commented out

There are those for whom the Postal series may represent the downfall of human civilization. As for me, I have a sense of humor; I’ll find a way to make anything funny. So it is with Postal. Granted, the first game isn’t much more than gratuitous violence, but the second one is laced with more satire. Besides, you don’t have to kill everyone, or anyone for that matter, in Postal 2. The point is, I like the game because of its absurdity; it’s a nice distraction from the rest of gaming’s offerings.

So, imagine my surprise when Postal: The Movie is announced, especially when Running With Scissors settled on Uwe Boll to head up the project. Honestly, when you think of a movie based on the Postal universe, do you really expect a cinematic masterpiece? Not at all. This is the one movie Boll can’t wreck, because it was a farce from the start. I can’t wait.

Now I find out that Zack Ward has been signed on to play the Postal Dude. Can it get any better? Sure, he’s got the look, and could probably pull off the demeanor. It’s just that while plenty of people might think of him as Scut Farcus (from A Christmas Story), I can’t see him as anyone other than Dave Titus.

At any rate, I’m looking forward to the movie. It’s one of those that’s going to be so absurd it’ll be worth sitting through at least once, preferably with company. And here’s an episode of Titus, so you can see what I’m talking about:

Podcasts are an addiction. Naturally, I listen to the obvious ones like PC Gamer and This Week in Tech. Recently, a friend of mine turned me on to Coverville, a podcast about cover songs. In each episode, host Brian Ibbot will play six selections, all covers of songs you’re probably familiar with. Sometimes he’ll take one artist and play six covers of their work; other times he’ll offer up a more interesting theme such as the episode featuring covers of video game music. Other themes include “Groundhog Day” (where he offers covers in a repetition that pays homage to the movie Groundhog Day), or the April Fool’s episode where he took covers and claimed them as original works (which had me second-guessing everything I thought I knew about the music I listen to until he came clean about the joke) .

Each episode is roughly between thirty-five and fifty minutes long, and there’s always something interesting.

It’s been just a little over a year since I relaunched the site and just this week I got my first batch of comment spam. Yay me! So, I’ve modified WordPress a bit and we’ll see if it all still works while blocking some of the spam problems. It also helps that among the tools Hypernia provides is an IP blocker, so specific addresses can’t access the site. This is why I host with them; they’re just that cool.

It’s been a while since anything got posted. This is due in part to a massive amount of DSL woe. The other part is that I’ve just been busy elsewhere. At least I think I’ve managed to sort out the DSL troubles.

It only seems to cut out when it rains (consequently, it rained around here a lot) so it’s time to check the water seal on the box outside. If that fails, we’ll see if there’s any leakage on Verizon’s end. At any rate, it’s working and let’s hope it stays that way.

Now, to figure out what I’ve been meaning to comment on…

First, and foremost, there are some things around here that need work. I have an image gallery script ready to install, so that will hopefully get done shortly. I also have some ideas for reorganizing the menu a bit, as well as some new content that just needs to be polished and uploaded. Woohoo! The Links are about to get updated and possibly overhauled, and there’s some old game-related work that’s been freshly dug up so that’ll be available shortly as well.

Played F.E.A.R. and it’s a solid game. Pros? Nice engine, good firefights, the atmosphere and creepy effects are well done, decent AI. Cons? Levels are good looking, but often bland in design. Story is interesting, but not fleshed out well enough. Most importantly, even though a patch was available the day the game was released, there are still major bugs that need fixing. Overall? It’s an engaging game that’s well worth the price of admission. Just wait for another patch or two first.

Still working on a mapping project. I might grab some work-in-progress screenshots.

I am absolutely staying indoors today. Too many creepy people might know about this.

Finally got to working on things around here. The page where I’ll be archiving my gaming work is actually functional now, as I finally found time to start digging out all my stuff. I’ve also updated the links on the recommended mods page. Sigh, there’s still a ton of stuff left, though, as I sort through stuff and reorganize.

It’s been a while since I’ve really updated something major here, and there’s definitely a lesson to be learned from it. You’ve heard the cliche, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew,” right? That’s what I went and did. I started too many projects and on top of work and other important life-related things I burned myself right out, so none of the projects have gotten done. Brilliant.

There is good news, however. I’ve gotten it all organized and everything’s prioritized. So, here’s what’s in the works right now: a new mapping project (which I’ll post screenshots for when it’s a little more functional), a new design for the site, and I’m hoping to actually finish rewriting some of the sections that are currently missing.

Oh, and kudos to Hypernia for snagging the Battlefield 2 demo and putting it on a server for those of us who host with them. If only I had found out about that before I waited on a forty-five minute queue over at FileFront. Oh well.

NYPL Digital Gallery

The New York Public Library has opened a digital gallery of images digitized from their collections. Currently, they have about 275,000 images, and they’re working toward at least 500,000. It’s worth much more than a cursory glance for the incredible amount of culture the gallery contains. This is the kind of thing you visit to check out and get lost in for an hour or two.

Just taking a moment to offer a heartfelt thank you to the men and women, both past and present, who have risked life and limb to protect the values and freedoms of this country.