Horror...

The killer awoke before dawn.  He put his boots on.

Father?
Yes, son?
I want to kill you.

Well, I guess this topic is worthy of my input at this point.  The short version is that the weapons that exist today aren't the problem, it's the people we've become.  Evolution has brought us through a lot of different stages in our development, and through them all there have been some among us capable of massive destruction of the rest of us.  We've just gotten a little sicker these days.  It's the human mind that's the deadliest weapon we have to consider.  There's no stopping our evolution, and no re-directing it either.  Restrict all the guns you want, it'll just make them more expensive.  If someone is bent on killing a lot of people, they'll find a way to do it.

This recent tragedy in Connecticut had a surprise twist, one I found interesting.  This is just how I heard the story develop through the media, so of course feel free to do your own research before you make your own judgment.  (A little legal disclaimer so I can't be hanged for inciting anarchy.)  The first reports said that the gunman used two pistols, a Glock and a Sig-Sauer.  There was a rifle found in his car.  Now, the first thing I said to myself when I heard that was "Wow, something this big is going to almost REQUIRE some action on gun control, but how are they going to manage that when he used pistols?"  I found that out the next day.  The medical examiner says that all were killed with an assault rifle.  I just shook my head and laughed.  Ok, I thought, this is how it happens, and nobody can say anything to change it now.  How they made the original mistakes is beyond me, maybe someone saw a vacuum cleaner in the guys car and thought it was a rifle, maybe whoever saw the Glock and Sig just saw the light reflecting off the assault rifle funny.   I understand that in the aftermath of something like this something needs to be done... regardless of how futile I think it is.  The story of him using two pistols doesn't serve the purpose of enacting more restrictions on assault weapons, so the Feds tell all the parents, relatives, first responders and medical examiners "Ok, we need to have some good come from these children's deaths, and the teachers, so the story now is, wink wink, the gunman used an assault rifle to do all this.  Got it?"  Everyone is in agreement, and the story gets changed.  It's just odd seeing it actually happen.  What I keep coming back to is that this was most likely done with pistols, and probably will be again and again in the future unfortunately.  Will planting assault rifles become standard operating procedure at events like this?

Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror.  Horror and mortal terror are your friends.  If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared.  They are truly enemies.

Worst Victoria's Secret EVER...

It took some creative thinking by some seriously fucked up minds, but they actually managed to make this year's holiday tradition of tits, asses and wings completely SUCK.  And not the good suck either.  For those of you with short attention spans, if you haven't seen it yet, do one thing.  Pick something different to listen to and turn the volume down on your tv.  I could recommend not watching it at all, but that would be "letting them win."

So here's the problem.  Evidently the nimrods who plan this event have lost sight of their main demographic, which is of course adult males.  That's pretty basic.  Although I haven't done an official survey, I think next in line would be adult women and adolescent boys.  I can't be positive, but I think probably dead last on the list would be nine year old girls.  So then somebody needs to explain THIS...

Yes, someone PLEASE explain why fucknuts here was featured as a guest on this once proud and honorable tradition.  I swear it took ten years off my life seeing this manufactured pseudo-star involved in this show which is clearly meant for people who've taken the training wheels off their bikes.  What makes matters worse is that there seems to be no sense of actual artistic skill this year either.  Bruno Mars came closest to actual music in this year's show, but not by much.  I know I've heard Rihanna produce reasonable music before, but her segments this year sounded like what you'd hear emanating from the baboon pavilion at the zoo.  Bieber made a mockery of the word "talent" by needing an accompanying guitarist for his dopey little love song, which by the way took another, bonus five years off my life.  This greasy little shithead needs to take a few of the millions of dollars he's making for being "adorable" and take some fucking guitar lessons.  The "sitting there singing" thing didn't work for Art Garfunkel, and he had the benefit of harmonizing with his accompanying guitarist.  Then again, Bieber's fans are most likely too stupid to realize how goofy he looks needing accompaniment and they're definitely too young to remember when musicians used to play their own guitar while they sang.  Whatever, I think the musical choices this year were beyond horrible.  When Bieber was halfway through his first segment I had the stereo on, rockin' Joe's Garage.  Catholic girls and all that.  It went well with the show.  I turned up the sound a couple times just so I would know exactly how bad it was, and I was never disappointed.  It was truly terrible.  The horror... the horror...

