Thanks everyone for the kind words. I'm okay, she was the last of that generation of my family, sad really. Especially when I think of my childhood, the family was very close, we gathered the various cousins and generations together regularly. these says not so much asit was the older generation that kept that going. In fact now we're just in contact via facebook, we know what is going on in each others lives through status updates.
Ozone, with everything going on I'm still behind on the recordings, will try and do them in the next couple of hours but I may not succeed. And I'm doing page one of the radioplay comic, I think.
Looks like the sun is out today, might be a trip to the beach coming up later.

my condolences, Gene. its not a very fun thing to go through. but Facebook is far better than nothing and maby it's someone else's turn to bring the brood together now! Facebook can be very helpful in that area.

Genejoke wrote:
Ozone, with everything going on I'm still behind on the recordings, will try and do them in the next couple of hours but I may not succeed.

It's ok, those are for next week, so there is some leeway.

Sorry again about your loss. :(

——-

Ak, finally edited together the latest soap recording for this week! WOW, some amazing performances in this one. Banes made me almost crap myself with laughter at his Macattack, Skool has this gorgeously weird clipped narration that is so cutely funny, Pit does a great job with the pacing of her narration… and more! Roku, Bravo, Gullas, Genejoke, all marvellous! Everyone was great!

And that's just for THIS week. More goodies to come ^_^

That's good, things should get easier after tonight, we loose our house guest tomorrow. At long last!
Really need to get on and letter the latest page of BASO but I can't gte my head in the right place.

hurrah, happy birthday me(it's 19th here already). Yet again I've lived another 365 and a quarter days only to se the next 365 and a quarter days. *sigh* can't say I love growing up,…

dont worry, you have a long way for that yet Gullas.
happy birthday!
—–
still battling illness, but im doing much better, which is good because if i wasnt, im sure i'd NEED to be in the damn hospital like RIGHT now.but my throat n lung pain is gone, my headache is gone i think (finally after 3 days) and my body temperature is more regulated again, although strangely, the past few nights, ill wake up and my body'll feel at a regular temp, but the collar of my shirt'll be completely drenched with sweat. like aliens are comming in at night and giving me full shoulder hickies and bouncing back into space to leave me awkwardly soaked. basically this:imagine being nearly basically healthy, you wake up and despite the extremely pleasant temperature outside, your soaked in sweat for no apperant reason. im sure some one has something naughty to say about that.
get a few gushing nosebleeds here and there too which reminds me of those little fuckers from cloverfield.it hasnt seemed to effect my stomach though wich is GREAT because there's not alotve things tha suck more than stomach flu, and i dont even get a runny nose!but it made me fuck up st.paddies day. did manage a green beer though, i just hope i didnt infect half the town on my way to get it.
—-
and thanks for the pat on the back about the recordings OZ, they're always alot of fun! keep em commin!

lba wrote:
@Lonnehart - You can always pick that guy out of a line because he's usually the idiot at the end of the line being cussed out by a specialist or one of the NCO's for doing some dumb thing like pointing a practice rifle at other soldiers in the unit and making gun noises with his mouth. That's the guy that, if you're anything like me, you'll go out of your way to keep him away from anything and anyone important that you can.

Yeah, it was pretty much the job of the NCO cadre to take care of those yahoos. That's what an NCO does. A good NCO can channel that yahoo tendency and make that yahoo a good soldier by training him to practice proper caution. NCO's can make that happen. Then there's also knowing when to let the yahoo loose so he can save the whole squad form certain death or capture 200 enemy with an empty rifle or go off and get himself killed (hopefully not getting any friendlies killed in the process)

Genejoke: sorry to hear of your loss. It's always hardest to loose the last member of a generation of the family. Something more than just a person has passed.

My condolences, Gene. It's hard to lose your grandparents. Lost my grandmother a few years ago and I wasn't too happy about it either. At least he must've lived a long, active and satisfying life, so take comfort in that.

