Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

So I've been reading the HHGttG this past week and have come to a conclusion. If Dr. Seuss were ever to write a novel his pen name would probably be Douglas Adams. Seriously, some of the words, settings and situations in this book could only be compared to a particularly acid frenzied reading of Yurtle the Turtle.

Avarice and Lies

You know one of the things that pisses me off?  Note I said one of the things, since most everything pisses me off these days.  Anyway, it's when companies claim they lost x amount of money in a given year.  Now in the traditional sense of the term, one would have to assume that that dunce Carrol down in accounting misplaced 43 million dollars on her way to the bank, or that the CEO's son took his entire graduating class on a all inclusive 6 week blow and hookers bonanza in Bannock.  But no, in actuality what they really mean is that they didn't meet projected profit.  Projected profit?  The fuck is this shit?

If anything projecting your companies profits is the very definition of counting your chickens before they hatch.  It's the kind of thing that sensible people tell idiots NOT to do. What's even more retarded is the way they calculate projected profits.  For some companies, they at least put some semblance of logic into it, usually by factoring in what projects are expected to release that year, then factoring in popularity of said project, cost of bringing the project to fruition, etc.  However some companies just take the amount that they made the previous year, add 10% on top of that and call it a day. Then when they fail to meet their utterly made up projections they put out an announcement saying they "lost" 43 million dollars.  It's even more ridiculous when a company posts "losses" when the country they reside in is in the middle of a fucking recession.  Yes, Sony, turns out people buy less over priced music from shit artists when they can barely pay the fucking rent. It's almost unfathomable that of all the kinds of people in this world, these are the ones that can successfully operate a business.

Click of Doom

Oh how I wish this were a post about a shitty B movie involving killer dolphins, but alas it is not.

So up until last week my plan had been to buy another large external HDD for backups once boxing day rolled around and the prices dropped lower than the IQ of a West Virginian PE teacher.  Unfortunately I was fucked by fate once again when I heard a loud clicking sound coming from my computer room last Sunday.  Once I determined which external was clicking I didn't even bother to see if the computer still recognized it, I just used the eject drive tool and shut it the fuck down.  This may have been a poor move on my part, because now that my 2TB replacement has arrived and I'm ready to try and transfer the data, the computer won't even recognize the fucking thing.  It starts spinning well enough, but then what I assume is the arm starts clicking, then after several seconds the drive powers itself down.

This is my first ever HDD failure, and it sure does hit you like a kick in the nuts.  In total I lost 500GB of data.  My entire porn collection including my doujinshi, all my pirated games, all my SFW pictures ( a picture for every occasion), all my manga, all my backup game saves, all my Zero Punctuation videos, all my HD game trailers, all of my music, all my cut scene rips, 90% of my passwords and account names I had in various text files, all gone.

I'll spend a little more time ruling out power issues and other possibilities before I write it off for irreparably fucked. Considering how much time I spent gathering this shit from the endless corners of the internet, and considering how many of those corners have since been shut down, or just died, I probably won't even rebuild.  I'll redownload my ZP and music collections, but then that goes without saying.  The rest I suppose I will just make a mental grave for.

Here lies 7 years of my data.  I meticulously gathered you from infinite sources, organized you by category for nigh on a decade, you were the best of the best, but it is time for you to rest.  Goodnight, my faithful 1s and 0s.

Attention Whores

Keep in mind that's "attention whores", not "attention, whores".  What a difference a comma can make.

The other day I heard an interesting theory.  Someone said that women who wear skin tight, torn denim cut offs and florescent pink tube tops with the words "fuck me" printed in big, bold letters aren't at all responsible for attracting negative attention from the drunk, horny men they dangle themselves in front of.  To that I say, well I suppose neither are the people who hose themselves down with Calvin Clein's new scent of sheep's blood cologne and go jogging in the woods only to get mauled and eaten by a cougar.

