The LK LJ

This could be awesome

2008-07-02T16:41:08Z

Chrono Trigger on the DS!

http://www.destructoid.com/it-s-officialtoid-chrono-trigger-ds-is-coming-to-north-america-93413.phtml#ext

Too Human

2008-06-17T01:17:00Z

Erica, Laura, Chris!

There is a game coming out August 19th called Too Human. It's an action RPG. It has talent trees, leveling up, loot drops, and specialized classes much like Diablo/WoW. And there are cinematics and stylized fighting, like Devil May Cry. And you can play it multi-player online. I think it would be bad-ass if we could play through it multi-player.

Check it out: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/toohuman/index.html
Or just watch this: http://www.gamespot.com/video/928546/6190846/too-human-official-movie-2

That is all.

OH SHIT

2008-06-16T01:22:16Z

I'm pregnant.

Stuff

2008-06-09T00:07:38Z

6 of us (Laura, Chris, Erica, Chad, Lora, me) went to Medieval Times last night. I like that place! This time I actually got a goblet full of rum and coke, and it was delicious. We screamed a lot and ate chicken with our hands and were merry. Some dude slammed a door into my arm, which didn't feel so good. Other than that, good times.

I beat BioShock. It gets really good towards the end. I also finally beat Lost Odyssey, dammit. I've come to realize that I no longer have the patience for long, dry, menu-driven RPGs like I used to.

Also, we're hiring another programmer for BrightFuse. This is a real job, for a real website. Yes, we will pay you real money. No, this website is not a "side project". Check it out here: http://www.brightfuse.com/Pages/Careers.aspx

Because it's worth saying

2008-05-23T01:28:53Z

You know what I really like? Bears.

Did you know that bears have excellent hearing, and can even hear high pitched sounds beyond human hearing, just like dogs can? That's pretty awesome.

Sup

2008-05-16T20:55:27Z

Got back from Chicago last night. Flight was delayed. Airports are boring.

I decided to take today off for no good reason. Just trying to keep from hitting the the limit on PTO, and figured I'd rather chill and play WoW all day. And so I did.

I've been playing my shaman a lot lately. He's a cool guy. Kind of a hippy, I s'pose.

Shout out to Erica, my new neighbor!

Finally, I would advise not buying Questionable Content merchandise. I feel like a bad guy saying that, but seriously, bad experience.

My mind is blown!

2008-05-13T03:36:15Z

It's true!

2008-05-12T14:52:11Z

Women LOVE yogurt!

http://current.com/items/88941392_target_women_yogurt_edition

FACT

2008-05-03T20:55:59Z

When you go to the gynecologist and the doctor asks "are you sexually active" and you say "yes" for the first time, does the doctor high-five you?

Will Smith's real first name is Willard: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000226/bio.

Looking Good

2008-04-27T20:29:23Z

I've been settling into the new place for about a week now. I have to say, the new furniture is looking good. Bless you, Ikea.

Lora gave me some ghost bunny art, and I got a giant picture of wheat to fill in some wall space. Lora thinks it's not wheat, but she's probably just wrong.

In other news, I got a promotion. Software Engineer 3.0!

ANNOUNCEMENT

2008-04-25T23:59:43Z

Many of you have voiced extreme concern in this matter, but I want to let everyone know that there's no need to worry. The wall scroll with the naked anime chick on it survived the move and is now adorning a wall in the living room next to my TV.

Please, continue living as normal.

Damn Comcast

2008-04-11T00:34:28Z

The moment I got home from vacation I had to deal with more of Comcast's bullshit.

I called them the day before I left for vacation to schedule my cable hookup for the new place when I move in 2 weeks. I did not tell them to cancel my current service immediately, leaving me without TV or internet for 2 weeks. That would be stupid. But that is exactly what they did.

Getting it back on is not easy. I'd have to schedule a time for a cable guy to come out and turn it on, just as if I had moved. And then when I really do move, they have to come out again. And we already know how spectacularly Comcast fails at making their appointments.

It's remarkable, the new and exciting ways Comcast finds to piss me off. More than I've blogged about in this LJ. It is hard for me to express how much I hate Comcast.

So, instead of just whining about it, I actually did something about it. I cancelled all appointments and services. I'm going to get AT&T for internet and Dish Network for TV. I'll have to pay $75 for a new modem and $50 if I don't want to be tied to a contract with Dish Network, but I can handle that. And actually, my monthly payments will be about $20 less, and I'll get twice as many channels, and HD.