The good part, yes there is one, believe it or not, is that the girls were beyond beautiful as always, and the Victoria's Secret Holiday Fashion Show will NEVER, NEVER, EVER be as bad as it was this year.  And that's a really good thing.

  
 

Yahoo Zombie Update

Yeah, Daryl!  That's what I'm talking about.  That goes out directly to Yahoo and whatever else is causing this problem.  Here's an update on what I've seen posted by other disgruntled zombie slayers out there.  Apparently Yahoo has "lost their Amazon server" (whatever that means) and is working to fix the problem.  (COME ON ALREADY!!!)  It's affected more games than just Zombie Pandemic, and there are a LOT of people, a LOT of paying customers, who are currently waiting on a fix.  Here's a snap of a response from Yahoo I found from someone who contacted customer service.  (I haven't bothered doing that.)

Click on the image to see it bigger.

Nothing much more to add, it's just good to see that the problem is big enough that there should be a resolution, and due to the number of games involved and people affected it should be a priority for them to address.  Our safehouses will be overrun and filled with Zeds when we get back but I know our clan has plenty of ammo, and we'll be ripe for some major carnage.   I predict that there will be a shortage of body bags.  I'll close this post with a snap of Schlongulus' recent achievement, top zombie slayer just a few weeks ago.  More info when I get it. 

Zombie Pandemic Problems

Ever get fucked by a zombie?  If Zombie Pandemic is really down for good, a lot of us will be able to say we have.  Seems like the past two days of it being down weren't a glitch, evidently ZP and Yahoo are having issues and the notice on their site isn't encouraging.

This is the notice on the site today-
*For reasons beyond our control, the current version of Zombie Pandemic is set to be discontinued shortly, and this will likely impact the user accounts of Yahoo! players. We are experiencing technical difficulties with the game vendor. We will provide more precise information as soon as possible, and are working to resolve the issue. In the meantime, we advise users not to make further micropayments for their accounts. Stay tuned for additional information.

I don't know about you, but my first question was What's a "micropayment"?  Although it's free to play (in a limited fashion) I paid 26 squids for a year of premium and the site goes poof 2 months later.  This made me want to see some more of their creative writing, so I went and looked at their "terms and conditions".  This is where potential future players might want to take special notice.  I have to say that if I had read this when I first saw the game, I never would have started playing until it was out of the "Open Beta" stage, if at all.  Here are a couple of excerpts...

* As a result frequent server updates with adjusted, extended and modified game content can be expected resulting in instability of the game and thus inconvenience to the user. Created user accounts may also be subject to deletion at which point a beta tester must create a new account. User accounts will be reset several times during the beta test in order to balance out the gameplay.  (I read that as "You're likely to lose all your progress and have to start over again, possibly many times".)

* The carrier reserves the right to cease operating the game Zombie Pandemic without justification. The user may demand reimbursement for fees already paid out for features. This option shall only apply to fees unused up to this point in time. Any other claims by the user shall be prohibited.
(The way I read this is that if you bought credits for virtual items, you can be reimbursed for what you haven't used yet up to the time of the game ending.  Time paid for can't be reimbursed forward from the time of the game ending, so if you bought Premium, you're screwed.)

The entire page of terms and conditions is here... Terms and Conditions

So I guess now we wait and see how the development team handles this problem.  It's a decent brainless game to diddle with while watching tv, movies, or hanging out, but it certainly won't be missed that much if it goes for good.  Just remember, don't give them any money and as I said in an earlier post- stay away from the forum.

