You can see what we've been up to, just mind the dust...
Preview time! I've talked it over with the Amazing Drew, the man who's making the zeros and ones behave, and he said it would be cool to direct people over to the current version of the site we're putting together. Now, not all of the links work (like to the store), and the blog doesn't have very many entries yet, but it should give everyone an idea of how it'll all shake out. The URLs will change eventually, so if you bookmark them, they might come up 404 in the future. I think we've got most of the basics running, but any glitches, obvious problems, or rage-inducing things you run across can be noted for review and (hopefully) repair. Wordpress is, indeed, amazing, but it still can be confounding, especially if you know a little HTML, can tell what PhP is, and can kind of tell what CSS is doing but nearly always cause disaster if you try to alter it without adult supervision. Enjoy, especially the ps238 and Nodwick archives, which I offer as an apology for putting thousands of files in (usually) sequential order without any kind of indexing system.
Comic books are going to be on TV a bit more in the near future, starting with Green Arrow on the CW. If the other pilots they've ordered come through (Deadman and Raven), that's three DC shows on one network, and Green Arrow will need them as part of his continuity. I don't say that because his character can't be cool, I say that because if one guy is out fighting crime with arrows, the cops are likely to think the guy in the costume with the potentially deadly weapon is more of a priority unless there are other, flashier (and more deadly) costumed weirdos running around. There'll be three more episodes of The Walking Dead next year than we had this year, which is most welcome (though I wish Frank Darabont was still with the show). On the "potential trainwreck" front, NBC is making a Dracula TV show, set in the 1890s. I'm not sure a costume drama, even with vampires, will bring NBC a lot of viewers, but with Downton Abbey cultivating a solid fan base... maybe something for their kids to watch?
Even if the show is awful, it'll have a hard time being as bad as the thought that even though they've run out of books, we're probably going to get more Twilight movies. Maybe they'll have a flashback-crossover with the NBC series and address Dracula's hidden past regarding the Cullens. :)
Turning to polygon-based entertainment, unless something changes drastically over at EA/Bioware, I'm not going to be playing Mass Effect 3 anytime soon. It's not going to be on Steam, where most of my first-run games are from these days (GOG for the classics, of course), and it was annoying enough to have Steam and Origin running to play ME2. It's also a really irritating trend in DRM that I hope will change. Back when Steam first started out, I know many people who proudly said they bought their fine game products, but then went and found a cracked version to actually play because it didn't slow down their machines as much. They learned, it seems, and have opt-outs for things like customer data and so on (though I still hear grumblings about offline mode). Anyway, running two services to play a single game was a headache I don't want to repeat, so I think I'll have to give this a pass until EA/B's Origin app is cleared as spyware-free and/or it becomes a Steam-only game... even if it's awesome (or becomes cheap, like Dragon Age: Origins did), which would really twist the knife. Was that a rant? I think I ranted a bit there...
For a change of pace, in what I think might be "good" news (with reservations) for a franchise I enjoy, Bethesda and Interplay have settled all Fallout-related lawsuits. This means the MMO is probably dead, which is fine with me so long as I get Fallout 3, 4, 5 and so on, with most (if not all) being written by New Vegas studio, Obsidian. While a massive Fallout-themed MMO sounds interesting, I'm not sure the game's history of allowing the player to really alter the world on a fundamental level would be able to translate well to games where everything is the same for everyone. In conclusion, where's Fallout 4?
And so ends the second season of Sherlock, all three episodes of it. This'll be spoiler-free as per usual. I think this show is giving Steven Moffat a chance to out-Master Russell T. Davis' writing for Doctor Who's The Master. Moriarty seems to share the same "rampant mad genius" qualities we saw in The Sound of Drums and other episodes starring John Simm. There's plenty of villainy to boo-hiss at and Sherlock (at times) being his own worst enemy... and the wait for new episodes which should happen on a date called "someday." At least the cliffhanger (kinda) is tolerable (kinda).
I'm going to get back to looking over the ol' list of Wordpress widgets and see if there's anything fundamental I've missed. Do they still make MIDI players for websites that you can't shut off (kidding, kidding, put down the knife)? The other things I've found while searching for... stuff... follows:
- Exterminate your diet with Dalek Oreo cookies. I know, a recipe for cookies of which cookies are an ingredient, but it's all just a big ball of timey-wimey, so...
- The Phobos-Grunt satellite has crashed in the Pacific Ocean. It's not terribly amusing, but I like typing "Phobos-Grunt" for some reason.
- The home of the future will have a digital rug. Be sure to uninstall the "Twister" app before company arrives.
- Unicorn Poop Cookies not only look delicious, I can guarantee they are as I adore the Ethel's Sugar Cookies recipe it's based on. I have two copies of the cookbook it's in as well.
- Ellen McClain is a voice actress most famous for her work at Valve, especially as the voice of GLaDOS. She was given a letter to read at a convention and did it in her best evil A.I. delivery, minus the digital manipulation her voice gets for the video games. Luckily, someone re-edited the video to give us the full Aperture Science experience.
- There's every chance that I've posted this before (it's from 2008), but even if I have, I doubt anyone has beaten The World's Hardest Game 2.0, at least not without rage-smashing a keyboard or two.
- For a more relaxing game, the holiday leftover Pimp My Tree has a fun mechanic of using a magnetic magic wand to pull ornaments around to solve puzzles and end up (what else?) decorating a tree at the end of each level.
- A budget breakdown of the original Star Wars movie. If this inflation calculator is accurate, Episode IV was still a bargain in today's dollars.
- Golden Globes winner and Game of Thrones awesomeness Peter Dinklage mentioned a dwarf-tossing attack in the UK that left the victim, who played a goblin in the Harry Potter movies, possibly wheelchair-bound for life.
- How did this escape my knowledge of the History of the World, as it were? In 1975, they made an animated special off of the Mel Brooks/Carl Reiner bit, the 2000 year-old man! Part two and part three.
- It's rare that a film captures a book character so "accurately" to my mind's eye. The upcoming Hunger Games does so with Effie Trinket, a woman from the futuristic Capital who is the public face of the lottery that chooses the games' victims/contestants.
- Next up, a Bat-metal Bat-medley of Bat-themes, including a personal favorite at about 3:40.
- You think your job stinks? How about spending six months tunneling 100 feet to steal a little over $9,000 from an ATM?
- There's now a Facebook app that lets you record a message to be played/forwarded after your death when three chosen friends confirm you've passed on. It can also be an app that lets three "friends" play a horrific prank on you and everyone you know, so choose wisely.
- It's not the world's hardest game (see above) but Test Subject N36 is a fair challenge. Shoot 'em up, escape each room, and increase your abilities.
- Finally, Symphony is similar to other ambient particle games, but what it lacks in original concept it makes up for in execution. Plus, you might need a relaxing break after the previous links. Enjoy!