screenChaos431 won't be up for some time.
There's things going on that are beyond my control which have prevented me from finding the time to work on a Ragnarok Wisdom this Sunday.

I've been trying to chip away at the comic I had planned, hoping to at least upload it Monday morning, but that won't be possible either.

I'm not sure when in the week this comic will be done, since most of my free time has been "recruited" into dealing with this other issue that's been going on. Sorry, guys. I'll try and get the comic up when things blow over.

screenChaos430 is up!
Funny thing, this was meant to be the comic for Thanksgiving, but ... I had too much of a food coma. @_@;

At least I was able to finish it as a post-Thanksgiving comic! And it still is kind of relevant, too.

Regardless! Enjoy the comic!

screenChaos429 is up!
Okay! A little more on time this time!

Come to think of it ... I think I recall hearing that somoene actually pulled something like this, except that they didn't actually create the character and then transfer them. Rather, they just created a character that appeared to have been transferred.

Regardless! Enjoy the comic!

screenChaos428 is up!
... Oooookay. This one should NOT have taken the length of time it did for me to finish.

I've actually been plugging away at this one since Sunday night, but ... I've got nonot get it out the door.

Anyway, despite the time it's taken to get this one out, I hope you all enjoy the comic--and I hope you're still reading! Eheh.

screenChaos427 is up!
Whew! This one took a while.

Not just in the sense of time spent working on the comic, but I've had this idea since, well ... since the topic relevant to the comic was first announced a few months ago. I had to keep modifying the comic script every time I did, too, since the date kept getting further and further away from certain time-relevant punchlines I could have made.

Ah well, you win some, you lose some. Enjoy the comic!

IF ANY OF YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR GAME DEVELOPMENT, GET THIS RIGHT NOW.

Unreal Development Kit - http://www.udk.com/

I've been looking for something like this for years, and now Epic Games has delivered. firehawke told me about it; it just came out yesterday if I recall him saying.

Here's what's so good about this Unreal Development Kit. It doesn't cost you a dime to make games with it if you plan on making non-commercial games. What's more, they have clear-cut commercial licensing plans, with several different options. (Take note of the royalty option: You pay $99 up front to license the engine. The first $5,000 you make with your game is all yours, but after that, 25% of your revenue goes to Epic Games.)

Contrast this to Valve and just about every other developer out there with a SDK for their engine, who keeps pricing vague and requires that you need to set up a meeting with the company before you can agree to a price for licensing.

For indie gamers, this is perfect. I've already downloaded my copy of the software; Hawke tapped me for a project involving the UDK, and I'm working on getting back into 3D modeling.

It's about time I use my desktop for what it was built for.

screenChaos426 is REALLY up, for real this time!
Okay, THAT was annoying.

While I was in the middle of uploading the comic on Sunday, I lost connection to my FTP. I also couldn't access websites for a while. I'm thinking it must have been something either with my computer, router, or ISP ...

Either way, I finally managed to get this thing uploaded right. I'm sorry it took me so long to get this fixed!

Enjoy this week's comic! (Really!)

screenChaos426 is up!
Well, I wasn't able to get anything out for Halloween itself, so this comic ought to be appropriate!

Other than that, well, um ... I can't think of much else to say on this! Planning for this year's Halloween was pretty much a "cross-that-bridge-when-we-get-there" affair.

I partially blame Corigan for this! I asked him what he wanted to wear for Halloween, and he never got back to me! (His alt tabbing knows no bounds.)

Enjoy this week's comic!

screenChaos425 is up!

Okay! It almost took me right up until Halloween, but I finally got that comic up!

Sorry about that--trust me, I'm not too happy about the whole spiel with GeoCities, but there were sites that I (and people I know) didn't want to slip into the abyss, so it was a real "drop what you are doing" moment.

Now then, back to happy things!

I'm not sure if I'll have the time for a Haloween comic tomorrow--but if I do make one tomorrow, it'll count as the update for Sunday.

Enjoy this week's comic!

... but if there's anything this week and weekend have taught me, it's that you can never assume that something online will be around forever.

For anyone who might still be in the dark, GeoCities is dead. All websites hosted by GeoCities were deleted by Yahoo yesterday around 2:00 PM CST, and replaced with a "positive language" message informing surfers of such.

Elsewhere, Yahoo had this to say: "Yahoo continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences. The company's closing is part of our ongoing effort to prioritize our portfolio of products and services in order to deliver the best products to consumers."

(... You know, I've really come to hate corporate "positive language" when it comes to things like this. It's too passive-aggressive. Screwing people over with a smile.)

As I mentioned in my non-update for Ragnarok Wisdom, I wound up devoting most of my free time to saving and archiving various sites on GeoCities. All of the sites I saved were relevant to my interests, but were saved for the benefit of various communities (such as all the remaining Starsiege sites, for the Starsiege community) or people I know (such as logs from the Mega Man MUSH and certain lengthy informational sites on how to properly run a MU*, saved for Corgian and Lunaris, as well as Fearless Leader of MCM).

I wound up getting around 300 to 400 MB of data.

This is hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of things that have been going on elsewhere. As of this post, there's five known teams that were going through GeoCities as a whole, archiving it all, or at least all they could. They had methods far more efficient and usable than my own, but I still did what I could on my own in case their sweeps failed to catch everything from the sites I focused on.

