Hello People of the inebriated fowl!

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Billions of people die every day, their digital bodies staying lifeless until any of the thousands of unknown omnipotent beings restarts their little pocket universe. An uncountable number of sacrifices, by soldiers from every side, is erased as if it means nothing. People from the real world invade countries from the digital one and kill without compassion or mercy. And when they're done they turn of their computers and pretend that nothing happened.

So… I can't remember where i was going with that.

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In other news: MAFIAis back! Join the game and leave a mark that history will never forget!

Just finished watching the INSIDE JOB – imo, the best film Matt Damon has made to date. I highly recommend it.

I was walking through an empty hallway at work today, and looked down to adjust my camisole so I wasn't showing too much cleavage. Looked up and of course a guy had come out without my noticing and was walking in my direction. I'm sure that looked reeeal classy. -_-

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I have been going back and forth on whether I want to take History of Science or Astronomy for my science credit for months now. I'm going to meet with my Department Head soon to plan and stuff so maybe he can convince me one way or the other. I don't have very long to choose any more!

Hippie Van wrote:
I was walking through an empty hallway at work today, and looked down to adjust my camisole so I wasn't showing too much cleavage. Looked up and of course a guy had come out without my noticing and was walking in my direction. I'm sure that looked reeeal classy. -_-

I probably would've turned around, apologized loudly, then run away as fast as I can to avoid being beaten to death while being accused of being a 'dirty old man"… yes, I think 42 is old. -_-

You nonk Lonne! The correct etiquete is to politely ignore such things. :)

I spent all weekend helping a friend get a new computer- He's giving his old one to his brother in Serbia so we had to make sure all the personal stuff was wiped off without a reformat and reinstall - because I didn't have the Windows disk and did NOT want to stuff around with drivers and reinstals of essential programs etc.

Then we looked through catalogues and websites to find the best bang for his buck, then went back and forth to different shops seeing if we could get a better deal in-store…
THEN I had to make sure the new one was correctly setup and show him how to use Windows 8 which I have never used before myself!
It's very easy to manage, not much adjustment needed.

It's a decent comp. It's a mid-range price, touchscreen laptop, 8 gig of ram, 750 gig hard drive, i5 processor, 2 gig 710 Nvidia graphics… Very decent machine that should be good for the next 4 years, at half the price of i7 ultrabooks that have lower specs.

One place we went into stunk of cheese, nasty blue cheese. When we went outside again hoping for fresh air, the smell was worse!!! So we jumped in the car safe from the smell and drove 500 meters down the road to other place… when we got out the cheese stink assailed our nostrils once more!
The entire suburb stunk of smelly cheese!!!!!

The entire suburb stunk of smelly cheese!!!!!

Sure you didn't cross some transdimensional portal into Smelly Cheese Land( ie France or Belgium) or was there just mazurka music?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJhq9eq_eJg

OzoneOcean wrote:“I spent all weekend helping a friend get a new computer”

How altruistic of you, Oz! I usually look for the refurbished models online first when I am hunting for a new PC. I have had all sorts of machines and handled RAM when it was 256KM so pretty much, 4 GB still feels like a ridiculous amount in a machine. 8 GB of RAM could probably have launched a rocket into space in the 1960s. My first laptop, ever, only had about 2 GB of memory.

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Happy Canada Day (July 1st) to all the Canadian drunk duckers!!!!
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I just finished watching Tommy Wiseau's ridiculously odd and dark indie film “The Room” for the first time just in time for its ten year anniversary. It met my expectations, but now I just feel grimey.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

*cough* sorry. Those “eventvwr” scam artists tried to get me again. However, I know for a fact that Microsoft will never EVER call you. So when he claimed to be from “Microsoft's Technical Department”, I told him this…

“Um… I'm running a Mac. I don't use Windows.”. He hung up on me.

*sigh* If I could, I'd nuke his place from orbit… or hire Bravo and whatever doomsquad of men he leads to storm their place. :)

Oh… and Ozone… that sort of thing is impossible for me to ignore. I do try and keep my eyes from connecting to beautiful women, but once they're locked I probably look like a creepy old guy to them…. -_-

Stupid scam artists…

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Hey, who would like to join MAFIA? I bet you'd like to join MAFIA, wouldn't you? Hey, join MAFIA! Do you know MAFIA? Join us, here at MAFIA! MAFIA! MAFIA? Yes, MAFIA!

