ninja mode

I confess.

I have an addiction.

An addiction to amazingly geek-like t-shirts.

BUT I CAN STOP ANY TIME I WANT.

Well, so much for the nifty audioscrobbler plugin…for some reason it broke all the comments links. I have no idea why.

Ok. I think I’ve come up with a new word, and here is what it is:

netdead: adj. The empty, un-updated, uninteresting, and/or abandoned state of the internet. Occurs when websites are neglected, not functioning, or fail to be updated. Also is caused by a lack of persons online at any given time. see also: netdeath, n.

Anyway.

Today would be another one of those days where the internet is so slow moving (see: empty internet) that almost nothing is new, nothing is worth reading, things I’d usually be reading are broken. But it’s also 11:30 at night, and I can’t come up with anything else to do. That’s worth doing, anyway. And unlike last time, I can’t seem to get going on a good random websearch.

So what do we do when the great and powerful internet is suddenly netdead? Well… I guess we blog. But what about?

Joysticks. Ok. There’s a subject.

So anyone who knows Cliff even slightly is likely to know that he’s into airplanes and all that, and the next logical step would be flight sims on the computer, right? Right. Except his joystick is broken, which is ridiculous if you ask me, because it’s one of those expensive Microsoft ones. This is not shaping up to be a good week for Microsoft: first I get a fatal explorer error, which I’ve never gotten yet using XP. Then I try to work on a scenario in Age of Empires (a Microsoft-produced game) and it crashed. Repeatedly. And hard. And now this. Even their joysticks aren’t reliable. Linux looks ever more appealing at moments like this, especially after I tried out a tiny cd-bootable version a while ago – it’s very much like a cross between Windows and Mac, and very pretty to boot.

So anyway, we head out joystick shopping, and our first stop is Office Depot. Now, they used to have joysticks. They carry quite a few computer games. But do they still have joysticks? Apparently not. Slightly miffed, we head out again, this time for Media Play, where I know I’ve seen joysticks. And I was right. They have a couple, not nearly as many as they used to, but unfortunately none of them are force feedback, which is apparently what Cliff wanted.

Almost as quickly as we left Office Depot, we turn around and head out to the mall, hoping that there’s some small chance they might have something at GameStop. Once again, not so. Feeling defeat, we hike over to the food court and get us some Subway. The subs themselves weren’t bad, but the evil Subway minion tried to poison me with Diet Coke instead of Real Coke. *gag gag* Cliff kindly swapped drinks with me and gagged on the diet stuff, then tossed it out. It was nasty, but nearly so nasty as diet Mountain Dew. Now that is like drinking a fizzly glass of green soapy water. Egad.

We came home and Cliff fell asleep and I fiddled with the Age of Empires map editor for a while and figured out how some of the conditional things work and some neat little things. I was thinking of making an entire campaign set in the fictional high school lunch table space empire of Megalania, complete with cinematics. :B Because we all know I can do a mean Flash animation when I set my mind to it. I just need to work out some of the plot elements first, since I’ve never really thought about the actual landscape of my imaginary lunchtable space land. Nor the people living there. Mostly because the folks I imagined living there were small and blue and fuzzy and winged and not really like people at all. But I suppose there could be real people-type-people there, too, just for the sake of this idea. I suppose I’ll need to find some music for said cinematics, too, if I plan on actually doing this. :B Which would probably kill my boredom right about now.

Also. I have no fan covers on the multitude of case fans on my computer, Papaya. They are all over and are quite exposed. Kitalee decided to poke one and got quite a shock when it bit back. :B She didn’t get hurt or anything, but oh did it ever make her curious. I think she has declared war on the green case fan now. She keeps coming back to study it. Silly kitty.

If Cliff had a website I would be visiting it RIGHT NOW. >:|

Further evidencing my geekage…

…as if that was really necessary. :B

I signed up for Audioscrobbler, which is a plugin thing that keeps track of what you listen to and how often and compares it to other people/types of music. I thought it could be interesting to see what it comes up with as far as suggested listening, since I need to find some new music to listen to. You can click that link and see what I’ve been listening to lately. I don’t know WHY you’d want to, but you can.

I also installed a WP plugin that’s supposed to update a little thing on the sidebar to the left with the most recent thing I’ve listened to, but it seems a little glitchy. Oh well. :B Fun anyway.

Today I got a shirt with the ghosts from PacMan on it and it is quite possibly The Best Shirt Ever.

