Hey there. Yes. You, there sitting in Beijing on the computer.

SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER!

I have to wonder - what were you thinking? That my World of Warcraft account, because it hadn't been
active for nearly a year was fair game? So sorry to dissapoint. NOT!

See, I may not have been active in the game, but I have friends who are. Friends who know me in "real
life" and know my phone number. And when they SAW you on my character, not responding, when they KNEW I didn't have the funds to spare to reactivate my account (because I told them), they knew to call me. And
I immediately logged into Blizzard's Battle.net account and changed the password and booted you off. Bet you were surprised!

So asshole. You wasted time and money hacking my account and what's the score? Here's the tally:

-- You either wasted a one-month referral or paid for one outright. Either way, your loss, my gain, cause now that free month to play is MINE!

-- You spent a hell of a lot of time mining and got my character's mining skill maxed out. Thanks! But now I get to do with it what I want. SUCK ON IT.

-- You added some top-end mining bags to my character. Which are now MINE.

-- Ah yes, you mined a LOT of Cobalt and Saronite ore. You filled one whole mining bag and part of another with the stuff. Well, I've now smelted all of it and it's on the market and -I- get the gold for it! It's now MINE.

-- You effectively leveled my character one whole entire level. I only had to do the barest smidge of work to put her over the top. Thanks for the boost! But that character is MINE.

-- You must've made some gold in that 8 hours. I don't remember having that much. But it's now MINE, and I now have a flying mount in Northrend because of that gold. Thanks!

-- You sold off a lot of my gear, but because there was only an 8 hour window of time to work with to track the records down, the GMs were able to completely and utterly restore every last bit of it.

-- You wasted about 8 hours of time, and GAVE me a full month of free game time. FOR NOTHING.

Oh, and the Gmail account you hacked? New password, and I'm combing my systems now to make sure I don't have any traces of your keylogging malware bullshit. No getting back that way!

I believe the technical term for this situation is TOTAL CURBSTOMP.

Karma, it's what's for breakfast, bitches!!

while on the ITF today, one of the topics that came up was NPC voices, who would voice who and so forth. after the TF was over, Ran and my self took what bits we remembered (the topic was started right before the Romi fight, so some was lost.) and made a list.
then i added a few more cuz i could.
so heres waht we came up with, be interesting to see what you guys think and any sujestions you have for diffrent VA's.
Lord Recluse: Lance Henriksen
Black Scorpion: Ron Perlman
Ghost Widow: Jennifer Hale
Sicciro: Frank Welker
Captain Mako: Scott McNeil
Statesman: Gary Chalk
Manticor: Kevin Conroy
Back Ally Brawler: Michal Dorn
Positron: Corey Burton.
Synapse: Seth Green.
Sister Psy: Venus Terzaro
Miss Liberty: Tara Strong.
Citadel: Keith David
Nemesis: Christopher Lee
Romulus: Brian Blessed

Yahtzee, the game reviewer that does Zero Punctuation for The Escapist, has written a fantasy novel, Mogworld. I haven't read it yet, but given his sense of humor, it should be pretty funny.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

And the blonde with the twintails, who appears to be the narrator? Emily Browning, who was Violet in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Just in case you're interested.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

When I woke up this morning, my 1 TB external hard drive was clicking. I'm now looking for a new external hard drive. Anyone have any recommendations?
Edit:
I'm considering getting this hard drive.  Does anyone have any horror stories, or better suggestions?  I'll be putting in the order this evening, so if you could respond before then, that would be great.  Thanks in advance.
-----
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.

I just received some terrible news from Yutaka Shiaratori. Posted verbatim.

Quote:Bad news.Mr. Nishizaki was died today.
He fell from the ship in the suburbs of Ogasawara offing
Chichijima and seem to have drowned.

Yutaka Shiaratori

Quote:What’s very sad about this was that after years of legal troubles a live action version of the cherished retro anime series is getting a great deal of positive feedback from those who have seen the first sneak previews of the film. Had he lived the triumph of that film would have been a great personal victory to Nishizaki.

Here's a shot at one of the FenWiki stub pages that I promised to flesh out. It could use a few more ideas. Mind the wiki markup...

Just received this since I'm doing nanowrimo this year:
[A Pep talk from Mercedes Lackey]

