Tentacled Monkey

The dark God is spreading his younglings throughout the world! End times are near!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081124-giant-squid-magnapinna.html

Yesterday was my 30th birthday and my wife surprised me with a Sony PRS-505 E-Reader! This is just an amazingly awesome piece of hardware with a screen that just has to be seen to really be appreciated. This has already allowed me to merge my two great fetishes in life, tech and reading.

This thing is really well done, button presses are firm and the housing is of a very durable plastic. The dimensions 6.9" x 4.8" x 0.3" make it perfect for prolonged use and the weight of the reader, 9oz., gives you the feeling that this is not a flimsy piece of junk.

The e-ink display only uses power when a page is redrawn so the battery life is quite impressive at 7,500 page turns. It uses no power whatsoever to keep an image on the screen. Speaking of the screen, this puppy is absolutely gorgeous. The clarity and crispness of the text can only be compared to that of a freshly printed high quality laser printer. And the viewing angle is somewhere close to 180 degrees! Unlike other screens this thing looks the best in direct sunlight, really I swear!

I lost a whole lot of books in the storm surge from Hurricane Ike and this is the perfect replacement for them! My only reservation is not getting one sooner!

So I've been thinking for a number of years of running a game in which the players themselves are at first taking place in a normal game. Then after a bit things start to contradict themselves, causing them to question reality in general.

I got the idea while running a game of VtM a number of years ago with my good friend Terry. The game was one of those one-on-one sessions initiated because everyone else folded on us. About 2 hours in I realized that it was fucking boring, I mean bad, and I had to do something to save the game or we were both going to quit.

So I started contradicting some of the actions that his character was doing from the prior night. The more and more contacts he revisited from the night before the more and more certain he was that something really screwy was going on. His character later realizes that another vampire has Dominated him by creating some false memories to replace the Dominated acts that he actually performed the prior night.

Terry's character now has to deal with the fallout of his illegal actions and try and patch up the relationships that he ruined earlier. Not to mention that he needed to find out what he really did on that lost night.

Now that game is remembered by both Terry and I as being the best damn game we had ever played.

More Ideas

Not only had I rethought how to do a typical Dominate into something far more sinister for the characters. We also played around with some different styles of problem resolution. The problem really began because we were chain-smoking and hated having to get up every five minutes to go outside and smoke leaving the dice and sheets inside.

So I said screw it this is supposed to be fun and we were really into the characters, so why not try paper-rock-scissors. Now this was by no means revolutionary, but it made the game fun! And that's why we play after all right?

The New Game

OK, so now you know where I am coming from with this idea. Now I want to do this on a grander scale with more players. The only particular game system I have access to, since I lost them all in the hurricane, is Call of Cthulhu and Dark Heresy. Both of them would lend themselves well to a mass hallucination/mind control affect.

Call of Cthulhu Options

This wouldn't be that bad at all to do now that I think about it. There are a number of ways I could pull it off:

1. group mind control spell
2. vast conspiracy
3. characters transported to an alternate reality
4. characters transported to the Dreamlands

I think that the first option would be the most likely and simplest to pull off.

Dark Heresy Options

OK only one thing really comes to mind here, psykers. I am really digging this system and scenario, so this is likely to be the option I would choose regardless.

eyes hurting ...

TBC...

Sweeet little baby it is! A 100 count Toscani humidor with Spanish cedar inside and a tray, brass hinges and inset handles... 

yeah it's nice...  :)

Google released a set of custom themes for GMail today. In typical Google fashion the are being rolled out in stages, so if you can't see them yet, well just wait.

Personally, I happy about the themes and they couldn't have come at a better time for me, I was getting tired of the default GMail crap theme.

You can make the change by going to the Themes tab under Settings. I'm using Shiny for now, but I might go old school with the ASCII theme soon, I don't know.

I am so fucking burned out with work right now that it is borderline treason. I'm the lone tech writer for a mid-level software company and I am just fighting it everyday. Unfortunately going independent doesn't guarantee the amount of pay I need to provide for my family, and I learned the craft in-house. Also, my NDA pretty much excludes me from anything without a battle.