Felt like changing up the blog again. Mostly because the old one didn’t load properly in IE, and even though I have pretty much migrated away from IE, it still bothered me that it didn’t work. So now it does. And I was just getting sick of the old layout, anyway. I guess part of what was causing the problem was a little piece of code I had inserted that inserted a random 100×100 px. image when the page loaded, though I can’t find exactly what’s wrong with it. I liked that little image box thing, too. The Flickr badge is still there though, so that’s all right. Still…

The photo at the top is from the camping trip. It’s a picture of a tree that was across from our site that we referred to as “The Fish Tree.” I like the picture, but mostly I just needed something for the background.

[EDIT:] The little image box returns, courtesy of a new, better script! Yay for PHP!

I hate sunburn.

Today I itch like I have fleas.

And I can’t reach most of the itchy spots on my back and IT’S DRIVING ME CRAZY.

Also I finished Harry Potter last night and I am sorely disappointed. The last one had better be some kind of awesome to make up for this!!

I feel the urge to make something. Like a Flash cartoon or something. Except I know that I’ll get halfway into it and get bored. And it will take too long to do anything properly anyway. Like that one day at school when I was bored and spent 4 hours making my Zelda Sing-Along… …yeah.

The following is the “beginning of the beginning” of a new story I started which is probably going to end up being the sequel to the book with the plan I have outlined in my head so far. I’ve written this story once so far, but after I changed the ending to the original book just prior to publishing, some of it doesn’t “work” anymore, so I’m starting over and piecing in the parts of the original that do still fit in later on. I hate beginnings, though, and these two are newer characters in my repertoire and I haven’t quite got the hang of them yet, so this is still kinda awkward. Incase you are thinking “wow you suck” at this moment, this part is meant to leave you not quite knowing what has happened and is not just the result of me being undescriptive. But I’ll probably end up starting over anyway, since this is the fourth or fifth time I have tried rewriting this beginning and it’s the furthest I’ve managed to get. Just felt like sharing with the world. There is more to this, and it lost all the formatting when I copy-pasted it, so all the “emphasis italics” are gone, but oh well. I am betting I end up deleting this and it doesn’t end up in the final story anyway.

Slicked in shadow, two slithering figures snaked through tree branches that bobbed lazily in the cold midnight wind. The night had begun like any other, dark and flecked with twinkling stars, but its disposition soon changed. Clouds rolled in from nowhere, hiding the moon and stars from sight, washing the landscape in total darkness.

“This way, this way,” rasped a small, gruff, voice.

“Are you sure?” Hissed the other.

“Yes, Emgee, we are going the right way.”

The chill wind licked with an icy tongue, lapping at the feet of the two shadow-figures as they crept towards their destination.

“Down there.”

“Are you sure about this, Black?”

“Absolutely certain.”

With a deft leap from the branch where they rested, the two plunged toward the ground through the thick darkness, hitting the ground below with a soft thud. They ducked low among the ferns and weeds that carpeted the ground, creeping along the ground until there was no more cover to keep them hidden. They crossed into the open, into what in daylight was a vast clearing devoid of trees, but in the darkness felt like complete nothingness.

“How can you see anything, Black? It’s so dark… Black?”

Soft breathy sounds of the slight breeze punctuated the murky silence.

“Black?”

Warm breath suddenly became an icy exhalation.

“Over here, Emgee.”

The two sat before something huge, a looming shadow within the all-absorbing darkness. Whatever it was, it was big. Emgee reached out to touch its dark expanse. He jumped with a start as his wrist was swatted away suddenly.

“Don’t touch it!” Rasped Black. “Not yet!”
Emgee slunk backwards a step, eyes straining to see something in this
darkness-upon-darkness. Shadows within shadows within dark night… He asbently traced circles in the earth beneath his feet. There was something oddly uncomfortable about this situation. He could not see with his eyes, and yet he could see what stood before him within his mind. What bothered him was the question that hovered beside this image.

“Black, why are we here?”

“Don’t ask questions, Emgee. This is the thing that brought about the demise of our kind. It put an end to all the dreams we had… We could have been great, you know. We could have had power! But instead we get this. This thing!” Black retorted.

Emgee slid slightly further backward.

“What are you talking about, Black? I don’t understand…”

Small footsteps tamped the ground as Black approached Emgee. He could feel Black’s thick breath in his face, though he was invisible in the darkness surrounding them.

“You’ll understand soon enough. Have you no shame for what happened? Are you not angry at our master’s demise?” Black hissed.

Emgee winced and his eyes watered at the acid stench of Black’s breath in his face.