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I'm re-watching Community episodes. I miss the days when Pierce was still part of the group. Cookie Wizard. Aspergers. Lesbian, Lesbian, Lesbian!

I voted for the awards yesterday. How about you? Have you done your https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_AL8mljF8Gi0UR8lcTnFdf5HCy5J-8hADPolclxxBVY/viewform?pli=1

Usually it has been hardest for me to pick out candidates for character awards, but this year it came fairly easy to me.

Well if you'd like to promote your comic, consider contributing to the latest Quackcast:
http://www.drunkduck.com/forum/topic/175825/
It's a novel and very creative way to do it. :)

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What do you do when you find out that one of your very best friends, a really amazingly inteligent person with vast, interesting knowledge, impeccable taste, brains, and expereince, is… a bit of a conspiracy nut?
Seriously. :(
He was always interested in the Fortian times and collecting books on the occult, ghosts etc, but I had the impression that it was more in the role of an interested sceptic and amused observer. We had many laughs over the years at crazy beleifs in Reptoids, the Theosphy, and so on.
But the other day he was going on and on about 9/11 conspiracies, the Moon landing “hoax”, and holocoust denial. I was shocked.
I haven't talked to him for a number of years and only started seeing him again late last year, so maybe something changed with him since then.

So weird.

ozoneocean wrote:
Well if you'd like to promote your comic, consider contributing to the latest Quackcast:
http://www.drunkduck.com/forum/topic/175825/
It's a novel and very creative way to do it. :)

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a bit of a conspiracy nut?
But the other day he was going on and on about 9/11 conspiracies, the Moon landing “hoax”, and holocoust denial. I was shocked.


It is a very convincing meme and self-perpetuating. It feeds on itself and convinces itself the more it is disproven. I love reading Jim Marrs. He's a very entertaining writer but I don't believe it because the theories don't pass Occam's razor and Sagan's level of evidence. And I've been following this stuff since In Search of… was on the air and read Erich Von Daniken when he first hit the bookstands and had read Charles Fort and Frank Edwards before I was in my teens.

But now it's only for entertainment. It's pretty dangerous to hold with Holocaust Denial in Australia. One can be prosecuted for publically espousing it as happened about ten years ago when skeptics including Michael Shermer used Australia's laws to jail a denier.

So does it make me a conspiracy nut when I have this idea that when everyone around here embraces tech that lets us manufacture our own power the power company will take action? Which they probably will by *cough*bribing*cough* the local senators and governors pass a law stating that “anyone owning equipment producing over x watts of power must give that equipment to the Power Company in the name of Safety”? And even worse you have to demolish that equipment at your expense because you broke the law, or you could have the power company affix a power meter between the equipment and your house so you can pay them for the power the equipment you bought/built is producing? And the Power Company manages to make the law retroactive so it affects everyone???

Okay.. I'm an idiot AND a nut…

@Lonnehart: I don't know about that specific scenario, but there is already massive lobbying against renewable energy so it's not that far-fetched.

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I am so sick of shmoes on the internet trying to sound like they're smart. I know that's not a new thing, but for whatever reason I'm finding it really grating lately. Everyone would think you were a pretentious douchebag if you talked like that in real life, idiots!

Of course, I feel slightly guilty about this because I'm sure I was guilty of the same thing myself not so long ago. But other people ought to develop at exactly the same rate as me, damnit! :P

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I can't remember if I've posted about this before, but I think some of the women at my work need more to do. They sometimes spend literally hours chatting, especially when the boss is away. It's pretty distracting sometimes.
(Note: Not trying to be sexist - it just happens to be a problem with two of the ladies who I work with in particular.)

Hippie Van wrote:
I am so sick of shmoes on the internet trying to sound like they're smart. I know that's not a new thing, but for whatever reason I'm finding it really grating lately. Everyone would think you were a pretentious douchebag if you talked like that in real life, idiots!

Trust me, there are plenty of people who sound that pretentious in person. I've been dealing with them since forever. I had a wonderful girlfriend ages ago who kicked those serious arrogant pretensions out of me. (starting with literally kicking me out of bed) Besides my eyes are brown and I'll be the first to tell you I'm not full of myself but full of shit.