I'm sick of people giving me the specs for a doc and then changing it 90% through but not extending the damn deadline. Or having a doc due to a client to validate the format and style of the document, but then the day it is due tell you that is must be a final draft, they'll be checking for content.

This is on top of the other duties that I already manage, two separate bug tracking databases, a number of delivered apps, and being the only person, at least at times it seems, that can translate programmer speech patterns into discernable text for a client to understand.

I was wiped out in Hurricane Ike, lost fucking everything (Hell I only owned one pair of pants until yesterday!), having to move to another region of the state, my wife losing her job, losing two of my cars, the lit goes on and on...

Meanwhile, the people in the office who were also affected, some slightly some as bad as me, seem to think I am not working or some such bullshit. Fuck me! Did I mention that I had insurance on everything, but not flood insurance! So nothing was covered, I lost upwards or $150,000 in stuff and got $7000 from FEMA. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against FEMA! Without them I would have been homeless and no chance of survival afterwards. My beef was with the god damn insurance companies. Technically the damage should have been covered under my current policy. But the insurance company decided after the fact that a storm surge is a flood! I am in the same boat as a renter as a guy who lost his entire home and is not able to rebuild for whatever reason! I had 6 fucking feet of water in my house for two fucking days! If you have ever survived a flood you know what it's like if not shut the fuck up and be happy it wasn't you.

Long story short is that I am back to working paycheck to paycheck, slaving for the man with no real end in sight.

I decided to bitch now, just because I can't fucking take it any longer. I am one of the forgotten, one of those poor bastards that couldn't afford to stay in the strike zone after Ike and can barely afford to live elsewhere. No one has helped us out except for FEMA and some exceptionally nice people at the KofP in East Texas, and what little furniture that we have now is due to their kind donations.

So why write this now? I'm fairly certain no one reads this shit anyway so why not! Besides if I don't at least throw it down somewhere I'm certain I'm going to go fucking insane.

I'm mindlessly ranting now, this shit isn't even making sense anymore....

So I started playing Bethseda Software's latest title, Fallout 3, yesterday. This game is absolutely awesome. Imagine if you played the original Fallout combined with the latest Half Life. It is amazing, simply stated and bold, but no less true.

The game play is ideally suited to PCs, thankfully! In my opinion Bethseda screwed themselves with Oblivion IV by having an almost retarded key mapping, making it almost impossible to play. They definitely learned from their mistakes with this release. Playing Fallout 3 is a treat the majority of the controls center around the gamers faithful 'WASD' without making any actions feel awkward.

The graphics are amazing, you get pulled into this world of destruction and hopeless endurance easily. You can run anywhere, there are no load times or zone changes except when you enter a building. I played yesterday for about 12 or more hours and now sit at level 5.

Two words of warning thoguh, if you don't have the power to push this game things in the distance will not appear until you get within a set distance of them, unfortunately this refers to bad guys as well. The other item worth noting is that you can get really lost really fast, especially early on.

Other than that, possibly the best game I have ever played, definitely the best this year. Hands down.

Well Friday night and Saturday morning Hurricane Ike plowed into the Texas coast. As a result we have lost everything save the few items we had with us when we evacuated. tens of thousands of dollars worth of books, thousands and thousands of dollars worth of computer and electronic equipment, and more importantly to me everything that belonged to my four year old daughter.

You can try and prepare yourself for the amount of destruction that has occurred but you really can't imagine it until you see it. Hundreds of houses that had at least three feet of standing water and many like ours that had 5 feet standing and at least 7 feet at one point inside.

I am effectively homeless, but I have my health and most importantly, my wife and daughter. I am not sure if anyone comes here any more but if you do, don't forget about us in Bridge City Texas. The media already has, and the destruction I saw in there today deserves some attention. It is absolutely heartbreaking.

I will see if I can get some photos online in the next few days.

Hope everyone is OK!

Well, Hurricane Gustav will go down in the history books as another false alarm for the state of Texas. All in all, the forced vacation to San Antonio cost me about $500. The only reason it was that cheap was because we shared a room with my in-laws.

But San Antonio was surprisingly fun! I have to go back at the end of the month for business, so I now know what to see.

