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Friday, March 4, 2005 7:33:02a: *
Morning, folks. Some "serious" news for those of you interested in that sort of thing; for the rest of you, the funny stuff will have to wait.
The CBC is reporting that on Thursday morning, four officers of the RCMP were killed in an abortive drug raid outside Edmonton, Alberta (that's western Canada for those of you not proficient in North American geography), in what has been termed the worst simultaneous loss of Mounties since 1885. One hundred and twenty years. And all over a farm of pot. I don't normally get political here, but just read this and think it over. While four Mounties might not seem like much to an average American, think how many regular black-and-white driving officers of your own state's police force have died in drug-related crimes over the past year, ten years, over your lifetime. Don't even compensate by saying "well, I live in Los Angeles, so there's naturally a higher rate" or "well, I live in New York, and there's more people here, so...". There is no rationalization of such staggering losses-- such staggering human losses. We (Americans living close to the border, that is) tend to think of the Mounties as invulnerable Dudley Do-Rights who never stray from the straight and narrow, and thus afford them a higher measure of respect. Why don't we show that respect to our own boys in blue? It makes little sense to me how some people can have an open defiance for all police action, regardless of its necessity. I understand that the human mind isn't always a rational mechanism, and the situation is different when the police are looking at you. But when I got a speeding ticket two years ago, or a parking ticket last year, did I rant and rave and spout profanity at the officers? Of course not. That's not what you're taught in school. Yes, it could be argued that it's a form of conditioning, but let me detail the discussion I had with the officer giving me the parking ticket:
Officer: You can't park on this side of the street today. I'm giving you a ticket. Me: Well, I'm here now, can I move my car and not get the ticket? Officer: No, I still have to give you the ticket. It's . Me: Okay.
See? Reasonable disagreement. I could have argued with the officer, but that has no place in the streets. There is a special place you go to have arguments with the government and that is called a courthouse. A courthouse also has the benefit that you won't be shown in your underwear screaming the f-word twenty times on "COPS" Friday night while I sit back, pop open a Dr. Pepper, and laugh at you. Also, people don't die in courtrooms, Perry Mason and "Inherit The Wind" excepted.
My point (which I've strayed from) is that those four RCMP officers should serve as a reminder of the human cost of the war on drugs. I am sick of hearing stories like this, and I am sick of having to relay them. The war on drugs must end, one way or another. I do not care how it ends so long as it does. (Betcha you never hear that from a politician in the next ten years.)
And now, news from Buffalo-- close enough to Canada that it sort of smooths the transition. WKBW, the ABC affiliate out of Buffalo, had a service running on its SAP signal which read best-selling novels to the blind. Certainly a sentiment that I can get behind. It's the use of the past tense-- "had"-- which ought to alarm you. You see, three weeks ago, the station received a complaint about a "bad word" heard in the course of the reading of Tom Wolfe's novel "I Am Charlotte Simmons". This was heard during the station's designated hours that adult content could be read-- 10p to 5a-- and the reading of the novel was prefaced by the alert that foul language might be used. Moreover FCC regulations allow "adult content" (read: bad words) after 10p. Still, despite the warnings and precautions, the complaint was made and the consequences are dire. WKBW has discontinued the service between 10p and 5a, after having dropped it entirely for three weeks. Over one single complaint. A complaint which last year would have been a fine of ,000 but today is 0,000. What happened, I wonder, to cause a nearly 1500% increase in the fine? Oh yeah, "wardrobe malfunction". I learned about the issue on "The Bob and Tom Show" this morning on my alarm clock, and after the phrase "goose-stepping around the First Amendment" was used I decided it was probably something I should pay attention to.