I have to agree with Jason Scott--this kind of crap isn't cool. Companies and governments don't treat real-life property the way they do online property. Internet sites are far more transient and fleeting; people find themselves unable to pay for web hosting, or move on to other things, or die. Companies go out of business or are bought by other companies, who then dispose of whatever that company held on to.

Electronic data is treated too much like sand castles. It's kind of scary, if you think about it ... we're living in a mindset that's too much like that Brave New World novel. Everything is disposable. I don't like that.

I've been stung by the sudden loss of online property before, without even realizing what happened; anything I had been using Hometown AOL for was quietly destroyed around this time last year. I still haven't gotten around to fixing links or uploading backups of my files to the Ad Ultimum Network.

Not everything had a local backup, though. Some of my first websites are permanently gone, only barely archived by Archive.org--and I don't have the files for that anymore, given that most of my old stuff prior to high school is long since gone thanks to a screw-up by one of my father's friends back then.

But, there you go. A harsh lesson learned. If you like something you see that's online, save it locally. It might not be there tomorrow. You can not rely on Archive.org to have that data on hand. Their Wayback Machine can only do so much.

As for Jason Scott's Archive Team and the other efforts to archive GeoCities, I hope they get everything they could. I visited Scott's IRC channel, and happened to overhear them saying that they lost a chunk of sites due to the fact that said sites used a java applet for menus. I just hope that's an exception rather than the norm.

screenChaos425 will be up soon.
Something else has taken higher priority than Ragnarok Wisdom for the time being. As you guys might have heard, Geocities is being shut down by Yahoo. This is an old, old webhosting service that offered small parcels of web space for free, and did so for 15 years.

There's countless sites on there which will never be available again after today, and I'm not sure when the sites will be deleted. I've been spending the weekend archiving certain sites that are important to me for one reason or another, and it's cut in to time for Ragnarok Wisdom and the Legend of Key-Fu.

I'm really sorry about that, but, well--if you gotta blame someone, I'd blame Yahoo. I know I'm not alone in that line of thinking. Once I'm done with my share of this, I'll get back to work on Ragnarok Wisdom.

As for The Legend of Key-Fu, it'll probably have to be released one page at a time over the course of the rest of this month. The first page is already up, though. Let me know if you like where things are heading!

Oh, in case you're wondering--that music that plays towards the end of #424 comes from a game that can be seen in action here. Rudolph Ravioli loves this game.

I haven't gotten any work on anything done today, because we've been dealing with a billing issue concerning the Ad Ultimum Network. I won't get into any more details, but I will say that I don't think nothing happened on my side--but we're trying to get things sorted out.

I hope it sorts out soon, because the due date is in a few days. I'd rather not lose my domain name to a cybersquatter ...

Well, I've been forced to do this rather than upload the whole thing at once. I'm not happy about it, but since I can't control time, this will have to do.

Here's the first page!

http://www.adultimum.net/keyfu/kf9-1.htm

screenChaos424 is up!
Surprise! A flash movie on my birthday!

Given the way the previous week went (with the weather and all), I had no time to work on any comics, or The Legend of Key-Fu for that matter. That also had the side effect of moving #424 up to this week, and I'd been planning to--well, you can see below! (You can also see it at my deviantART gallery!)

It won't make up for the whole lack of flash movies from earlier this year, but it's still something. I hope you enjoy it!

As for The Legend of Key-Fu, it'll probably have to be released one page at a time over the course of the rest of this month. I blame Cirno for all of this!

Oh, in case you're wondering--that music that plays towards the end? The game in question can be seen in action here. Rudolph Ravioli loves this game.

I've been KOed today--not due to sickness or swine flu, but by acid reflux. I haven't had THAT in a while ... and it was pretty bad this time, too. Acid went right into my lungs ... that really, really hurt. Couldn't breathe, couldn't speak.

As usual after an episode of that, I've been left feeling achey all over. I still don't understand why that happens--the aching part, that is. Every joint in my body aches after an acid reflux episode. It's weird.

I did find, however, that this drink (Ginger Soother by the Ginger People) gets rid of nasty acid slime in my mouth and throat, though. Gonna have to remember that for the future.

screenChaos423 is up!
GOOD LORD, THIS WEEK SUCKED. ARGH.

The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated! Yes, I'm still around, no, I didn't give up on Ragnarok Wisdom! The past week has been a major pain in the butt--we've been having nonstop severe weather for most of that week, and the weekend wasn't exactly peaceful either.

The constant thunderstorms we've had forced me to hold off on working on Ragnarok Wisdom or The Legend of Key-Fu. I didn't want to risk losing everything from another stray lightning bolt--I've got surge protection, sure, but the loss of my desktop from last month proved that I can never be too careful out here in Storm Central.

And to think, I was hoping to get a comic out on good time by using a method I should have started using done long ago ...

Anyways--for anyone who's still been waiting for an update, enjoy the comic! I'm HOPING the weather doesn't pull another week-long thunderstorm again ...

Good God, I don't even remember falling asleep. I think I practically passed out today!