Now I'm only ever mistaken for one on the internet. Reading words on a screen you can't hear the bemused inflection I usually have in my voice and see my lopsided grin. Life is too short and absurd to be seriously pretentious about anything. And I iwsh I had a rubber mallet to go around banging people on the head who are pretentious. Or maybe the Monty Python 16 ton weight.

The players of MMORPGs will never cease to disappoint me… Now if you're not the type who loves using exploits and cheats in the dungeons but would rather explore the place and find all the neat hidden stuff you get kicked out of a group or will never find one. And those same people complain loudly if the exploits do end up fixed. And then there are people who are forever creating bot programs to earn resources for them so they themselves don't have to play the game. Or worse, employ entire sweatshops of people to do this, paying them very little of the profit (let's say… 1 cent for every $100 they make) and not allowing said workers to enjoy playing the game (they're there to WORK, not play… the irony…).

People trying to sound like they're smart on the internet? I see lots of those in the MMOs I've played. Search out Leeroy Jenkins on Youtube or something… that video is a parody of those people (or an accurate depiction… I've seen a group discussing numbers and strategy before going after the boss of a dungeon).

Here's a weird request. Anyone know how a castle should be laid out? What rooms are found inside, what exactly are in those tower structures in the center, what a Keep is, etc…? Just point me to a link that shows maps of this stuff. Never thought making a Foundry quest about a Princess and the Pink Knight who asks for your help in subduing her by storming her castle would be difficult due to not being an architect…

Oh.. and just another link to Tsumoro's Neverwinter reviews. Thought this was funny because of the quest's movie references…. Just one tip though. Never EVER give in to Foxy Megan's charms… :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADfuPbN2WFs&list=PLM9ZEtrwP-mxI6ozLT3hY_iDWzoWqSW3N

Nothing beats the David Macaulay documentary based on his excellent book Castle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGbPShUpjpg
It goes over EVERYTHING you'd ever want to know about castles.

I've got to stop working saturday shifts nothing ever semes to go right and the doctors end up shoting at me.

Call Me Tom wrote:
I've got to stop working saturday shifts nothing ever semes to go right and the doctors end up shoting at me.

I hope that's “shouting” and not “shooting”! :P

I get some of the weirdest dreams sometimes…
I dreamt that I was working as a salesman in a furniture store. I was showing this woman a room divider set which would be useful at parties and such. Her husband walked in, saw the room dividers, and began to threaten to commit suicide as he saw the dividers as his wife's way of dividing herself from him…
I did a three hand facepalm… assisted by the couple's daughter (who was doing a facepalm of her own)… who told me her father was embarrasing her… again…

Lonnehart wrote:
I get some of the weirdest dreams sometimes…

Sounds like a comedy bit in some family sitcom. I can imagine Jim Belushi as the father or maybe Peg Bundy trying to seperate herself from her hubby. I love having dreams that degenerate into sitcoms. Sometimes my subconsconcious throws in the canned laughter just to keep he interested and then I appear at the end of the dream pointing to my name on the TV screen in the credits under “writer”

I've been having too many “Watch the skies” moments in my dreams lately. I just look up and there's always an alien mother ship up there ready to dispatch an invasion fleet. Sure I get some cool battle scenes sometimes but it gets repetitive. And why was I hanging out in the parking lot of a tractor pull at a racetrack in rural south NJ? Sure plenty of pick-ups to blow up and lots of hicks shooting at the sky with their shotguns, but it's just so outside my waking life experience.