I'll close this post with a shot of my players, quite possibly dead and rotting right now.   HAH!

L-R Schlongulus, Jaques Sparreaux, Dinah Moe Hum, Chlamydia Von Clapp  RIP

Why CompUSA and Tiger Direct lost my business

Ok, sorry to use Angelina and Harry that way, but it's no more deceptive than CompUSA's practice of rolling extended warranties into the price of some of their items.  In case you're not inclined to read the whole post, just be aware that CompUSA sold me a computer, and I was completely unaware that $75 of what I paid was a warranty that I wouldn't have chosen to buy had I known about it. 

Remember the good old days, when the salesman would ask you if you wanted to pay an additional large amount for a warranty, and you almost always said "NO" because the cost of the warranty was more than half the cost of whatever you were buying?  Sometimes I'd say "Hell no, I could buy two for just a little more than that and throw one away if it breaks."  Yeah, something tells me the salesmen at CompUSA have heard that one a time or two as well.  I guess they decided to skip the whole "asking the customer if they want it" thing and just include it in the price.  Hey, more commissions that way.  Also, more clients for whoever handles the warranties... in this case, Tiger Direct.  I didn't know this at the time, but it surprised the hell out of me, CompUSA and Tiger Direct are basically the same thing! 

I'll try to make this short, here's what happened.  I needed a backup computer so I bought a used one for around $200 from the CompUSA right down the street.  That was the price I had budgeted for a computer.  At the time there was no need to look at my receipt, where, to be fair, it broke down the prices.  Who the hell actually looks at their receipt?  I knew I paid the right amount, into my records the receipt went.  A month later the computer died.  Go figure, right?  Not that a $200 computer couldn't have died also, but maybe it would have taken a lot longer to do it.  Bottom line is that I wouldn't have bought it if the price tag said $119.  So I took it in and spoke to an employee who was very friendly and said since it was only a month, they'd repair it no problem.  He didn't even ask to see my receipt.  After eight days and no phone call, I stopped in to check on it.  A different employee was there and finally found my computer in the "done" section, but without any info.  He assured me that it had been taken care of.  I drove home, plugged it in, and guess what?  It still didn't work.  So I drove it back.  I told the dweeb behind the counter that it hadn't been fixed, and asked what they had been doing for eight days.  After about fifteen minutes of nervous glances, scuttling about, whispering, they told me that I would need to pay for a diagnostic to see what was wrong, as well as any parts and labor for the repair.  At this point I pulled out the receipt and asked for a refund.  They informed me that I was past the return/exchange date (which was 15 days).  By now I'm seeing red, and their suggestion that I deal with their warranty people wasn't satisfactory.  I mean, here's this big, sophisticated computer repair shop, and since I have a warranty issue, they won't repair the computer I had just bought from them.  So I look at my warranty pamphlet, and see that the warranty people are Tiger Direct.  I found out a couple days later that CompUSA and Tiger Direct are basically the same entity.  You can interchange the names however you want, but the way I see it, I bought a computer from Tiger Direct, paid Tiger Direct for a warranty, was standing in a Tiger Direct repair shop, and they wouldn't honor my warranty right there.  I can't imagine how little it would have cost them to repair my $119 computer, considering I paid an extra $75 for the warranty, but evidently they'd rather have an extremely dissatisfied customer.  They had my money, and now I was being Gotten Rid Of. 

All I can say is that if you choose to shop at CompUSA, be very careful and always ask if there's an extended warranty hidden in the price of whatever you're buying.  Personally, I won't have that problem because I'll never shop there again.

It's zombie season!

