Finally! Yesterday, the repairmen came out in the afternoon and fixed the AC. I can focus on getting those assignments done ... I'd been melting in the heat wave we had, unable to concentrate on them.

Made me miss out on one assignment due date ... whoops. I'm going to have to try and get as many assignments done as I can right now, just in case something else happens. Best not to let this stuff sneak up on me like that.

Though ... I've also been taking advantage of the revived AC to finally check out Left 4 Dead with a few friends. Man that game is

During the final weeks of the summer semester's first rounds, as well as throughout the ongoing weeks, we've been having trouble with the air conditioner. It's been periodically stopping, no longer providing any cold air.

Considering we're in the middle of a heat wave here in Texas, and most of the state is experiencing a drought, this is pretty bad. We've had AC repairmen come to the house to check out the unit, but the most they've done is give it a clean bill of health and recommend certain quick-fix measures (like letting the AC run its fans without any air conditioning for an hour, or letting it rest completely) to remedy any malfunctions.

Well, today, it's stopped completely--lovely time, too, with the weather being well above 100+ degrees Farenheit. We've been unable to contact the AC repair company; I'm unsure if there's anyone else we can turn to (the curse of living in a small town). Even if we do get ahold of them early tomorrow, we're probably going to have to wait. Meanwhile, the house is now a sauna. I can't use my desktop computer in this heat, given that the video card runs hella hot. I have to resort to my laptop, once again ... and hope that it doesn't melt, either.

This doesn't bode well given the assignments breathing down my neck. I've been struggling to study in this heat; I've had to leave the house several times. Right now I'm attempting to take the exams due tonight here at the house, but if I can't manage that, I'll need to find a wi-fi hotspot and do it there. Preferably a place where I can plug in my laptop's adapter to something, given the battery on this machine is old and has a short life.

It's just one thing after another these days ...

You know, I don't think I've ever seen a tank drive completely submerged under water ...

... but I definitely have not seen one where the tank commander is sticking up out of a giant periscope while doing so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ1seG7MHZU

Drama's kind of like getting in a car accident where the other guy runs a red light while speeding, sideswiping you as you cross the intersection.

That's all I gotta say about that.

screenChaos410 is up!
Okay, now I'm caught up!

... I think.

I'm not sure. THE POINT IS! There's a comic for this week and this is it! Barring any other comics I need to make throughout the week!

Also, if you don't get the comic, I left a little background info in the rambling column for this one. I don't think you need to know the backstory in order to find the comic funny, though.

Though if you're just tuning in, you might want to read some of the early RWs to get an idea of just how dastardly Nth Power is!

Enjoy, folks!

I've been looking into possible aveneues as far as a game engine from which to work on a project.

This list has been useful in detailing all the available game engines out there, their stipulations for use, and what they have to offer.

For a while, I've had the idea of working on a game in the Source engine. Obviously ... as a lone college student I don't have the funds to commercially license the Source engine from Valve, but I'd been curious about a different approach; a game sold as a Source engine mod.

I don't know for sure whether or not this is a viable approach, but Counterstrike, Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, and Garry's Mod all started life as mods--and Garry's Mod is still a mod. I don't know if indie developers can actually sell Source mods, especially through Steam. I've tried looking up information on this, and haven't found anything. Valve does offer indie-developed games and mods on Steam, but the mods I've seen are always free to download ... save for Garry's Mod, that is.

The alternative--which is probably better--would be to look for engine that doesn't have licensing fees. The one that's caught my eye te most is XreaL, a game engine under the GPLv2 license. It's based on the id Tech 3 engine (Quake 3's engine), but purportedly updated for today's graphics standards.

Hawke said that he'd seen this engine before in a Slashdot article, and that there's some debate over which of the open source/GPL/free/etc engines out there is really the best.

So there's two possible routes here. Developing games as Source mods would give me access to a reliable and well-documented SDK, as well as ways to look for help when I need it (and boy would I need a lot!). XreaL, though, would allow me to make commercial games if I so choosed (if I understand the GPL correctly--Theogrin looked it over and is fairly certain that the GPL allows people to sell games made with an engine that's licensed under GPL).

Maybe I should talk to one of the guys at Team Garry and see how they were able to have Valve sell Garry's Mod over Steam.

Since this week started, I've been getting something new. Not so much panic attacks now, but a constant soreness or pain in my breastbone.

At first, it was just a soreness right underneath my right ... well, breast, I guess. Tender to the touch, sometimes I would get a brief burning sensation.

That went away as of yesterday and has been replaced with an almost constant, slight (but noticable) pain in my left breastbone--neither of these felt "deep," but rather close to the surface of my skin--or rather, in the bones. It goes away temporarily if I ever burp or somesuch. I read at Mayo clinic that this is likely "Costochondritis," which ... as I found out, can be caused by stress. Apparently it goes away on its own, and the only real things that can be done are get rest, do mild exercise, and use heating pads.

