Heres an article I’ve been thinking of random bits and pieces for over the week, so I’ve decided to compile them and post them. So here it is – 15 things to teach your kid as young as possible – the 15 kinds of things that should never go untaught. Ever.
1) If it ends up in the toilet, its gone forever. FOR. EVER.
2) Don’t touch anything that doesn’t belong to you. Assume everything that isn’t yours is full of spiders and KEEP YOUR GODDAMNED HANDS OFF IT.
3) Walking barefoot in sand will get you hosed the fuck down. With ice cold water.
4) Throwing your food on the floor at home, or the bin at school will get you 1: belted and 2: starved in your room until the next day.
5) Touching a dog and then touching food/other people warrants a hosing down also.
6) The computer is more valuable than you are. Remember this forever.
7) Drinking daddy/mummy’s beer/wine/bourbon while they’re not looking will get you 5 across the eyes.
8 ) Assume every adult you see is a paedophile (except your family, of course).
9) Playing in the kitchen will get you belted. Hard.
10) Playing with the telephone, or a mobile phone will get you double-belted, especially if either of them suddenly disappear.
11) Touching a toilet in any way warrants instant hand washing – with SOAP. NO EXCUSES.
12) Trying to get daddy’s attention while he’s playing videogames/watching a movie will see you locked in your bedroom until the following day.
13) Liars always get found out. Being dishonest will eventually get you belted really hard. It’s much better to tell the truth and accept a small belting up front, than getting found out in the future and being belted until sitting down brings tears to your eyes.
14) Hitting your mother will result in your father hitting you in a way that will teach you not to try that again.
15) Running amok in a shopping centre, or out in public where running amok is generally not acceptable, will result in you having the belting of a lifetime, which doubles in intensity per public outing you misbehave in. Wooden spoons may snap over your arse if belting intensity reaches certain heights.
Print these out and stick them on your fridge, or laminate them and give them to your kids. Make sure you follow through with the epic beltings though, or you’ll look soft, and everybody knows soft parents breed thugs, drug addicts, murderers and general scum!
EOF
I am not a hardcore gamer. I don’t play FPS games for fear of throwing up my soul, I’m no good at RTS games (I do <3 me some StarCraft though), and I have approximately 5 games for my PS2. I much prefer to watch someone else play long-form games unless it’s some sort of point-and-click puzzle/adventure or Killer7. It’s that Kon Smith. He’s so cool.
On the other hand, I spend a portion of nearly every day playing casual games. I love these things. They are great diversions, and occasionally I run across one that turns out to be much more than I had expected. The other day I was poking around Kongregate when I discovered a new game called ImmorTall. I’ve played Hunted Forever and Alter, other games by Pixelante and I was already in it just to see some more of this developer’s artistic style. I clicked, the music started, I was ready to find out what that extra “l” in the title is for.
True to Pixelante’s style, the art is gorgeous. It’s got a retro feel, not too detailed but looking instead like something from a retro-futuristic war poster. The coloring is mostly primary with black and white. I loved the sounds: guitar punctuates every game happening as well as providing a moody musical backdrop to the action.
You begin the game as a little inchwormy alien who has emerged from a crashed ship. Over the course of the next few minutes you meet people, get snacks, grow tall, and then become a human alien shield. There isn’t a lot to figure out and when you need to do something instructions appear on the screen to guide you. This could be said to be a linear game, in that there is a single ending which really cannot be prevented, only staved off. I won’t pull any punches here: I played this game several times to see how much I could influence the ending and I cried my eyes out every single time.
My impression of ImmorTall is that it’s a very well done tiny story about any number of things including our fear of the unknown, the ways humans are willing to harm one another “for their own good”, and -depending on the circumstances at the ending- sacrifice.
It’s brilliant in that there’s just enough there to nudge you toward some understanding of what the game means, though it might be very different from the interpretations of other players. It made me think, and according to Pixelante’s Twitter feed there are a lot of varying opinions as to its meaning. That is, I think, as it should be. Art is interpreted by the one who experiences it.