Dear Writer,
I can't think of anything more intimidating than a blank page. Especially the first blank page of a new project. Now, after twenty-mumble years of writing, I have a lot of things to get me past that, one of which is to use the screenplay writing technique of the late Blake Snyder---you can find all of that in his book, Save the Cat! And on the website dedicated to his techniques.  
And these things work really, really well if you already have the basic plot idea and the characters and world in your head.
But what if you don't? What if all you have is a plot?
This is where I am going to deviate from practically anyone you have ever heard from, and tell you this: try writing fanfiction.
For those of you who don't know what fanfiction is, it's pretty simple, and I would bet that you have vaguely thought about doing something like it without ever realizing it. It goes like this: you see a movie or read a book or even play a game, something you really love, but when you're done the first thing that pops into your head is "But what if they had done---" or "And then what happened?" or "Gee if there had been a character like this---"
Fanfiction is taking an existing world, and possibly even some of the characters, and writing your own stories in it. And it is a lot less intimidating than making everything else up for yourself (especially when you're talking about fantasy, science fiction, or horror). Now I am not advocating that you do this with the idea of selling the thing, (though more on that later), because that's called plagiarism and it's illegal. And there are writers and publishing companies that don't allow fanfiction to be published in any form, even on the web, so you have to be very careful about that.
But for purposes of practice? It's fun, it's going to give you a giant kick-start, and you would be surprised at how many professionals started out that way (and still do it!). Well just as an example, go have a look at all the Star Trek, Star Wars, and game-based books there are out there. If you reduce things to principles, most of those are fanfiction---fanfiction commissioned by and given the blessing of the publisher, and produced by professionals, yes, but still fanfiction.
And there are those of us professionals that still write fanfiction for fun (although I doubt there are very few who will be as up-front about it as I am).  Sometimes it's because someone else's creation got us by the throat and our storytelling demon won't let us go until we get our version down on paper or in pixels. Sometimes it's because it's not the genre we make our bread and butter at. Me, for instance; I got involved with a small group of folks in the City of Heroes superhero MMORPG (www.cityofheroes.com) and we were all driven to write fiction about the characters we played. I did that for a couple of years until an even smaller group of us decided to take those characters, create a new setting for them, and see if we could write some real books around them. That became The Secret World Chronicle, which is in podcast form at the website above, and will be a series of books coming from Baen starting in March. So you can see that what sta rts out as fanfiction can, once you get your practice in, turn into a real, marketable project!
But the point is you have to get that practice in first---and NaNoWriMo is one of the best forums for that, just as fanfiction can be one of many platforms for you to launch from. If that's the route you want to go, bravo! Let your fanfic flag fly!  You’ll be following in the footsteps of a lot of greats, like Marion Zimmer Bradley (who wrote Tolkien fanfic)!
Now get out there and conquer that blank page!

Mercedes Lackey

 

Mercedes Lackey has over eighty books in print, with four being published in 2010 alone. You can learn more about her writing and other work at www.mercedeslackey.com and www.secretworldchronicle.com.

Is it just me or can everyone see the irony here ?
-People may die, but ideas are forever. Je suis Charlie.