Heh… never thought I'd meet a guy like this in Mass Effect 3 multiplayer… First off he doesn't do anything, costing the squad some of its firepower. Then when he gets KO'd other team members have to go save him from being executed, which puts us in more trouble. And when the banshees show up he's nowhere to be seen. Only met one guy like this so far. Wish I took down his gamertag though…

bravo1102 wrote:
Yeah, it was pretty much the job of the NCO cadre to take care of those yahoos. That's what an NCO does. A good NCO can channel that yahoo tendency and make that yahoo a good soldier by training him to practice proper caution. NCO's can make that happen. Then there's also knowing when to let the yahoo loose so he can save the whole squad form certain death or capture 200 enemy with an empty rifle or go off and get himself killed (hopefully not getting any friendlies killed in the process)

I still don't want ‘em in my squad. Stupid is contageous under the right circumstances. That’s probably part of what makes me someone who will never be an NCO in their career. I'd rather send him to work in the mess hall where he can't cause any real damage. It's less stressful for me, and probably safer for everyone involved. I don't need my own Private Pyle to deal with.

I feel like I should volunteer to do a page for that radio play, but I'm already feeling like I don't spend enough time working and finding commissions these days and I don't think I should be giving myself any more projects to procrastinate on. I've been slacking off a lot in the last week or two, waking up at 10, not actually working till 2 and then cutting out after only 6 or 7 hours of doing stuff that's really not the most important thing I should be focusing on right now which is that I should be re-developing my portfolio, finding new art directors and sending out emails to remind people I exist. Plus, I think it's been like 4 or 5 days since I went outside. But I swear, it's not me. I just downloaded Steam, and it sucked me in. I couldn't stop it. It made me.

Lonnehart wrote:
First off he doesn't do anything, costing the squad some of its firepower. Then when he gets KO'd other team members have to go save him from being executed, which puts us in more trouble. And when the banshees show up he's nowhere to be seen. Only met one guy like this so far. Wish I took down his gamertag though…

Sure it's not the system putting him as a bit of a speedbump? That's the classic behavior of the scared squaddie in all the war movies. Though he's supposed to turn into MAJOR HERO when everyone ostracizes him after they have to go save him. Either that or just throw away his life uselessly to point out the pointlessness of war etc, etc.

Sometimes it can get hard to tell whether movies and media program human behavior or whether people are acting like those in the movies because film is a reflection of life.

lba wrote:
Stupid is contageous

Never a truer word!
Reminds me of a few forum posters from back in the day. No names :)
You have the exact right idea lba.
———–
Well the latest Quackcast should go live in 2 or 3 hours or so. It's another great one, Banes has a perfect “radio” voice and personality, he is just so fricken personable. The guy is a natural.
Annnd we have episode 10 of the comedy soap in there too. It turned out nicely. I even tried experimenting with some atmospheric sound effects in portions of it. Bravo wrote a great bit there that made it really easy to add sounds too.
Bravo, you are a great dialogue and scene writer (also expert at continuity!).

-Also- HAPPY BIRTHDAY GULLAS!!!! ^_^

bravo1102 wrote:

Sure it's not the system putting him as a bit of a speedbump? That's the classic behavior of the scared squaddie in all the war movies. Though he's supposed to turn into MAJOR HERO when everyone ostracizes him after they have to go save him. Either that or just throw away his life uselessly to point out the pointlessness of war etc, etc.
Sometimes it can get hard to tell whether movies and media program human behavior or whether people are acting like those in the movies because film is a reflection of life.

In real life and movies it's like this, but in online games it's what is called “griefing”. And a griefer's only purpose is to make the game harder and less fun for everyone else. It's the same as teamkilling (killing fellow team members), committing suicide (which is bad in team games where each team has a limited number of lives), or in this case he's being dead weight on purpose… not contributing his firepower for the teams survival and at the same time having fellow team members risk their “virtual” lives (and the mission) saving him. This one in particular would get himself KO'ed in very bad positions (such as in the middle of a cluster of enemies and turrets) and the rest of us would be slaughtered trying to rescue him if we didn't figure out his “game” in time…

Lonnehart wrote:

In real life and movies it's like this, but in online games it's what is called “griefing”. And a griefer's only purpose is to make the game harder and less fun for everyone else.