Aeris: *laughs* For a second I wondered if you somehow read my mind. I'm in a class called Severe and Unusual Weather and I'm learning all about storms and stuff.
Aeris: and we watched a movie where a guy named Bob, from Texas, was talking and he's the classes biggest inside joke.
Aeris: Haha! Oh no! I better learn occumen..en...ecy... Damn I wish I knew how to spell.
Aragan: ... I'm sorry, but my mind segued into Enzyte commercials as weather teaching aids. XD
Aeris: HAH!
Aragan: "Hey, it's our friend Bob! Uh-oh, looks it's raining on Bob's picnic!"Aeris: Hahaha!
Aragan: *Bob looks up at the sky as it thunders and begins to rain, AND HE NEVER STOPS SMILING*
Aeris: dnhjfkjsd
Aragan: "Oh no, it looks like there's some hail coming Bob's way, too!"

*quarter-sized hail starts hitting Bob in the face and on his teeth, AND HE NEVER STOPS SMILING*
Aeris: fsdfjsd
Aragan: "Looks like you should have paid more attention to the news, Bob! Here comes a tornado!"

*Bob gets sucked into the vortex of a passing tornado, AND HE NEVER STOPS SMILING*
Aeris: kjfhsdfkj
Aragan: And the entire time, the Enzyte commercial whistle tune plays.

I haven't been able to work on Ragnarok Wisdom at all this week; every time I get things out of the way, a thunderstorm rolls in. It's been raining, drizzling, and storming every day of the week--I could swear I've been living a stereotypical Seattle day six ways to Sunday.

Ever since the lightning strike that KOed Jetstream in July, I've made it a habit to disconnect my USB drives whenever I hear thunder. Problem is, my old main hard drive prior to the whole fiasco this year is now a USB drive, which means every time severe weather comes through, I can't work on most of my stuff.

I'm not taking the risk of it getting fried by lightning--and I'm not keen on moving project files to my internal main drive. Trying to keep multiple copies of project files up to date is already a pain in the ass with a backup USB drive!

Thanks to the help of theogrin and firehawke, I've now got the other piece of the puzzle I need to upload YouTube videos--the H.264 encoder, which pretty much smokes every other encoder ever. This is the only one I've seen that can deliver good image quality at reasonably small file sizes.

Here's a video I won't be uploading to YouTube, though--a game clip from Dungeon Fighter Online from last month. This is what happens when Fraps accidentally starts recording when on Ventrilo.

http://www.adultimum.net/studio/screenshots/dfo-oopsventfraps.avi

(The voices you hear are Tristan and Sniff the Raven.)

Ever since I launched Ragnarok Wisdom back in 2002, I've kinda been doing this in a sloppy. inefficient way--and I think it's contributed a lot to the problems I've had with keeping the comic on a regular schedule once I started to get a little better with MS Paint stuff. Which is why I find myself having to make comics using pre-existing drawings and such, when I could be spending my time more wisely.

For example--until today, I had no palettes to work with when coloring and shading. I'd grab colors at random off of RO sprites, and making intermediate colors, but without actually keeping the range of colors on hand (save in reused character drawings). I kept spending a lot of time hunting and pecking for the color I was looking for ... and now I realize how much time I could have saved by keeping it all together.

Well, I finally decided to take the time to try and remedy this. Since RO's palettes are not easily retrievable (and I tend to use more intermediate colors than appears on a given RO sprite), I made a palette swatch picture with most (if not all) of the color ranges I tend to use in Ragnarok Wisdom.

I'm sure I'll be adding more stuff to it as time goes on, but it's a really good start. Maybe now I can stop putting off some of the comic ideas I've had drawn out, but left unfinished because it's taken too much time to color them ...

At any rate, for anyone who'd like to see my color palettes and make use of it themselves, here you guys go. They're all based on either colors from official RO class artwork from Lee Myung-jin, or from RO itself--but they have a lot of intermediary colors in many cases, to help smooth out the gradient.

screenChaos422 is up!
This isn't the comic I wanted to do for this week, but that tech support stuff I'd talked about last week has kept me unable to do much.

I don't forsee an end to it any time soon, either! Maybe, MAYBE by next week it'll be all over and done with, but I seriously doubt it.

Anyways, enjoy the comic!

screenChaos421 is up!
Well, like I said--it's no trick! There's a comic, just not a flash movie comic.

And yes, today's anniversary is a reference to what happened in #400 and #401. :D.

Anyways, enjoy the comic!

screenChaos420 is up!
Just so you guys know--there won't be a flash animation for this year's anniversary. No, I'm not tricking you guys into thinking otherwise! There will be a comic, but don't expect anything grand.

Too much stuff has been going on over the year that I couldn't properly prepare for or coordinate with the rest of the RW cast for making a flash movie. Most recently, I've had to play the role of troubleshooter for another computer that got infected by a trojan, and that ate up most of my free time.

I still have to do something about that little space-time continuum rift that was left in #400, but hopefully I can get around to that by an indefinite time period.

Anyways, enjoy, and happy birthday, Mark Van Exel!

There won't be a flash movie for this year's anniversary, I can say that much. Over the summer, just as my desktop was recovering, I'd been set back by another issue. I won't talk about it here, but it kept me from coordinating with RW cast members for the purpose of voice acting--so I couldn't even think of a script.

