica February 20 – March 3, 2010. And you could help send me to the South Pole - a dream of mine!
What does it take to be the Official Quark Blogger? They’re looking for someone with a commitment to the environment; a passion for the polar regions, and an ability to write in English with wit, style and imagination. That is SO me, don’t you agree? Oh, and someone popular enough for people to tune into. So that’s why I need you and everyone else you know to vote for me. The person with the most votes wins.
With each post, I share the exciting and wonderful world of science, conservation, environmental education and urban nature appreciation through my blog Urban Science Adventures! ©
I routinely posted about the polar biomes, including posts celebrating International Polar Year. I love sharing science; and I especially enjoy bringing the beauty and excitement of nature to someone’s attention who thought there was nothing there.
Just like I share my everyday backyard adventures with you, I will share accounts of the beauty and stories of adventure of life at the South Pole! You know I will. So, please send Urban Science Adventures! © on a Polar Adventure next spring.
The competition closes at noon, September 30, 2009, EDT. In order to vote you will need to register with the website (bots can’t vote) and one vote per email.
Visit my very own voting page and vote for me.
Thanks
Danielle |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|07:37 pm] |
"blood: the last vampire" was fuckin' terrible.
**edit: the new live action one |
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