Bill stammered. “But you are a sadist, a pervert, a beast, a creature, a thing, a murderer . . .”

Only interested in one thing, a niiiiiiight of
xard L0vee!

Wanna know how a website should look and work? That’s how.

Kudos, man.

Edit: A lot of it is handled by javascript, which can be a mixed bag, but it’s still a sharp site.

Steelbuddha: I just thought of a funny conversation that someone could have. “I’m having a Rhinestone day.” “What’s that?” “It’s a day where I would rather watch Rhinestone back to back for nine hours than actually work. Do you hear what I’m saying? I would rather watch Sylvester Stallone. Sing. Country Music.”

Czeltic Girl: Oh, it’s definitely a Rhinestone day. Hell, it’s a Steven Segal Film Fest day.

Steelbuddha: No, no. You’re not understanding this. Watching Steven Seagal films at least involves violence, and occasionally nudity. Rhinestone culminates in Sly Stallone singing country music.

Czeltic Girl: Yes, but I’d rather watch Sly try to sing than Segal try to act.

Steelbuddha: Wow. I underestimated your pain tolerance.

Czeltic Girl: So many do.

DDO, or Dungeons and Dragons Online, had a pre-order beta test pre-play gig going on last week, and despite myself I decided to pick up a copy. I say “despite myself” because my impression before reading up on the game was that it was going to follow in the molds of its MMORPG predecessors and be a wholly unfulfilling prospect, (with the notable exception of WoW, which feels like its own type of game in my mind.)

After reading up on it, several enticing aspects drew my attention.

• No “killing fields” where players simply devastate populations of wild animals or tribes of humanoids to gain the dubious experience that makes them more powerful.
• Close adherence to 3rd edition D&D corebook rules, which as a very critical gamer I find to be streamlined and simple, yet capable of producing complex results.
• All quests are “instanced,” meaning that everything is reset for you and your group specifically. Like Guild Wars, you don’t wait for a specific thing to “respawn” due to someone else having just completed the same quest.
• A sincere focus on making every quest interesting and detailed. No “kill X number of Y creature” or “find X number of Y doodad by killing Z creature,” etc.
• Experience granted on a per dungeon basis. You get quest XP plus bonuses based on the way you solved the dungeon. A rogue gets mischief/stealth bonuses, a fighter gets ransack and assault bonuses, etc.

All this adds up to a game that doesn’t feel like a MMORPG. Or maybe feels like a MMORPG was meant to be.
(more…)

I attempted to write this into a funny story, but I find the screenplay version to be so compelling as to render any retelling feeble. So, I now present The Weirdness of my Workplace – Part One.

INT. OFFICE
[An over-designed cubicle seen from the entrance. A man’s back is silhouetted against the glow of a computer screen. From off-camera someone speaks.]

Voice of TM: Hey buddy, what’s happening?

Man at Computer (SB): (closes tab of non-work related item and hurriedly removes ear buds) Hello? Oh hey, nothing much. How are you doing?

TM: Fine, fine. Listen, what size shoe do you wear?

SB: Um.

TM: I know it’s a weird question.

SB: 12-13, depending on the shoe, I guess.

TM: Cool. Can I borrow your shoes?

[cut to SB’s face. Voice-over of internal monologue.]

SB (voiceover): Why does he want to borrow my shoes? Is this some kind of prank? Maybe he needs them for a photo shoot or something. But this guy is known for having lots of different cool pairs of shoes; why does he want my cheap-ass skate shoes? I really don’t mind lending them to him, but my feet have been pretty sweaty lately. But we know each other pretty well. Jesus, what do I say?

SB: Sure, I guess. (looks at TM’s feet)

[cut to TM’s feet. He is wearig only dark socks. Cut back to conversation.]

SB: Why don’t you have any shoes?

TM: I loaned them to JV.

SB: Oh. (pause) Why… exactly did you do that?

TM: Well, I wasn’t going to need mine.

SB: Ah. And why did he?

TM: He tore the soles of his this morning and considering the weather, he needed to have shoes to go get some replacements. My plans to run errands were cancelled, so I let him borrow mine.

SB: So, then… why do you need shoes?

TM: Turns out the weather is looking a little better, and my plans are back on.

SB: Oh, OK. Well, I hope they fit.

TM: Yep, thanks!

[JR’s head pops up over the cubicle wall.]

JR: Seems like a pretty flimsy excuse to support your shoe fetish, man.

[Cut to black. TITLES: The Weirdness of my Workplace.]

This Gamer’s Manifesto brought a tear to my eye. Unite!

(side note: I may have to rip off Headless Hollow and have my own “Diversions” section. Seems silly to use a whole blog post when I just want to record a link.)

Typetester does something that shold have occurred to all us web geeks sooner. Check any type you like and you can see how it will display in different sizes, colors, treatments, etc.

Fellow webslinger Czeltic Girl hipped me to it.

A good friend of mine, Arman, sent me this in an email. I post it not as endorsement, but as food for thought.
—

Missing the Point
By Sankara Saranam

The Danish cartoon affair got me thinking of another cartoon. Imagine Jesus in the foreground holding a bomb. In the background an obstetrician is walking out of a Planned Parenthood building.

I won’t pictorially present the cartoon, but not because I want to avoid getting bombed. I just can’t draw and the cartoon is so simple that describing it gets the point across.

At least, you would think so.
(more…)

The Onion puts into words what we’ve all been feeling since the slow decline of the meaning of the word celebrity. (I was going to add more prepositional phrases there until I could no longer stand it, but it turns out three is my limit).

I Don’t Wonder What Jesse Camp Is Up To These Days

Some Valentine’s funnies for you:

Something Awful Star Wars Valentines

Cap’n Wacky’s unfortunate Valentines

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Obsessive-Compulsive Valentines.

Diesel Sweeties’ Cards are a waste of money: 1, 2, 3

And the Geek Love Poem shirt that I got MHG just because, but that arrived near Valentine’s Day.