There is supposed to be another Vampire game this weekend so I'll let everyone know if my Set finally gets killed by that damn Brujah. ;-)

Well we evacuated for Hurricane Gustav on Saturday at about 2pm and drove towards San Antonio where we had a free room. It took me 9 1/2 hours to make the 6 hour trip, not bad by most people's reports so far. A friend of mine that left 2 hours after me took 18 hours to get to Austin, so we were pretty lucky on the evacuation theory.

So yesterday we went and saw the Alamo and the Zoo both of which were cool. The Alamo was a lot more emotional than I had imagined it to be. Today we are going to hit the San Jose Mission, Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, and the Witte Museum where they have a traveling Leonardo Da Vinci hands-on exhibit of his inventions.

We are thinking that we will just get a lot of rain and some winds in South East Texas, but nothing too major. We still are unsure of when we can actually go home, but I imagine it won't be until late tonight or early tomorrow.

Vampire
So I started playing the old Vampire the Masquerade with some friends of mine here in the last several months. Its been nice, but I made one greivous error in judgement when creating my character. I assumed the others in the group would have created a fighter type ass-kicking vamp and they did, so I created a heavily socialized Follower of Set. Granted I was allowed to be at 7th generation but let's face it Serpentis is not exactly known for its combat effectiveness.

So far we have had run-ins with a few prot-zombies and some mortals, nothing too dangerous, no the main problem with my character is the heroin addicted Brujah that is in the group with us. So far he has frenzied three times, one time almost killing me and another character in the fray. So I have made it a point to act like a Set and have been trying to use ghouls as "flesh shields" to try and alleviate any damage that I might take. But, alas, I also am almost worthless in a fire-fight. So I need a ghoul that is also well versed in combat. Without the "flesh shields" I am not going to last very long in a combat scenario.

Dark Heresy
A few weeks ago I acquired the Warhammer 40k RPG Dark Heresy. This book is awesome and is truley one of the best RPG books I have ever seen. It is gorgeous. Aside from that The system is fast-paced and deadly. The setting fleshes out alot of the information attained not only from the table-top game but from the novels as well. In the game you play an Acolyte of one of the Calixis sector's powerful Inquisitors. You start as a new recruit and work your way up through the ranks, if you live that long, to become an Interrogator or and Inquisitor, neither of which are covered in this book.

I am so excited about this game that it is retarded. I have a group lined up and a place to play but as of yet we have still not decided on when to play. I need to read up on the rules some more and one of the packaged adventures to detrmine what will happen. But allof that aside I am really excited about this game, and I think it shows.

OK I haven't been here in a while, whatever. But I have good news! Everyone must watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. This show is absolutely hilarious! Neil patrick-Harris is amazingly funny and Nathan Filion, yeah the captian from Serenity, is just plain funny. Dr. Horrible is the common man's villain with his freeze-ray, nothing to do with cold I assure you, his matter transporter, and the hidden love of the girl from the laundry-mat, Penny.

Its directed and written by Joss Whedon and everyone involved in this project deserves a big pat on the back.

Now if only he would read the Evil Overlord's List it might be perfect.

This is a test post from my Blackberry 8830.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Yeah I know I haven't been here in awhile, but honestly, who comes here? Been reading a lot lately, check out the GoodReads list on the side panel. Anyway I will try and update this more often now.

The BBC, and the AP are both saying that Arthur C. Clarke has passed away this evening. First E.Gary Gygax and now Sir Clarke. I can say that his SciFi was some of the first novels that I read. He was a living legend, a man who helped bring a genre of lit from the pulps up to the mainstream. I... I... well. shit I don't know what to say. Arthur C. Clarke has died.

Who says that the Japanese are out of touch with Western culture?  This article from TokyoMango show us that yes we can all dress like furries and be socially acceptable!  Yeah, thanks Tokyo Fashion Week!  This looks like some sort of nightmarish cross between The Shining and Donnie Darko.  I just want to hide in a corner and recite the Rosary, and hell I'm not even Catholic, shit I'm not religious!  I have to admit though, this is strangely holding my attention more than I would have thought.  I love it!  English schoolboy uniforms and demonic cat masks, you just can't go wrong there man.

Funny how sometimes bloggers and Cthulhu Aficionados just have their finger on the pulse of the nation, isn't it?  The Aristocrats blog is right on.

