|
So, all of us who attended UC Davis are at least somewhat familiar with the Cal Aggie Marching Band, otherwise known as the "Band-Uh!". I don't know about you, but I remember during orientation basically being told that they were loud, geeky, nuts, and that whacky antics were the norm for them.
Well apparently, nobody told the new faculty band director about this.
I'm seriously considering calling up UC Davis to see if I can get in touch with these guys and adapt a "whacky college antics" movie out of this...the whole scenario sounds like something out of Revenge of the Nerds. |
|
As some of you know, I have been working on a campaign setting for some time now, and recently began running a playtest of it. I thought it might be nice to offer a brief recap of what the players have been doing lately.
( Read more... )Current Mood:  geeky |
|
I just heard back from Mary-Kay Gamel, the woman who was first listed as the author of that rather inflammatory Turtle Island story, then updated as merely the "forwarder". Here's what she said:
( Read more... ) |
|
I didn't think that anything I heard about either candidate could really shock me at this point, but I was wrong. Obviously this is just a blog, so who knows if it can be completely verified, but it wouldn't be that hard to check and see if McCain went on vacation to the Fiji islands during the time mentioned in this article.
If you're wondering what shocked me, well...
McCain's appreciation of the beauty of Asian women was so great that David the American economist had to move his Thai wife to the other side of the table from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with and touching her. Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego and his rude behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day, and his response was shocking: "Oh, that was Cindy's idea - I didn't have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted this thing without even asking me. You can't imagine how people stare when I wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona .
No, it wasn't my idea at all."
(The emphasis is mine)
I eagerly await Snopes getting a hold of this and confirming/denying it.Current Mood:  shocked |
|
|
Sep. 24th, 2008 @ 05:37 pm
|
|---|
|
You are a Social Justice Crusader, also known as a rights activist. You believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains. |
| » You stay classy, Republican party! |
|---|
Disenfranchisement of African Americans in my country? It's more likely than you think.
Sep. 23rd, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
|
| » Dreamcast Memorial Weekend |
|---|
A random forum discussion about Giant Gram 2000 has gotten me all misty-eyed and nostalgic. I've been wanting to do this for a while, and I think this is the right time. It's been eight years since the dorm room in Tercero at UC Davis. I have a TV, I still have my Dreamcast, and I've got plenty of games. I think you all know what I'm talking about.
Giant Gram 2000
Street Fighter III: Third Strike
Guilty Gear X (the original, dammit)
Jet Grind Radio
Crazy Taxi
Marvel vs Capcom 2
We're taking it back to 2001. Oh yes. If you are down with this, reply here and we'll make the plans. If you are not, then I just feel sad for you.
Sep. 22nd, 2008 @ 11:32 am
|
| » John McCain: Staggering Hypocrisy |
|---|
Remember when you couldn't mention John McCain without talking about what an honorable guy he was? Well, those days appear to be over. Remember when McCain was the victim of push-polling that spread ridiculous, insulting rumors about his family? Well, those days are here again, but now he's on the other side of the equation.
And it's not just a push poll: it's an ethnically-targeted push poll designed to feed Jewish voters vile lies about Barack Obama (you know, the secret Muslim). I'm not sure who should be more insulted though; Barack Obama, or the Jewish voters who are apparently assumed to be complete morons by Republican leadership.
My favorite one is "Barack Obama called for holding a summit of Muslim nations exlcuding Israel if elected president". Because, you know, Israel is totally a Muslim nation, right?
Republican pollsters, being the lying cowards that they are, are of course denying everything.
The next person that calls John McCain honorable to my face is getting slapped.
Sep. 16th, 2008 @ 11:04 am
|
| » Sunday's game |
|---|
So, we took the plunge and started out this sunday. As expected, we were all running a bit late, and character generation took a bit longer than anticipated, but we got started, so it was all good. I am still looking for more players though. It's an easy system, similar in mechanics to regular D&D.