This really couldn't be any more simple.  If you don't want attention, don't draw attention to yourself.

I don't care how much of a statement you want to make with your image, or if you're doing it all to be ironic; if you wear clown shoes, a stained tu-tu and a gimp mask, someone is likely going to take notice and give you some attention, and it won't be the positive kind.  The only situation in which someone wouldn't make a unkind remark about your unusual attire is if they think that if you're damaged enough to wear that kind of shit out in public you're likely damaged enough to stab them with all your retard strength for pointing it out.

In a nutshell, the people who do these things are the same people who would do absurd and outrageous things in school to catch everyone's eye, only now they're all grown up and twice as dysfunctional.

Bateson Is Back To Voice Agent 47 In Hitman: Absolution

Holy fuck it's been a while since I posted here. The sun came out and suddenly ranting on the internet seemed less important, but now that the sky has closed up and regularly drenches the landscape in worrying amounts of water it's time to return to my bitter and sarcastic ways. Well, not really. I'm actually pretty relaxed with summer still fresh in my memory, so here's a laid back story about an upcoming game.

Since it was announced last year, it looked like the long time voice of Agent 47 wasn't coming back for Hitman: Absolution. David Bateson, who had been the VO for Agent 47 since the first game released in 2000, had been quietly dropped from the project. Bateson himself even made a statement on his website that IO Interactive were ignoring all his attempts to contact them. One of the devs even mentioned wanting to head in a new direction with the series, and insinuated that the dropping of Bateson was part of that "new direction". Well, with only 3 months left until release, it appears IO has backpeddeled their way away from the roadblock of fan rage they were heading for and have brought Bateson back to reprise his roll as Agent 47 after all. That, or the whole thing about him not being cast as 47 this time around was an elaborate troll by IO Interactive to boost talk about the game.



Details on the facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/hitman

Feed the poor, sick and hungry...to a wood chipper.

Ever notice how humans are the only species that are allowed to pass on their genetic fuckups to the next generation? Natural selection does a great job in the wild. The strong survive and the weak die out. Even with things that humans farm for food, be it plant or animal, humans go so far as to breed the most desirable genetic traits, but when it comes to our own species, we allow the weak, sick, stupid and psychotic to not only live, but breed as well.

The right to life and liberty sounds slightly retarded when you realize it also applies to those floundering on the bottom of the genepool, don't you think?

She's a Bute!

Sitting here on the verge of sleep, pondering pointless things.

Tonight's random musings involve men and how we refer to most objects a female. No, not about how we objectify most women. I don't give a flying fuck about that. I'm talking about how when I show my gun, or house, or car, or boat to someone, it's always "She's a bute, isn't she?".

I wonder if women do the same, only opposite. I wonder if two chicks that were having the kind of sleepover that only occur in my dreams, porno, or college dorms where the E flows like, well like a river of pills, would one of them say "Cindy, would you pass me Romone?", to which Cindy would reply "Who or what is Romone?" to which Amber would say "He's my vibrator"...

Uhh, yeah. 5am pondering isn't exactly the most sophisticated of internal monologues.

Indolence and Intolerance 2 BETA :

the Domain is being redirected to the new site, but this blog is *STILL* A huge part of the content portal, (Assuming FuktLogik wishes to participate) I'm looking for ideas and projects to tackle with this site, so if there's something you want to see done with that anger and intent, brought to you by Carl's Jr, then please, comment and discuss. Anything that can be done, will. In the meantime, Indolence and Intolerance is already home to : The Music of Forte 'Shankatsu, an up-and-coming rapper from the North End of the SE side of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Dubtitled : A new Radio/Video channel, intent on delivering amusing but forgotten shows, Interesting Mainstream and Indie Music, and hopefully soon a new Podcast being streamed Live on fridays. I hope to see this project succeed! and again, any comments are welcome. an Alternate URL is http://indolenceandintolerance.fapis.com In case the DNS hasn't carried over yet but you still want to check it out!