(The issue I had last year with Corigan not getting his lines done has prompted me to wait until I know for sure that certain people are available for voice acting before I write them into a script.)

Things like Cirno Day took major time out, as well, and now my father's been wanting me to babysit his computer because he managed to get it infected with a trojan.

As far as I can tell, it's Cryptor, one of the nasty ones that engineers a problem and tries to sell you a program that gets rid of it. This thing is like a weed, too--talking with Mouvar, who has had experience with it, Cryptor infests the registry, spreads infected executables and dynamic link libraries all over the place, and shuts down access to any anti-virus programs or even websites for such. That includes SpyBot S&D, Malware MalBytes, ComboFix, and many other programs.

I haven't been able to do much of anything lately because I've been saddled with the task of finding a cure for my dad's computer. Finding a cure has not been easy either--Firehawke suggested the LiveCD option, but I've been spending my free time today playing an annoying easter egg hunt trying to find viable plugins for a LiveCD creation program (BartPE) in order to compile a feasible disc that can diagnose and fix problems. Most plugins for this program are very hard to track down with Google-Fu, and require that you copy specific files into the plugin folder ... which, to my infinite chagrin, often rely on specific, older versions of said programs.

Hawke had originally given me a link to a BartPE install that had all the necessary plugins gathered together, but the link didn't work. I'll have to ask Theogrin if he can find it. I'm damn tired of this treasure hunting game, Talk Like A Pirate Day be damned.

Another option, Trinity Rescue Kit, was even less friendly than the compiled BartPE disc--it turned out to be nothing but a Linux command prompt! I'm sure it would be useful if I had the time to go through the entire documentation on how to operate it, but that's time I just don't have. Oh well, I still made a boot disc out of it in case a rainy day ever happens.

Anyway, yeah. That's what I've been doing for the past few days. Highly irritating.

screenChaos419 is up!
I've still got Team Fortress 2 on the brain. I admit it! I haven't been able to play that game for half a year due to the computer problems I had! I've been on, like, a splurge.

That and the recent storm of crap hitting the fan has just been ... too fascinating to ignore. Fascinating in a horrifying way.

I haven't seen fireworks lit off in a game like this for a while!

So with that in mind, I turned my attention to RO, and ... came up with this.

No, Gravity didn't really consier this idea. At least, I hope they didn't!

Anyways, enjoy!

screenChaos418 is up!
Looks like I was able to update today, after all! And right on time, too!

I wish all you nutball nineball people out there a very happy C-- ... well, you know, you should just read the comic and find out! Wouldn't want to spoil it for you guys, now would I?!

screenChaos417 is up!
Another FTP access outage, oy! I hope this doesn't happen tomorrow ...

Either way, this week's comic is up. Assuming all goes well tomorrow, it wonl't be the only comic for this week, either!

screenChaos416's second half is up!
And there it is, the birthday comic for the week, in full!

I've got something else for you guys, by the way:

You might have heard about the Extra Life charity where gamers hold live streams to help raise money to fight pediatric cancer.

Well, some of the people from CoRM--and our friends--are participating in the charity drive as a team. They've got a website up for this, right over here.

Be sure to check 'em out, and enjoy the comic!

This news link says it all. For posterity, though (since the internet is such a transient place):

"Valve has done a fair bit of expanding and tinkering with Team Fortress 2 since it was first released, with the latest free add-on being the addition of in-game hats and items that you can pick up from randomly spawning item drops. Unfortunately, as with all systems, some players are now exploiting the system and using third-party apps to harvest items.

Well, says Valve, that stops now.

Valve has today announced that TF2 gamers who make use of the various third-party idling applications to collect unlockables will be stripped of all their collected in-game items. Apparently only about five percent of TF2 gamers do such a dishonest thing, but soon they'll be a very angry five percent.

Remaining players however will be compensated for coping in the face of these cheaters with a new and exclusive hat that'll only be handed out to honest players - and it looks like a halo too!"

I did wind up getting this hat (the Cheater's Lament) ... but ... I wound up deleting it by accident. :/

See, someone told me about this all going down and I booted up TF2 to check my inventory. I got the notification, and poked at the hat for a bit before joining a server to see what people were saying.

For some reason, the game decided to notify me again, with the usual "You Found An Item" splash screen, that I had been awarded the hat after I died during the match. It didn't make it clear that it was the same hat, and I wound up thinking I was getting a duplicate halo. So, I deleted it.

... Only after I had checked my inventory did I discover that it was the same hat. What's the point of notifying in-game if it's a special hat you can't normally get?!

That's kind of misleading. Ah, well ... Maybe Valve will give me the halo back if I submit a ticket. I did submit a bug report about how misleading this is--since they can see individual account IDs and would know I'm not flagged as a cheater, maybe they'll give me the halo back. Not that I planned on wearing it much, but ... it was nice to have, and could have been useful for goofing off.

Now that things are finally falling back into place, I've been trying to get back into video editing. Today and yesterday I made a few test videos to get back into the groove of using Flash and Fraps for video editing purposes.

... Don't look at me like I'm crazy! Flash is actually a pretty good video editor! It's all in how you use it.