Honestly I would find playing that role in a game very challenging. How to mess up the rest of the team the worst. Because that's the way it happens in real life. Stupid is catching and one loose screw can destroy an entire well-crafted operation.


And that sort of thing is programmed into the combat simulators the Army use. One crew will be taken aside by those running the program and told to “grief” on purpose to see how the rest of the unit reacts and if they can pull off the operation when they get fucked over. The after action was often a laugh riot.

Then there's always the crew that no matter what just manages to survive everything. Since I'm talking “crews” I'm mostly referring to the tank platoon company simulators that started with SIMNET. All my experience with those is why I avoid FPS simulations and especially multiplayer ones like the plague. Been there, done that entirely too much to ever want to do it again. If I was getting paid that'd be a different story, but I wouldn't do it for free or pay to do it.

True enough, Bravo. I guess that griefing lesson in real life situations helps teach a squad how to deal with every situation that they come across. When it comes to video games griefers/trolls are… problematic. Such as that time two months ago when I was on the Sims 3 forums and someone posted a ton ofsexually explicit images on multiple threads… on a forum that children go to…

I guess with ME3 I'm trapped in that cycle where you finish a mission, you get credits (and experience). You go buy equipment with your credits, then go to town with your brand new gun on the next mission… so you can get more credits and then get a bigger gun. But it's random. You buy a pack with five items and you find yourself hoping for a newer bigger gun. Luckilyfor me I'm not the kind of guy who spends real world money on virtual items (you can buy Microsoft Points which you can use to buy those packs if you don't feel like going through missions to get them.

Fortunately I'll eventually get bored of it all and go back to playing pinball at the local mall (yes… they still have pinball machines and my favorite is that Terminator one). :)

Lonnehart wrote:

Fortunately I'll eventually get bored of it all and go back to playing pinball at the local mall (yes… they still have pinball machines and my favorite is that Terminator one). :)

I love pinball. I also like fussball and air hockey. Trying to find a table these days is difficult at the least. Fortunately living at the Jersey shore I can always count on finding skee ball.
—-
Now what Bravo is Ozone going on about? Certainly he doesn't mean me? Honestly I owe everything I wrote to the utter madcap genius of all the other participants. Without their input I could never have come up with anything. I really work best when I bounce stuff off of others.
—-
Right now I have such a headache. It's beautiful weather and nice and comfy warm for March and it gives me massive headaches.

Hey all,
I have just setup my first comic series any would appreciate any feedback:
http://www.drunkduck.com/L_I_L/
Cheers!

lba wrote:
I feel like I should volunteer to do a page for that radio play,

Yusssss! GO with that feeling. That is a Good feeling! And you will give so many others a good feeling by leaving a wonderful, indelible, unique contribution to the comic.

Lo. Be Awesome.

—

Hey Pit Face! Feeling better? Hope so. I forgot to include in my list of remedies the great feeling that comes with drawing a radio play page. . .

—

Still opportunity for many to get a great good feeling.

@bravo. What I really want to know is what is the price of popcorn in China.

your well wishing's a little cheapened when you turn it into fishing for pages, Ayes, but i like you, so ill think about it.

PIT_FACE wrote:
your well wishing's a little cheapened when you turn it into fishing for pages, Ayes, but i like you, so ill think about it.

SUre it's meant in a jokey way ^^

Get better… NOW!
Your great voice work is up on the latest Quackcast!
http://www.drunkduck.com/quackcast/episode-69-dude-with-a-problem-screenwriting-part-2/

@Pit: Oz is right, but he was nice to not point out that it was a bad joke. Sorry.

(although I was serious about the grape juice and zinc.) Just work on getting well - the pages will get done.

That's right, when Ayes isn't swearing like a dock-worker and making crude jokes about actresses and priests, she's making fun of sick people!

