So, I've been posting on google Reader a lot lately
So I decided to catch LJ up with my Reader posts:
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So, some of my favorite things to do on the interwebz:
Encyclopedia Dramatica: I know it is a horrible site. I am fully aware that it is filled with outrageous speech and inflammatory comments, and really has no redeeming qualities. For some reason, it appeals to me in ways that sort of defy explanation. I'm not one of those people who really gets off on the misery of others, and I really don't like making fun of people, even though I have found that I can do it pretty well if trapped in that sort of situation. However, there's just something visceral about ED that reminds me of a real-life Revenge of the Nerds-like group of people who are out to make vicious fun of each other and of people and situations that they determine need the mocking.
Menage a 3: It's a webcomic about this guy in Canada who ends up having to room with a couple of women in order to save money. That's not even the half of it, but the guy is fun because he is decidedly not a ladies man and seems to develop mega nosebleeds whenever something even remotely naughty seems to be occurring. You really need to start from the beginning, but I should note that it is sporadically NSFW.
Facebook: It's funny really, but I wonder if social networking sites are just not holding the same appeal for me anymore. I mean, I still frequent the site, and I find myself commenting on the pages of my friends and marking "like" on statuses all day long. Hell, if you watch my profile page, it just looks like a nigh-on endless string of "Parker liked Billy Bob Hotep's status" or "Parker commented on Myrtle Orenthal Simpson's wall." I do that sort of thing and play that stupid Vampire Wars game, and even the stupid Vampire Wars game is getting pretty boring. Plus the constant layout changes are starting to get a bit on the annoying side, I'm not that pleased with the new layout as it seems to give me gas pain.
Google Reader: I totally love the reader, as I have a ton of blogs that I like to follow, ranging from gaming to math/statistics to Disney to prop building. I think most of the blogs I follow are gaming related, specifically to Warhammer 40K, and I feel like the blogs I'm reading are helping me develop as a tactician and a gamer. I don't necessarily use the blogs for army design, or to find out what the latest killer list is, I really prefer to read and find out how to think differently; that goes for everything I read.
Okay I've blabbed enough for now. I'm going to try to share more because this is a fun new toy, thanks to buzz. Gotta love consolidating features that work into something better.
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On video games:
I swear, I am going to get some extra sleep tonight, I just need to throw a few more keystrokes onto the internet and then I'll be able to relax enough to crash out. I've been video-gaming a LOT lately, and I have Bioware to thank for it. I finally picked up Dragon Age:Origins for Christmas and immediately began plunking away at the game. Even without completing all of the character subquests, I still managed to put in a pretty respectable 81 hours or so of gameplay on a single run through of the story. I think I managed to get all of the characters to have 100% like with me, and had romances with Zevran and Morrigan with my male human Rogue/Duellist/Bard. It was an incredibly fulfilling storyline, and I feel like I got the most out of it on a single play, I might play it again, and I'll definitely get the expansion that's due out shortly so I can import my character and go back at it.
I also just finished Mass Effect 2 about an hour or two ago, and it only took me about 36 hours to play, with what I thought of as a fairly complete pursuit of sidequests for characters. I'm quite intrigued by the claim that everything that you do in this game will import to Mass Effect 3, as I tried to make decisions based on long-term goals as opposed to whatever would get me through the quickest. I think that Science Fiction action RPGs, especially third-person shooters like Mass Effect, jut play quicker than their fantasy analogues due to the fact that most of your combat seems to take place at range with burst-fire or high-powered semi-automatic weapons. The enemies die quicker, things die quicker, and you find yourself with an easier time of things if you follow your research and upgrades to their maximum potential. I spent a lot of time mining and getting resources in order to crank up the various upgrades I could pursue, and ended up with some wicked powerful weapons and a wicked powerful ship. The story was compelling, and there were a lot of rather interesting moral decisions. I decided to play as pure of a paragon as possible, and pursued a romantic entanglement with Tali from the original game, and I played a male Sentinel with a sniper rifle that I picked up late game. That was probably the best decision I made, as there are parts of the game that are just RIDICULOUSLY easier if you have a tricked sniper rifle with the right gear. I did a little save game fiddling in order to see how the romantic entanglements with the other characters went, and while Tali's was the cutest (with no real visual effects at all), the intimacy with Jack was probably the most touching, where the romance with Melinda was the hottest.
I'm not sure why I find the concept of romantic involvement in a video game so interesting, but I do. I guess it just sort of includes elements that make the story more appealing on multiple fronts. Okay, going to bed now. I'm going to really stop posting at this point, but I'm glad for a new toy to get my interest back into things.
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Before I head to bed, I wanted to share that I picked up Batman: Arkham Asylum and I'm pretty pleased with it. I've never been one for action style games on the PC, mainly because the action games always seem to be built for game consoles and the PC never seems to make a good port, but this plays pretty smoothly. I've found there is some lag when there are lots of gibbering lunatics on the screen at the same time, even with Windows 7 64 bit running on an i7 processor at 1.6 GHz per core and 6 Gigs of RAM with an NVidia GeForce 230M. My Windows gaming score is a 5.7 (due a slowly running hard drive that is making me cranky), but maybe the hard drive will run a bit quicker after I scan and defrag it.
Okay, off to bed now. Must sleep. I have another MRI on Wednesday to check out my Thoracic vertebrae to make sure that I haven't made something wonky in there. Hopefully everyone is having a fun and pleasant day.
