Aug 31, 2009

Do you know the number to heaven?

I saw this on the great G4 television show Web Soup, and I needed to share it here.

So imagine you got a movie contest premise. It has to be 30 seconds long, feature a monster, someone under 18 years old and the word "fantastic". What would you come up with? Go ahead, think about it. I'll be right here.

Still need a minute? No problem.

Got it now? Good. Now throw your idea away because there is no way you're on enough drugs to top this movie (you're still able to read, after all). This could quite possibly be the most WTF thing I've ever seen in my many years on the internet. Also, I love it.

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Aug 28, 2009

Smile, you're on camera!

Ever go to Walmart, only to see some really creepy individual shopping? Would you like to see more of him/her? How about many different versions of him/her? Now you can, delivered right to the very computer that you're using right now!

I'm talking, of course, about the website People of Walmart.

It's got your average, run-of-the-mill creepy. It's got your take-3-showers-to-feel-clean-again creepy. It's got your absurd, ridiculous and just plain "wtf". There's something here for every voyeur too lazy to go to his local Walmart.

I'm wonder just when this site will feature a naked man in a trench coat. It's this idea's logical conclusion and, quite honestly, just a matter of time.

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Aug 27, 2009

Peekaboo!

I know I've been talking a lot about Team Fortress 2 here. I swear I'm not a TF2 blog, it's just... well, I'm heading to grad school soon and I don't know if I'll have the time to play it. So I've been playing it more often than usual pre-emptively in case I don't have the time to be a gamer anymore.

When I saw this video, I was instantly intrigued by a new game mode someone's created called Prop Hunt. Essentially it's hide and seek, done TF2 style. Set in arena maps, the RED team has about 30 or seconds to hide from the BLU team, then the BLU team has the remaining time to go forth and slaughter. Sounds simple, right?

Nope. The BLU team, default pyro (though you can switch to heavy, another good choice), takes damage everytime they fire their weapons. So it pays to conserve instead of W+M1. Yes, you can pull the trigger so much you die. To augment this, periodically the capture point is "refreshed" and you can touch it for full health. The brilliance of this is that it takes you away from the hunt.

Oh, yeah, and it's called prop hunt. The RED team, forcibly scouts, are all turned into random map props as soon as the round begins. We're talking palm trees, buckets, doors, wood piles, hay - whatever is native to the map. Actually, the worst things to be forced to hide as are capture points (BLU always checks the point and you always look out of place anywhere else) and BLU pyros - you hold no gun and don't have the same running animations the other BLU pyros do.

The outcome of all this is interesting. RED's advantage, aside from being a prop, is its speed and mobility. I can't tell you the number of times I've spotted and lit a hider, only to have him run away from me before I could kill him. But what BLU lacks in speed, it makes up for in numbers - once a prop is out and running, you can see everyone scramble to cut off angles and kill it.

It's amazing to see what can be done with a little creativity and the patience to create a new game mode. Wholly recommended.

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Aug 26, 2009

8-bit tripping

Stop motion video is a medium that has always fascinates me. You set up a picture, take it, then work to set up the next picture that's only slightly different than the one before so as to create motion. Rinse and repeat. Because the effort required to produce even a small amount of video is enormous, it's almost always a labor of love. And that's usually reflected in the video itself.

Case in point, 8-bit Trip. Someone (or several someones, more likely) spent 1,500 hours assembling and disassembling Lego blocks to create some amazing 8-bit esque video. The results are stunning.

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Aug 25, 2009

Stop having a boring head, stop having a boring life.

Like many people, in TF2 one of the things I find most frustrating (aside from repeatedly getting schooled) is not having hats. I have one. There are a total of 30 if you count the hatless hats. Doing the math, I need some more fucking hats.


You like my hat, chuckle-nuts?

The only way to unlock them is to play TF2. Like, a lot of TF2, because hats drop about as frequently as Beastie Boys albums. But what do you do if you don't have the time to play 20 hours a day?

That's when you something like SteamStats, an idler. It allows you to be "logged into" TF2 using a fake server and just sits there. It's not nearly as computer resource intensive as just chilling in an idle server, so keeping it up and running is just a matter of not playing anything on Steam while you go about your business or just leaving your computer on.

Items drop about 5-6 times a day, and so far I've received no hats, but just the fact that I now have a greater chance to get my beloved camera beard makes this full of win. Enjoy your hats.

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Aug 23, 2009

Best. Cake. Ever.