I recommend this game for anyone who’s got about 5 minutes and a little thought power to spare. From beginning to end it’s a tiny masterpiece and the newest of my favorites. It’s games like this that show me the strength of play as a vehicle for storytelling and inspire me to want to make my own.
Rated 5 momspiders - A perfect score
Yes, the videogame. Been playing around with this latest sandbox game. It does a lot of things right. And it looks pretty… but…
This is a game for killing Nazis from the point of view of an Irish race driver and mechanic helping out the french resistance. Seriously. You get to run around laying dynamite and evading patrols in a sort of reverse terrorism, because it’s to give the good people of France hope, restoring color to the world.
The actual gameplay is rather straightforward. It’s a GTA style game with wall-climbing, because that’s the new thing these days. In this environment, the Nazi army has established rather a large number of guard towers. You get to remove them with dynamite. It’s a bit of civic cleanup… rather literally, as the work is akin to picking up trash off the roadside.
Fortunately, once you clear the streets and rooftops of these eyesores, the game rewards you by not actually having any of them respawn. The major benefit is obvious! Uh… well, you get paid for it. A little. And when you run away from Nazi alerts, it’s easier to lose them in an area where you’ve destroyed all watchtowers.
About the only thing that’s really new here (since transforming a landscape’s color pattern is as fresh as Prince of Persia and as old as Q*Bert) is the “Perk” system. The game has a few skills and upgrades unlocked not by amassing loot and buying them, but by achievements. Each is a line of 3 tiers, unlocking the potential to finish the next, and giving progressively more game-changing rewards. In many cases, the work is really its own reward, as you can upgrade your ability to throw folks around in melee simply by throwing a few Nazis off their towers. Or not just getting some practice in with a sniper rifle, but by lining up shots where you cap 2 soldiers with one bullet. The abilities unlocked vary a bit from minimizing recoil to letting you summon a vehicle driven by a shopkeeper. Important, as, well, even with upgraded storage for multiple types of explosives, you are only one man, and you are trying to blow up several hundred structures.
Part of me really wants to enjoy this game, for the spectacle, and the unlockables. But I’m already most of the way through them, and… realizing about all the game has to offer from here is combat and sneaking around to eliminate a gigantic number of minor obstacles. Not that this is a bad thing, but I would be far more involved in the game itself if this realization had been delayed by another layer of accomplishments.
Playing this game on the PC of course provides another layer of fun in the form of crashes. Thank god for quicksave. That feature alone has made the game go from impossible to reasonable, due to a tendency to crash after 20-50 minutes playing at anything higher than minimum resolution. Whether this represents a holdover from the console editions or my computer’s shoddy design… the world may never know. I will, however, not forgive the game for having no quick way to access the full map. You can only enter the menu, select map, and then select Full Map. Which is ridiculous, because you only ever want the full map on that screen.
Most recently, in an event that probably sums up my impression of the game, I found a spot to drive downhill through a park, hitting a few ramps to jump the vehicle for profit. The game only requires that you get the car over the ramp, not to manage to land something you cannot adequately control. It is functional, and less frustrating than many GTAs, but a bit tedious for the rewards offered. Still, a bit of fun to take care of before moving on.
There seem to be many people in life who live as if they were annual, they develop for a short period, spread their seed and die. Sometimes it is a slow death, waiting for death accelerated only by the toxins chosen. Sometimes the lack of growth prevents true strength, and they crumble and succumb to various pressures, and hasten their demise.
There also seem to be those who never stop their growth, through the years the fire they carry remains hot and vibrant. They never wait for death, death comes to them when it is time. To constantly grow is to have a certain degree of assuredness and an uncertain degree of doubt.
Like the tree, we have thick rings of great growth and thin rings of stagnation.
Unlike the tree, we can choose thick or thin. Which do you choose?
So, as I am a catholic, I am (at least nominally) required to give something up for the forty days before Easter, also known as Lent. So, it came down to 11:00 or so on the night of Fat Tuesday, and i still hadn’t come up with anything. A few minutes after this thought floated on through my head, I thought about precisely how much time I wasted dicking around on the Internet. And thus, an Idea was born. Fairly quickly I realized it was pretty much impossible to avoid it completely in this day and age, so I revised my proscription to what I deem the Big 3 (twitter, Facebook, and IRC). So, about halfway through now, I’ve decided to post my findings.
