It's funny how your brain's memory works. Things that you haven't thought of in decades can suddenly come back and fill you with feelings that were, at one time, something more familiar.
I experienced this the other day while going for a walk. My girlfriend and I were walking past a school where little league baseball games are almost constantly being played. I never really pay much attention to it, but for some reason the sounds of the games really grabbed me for a moment.
Ping! An aluminum bat made contact with a baseball. The small crowd of friends and family went from talking to enthusiastic yelling. A few yelps from people with loader voices, chirps of encouragement, and then all became quiet again as the play came to a close.
I didn't see what had actually happened during that moment of excitement and I couldn't make out the names people were directing their cheers at, or even what they were actually saying for encouragement. But the general feeling, the pitch and tone of it all, really brought me back to my youth when, for a few years, it was somewhat normal for me to have to go to baseball practice and wake up early to go to games on the weekends.
I've never been much of an athlete, so I didn't always like having to do those things, but I still remember it being fun, in a simple sort of way. I suspect that might just be the rose-colored glasses of lots and lots of time having passed that has made me forget the things I didn't much like, but maybe it's better that I remember it just for the good parts.
Anyway, it's funny how easy it is to go back to those thoughts, even after just about 20 years of never once having thought about it. Transported through back in time by the sound of an aluminum bat!
So the other day I was playing Team Fortress 2, and someone accused me of being a "free-to-play noob". I was chided as being one of the newbie players who only recently got into the game because it became free-to-play, despite my owning and playing the game since 2007.
But let me back up a little bit. I was playing Team Fortress 2 the other day, and having a less than stellar round. Some people on my team, who had been playing on the server before I got there, were using their microphones to play the game. These players were being too vocal, to the point that I couldn't concentrate on the game because of all the "mic spam". Being annoyed at my repeated effort and lack of results, coupled with the inane chirps and squeals of the mic spam, I did what any right-minded online gamer would do: I told them to "shut the fuck up".
Bear in mind, I merely typed this phrase into the game's chat; most of the time, these messages are either not read by those they are directed at, since that person is too busy playing the game, or it is swept off the screen quickly by in-game announcements. My message was immediately recognized by the person who I considered to be the primary offender, however.
What was seconds before only friendly banter and playful chatting suddenly became a shrill torrent of insults, disagreeing with my command and demanding that I "shut the fuck up" myself. The tone of voice degenerated into what I could only describe as "ghetto". It's funny how quickly someone's world can come crashing down at the slightest bit of confrontation.
So we argued a bit more, me click-clacking away at my keyboard, and the annoying mic spammer answering my few messages with an elevating level of shrieking. Another player said I should get banned.
Then, the original mic spammer decided that the best way she could deal with me was to call me out as a "free-to-play nub".
A little bit of history, before I continue: back in 2007, Team Fortress 2 used to come as a standalone inclusion in the Orange Box, with Half-Life 2. After that, it became possible to buy the game separately. Finally, as of June of 2011, the game became "free-to-play", meaning anyone could download the game and play with everyone else. Since then, the newest, greatest community-spawned insult is to call someone a "free-to-play noob", meaning they stink at the game because they've only recently begun playing, since the game was made free.
Obviously, I do not fall into this category, and I stated that plainly. Ms. Mic Spam backed off rather quickly after this, and was quite quiet after. And rightfully so, since most of my characters in Team Fortress 2 are outfitted with either The Proof of Purchase hat, my Primeval Warrior pin, or both. These items show that I bought the game back when it was still for sale, and that I have been playing since September 18, 2007, respectively. They are not tradable, and anyone who has them is very obviously not a Team Fortress 2 free-to-play inductee.
So what's the lesson here, other than that I like to have petty arguments with stupid people while I am playing games?
Simply this: if you're going to be an asshole and toss around the "free-to-play noob" insult liberally every time you disagree with someone in Team Fortress 2, make sure you know what the hell you're talking about first. It's not hard to check out people's loadouts first. Unless of course, you're some kind of noob.