“Yes, I-I’m angry… I w-want to d-d-do something about it b-but-”

“But what? There can be no buts, Emgee. Either you are with us, or you are against us.”

The wind pitched to a gust and howl. Leaves could be heard rustling with the anger and force of ocean waves all around the two.

“I… I….”

Howl became roar.

“I… I’m with you.”

Thunder cracked ferociously somewhere above them, pale lightning splintered the sky.

“Run, Emgee, run!”

The roaring wind tore at their bodies as the two dashed away in the darkness. Thunder cracked and growled all around them. Emgee swore the sky itself had shattered above him and would begin falling in great pieces at any moment.

“What have I done? What have I done?” Emgee repeated to himself as he slithered into the safety and shelter of the tall trees.

I guess I kinda disappeared without much mention of where I was going, so here’s where I’ve been all this time. :B Went camping with the family and the Cliff at Lake Ontario which was thoroughly fun and relaxing, although it was about ten thousand degrees out the whole time and I’m horrendously sunburned from it.

[photos with descriptions are here!]

Cliff and I went early and got set up on Saturday, Mom and Al didn’t come until Monday morning-ish. After we got the tent and stuff unpacked and set up, we were pretty hot so we went down to splash around in the water and found that it was pretty unbearably cold. It felt like it had to be just above freezing… I couldn’t stand in it for more than about thirty seconds at a time – after that, my skin started turning all red and my ankle started aching where I broke it once, which usually only happens when it’s really cold out. “Really cold” as in freezing and/or snowing.

Apparently the lake had done what it does every so often due to various patterns of weather and wind and “turned over” – which is basically the layer of warm water on top getting pushed to the bottom, and the ice-cold layer on the bottom coming to the top. It’s weird, I’ve never seen it do that in the middle of July when it’s normally nice and warm – it does that almost always only at the end of summer. We figured it was going to be a pretty miserable week if it kept up that way, since it was so hot out.

It rained almost all night that first night, and surprisingly the tent didn’t really leak at all, even with the window flaps cracked open for air. A few drops hit us, and there was a tiny bit of water in one corner of the tent in the morning, but other than that, nothing. I was impressed.

By some strange miracle, the lake had actually warmed up to a tolerable temperature by Monday morning, and stuck there for the rest of the week. This was an improvement, as we could now go splash in the water at our convenience instead of scrambling for the tiny spots of shade on the campsite all day long.

Other highlights included the usual campfires with s’mores and hotdogs, for which Cliff and I assembled some very handy hotdog cooking sticks made from a coathanger and the trunk of a small tree. Strangely, most nights we were the only site with a fire going. Too many people with their big fancy campers and air conditioning. Pfft, I say. It is not really camping unless you have a fire.

At this point I haven’t got much else to say, since it was just camping, and it was pretty relaxing more than it was exciting. The pictures probably tell a better story, anyway.

Well, we managed to get the Mac after driving all over Buffalo and taking a nice tour of things thanks to Mapquest’s awesome directions, and we didn’t get shot or drive-by-ed like we thought we were going to for a while, but now it seems we have a problem.

It appears that Duck (as this is what I would like to name the Mac, because in System 7 you can set the clock to quack like a duck and I have an awesome good feeling that this one is running System 7) is having some kind of monitor problem. I’m not entirely sure what the cause of this might be, since I don’t know much about Macs. I do know that the monitor is getting power, and I do know that Duck is making the happy Mac turning on noise, so things should be all right…I just can’t get the screen to work.

This is far too oddly similar to trying to get Papaya to work and discovering that the graphics card was bad. Though I highly doubt it is the graphics card in this case.

Today I’d like to present what I hope is a fairly understandable lesson in ignorance and accountability. This comes to me after an evening spent at Cliff’s hockey game, but is not rooted in events from only this game. Oh no. This has been a long time coming.

I’ve been going to watch Cliff’s games for three years now. Three years. While it’s not forever, it’s a substantial amount of time. I can’t say that I’ve seen him make any great strides in improvement with regards to skill, but that’s only because I don’t really know what I’m looking for. I just understand how the game is supposed to work, and I can tell when some component critical to its proper functioning is beginning to break down.

Also in these three years, I have only ever seen Cliff get two penalties. One at least a year ago, and one this evening. Two penalties. This is many, many less than most people can claim. For almost two years it was no penalties, at all. I’d say that’s pretty good for a sport where fights are a common occurence.