1) I’m reading a LOT more. I’ve read more books in the past three weeks than I have in most of the past year.
2) I spend less time on the Internet in general. While I haven’t completely stopped Internet-dicking-about, it’s reduced to reading technology blogs.
3) I’m reading far less webcomics, which is a combination of several things, but partially due to the lack of comic-related chatter on IRC.
4) My grades have not significantly improved. This further supports my conclusion that teenagers will find ways to procrastinate, even without the major time-wasters on the internet.
5) I don’t suck at StarCraft anymore. This could be related, or it could not be. However, it is something I have realized as the days have gone by.
In light of all this, I don’t think I’ll be staying away permanently. i would guess I’ll spend less time on facebook,at least in the time immediately following Easter, but I get the feeling I’ll still spend hours on IRC as soon as I’m able to.
Valentine’s Day. Where to start? I’ve never liked this “holiday”. I never have, even when I was in a relationship for it. I don’t understand anything about this day really, other than the history behind it. Which makes me wish I could find the newspaper article I wrote my sophomore year in high school…
No, it’s not because I’m single that I despise it (so don’t even begin to judge based on that), and no it’s not that I’m bitter or heartless. It’s the fact that everyone gets so caught up in this ONE day to go out of their way to show affection or whatever the crap they’re trying to show. So those of you who are quick to judge and say , “it’s just the single people that hate this holiday,” think again. It has always been just another day in the year for me to enjoy as I normally would. I can find several other friends of mine who are in relationships who would say the same as I just did.
You see guys (or girls) at the store lined up to buy roses, or little teddy bears with hearts on them, chocolates, whatever. That may be for some people, but it’s never been for me. In fact, when I was still working at the mall a few years ago on February 14th a coworker asked me nicely, “What are you doing today?” I responded, “absolutely nothing, it’s just another day.” Now keep in mind I did NOT sound angry about it or anything, I was just being honest about my plans. So he quickly and sharply responds with, “Wow someone’s single, or bitter!” Rude much? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
First off, any plants or flowers are just a bad idea for me. I DO NOT have a green thumb. I have normal skin colored ones, that don’t do anything except what thumbs are supposed to do unfortunately. I don’t remember to water plants. I don’t even remember that there are plants in my apartment if I buy them, which is why I don’t bother with spending money on them. What was brought to me in the hospital is an exception, although the dry air in there killed them pretty fast unfortunately. Hell, I don’t even remember to wear my glasses when I’m driving sometimes. I should considering I’m slightly nearsighted, and can’t see signs for where I need to get to when they are so far off in the distance (aka I won’t notice until I’m right about under that sign, and by then it’s too late). So I would feel bad if they died a few days after because I neglected them, and there’s about a 95% chance that WILL happen.
Second, I would lose something like a small teddy bear.I usually prefer gifts that are practical if I get anything at all, I love stuff that I can actually use, stuff that I can learn with, stuff that will actually entertain me, stuff that I can read…you get the point. Sure, it’s nice to get the random gifts every now and then that aren’t practical, but that stuff just ends up piling up, and becomes lost in the black hole in my apartment anyway after about a week.
Again, this is excluding the stuff I was given while in the hospital, because my mom was nice enough to create a space for them to sit on (thanks mom). Those are a completely different case because I was going through a hard time in the ICU when they were given to me. They have true meanings behind them rather than, “hey I just picked up this random thing for you from the store since i saw it on a shelf then remembered it was the 14th” type of deal.
Third, I don’t usually eat candy unless it’s around ‘that time of the month’ or I am a bit stressed. I loved it when I was a kid, but now that I’m older I’m worn out on it (candy) for the most part, so I end up wasting it (which would make me feel guilty). If I go on a binge I’d end up eating the whole box, feeling guilty again, and feeling it in my pants in the next few days when I try to button them as I’m getting dressed. Then I’d feel self conscious, depressed that I allowed myself to do such a thing, and beat myself up in my mind for not having better control. Yet again, all candy brought to my room while I was in ICU is a different case. Trust me when I tell you that I ate almost ALL of what showed up. I am not kidding, and that was A LOT of candy!