At any rate, I've had a few people in stitches with the test videos and several requests to put them up on YouTube. Maybe it is about time I got my own YouTube channel ... Last year, I'd been working on a video project concerning City of Heroes--I'd been busy putting it together when my desktop took a nose dive in January, and the laptop was just too low-power to handle any meaningful video editing.

Maybe I can finish it now, but I ought to resubscribe to CoH to get some additional footage ...

SPEAKING OF YOUTUBE ... TIME FOR AN ANGSTY LJ RANT!

Well, maybe not, really, but there's something that I've noticed in watching videos that's had me banging my head on a wall.

I've learned some interesting things by surfing YouTube videos of birds kept as pets--namely tht Starlings, Ravens, and Crows can and do talk.

But the other thing I've noticed, by seeing the kind of comments made on videos related to birds like these ... is that people can't see the forest for the trees.

All of those birds I named are wild birds, of course. You'll find videos of people keeping them as pets, rescuing baby birds to be returned to the wild, or being hunted. No matter what the video, I think you can divide comments up into several general categories:

* "Animal rights" activists who accuse pet owners of being cruel for not releasing their birds into the wild,
* Hunters who harass and snark at pet owners for keeping those birds (and fantasize about shooting them),
* "Animal rights" activists and pet owners who accuse hunters of being cruel and heartless for killing wild birds.

(In the case of the latter, that kind of harrassment also comes part and parcel with Cultural Posturing from Europeans if the hunters are American ... typical.)

It's one of those times where you wish you could gather everyone together and bonk their heads to wake them up.

A thing I've discovered by looking at the videos, for certain, is that "one man's favorite bird is another man's pest." Crows, for example, have a lot of fans, and so do starlings. But in both cases, wild crows are destructive and threatening to other wildlife, and the destructiveness of crows on crops is well-known. I've seen crow hunters talk about mutilation done to their farm animals. Starlings attack the nests of purple martins. For that reason, a lot of people actively hunt and kill these birds.

Yet animal rights activists and bird lovers--or rather, lovers of the particular bird under the gun--can't or won't see that. All they care about is that an animal just got killed by a human (if they're an animal rights activist) or that their beloved bird species got killed by a human (for the particular bird lovers). They scream in rage and shake their fists.

It's also for this reason that I can't understand why animal rights activists are so opposed to people keeping pet birds like starlings and crows. (This is, of course, putting aside any legal issues--you can, after all, legally own pet hybrid crows in the U.S., and I don't think Canada has a law against owning crows at all) ... What's the point of rescuing a baby crow or raven, nuturing it back to health, only to release it into the wild where it will likely be shot dead by a hunter protecting animals or crops they care about?

If a person has the time, patience, and knowledge to keep a crow as a pet, I think they should do that instead. I've seen plenty of pet crow videos to know that they can live happy lives as pets, just like any other pet bird.

First of all,

This image is too damn funny on a whole lot of different levels.

Also! I need to make an animation based on this sometime:

6:51 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: What do you think of my new avatar? :D
6:51 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: avatardisplaypicthing
6:54 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL SNAZY.
6:54 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: SNAZZY, EVEN.
6:54 AM - Trev-MUN: Have to look at your SteamID page for a sec ...
(http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993777553)
6:55 AM - Trev-MUN: I have the perfect music for your avatar.
6:55 AM - Trev-MUN: I want you to listen to this while you look at your avatar.
6:55 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: Okay
6:55 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: Rofl.
6:56 AM - Trev-MUN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9srPRtZR68
6:56 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: HAHAHA
6:56 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: ajsfijkastghjsdgasd
6:56 AM - Trev-MUN: >:D
6:56 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: God I sure am snazzy.
6:56 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: STROLLIN' DOWN THE ROAD WITH MY TOP HAT AND STAFF.
6:57 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk jives in a snazzy fashion
6:57 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: Oh god
6:57 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: This music is just
6:57 AM - Snazzy Demo - Learn2Play.org.uk: PERFECT
6:57 AM - Trev-MUN: ISN'T IT XD

screenChaos416 is up!
Okay, this week we've got two cast birthdays: Lunaris and Nth Power. Like I did a few years ago, I've made a two-part comic that I've uploaded the first half to today. The second part will come later this week.

If you know Lunaris and Nth Power, or see either of them, be sure to give them best wishes for their birthdays! (And check out Nth Power's D12/R Tennis, that'll make 'em happy!)

Anyway, enjoy the comic!

Decompression, mostly. Taking my frustrations out on various Valve games; finally played and finished Half Life 2: Episode Two, started getting back into Team Fortress 2, as well as Left 4 Dead (which I had started playing last month before lightning claimed my desktop).

... and boy have I been wracking up the achievements:

Aug 29: You achieved Half-Life 2: Episode Two: Hit and Run, Puttin' On a Clinic, Gunishment!, Cache Checker, Pedal to the Metal, Gordon Propelled Rocket, Quiet Mountain Getaway, Little Rocket Man, Secondary Silo Secured, Neighborhood Watch, Defense of the Armament, Hot Potat0wned.

You achieved Left 4 Dead: MY BODYGUARD.