One of my observations in all this is that in the space of time that Cliff has been playing in the league that plays at the Pepsi Center, you can usually tell how “violent” a game will be based almost entirely upon who the refs are. Some refs are fair, giving penalties equally and making certain that the game is played the right way. However, there are other refs who would gladly hold conversations with people off-ice despite gameplay going on in the background. They will go so far as to pick sides, letting one team get away with murder and giving the other harsh penalties when they start to stand up for themselves. As a spectator, I find this kind of behavior both unprofessional and irritating. If I take the time out of my day to attend one of these games, I expect that those who are there to officiate will be doing their jobs the way they are meant to be done. I don’t know if these people are paid to do what they do, I will assume that they are just based on the hours and how many games they are there (as in all the time) but if you are being PAID to do something like watch a game and make sure it is being played properly, YOU DO IT. You don’t hold three conversations with non-players, you keep your eyes on the action. You give penalties where they are due, and you make sure that the rules are obeyed. This should be cake for these people. But apparently, it’s not.

All throughout this evening’s game, the opposing team (the “Icelandic Icers” – is it me or does their name even imply a certain breakage of rules??) was doing basically anything they could to harass and heckle Cliff’s team, the Panthers, and worse, getting away with it. Tripping, checking, hitting, knocking sticks away – you name it, they did it. And they were ignored. They got away with all of it.

So what happened when Cliff’s team decided to stand up for themselves and start knocking back? PENALTIES. PLAYERS BEING EJECTED FROM THE GAME. BEING TOLD BY THE REFS TO “SHUT UP.” Do I sense perhaps a bias here? I believe I do.

As the game wore on, the tension and aggravation between the players was becoming more and more apparent. While I don’t disagree that some tension is necessary in things like sports, I do believe that there should be at least some understanding and respect among the players. This element was oddly and obviously absent in this game. Mature people should be able to be on opposing teams in a game, play for all they are worth and get their aggression out through the game, and then shake hands at the end. Not beat each other down whilst shouting various insults. That’s not how to play a game.

Things came down to the last minute and a half of the third period, with some very aggressive play going on in front of the Icers’ goal. One of the Icers comes up behind Cliff, reaches around and grabs him by the face and pulls.

Um, excuse me? HANDS OFF THE CLIFF, SIR!

I watched. I saw it. I didn’t have a camera, so you’ll have to take my word for it here, but one of the refs saw this entire thing (which for the hockey-illiterate is NOT a legal move) and IGNORED it. COMPLETELY. The other ref was watching the other players, and clearly did not see all this.

In response, Cliff turns around and gives the guy’s stick a swat, which is admittedly not a legal move, either, but in that position I may have done the very same. But that’s all it was, a jostling, if you will. No hitting involved. This other guy dives at Cliff and knocks the both of them to the ice. He starts pounding.

At this point, I’m standing up. I don’t know what to do. There’s nothing I can do but watch and wait and hope that these refs are going to do their job for once and break this up.

After a few seconds, they do, and the proper penalties are (for once) assigned both ways. Being that there’s only about a minute left, Cliff walks out. Not knowing what else to do, and not really caring to watch, so do I, and I head down to the locker room to wait for him.

Now, Cliff is perfectly fine, but I am enraged that these refs would let something like this go this far. Letting these little illegal jabs go on throughout the game, clearly the actions of one team provoking the other. I am disgusted.

And I ask, where is the accountability? On the way home, I proposed the idea of writing to someone in charge of the league (and I still fully intend to investigate who to complain to) but Cliff responded with the fact that these particular refs, the ones who allow this trouble to be instigated, are so well-established in the league, and have been around so long, that no one will take complaints seriously. And sadly, I know it’s true.

I’m also disgusted by the unsportsmanlike and unprofessional behavior of the other team, but that’s another story entirely, and without anyone in particular to complain to about it, there is little I can do.

As a spectator, as someone who has watched many of the players on the Panthers team for several years, as someone who knows some of them off the ice as well, I am disgusted that this behavior is allowed to go on. If by some miniscule chance either of the refs sees this, I hope you paid attention well and start actually doing your job at these games. I am disappointed with your performance over these past few years.

For anyone who’s interested, the full report of the game can be viewed here.

If I had the means to do it, I would start recording the entirety of these games, just to have proof to demonstrate how awful these refs really are. Unfortunately, I haven’t got the proper type of camera to do so with. But if I did…!!!

I’ve been considering rallying together a mass group of spectators to come, but I don’t think I know enough people to gather up a mob like that. I’d like to see the other team and their supporters shout their insults versus THAT.