I still do get occasional tightness in my chest, but that goes away, too. This can't be a heart attack, especailly if it's gone on for this long--but it is worrisome. I've been trying to find a doctor I can go to which I can trust; the problem is, is that most of the doctors I've been to around here are not helpful. As I discovered back in 2007, a lot of doctors don't actually listen to what you have to say; they make their diagnosis based on the first few words you say at your appointment, listening for keywords. Shortcuts that can lead to a misdiagonsis.

I've been trying to find out if there's a doctor around here that won't do that, but I don't want to put this off if the problem is serious, either.

screenChaos409 is up!
... Or maybe I wasn't caught up!

For those just tuning in, I'd got my desktop computer back in working shape after going half a year without it. And the first thing on the agenda was ... well, a lot of RW comics. I've done four this week, now. 6_9

This one was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing, too. Gut Funk reminded me what day it was, and I went "... F**K!" Of course, with the summer semester in full swing, I couldn't spend all day working on a comic, sooo ... this was the best I could do on short notice!

Hope it's enjoyable anyway, though ... !

Well, thanks to all the RWs I had to take care of ... I had no time to actually finish the anniversary quests on RO. The quests were practically designed for groups of people, not solo players; certain monsters were, as I found out right before maintenance, designed to be hunted by specific classes.

Lei Wong did help me out a lot on iRO Chaos, since he lent me his Grand Cross for the first part of the quest--but he was busy running the quest with someone else, I think, and logged out soon after. Given I had no one to run the quests with by the time I had time for it, that pretty much shot all my hopes at snagging the swag in the foot.

I did get some EXP out of it, as well as some of the hats I already had ... nothing on Valkyrie, though. I attempted it (mind you, my character there is level 30 instead of 83) and all that got me was losing all my zeny on teleports, then all the EXP I'd earned while trying to do even the first part of the quest.

I'm not really that happy about it, either. Aside from my own interest in running the quest, people kept bugging me about how I should do it for the Crown of Deceit that's awarded at the end.

Ah well ... I'll have to figure out what to do with the rest of the month I paid for. At least there was a sale going on, and it only cost $10 instead of the usual $12. :/ For now, though, I've got to focus on PSU and the next round of summer semester classes (turns out there's already a few exams tomorrow!) ...

screenChaos408 is up!
There. All caught up on comics for this week.

The next round of summer semester classes has started; thankfully, I'm in the process of finally resurrecting my desktop computer! There's been some kinks along the way, though--but it's been a lot easier to work on and update Ragnarok Wisdom.

Maybe I'll finally have some time to play some RO! ... Assuming the summer semester doesn't swallow all my time up.

Anywys, enjoy!

screenChaos407 is up!
Happy Fourth of July, everybody!

...

*ahems, pulls out neuralizer*

Why yes, it's still the fourth of July!

Why would you ask?!

In all seriousness, I'm probably going to make a comic for today as well--provided I can think of something. This was just what came to mind after the fireworks show got cancelled out here.

Anyways, enjoy!

My desktop computer is back in business!

I'm going through the process of setting everything back up, but so far, everything checks out. Hopefully I'll find some time to play RO and PSU before things get busy again.

screenChaos406 is up!
No, this isn't the Fourth of July comic!

... It's the Canada Day comic!

... Yes, I know! I made a Canaday--er, Canada Day comic--three days after the actual holiday. It was kind of out of my hands; I've been out on business for various reasons a lot this past week, as well as trying to resurrect my dead desktop so I can do these comics in a timely fashion.

Thus, I borrowed Nth Power's time machine to make up for the lack of update on Canada Day, and updated on Canada Day! You're just seeing the comic now because of the propogation of the time waves, or ... something like that.

Anyway, enjoy!

Parrots larger than they are ... Okay, maybe not THAT large.

... And parrots smaller than they are!

I got curious, so I started looking up all the stuff about case modding. Not that I plan to go wild or try and build an entirely new case, mind you--for the most part, I like the look of my computer's case. It's a custom case I'd gotten from the computer shop that overhauled my desktop computer back in 2004 (changing it from a pre-fab Gateway computer into something customizable), but I don't know what brand it is.

Probably Alienware, given the alien head fan grills on the case.

In fact, that's one of the things I'd like to change. So I'd been looking up fan grills ... To my dismay, it seems like most companies don't bother AT ALL making custom fan grills that match the size of the ones on my case (which appears to be 70 milimeters, if I measured correctly).

I did find some possible grills to look into, though ...