I used to be a big proponent of freedom of speech. I had a t-shirt and everything. Today I'm more a proponent of responsible speech. The use of the bad word after 10p with warnings attached was an example of responsible speech. The complaint about it was not. There's a reason you never see me use the f-word on this front page and that's because I choose to. In real life I say it all the time as the situation warrants, much to my parents' dismay. But, and this is the point, it's my choice. I certainly know when it's appropriate to use it and I know when it's not; and I don't go ahead and use it anyway when it's not appropriate just to get attention. If I wanted to do that I'd just use it as my only known vocabulary word, like all the other idiots who think "profanity = adult". I pride myself on my very large... vocabulary, not to mention its... breadth or the... exceptional way I use it. (NOTE TO CENSORS: THAT WAS A DOUBLE-ENTENDRE FOR PENIS)
See? That's funny. You can be funny and clever without using bad words. You can also be funny and clever using them. Whether you choose to or not is your decision, just like it's your decision to turn off what you don't want to hear. In this case, however, the "off" switch is the back button on your broswer, the channel control on your television, or the next station on your radio. Nobody is forcing you to listen to it, nobody is saying "take it or leave it"-- if the lady who complained didn't like "I Am Charlotte Simmons", why didn't she just turn on a different audiobook? Being blind, presumably she had another one. I just do not get it.
Anyway, that's it for now. I promise I'll be funny later.Sunday, March 6, 2005 7:43:44p: *
For the record, folks, things are peachy here.
I also have an interesting discovery to announce: Coke with Lime + Midori = wonderful.
During the darkest days of the American Revolution, a young baker was brought before the King of England, George III, as a heretic against the Anglican church. Already deep within the throes of war-fueled bloodlust and the first stirrings of madness, King George decided to have this particular baker publically tried before both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Dressed in his full regalia as head of the Church of England, George began the inquisition.
"My countrymen!" he shouted. "This man has been brought to us as a criminal against the head of your beloved Church! Tell me, young man, is there any reason I should spare your life?"
"I am but a humble baker, my liege," the baker replied, bowing. "My children and my wife live only on that which I bring from my ovens. If you kill me, as is your right, then they are also killed."
"Then let us see the fruit of your labors," one of the lords exclaimed. From a bag at his side the baker produced a small cookie, composed of two black, flat, and round wafers stuck together by a curious white compound. He passed several of these cookies out to the assembled lords and ladies and finally handing one to the king.
"It is my favorite cookie," the baker said humbly. "I hope it is to Your Majesty's liking."
King George looked cautiously around at the court, who were all staring at him, waiting for him to take the first bite out of deference to their king. George took a small nibble of the wafer, and his eyes lit up. Greedily he stuffed the whole cookie into his mouth and began chewing madly; the other lords and ladies soon began eating their cookies, though in a more genteel manner than their king had.
Light shone down from heaven at that moment and enveloped the baker, who fell to his knees in reverence. George, still chewing, began praising the cookie in high holy language, spewing forth equal amounts of gospel and crumbs. It was as if The Lord Himself were giving thanks to the young chef.
"I say," said the lord from before, "this cookie is splendid! I should like to bring some to my own children. Pray tell, where is your bakery located?"
The baker stood, bowed to the lord, and replied, "Boston, my lord."
Silence covered the hall. Even King George paused upon hearing the Yank's proclamation. "A rebel!" George screamed. "Rebellious poisoner, come to assassinate me! Axman! Axman! Off with his head! NOW!" The axman didn't waste any time. It took him merely seven steps from his position at the king's side to reach the young baker, still enveloped in the column of light.
Just as the ax reached the apex of its swing and was impossible to divert, the Lord Himself began to speak, having cleared his throat of the cookie crumbs. "Or--"
"EEEEEEEEE!" a lady screamed, as the baker's head was rent from his neck.
"...oh," finished The Lord, dejectedly.