The campaign setting is still unnamed, but it takes place in a fantasy world with some familiar tropes (magic exists, as do adventurers...there are airships), and a few differences:
1. There are no dwarves, elves, goblins, etc. I wanted something a bit different. I replaced them with...something else, it's a bit of work to describe in full. There are still non-human races though.
2. Capitalism has arrived early in the world, and has gone wild. Abusive business practices abound, and legal concepts such as considering a Corporation to be an individual with the legal rights thereof, are in full effect.
3. Adventurers are considered a cost-effective supplement to military/diplomatic forces, in addition to the usual "fetch me the chalice of awesome" quests.
4. There is a fair bit of humor and fun with anachronism thrown in for good measure.
Sep. 15th, 2008 @ 10:26 am
|
| » Starting a new campaign |
|---|
I've been working on a campaign setting recently. It needs testing, and I've been putting it off for too long. So starting this sunday afternoon, I'm going to be doing a playtest. Anyone who is interested is free to show up, give me a call in advance though. But one way or the other, I'm starting my playtest this sunday. If you can't make it this week, you're welcome to join in later. It's a D20 type game (actually using Green Ronin's True 20 system), but I will be happy to help out with the rules (they're simple) for new players.
The genre is fantasy, though there's a fair amount of steampunk/anachronism and humor involved. I think it'll be fun. My living room is also much roomier now, so we can actually play there.
Sep. 11th, 2008 @ 12:27 pm
|
| » Some interesting facts about Sarah Palin |
|---|
For reasons I don't understand, the media and bloggers have been obsessed with her 17 year old being pregnant and a bunch of other random bullshit about her family. What seems to have escaped their notice? Well...
Prior to saying "thanks, but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere, she supported the damn thing, and said that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks while the getting was good.
She's virulently anti-abortion, even in cases of rape or incest (or, presumably, both). I've never really understood this position. Why would we want to empower rapists to essentially violate a woman continuously for 9 months, with the assistance of the government? By holding a woman accountable for the actions of her rapist, aren't we essentially advocating for the rapist?
For someone who claims to have put big oil in its place, she's awfully cozy with big oil...they even sponsored her inauguration.
She supported Alaskan secession. This does not sound like an activity undertaken by an American patriot. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's getting awfully close to sedition.
She's a super-fundie. She wanted to ban books, threatened to fire a librarian who said no to the idea, doesn't believe in evolution, wants to teach creationism in schools, and thinks that humans have nothing to do with global warming. The last point is particularly ironic, given how they've been selling her as being "green".
Oh, and lest we forget, she thinks that the war in Iraq is God's Holy Quest for America.
Look, I'm as disgusted as anyone by the underlying sexism in how women have been portrayed during this electoral season, and as someone from the West coast, it's good to see our guys getting some play, but this woman is nuts. She's crazier than Ron Paul, though probably not quite as racist. She thinks that community organizers have no responsibilities (have you ever met one?), and was mayor of what Alaska state troopers considered to be the meth capitol of Alaska. She was in the middle of an abuse of power investigation when she was nominated. Let's forget about qualifications here for a moment, just for the sake of argument. Even *if* being the mayor of a town with less people than my college dorm and a year's worth of governing Alaska was a reasonable preparation for Vice President to a man who would be our oldest sitting President ever, this is just a BAD IDEA. One of the nice things about not living in the Middle East is that we don't have to live under a fascist theocratic regime.
And yes, you can read that sentence again. I mean it. We've got some pretty intense fundies, but they only run as much of the country as we are willing to cede to them; they held the Presidency for the past 8 years because of the apathy of Americans, not because they seized it by force. The national guard isn't kicking down the doors of gay people and dragging them away for re-education. Abortion doctors are getting harder to find, but they're available; a woman who has been victimized is not forced to suffer for 9 months and give birth to the legacy of her attacker.