Nice whirlwind motif on this aluminum one.

I really like the look of this one, though. The only colored and lit fan grll I've seen--especially for 70mm fans. Practically all the cool fan grils are for larger fans ... I'd probably buy it from Amazon instead, though.

I'd also been looking into things like appliques. This SGI logo looks pretty cool, especially since it's UV reactive ... if I ever got a blacklight for the computer, that is. Though, I'd like to find more generic-looking stripes or swishes or something that have this same "blue and UV reactive" thing going for it, even though SGI declared bankruptcy a few months ago.

... Oooor I could always go with this! Heheh.

Some thumbscrews wouldn't hurt, either; would make it a helluva lot easier to get into the case.

At the moment I'm just looking around and making notes of what's out there, hence linking in my own blog. Makes it easier to call up this stuff later, as well as making it open for opinions.

For some reason, I'm still getting panic/anxiety attacks. They hit me earlier this morning, around 6~8 AM. No numbness or pain, but pressure on the chest and rapid heartbeat, as well as slight dizziness/"depersonalization." I think I need to start exercising again; I was doing so regularly during the spring semester, then had to quit a month before the summer semester kicked off.

I tried going at it again earlier today, like I usually do; I'm not sure if it's because I haven't done it in a while or if it's due to whatever's going on with my body, but I had periods of lightheadedness while exercising and my heart rate seemed to be going too fast for what I was doing. I didn't feel so good during the cool down part--then again, I've been having a constant "pent-up" feeling for a while.

Maybe it'll help the more I do it, to dump off whatever stress has built up over this year. I'm feeling relatively okay at the moment.

... Getting another one of these.

Damn good deal going on right now, too! I was able to pick one up for about $50, free shipping. It's coming tomorrow, or so UPS says. Once I get it, I'm going to install XP64 onto it. I'll be moving most of my personal data to that drive, while keeping my previous main drive as a backup drive.

Hopefully I'll have everything set up in time for the other half of the Shred the Darkness awards coming to PSU this week, as well as getting some time in on iRO for the anniversary event!

Well, now that the semester is over, I've been taking a look at my computer.

First order of business--pulled out that PCI wireless card!

Second order of business--in order to test the usability of my machine, I reinstalled the previous main hard drive that my computer used back in 2007 when the old video card died, which still has the old XP32 Professional install on it.

(I confuse people when describing this; see, when rebuilding the computer, I was forced to get all-new parts, and got a new hard drive on top of that due to the limitations on how many IDE/ATA100/PATA drives could be connected to the motherboard. The newer main drive I'd been using in 2008 is a SATA drive with an XP64 install.)

Well, the computer booted up fine with no problems--there was no lag, and it was responsive. The keyboard could be used during the boot process.

Problem is ... the drive didn't want to work.
"DISK BOOT FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

D'oh.

So, I powered down the system, turned off the PSU power switch, unplugged the power cable, and took a look inside--I unplugged the power and data cables from the main drive, and tried repowering the computer--this time, I was going to see if the computer would recognize the XP64 OEM installer.

Sure enough, it did! The XP64 OEM disc loaded just fine. Of course, it had no hard drive to install to, but at least the DVD drive was working!

So I unpowered everything, and puged the drive back in. Restarted the computer. The BIOS wasn't recognizing the hard drive. And that's when I realized that the drive was making a constant "whiiiiiiiiing" noise, which I initially thought was one of the case fans.

Firehawke told me that means the drive motor has failed. It seems like the death of that video card back in 2007 did more than just toast the video card ...

Well, now that I know that the computer (sans PCI wireless card) seems to be working fine, I'm going to move to phase two.

How did I manage to get an A on that research paper?!

Seriously--I didn't think it'd be that good. I only marginally met the length criteria, and I was struggling to even make my paper make sense. Wow. Maybe I'm just too critical of myself, but I seriously was not expecting this kind of grade.

So I can at least be happy that all my courses for this first round are in the A's range--despite my problems with taking online exams in that other class, I was able to turn it around in the latter exams. Took a lot of stress and frustration, but I got through it.

It seems like the next round of courses begins after this week, so I'll have a reprieve. This will be a good time to inspect my computer and see what can be done to fix it.

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to do well as far as grading on that research paper goes. At first, the assignment didn't seem like it'd be too bad. I was able to get the hang of what this specific professor wanted out of essays, which took a rather bad grade on my first essay to figure out.

This research paper seemed like more of the same; it just needed ... well, a lot more pages, and more sources. I was able to get a lot of writing done off the bat, as far as knowing what I wanted to say and how to say it.

Then I spent the rest of the final day on the paper struggling to flesh it out and--more importantly--finding some damned sources on the topic. We were given strict directions to only use online resources from our college's library, and it turned out there was precious little available for my chosen topics. Yet, it was the topic I was most prepared to write about, and had already gotten halfway through ...