It's only about a month and a half until The Walking Dead season 3 arrives... and it's nice to have zombies to kill in the mean time, isn't it?  One thing that's not bad is Zombie Pandemic, a free game where you create a character and search a post apocalyptic city for supplies, weapons, and other survivors who send you on profitable missions.  Along the way you get to waste hordes of the undead, and your "achievements" section keeps track of how many walkers you've killed, for example, with an axe, a handgun, a sub machine gun, or simply beaten to death with a golf club.  You can build safe houses as you explore, and form a "clan" that other friends can join.  There's no animation at the moment, but I see that the development team is always working on it.  The other day I saw animated smoke coming from an Army vehicle.  The game play typically involves an overhead view of a grid section of a city block, but when one enters a mission area or encounters zombies, the view changes to a first person view with text and/or attack buttons.  At the moment there are about 9,000 grid sections to explore.  It's fairly addictive at the beginning, but be prepared for the action to slow down around level 15 or so.  As you explore and fight, your stamina points diminish, and eventually you have to stop.  The levels rise quickly in the beginning, and with a SP (stamina points) boost at each level, you can keep going.  As you get higher in level, they come less frequently and you won't be able to play as much, which is fine if you haven't gotten sucked in and addicted.  Ok, I admit it, I had to get their "premium" and get more SP, faster SP replenishment, and an extra 3 characters.  What the heck, only a few bucks, right?  If any of my friends out there want to find me, join up and write to Schlongulus.  :D

What I wouldn't recommend is their "forum".  If you absolutely have to, if you're having a problem and just can't find the answer yourself, as a last resort go ask on the forum.  My limited experience there showed me that it's populated mostly by anal, uppity dweebs who probably have power or control over nothing in their real lives and who live on those boards to exercise their superiority over others.  Their peevish and disparaging attitudes would make an 18th century etiquette lesson look like the food fight in Animal House.

An example of this would be the weapon I've been thinking of since I started watching The Walking Dead several months ago.  It's an 8 fot long 2 x 2... with a hole drilled in each end and a 3/8" or 1/2" steel rod held in with nice strong two part epoxy.  About a foot of steel would be left sticking out on each end.  Then the tips would be ground down to a sharp point.  The center of the 2 x 2 is wrapped with hockey stick grip tape.  Simple and efficient, a bunch can be made quickly and easily.  I can only imagine how quickly a whole herd of walkers can be dropped by ten people with these brain pokers.  When I posted this in the forum, figuring to have a friendly chat with others abut killing zombies, I found that my first mistake was to write one post, then several minutes later, I had a few new thoughts, so I added them in a reply to my original.  Big mistake evidently.  It seems like my two posts confused people and threw a couple of them into such a tailspin that they felt the need to deride me for it.  My second mistake was expecting an enjoyable conversation.  I was treated to criticisms that epoxy wasn't needed, duct tape would do, and that the weapon needed blades at the front and other changes that I had already considered and rejected.  First, duct tape??  Go ahead, make yours with duct tape and when your point comes off in the head of your zombie, don't come crying to me.  Second, this isn't a battle axe, it's not a sword.  It's a skull poker.  I call it "The Cortex Tickler".  It's eight feet long, for cryin' out loud!  Swinging that with a blade at the end would be unwieldy.  The whole "point" of the weapon is to be able to jab at walkers from a distance of about 4 or 5 feet, and poke their brains at a rate of about one every 3 to 5 seconds, maybe faster, but that would mean that they're getting pretty thick and you need to take out your Uzi.  Think about it, 20 walkers per person per minute.  A herd of 200 is down in two minutes by five people. 

Enough for now.  Enjoy the game but stay away from the forum.  See y'all again soon... I have a beef with a fairly major retail store that I'm going to address next. 

The Big BANG

I just found this, thought I'd share it.  :D

"N"

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a while.  This seems to be a good item to come back with though, it's a graphic version of Stephen King's short story "N".  It's my favorite selection from his book of short stories "Just After Sunset".  I've added the widget to the side of my blog here, and it can also be seen here Watch here also, an official page for "N".  Thanks Stephen, for a very cool version of a very cool story!