But these things are not permanent. If we want them, we have to defend them. FOREVER. There is no sleeping on this watch. If you want to live in the free world, you have to fight for it every day, because there is always going to be someone who wants to destroy it. And it won't be foreigners that are the worst threat; it comes from within. It comes wrapped in a smile and it is pleasantly dressed. It speaks softly and amiably, even as it begins to eat away at your life, destroying your rights and dragging you down into the pit of tyranny. It doesn't matter what they will do for your taxes; first of all, Obama's tax plan benefits more Americans than McCain's does, because Obama's plan affects the lower and middle class. Secondly, money will be a poor salve for what these people will do to our country. One must have priorities, and in America, freedom comes first. Not arguments about when life begins, or what the definition of marriage should be, or even the best way to fix our societal ills. Before any of those things are brought into consideration, we have a duty to defend freedom. John McCain and Sarah Palin are a threat to our freedom, and they cannot be allowed to succeed.
Sep. 4th, 2008 @ 08:14 pm
|
| » This is what Sarah Palin actually believes |
|---|
I hate youtube embedding, so I'm just going to give you the link
I eagerly await her defenders. Please explain to me why I shouldn't be worried about this person being a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
Sep. 3rd, 2008 @ 10:50 am
|
| » My Condolences |
|---|
Steve, I am very sorry to hear about your recent loss.
Aug. 30th, 2008 @ 03:37 pm
|
| » Tyrian |
|---|
I'm not sure how many of you have played Tyrian in the past. I remember when the shareware of it came out, I was hooked. It was absolutely beautiful for the time in which it came out, and the presentation was backed up with some awesome gameplay. At the time, the idea of a 2D shooter that let you buy upgrades to your ship was rather novel. Unfortunately, I was a broke kid when it came out, and the game became both obscure and outdated when I was older, plus it was a DOS game.
Happily, while browsing around a repository of open-source programs (I was there looking for an Ubuntu Linux build of Songbird, which is sort of an Open-Source iTunes, but that's a whole 'nother story. If you happen to be running Ubuntu (unlikely, I know) or another Debian-based distribution, you can find the .deb install files for the game here. Otherwise, you can head over to the OpenTyrian page at Google Code, where they have source code to compile, as well as Mac and Windows installs.
If however, as I suspect, this just seems like maddened ramblings to you because you have no idea what Tyrian is, well...try it out anyway. Apparently it's been freeware since 2004, but I think prior to this I either had a hard time finding the freeware version (I kept getting the shareware), or I was having trouble getting it to run within a modern OS. OpenTyrian solves both of these problems.
Aug. 22nd, 2008 @ 05:54 am
|
| » Not Cool. |
|---|
He announced that he'd be doing this a while ago, much to the chagrin of his supporters, but Barack Obama has now officially flip-flopped on an issue that a good deal of his progressive base actually cares about. Let me re-iterate this: he just voted to the right of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Mind you, I have a sneaky suspicion that if she has gotten the nod their positions might have been reversed, but I still consider this to be a general failure of Democratic will (which is, of course, an oxymoron).
So glad I never registered with that party.
Jul. 9th, 2008 @ 03:21 pm
|
| » An update on my gaming backlog |
|---|
Removed from the queue:
Grand Theft Auto 4, which I finally beat last Saturday.
Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, because my save got corrupted when I was on the last dungeon, and while I may go back to play it, I no longer feel any particular desire to re-do all of that work.
Added to the queue:
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
Which means that the queue is currently:
PC
Diablo II (w/Lord of Destruction)
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (never going to finish this, but I won't uninstall until I do)
Dungeon Siege II (I think I'm close, I could probably kill this off over the weekend)
Restricted Area
PS2
Final Fantasy XII
Yakuza
Grandia III
La Pucelle Tactics
XBOX 360
Lost Odyssey
Mass Effect (I want to join the 1000 achievement club on this game; I've beaten it already though)
Overlord
Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness
DS
Puzzle Quest
Luminous Arc
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Final Fantasy III
PSP
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
Genesis Collection (there are 3 Phantasy Star games that I want to beat on that)
I've decided that I'm going to get serious about clearing out this backlog. Now that I've caught up with Season 3 of BSG, I've got a bit more time. Also, I'm trying to be a bit more efficient with my off-time, so I spend less time bored, or taking care of errands that take too long. I'm pretty sure I can kill of Phoenix Wright, Penny Arcade, FF XII, and Dungeon Siege 2 within the next month or so.