And Thus Spoke The Lord, And Thus It Was: That On The Two Million, One Hundred And Nine Thousand, Seven Hundred And Seventy-Fifth Day, The Lord God Created "Oreo"s.Friday, March 11, 2005 7:27:02a: *
Moving briefly on from the zaniness below, at GDC Satoru Iwata (head honcho of Nintendo) gave a very interesting speech-- you can hit the transcript at Kotaku, which is what I did. He mentions his early days as one of the first programmers at HAL, where (pay attention to this, Mom) one of his first projects for Nintendo was finishing up the original NES Pinball. Yeah, that Pinball, Mom. Anyway, he also dropped hints that Animal Crossing DS was in internal development (presumably this is Japanese euphemism-speak for "alpha") and that worldwide-playable wi-fi games would be out for the DS by the end of the year. Kinda makes me wish I still had my DS-- had to ditch it when hard times fell upon me-- but you know what? There's something about getting money back from the government which will always improve my disposition. Still, I'm going to hold off on a new system just yet-- either of them-- until there is a killer app for either one. A killer app that actually gets good reviews.
By the by, big congratulations to Young over at Nekobox, who now rejoins our regularly scheduled 9-to-5 world already in progress. He'd been searching long before I was, and I have to respect him for keeping afloat this long. Way to go, man.
And, of course, I knew this wouldn't take long, but Scott has divined the True Nature Of Pictochat. Honestly, I have no fuggin' clue why CBS even considered approaching him for their interview thingy, but he did a good job nonetheless. Y'know, considering the evil liberal bias of American media an' all that. (NOTE: THAT WAS SARCASM PLEASE DON'T KILL ME)
....I thought of directing that note to one party in particular but I realized that the phrase "evil liberal media" pissed off everybody in differing amounts, so it stands as is.
Anyway, off to shower, work, and the end of the wor-- uh, a project.
A special project.
That begins with "I".
And ends with "nstrumentality".Wednesday, March 16, 2005 10:33:58p: *
Connection's been flaky. Sorry if I've been absent, but I've gone through hell and back trying to get Final Fantasy XI re-installed on my PS2. I eventually had to cut my losses, jack directly into the cable modem, and pray. Fortunately, it worked this time, and I can get my Vana'diel on anytime I choose now.
'Cept I'm thinking of scrapping my existing character, who has infamously remained at Level 19 for the better part of a year now, and starting over on a less sparsely populated server than Caitsith. Sure it's fun to say that's my server, but honestly, who plays on Caitsith anyway? Hopefully I can jump servers after having been on Caitsith for so long, but I'm not holding my breath. Ah well, I have a bit more experience now and I'll definitely be starting off as a WAR this time. I miss being able to do buttloads of damage.
All right, next order of business. I've been doin' some thinking, and the more I think about it the more I really, really want to do an online game, and do it right-- not a browser-based thing like what I've done so far, but a real game with an online component. I had an excellent idea for a game this evening, and wrote it down for safekeeping, but the problem with the whole shebang is that I know Perl best of all, and you can't really write a game client in Perl-- 'cause Windows sucks like that. More than that I'd be in over my head insofar as graphics goes, and let's not even mention music. But yeah, the backend could be done in Perl. (Admittedly a game like FFXI doesn't run on Perl, but that's hardly the point.)
As a test, I'm going to consider writing a chat program as a proof-of-concept. (Non-nerds can stop reading here, I'm just spouting out a stream-of-consciousness rough draft design for the rest of this post.) The server will hold the last X00 lines said (which can be configured by the administrator) in a database table (or hell, even in memory). Every Y seconds a client sends a request to the server with the ID of the last line they received. The server then responds by sending the lines that were said between that ID and now. Sending a line can be done at any time and also does the last-ID routine. Regardless of how it's done, the server then ends the transmission with the most recent ID number.
Basic commands can be implemented easily-- just do regexes on the beginning of the line for "/me" and "/whisper". Administrators can get information on users with the command "/whois". I suppose you could do a sort of NickServ-type service with "/name" and various commands after that ("change", "protect", "identify"-- though this service would require a DB connection). Creating a bot would almost be too easy-- just have another Perl process acting as a client and responding according to programmed responses.