Only thing about this dream was that the mother was only looking for room dividers to make having parties at her house easier, but it's the father who's overreacting… a but TOO MUCH!!! Hence why his daughter was feeling so embarrassed that she had a facepalm moment, and lent her palm to me so I could have my 3 handed facepalm moment… I hope I never see something like that in real life… I'd probably die laughing (and not being able to breathe as a result)…

Makes it sound all the more like a family sitcom moment. The overreacting misunderstanding husband is a real staple of sitcoms from Life of Reilly, Honeymooners, Great Gildersleeve to today. It is a classic situation. Just thank heavens you didn't have to stand in a box singing everytime someone said “mattress” (The Monty Python furniture store sketch)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm_dahOoesg

So I finally get Mighty Switch Force 2 for my 3DS. Enjoyed the first one immensely, and I'm enjoying this one as well. Just one small thing…

Yes, you have to rescue the reformed Hooligan Sisters by switching blocks and dousing stuff with water from your Infinite Dousing Apparatus. However, you also have to rescue the Ugly Secret Babies too. Now how is that done when the instant sparkly transport system only works on adults? Well…
Patricia Wagon (the cybernetic heroine of the game) rescues the Ugly Secret Babies by…
PUNTING THEM OFF SCREEN!!!

*Patricia punts an USB off the screen)
Patricia Wagon: “You're SAFE!!!”

O_O

It's been four days since someone posted in here…what the heck? Where is everyone?

I would have posted but I talk to myself enough as it is.

Boobs.

Sooooo busy!

The quackast was great. Especially the bit by VinoMas! You will be able to hear it on Wednesday!

I was reading TV Tropes section on being born with bad luck. And I'm starting to question it. I mean… How could it be bad luck if it defies chance? For example…

A dice game is rigged so whever throws the dice will always get double sixes. The dice will always fall the same way and steps have been taken to make sure that it will always fall with the double sixes facing up. However, a guy cursed with impossible “bad luck” will somehow roll Snake Eyes instead, no matter what the riggers do…

Or a poker game. The hand is dealt by someone who has known the bad luck cursed character all his life, and he has triple checked that the poker hand up his sleeve is all a royal flush. Somehow he either forgets his friend the moment he deals the lucky hand (dealing it to someone else), or when he actually DOES deal that hand to his bad luck cursed friend it somehow turns out to be the worst hand you can get in Poker…

Or even worse. A slot machine. Rigged so whoever pulls the arm will always win. But when the bad luck cursed person pulls that arm he instead loses. And if as a last resort all the symbols were changed on the machine so that they're all the same, the machine either jams when the cursed person pulls the arm, or it breaks spectacularly (exploding in a cloud of shrapnel away from him).

Now how can this be luck, bad or otherwise when the laws of Chance (not sure if they are laws) are completely defied/ignored to the detriment of this one person?

TV tropes deals with plot mechanisms in story telling not problems in logic and gaming. Therefore for the purpose of telling a story according to the set conventions of story telling* all logic and game theory and laws of chance are suspended for the purpose of the story unless such make for a cool plot twist**

Reality and logic need not apply to story telling. The Speed of Light is the speed limit of the universe, but if my story requires faster than light travel, so be it. The Laws of Physics are suspended or necessarily bent so the story can work. Do as Star Trek did: can't afford the SPFX for a shuttle craft? Bend the laws of physics and invent matter transportation and then mine the gold that plot hole presents with all sorts of stories that are physically impossible but follow the “what if…” story telling plot starter. This also includes pseudoscientific “technobabble” and “made up science” for the purpose of the story.

Scientific accuracy only matters in “hard” science fiction not in “one from column A and two from column B” trope fiction.*** Talented folks with original ideas are warned to stay as far away from TVstopes as possible and let those who worship bad formula fanwriting an somethng worth pursuing do so.


*(-(i.e)“ cliche” or now politely reclassified as “trope” so teens ignorant of writing conventions and life experience can feel free to copy, paste and plagarize at will)
** See Hitchcock Presents Zippo lighter/finger loss bet story or the coin falling on its edge in the Twilight Zone tale bestowing ESP.
*** Formerly derisively called “formula fiction” now embracedd by fans all over the internet world of trash writing embodied by the works mentioned in TVtropes and those who want to be featured in Tvtropes.

All from my forthcoming book “From Bad formula Cliche to Trope: how poor writing became good again due to the internet and the fallacy of the 90% rule”

So as far as storytelling goes, I'm right. Being “cursed” with bad luck is actually the story writer manipulating events in that characters life. So that individual suffers improbable detrimental situations for OUR own amusment…

And if this happened in “real life”, it wouldn't be “bad luck”. It's more like sabotage… like that one old movie where this guy is trying to win this girls heart, but every time he tries to make a move something lights up on fire… literally… and behind all the flames is the girl's mother…