Artist Paul Carrick from the NightSerpent blog has a new commission for a giant Cthulhu rising from the deep.  But this time, Cthulhu is red?  Well, it comes off really good and I would love to get a print of this if the option ever arises.  Simply amazing work, great job Paul!  For those of you who don't know the name Paul is an established artist working with several game publishers like Chaosium, Green Ronin, and Paradigm Games.

It seems like everyone has a wiki now-a-days, and well I suppose the Great Old Ones shouldn't be left out.  Those crazy Brits over at Yog-Sothoth.com have had the CthulhuWiki up for a couple of years now and everyone who is a fan should jump over there right now to check it out. 

Within the wonderful CRYPTO-GRAM newsletter from Bruce Schneier we are told of a Somalian woman who boarded a plane in Blenheim, New Zealand and stabbed both pilots and a passenger while demanding to be flown to Australia. Schneier's article is below:

"There are a couple of interesting things about the hijacking in New Zealand last month. First, it was a traditional hijacking. Remember after 9/11 when people said that the era of airplane hijacking was over, that it would no longer be possible to hijack an airplane and demand a ransom or demand passage to some exotic location? Turns out that's just not true; there still can be traditional non-terrorist hijackings.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10491291
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4392665a11.html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4395723a10.html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4395846a11.html
And even more interesting, the media coverage reflected that. Read the links above. They're calm and reasoned. There's no mention of the T-word. We're not all cautioned that we're going to die. If anything, they're recommending that everyone not overreact. Refreshing, really.
http://stuff.co.nz/4414911a10.html"

Funny how people with knives are still getting on planes despite "increased security" and not a mention of terrorism, thankfully. It's nice to see the media actually making the differentiation between random acts of stupidity and crime, and that of actual terrorism.

I have actually had Snake Agent for about six months now and tried to start reading it after I finished the last Dresden Files novel White Night and just couldn't get into it at the time. I was looking for another Harry Dresden to fill in the void of not having his antics to share, Detective Inspector Chen is no Harry Dresden, in some ways he far more enigmatic.

I am only a little bit into it so I am not going to give a full synopsis yet, but I will try and keep you guys up on whether the book is worth getting or not. Oh and if you have the option, grab the trade paperback of this novel as the cover art is amazing, the regular paperback size does not do it any justice at all.

While at work I had to backup a number of build templates and resource files to another computer on the network, a NAS device, for safe storage. Previously, our backup schedules were fairly non-existent for this set of data so I really had free reign to do what I liked to make sure it just got backed up simply.

I knew I wanted to use xcopy to do the actual data transfer over the network, but I wasn't so keen on simply copying raw data in excess of 3GB on a weekly basis. So I started digging around for a command line interface compression tool. Oh, and it had to be free, since I was at work. After a few minutes of searching I came across 7-Zip which touted better compression ratios than WinZIP and a command line interface.

7-Zip Command Line

The command line of 7-Zip is pretty complete, and allows for include lists and excludes using wildcards, all sorts of shite really. It did take me about 30 minutes of jacking around to make it grab the exact files that I wanted but I was able to get it to grab exactly what I wanted.

Setting up Your Backup System

Well, first head over to the 7-Zip download page and get a copy of the program for WinBlows. They actually have a version for damn near every OS out there but since I am focusing on Windows just get that.

After installing 7-Zip browse to the install directory and copy the 7z.exe file into your System32 folder. This will allow us to access the command line from anywhere. I suppose that we could have added the install directory to the system path, but my way is much easier.

Since I was looking at including a large number of files spread across a series of directories we are going to include the files in a separate list file. Also, since batch scripts are much more forgiving when ran from the root of the C: drive, create a backup_list.txt file there and list out all of the directories that you want backed up one per line. Here’s an examples of the file:

c:\Build_Files\V12Data
c:\Build_Files\system_files
etc...


Now you need to actually create the bat file that will run our 7-Zip & xcopy commands, let's call this backup.bat. Here is mine so far:

7z a -tzip c:\archive.zip @c:\backup_list.txt -scsWIN

This command will create a ZIP file (-tzip) called archive.zip in the root of the C: drive and add the directories listed in the C:\backup_list.txt file. Since I just used ANSI and not UTF-8 for the formatting I had to use the -scsWIN flag to tell 7-Zip, otherwise the command will die.