Now one thing that's a thought is using sockets connections. I don't want to reinvent the wheel in terms of my network code, and if I could do a sockets connection I wouldn't have to worry about HTTP statelessness or Apache overhead-- I could just set the Perl program up as a standalone server. I'll have to read up on that and see what I can find out. Perl isn't really the language of choice for game programming-- it's too high-level, too abstracted from the hardware to really get any kind of power behind it-- but I'm far more comfortable with it than I am with C++, not to mention the documentation is a lot more helpful. We'll see, ultimately.
'Night, folks.Friday, March 18, 2005 9:20:03a: *
I feel like crap this morning, folks, but this is news for Pez: A new Phantasy Star game is in the works that will be an actual RPG instead of the hybrid MMO that Phantasy Star Online has been. Gamespot has the news; for now I must go bow before the porcelain master.Tuesday, March 22, 2005 9:50:52a: *
Morning, folks. I pulled a few links off the site-- mostly in the Games section, but one or two elsewhere. The prime offenders were Gameforms and GameSpy. Now don't think I've gone all elitist now that I work for two sites-- hell, if I was an elitist, I'd still only be working for RPGamer-- but let's be honest here, Gameforms went off my site because they haven't had an actual update since 2004 and GameSpy was taken off because it's GameSpy, and they suck. Honestly, every time I'd go over there to read something it just made me see red; they were trying to be GamePro back when you wouldn't be embarassed to read GamePro, and those days are long gone. I also pulled links for a couple games I'm not playing anymore. I probably ought to put up the FFXI links again, but I really don't need to.
Speaking of Vana'Diel, leveling goes much faster when you have a greataxe strapped to your back. I hit level 8 last night and so far am very thrilled at the fact that Warriors don't have to spend as much cash as Red Mages do. Also, I managed to get on a good server, too-- stacks of Fire crystals go for about 5000 gil, so I'm making a pretty good killing. One last thing-- old people like me will probably not miss the irony that my character, Leota, is on Fairy server. Think about it for a while.
Been watching Air for a while now, at Slip's request. There was a bit of a hiccup with the whole "the tracker we were going to use to distribute the next episode disappeared" thing for a while, but eventually it surfaced. The premise behind the series remains very compelling, even if it's changed from what we saw at the beginning; still, there're two episodes left and I have NO idea how they're going to wrap it up, if they even are. But apparently... bah, I don't want to put spoilers on the main page. That would be evil.
Hey, here's a cheery thought. Anyone else a fan of Orson Scott Card's "Ender" series? I'd followed the books since about midway through college, even though it had been recommended to me long before that. Well, the final book in the series came out at some point this month-- Shadow of the Giant-- and I managed to pick it up. The story takes some pretty interesting twists but ultimately ends on a down note... still, it is worth reading just for one final scene near the end.
I got distracted, folks. I'll talk to you all later.Thursday, March 24, 2005 10:16:32a: *
Sooo... the PSP was released today. I spent the majority of the "launch" party in the bathroom in intense intestinal distress. The two things may be related. By which I mean I don't like the PSP 'cause it's like poo. (On an unrelated note, try saying "in intense intestinal distress" five times fast. I can barely type it let alone say it.)
To be honest, once the afterglow of "hey, new Nintendo" wore off I ditched the DS pretty quickly. Why? Simple-- there were no games for it. Mr. Driller-- arguably the best of the launch titles-- was a waste of the system's potential, and here four months after launch there's still nigh on nothing for the system. There are announcements-- there are promises of Xenosaga and Final Fantasy and the like-- but nothing substantial to put the DS back in my hands. It's the same way with the PSP. You have maybe two good launch games (Metal Gear Acid and Lumines) but beyond that it's a waiting game. And I hate the waiting game.
Job hunting still, as it has before, sucks. I have made calls out to people and sent resumes and have received exactly no response. I could flush seven copies of my resume down the toilet to get the same results. That's the biggest problem I have, really, is that as professional as I try to be it always winds up being a roll of the dice. I almost had an interview on Monday, but it was cancelled as I was the backup candidate for the position, and it turned out a backup wasn't needed. I hate this being second in line crap but for the most part there's nothing I can do.
