This is probably only going to be truly appreciated by us old fogeys. If you went to High School in the early to mid 80s, like me, then the Arcade was possibly the heaviest draw on your free cash other than going to the movies. This guy has done a stunningly done tribute to those days.
Take the time to load the quicktime movie at the bottom that he's made. It's really like taking a walk through an arcade of the times. This is some truly cheesy goodness!
-Logan
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"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
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Video here.
There are obvious cuts, though, so don't consider this a "perfect" run. It's still pretty cool, though.

-- Bob
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The Internet Is For Norns.

Mirror Moon has finally released it's english patch for the Fate route of the Fate/Stay Night game, complete with non-ero version. Of course, you have to somehow 'aquire' the game...
It's good timing too, I just finished Tsukihime (so many sad and/or creepy endings). Oh, and although the link I gave is safe, it's not impossible you'd find something midly NSFW if you bounce around the site.--
La Krueze: I just want everyone in the universe to suffer. Is that so wrong?
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

a schoolgirl is returning home from 'study session' at her friend's when a gang from her school begin hassling her. they are interrupted by a large young man of obvious mixed heritage who pushes roughly through the gang and out the other side. it isn't until he's past them that they realise that the girl is gone. when they run after him, the youth dissolves into smoke
a few streets away, the young man drops from a rooftop to the ground and puts the girl down. he looks at her, frowns and almost says something, then shakes his head and walks away while she's still gathering her wits.
the next day at school the girl tells one of her friends about the experience, only to be interrupted by two of the gang who demand to know where they can find her 'boyfriend' so they can get their revenge on him. she tells them that she doesn't know and they threaten her. when she repeats her refusal, they grab her and her friend, taking them away from the school
it's after dark and the girls are tied up in an empty lot while the gang throw a party, although it's obvious that they're expecting the mystery youth to arrive so that they can ambush him. the leader, a girl, goes over to the girls and tells them that she can't 'restrain' her boys long, so they'd better tell her everything they know right now. the friend tells her that she knows where he is. the leader agrees to release her if she tells them where to find him and release her friend once they see him. the girl tells her that he's behind her. startled, the leader turns and sees the youth standing impassively in the middle of the party. he almost casually yanks the leader away from the girls and then comes under attack by the gang, but not by their hidden reserves. an old man dressed as a priest sneaks up to the girls and blows dust in their face, sending them to sleep
the girls wake up on a futon in an archaic building. they overhear someone ranting and look through a crack in the sliding door to see the young man being berated by the priest for intervening to because he's endangered the girls by doing so. the argument is going on in the central chamber of what is evidently a shrine. the youth says nothing but although subdued does not seem repentant. disgusted, the priests sends him to tidy his room and the girls barely manage to duck back so that they aren't seen through the door.
the boy's room is windowless with stone walls. the furnishings are a mixture of modern and archaic: racks of scrolls and antique chests amid a collection of gunplas and tankouban. it's quite a mess and while the youth starts picking things up, the faces of the girls can be seen looking though the open doorway. the youth turns suddenly and sees them, then smiles and gestures for them to come in. he does not say anything to their questions however, looking frustrated, and hands them a scroll to read. the priest arrives to try to reason with his great-nephew and catches the two girls. frustrated, he tells them to leave, but doesn't realise that they have the scroll.
the girls go home and the next day, for some reason, the gang pays no attention to them. they read the scroll and discover that it is the history of a samurai family, one so old that it's history is based in myth.
centuries before, two demons had been struggling for dominance. the youngest son of a family that had been wiped out by the battle offered to combine his strength with the weaker of the demons, giving it the power to slay it's enemy and end the devestation being caused. by the terms of their pact, the demon would be bound inside the youngest son of the family until he died or until the next word he spoke. after his triumph, the son realised that the demon's freedom would simply liberate it to cause more havoc, so he decided never to speak again until he found a way to banish it. however, when his firstborn son was born the demon moved to the new youngest son, which killed the father. the mother, a priestess, laid a ward upon her child so that he would not speak and took him to a family of demon hunters who decided to hide the ongoing lineage
the continuity lasted for sixty generations, with handpicked brides bearing sons to each demon container as he began to grow old in the shelter of these caves. however, during the meiji restoration the demon hunters were all but wiped out and had no choice to ask the demon container to risk himself in battle fighting the by now rare demons. during the second world war, the demon hunters were wiped in hiroshima and the demon container was so injured that he barely lived long enough for his wife to give birth to twin sons, the younger of who is the priest seen. the elder son carried the demon and hunted other demons, in time marrying and siring a successor. however, that successor proved rebellious and ultimately sired his own heir upon an american woman during a one night stand. the priest barely managed to find and bind the child - the youth - before the demon broke loose. as it was, the child's birth cry (although not a word) loosed the demon enough for it to kill the mother. since then, the demon container has grown up in isolation, inside the caves behind the shrine, venturing out only at night to hunt demons
obviously, the youth is the current 'youngest son' of the family and therefore bound not to speak. the girl who first met him is of the opinion that there is something uncanny about him so perhaps the legend is true. her friend does not believe this, and she wants to 'free' him from the obviously fictional restriction.
back in the shrine, the barechested youth sits crosslegged on top of a seal carved into bare stone, either asleep or meditating. the view pulls back until it can be seen that this image is projected somehow in a crystal amulet being held up to the moonlight by a teenage girl wearing traditional samurai armour sitting on a motorcycle by the side of a road. she frowns and tries to remove the amulet, but the cord isn't quite long enough and she gives up and mounts her motorcycle, riding off into the night.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