So once again I felt like I was trying to squeeze blood from a rock. Gah. Well, I gave it my best shot--and had to stave off several flare-ups of anxiety attacks in the process--but at least I can be glad that I'm through with all work required of me in the first round of courses.

screenChaos405 is up!
Hey, for once I actually uploaded on Sunday when it's still daylight!

It helped that I had this comic half-started beforehand, though, and never had the time to finish it, eheh ... but in any case! Enjoy!

Now I just need to find the time to take part in the anniversary event before it ends on the 30th ... but I don't know if I'll get that chance. ;_; I have a huge research paper to finish whose due date coincides with the end of the event.

And I'd already spent all of last week on summer semester finals. D'oh!

I just went through the equivalent of an entire course's work in a few days, not to mention the finals from the first round of summer semester classes. No, I'm not kidding. I really did finish an entire class in a few days.

I'm surprised I didn't get an anxiety attack during the whole thing--instead, I got it right at the very end, in the middle of the last exam for this round. I was able to get it under control pretty quick, though, so it was more annoying than day-wrecking.

Still, this isn't over. I've got one last hurdle for this first half--I've got a pretty big research paper due. I was hoping to have some time to try and get in on the anniversary event going on over on iRO, but I'm not sure this research paper will let me have the chance. It's significantly more involved than my other assignments.

Awesome.

I lost 14 points on a major exam because I didn't fill in the blanks with proper capitalization, and the professor has told me that even if I got the answers right, he's not going to give me credit because I didn't use proper English in the first place.

Let me reiterate: These questions were short fill-in-the-blank ones. Not short essay questions. And in every case (the results were automatic), I actually got the question right but it was still counted off due to lack of capitalization.

That's just infuriating.

Ed McMahon, longtime second banana of "The Tonight Show," dies at 86

... But ... but I just referenced in in Ragnarok Wisdom ...

We can't call him anymore. ;_;

Research paper, a large number of exams ...

I hope I come out of this alright. D:

screenChaos404 is up!
Raced to get this one out the door before the weekend was over. Whew!

Oh, also, some good news! We've managed to avoid drowning.

... Er, wait. No, that's not it.

We've managed to get Victoreet, the Ragnarok Wisdom IRC channel mascot, fully automated! He's now taken the place of Leo Von Frisch as the chatterbot. Stop by the channel some time and talk to the bird!

We'll have to bring Leo Von Frisch back sometime, too. I miss that guy.

Earth's atmosphere rates at 30^19 particles per cubic centimeter.

At 850 kilometers above Earth's surface, it averages to one million particles per cubic centimeter (something like 10^6, I think?) ...

Mars' atmosphere, apparently, has 1% the density of Earth's atmosphere. I think that means its density is 30^16 particles per cubic centimeter. (Also, a 100m/s wind on Mars would have the force equivalent of a 1m/s wind on the Earth. Sustained winds on Mars can get up to 50m/s and gusts up to 170m/s.)

Typical space in the solar system has an average of one particle per cubic centimeter.

The solar wind at the distance of Earth's orbit has ten particles, on average, per cubic centimeter.

Giant molecular clouds have an average density of 10^2 to 10^3 particles per cubic centimeter.

The densest parts of these clouds, called "dense molecular cores," have an average density of 10^4 to 10^6 particles per cubic centimeter.

I ought to try and investigate what this kind of density in molecular clouds, however slight, would mean for ... say, the transmission of sound in space.

I've definitely got a problem about staying focused on a task!

I've got a major essay and exam both due this coming week. Thing is, I've been a little, well ... distracted. In my earlier entry, I mentioned coming across some useful links and mentioned the bias sci-fi fans have against small attack craft and starfighters.

I looked at some of the websites linked to by the TV Tropes article in question ("The Tough Guide to the Known Universe" and "Atomic Rockets") ... both were unreprentantly hostile to the thought of anything that was not a full-on dedicated warship, even more so if it was manned.

Seeing the breadth and full gamut of objections to the use of starfighters, I was compelled to sit down and pre-write the text for an article that'll be appearing on the AUC sometime in the future, concerning the development of starfighters and similar attack craft in the Ad Ultimum universe.

I wound up writing around, oh ... 1514 words in two hours.

I wish it was that easy for me to do essay assignments I'm supposed to do!

Just when I thought PETA couldn't get any more obnoxious ... "PETA Swats At Obama For Killing A Fly."

Sea Kittens, and now this.

What's next? "Yeast Baking Is Genocide?"

Wait a minute, don't answer that.