So part of what I’m trying to say is; even if I had a significant other right now I would NOT want them to spend any money on me just because of this day. It would be a waste when their money could have gone toward something better. If someone I was involved with felt like they had to buy my love, I would instantly feel like something was wrong in the relationship. I’m a pretty independent 22 going on 23-year-old woman, and I absolutely hate to feel helpless. I love to help others in any way I can, but I never expect anything back. I’m not royalty, I don’t expect things bought for me, and I don’t expect things done for me. So please don’t treat me like I am something to just spend your money on, because honestly it makes me a tad uncomfortable, and it definitely makes me feel weird. If you absolutely can’t handle this & feel you absolutely have to spend ANY money on me, then pay my rent for the rest of the year! Kidding… but help with a phone bill, gas bill, electric bill, or internet bill would be something I could and would appreciate more. That kind of stuff is practical, and when I’m not behind on payments it runs less than 30 bucks (excluding cell phone).
Finally! On to what I really just wanted to get out there with this post! Yes, it may be the thought that counts, and yes I am grateful for ANY gifts I receive no matter how cheesy, cheap, expensive, weird, big, small, fat, tiny, or color they may be. Yes, I’m glad to know people do love & care about one another, me, or some random stranger in the world. However, the thing that bothers me the most about all this is the fact that it is only focused on for one day out of the year. Why? Shouldn’t we be loving each other every day? Isn’t that why people get into relationships, or get married in the first place? You know, because they have feelings or love for each other anyway? Shouldn’t you do a little something for your other half no matter what day it is, say just because you felt like it, or felt they deserved it for being so awesome?
It’s not that hard to do something special for someone outside of this day, like maybe pick up their favorite ice cream from the grocery store while you’re out, help them finish something they may have been struggling with, pick up something from the store that they wanted, but couldn’t buy at the time, or spend a day just hanging out doing whatever they want to do. You’re obviously with this person for a reason, show them you love them every chance you that you can even if it’s not with material objects!
Okay, I’m still going. I’m just about done though, I promise! So hang in there!
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying , “be a total pushover, and let people walk all over you.” Things are bound to go wrong if a relationship becomes one person always being the giver, and one person always being the taker instead of it being as close to 50/50 as possible. Although for me, as long as I am on the giving end at least a little bit more than 50% of the time I am content, and tons more comfortable. Yes, that has brought me into some bad situations before, but thankfully as I get older I’m at least getting a bit wiser, and know when someone is using me.
Same goes toward showing your family love too, they will always be the ones who around when nobody else is… or even when other people are! They are the ones who put up with you through your toughest times, and your toughest years (sure there may be exceptions in some cases), but never forget to tell them you love them either no matter what the day may be. You never know what’s to come, so always show your appreciation for those you care about when you can. I suffered a stroke back in January due to the AVM in my brain bleeding, and I will never take anything for granted again like simply being able to tell my family members that I love them whether it’s in writing or in text. Speaking of which, I LOVE MY PARENTS, SIBLINGS, AND ALL OF MY FAMILY! <3 ! EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR!
Oh! I would also like to add I LOVE ALL OF MY FRIENDS TOO!
To be fair, a 500 dollar dell is not going to be the same quality of hardware as a macbook. Where apple really dings you, however, is the high end. As far as I know, apple hasn’t released a core i7 system. Additionally, windows has A) a huge library of software going back twenty years (compared to OSX’s three, four at the most), B) real gaming support (mostly microsoft’s fault, but still), and C) I can install windows on whatever the fuck hardware I want. OSX I legally am not allowed to do that.
As to the virus issue, OSX is only mostly virus free because of its comparatively small market share. As that market share increases, more of the people who develop viruses will turn to developing them for OSX. Contrary to what apple may want you to think, OSX is no more secure than windows is. Additionally, anti-virus companies have a huge amount of experience combating windows viruses, and almost none combating OSX viruses, so when the time comes that it is popular to write OSX viruses, who do you think will be on top then?