Now just running this command would be fine for most but I had a number of subdirectories that I did not want to include. These subdirectories are located at the same level and would all be similarly named. So to exclude these directories we need to add an exclusion to the command we already have. So now we have something like this:

7z a -tzip c:\archive.zip @c:\backup_list.txt -scsWIN -x!Build_Files\*\backup*\

This will exclude any folders that start with "backup" on the third level. Now I also needed to exclude another particular folder so my script came out to this:

7z a -tzip c:\archive.zip @c:\backup_list.txt -scsWIN -x!Build_Files\*\backup*\ -x!Build_Files\V12Data\Streets\

Now that we have the compression command finalized we can worry about the actual xcopy.

xcopy c:\archive.zip Y:\Data\ /D /Y

I am using xcopy cuz it rocks and it is present on every XP machine, and I am not so sure RoboCopy is. Anyway, the xcopy command initiates a file copy from the compressed file we just created, c:\archive.zip, to a map drive location that I have already set up. The /D switch tells it to only update the file if it is newer than the one I am attempting to overwrite; while the /Y flag tells it to suppress any warning flags.

Next I want to get rid of the compressed file on the local machine so we run a simple remove command and then exit the script.

rem c:\archive.zip
exit

Now we can run the batch file and see if it is all kosher, it should be but if not generally your error will be in the 7-Zip line for some syntax error. Run the batch by right-clicking on it and left-clicking on "Run." You will see a command prompt window appear and start compressing your files. I would let it run one full time to make sure that your copy and rem command is working correctly.

Scheduling the Script

Once the script is finalized we can add it as a scheduled task on the local machine. I set mine up to run at 2:00AM on Sunday mornings. Again we will probably want to verify that it works by right-clicking on the task and choosing to run it. It will run in the background without showing a command prompt.

Do yourself a favor and make sure that you are backing up to either a separate machine or an external hard drive. There is nothing so ignorant as making sure you are backing up your stuff but then just placing it on a separate partition of your only hdd.

Anyway, I hope that this helps someone else trying to backup large chunks of data on a WinBlows system/Network.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Well this has just turned ugly. My friend's NewEgg account was closed today and the order for the laptop was completely voided, then they said that the bank told NewEgg that his account was closed, which was a total crock of shite. So all told there will be no laptop coming, and I likely lost my online order buddy. So thanks for nothing you NewEgg fucks.

This kind of shit always seems to happen to me whenever I want to actually buy something for myself. I am not a rich man by any means and any amount of money over abotu $10 that I spend affects my budget in some manner. So, to trust a company with my hard-earned cash and to be treated in such a demeaning manner is fucking typical of my history of ordering tech. I know it wasn't my account that was closed and whatever, but it was my fucking money and, would have been, my fucking laptop. I suppose this is just a way for the man to stomp on my ballz and tell me that I shouldn't be spending $400 on a uber-cheap linux running laptop when I have a perfectly malfunctioning Thinkpad T-23 at home, and gas is over $3.00 a gallon.

Update: Ordering from NewEgg.com has been an exceptionally aggravating process for some reason. I had to order the item twice, cancel both of those and then have a friend buy it from his account. So now the order didn't start processing until late Friday afternoon. Hopefully, I will have the damn thing by about Thursday of next week.

The Everex VA1500V, the Cloudbook's big brother, is now available at Walmart.com for $398.00. But this means nothing to me personally since I just purchased this guy from NewEgg.com. They are processing the order and I should have it early next week. I can't wait!!

I am giving up on reading Accelerando by Charles Stross mainly because it is just too strange and not as closely knit as I had originally hoped. I finished reading Halting State a few weeks ago and it was one of the best sci-fi books that I have ever read, so I purchased Accelerando on a whim not really sure what I was getting. I really enjoyed the beginning regardless of how strange it was, but once the first significant time shift occurs the novels fails to mesh back together cohesively. It is just too hard for me to read, so the next Stross that I pick up will be Glasshouse.

There are a number of books that I need to read anyway, namely anything by Gaiman, like Smoke and Mirrors. Also I think I want to read Brasyl by Ian McDonald. Anyway, sorry Chuck maybe the next read is better.