Aug 28: You achieved Half-Life 2: Episode Two: Acid Reflex, Get Some Grub, Piñata Party, Into the Breach, Twofer, Meet the Hunters, Payback, Bone Breaker, Deadly Harvest, Grave Robber.

Aug 27: You achieved Team Fortress 2: First Blood, Scout Milestone 2, Batting the Doctor, Retire the Runner, I'm Bat Man, Triple Steal, Fire and Forget, Firewatch, Dance Dance Immolation, Hot on Your Heels, Pyro Milestone 2, No-Hitter, Trust Your Feelings.

Aug 23: You achieved Team Fortress 2: If You Build It, Scout Milestone 1, Moon Shot, Batter Up, Self-destruct Sequence, Sniper Milestone 3, BarbeQueQ, Gun Down, Side Retired, Triple Play, Race for the Pennant, Stealing Home, If You Build It.

Aug 22: You achieved Team Fortress 2: Fall Classic, Pilot Light, Set the Table, Rain on Their Parade, Jarring Transition, Friendship is Golden, William Tell Overkill, Pincushion, Sniper Milestone 1, Sniper Milestone 2, Rode Hard, Put Away Wet, Triple Prey, Dropped Dead, Impenetrable Defense, Be Efficient, De-sentry-lized, The Last Wave, Australian Rules.

Aug 21: You achieved Team Fortress 2: Purge, Gorky Parked, Soviet Union, Spies Like Us, Burn Notice, Sleeper Agent, Heavy Milestone 2, Supreme Soviet, Heavy Industry, Five Second Plan, Purge.

Aug 20: You achieved Team Fortress 2: Icing on the Cake, Preventive Medicine, OMGWTFBBQ, Pyro Milestone 1, Freezer Burn, Firewall.

Aug 19: You achieved Team Fortress 2: House Call, Spontaneous Combustion, Heavy Milestone 1, Spyalectical Materialism, Permanent Revolution, Triage, I Fry, Next of Kindling, Second Degree Burn, Dead Heat, Trailblazer, Weenie Roast, Communist Mani-Fisto, Rationing, Lenin A Hand, Socket to Him, Überectomy, Burn Ward, House Call.

Aug 18: You achieved Team Fortress 2: Crock Block, Marxman, Camp Fire, Iron Kurtain, Quadruple Bypass, Surgical Prep, Trauma Queen, Double Blind Trial, Midwife Crisis, Bedside Manner, Red Oktoberfest, 0wn the Means of Production, Rasputin.

(I'd also like to mention that this is all from normal play. I haven't ever visited one of those TF2 servers where they deliberately work on earning achievements.)

So, yeah. I've been pretty preoccupied, heh. Also why I haven't really had anything to update with aside from Ragnarok Wisdom updates. D:

Oh, and one other thing: The music "Vortal Combat" from Half-Life 2: Episode Two is freaking awesome. (You can hear part of it in the Portal trailer right after GLaDOS says "Let's look at the challenges you'll face as a test subject.")

screenChaos415 is FINALLY up!
This internet connection issue has been annoying. I know I'm not the only one who's been having it, though, so I'm not quite sure what's up. Maybe I ought to get some kind of automatic updating system for RW so that this kind of stuff doesn't happen ...

Anyway, enjoy the comic! There's also two other things you should check out:

First up, Nth Power released another one of his Infrequently Asked Questions earlier this month: D12/R Tennis. It's an absolutely hilarious riff on mascot sports games. I highly recommend it. :D

Also, in #ragnarokwisdom, the channel mascot Victoreet has been ... inspiring a series of drawings by Diddgery, based on his ramblings. Gut Funk's been compiling them for you all to view, here.

screenChaos415 is ... not up yet!
Okay, the FTP stuff is happening again--I keep getting timeouts. Some people I know have also said they've had problems reaching various sites (including mine). It's probably just kinks in the internet somewhere, but it's still annoying.

Assuming this page went through, though, I've got some things for you guys to look at while you wait for the comic to actually get through:

First up, Nth Power released another one of his Infrequently Asked Questions earlier this month: D12/R Tennis. It's an absolutely hilarious riff on mascot sports games. I highly recommend it. :D

Also, in #ragnarokwisdom, the channel mascot Victoreet has been ... inspiring a series of drawings by Diddgery, based on his ramblings. Gut Funk's been compiling them for you all to view, here.

Enjoy! I'll try and get the comic up as soon as my connection lets me.

screenChaos414 is up!
Finally! The FTP server stopped being fussy with my client and has let me update the website.

Sorry it took so long for this kink to work itself out. Hopefully you'll enjoy the comic, though!

Just ... I wouldn't suggest trying the salad.

I seriously wouldn't.

screenChaos416 will be up soon!
... Okay, maybe I spoke too soon about being able to return to a regular RW schedule!

I'm trying to upload the comic, but .. I'm getting some timeout errors. Reaching my webhost's FTP is being spotty.

Hang in there, guys, I'll have it uploaded as soon as possible.

screenChaos413 is up!
Yeaow. I've been under an internet blackout!

On top of some other stressing things that've been going on, the lightning damage I mentioned last update necessitated that the modem be replaced. This turned into some Fun Times with the ISP and ... well.

To think: This could all have been avoided if we just had a surge protector on the modem in the first place. (My computer has a uninterruptible power supply, buuut ... doesn't help much when the modem ain't protected!)