Jul. 9th, 2008 @ 10:06 am
|
| » First thoughts on the PSP (and Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions) |
|---|
I've had the damn thing for less than 20 hours, but lets get started. First, the PSP:
- One of the least comfortable handhelds I've experienced. The fingers on my right hand actually went numb at ont point. The reasons are multiple...unlike a DS, which has one screen flipped up, this one is totally flat, so the holding position is less than natural. But the same can be said for the GBA, and I don't remember it being this uncomfortable. Ergonomic FAIL.
- Beautiful screen. Seriously, I love the size, the brightness, the adjustable brightness (instead of having to reboot and go into settings, like I do with the DS). The screen WINS, big time.
- Networking capabilities are untested, currently. I just haven't had time. I like the feature set though, and while I already have an MP3/video player, I could see this rapidly supplanting my Creative Zen Vision:M for video purposes, based on screen size alone.
- UMDs are poorly designed, with nothing protecting the sensitive media when they're outside of the case. A simple sliding flap would have done wonders for the durability of the media. Oh well.
Onward to Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, a remake of a game that I already own, and am thus rather familiar with. To get the "bad stuff" out of the way first, the animation slowdown is ridiculous and inexcusable. We're talking about a PS1 game, for crying out loud. This is just shoddy coding. Everytime I cast a spell or use any sort of special ability, the game suddenly chugs for a few seconds.
Now for the awesome: the dated, even-ugly-back-in-the-late-90's 3D animation of the original has been replaced with beautifully cel-shaded cinematics, which appear more often, actually use camera angles for dramatic effect, and generally improve the presentation of the game by at least 50%. Granted, a good 30% of that improvement is negated by the animation slowdown, but whatever. The game itself is as I remember it. At first I thought they might have tweaked the AI, but I think that's just illusory; your "guests" fight just as badly as ever, and the opponents are generally clever enough to put up a good fight, or even serve you if you aren't conservative with your tactical deployment. Unlike that horrible piece of crap that they put out on the GBA, this isn't a game that hand-holds you and tosses softballs, relying on gimmicky "laws" to provide the challenge: this is a real strategy game.
I can't be sure about any sound downsampling until I try outputting from the PSP, since it's hardly a fair comparison between my PS2 hooked up to a Samsung HDTV, and a $160 piece of Sony consumer electronics that I picked up for a hundred bucks.
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness is next on my acquisition list. After that, it's a mixed bag of Alpha 3, the GTA games, and some other strategy RPGs. Ironically though, I think I enjoy the full console on my TV to the handheld experience, which isn't what I expected. If you haven't played the *real* Final Fantasy Tactics after more than 10 years, by all means get up and do so. You're cheating yourself with the kindergarten knock-offs that Square is releasing these days.
Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 03:23 pm
|
| » Brief Update |
|---|
I haven't updated in a while. Most of the people who read this already know, but here's what's going on:
1. I switched jobs, and I work in Berkeley now. No more video editing, I'm in more of a tech position now. I work with a lot of academic institutions.
2. GTA IV has claimed ownership of most of my evenings. Also, if you haven't played the Penny Arcade game, you might want to get on top of that. Also, next-gen consoles are considerably enhanced by HDTV.
3. Congratulations to AJ and Allegra, of course.
4. I have a new(er) car. Kind of procrastinating on getting rid of the old one.
5. Obama FTW, etc. I'm disappointed that he's favoring this "compromise" bill on immunity for the phone companies that participated in warrantless wiretapping, but he's the lesser evil by many orders of magnitude.
6. Last week, I swear I saw a guy who looked just like Richmond in Oakland. I know it wasn't him, but...damn, the guy looked a lot like Richmond.
I think that about covers it.
Jun. 26th, 2008 @ 01:12 pm
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jonathancadle's journal