An Awesome Day

You ever have one of those days that can only be described as awesome? Awwww yeah!

Next Gen Consoles to Block Used Games

With all the talk of the next wave of game consoles not allowing the use of used games, I figured it was time to sit down and think about what this will mean to the most important part of the business model: the gamers.

If you visit gaming news sites with any regularity it's likely you've come across "insider information" brought fourth by "trusted sources" saying that both the next Xbox and the next Playstation will have systems in place to prevent the playing of used games, rentals, borrowed games and anything else that might entail.

Have you ever borrowed a game from a friend to check out for a few days after he wouldn't shut up about how great it was? Well, there will be no more of that, because "we're killing the industry" by not coughing up $69 every time we want to play a game. If it turns out to be shit, well, you're fucking stuck with it, because even if you did manage to sell it somehow, the sale would be worth as much as the disc it's printed on.

Gone would be businesses like Gamefly, Game access, and their overseas counterparts. Gone too would be shops like Gamestop, EB Games, and the uses shelf at your local video store.

Renting would be made pointless since you'd have to pay to rent the game, then pay $30 (if they even offer the option) or so to activate and bind the game to your online account, which would be utterly wasted once you send it back.

You'd also need to be online every time you activate a new game, or else you simply wouldn't be able to use what you PAYED for.

Essentially, this initiative by Sony, Microsoft, and at some point probably Nintendo are all the worst parts of steam rolled into one big shit smeared package. And you'd be delusional if you think this would make for lower prices in any way, shape or form.

The games industry isn't just shooting itself in the foot with this move, it's trying to look cool by slipping the gun into the back of its trousers and blowing its ass cheeks off.

Zima

Hey, does anyone remember Zima? Oh man, that shit was aweso... actually that stuff was pretty shit, but at least it helped you peel yourself off couches on really hot days. Of course that in itself can cause its own problems...

Challenges in Gaming

Appropriate challenge is something many game developers try their hand at, and fail harder than a DVD rewinder.

There are two kinds of challenging gameplay. There's the kind where after completion you take a minute to bask in the knowledge that your superior skill and reflexes helped you triumph through the section, and then there's the kind where after countless attempts, being foiled not only by bad design but by bugs and glitches as well, you finally manage through sheer fucking repetition and luck, and take a moment to go online and find the bastard that was responsible for the section, and then entertain thoughts of doing something terrible to them.

It had been a while since I experienced this kind of frustration, as it seems to be less common in the good games of this gen than the good games of last gen. But while playing through the Jak collection this weekend I came face to face with the second example. Jak II's vehicle section are among some of the worst in gaming history. If you aren't playing against an AI that simply doesn't have to follow the same rules as you do, then you're getting stuck on the world geometry, or having your vehicle blow up because you ran into a fly, or the game just flat out refuses to accept your victory. The vehicles in this game have all the structural integrity of plastic beer cup, and all the handling and finesse of a bicycle with two inch handle bars.

Not only is the racing in this game atrocious, but they decided to make it the main focus of the gameplay, which is like making a celibate monk director for your porn flick. All but 3 races in the entire game take place in the city streets, which happen to be populated by droves of mindless pedestrians on the ground, and the hover zone is full of the aforementioned flying plastic beer cups. But that's only half of it. The ground is also littered with Krimson (Because Mortal Kombat has shown us that cool people replace Cs with Ks) Guards, which will enter high alert if they so much as feel the breeze coming off your car as you pass by. You then get to contend not only with the mobile obstacle course that is the pedestrians, but also an entire fleet of hover bikes with mounted guns, hover APCs with mounted guns, and foot soldiers carrying assault blasters and guns that shoot arcing electricity.

Jak 3 slightly improves upon this issue by giving you slightly better ground based vehicles and dumping you in the middle of the desert. But Naughty dog immediately fucks that up by making sure you can't drive for two seconds without 5 bandit vehicles spawning all around you, and this continues for as long as you're in your dune buggie.