Anyway ... Barring any other sudden developments, I think I should be able to return to a normal RW update schedule now.

(If anyone's still reading that is, eheh.)

Enjoy the comic!

This has been one of those times where I wish I could just start last month all over again.

Or better yet, the whole year.

I'm really, really happy that things have gone at least this well.

Only the motherboard and power supply were damaged. That much is now confirmed; yesterday I took the computer back down to the comp shop to get the motherboards switched out. At first it looked like some of the other parts (CPU, video card, ram) failed--but after the guy continued to experiment to make sure, he found that it wasn't so.

I've spent all yesterday night and morning hooking things back up.

The new motherboard is a nightmare for cable management, however. On my old motherboard, the video card sat low in the case, out of the way of the hard drives. My video card now sits right up against the hard drive bays, its power cable threatening to graze up against the printed circuit boards of one of them (which can't be moved because the IDE cable it uses can't stretch far enough down).

It is also pointed down at the bottom of the case, now, where it was pointed up at an exhaust fan at the top of the case before.

I wound up getting a package of zip ties and carefully tried to figure out ways of getting cables out of the way. It still looks like a jungle in my case, though, even more than it used to.

And some wires just refused my attempts to get them away from the video card. One red and black wire, for example, just couldn't be moved away from touching the side of the card. The IDE cable is also mere milimeters away from the video card's printed circuit board.

I'm a little worried about the zip ties. The package says they're not meant to be used in places where temperatures exceed 90C/160F. Problem is, my video card gets that hot. nVidia GeForce 8800GTs do that.

I wonder if I should look into getting some kind of cable management kit.

Anyway, I spent most of today working on reactivating my install of Windows XP64. This turned out to not be as bad as I feared it would--I had to call in, and I got directed to a Microsoft rep, but they didn't ask me more than "What operating system are you using?" and gave me a new installation ID.

I was prepared to explain to them the lighting bolt strike and everything, but I'm glad I didn't have to.

So, for right now ... the only thing necessary that's left is getting a modem. The local base exchange has one I'm thinking about getting--a Netgear DGN2000, combined DSL modem/wireless router. If I can get that, I can hook it up to the surge protector, and not have to worry about another lightning strike (unless it hits the house, of course).

Ragnarok Wisdom is going to have to wait for a bit.

... Is because a documentarian can make a rational, intelligent person look like a complete buffoon no matter what they actually say, and people already inclined to believe whatever the documentarian says will lap it up like cream.

How many people do you think who've cheered Bill Maher on will give Francis Collins the time of day after seeing that "documentary?"

( Here's a more detailed explanation of this, for those interested. )

Very few people escaped this treatment in Bill Maher's film--Dean Hamer being one of them. Even then, Maher still tried to use a two-second clip of his hour-and-a-half interview with Hamer as ammo for his "documentary." The same tactic was used on Andrew Newberg, as the article discusses.

That's what disturbs me the most, Bill Maher's anti-religious "tract" aside. It's very easy to sabotage someone's credibility by being snarky and deceptive, and by catching them off guard. It's very easy to put words in someone's mouth or make them support beliefs which they do not hold. Even if an interviewee manages erudite responses, or remains steadfast against pressure, all the snarker has to do is selectively edit the interview.

Being able to effectively deal with "pop quiz" or "ambush" interviews, producing an airtight defense against Moore-style tactics, is a skill in its own right--and it's a skillset that I don't think many people have. I know I sure as hell don't have it. I'd be left gagging on a mouthful of stupidity.

These tactics are like kicking someone in the groin during a boxing match--except that instead of looking like a poor sport, the audience comes away thinking the groin-kicker legitimately won the match. No matter what the subject, it makes laymen look like complete morons, and discredits experts. It's sickening and saddening at the same time.

Good news: Although Newegg took, once again, an entire day to process the motherboard order, the board had free shipping and guaranteed two days delivery. Sure enough, the tracking says it'll be here tomorrow. No waiting over the weekend like last time, though it won't matter if it turns out the CPU is fried. Same with the video card.

Bad news: We called another AC repair company out here. They've spent most of the time since noon out here checking our insulation, the AC unit, and such. The guy found out that the water leak is coming from the condenser ... but there's also something else.

It turns out that the leaks we've been getting are not just water. It's also freon, in the outside unit that the previous company "leased" to us for $300. And it's because that AC company's repairman screwed up when soldering something.

The repair guy who came today suspects it might have been intentional, to make sure we'd call back to get a "proper" (and more expensive) AC replacement.

It will likely run out of freon tonight, which means our house will be a sauna once again, with no relief until we can get this done right. Might have to look into buying window units; I'll have zero internet access if the AC runs out.

Loooovely. Never going to deal with that other AC company again.

As I found out very quickly, my motherboard (GIGABYTE GA-X38-DQ6) is no longer sold. I couldn't find it sold at ANY stores online or offline.

So, now I get to find a new motherboard to replace it. I'm expecting to find out that the CPU is also fried, but I won't be able to determine this until I get a replacement motherboard. Thankfully, they still sell my processor (Intel Core 2 Q6600 quad core).