Also, if you want to chat with people constantly, start up a private Steam voice chat conversation, or use Xbox Live, Skype, Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or some other chat client. You can even play games while you're doing it. Just leave everyone else out of the conversation, because I assure you, we're not interested.
I haven't been able to update the blog as much as I'd like over the last few weeks, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about things to write about. Instead of letting all of my random thoughts go to waste, I thought I'd present them here as a collection. If you're just looking for a few moments of entertainment, you like reading the musings of the slightly insane, or you're looking for something to spark your pent-up rage, the following list is probably for you!
Never Too Zune
Each time I plug my iPod (5th generation) into my computer and it freezes up, I secretly hope that it won't come back on, so I have an excuse to buy a Zune HD. From everything I've seen online, these things look pretty nice, and I'd like to try something different than iPod for a while. I have absolutely no interest in the iPod Touch or an iPhone; the 32gb Touch is $110 more than the 32gb Zune HD and being tethered to AT&T again just makes me feel sick.
But I digress; the Zune HD looks slick in its own right. Wireless streaming capabilities and built-in HD radio are great, and I also like the idea of being able to output HD video and, of course, web browsing. If Microsoft opens up the Zune to user-created applications, it will become an even great alternative to the iPod. They seem to be making an effort to get developers to consider their other mobile devices, so I don't think this is too far-fetched. So far, however, they've been pretty tight-lipped about it.
Marvel Comics Feeling a Little Disney
Though I am not a huge comic book buff, I still felt as though I could almost hear the collective groan of fans as Disney scooped up Marvel Comics for a cool $4 billion early this week. Though both companies are distinctly American, and I am sure DIsney will handle Marvel with care, I still feel like Disney is starting to (or maybe already has) hit that critical mass where a company gets so big, with a reach so broad, that it ends up losing focus on all fronts.
There are plenty of companies out there who handle the multiple prongs of modern media quite well, but Disney has already been in danger of losing its grip on things in the past, and with yet another large addition to their stable of interests, I can't help but wonder what the future will be like for both Disney and Marvel.
Will Disney change how Marvel presents its franchises?
Will we see Marvel characters integrated with Disney's other mainstays, in titles like the Kingdom Hearts games?
Will we see another feud in Disney's management as these things happen?
Who knows? It could be interesting to watch, but it'll be a shame if either brand is hurt because of this.
All-Out Fallout
When I got sick a couple of weeks ago, I spent a few days laying around my apartment, relaxing and recovering. My girlfriend had some things to do up at her mom's house, and didn't want to risk getting sick, so I was all by myself for much of that time. Instead of doing anything productive, I used the time to get re-acquainted with my Xbox; I decided that there was no better way of doing this than by collecting all the achievements in Fallout 3.
I did all that I could with my existing character (why did Bethesda choose to make one bobblehead impossible to go back and get?), and then made another so I could focus on slightly different talents to pick up a few odd achievements, like the one for 50 speech successes, and also so I could hit the appropriate levels with neutral and bad karma.
I've now gotten every achievement in Fallout 3, as well as in Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt, and have had a lot of fun in the process. I've seen a lot of things that I missed in my first go-round, and have grown to appreciate, for a second time, the vast world of Fallout 3.
Hackintosh is Dead
Though I usually get my fill of OS X at work, a few months ago I got OS X up and running on some old PC hardware I had laying around at home. I was mostly interested in trying my hand at iPhone App development, so I downloaded the iPhone SDK and got everything up and running without many problems. I didn't use the old rig often however, and I let it sit around for a while before firing it up again last week.
Though I've been told it isn't a good idea, I've used the system update on my Hackintosh before, and everything's turned out fine. When I booted up to find a 300+ mb system update waiting for me, I thought nothing of it as I proceeded with the download and installation. Unfortunately, the update broke my installation, and for some reason I haven't been able to re-install it since. Either something has changed on my box (something which sticks around after multiple hard drive re-partitions?) or I simply can't remember the settings I used to install OS X the first time. It's a drag, but frankly I haven't had time to learn to code iPhone Apps anyway. I'll probably dig into this a little deeper one of these weekends when I've got nothing better to do.