You know, for a games with such tight platforming it seems that they got the rest of their ideas for gameplay for the inebriated, spliffed up rejects of Insomniac and Rockstar. Admittedly the gunplay isn't nearly as bad as the driving, but that's like saying that your amputated arm doesn't bother you as much as your terminal bowl cancer...

Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day, tossers. If you're with that special someone today, be sure to treat them well, and after you get them blind drunk, remember, there's only one sure way to avoid pregnancy, and that's anal sex;)

Just out of curiosity ...

Does anyone actually fucking read this blog? I know I don't exactly offer much except bitterness and rants, but sometimes I wonder if the only hits I get are from people who are still being directed to this site while looking for anime and shit. I suppose I just want to know if I'm only spinning my wheels, or if anyone walks away from a post here feeling even slightly enlightened or trolled. (inb4 blogging is at its core spinning your wheels)

There should be a poll directly above this post, so vote if you are so inclined.

Also, 8008 hits. Symmetry at its finest.

Morons

Morons. We know they are all around us. But sometimes they poke their heads out of their basements just long enough to make a complete ass of them selves before returning to languish in their subterranean hovels.

This is an post made by some dumb fuck called Skeletal-Minion, who was the focus of this week's "Speak Up" column on Kotaku. He writes:

I'm so sick of seeing people who buy used games bitching, most recently about Kingdoms of Amalur providing some extra content for people who buy a new copy.

You don't like Online Passes? You want the "choice" to be able to buy the game used (and I can't even believe I'm actually saying that, as if the option to buy used was completely removed, when it obviously hasn't)?
Fine then. DON'T FUCKING BUY IT, you entitled, self-centered pricks. 38 Studios and every other company who implements an online pass don't have to listen to a fucking word of your whining. When you decide to be cheap and save a few dollars by buying used—and yes, it boils down to you being CHEAP, since if you can't afford to skip one fucking value meal to make up the $5 difference between a new and used copy, you obviously don't have the extra money to waste on the game period and shouldn't be buying it in the first place—those same developers and publishers you're crying a river to are making $0 off you. To paraphrase Penny Arcade, "You are no longer their customer, you're a customer of Gamestop."

I know you people who are actually upset over this think the gaming industry should be a magical fantasy land where everything is sold below cost, all DLC is free, and games are supported indefinitely, but guess what? You know those people making all the great games you've enjoyed since you discovered the hobby? This is their JOB. That's right, MAKING GAMES is what they do to put bread on the table. People look at big names in the industry like Bobby Kotick and assume anyone and everyone remotely related to gaming is some greedy bastard who's already filthy rich, and end up thinking the following: "They could easily afford to lower the price on this DLC/include that extra mode they cut/keep updating the game forever, they just don't want to!" Newsflash: big names in the industry are rich BECAUSE THEY'RE BIG NAMES.

Bobby Kotick is a damn CEO, of course he's rolling in cash. But while you were making that moronic assumption, THOUSANDS of programmers, artists, writers, modelers, musicians, etc. were making a fraction of what someone like Kotick makes while absolutely working their asses off making the games you enjoy (and they do work VERY hard, just look at what they have to put up with during the "crunch time" right before a title's release). Since the gaming industry is a business, guess what happens when a game doesn't turn a profit? Layoffs. Layoffs that impact the families and lives of all those people I just mentioned (Kotaku just posted a huge list of recently shut down studios if you want evidence of this). There are several things that can cause a game to not be profitable: poor release climate, poor marketing, over budgeting, poor strategic decisions (e.g., releasing a clearly multiplayer focused title with no online play or releasing a game on a system with a different demographic than your target), piracy, or even the game being flat out bad.

Regardless of how badly you want to penny pinch, the used games market is one of those causes. If online passes can help eliminate that and keep the developers I like around to make more of the games I like, I'm all for it.