---
So, some of my favorite things to do on the interwebz:
Encyclopedia Dramatica: I know it is a horrible site. I am fully aware that it is filled with outrageous speech and inflammatory comments, and really has no redeeming qualities. For some reason, it appeals to me in ways that sort of defy explanation. I'm not one of those people who really gets off on the misery of others, and I really don't like making fun of people, even though I have found that I can do it pretty well if trapped in that sort of situation. However, there's just something visceral about ED that reminds me of a real-life Revenge of the Nerds-like group of people who are out to make vicious fun of each other and of people and situations that they determine need the mocking.
Menage a 3: It's a webcomic about this guy in Canada who ends up having to room with a couple of women in order to save money. That's not even the half of it, but the guy is fun because he is decidedly not a ladies man and seems to develop mega nosebleeds whenever something even remotely naughty seems to be occurring. You really need to start from the beginning, but I should note that it is sporadically NSFW.
Facebook: It's funny really, but I wonder if social networking sites are just not holding the same appeal for me anymore. I mean, I still frequent the site, and I find myself commenting on the pages of my friends and marking "like" on statuses all day long. Hell, if you watch my profile page, it just looks like a nigh-on endless string of "Parker liked Billy Bob Hotep's status" or "Parker commented on Myrtle Orenthal Simpson's wall." I do that sort of thing and play that stupid Vampire Wars game, and even the stupid Vampire Wars game is getting pretty boring. Plus the constant layout changes are starting to get a bit on the annoying side, I'm not that pleased with the new layout as it seems to give me gas pain.
Google Reader: I totally love the reader, as I have a ton of blogs that I like to follow, ranging from gaming to math/statistics to Disney to prop building. I think most of the blogs I follow are gaming related, specifically to Warhammer 40K, and I feel like the blogs I'm reading are helping me develop as a tactician and a gamer. I don't necessarily use the blogs for army design, or to find out what the latest killer list is, I really prefer to read and find out how to think differently; that goes for everything I read.
Okay I've blabbed enough for now. I'm going to try to share more because this is a fun new toy, thanks to buzz. Gotta love consolidating features that work into something better.
---
On video games:
I swear, I am going to get some extra sleep tonight, I just need to throw a few more keystrokes onto the internet and then I'll be able to relax enough to crash out. I've been video-gaming a LOT lately, and I have Bioware to thank for it. I finally picked up Dragon Age:Origins for Christmas and immediately began plunking away at the game. Even without completing all of the character subquests, I still managed to put in a pretty respectable 81 hours or so of gameplay on a single run through of the story. I think I managed to get all of the characters to have 100% like with me, and had romances with Zevran and Morrigan with my male human Rogue/Duellist/Bard. It was an incredibly fulfilling storyline, and I feel like I got the most out of it on a single play, I might play it again, and I'll definitely get the expansion that's due out shortly so I can import my character and go back at it.
I also just finished Mass Effect 2 about an hour or two ago, and it only took me about 36 hours to play, with what I thought of as a fairly complete pursuit of sidequests for characters. I'm quite intrigued by the claim that everything that you do in this game will import to Mass Effect 3, as I tried to make decisions based on long-term goals as opposed to whatever would get me through the quickest. I think that Science Fiction action RPGs, especially third-person shooters like Mass Effect, jut play quicker than their fantasy analogues due to the fact that most of your combat seems to take place at range with burst-fire or high-powered semi-automatic weapons. The enemies die quicker, things die quicker, and you find yourself with an easier time of things if you follow your research and upgrades to their maximum potential. I spent a lot of time mining and getting resources in order to crank up the various upgrades I could pursue, and ended up with some wicked powerful weapons and a wicked powerful ship. The story was compelling, and there were a lot of rather interesting moral decisions. I decided to play as pure of a paragon as possible, and pursued a romantic entanglement with Tali from the original game, and I played a male Sentinel with a sniper rifle that I picked up late game. That was probably the best decision I made, as there are parts of the game that are just RIDICULOUSLY easier if you have a tricked sniper rifle with the right gear. I did a little save game fiddling in order to see how the romantic entanglements with the other characters went, and while Tali's was the cutest (with no real visual effects at all), the intimacy with Jack was probably the most touching, where the romance with Melinda was the hottest.
I'm not sure why I find the concept of romantic involvement in a video game so interesting, but I do. I guess it just sort of includes elements that make the story more appealing on multiple fronts. Okay, going to bed now. I'm going to really stop posting at this point, but I'm glad for a new toy to get my interest back into things.
---
Before I head to bed, I wanted to share that I picked up Batman: Arkham Asylum and I'm pretty pleased with it. I've never been one for action style games on the PC, mainly because the action games always seem to be built for game consoles and the PC never seems to make a good port, but this plays pretty smoothly. I've found there is some lag when there are lots of gibbering lunatics on the screen at the same time, even with Windows 7 64 bit running on an i7 processor at 1.6 GHz per core and 6 Gigs of RAM with an NVidia GeForce 230M. My Windows gaming score is a 5.7 (due a slowly running hard drive that is making me cranky), but maybe the hard drive will run a bit quicker after I scan and defrag it.
Okay, off to bed now. Must sleep. I have another MRI on Wednesday to check out my Thoracic vertebrae to make sure that I haven't made something wonky in there. Hopefully everyone is having a fun and pleasant day.