tegan

If I hadn't fallen asleep in the middle of the yesterday, I would have finished the novel I'm reading (Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett) in less than 24 hours. That would have been a first for me. Oh well.

I've often hypothesized about an alternate universe Idle Thumbs. In the alternate timeline, you never played Far Cry Instincts, thus never ruining your TV speakers, which allowed you to fully experience the Ultrasonic Effect, which drove you mad. The current alternate universe Idle Thumbs consist of Nick "Congrats Nick" Breckon, Sean "Bandanaman" Vanaman, and Patrick "Scoops" Klepek. I've never done it with elevator doors, but I always pretend to be Magneto when I'm alone with automatic doors. Also, sometimes I give my shopping cart a little push and let it roll along in front of me while I walk behind, putting one hand on my temple and extending the other in front of me.

The genealogy app reminded me of a thing. The trial of a serial killer from my hometown was the first use of DNA fingerprinting as curt evidence in Canada, but was criticized because the local gene pool was so small. Yeah.

It's kind of weird in general that women are marketed food on the basis of how healthy it is, while men are marketed food on the basis of how unhealthy it is. "The new heart attack burger is only for real men" is something that should not be a thing.

My mom sent me a job posting for a graphic designer in town. I'm only familiar with some of the software they would need me to use though. Also, looking at it, the pay is good but there's not so many hours. Think I should apply anyway?

When it comes to kids and religion is that I actually do wish that they were taught more about it, despite being an atheist myself. The big problem is that any time someone says "I think religion should be taught in schools," what they actually mean is "I think my religion should be taught in schools." Despite religion being a massive part of art, history, literature, culture, and international, politics; we don't make any effort to give kids objective lessons in it. Of course there are very good reasons for that, but I think it's something that we really ought to think about moving toward. I think that most people's preferred faith is based on what the rest of their community believes in rather than what they find actual truth or spiritual fulfillment in, because they always end up getting an extremely lopsided view of religion. If you asked your average North American how much they actually knew about Buddhism, or Islam, or Hinduism, or whatever; they're probably going to have little to no knowledge whatsoever, and what they do know is probably going to be inaccurate. And I'll bet that you seem the same pattern in most of the world. That's kind of a shame. Incidentally, I read Osamu Tezuka's eight-volume graphic novel biography of Buddha a few years ago and I highly recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in this sort of thing. It's fictionalized to some extent (ie: there's at least one character invented solely for audience perspective), but it's absolutely fascinating.

I like goofy smileys. Ones I frequently use: OuO = happy OnO = sad QnQ = sad enough to cry o u o = blissfully ignorant 3__3 = tired UuU = tucked in u_u = sleeping x__x = out of it ♥u♥ = wuv =u= = the Konata face =n= = unhappy Konata face :0 = dull surprise :0c = dull revelation (the c is like holding a hand up to your face or chin) :U = aghast :T = ambivalent :Tc = thinking :3c = nyoro~n :I = poker face :J = smuggy mcsmuggerson :I }:I >:I = gradual anger :U :I :U :I :U :I = chewing B :J B :J B :J B:J BJ = deal with it

It's in a really early episode. I happened to be listening to it just yesterday. I want to say it was episode six or so? It came up in a discussion about the Halo Wars team being dissolved. The Yes Men had distributed fake copies of the New York Times the week before they recorded the cast, if that narrows it down any.

Also, I'm glad that Nintendo is doing more Nintendo Directs instead of an E3 press conference because Nintendo Directs are hilariously kitschy and awkward.

Iwata said at the start of this generation that he wanted to put more effort into making mature games. What I find interesting is that they seem to be interested in making games that are actually mature and not just rated M, which will be interesting if they start delivering on it. But probably we'll get Geist 2.

I felt pretty weird in high school because all of the other kids were playing Grand Theft Auto and I was playing Phoenix Wright and Trauma Center. I feel that the anti-violent sentiments of both games override the actual violence contained in them, especially since the player never really gets to actively participate it the violence in either case.

Has anyone ever tried the amazing Wii homebrew game Mike Tyson's Jungle Beat? It's a version of Punch-Out!! where all of the button inputs are replaced with actions on the DK bongos. I've always wanted to try it, but I never got the bongos.