was a bit unsure about posting this story, it's not the best i've written, but at the same time was fun and let me flesh out two charecters, so here it gose, enjoy.
---
Atlas Park.
The Legendary Base
Neph sat on the floor of her apartment and examined her armor, the thing was a mess now, faulty environmental sealing, bullet scoring, faulty AI uplink and most annoying was a hole in the butt from where MACH injected her a few days ago.
Pulling the power core and setting it to one side core she got up and stretched, making her way to the kitchenette she had so to stop and admired her surroundings before remind her self that as luxuriant as her apartment was, it was just another form off cell.
She had talked to one of the Legendary leaders, Loara'lai or something like that, about her lodgings. As part of the agreement with Longbow she was effectively under a strange for of house arrest, she had to be back in before eight and the door was locked till eight o'clock next morning.
It was almost like she was being grounded or something.
Sighing she started making herself a coffee when she heard a knock at the door, probably some long bow official checking up on her again. grumbling she stoped what she was doing she stormed to the front door and yanked it open. "Yeah, what is… it…" she trail off and looked up at scared face with mismatched eyes.
The tall woman smiled, causing her scars to twitch slightly. "Hey, your Neph right?" she asked, her voice sounding slightly hushed.
Nodding, she back away slightly as a memory popped up. "You're… Lazuren Seraph, right?"
Laz nodded. "Yeah, can I come in?"
"Uh... yeah, sure."
She stepped to one side as Laz entered, the taller girl letting out an impressed whistle. "Not bad."
Neph watch her more around the room. "Why are you here?"
Laz turned with a grin. "I wanted to meet you, you are technically my sister after all."
Sighing she walked over to her armor. "Your Seraphs adoptive child, while I am genetically speaking his…" she pauses and gritted her teeth. "I am not seen as such."
"But you want to be, right?"
There was a loud crash as Neph dropped part of the armor on her foot, cursing she hopped around. "Fuck, how the hell did you know that?"
"Good guess." Laz replied as she walked over.
Sitting down and rubbing her foot, Neph grumbled. "I don't so much want a family… just getting along with Him and Tish would be good enough… but I royally fucked that over on our first meeting."
Sitting down next to her Laz cocked an eyebrow. "How so?"
Neph hobbled back to the kitchenette and grabbed two cans of Mt Dew as she explained what happened when she first met them, leaving out some facts like Dib still being alive. At the end she took a breath and sighed. "So now I'm pretty sure Seraph wouldn't trust me as far as he could throw me and Tish might beat the crap out of me if I so much as look at you guys funny."
Laz accepted the drink and nodded. "Sounds like you have trouble getting along with people."
"You don't even know the half of it."
"Oh, what's that mean?"
"Well… trying to get along with some of the heroes… and all I seem to do is piss them off or stick my foot so far down my gob I'm craping leather."
"Well… you defiantly got that off Dad."
Neph snorted. "Yeah, looks like I can't make friends for crap."
Draining her can Laz tilted her head. "You seem really hung up on that."
"Well… it be nice to talk to some one outside of a mission or something. Fuck, even if it's just sparing or that I'd be happy."
Laz let out a slight chuckled. "Sounds like something's got you worked up and frustrated."
Neph let out another grumble. "Don't get me started on that."
"Oh, a boy or girl got your fancy have they?"
She looked at the scared girl, her jaw dropping. "How the hell are you doing that?"
"Doing what?"
"Practically reading my mind."
Laz waved a hand. "Oh that? I'm pretty good at reading people. Body movement, facial expressions, all that sort of stuff."
Narrowing her eyes Neph replied. "So what do your skills tell you then?"
"That you're in a foul mood because I reminded you of something bad… and that you're frustrated by something or someone. Want to talk about it?"
"Why should I?"
"Because bottling up that sort of thing can be bad for you." Laz rubbed the back of her neck. "And I could probably help you fix things with Dad."
She paused and looked at Laz. "Really?"
"Yeah, your obviously no where near as bad as everyone makes out, we been talking for how long and you have yet to try and kill me?"
She sighed. "Fine, not like I got anything to lose, what you want to start with?"
"Well, what is it you got your eyes set on."
"Light's Retribution."
Laz blinked. "The Praet Terr?"
"Something wrong with that?"
Laz shook her head. "No… just… well Gir and me see the Terr here as sort of an uncle…"
"Yeah, but one: I don't know the guy and don't see him as such and two: it's an alternate universe version."
"… Okay, you have a point there." Chuckling Laz grinned slightly. "Just never tell Gir that, she'd be going eww for days. So why him then?"
Neph shrugs. "He's nice… when I haven't pissed him off. And he's got a body that would put an Olympian god to shame… but it's a one way thing-"
Laz raised a hand to cut her off. "You know, if we're going to talk about that sort of thing, we need something a little stronger than soda."
"I think I got a bottle of white somewhere." She said getting up. "Wait, are you even old enough to drink?"
"Parts of me are, what about you?"
"Point" pulling out the bottle she grabbed two glasses, pouring out a drink and passing it over.
"So…" Laz took a sip of the wine and smiled. "Want to talk more about this guy?"
- - -
Later
Terrence Knight sighed as he walked down the halls of the legendary base, he had been asked to lock up Nephilim's apartment for the night, which he was more than a little bugged by. They had a former Arachnos living in the base, sure she had a curfew and was restricted from entering certain parts of the base, but he still couldn't bring himself to trust her.
Shrugging her entered the apartment block, it wasn't really his problem, all he had to do was lock the door and leave.
As he headed up the steps to the apartment door he heard the TV blaring and voices, odd considering that from what he saw Neph was almost a complete social recluse. He gave the door a knock and was surprised to see Laz open it.
A grin spread across the Tall girls face as she looked down at him. "Hey Terr, what's up?"
"What are you doing here Laz?" he replied.
"Oh, just paying some family a visit."
Terr's broad brow wrinkled slightly. "Wait… what?" he remembered Seraph said that Tish and his DNA had been used to make Nephilim… but he couldn't remember him saying he adopted her or anything. "Never mind… you still haven't really given me a good reason why you're here."
"I thought she needed some one to talk to, is that a problem?"
He paused, dealing with Laz had always been difficult, her face was near impossible to read due to the massive scars running along it.
Shrugging he replied. "No, you gonna leave? I gota lock her in for the night."
Laz looked around. "Um…. Can I stay?"
"… Why?"
"Because we had some wine and it turns out she's a bigger light weight than Gir, so some one has to take care of her… and make sure she doesn't make any drunk phone calls."
Sighing he pinched the bridge of his nose. It probably wouldn't be too bad to let one of Seraphs kids keep an eye on her for a bit. "Okay then… just don't cause too much trouble."
Grinning Laz hugged him. "Thanks Terr."
He retuned the hug. "No problem, now are you gonna let me lock the place up?"
Laz let go of him. "Thanks again Unca Terr." She headed back in and closed the door behind her self.
Chuckling, her placed his hand on the palm reader next to the door and heard the dull clunk of deadbolts locking into place. Laz was odd, to say the least, but then she did seem to be trying to help Nephilim. Shrugging he turned and left, if anything bad happened he would probably hear about it in the morning.
- - -
Heading back to the lounge area, Laz lent over the couch. "Hey Neph, got a roomie for the night." She her and was suspired to get a slight snore in return.
Climbing over the couch she stoped her self from laughing as she saw that while she was at the door with Terr, Neph had drifted off to sleep.
Putting away the glasses and what was left of the wine, she sat checked Neph one last time, the girl curling up on her self slightly, Laz quickly headed up stairs and grabbed a blanket for Neph returning she could hear the girl muter slightly, half formed words escaped as she whimpered slightly.
Tousling her hair, Laz sat down and closed her eyes. "Night little sis."

When you see it...
http://www.youtube.com/wa...PYAc&feature=related