Also: the leading anti-virus software on the market, both Kaspersky anti-virus and (my personal favorite) eset nod32, have a 90% plus detection rate. I’ll stick with windows.
And before some wiseass says that OSX has been around ten years, yes it has, however when apple switched from powerpc to intel, that rendered most of its previous software obsolete and incompatible.
(This is completely unedited from a facebook comment I made, I may edit for better blog-reading later. As it is, enjoy.)
Tonight I was watching a movie at a friends place – Van Diemens Land – a movie made in Australia, about a bunch of convicts who escape the police and end up in the bush. They apparently turn to cannibalism. I have no fucking idea because I didn’t finish watching the movie. However this movie was totally and utterly rage inducing. Never have I watched a movie that brought my blood pressure, body heat, and anger level up so fast.
The first scene in the movie was a close-up zoom of a mans mouth from the side, as he ate fuck knows what. The camera stayed panned in for about 90 seconds, as this fucking cocksucker chewed his shit noisily, and took more bites. At this point I could not bear to stay silent any longer, and my anger made me scream out “PAN THE FUCKING CAMERA OUT FOR FUCKS SAKE”. The camera generally zoomed in on any food if there was some present in the shot, which got really fucking annoying. Did the creator of this movie think it was arty and edgy to include these shots in the film? Because if he did, he deserves to be shot. I’m sure no one wants to stand 10cm away from someone who is eating in real life, why the fuck would anyone want to watch it constantly during a movie? Stupid as fuck.
Another thing was the constant inclusion of gaelic (I think). Sometimes the 7 or 8 prisoners talked in gaelic which brought up subtitles, but other times they spoke in English. For what reason, I have no fucking idea. It didn’t make a goddamned lick of sense in the slightest. How about sticking to one language? The director of this movie is obviously a fucking prick. speaking of pricks, onto the next thing:
Dicks. There were a lot of dicks in the movie. Firstly they beat the shit out of the guard who was keeping an eye on them and stripped his clothes off, so he was naked. His dick was fucking tiny. Like it was non-existant almost. He would have been a prime forum user for MyTinyDick.net. Next they got naked to cross a stream, holding their clothes on their shoulder and wading across the river, which was fucking pointless because their shit got wet anyway, fucking retards. And during this scene we get to see their cocks. 7 scruffy convict faggots and their tiny pencil dicks. I was almost convinced they were gonna start jerking each other off in the water. And I was hoping they would emerge from the water covered in dick leeches. Because fuck you arseholes. You deserve dick leeches for agreeing to be in such a shit, annoying fucking movie.
Van Diemen’s Land is a cocksuck of a movie, and I wouldn’t recommend watching it to my worst enemy, let alone anyone else. I give it 2 stars out of 10. The only reason it gets 2 stars is because I feel sorry for the tiny cock dude. Give him some credit for getting his pin dick out on camera. But fuck the rest of the movie. If I ever meet the director for it, I’m gonna shove a fucking steak up his arse and punch him in the mouth. Fuck you.
EOF
Recently I was watching my friend play Mass Effect 2, and noticed that he had come across an obstacle (a raised section of land) but seeing as the game has no JUMPING, he had to take the scenic route, walking up a ramped section of land for 2 minutes while being shot at. Something he could have avoided had the game included jumping. This seems to be a major fucking flaw with RPGs and even a few 3rd Person Shooters. Why the fuck can’t I just jump over this obstacle? Why was it so fucking difficult to include a jumping button, instead of making me run the fuck around things, and get stuck on sections of land raised 10cm. Notorious fuck-ups in jumping include Mass Effect (and ME2), The Witcher, MMORPG The Saga of Ryzom, Gears of War, and Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic (and KOTOR2). Apparently Jedi’s have no fucking idea how to jump. Suddenly they’re robbed of one of the powers everyone knows they have – Force Jump. Well done Bioware, you fucking dropped the ball on this one.