So to recap, Comcast sucks.

I am fully expecting the cancellation of their service to also piss me off in some way.

FLAILING PIRATE SUPER EDIT:

I went to Disney World! I didn't want to blog about the trip while I was fuming, but I'll have a much nicer post about it soon.

Super Mario Land

2008-04-06T18:09:55Z

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vD_FkIsQUB8

I remember beating Super Mario Land on my little original gameboy, at some korean church, during a sermon. The final song (in the game and in this video) is a song I actually really liked, despite the terrible audio on gameboys.

:D

Yep.

2008-04-06T02:11:11Z

I bought Lost Odyssey, been playing it all day. It is very much a JRPG in the same vein as Final Fantasy 7-10, which is simply fantastic.

In other news, I'm going to Disney World!

My April Fool's Day Prank

2008-04-01T19:44:31Z

I added this to the code base at work:

    If Now.Month = 4 AndAlso Now.Day = 1 Then
        ' today's the day!

        Dim Rand As New Random()
        If Rand.Next(0, 10) = 0 Then
            ' yeah, I chopped it up so you couldn't do a global search muahahahaha
            NavigateUrl = "http://yo" & "utub" & "e.com/w" & "atch?v" & "=oH" & _
                          "g5S" & "JYR" & "HA0"
        End If
    End If

For those of you that don't speak VB.NET, it makes every link on our website have a 10% chance to be a rickroll.

Teh Future!

2008-03-20T18:06:14Z

Today is a good day for posting. Here are my predictions for the future. By future, I mean the next few decades.

Computing will continue to grow with Moore's Law for a while, until a major breakthrough in quantum computing is made. Except it's not the full real deal quantum computing that geeks across the world are flipping out over right now, but it's close enough that computers become magnitudes faster than you would expect with Moore's Law.

This, of course, has a bunch of effects on society. Cracking passwords becomes trivial, leading to a new era of security issues. And yes, computers become "smarter", but no Terminator SkyNet junk going on just yet. One big thing that happens though is a huge boost in pharmaceuticals.

The billions that pharmaceuticals spend on research and developement of new drugs goes much further thanks to quantum computing. New drugs are discovered at an alarming rate. This leads to something huge: BRM. Biological rights management.

Yep. Just like DRM, but for your body. Doctors inject patients with a special compound, unique to each patient, that acts as a key. The patient then gets prescriptions filled that are, in a way, encrypted to only work when the compound is present in the body. If the compound is not present, nothing happens. Or maybe they die, I don't know, depends on how sadistic you want to get.

The whole thing is meant to keep people from taking drugs when they're not supposed to, especially people that get addicted to prescription pain killers. But the government takes this one step further.

Americans are forced to take litmus shots for controlled substances. These are compounds that stay in the body and have specific reactions to illegal drugs. So, for example, if you shoot up heroin, your skin turns green. Or maybe you die, I don't know, depends on how sadistic you want to get.

This might seem like a terrible invasion of personal rights, but people don't really care as much. This may seem like another cliche prediction of dystopian society, but the future will have a lot more of this "big brother" stuff, in large part, because it is completely transparent.

By transparent, I mean that it's unnoticable. Surveillance is not a camera staring at you with riot-geared police standing around. It is completely invisible. And more importantly, it's not just based on vision. Technology will be developed that allows for surveillance based on biology, heat signatures, miniscule levels of magnetism in the human body, or some other crazy method of tracking. Surveillance devices don't even need to be present. Just a satellite over your head.

An interesting side effect of all this is promiscuity. At least, by today's standards. Nudity is no longer taboo, as such privacies are so easily subverted. The general sense of privacy and intimacy associted with sex is gone, since, well, if anyone could be watching, it's not very private. This makes sex a much more open thing.

Of course, there will still be radical conservative christians denouncing it. They will have their daughters injected with litmus shots that make their skin turn green when they have sex. Or maybe cause death, I don't know, depends on how sadistic you want to get.

Goodbye!

2008-03-18T02:36:44Z

So, I finally quit WoW. Unsubscribed and uninstalled.

WoW was great. It's amazing how much they put into that game. I've logged over 2,200 hours played on Runik alone before deciding to quit. For something to entertain me for that long is unbelievable.