If its at all Possible could I rejoin the supergroup even tho I Just had my toon removed for inactivity? What Can I say I was bit by the hero bug and got my computer patched up so it'll run things semi normaly again. But it still doesn't like me being in groups heh.

NFS: Carbon is the latest in the interminable graphics-engine-and-player-lineup-updates from EA.
EA is a company well known for holding a franchise down and pummeling every last bit of tasty money out of the twitching agonized pulp left after the first couple 'sequels'.
NFS: Carbon is no different. On the Wii side, we have a piece of shovelware that _might_ have been able to be done properly on the Wii, given a very experienced programming team dedicated to wringing every pixel possible out of the Wii.
This team, however, was busy working for someone else, so they shoe-horned a game that can give a good workout to anything except a GeForce 8800 series card into the poor, poor Wii. The lag and spotty framerates resulting are not surprising.
However, the various control interfaces available on the Wii do make full use of the Wiimote/Nunchuk, and the variety allows the user to play very intuitively and easily.
The UI is intrusive, requiring far too many acknowledgements and confirmations for simple acts, and having too many layers and levels for a console-based game.
On the PC Side Of The Farce, EA has taken the sheer power inherent in the modern PC Gaming platform, and ignored it in favor of excessive motion blur, a poor UI, and shoddy controls (no porportional brakes, WTF?). Playing with a keyboard is nigh-impossible, which is understandable.
Playing with a gamepad is also difficult, given the absolutely horrible farce-feedback (keyed off the horizontal position of the driving axis, NOT off of in-game status) and the binary brakes (full lock or nothing).
The sheer joy of slotting a perfectly driven powerslid, tires screaming, scenery sliding, engine howling corner, however, remains. Just be careful with the brakes..
On a new (~3 months old) Windows XP install with good drivers and good DirectX, making a working game should be easy, and EA manages to fail this - NFS Carbon is known for fail-starts and random crashes to desktop under many, many configs, and I have experienced multiple random crashes to desktop, without any sort of error message, log, windows event, or anything to indicate _why_ the crash occured.
If you're a racing game fanatic and need something else to bleed of a little adrenaline, pick this game up used. Failing that, go buy Flatout 2 instead, or pick up Midnight Club Dub Edition Remix for 15 bux for the Xbox - it may lag, but it's shiny, fast, and _works_.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

(first in a series... -Rob)

Captain's Blog, March 1, 2012

Mood: upset
Listening to: "Let it Ride", BTO
Reading: no time to read

I've been on Mars for a day now. Everybody lied to me - they said it'd be easy to find a place to live, but there's *nothing* available in Utopia Planitia! At least, there's nothing if you're not a Trekkie. And I'm not a Trekkie. I can't stand the idiocy that passes for "tactics" in that show, and it shows. I just don't fit in.

I'd sleep in my ship if there was room to stretch out. I know Avril would like the company. But I can't recline that seat at all.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Cydonia. It's got to be easier to find a place to live there.

Ramona, keeping my fingers crossed

-----

Captain's Blog, March 2, 2012

Mood: annoyed
Listening to: "Goin' Mobile", The Who
Reading: still no time to read

There's no permanent housing at Cydonia. I shouldn't be surprised - they say it's going to be underwater once the terraforming project thaws the ice under the surface of Mars. (But that applies to Utopia Planitia, too... stupid Trekkies.) But there's enough tourists around that I thought there's be at least something for the tour guides to live in. No such luck.

There's nothing at Olympus Mons, either. Sure, there's a few apartment buildings there, but they're all full of skiiers who want to be first to go all the way down the biggest mountain in the Solar System. I looked at the slope of Olympus Mons, down near the base - if they're going to ski that, they'll need cross-country skis, not the downhill skis they've got.

Tomorrow I'm going to see if there's something in orbit.

Ramona, hoping my luck's about to change

-----

Captain's Blog, March 3, 2012

Mood: pissed off
Listening to: "Life on Mars", David Bowie
Reading: no time to read

There's nothing for me in Phobos.