Let's face it; if you're wanting to craft a world, it really helps if you're an expert in a field related to the subject. Take Arda, for example--J.R.R. Tolkien's world. I'm still utterly astonished at how much depth his world has when it comes to languages, even after first discovering just how far he went into designing them years ago. Sure, most of the languages are not fleshed out; I think only the Elven languages have that honor ... but, he still laid the framework for a workable language for the dwarves, humans, and such--I was thrown for a loop to find out that he had an actual language for humans, and what we were seeing in the books--including place names--were just transliterations (well--actually more than that, but anyhow)!

Anyway, back to my original point. If you're writing science fiction, it helps if you're a scientist, mathmatician, or an engineer. Yeah, science fiction is fiction, but it's still got the word science in it; unless the series is going for pure whimsy (MST3K, Futurama, etc.) SF fans in the know will want some "common scientific sense" in the work. That's where it helps to be one of those three aforementioned professions in real life, because then you have that common sense from working in that field every day.

If you're like me, though, you just have to try and research things as you go and hope you don't wind up too far off the mark--which, eventually, is going to happen if I ever do release any SF work, but hey. Doesn't hurt to try.

Thus, it helps to find resources concerning SF fans "in the know" who have written on violations of "common scientific sense," because then you have a general idea of what to avoid (or what to elaborate on in order to justify). Intuitor's "Stupid Movie Physics" has been a good resource for that, for example--all the better, because they're physicists. UWGB professor and geologist Stephen Dutch's articles have also been helpful in that respect, too.

Through TV Tropes, I wound up finding another possible resource--Michael Wong's Star Destroyer site. He has a rather blunt and unrepentant way of handling topics, similar to Stephen Dutch (but Wong seems somewhat hostile towards religion--then again, he doesn't seem happy with the idea of banning freedom of religion either, as seen in his infamous essay calling The Federation out for being communist) ... aaand of course, he's firmly on the Star Wars side of the Star Wars/Star Trek fan war, so a lot of his articles focus on Star Trek's flaws (and not so much any inherent to Star Wars)--like with that essay I just linked.

Still, he's got some good articles which are useful in worldbuilding when it comes to looking for examples of what not to do, or at least, not without good justification. For example, his "Commandments of Space Fiction", listing unjustified cliches followed in most SF (and of course a whole subset for Star Trek).

Even more useful is his article on scale inherent in fiction, whether that's dyson spheres, giant capital ships, 50-foot tall women, or Godzilla. Intuitor and (I believe) Stephen Dutch have covered this question before, but compared to Wong, only very generally--and they didn't discuss how this affects design and construction of galactic engineering projects or massive warships.

The whole question of scale, as Wong describes it, also provides some great raw material from which to justify the existence of small attack craft or starfighters within a setting. That's important, considering the "consensus" among the people of TV Tropes is that Starfighters Fail Logic Forever. It's not necessarily important that people on TV Tropes say so, mind, but it's important because there's a good cross-section of fandom present in TV Tropes, and most of them seem to treat small attack craft as anathema (and those that do seem to come from "harder" sci-fi fandoms in literature).

There's also a great article concerning plasma weaponry in sci-fi that might help me in justifying its usage in Ad Ultimum, or coming up with justifiable methods of its use, at least. He also links to real-world applications of plasma technology that could be instructional for me.

He's also got an interesting planet calculator that, based on a few variables, can provide you with other important facts about the planet you come up with. I'm definitely going to need to bookmark this.

Then there's a really good calculator involving some important aspects of nuclear weapons detonation depending on how many megatons the warhead had.

There's also this calculator for determining stellar radiation. Seems like it'd be useful for things involving solar sails, among other things (apparently you can also use it for planets).

Another calculator, which provides information on the energy needed to destroy asteroids of several different kinds. This will be useful for me. For example: how many shots does your laser/particle beam/etc of a specific strength need to break up or melt that asteroid in your way?

And another calculator, this time involving relativity and relativistic speeds.

Definitely useful things to keep in mind when worldbuilding. I'd like to give my vehicle designs a semblance of what the Tropers would call a "Schematized Prop."

screenChaos403 is up!
Okay, I'll admit it--I've not been doing so well. D:

Still trying to keep up with Ragnarok Wisdom, though. For anyone still reading who hasn't thought I've stopped updating: Enjoy! ... And if you do know anyone who thinks I've stopped making comics, let them know I'm still around!

Just having a lot of problems lately, that's all! 6_9

On another note, concerning this comic--if you're one of the people who can remember the days of analog TV, I wanna know!

I hate it when I can waste up to two days just trying to draw a single body part that keeps looking plain wrong every time I do it. RW's going on two days late, now, and assignments are due very soon.