"WAAAAAAH, EVEN THOUGH I STILL HAVE THE OPTIONS TO, I DON'T WANT TO BUY IT USED SINCE I'LL MISS OUT ON SOME CONTENT! :(" Bitch, baby, bitch. What are you going to do, not give them your money TWICE?

Being the kind of person I am, I just couldn't resist ridiculing this twat, if not actually educating him. I wrote:

Wow. There is so much bullshit in that post I don't even know where to start. But I'll just address the bit I read right before I got sick of listening to you pander on about shit you clearly don't understand.

"Since the gaming industry is a business, guess what happens when a game doesn't turn a profit?"

You know which games generally don't turn a profit? Shitty ones. You do know that developers are paid as they work, right? This means that they can put "bread on the table" as they work. It's not like they work for free for the entire fucking development cycle and only get paid if the game turns a profit. The "Profit" is the amount of revenue generated after all the bills have been paid. Even in the event of breaking even everyone still gets paid.

Also, lol at your assumption that trying to get the lowest price makes you a bad person or something. And your quoting of Penny arced is flat out retarded, as is the original material. We are never a customers of developers. Publishers pay devs to make games, and publishers sell games at a significantly lower cost than we buy them from the retail outlets that we shop at. So essentially the price is getting jacked up twice. Ones by the publishers, who aren't satisfied with breaking even, and once by the retailers who run their business by buying things cheap and selling them at a significant markup. BY buying a game you are not helping someone feed their family, your helping to make someone rich, and those people are almost NEVER the actual people who make the games.

Man, and they call ME Fucked Logic...

Of course I don't even know why I bother explaining these things to people like you. You obviously have your head jammed so far up your own ass you could give yourself a colonic irrigation by spitting.

Dreams

Have you ever woken up from a dream so real, so utterly vivid, that you spend the next five minutes inspecting your room to make sure nothing followed you back? Or find yourself in your front yard at 2:00am burying your keys so your roomate can't take your car out for a joy ride with a trunk full of cocaine and end up plowing it through the front of the local police department?

Maybe it's just me...

Feds Shut Down Megaupload

It seems that SOPA and PIPA aren't even needed, since today the DoJ went to New Zealand and arrested Kim Schlitz, founder of the Megaupload service. He is now either in the process of being extradited to America to face trial or already has been.

So what does this mean aside from the fact that one of the best, most accessible, and least tedious to use file hosts has been removed from the internet? Well, it means that at any time, for any number of reasons, American governmental agencies can waltz into a country on the other side of the world in which they have no jurisdiction, carrying torches and pitchforks and proceed to drag people off whilst branding them "Pirates", like the term is the intellectual property equivalent of a kiddy porn ring. They will later go on to release a statement stating that (Insert multi-billion dollar organization's name here) lost 500 million dollars due to piracy, and every good little brainwashed citizen out there will think "Good riddance! How is (Insert filthy rich band's name here) supposed to afford that third diamond studded Olympic swimming pool if these "pirates" are out there giving away their songs for free?".

That last paragraph got me thinking, why the fuck are people who acquire content and share it with others free of charge called pirates? Doesn't traditional piracy usually involve murdering the original owners and selling the property on the black market? This seems a lot more like taking from the absurdly wealthy and giving to those who would otherwise be getting gouged by companies who own a monopoly on the item they're selling. I deem from this day fourth people who share files free of charge should be called Robin Hoods.

Compared to other file hosts I've encountered in the last few years, MU seemed rather vigilant when taking down something that could even be considered illegal or copyright material. It's more than a little disturbing that even with that being the case, the feds snapped their fingers and made a site with over a 150 million members disappear overnight, and jailed their founder and several other employees.

It seems all too clear that anti-piracy is going to become the new golden ticket that the American government will use to invade other countries and drag their citizens off to face trial in the land of the fre... fre... sorry, I just can't bring myself to type that word today.