Edouard Chambon of France set the new World Record for the fastest time on a 3x3 Rubick's Cube last month at the Murcia Open in Spain with a time of 9.18 seconds.  This is freaking insane!  I have finished the Rubick's before but never even dreamt of someone doing it in 9 seconds!  In Montpelier 2008 Chambon also placed first in the Rubick's Blidfold competition, well I still bet this guy can't un-hook a bra backwards in the dark while being, umm... distracted.  Yeah.  :-P

Crackers have finally bypassed the ridiculously expensive Vista activation process.  The hack works by emulating a particular BIOS files that were all signed by Microsoft and passes all Windows Genuine Advantage tests. 

Evidently this hack has been around for a few weeks but the mainstream is just hearing about it.  But if you think this should be an app you need to keep handy then the screen shot above should provide enough info for you to find it online.  Maybe now I'll install Windows Vista on my Ubuntu box through VMWare!  Eh, maybe not.

Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons with Dave Arneson, has died today. He has been sick for the last several years evidently, apparently suffering from an abdominal anuerism among other things. I never had the opportunity to actually meet the man but I think I speak for people everywhere in saying, "Thank You."

Gary's imagination and vision has saved me from more trouble in my lifetime than any other single event. People always look down on those of us that played tabletop RPGs, mainly because we are an odd & intelligent bunch, but Gary's vision caused all of us to lead the life's we knew we should have. I could finally be a part of Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery tales, crawling through the jungles after some long forgotten treasure and faced undeniable evil. Then I could laugh with my friends and recall the good ol' days when dragons weren't made of gems.

Gygax made all of us social misfits find a way to focus our energies without going crazy. Even though I never knew him, I consider him a close friend. I can only hope that his next adventure is better than his last, and that'll be pretty damn hard.

We will miss you, Gary.

I understand that artists should be paid for the works that they create.  I recognize that piracy of movies and music has run rampant.  I do not understand, however, how RIAA can justify suing someone because of having music in a shared directory of Kazaa.  They have not attempted to prove that the music was shared to other but that it was simply in a shared folder. 

Similar tactics have been brought up in the past, notably during the Napster case and the Perfect 10 v. Google case.  Both of these were thrown out due to the fact that the Copyright Act does not consider an attempted violation as a violation.  The EFF is doing its part again and is battling the hate-mongering asses of the RIAA for the greater good.  It all goes down tomorrow at 2pm in Phoenix.

A federal district court judge in San Francisco has rescinded the order that shut down the domain WikiLeaks.com which came under fire earlier this year for copyright infringement.  WikiLeaks allows third-parties to post government and corporate documents that display some evidence of wrong-doing. 

I am personally happy to see this site gain ground, I am a great proponent of the complete freedom of information especially when it can uncover some the status quo of illegal activities committed by most of the world's large corporations and governments.

WikiLeaks can still be reached by browsing to IP 88.80.13.160, no word yet on when the domain name will become active again.

I am working on making a GURPS game that is centered around the world of Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files set about 80 years into the future; also comprising themes from Charles Stross's Halting State. I have been waiting patiently for a few years for the Dresden Files RPG to come out and have finally decided to make a go at it using the fantastic GURPS system.

The basic story will be in NYC as opposed to Chicago and there will be a predominant neural interfaces for most of the working public and a "Cop Space" a la Halting State. I am still in the early planning phase but I will be making more and more updates as time goes by. The story will also house beasts from the Cthulhu Mythos but I am not sure exactly sure how yet. I am sure some figures from the novels will arrive also.

I am no a huge fan of opera, in fact I almost never listen to it. Something seems to get lost in a radio broadcast of an opera. Either way, I am a huge fan of Faust in all its flavors and Boito's Mefistofele is not exception. Tonight NPR's World of Opera replayed the entire production from the Royal Opera of Wallonie, in Liege, Belgium.

For those of you who do not know the story, Faust is the story of a German scholar that makes a deal with the devil, Mefistofele, for power and riches. He doesn't, naturally, come to realize the consequences of his actions until the moment of his death.

Either way I truely wish I could see a high end production of this. It would be great fun.