There seems to be some sort of natural assumption that anyone that quits an MMO did so to escape addiction. Whatever, when I was addicted I kept playing. But I've finally grown bored of it and haven't really played much at all lately. There's just such a sense of nostalgia and comfort to it that made it hard to finally cut it off. But I'm moving on. Hello, xbox.

Goodbye, Runik!

You too, Sunik!

/tear

FLAMING NINJA SHADOW EDIT:

Too bad I decided to quit today, the same day that I was auto-billed for another month. Dammit.

In other news, I beat Portal.

Teh Xbox 360!

2008-03-17T17:37:56Z

August is all moved out. There is nothing in my living room, except for a TV, xbox, and a blanket to sit on. It's not so bad, actually. It's like having a video game picnic.

I bought The Orange Box, tried out some Portal and Team Fortress 2. I'm digging Portal. I'm more of a mouse+keyboard guy, so I'll have to work on my dexterity using a controller for FPS games. I kept turning left when I meant to turn right, and vice versa. I have no idea why.

I'll probably go pick up another game today for variety's sake. I'm thinking Burnout Paradise.

If any of you are on xbox live, give me your handles!

Mmmm, web comics

2008-03-14T02:59:26Z

I just finished catching up on Questionable Content. Yep. All 1,098 comics. It was really interesting, because all I knew going in (thanks to Chris) was that some girl named Faye kisses some guy name Sven, and I went through 1,000+ comics to see how that ended up happening.

Of course, they make it difficult on purpose

2008-03-06T03:30:17Z

With all my shows being available for free online after they air on TV, I really don't see a need for TiVo anymore. So I cancelled it. And now I'm bitching about it. Truth be told, the whole process probably took 15 minutes tops, but it could have taken 14 minutes less. I demand instant gratification!

How I cancelled my TiVo:

1. Went to the website to look for an easy and convenient way to cancel online with minimal hassle. HAHAHA!
2. Searched FAQ for any help at all.
3. Found customer service number and called it.
4. Listened to ads, navigated menu options, waited on hold.
5. Talked to some dude who eventually transferred me to billing.
6. Talked to some lady. She had a pleasant speaking demeanor, I'll give her that.
7. Turned down offer to stay for 2 free months of service.
8. Turned down offer to stay if $12.95/mo was lowered to $9.95/mo.
9. Lady tells me that the account will be cancelled immediately, not at the end of the month I've already paid for.
10. I inform lady how shady this is.
10b. I already gave them the money. Shouldn't they give me what I paid for?
10c. This is obviously a ploy to get me to hang up, plan to call back at the end of the month, forget to do so, and get billed for another month.
11. I refuse to relent. Tell lady I still want to cancel. Now.
12. Put on hold.
13. Account is cancelled.

The moral of the story: if you have TiVo, pretend like you want to cancel and they'll cut your rate by 25%.

2099 is not a leap year

2008-03-01T22:25:56Z

3 years ago, at work, I apparently wrote a bug that would only occur every 4 years, on a leap day. Guess what yesterday was.

Sick and Stuff

2008-02-27T01:26:54Z

I'm sick. I pet a goat when Lora and I went to the zoo on Sunday. And now I'm sick. Coincidence? Probably. But it's easy to blame goats. So I took the day off, but right now I'm actually feeling worse than I was yesterday, so maybe I'll take 2 days off. Damn goat.

In other news, the leasing office had me down as a 13 month lease in the computer system, but a 12 month lease on paper. Since the lease I signed is the one that matters, well, end result is that I'm moving out a month sooner than expected. Which is actually what I originally expected. Because really, who gets a 13 month lease? That's weird.

I put a deposit down on a nice little 1 bedroom. April 19th, I'm moving. I already have furniture with funny names all picked out from Ikea. Sweet.

And now: Survival of the Fittest.

Brilliant Idea

2008-02-20T16:03:41Z

The National Wildlife Association should launch a new awareness campaign using NIN's "Closer" as their theme song. But change the line "I want to fu*k you like an animal" to "I want to conserve you like an animal". The rest of the lyrics should also be adjusted to follow suit.

I win!

2008-02-16T18:49:37Z

I finally finished Final Fantasy 12. Damn, that was a long game.

Also, this post has more alliteration than I expected.

Public service announcement

2008-01-25T03:36:33Z

Warning: blue cheese doritos are REALLY GROSS TASTING. I was shocked. Really.

I meant to post more, but maybe I'll just let that sink in.