I think I might need to look into getting Poser, or an adequate program that can substitute for a posing model. I used to have one, but it didn't help as much as I'd like. The figure had a tendence to lose its pose.

I've been looking into a program called iClone, but its free version is not proving too useful ... and despite a lot of sites about iClone users, nobody seems to have made any usable models for it (aside from the company itself, and those ain't cheap).

Argn.

I wake up (later) this morning; theogrin linked me to an article at GamePolitics concerning some game I'd not heard of until now; a game (very loosely based) on Dante's "Divine Comedy" ... namely, the Inferno part.

After seeing what EA did to promote the game, I'm not sure I'd want to check it out. EA hired actors to pose as Christian activists and protest the game at E3, handing out pamphlets and launching a fake website.

Whoever came up with this idea knows very well how to push the buttons of gamers. After all, gamers need only a hint of Christians nay-saying their favorite past-time to go into a berserk anti-religious mode.

Anyone remember when GenCon tried to donate to Gary Gygax's favorite (Christian) chairty? How there was some miscommunication within the charity and they ultimately had to refuse the donation--but not because they had a problem with GenCon?

How many people out there took the opportunity to demonize Christians and religion in general in defense of their beloved pasttime? I can't even begin to recount how many people were spreading the news shouting "WRITE THE CCF AND TELL THEM HOW MUCH THEY SUCK!"

How many people out there consider Jack Thompson the face of every Christian ever?

Or, for that matter, how many people across the 'net cheered when a kid from GameFAQs burned down his church?

A distressing amount.

When you've got people like the creator of Ctr-Alt-Delete describing Jack Thomspon as "Bible-whipped" you know they're not-so-silently admitting their disgust for religion as well. (After all, people like Martin Luther King Jr. were "Bible-whipped" to even more of a degree than Wacko Jacko can ever claim to be.)

I'm glad I'm not the only person out here who recognizes the bias gamers in general have, though. In the comments of that GamePolitics article, amid the sea of "Dear EA: Fuck You" replies, one person posted this:

Re: Dante's Inferno Protest at E3 Was Staged by EA
Submitted by GM ace - June 5, 2009 at 2:54 pm -0500

Dear People Who Used This As An Excuse to Shit on Religious People,

Fuck you too.

Seriously, I don't know who's worse. The religious zealots, or the atheist ones. You all spout bullshit. "You don't believe in what I believe, you're evil!!!!!1one." "You believe in anything at all, you're pants-on-head retarded!!!!!1one." It's all the same. You shake your little fists at religion, without even thinking about the fact that you're acting exactly like the nutjobs you rail against.

When people thought this was real, did I see any posts about how terrible it was that these protesters were making religion look bad? No, of course not. Anyone note that it was reported as just a sect of Christianity? Nope, not a bit. All of a sudden every religious person and every Christian denomination gets tossed into the shit pile as far as you're concerned. You paint with a broad brush, just like the zealots who think everyone not in their religion is evil, and every Jack-clone who thinks every video gamer is a murdering rapist.

Good job, assholes.

I seriously don't want to see the comments people made when everyone still thought it was real.

This time, I lost feeling in portions of my left arm and hand, which also spread to my face (forehead, mouth, jaw), back of the neck, and legs. It was kind of random for the rest of my body, though; I'd lose feeling or go outright numb, then I could feel again, then I couldn't. It was more persistent in my left arm.

I'm still having it as of right now, and have BEEN having it for a few hours. Hoping that I'll feel better in the morning.

I've been trying to prepare for testing my desktop computer and seeing if the hardware is damaged. Given the likelihood of the power supply blowing out and causing a fire, I had to wait until I had enough free time to clean and reorganize the room as well as rearrange the wires to remove as much clutter as possible.

After discussing it with Hawke from last month, I unplugged and pulled out all the cables my desktop computer used, which were all hooked up to the backup battery. Found out there's a few AC adapters and other gadgets which weren't doing anything and were just adding to the tangled wires; one was the old 2wire PCPort I used to use for connecting to the 'net. Now things are a lot easier to access.

What I'm going to do is plug everything in to a regular power strip rather than the backup battery; although Hawke told me the chances of the PSU blowing and sending feedback into the battery as well as other components is very small, he said it still wouldn't be a bad idea (especially since I plug the laptop and USB drives into the battery backup).

I also got a fresh fire extinguisher ... just one problem.

We've been having stormy weather almost every night! The power goes out briefly at least once, every time.

Argh!

DON'T SYNTH OR GRIND YOUR ITEMS JUST YET.

We didn't get the two-week rewards today. They've postponed the two-week rewards and extended them to three-week rewards due to the postponement, but they didn't announce this on the main site.