I don't think the N64 was really trying to be a powerhouse. It doesn't even have its own sound chip. In addition to the withered technology philosophy, I feel like the Wii U is really playing to Nintendo's creative side. They deliberately designed it to take advantage of all the crazy crap they've been trying to do for the last decade or so: multiple screens, touch interface, motion controls, asymmetrical gameplay, stuff like that. They won't always succeed with the strategy, but I think it's smart of them to design their consoles to be interesting rather than trying to take part in a power contest that they know they can't win. If anything I think the Wii U's biggest failing is the complete lack of software. It's been five months and I can only think of one memorable game released outside of the launch lineup. They keep showing us all of these great games coming to the system eventually, then pushing them back further and further. Remember how Pikmin 3 was supposed to come out in November and now it's coming in August?

Mii Plaza.

Because I have something of an addictive personality, I decided to never ever try drinking, smoking, or using drugs. Thus far the results have been pretty good, but I want to start going to gay bars in the future and I feel like I'll get laughed at if I ask for chocolate milk. (I also try to avoid juice and soft drinks because they're super bad for you, so it's pretty much just water and milk for me)

Thanks! I always liked how the Wipeout stuff turned out. I actually made more stability improvements to the new Eva today after posting those pictures, but I think I'll wait until I've got the colour matching down before I post any more pictures.

I've got a Flickr photostream for recent work (currently only includes two Wipeout-style hovercars) and a Brickshelf with a bunch of old models. The only major things I've done in the interim have been a redesign of a Ganmen that I did ages ago and a mecha thing that involved me chipping my only transparent dome. Unfortunately when I moved out of my parents' place I had to abandon about 90% of my Lego; and I've only been able to buy a few sets to try to replenish it since. It hasn't been fun.

Donkey Kong 64 is a game about collecting the things so you can unlock the thing that lets you collect more of the things so that you can unlock a character to collect more things to collect other things.

I don't drink and I don't have any candy. Booooo. So I got another message from my mom. It sounds good in a vacuum, but I find it hard to accept a sudden change of heart and olive branch like this.

So I watched Evangelion 3.33. The ending was confusing, but the rest was pretty swank. Also, seeing Unit 02's current state (and its state in the preview) was the most depressing thing. I love Unit 02.

You could always join up in an MMO. I used to dungeon crawl with a friend in Spiral Knights and it was great.

In the spirit of recent Eva discussion, I've been engaging in my secret dork hobby: makin' robots outta' lego. Sorry for the messy desk. It's mostly accurate to the Rebuild movies, but I'm missing certain pieces in certain coours. The right side is mostly colour-accurate outside of the tan pieces in its midsection, liberal use of yellow as orange, and the grey parts of the knee cover; whereas its left has a lot of substitutes until I get the proper parts. I also may rebuild certain sections at some point. I actually dismantled the first head I built but I'm not struck on this one either. It also has some severe stability issues, especially around the hips. It's a shame, because the proportions an poseability are otherwise pretty great. Bits that I like: I've tried to do an Eva-style midsection for years and only just now feel like I've got it right. I had to sacrifice mobility for accuracy, but hey. Even though they look like they're attached to either the arms or the body, the pylons move independently. They're attached by a swivel on a ball joint which is affixed to the body with a hinge, so they can actually one of the most easy parts to position. The mouth and Entry Plug hatch both open and the feet bend at the toes. No reason. more: hunched pose front hunched pose back head abdomen hands feet shoulders entry plug hatch And just to keep this from being a shameless plug post, here's a much better Evangelion model by Japanese builder Dou Moko, built to the scale of a Lego minifig. I've been waiting patiently to see him finish this since last June, and he finally completed it this week. It's 1.2 meters (almost four feet) tall and weighs 9.4 kilograms (about 20.6 pounds). It's so massive that all of the main body joints have to be gear-operated and attached to linear actuators to keep it from collapsing on itself.

It took me ages to be able to say "Starring Sturly Stembleburgiss as the Duchess and Grampton St. Rumpterfrabble as the irascible coxswain Saunterblugget Hampterfuppinshire" without messing it up, but it was worth it.

Nnnnnnope!

The new Scooby-Doo is fantastic, but I haven't seen the last batch of episodes they put out. I really love the background design on that show, and how it's simultaneously a tribute to fourty years of Scooby-Doo while also ruthlessly poking fun at it. Surprisingly dark, too. I remember being pretty shocked that the Chimera from the amusement park in that one episode