Who in the FUCK decides to not include a jumping action for these games? It certainly takes a bit of fun out of the game when you have to walk around every object in your path rather than hopping over them without any difficulty. Mass Effect 2 advertises the fact that it has a shitload of hours worth of gameplay. About half of that must be walking around obstacles you could easily JUMP THE FUCK OVER. Another fuckup is that you CAN jump over cover objects, but you first need to take cover behind them, like some sort of fucking retard. The Witcher also suffers this, making you walk around low fences and getting you stuck on slightly raised objects. Its fucking irritating to the extreme.
Anyway, thats my rant for the day.
EOF
Yesterday, sporting a niggling hangover that just wouldn’t go away, I started looking for something to take which would dull the hangover or replace the feeling of it with a different feeling all together. I had been reading about how promethazine was not only an antihistamine, but also a central nervous system depressant, which can also potentiate opiates, alcohol, tricyclic antidepressants, and other chemicals. The side effects of promethazine included sedation and euphoria, which sounded interesthing to me, seeing as promethazine is available over the counter at the pharmacy.
Armed with a 50 pack of Phenergan 25mgs, I decided to take a handful of them and see what sort of effects I could get out of the drug. I took my first 75mg dose at around 12pm, and waited a while. Over a period of about an hour, I started noticing the effects of the drug. I felt sleepy and heavy, the visualiser on my music player started looking very interesting, and I stared at it for about 30 minutes. I eventually pulled myself away from staring at it, and went back to IRC, and started chatting away. About an hour and a half after taking the first dose I took another 50mg. I continued to chat on IRC and briefly stare at the visualiser which had started looking better and better as time went on.
About an hour after the 2nd dose, a friend had asked me to play a game of Modern Warfare 2 with him on the PS3, so I took a further 25mg of phenergan and got up to go to the loungeroom. As I got up I noticed I was having a little trouble breathing, it felt like something was sitting on my chest. I was also feeling extremely heavy and reasonably cloudy headed. I sat myself down on the couch and started playing the game, which I was totally shitty at. By this time I was totally buzzing off the drug and feeling so sedated I would have been able to close my eyes and fall asleep sitting up if I had wanted to. I also had a very slight feeling of euphoria, and my limbs were so heavy it took a lot of effort to move around. My breathing was still heavy and laboured but not as much as before I had taken the 3rd dose.
After around an hour of MW2 I went back to my room to chill out in front of my computer. As I got up off the couch, my knees buckled and I almost fell. I could barely stay standing, and movement was clumsy and difficult. I was also feeling disassociated, and nothing around me seemed real. When I sat back at my computer, I could see the room breathing with me, as thought I had taken a lot of pot or acid.
By about 5 hours after the first dose I could barely keep myself awake. Typing was laborious and near impossible. My fingers wouldn’t press the right keys, and they were way uncoordinated to backspace their mistakes. My head was swimming and I thought I felt nauseous and shaky. I got up and grabbed a few breakfast-shake-in-a-box things, and slammed one down, just incase it was hunger I was feeling. They seemed to settle my nausea/shaky feeling and I continued to sit at my computer, staring at winamps visualiser, and chilling out. After about an hour of that I decided that staying awake any longer was going to be impossible. I got up out of my chair and clumsily walked to my bed, knees buckling at every step. Falling into bed I passed out after about 30 minutes or so, around 7:30pm
At around 10pm I woke up for a piss, and found that I was still incredibly high from the promethazine. Everything was hazy and I felt groggy and disoriented. My knees were still buckling as I walked, making it difficult to get anywhere without falling on my arse. By the morning when I had woken up (around 9:30am), the effects of the drug were all but gone, save for a groggy feeling. I also got an awesome sleep and I woke up feeling refreshed.
All in all, promethazine is kinda fun to take a lot of, and from what I’ve read about it, reasonably safe (note: do your own research before you take my word on that), and, as it is obtainable over the counter at the pharmacy, its very easy and cheap to get a hold of. However, the first experience was reasonably good, but I can’t see myself taking such a high dose of it again as it seems to be more a sedative than a euphoric, but I bet it goes great with oxycodone or pot.
Enjoy your drugs responsibly 
EOF