To be honest, I've been doing a lot of thinking and wonder if I even should be in the I.T. field anymore. I've always felt I'm a stronger writer and thinker than a coder, but I do devote a lot of my time to thinking about how stuff works. Believe me, if being a writer could suddenly be an 8-hour-a-day paying job with benefits and a guaranteed salary, I wouldn't even be writing this-- I'd be at work. But the problem is to be a professional, full-time writer means giving up a full-time job to take on a new one, one full of uncertainty and where your monetary gains are subject to the whims of the populace at large. I wish I could do it, but I literally cannot afford to risk that much. It's a gamble I cannot take.
I've read a lot of writing books and they all say the same thing-- you have to work at being a writer, you can't just say "I'll write a novel in my spare time" because if you aren't thinking about that book every single second of your life then it won't be any good. I kind of agree but I also kind of disagree. I'm 30,000 words and five months into a novel and so far it's been "in my spare time". Today that changes.
Folks, I'm sad to say but these blog posts are going to be trickling down in frequency and in length for a while. I may not have a job, but I'll be damned if that's going to keep me from working. I resolve to you all right now, in front of teh intarweb and all its denizens, that I will complete a first draft of my novel-- a draft of no less than 50,000 words-- before May 16th, 2005, my twenty-fifth birthday. This gives me fifty days to write over 20,000 words and, more importantly, bring this novel to a close. The problem lies in that I started the novel with a premise, a thought-- and now, midway through that thought, I've forgotten what it was. Or rather, the thought's finished but the story's not.
The novel I'm working on is a bit pretentious, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. I want to start a sweeping epic, not unlike "The Lord of the Rings", "The Wheel of Time", and the ilk. But the biggest problems I have with those tales is that they're just too damn long-- look at LOTR, or example. Even adapted into three three-hour movies, each film just kind of leaves off and picks up. There are climaxes but they all are too minor until the final one. You can't watch just one and think "all right, that story's over, we've accomplished something, there's more but it can wait for another day". True, that kind of thinking means people might not read the next book but it also means they're not feeling cheated out of an ending. That's always been a big problem-- look at Halo 2 or Xenosaga 2. Just before "the end" there's way too much plot introduced, and it's not fair to just say "all right, come back next time and maybe we'll finish things out". It teases the audience and does so unfairly. I don't want to do that with this book.
So the first thing I have to do is set out the outline today. I'll be busy with that, but bear in mind that I might be doing that for a couple more days, too.
Later, folks. I'll try to catch up with the game news later, and I do have two new titles to try out (Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and Suikoden III), but this novel thing comes first.Sunday, March 27, 2005 8:19:34a: *
Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it. Good morning to the rest of you.
I've been here with the folks since Friday evening and I've been handling it pretty well. "It" being my foolish, stupid decision not to bring any of my game machines. Then again, I have to admit my TV has spoiled me so I would balk at having to jack into a 13 incher. Eh, balance in everything, I suppose. I've done plenty of pre-writing and actual writing, so I've been keeping busy; I imagine after the movies I'll be doing lots more of that.
We rented a few DVDs-- The Incredibles, Friday Night Lights, and The Five People You Meet In Heaven. Yeah, you can guess which one of those I picked out. So far we've only watched FNL, which I have to admit was all right but is the prime exemplar of why I never bothered to get into sports as a kid. Verbal abuse and extreme physical contact isn't really my bag, baby (unless she's cute, in which case I might not mind so much). I'm looking forward to Incredibles, as I've heard good things about it, and by that point I might be able to pop on the headphones, listen to Xeno music, and get another 3,000 words in while Mom and Dad meet five people.
If I were an absolute lunatic, you know what I'd do? I'd figure out a way to parse my iTunes library into an HTML file, and then let you folks know exactly what's on my iPod at any given time. THAT would be interesting. Useless, but interesting. Sadly it's also more time than I'm willing to invest this month; maybe later.