Can't Take the Heat
Recently, I was playing some World of Warcraft on my desktop computer, wrapping up a dungeon with a group of others, when the image on the screen stuttered, a strange dot pattern appeared around my cursor and the UI elements, and then the computer locked up. After a quick restart, and about a minute of play, the same thing happened. In a hurry to get back into the game (and in an effort not to be the reason for the deaths of my entire group), I threw open my laptop and loaded the game up there. In-game disaster was narrowly averted, but it left me worried about my desktop machine.
In my experience, most graphical glitches of this kind are attributed to overheating hardware – the bane of all computer gamers.
So earlier today, I opened up my desktop computer and dusted it out. Then I turned it on and started World of Warcraft again, and let it sit. About 10 minutes later, I came back into the room to find the screen flickering and the computer frozen. Not good.
I guess this is a good excuse to get a new GPU, something I've been wanting to do for a while anyway, but my existing motherboard doesn't have a PCI-Express 2.0 slot on it, so I'm back to the same conundrum as before I assembled my current desktop - upgrading one part means upgrading two or three others as well. And since these are all the most expensive parts (GPU, CPU, motherboard), I might as well just splurge a few extra hundred bucks and update the rest of the hardware. But if my apartment is getting too hot (it's hot here lately, but not that hot), I'm not too keen on buying and subsequently ruining more computer hardware either. It's a problem, I guess.
That's All For Now
Anyway, I think that's enough of this rambling for now. I've been a bit of a scatterbrain lately, and now the madness shall spread!
We all have little fits of nostalgia now and then. And what better way to fulfill these odd urges than by jumping online and finding old videos on YouTube, toys on eBay, and DVD collections on Amazon?
So it was that I found myself browsing Amazon the other day, looking at old cartoons. Something I'd read that morning reminded me of an old cartoon I'd enjoyed as a kid, Doug, and I wanted to see if anyone ever got around to putting the series on DVD. This was one of those times when a mere search would satisfy my curiosity; no purchases were to be made.
I pulled up Amazon, typed in the word "Doug", and a few moments later was looking down a long list of cartoons and shows, many of which I remember watching in my youth.
The list read like a lineup of classic Nickelodeon shows: Doug, Ren & Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, Hey Arnold!, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Rugrats, Losing Control, The Secret World of... er, wait. Losing Control?
A softcore porno. In the middle of my Doug search results!
I find this completely hilarious. Right smack-dab in the middle of a bunch of cartoon DVD collections is some random adult DVD, which I can only surmise is there because one of the actors is named Doug Jeffery. A page or two down, the same search also yielded a Girls Gone Wild video, which apparently included "commentary" by comedian Doug Stanhope.
Though I am not a diehard Google fan, I usually use Google whenever I need to search for something, and I take advantage of a few of the services they offer like Gmail and their online calendar. Lately though, I've been a bit intrigued with Microsoft's revamped Live Search, Bing. I've been frequently jumping back and forth between Google and Bing to compare search results, especially when I have trouble finding something.
So far, I've been pretty impressed with Bing - it almost always returns just about everything I would find on Google, and the image and video search function on Bing is actually a cut above those found on Google. And though I do enjoy the simplicity of the Google landing page, which is one of the reasons why I think it became so popular in the first place, I do find myself drawn to the Bing landing as well; they almost always have a beautiful image on display, and the fact boxes you can mouse over are usually interesting.
Bing has been running a contest over the last few weeks, in order to help them find a jingle for the site. The contest simply asked people to record their idea for a jingle, and then submit it to the Bing YouTube page, where the winner would be chosen based on number of views and quality of rating.