This weekend brought about a going away party for me, in which a lot of my friends and family were able to make it. And while I haven't been able to fully debrief all people there, the general consensus was that it was a rip-roaring good time.

The best part of the whole thing? I got cakerolled. I know I shared this on Twitter previously, but it's so full of win (and ice cream) that I have to devote some space on this blog towards it. This post is its posthumous shrine.



My girlfriend is the best for having this made. Totally have to marry her after this.

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Aug 20, 2009

Dance Dance Evolution

Wikipedia defines the Lindy Hop as:

...an African American dance, based on the popular Charleston and named for Charles Lindbergh's Atlantic crossing in 1927. It evolved in New York City in the 1920s and '30s and originally evolved with the jazz music of that time. Lindy was a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based on jazz, tap, breakaway and Charleston. It is frequently described as a jazz dance and is a member of the swing dance family.

I would have used the more succinct "awesome", but that's me. What about you?

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Aug 19, 2009

My Life is Average

No, that's not commentary on my own life (I lead an awesome life), but rather an awesome website in which people recount their tales of averageness. My Life is Average is very similar in layout and structure to FMyLife, but instead of stories of cheating and otherwise getting dumped on, MLIA's takes have an endearing childlike innocence about them. Also, they're pretty damn funny.

For example:

Today at work we got a new vacuum cleaner. It straps onto your back and has a hand-held nozzle with which to vacuum. I am officially a Ghostbuster. MLIA

It's like discovering an entire community of people that think exactly like I do. It's good to be average.

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

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Aug 18, 2009

Things that should not be: Poo Trap

Do you have a dog? Does it poop? Do you hate your dog? If you've answered yes to all three, then this product is for you. It's the Poo Trap, a device that catches poo that comes out of your dog. Finally, a device that strips you and your dog away from any remaining dignity.


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Aug 17, 2009

Long live the king! (of the hill)

So the new TF2 classless update hit last Friday, and I've had about a weekends worth of time to digest it. With it came hats, a new play mode, new ctf and arena maps, and a metric crapton of tweaks. Here's my (obligatory) two cents:

What Valve did right:
Hats. While they're a pain in the ass to get, the option to give your character a little more customization is a welcomed one (camera beard ftw) . Now if only I could get myself some of those freaking hats...

CTF_Sawmill. I never was a fan of arena Sawmill, but take out a couple of the side attack routes and it plays very nicely as a capture the flag map. Only slight niggle is that the map is so open and with plenty of water on both sides of the map, that pyros tend to be underpowered on this map.

Sandman tweaks. Un-freaking-believable what they did. Scout now can double jump with the Sandman, but can no longer stun uber-charged enemies. Also, there's a significant health penalty, dropping the Scouts health to only 95 hp. This means taking one rocket to the face, not even a crit rocket, usually means you explode. This change is amazing for 2 reasons:

  • No longer are people limited to the Force-a-nature / Sandman combo. Most people (myself included) teamed the two items together to help compensate for the Sandman's lack of double jump. Now Scouts are free to choose either scattergun.
  • The decrease in health actually forces Scouts to play as, well, Scouts. It's easier to learn how to play any class when you can vividly see your mistakes. What better way than dying just about every time you make one as a Scout? That's what the 95 hp represents - a learning tool. Jump in, deal quick damage, jump out. Learn the value of making the other team chase you and not take your objectives/engage your team.

King of the Hill - I really love this play mode. You and your team try to capture a central point and have your timer reach 0 before the other team's. Simple, yet maddeningly frustrating at times. Plus, shortly after the release the announcer kept shouting "overtime" which was hilarious. But most of all, what's great about King of the Hill is...

koth_nucleus - This map was made for King of the Hill. It's small and incredibly well balanced. The capture point is literally inaccessible until its unlocked which has the added bonus of preventing one team from camping it. There's no good place for a sentry nest, yet it doesn't preclude the engineer from setting up shop somewhere - its defenses are just not impregnable like in some other maps. So much fun to be had in this map.

What Valve did wrong:
King of the Hill nests - In koth_Viaduct, and to a lesser extent koth_Sawmill, the matches are usually won not by the team with the most skilled players, but the one that establishes its nest first. There are a few spots on these maps that are perfect for it, and that's the problem. If the other team's sentry is at level 3 and the teleporters are up, good luck turning the tide (unless the other team is really bad at protecting their stuff). Remove those nests, Valve.

Alternatively, I'd love to try Viaduct and Sawmill as-is on a server that doesn't allow engineers. THAT would be interesting.