Firehawke had to find out the hard way.

http://forums.sega.com/showthread.php?t=283038

Innocent Girl did come stateside, though. Boy ... there has never been a mission in PSU that has ever approached the level of Touhou's danmakumania as Innocent Girl. Intricate patterns of turrets that kill you in two shots no matter what level, what difficulty, no matter how much HP you have.

Oh, and no scape dolls allowed for the mission.

Intense, man. Intense.

... Remember the Lightning Gun from Quake 1?

Guess what; scientists have created the forerunner of that weapon.

http://panda.unm.edu/AcadAdv/lightning.html

Most of the problems I've had yesterday subsided earlier this morning. I've had a few twinges in both sides of my jaw occasionally (no numbness or spreading pain) and a few slight periods of a tight chest, but nothing like I've had earlier.

I was able to finish the assignments due tonight, thankfully. (Here's hoping I get a better grade on this week's assignments ... last week I made a 100 and 70. Ouch.)

If all these anxiety-attack-like periods are a sign of things to come, though, I REALLY need to find a doctor. I've gone to several in the past few years and have yet to find one I feel comfortable seeing.

Murrrgh.

Quick rundown of events:

Around 8:00 PM, I started having a strange feeling in the right side of my jaw. This quickly turned into full-out numbness on my jaw's right side, as well as spreading into my tongue. This persisted for at least half a minute, accompanied by a rapid heartbeat.

Since that time, I've had periods of swimmy-headed wooziness (similar to the "out-of-body experiences" I mentioned in earlier entries), and brief sensations like parts of my body are numb or being touched; mostly in the left side of my jaw, behind my left upper arm, the left shoulder blade.

If things don't get better, I might have to check myself into a hospital. Some friends said that it sounds like I'm suffering from anxiety attacks, and one person at Multiverse Crisis said her boyfriend has the exact same symptoms (and that they were diagnosed as anxiety attacks). He had been checked into a hospital once or twice.

I'm currently trying to use breathing techniques to keep myself calm, as well as using things such as Vick's vapor rub and musnex to keep my breathing clear (had some mucous problems).

None of the symptoms seem to be outright stroke-like or heart attack-like, and yet they've been close enough to give me a damn good scare. I've just not had any blindness in my eyes, or large swaths of persistent numbness. My eyesight seems to be alright, though I've had brief periods where I think it's going blooey (though it doesn't seem to be; my peripheral vision remains clear).

I'll keep you guys updated. I'm gonna be staying up tonight, though, in case something happens; not that eager on dying in my sleep, if this is something more than just anxiety.

screenChaos402 is fixed!
Jeez, speak of the devil. I mentioned yesterday about the AU Network having problems and what happens? FTP goes blooey in the middle of the update. I've fixed it now, though. As for what I said on Sunday, well, you can see that post from yesterday here on the blog.

Enjoy, folks!

Well, here's what I had posted on the site:

---
screenChaos402 is up!
Okay, I really didn't want to do that, given the track record, but--couldn't help it.

The comic's up now! I'm aware the site's been having some problems, though--just yesterday the AU Network was unavailable for a period of the night. As far as I can tell, it is not connected to what I spoke of last month--you know, where I was worried that the AU Network might disappear over an issue with my webhosting company.

Everything on that front seems to be alright, but I'm not sure what's up with the outages. I'll be trying to keep an eye on the site, though, in between keeping my head above water.
---

... And wouldn't you know, while in the middle of uploading, the connection to the FTP blipped out. The comic appears to have not uploaded all the way. I'll try and fix that as soon as I can ...

I've had similar episodes from last night happen throughout the day today. It's been very distracting and unsettling to say the least. It's kept me from working on RW or college stuff.

They were precipitated by a soreness in the left part of my chest, and a brief numb feeling that happened on the corresponding shoulder blade. The soreness has persisted throughout the day, however.

I really have no clue what's going on--I'm uncertain if this is something that should be seen by a doctor (which would be just great considering I've been trying to find a good physician to go to for the past few years). Or maybe it's just something trivial, I don't know.

I'm not quite sure what caused this, or what it might be. I'm guessing it's due to the high pressure change outside since we're having some kind of weird storm system pass through the area, but wow. I've never had this happen.

I was taking a short nap just earlier. I'd dozed off for some time, then I was jolted awake. I was pretty much compelled to leap out of bed--the whole feeling, well. The only way I can describe it was as if my soul had been drifting out of my body and something pounded it back into place. It really did feel like a sledgehammer hitting me on the chest--like literally someone just slammed down hard on me. Sharp, sudden, high pressure.

My heart was beating extremely fast, and I felt dizzy.

An incredibly strange feeling, to be sure. It doesn't seem to be anything like a panic attack or a heart attack--I have no idea what it is. I still feel kinda woozy-headed right now, and tired--but other than that, I think I'm fine ...