My graphics card (An nVidia GeForce 8800GT) might also be KIA, but again, can't find out until I've got a motherboard to test this. :/

Right now I'm focusing on getting a new motherboard.

This is the closest thing that GIGABYTE makes to my old motherboard, a GA-EP45-DQ6. It's pricey, though, almost $200. Doesn't seem to have THAT good of reviews, either. The GA-X38-DQ6 got a lot of great reviews ...

This, however, is an ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo. It was suggested to me by Exeridge, an RW fan. It appears to have similar specs to my own motherboard, and it's also $125 ($100 if I mail in the rebate).

I'm edging towards this ASUS P5Q. I might try to buy it today if I can, unless anyone's got suggestions or things to point out that I need to know.

Finally went down to the comp shop to get the new power supply installed.

Turns out the motherboard is dead. It wouldn't turn on at the shop. The guy tried several things to determine whether the motherboard was really gone, and sure enough ... it's dead. It wasn't dead when we brought it down last week to have it inspected, but that might have just been a swan song.

So here I am, back to before square one, all from a single lightning bolt. Don't even have reliable internet access anymore, we still haven't resolved the AC issue, and there's no damned telling how much of my computer's current setup is still salvagable.

And there's the XP64 OEM issue, too. Fuck.

I haven't even inspected the hard drives yet aside from taking them out and looking at the PCBs. I'm going to have to test them on the USB drive enclosure.

This has turned out to be an awesome July.

AC troubles are not over.

The repairmen who came over on Sunday just loaned us a replacement for the external unit ($300ish), which is older than the original one (and the original one is from the 1980's)--and expect us to buy a unit from them for real soon after.

Well, there's another problem they didn't fix--the internal unit is leaking water. Every time the unit finishes its cooling cycle, water drains from the pipes. Loudly. Tonight it's started to dampen the floor surrounding the unit. Not good. We've been using towels and a dehumidifier to try and suck up that excess water.

We're going to have to call someone over tomorrow. It's going to be a different company; this one that's looked at our AC has not been much help at all--the repairman that came out withheld information on what he expected the problem to be, and was very rude and pushy.

UPS not only took the weekend to ship the replacement parts, they also shipped them too late in the day to do anything with the computer; the comp shop closes too soon to get down there, but I called anyway--they said they probably couldn't get to it today.

Ah well. This is what I get for not being more attentive in protecting against lightning damage. Harsh lesson learned.

screenChaos412 is up!
Lightning struck near my house early Monday morning last week, and it wound up screwing over a lot of electronics--including my desktop computer, which was only functional for several weeks before this happened.

I'm hoping to get it repaired tomorrow, but until then I've been stuck on this laptop with only intermittent internet access (the modem/router was also damaged).

Our air conditioner also went kaput as a result of the lightning strike, which thew even more of a wrench into things. Earier this morning we got a stopgap measure, though, so things are ... relatively okay for right now.

Anyway ... enjoy the comic!

Got linked to this from mrherring:

A contest to "commit acts of lust" on EA booth babes as part of advertising for Dante's Inferno? This, on top of having fake fundies protest the game ... I just--oy.

I really, really feel sorry for the booth babes. This is just going to invite all sorts of "fun" ... and it's all with the blessings of their employers, no less. How much money would EA have to pay a girl to put up with the kind of treatment they're going to get from this campaign? I have to wonder how many might have quit their job in protest ... Unless this is some kind of volunteer basis, but even then! I'm not sure that there's many women who would like the treatment they're going to get enough to volunteer.

Of course, the ad says "any booth babe," so that probably means none of them are safe.

Even if you assume no one goes overboard, the whole "acts of lust" and "sin to win" is still kind of humiliating. It's one thing to have your picture taken with booth babes (after all, being eye candy is what they signed up for), but this is just encouraging a whole lot worse.

I'm certain that at least some will go overboard with this. They'll see this contest as a mandate to grope or goose ... and as people who've gone to conventions assured me, there's a goodly number of convention-goers who have bad hygiene to boot. Now they'll see this contest and think they've got justification for some "hands-on" time. Sounds like someone's idea of Hell, if you ask me.

... wait, is that why they gave the go-ahead for this contest? Man, EA, you've got some sick punks in Marketing.

I managed to get the computer looked at in a computer shop. They ran a test on the PSU and found that it's indeed dead. Then they temporarily hooked up a second PSU and tried the computer with that; the computer turned on as normal.

It looks like the motherboard might actually be okay, or at least mostly okay! I'm hoping that it's okay all the way. It's going to be a nightmare replacing it and getting the computer back to working order if it's been damaged to a point that won't present itself until later on.

Still, the computer won't be fixed before the end of the rewards on Phantasy Star Universe, so I'll still have to borrow a computer for at least that; the dongle trick lets me AT LEAST take care of college issues and provide me with some internet connectivity for my laptop, which is nice. After this, though, we're likely just going to get a separate modem for my computer, so as to not leave it vulnerable to lightning like this.

In any case, Newegg still seems to have the PSU I'd been using: A Seasonic S12 Energy Plus 550V. I'll probably pick up another one of those, especially if its safety features had managed to save the rest of the desktop from catastrophe.

Next time, I'm going to make sure my internet connection runs through the APC surge protector.