Sure, there's plenty of open apartments in that floating rock, but there's no place available for me to park my ship. At least, no place I can afford right now. And I'm not going to abandon Avril - she got me here in the first place.

And they tell me Deimos is the same.

Back to Mars tomorrow...

Ramona, starting to lose hope

-----

Captain's Blog, March 4, 2012

Mood: happy!!!
Listening to: "Doin' It Right", Powder Blues
Reading: "Gods of Mars", E.R. Burroughs

I should have come to Helium first thing. I've got a *great* two-bedroom place, five minutes from the airport! And parking Avril at the airport costs next to nothing!

Don't listen to the stories - you don't *have* to walk around naked except for a weapons belt if you live in Helium. Sure, lots of the old-timers do, but they don't force anyone to strip. Good thing, too. My next-door neighbour Thuvia - that's the only name she's told me - has the figure for walking around nude. I sure don't.

And I've already got a job! Some people whose names I really shouldn't repeat here don't trust the Interwave, and Avril's pretty fast in atmosphere. That means she can get from Mars surface to Earth surface faster than anything but the Blue Blazers' Jet Car, and *that* means I can make a living carrying secure data on flashdrives between the two planets. I'm making twice-weekly courier runs between Helium and a couple of cities on Earth.

Ramona, about to make a call back home

-----

Captain's Blog, March 6, 2012

Mood: sombre
Listening to: "I'm a Loser", The Beatles
Reading: "Jane's Spaceships"

I goofed. Big time. Some of the people who had hired me read my last Captain's Blog, and said I'd broken the confidentality clause in our contract. That leaves me with only enough work for one trip back to Earth each week.

At least Thuvia and her boyfriend are being nice to me. Remember I said that Thuvia's got the figure to walk around naked? So does her boyfriend Den... *drools* But sometimes it's weird talking mechanical engineering with a guy who really shouldn't be getting too close to machinery without finding a cup first.

But I need to find some more clients, or another job. Anybody want to hire a secure courier who can't keep her mouth shut?

Ramona, eating ramen to make the paycheck last longer

-----

Captain's Blog, March 8, 2012

Mood: tired
Listening to: "Working for the Weekend", Loverboy
Reading: too tired to read

I've got a job with the City of Helium, in the public works department. Today I spent seven hours getting a flying ambulance back up and running. The engine was completely shot - nobody thought to install filters to keep the find Martian sand out of the turbines. (I'm going to have to do that with Avril before I fly her again.)

No luck on finding any more clients for the courier runs.

Thuvia asked if I'd be interested in going on a pity date with a friend of Den's. Billy's not my type, though. He expects everybody to care about his fandom as much as he does; if his fandom wasn't based on Japanese pornographic cartoons, I might have been interested. But I'd rather spend my time with somebody who admits women have brains too. Sorry, Thuvia.

Ramona, about to fall asleep

... Well, that pretty much sums it up. Looking for something lightweight that will display unicode text properly, because it's annoying to have to look at a file in one program to see what it's supposed to look like, then use a different program to edit it. Anyone have any recommendations?
-Morgan."This continuity is now a Princess of Darkness crossover."
"... They're all going to die, aren't they?"
"Yep. Popcorn?"

much fun was had tonight when Min and Wide asked for help freeing the Statesman from some Tyrant (I'm not realy sure on the details, I was just there to make things blow up). Frenetic and Lora'Lai Signed up for the mayhem.
Much fun was had by all.
(all pics are clickable for higher rez versions)
The bad guys:

I didn't get any action shots (it was a fast battle), but I got plenty of victory shots.


and of course the obligatory group shot:
-Terry
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"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

So, my current roleplaying campaign's winding up in a few sessions (how few depend on the players, of course), and I'm thinking of setting the next on
in Fenspace - or, more accurately, a close parallel of Fenspace. Assuming this happens (I've only asked one of the players so far), this begs a few
questions...

First, does anybody not want me using their characters as NPCs?

Second, when do I set the game? I'm leaning towards either 2007-2008 (and the PCs would be first-generation Fen), or 2012 (and they're taking part in
Operation GREAT JUSTICE), but would some other time have more roleplaying possibilities?

Third, how much of the background do I share with the players? Do I give them the entire Writers' Guide I'm working on, with everything that's in
all the stickies here, or should I pare that down a bit (or a lot)?

Fourth, which system should I use? I own copies of GURPS Fourth Edition and BESM Third Edition; each has pros and cons for this setting... I think. (Either
way, I'll have to stat up Ramona, Avril, Noah, and at least one of the "angels" as sample characters, so the players have an idea of what sort of
folks are in the setting. Once I've done that, I'll share.)

Thoughts, anyone and everyone?

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012