^_^

But we love her anyway!

Just curious… but when does fan devotion transform into “fan dumb”? Why do I ask? I've been checking out the forums for a certain game and apparently someone wants to file a lawsuit about the game's endings…

Lonne, the person was probably an idiot anyway.
It's like those people who supposedly kill each other because of something in facebook or because of a videogame, or kill themsleves after listing to a song or something- the reality is that the people were already cretins and were going to kill or attack someone in anycase.

I'm sure this “fan” probably has a lot of other weird quirks too…

——

Speaking of games… I had a plan today:
Buy a new ultrabook computer and then buy ME3 as the icong on the cake.
That plan failed. -_-
None of the places I went to had the machine that I wanted, and my backup plan to get a Macbook Air intead failed when I realised the last place I was at didn't HAVE any :(
(in a different suburb and wanting to go home at that stage)
And I forgot to look for the game…
Ah well, I'll just buy my comp online like I usually do, it's cheaper that way anyway.

I went for a job interview this morning at the local library. And I did something totally ridiculous.
I was being interviewed by two ladies. They explained the position, then said they would ask me questions for about twenty minutes and then I would have to arrange a shelf of books by the Dewey Decimal system. I wasn't expecting this, and I almost fainted. I was quite nervous already, although I was doing my best to appear calm and friendly. When she said that I got very dizzy all of a sudden. I managed to calm myself down quickly, and the rest of the interview went fine(including the arranging of the books). I am quite relieved that I didn't faint in the middle of an interview.

I'm actually quite amused by this new aspect to my anxiety. Apparently Trotsky used to have fainting spells when he was very anxious.

Stay away from ice picks then!

ozoneocean wrote:
Speaking of games… I had a plan today:
Buy a new ultrabook computer and then buy ME3 as the icong on the cake.
That plan failed. -_-
None of the places I went to had the machine that I wanted, and my backup plan to get a Macbook Air intead failed when I realised the last place I was at didn't HAVE any :(
(in a different suburb and wanting to go home at that stage)
And I forgot to look for the game…
Ah well, I'll just buy my comp online like I usually do, it's cheaper that way anyway.

I keep dreaming of buying a new computer and a whole bunch of other things like art, but I've seemingly fallen into this pattern whereby every time I go to purchase something, the world changes and I all of a sudden no longer have the money to be able to. Last time it was a gorgeous drawing one of my friends was selling for $300. The morning of the day I was supposed to go pick it up and pay him for it after work, I walked into my office to find my computer missing and the office manager holding the paperwork to lay me off. He was cool about it, if only because there was another buy lined up up who was more than delighted to be able to get the original instead of a print, but it really made me feel like an ass.Happens every time I make plans to replace my 5 year-old laptop too. I'm really bad with timing or something.

@ozone and other bday greetings, thank you. All your kind words makes me feel a bit fuzzy inside.

On computer notes, I think I might add ram to my system some time before winter. It has about 4gb but can be upgraded to 8gb(one of the reasons why I bought it in the first place). But it's not in dire need of an upgrade, so I might postpone it…

I want my new compy to be juuuust right… Not a powerful superbeasti, just something that is slim and sexy which will impress any clients, with enough power to hadnle my art without a hitch.
If that works out, then it'll be time to plan the real show-mega-super-beasti upgrade and rebuild to the big PC with all the works… Comp bits are waaay cheaper these days here so the time is now!

Greeeeeaaaaaat… Just finished going through over 50 spam comics, deleteing each one seperately one after the other… changing all their info each fricken time because this damn system is buged up to the fricken eyeballs. -_-

ozoneocean wrote:
Stay away from ice picks then!

Always good advice!

—

I feel like I'm in a similar position, lba!
I was finally going to get my new wallpaper today, we had a bit of extra money. And then yesterday my dad's computer broke. He told me we could get the wallpaper and he would just use his work computer, but I told him it's more important for him to have a computer than for me to have pretty walls.