Arena mode - It got replaced. Much like the Medic's Blutsaugher to the Syringe Gun, King of the Hill almost completely replaces it. Sure, I may indulge Arena from time to time to get a Counterstrike-esque feel, but even with the nesting problem King of the Hill is more fun than Arena.

Rocket jumping / Force-a-nature jumping - While I haven't tried these out for myself, servers chatter was alive with complaints on how Soldiers were unable to reach places they normally could with a rocket jump, or how the Scout's "triple jump" with the force-a-nature is more or less taken from them. I guess I didn't see the need for this, Valve. Why change what wasn't really broken?

Overtime! OVERTIME! overTIME! OVER time! ...overtime! OvErTiMe! oVertime! OVERTIME! OvErtImE! Come on, Valve, you didn't need to patch this shortly after the update. I may be alone in thinking it, but it was welcomed unintentional hilarity, and really gave life to the otherwise unknown Announcer.

Summary
Overall, there's a lot to be excited about in this update. While I'd always love me some new unlockables for a class (Demoman, plz), the Scout plays like a brand new class with the changes made so I can't really complain too much. Not perfect, but few things are. 9.5/10

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Aug 14, 2009

This marketing plan is the shit

Hey marketers! Want to really reach out and connect with the young generation and show them what a wonderful product it is you have? Why not supply them with some infotainment they can see in their normal communication channels. Viral videos these days are all the rage, but you're savvy enough to know that for a video to catch on, it needs to be something worth talking about. What do you do?

Well, if you're the people behind msi laptops, you strip the internet down to its essence and portray your product in that scenario. Yes, I'm talking about making a video of a team of spandex clad youngsters, who look like they're having the time of their lives catching your laptops in their butts. Wait, what?

I COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF I TRIED.

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Aug 13, 2009

Seriously, Apple?

I must have missed this in the whole "let's make our iPods really obnoxiously smaller" phase of the brand, but Apple legitmately thought that its users were going to eat the iPod Shuffle. No, seriously, you can google it.

I know Apple's all about controlling the user experience and making sure it's easy to use even for the, shall we say, less-technically inclined of us. But to think they'd eat the electronics is a little bit of a stretch.

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Aug 12, 2009

This guy seems legit...

I found it! The most inappropriate video ever. And it comes from The Onion, much like you'd expect. It's a morning show piece with an ex-pedophile giving tips on how to make your kids less attractive. It'll make you laugh so hard you'll realize just how sick of a human being you are.

GOOD JOB, ONION





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Aug 11, 2009

Lost in Translation: Funny People

I've watched Funny People (applause). And, like any person with an opinion and a soapbox, I'm going let you know what I think. Instead of sharing with you my thoughts (far too easy), I've translated them once again into Japanese and back again via way of Babelfish. Enjoy!


Misnomer.
The strange people are the movie concerning the comedian who never really does not hit to large and. Oh truly, secretly laughing, the movie concerning the comedian who brags about the power where this casting ones are strange - especially 1 - being consistent, when it is stranger, the large number of joke it had smile on my surface, but many there is the point which differs in the movie which makes, thinks.

The movie itself was in some genre, it could not define. On the one hand, as for that comedian who's concerning it possessed the element of the story of rather good growth; which exactly obtains that large being broken eye. The love story of those which obtain the change which leaves remain, that's arrange subpar at the very most. This time being clear, throw the help of accumulation of the old drama.

And however, every one of that is clumsy, it seems that disorder does not work exactly together with the enormous lump. In its movie the way because it seems the way, it is strange or, either one which goes somewhere. It reverses. There are no all assemblies or the punch line.

Just Seth of the entire movie was Rogen passing possible. While believing, that me it is the actor where he really is strange, he is clumsy, it seems that is the majority of all that elements. As for me lion you must say as for the share of laughing supporting position, all people you. The empty it came we which is heard never perhaps (certainly me didn't). Appreciating, that this movie won't it means the loom of on those remaining for carrier.

I remain the theater completely to regret the fact that you see, the movie which leases me whom perhaps it had the chestnut it probably will return. Favor to do you yourself, this just that time you see re-curiosity does not remove the forcing or the money for that from the shell.

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Aug 10, 2009

Sanity 'splosion

Gotta love vacation. Time to recharge the batteries and kick back. And, for myself, it's also another week of perusing the internet and seeing what the internet cat (technically a tiger) dragged in.