Do you guys remember the hype surrounding this game about seven years ago? It was supposed to be one of the greatest MMOs ever, but a series of technical issues plagued players during release and stifled its popularity. Well Anarchy Online is still around, and they have made a series of impressive upgrades to their client - I think they are on version 17.7.3 - making it one of the funnest MMOs that I have played in a long time. Yeah the graphics are a little bit dated now but the gameplay makes up for it, honestly it just sucks you in. I was sick of playing WoW and sick of paying for it. Oh, didn't I mention that Anarchy Online is free to play now? Yeah, I know. Let the fucking Lich King wait, this is worth the break.

The Billboard Liberation Front struck again last night improving an AT&T billboard in San Francisco. The video shows the BLF altering the sign on a busy street in the Mission District. If you aren't familiar with the Billboard Liberation Front then give their Manifesto a read. They claim billboards to be fair game since they are inescapable in the current culture.

I love Nietzsche.  Nietzsche paired with the serial killer from ChoppingBlock might anger some poeple, but honestly guys this is some funny stuff!

As you may have noticed I completely changed the blog to Tentacled Monkey. What is a tentacled monkey? Hell I don't know but it sounds demented! This is going to be my primary stomping ground from now on and I would like to invite you to join on a romp through the weird and tech savvy.

The more I play with the Blogger interface, the more I really am enjoying it. I have also started using the Windows Live Writer program from Micro$oft, and must admit that it is a very useful piece of software.

So I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that the domain is going away, but this leaves me in a weird spot.  I very haven't not had a domain in a very long time.  But seeing as how I am attempting to be cheap, I figure I can use a free domain - I already have one, themurfman.is-a-geek.com, for that matter - and Blogger.  The real reason is for the outlet and to play.  If I have my Linux box and CLI then I am really happy there. 

Anyway, life moves on I suppose.  Maybe someone can actually make use of the damn domain and do something with it.  Cthulhu knows I couldn't.

So for the last week or so I have been blogging for a tech site that is trying to get off the ground, and I realized something.  I don't like blogging for other people, and right now I really don't have the time to do it properly.  Still, I think that the experience is worth it and I will try and pump out 2-3 posts a day for the guy, but honestly I am not sure how much longer I can do it.

It would seem to me to be much more productive to just keep blogging for myself and get better and better in the craft of writing in general so that I can branch out a little bit more.  We'll see how this all goes down.

BTW, I am about to lose the CTHULHUONLINE.COM domain and it is really depressing me.  If someone wants to give me $20 so I can pay GoDaddy then please email me.

Some stuff just needs to be owned.  This is one of them.  If anyone asked WTF? I would simply ask them, "You killed my father. Prepare to die."  And start slaking towards them slowly...

Find it here for $17 bucks you can't beat it.

The prog-rock group Mars Volta has released their latest album, The Bedlam in Goliath, to mixed reviews. I have been a huge Volta fan since before there was a Mars Volta, back when guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala were still involved with At the Drive In. This latest album is more of a return to the powerfully complex rhythms of previous albums without the slower aspects of the later albums, Frances the Mute for example. While this does not detract from the overall product, some silence can be golden, and at times it seems like Bedlam really needs it.

Overall, this is an amazing prog-rock album that fans of the group will enjoy. The story behind the album is one of the strangest I have heard in a while though. Evidently the band was plagued with ghosts and a really bad string of luck that was attributed to a spirit conjured by the group while on tour in 2006-07 from the use of an Israeli ougi board. Making for an interesting read in its own right.

A new web site hoping to be an Engadget or Gizmodo clone is looking for content writers.  So I put in and have most likely accepted a position with them.  I am doing this for a few different reasons really, but mainly to get into the business and giving me more reason to blog openly. 

I will fill everyone in on the details as I come by them.

I am test running the Windows Live Writer app this week in an effort to just see what the hell is going on here.  And surprisingly I am kind of liking it.  Someone over at M$ obviously has removed their collective heads from their asses and was able to produce a product worth a damn, for free!  Miracles never cease to amaze me. 

I am writing this with WLW and have to admit the ability to fluff past my boss by running a local app to post my web posts is really appealing to me.  I realize that this isn't the norm, but screw it, I enjoy it.