The winner was crowned yesterday, and while the video is odd and slightly disturbing, I have to admit - the song is kind of catchy. Catchy in the way that the simple tune gets stuck in your head for about an hour after viewing. Behold the winning video:
The winner, Jonathan Mann, has been creating (and posting on YouTube) a song a day, and the video he submitted to the Bing jingle contest was his 202nd creation. Sure, it's decidedly awful, but isn't that pretty much what's expected from contests like this? Isn't being awful a prerequisite for running a viral internet campaign?
Anyway, I got a kick out of it. And almost as big of a kick out of the sourpuss people posting about how terrible it is directly on the Bing blog. It's pretty easy to pick out the people who are seemingly just mad that Bing isn't the pile of garbage they hoped it would be. But their comments are funny, nonetheless.
Also, I'm happy to report that Twitter has been down for hours now. Apparently, it was taken out by hackers early this morning. Let's hope it stays down.
Update: It looks like it's tentatively back up now. The world has its largest collection of useless information back again.
I just wanted to report that over the last 24 hours, Marty Blog got slammed with over 100 comment spam messages. You didn't see any of them, thanks to WordPress Hashcash. Instead, I got to privately view them all (at one point I was getting about one spam comment a minute), and I deleted every last one of them. I also deleted a post which I think was the catalyst for all of them, a generic comment made on my old post about the Spore Creature Creator. It's funny how whenever I post about more popular games at the time, the blog starts getting hit with a temporary surge of spam.
In any case, the spam comments have since slowed down, and I've only had one or two to delete all day. It seems all is well once again.
Oh, and I also picked up Fable 2 on my lunch hour today. A bunch of good reviews (and an undying love for the original game) can go a long way I suppose. I'll report on that later once I get a chance to play it.
Alliteration is a good way to kick off a blog, right? No? Crap.
Well anyway, greetings everyone, and welcome to the first ever blog entry on my first ever blog (discounting 64 Digits, EO, and those other... things). As I have been quite a scatterbrain lately, I thought creating a blog would be a helpful, organizational exercise for myself, while also providing you with an exclusive glimpse into the random string of events that make up my existence.
But I don't come into this blog thing without my reservations. I'll be honest; I don't particularly care for these "deep" blogs people write. That's not to say that what I plan on entering here will be shallow, but that I'm hoping to keep this as down to earth as possible. And I absolutely refuse to use the word 'blogosphere.' That word was created be a being of sub-human intelligence.
So now that introductions are over with, let's get down to it. As some of you probably already know, I run Reflect Games (for those who don't, it's a website which provides online services for Game Maker games), and we just got done with our first game creation competition about a week and a half ago. The goal of the competition was for entrants to create an arcade game in a month and overall, things went pretty well - we had 6 entries when all the dust settled, and an equal number of judges, which turned out to be a great combination. I'm happy with how it went, and hope to continue with another contest starting October 1st.
As far as games go, I've also had some time to sit down and look over some of the code from Falcon Squad, and also begin (yet another) game. This new venture will be a departure from my "normal" game; it will be heavily sprite-based, and will be 2D. I can almost hear the gasps!
Being a kid who grew up on games like Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog, Earthworm Jim, and a slew of other platformer games, I have had a very hard time suppressing my urge to try to create one this long. I guess my love for 3D really got the best of me at first, but I ever since I first laid my hands on Game Maker, I have wanted to make a platformer game... and the time draws nigh that I embark on that goal. Not too much is currently planned out in my mind, but I have begun spriting the main character, and the results have been great so far. There are many elements of past games that I have played that I would really like to incorporate into this game, but I will discuss it a little more in depth at a later time. Needless to say, it will probably be quite a bit of work, but I am looking forward to spending some time getting back to my spriting roots. All those hours of Mario Paint might finally count for something!
Other than all that (and playing through BioShock on my 360 a second time... gotta get those achievements!), it's been pretty much business as usual for me. Which means going to work every weekday, and squeezing every last possible amount of enjoyment out of the weekends. I'll have to talk about that stuff another time though, because I think this blog is starting to approach "short novel" territory.
So to whoever did, thanks for reading... to whoever didn't, I'm very disappointed in you. But since you didn't read it, you don't know that. Gah.