I just heard about this from the Late Night show.

"'Battleship' may have a captain - Peter Berg in talks to direct adaptation of board game"

"The filmmaker is in talks to direct a big-screen version of the Hasbro board game for Universal. Brothers Jon and Erich Hoeber have signed on to write the script.

The game, which began in pencil and paper form in the early 20th century and is now available on platforms from cell phones to computers, consists of two players arranging a variety of ships on a grid. The game proceeds in alternating salvos as players try to "sink" the opposition's ships by guessing where they sit on the grid.

While plot details are being kept below deck, the studio is looking to make an epic naval action adventure."

... Um ... Is this ... is this really a good idea?!

I've been doing a lot of poking around into the modern organization of warships in the U.S. Navy, looking into how the Carrier Strike Groups are organized and how they're lead.

Along the way, I looked into the history and amount of destroyer-classes that the U.S. Navy has gone through since 1900.

( If you're interested in seeing that, click here. )

And speaking of the Zumwalt-class ... there's a site that the project team built for it.

http://www.ddg1000.com/

... Look at that flash intro, guys. This site needs a Commodore 64 chiptune for the splash page, like one of the ones used in Microprose combat sims--preferably, since this is a stealthy destroyer, something like the introduction to Project Stealth Fighter.

That's about all I can say. Today has been spent purely on a major exam and essay in a single class.

The professors running this semester's classes are very spartan about assignment information. I had a hell of a time figuring out what to write concerning the first major essay due; I submitted it a few minutes before the deadline, and it's woefully incomplete. I don't think I'm going to get a decent grade on it at all.

It didn't help that the assignment--what little of it there was to read before hand--seemed like the professor was asking us to ... oh, write about the properties of green eggs, when the subject matter concerned the sky. That made it hard to even begin brainstorming on how to answer the topic!

Most other assignments I've had from the various classes were more straightforward--or at least, more answerable than this one.

Oy vey.

Today--and tomorrow--I'll be working on some major assingments and an exam due tomorrow night. I have no clue in Hell what to expect, because the professor ... hasn't told us much of anything.

Hopefully I'll have a better idea of how things go down after this first round of heavy assignments, but honestly--I hate having to learn how a class operates by trial and error. Ah well--this is the ride I signed up for!

screenChaos402 is postponed for now.
I probably haven't mentioned, but I'm taking a summer semester of classes to help speed up my progress with my current degree in college--that means that, like this semester, if I can't finish a comic on the weekend, I'll have to put it off until the round of assignments for the week is done.

Well, that's happened again. I've been put in a rock and a hard place--I have comic ideas I want to do, but I ran out of time to update yesterday. I was trying to come up with a contingency comic today that I wouldn't have to spend much time on, but I couldn't think of anything.

If I dawdle any longer, I'm going to strike out on the assignments and exams this week (this is only the second week of the semester and we've got full-blown exams!).

Check back later for an update. I really oughta figure out RSS feeds for you guys, since this year's updates have been highly sporadic. College assignments and a sluggish laptop are not a good mix.

Here's what's been irritating me. I've got ideas for Ragnarok Wisdom comics ... but every time, I run out of time to do them in a day.

It's been especially bad this year, thanks to the loss of my desktop. I've already gone into that enough, though, but--come to think of it, I think this year I've been updating Ragnarok Wisdom maybe once every other week.

I'm glad there's still people reading the comic despite my problems, but--gah. I better think on a shorter comic to do this week, because I can't spend the weekdays doing overtime on Ragnarok Wisdom.

While I'm kind of sad to see the event end, at the same time the timing couldn't have been better, giving my summer semester kicking off.

I got most of what I wanted to do done. F Gattaca's maxed his Gunmaster levels, Raul DiUragano reached the current level cap as well as starting with and maxing out his levels in Acrofighter, one of my alts made it to Fighmaster as well.

The things I missed out on, well, were out of my control. I didn't get my own Shigga Pakuda board from The Magashi Plan, but I did manage to trade for one with a rare I found in that mission that I didn't need or want. I didn't get a Hit the Counter award like during Maximum Attack G. I wanted to see the dialogue for that, epsecially since the prize and prize giver were both different than MAG's. Hawke's gang hit the counter early on, but they didn't bother to record the happening or screenshot it. :/

I'm relieved, though, that the exchange items from Shred the Darkness are not going to be lost forever. A future update to Maximum Attack G will award Megi-drops and Megispheres every time you complete a run of the post-event version, so that you can continue to work toward and exchange for the items at Clamp Manyel's lab.

A lot better than the random chance of getting Zonspheres as a reward for running The Egg Thieves, I tell you.