I ran into my old English teacher in the store yesterday-- the one who said I called her and never called back. I apologized (even though I didn't remember the call int he first place) and we got to talking; she and I were good friends, and I am still a little surprised that she held such a high opinion of my writing. For reference, I looked back at what I'd handed in for one of my assignments and I realize now that it's abject crap. It's one of those things where maybe I don't have a good enough perspective on the subject matter, but I really think I could and should have handed in much better. Well, anyway, once the first draft is finished and pre-edited, she'll be getting a copy.
I'm not really sure how to handle this, though. I mean, this is something that not everyone's done before. I'm pretty much on my own here, and it's frightening. If I was feeling particularly brave, I'd work up the nerve to write to Brian Clevinger and ask him what steps I ought to take towards publishing. You know, learn from the masters, right?
One of the things that Mrs. Burdick said struck me, though, and that's that I ought to start shopping for publishers now. I'd been putting off picking up the Writer's Market for a while now-- by rights I should have got it in December-- but I'm going to make it a priority once I get back into Erie.
Anyway, dial-up sucks, so I gotta go. Later, folks.Thursday, March 31, 2005 7:29:15a: *
Grandia 3 was announced. That totally makes up for yesterday being terrible. You folks know I have a weakness for Game Arts (when they're not bad), so this is a big deal for me-- hopefully G3 will replace the faith in the series that they lost when they brought out Grandia Xtreme.
Also, I don't know if I mentioned it here, but that Korean bunny and cat flash that's been going around, a sequel just came out. NekoMachi broke the news.
Yeah. Job hunt and novel work continues today. And none of this matters because in the last thirty seconds I've lost my Internet connection. GRARGH. [...] Fixed now. Posting before some other disaster happens. I'll be in touch.Thursday, March 31, 2005 11:54:26p: *
By the time you all read this, it will be April 1st. Now under normal circumstances I'd have some big elaborate ruse set up for your enjoyment today, but I think we can all assume that the circumstances surrounding the last month and a half are most certainly NOT normal. So, on today, April Fool's Day, all I have to offer you folks is an apology.
I'm sorry I couldn't put up anything more than this lame excuse today, but I barely made deadline for the one AFD joke I did get to pull-- hit NetJak if you want to see it. I've been busy dumping resumes into the void and trying to get enough coherency out of my brainmeats to finish this draft, not to mention seeking even a part-time job to try to keep myself afloat. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that, for a while at least, TheFurryOne.net may go down. I simply do not have the resources to renew the site and also pay the remainder of my bills. Put simply, this is the end of TFO.net.
I am sorry. I cannot in good conscience ask my friends for monetary assistance when I know that I will not be able to repay them. It is simply beyond my moral reckoning. There is no way out of this and for that, I am very sorry. I should have renewed the site when I had the money, but I made some very poor decisions shortly before being let go again. I cannot say that this is not my fault but I can say that it will not happen again. When the site does come back, and it will, I will make sure that I am either on a month-to-month hosting plan or that I pay for several years in advance. Until then, the countdown is set at nineteen days and beyond that time, there is no telling what will happen.
Now it may be entirely possible that I may get employed in that time. I would like for that to happen. But time has run out. Even if I am hired in the next few days, my first paycheck will not come in time to cover the costs. If I am employed, then yes, I will ask for loans from you all, my friends, but not until. And I will hold myself to that promise.
It's not so bad, really, losing the site. There are other sites I frequent, and other areas where I am a bit more known. All things considered if TFO.net goes, then I won't be out too much, just my primary portfolio. I have other places I am present. And this is only temporary, anyway. I'm sure there's a light at the end of this. If anything, I'll be able to re-design the site. I've grown a bit tired of the current layout and would like to be able to re-launch in the coming months with something that looks nicer and runs much faster.
Today I realized just what exactly I stand to lose if I don't get hired soon. Everything. And that, my friends, scares me more than any shocking revelation that today may bring. So go and enjoy today, don't let me bring your party down. I wish there was another way, but there isn't.