I just had my net service disappear on me for about 43 hours.  Shortly after I had to log off of City of Heroes on Friday evening to go pick up Peggy from work, my cable modem lost all signal, and nothing I could do would prompt it to reconnect.  Until it spontaneously rediscovered the Net this afternoon between noon and 12:30.
This is not a new problem for me.  I've been having connectivity problems like this for close to 2 years now.  It used to be that every few months I'd have three or four days when the modem would suddenly drop the Net.  Powercycling it usually brought the connection back, though.  I've been complaining to Comcast all this time, of course -- I've had the modem replaced two or three times (most recently on New Year's Eve), had splitters and connectors replaced, and the signal strength adjusted as well.  After every incident, things would be okay for several months, and then it would start all over again.
Except now, it's down to days.  Twice in the last week, the connection just died and would not come back until it was good and ready -- the first for 15 hours and then this latest event.  I'm putting Comcast on notice -- not just here but on their recorded support line and in their customer service logs:  fix this permanently by the end of February, or I take all my business to Dish Network and Optimum Online.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Deathwish with pathos.
A fuller version.
This is a very British ASBO fatality fantasy film.  It is certainly worth a look for the visual stimulus alone; as well as a solid performance by Michael Caine in the titular role.  Old, sad, gentle Harry Brown dusts off skills that he purged from himself decades earlier and seeks out revenge for his pain and loneliness.  That's it.  Not in a loud Charles-Bronson-meet-Wildy kind of way.  Stolid.  Efficient.  Very British.  The most understated bad-ass rocking a pensioner's allotment.  Atmosphere is handled beautifully; with several scenes being cringe worthy for the level of personal degradation exhibited by several of the antagonists.  Genuinely unsettling.
Having said all that, it is an urban blight/fear-of-violent-youth film, so take it with a grain of salt.

Having recently migrated over to Windows 7 & having discovered the joys of desktop background slideshows, I've been slapping together Fenspace-themed backgrounds so I can stick them in the rotation. But not just any backgrounds, no. These are (my hackish interpretation of) various computer user interfaces to be found in Fenspace.

(Note: These have been drastically shrunk for size reasons. PM or email if you want the 1920x1200 stupid-high-res JPG versions.)

Starting off, here's the simple, utilitarian look of the GLaDOS Non-Sapient User Interface, found on public and private terminals in Soviet territory:


Following that up with an equally clean interface, the standard readout screen in Stellvia's operations center:


And of course we can't forget the Trekkies, with their stylish (and near-impossible to master) LCARS interface:


...since I'm still in a mind to create interface wallpapers, if you've got a faction-specific design you want me to tackle, post a sketch and I'll see what I can do.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/3365.aspx
Coptic Christians have been subject to attacks from Muslim extremists through Egypt for years. In response, the moderate Muslim majority decided enough was enough. Literally thousands of Muslims came out during Coptic Christmas celebrations to serve as human shields to deter extermist attacks.
So, wondering where all the moderate Muslims are? Standing shoulder to shoulder between you and the terrorists, that's where.
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Epsilon

Description cadged from TVTropes:

Infinite Stratos Wrote:Somewhere in the Future, a new exoskeleton called the Infinite Stratos system was developed in Japan and in a short amount of time, it demonstrated just how easily it can take out a variety of conventional military weapons. The weapon is soon adopted by several nations, but however there is one flaw: Only women can pilot it. This has shifted the social structure to favoring females over males, until Every Man Orimura Ichika, brother of the legendary I.S. pilot Orimura Chifuyu becomes the first guy to activate the I.S. and thus is soon thrust into a new life as not only the first guy to pilot the I.S. but also enters the prestigious Infinite Stratos Academy.

A guy who moves like Doug.
(Youtube embedding for some reason is not working for me, otherwise I'd have done that.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

One of the things that I know has been sorely lacking from the story is a central antagonist, created solely for Zeke to but heads against.  So, while I was reworking Zeke's character using that new character builder I downloaded, it suggested to me that I build an antagonist that was similar to my protagonist - even to the point of sharing a similar, if twisted, worldview.  What this does is that it forces your protagonist to look at his mirror image and reflect on how he could have turned out instead.
Okay then!  Let's get started.
I figure that it should be someone Zeke should know fairly well - probably even trust to some extent.  That said, I had originally, planned on him having a rival in a cousin from his mother's side of the family.  This cousin is envious of Zeke's power and feels that he would make an even better avatar.  To make him into an effective antagonist, let's have him go haring off in search of power.  He wants to make the world a better place, after all, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  And that is pretty much where he winds up going.
Enter a Mephisto-type god-character who agrees to take on this cousin.  This god lives off the energy of the 'damned' souls he consumes slowly over time - kinda like a spiritual sarlacc.  The only reason the other gods tolerate him is because he feeds only on corrupted souls with little to no chance at redemption.  For this reason, this god is a self-styled God of Judgment and Penance.  He promises Zeke's cousin power, in exchange he must promise to bring 'order' to the 'lawless world' and give him the souls of the 'sinners' so he may punish them.
The cousin then goes on to start a campaign to conquer first the Earth and later the rest of the galaxy.  Of course, Zeke is his primary target.  Seeing that Zeke is gaining powerful allies, the cousin seeks out his own allies and finds himself joining AMALGAM.  Using his powers, the cousin skyrockets to the upper echelons and from there he seeks alliances with others such as the Dead Moon Circus, certain figures in various local and off-Earth governments, and even the occasional demon.
Thoughts?

http://gammasquad.uproxx.com/2011/01/ku ... ngs#page/1]Stanley Kubrick and the Beatles almost made a film version of The Lord of the Rings in the 1960s.  Sadly, that's almost the entirety of the story (the rest is that Tolkien forced them not to), but the linked page includes a short slideshow of recently-made "vintage" movie posters and art for this lost and unmade classic...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Evangelion 2.0 is coming to a number of theaters in the US and Canada. The timing and locations for the US showings are listed here:
http://blog.funimation.co...2-0-theatrical-schedule/
Canadian screening locations have not yet been announced, though it mentions there will be some partway down the page.
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

http://www.sankakucomplex...o-manga-massacre-begins/
Warning Sankaku Complex is NSFW.

In case you don't want to go there the short story is: every single manga is being shelved in the porno sections of convenience stores now, regardless of content. What's worse, since some stores don't have porno sections those stores have stopped carrying manga altogether.
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Epsilon