The always awesome Jaz McDougall turned me onto not one, but two awesome oddities. First, Shatner explains why Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain, embedded below. Ok, it's just an old Shatner interview, and Shatner was pretty out there himself, but it's spliced even further to turn the insanity up to 11. Oh, and it's set to super catchy techno music. HARD MODE: try and get the song out of your head once you let it wash over you.



Also, Translation Party has to be one of the greatest wastes of time ever. It stirs up huge waves of nostalgia as it does all the work of translating things from English into Japanese and back over and over again until "equilibrium" is found (where the phrases never change when transformed). I've, of course, taken the liberty of translating the Shatner vid using Translation Party. The results can be found below:

Captian Kirk, why he is climbing a mountain climber?
Captian Kirk, why he is climbing a mountain climber?
Captian Kirk, why he is climbing a mountain climber?
Captian Kirk, why he is climbing a mountain climber?

To hug the mountain
Wrapped around the mountain
To hug the mountain
Wrapped around the mountain
Mountains and Mt.
He is fond of mountains

Young people and a tough body, uhh, little finger and toe locks sinewed
Challenge of Death
Or climb a mountain? Because I love.

Kirk, the incident occurred between the mountains and passion
This is in the mountains KAKUKAKU

Now, to create the illusion
Attractive, it is to understand the meaning of the increased appetite that it is difficult
And this mountain, putting me

Captian Kirk, why he is climbing a mountain climber?
Captian Kirk, why he is climbing a mountain climber?
Captian Kirk, why he is climbing a mountain climber?
Captain Kirk is climbing. Please wait.

To hug the mountain
Wrapped around the mountain
To hug the mountain
Wrapped around the mountain
Mountains and Mt.
He is fond of mountains

Maeba still matters
In front of me some people here

Death of Rock Challenge
Or climb a mountain? Because I love.

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Aug 6, 2009

Bomb has been planted (in your mind)

Counterstrike, for all intents and purposes, was the game that really introduced me to this whole "online gaming" thing. Sure, other games had gone online, and I understood how that was a good thing intellectually, but it wasn't until I got the thrill of pwning noobs and talking shit over voice chat did I really fall in love.

Better still, this was all done at my college (I was a late bloomer with the online gaming) with a tight community of players about 30 strong. It was cool to live this double life of student and awp whore elite tactical agent. Even cooler was when you and other members of this community, previously anonymous to one another, discovered one another about campus. Granted I took (and still take) an unoriginal handle, but "Oh shit, you're Baker?" was a question that started some fairly interesting conversations.

Suffice it to say, while I don't play it much anymore, Counterstrike still holds a very soft spot in my heart. So when my cousin turns to me this vacation and tells me there's "this Counterstrike frag video" I have to see, I gave it a look. Not since a particular TF2 video (hint: THE AWESOME ONE (hint hint: MASS AI (while (true)))) have I awed at a video this hard.

While I suspect some aimbotting was done to make the video - noone's THIS accurate in CS - the editing and music and sheer awesomeness of the video more than compensate. This one's turned up to 11.



ahhh, I love programming humor. If (user = "gets it"){Do (laugh);} else{break;}

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Aug 4, 2009

PSA: How to reset your sleep cycle

I am a horrible, horrible sleeper. Not because the quality of the sleep is lacking, but because my body has a horrible clock for these sorts of things. I get it erratically, at different points of the day, for differing amounts. Much like the XKCD strip, I seriously considered just telling people I lived in different time zones.

But science, good 'ol science, seems to have found a way to reset your body clock: stop eating. For about 12-16 hours prior to when you want your body wake up, don't eat. So if I want to set my "morning" to be, say 5 PM, I stop eating at 1-5 AM and try to wake up at 5 PM. When you wake up and your body is nice and hungry, eat a really good, healthy breakfast. Your body receives the food and thinks "WHY THE HELL ISN'T THIS BACON?". I mean, "it's morning".

More details and science-y stuff can be found here:
http://www.wisebread.com/how-to-naturally-reset-your-sleep-cycle-overnight

This is one of those odd things that, while I haven't empirically verified for myself, passes the "smell test". While my sleep clock may be unreliable (read: broken), my stomach is fucking military precision on when it tells me to eat. Even more impressive, it sounds like Sgt. Hartman from Full Metal Jacket when it's trying to tell me it's hungry. I don't dare cross my stomach for fear that it'll make me choke myself.

But possibly, if I can trick it to anchoring around a new "morning" by timing my breakfast, my stomach should continue to do an excellent job in telling me when lunch, dinner and "time for bed" is. I'mma give it go!

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