amazingadrian

I had a weird dream last night.

In it, I was in school again, and it was "Wear A Crazy Hat Day"...you know, one of those things they do for spirit week? I was wearing a sailor hat, but there where all kinds of students, some of which where even in full costume with chef hats, pirate hats, ect. After one of my classes, some students where handing out foam and plastic pirate hats, and I picked up a foam bandanna.

Now here's where it gets weird. In my class immediately after that, we had a special guest, who was showing us slides on a projector. One of the slides came across the screen and I recognized it immediately. It was an Ah-ha style sketch drawing of Brahma grappling with Radu-Radu, with the heads of Graveyard Greg, Radical, Lugzan, Tizak, and some others in the background. I said. "Hey, go back...isn't that graveyardgreg ?" and the mystery guest says "Why yes, it is!" And then the lights come on and the special guest was actually Brahma the minotaur.

I woke up just in time to see my alarm clock unplug itself from the wall. Was nearly 30 minutes behind because of that. I think I am going to be getting a new one soon; even when properly plugged in it does not work half the time. Fortunately, I have a really spastic internal clock, that wakes me up several times with full lucidity starting at least an hour before I actually need to be awake. :/

Also...you gotta check this out. (especially you, scltspider )




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Now playing: "Weird Al" Yankovic - The White Stuff
via FoxyTunes   


Check out this list of the 13 most iconic horror villains in film history.

After September 11th, there was much spectulation and rhetoric regarding when and where the terrorists would strike next. Another terrorist attack on the United States was not seen as a possibility, but an eventuality. But nothing happened, at least not on the scale promised by Osama Bin Laden. How come? Slate goes over the possibilities.

There is much debate regarding whether or not our country is in the grips of another depression. The problem is that there is no true definition for a depression as one is occuring now. There are no firm rules that state where a recession ends and when a depression begins.

I'm seriously frustrated by the Internet right now.

( The problem with Internet communities )
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Now playing: Journey - After All These Years
via FoxyTunes   

The Snake IS a plane! Scientists have discovered the fossile of a snake that was the size of an airplane, prompting discussion as to what it was exactly that caused prehistoric animals to get so huge.

A recent study shows that climate change is effecting global migration patterns in birds.

Who are hollywoods most valuable actors? Market analysts have composed a list. See where your favorites stand!

While we still don't know what happened to The Nice, skunktaur and his roommate have created a new forum for us to use until or if something happens.

It only went live a few days ago, so there's not much there yet, but we're working on it. Right now we're trying to spread the word!

http://tgg.stormdragon.org/index.php


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Now playing: Journey - Separate Ways
via FoxyTunes

I've been holding onto this for a while, since I knew it wasn't really relevant until Turkey season. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, you might be like me and prefer fried turkey over baked. Here's an amusing yet instructional video showing you how to do it safely.


Archaeologists found a bowl from the late 2nd Century BC to early 1st Century AD that is inscribed with what may be the earliest known reference to Jesus Christ.

So a while back a woman in a cow suit went on a rampage in Dayton, Ohio. That's something you don't see every day...

Gaming Guardian PGs by ~The-Dragon-Girl on deviantART

"When you find out the game is real.
When you're offered a chance to be more than just a player.
Do you chose to live a normal human life,
Or do you chose to do something more?

The System-Touched Primarians of the Gaming Guardians

Becoming part of the game."

This is Amazing Adrian, my avatar character, with other System-touched characters from the Gaming Guardians, a roleplay that I adore. My good friend thdrgngrldid this, as part of a larger poster that is still in progress.

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True tales of wedding sabotage. Shameful!

How to find music on the internet.

Blizzard's upcoming StarCraft 2 title has been revealed recently to have bloated into a trilogy for its single player campaign. They will be releasing one game for each of the races. Wow, Blizzard, way to milk your fans.

Gaming was intense last night in the d20 Modern-based game I'm participating in over Game Table.  Merideth, my adapted chakat character, got hit with a flak shell that pretty much reduced her to a blood stain. Thanks to her racial bonus that allows me to re-roll a bad stabilisation (because of the extra organs),  She was able to make the stabilisation roll. At -9 HP, she needed to make that stabilising roll, because if she hadn't, the next turn she would have passed on (1 hp is taken away for each turn you character spends with negative hit points. At zero, their status is "knocked out"). The first roll wouldn't have been enough to save her, so I had the option of using her racial bonus or the action dice. Odds were better, so I used the action dice and rolled a five. (1d6)

So...yeah. Pretty close call there, but I'm still in the game.

In ceg_lylat, I also had a character that nearly died.  Wasimah Mirhas, my buff tigeress Heavy Weapons Guy, was attempting to remove a boulder fom over a trap door when the thing collapsed under her weight. The roll was...bad. I missed the target by such a wide margin, that it would have meant instant death for her (j_wolfman said the boulder would have crushed her head). Now, I had no problem with character death in this instance, since I already had another who was slated to return, but I had no idea how to deal with something so gruesome in the actual rp for this character at that time, so I took the offer to re-roll the dice. It was still pretty poor, but at least it didn't result in instant death - The GM ruled her legs were crushed instead.  That I could rp, so I went with it. She's out of commission in the hospital now, and probably will be out of the rp for a while. Now I just need to get withj_wolfman about what is going to happen to her now, and possible character development opportunities that can come from this. I've already got an interesting idea or two...

In gamingguardians, I've set into motion some things that could turn out to be really really sucky for Amazing Adrian. We'll have to see what happens, since there's always a chance his teammates will bail him out of it. After this though, I'm not going to bail him out of bad situations that could result in character death. I did that once with strickland, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

All in all, this isn't shaping up to be a good year for any of my characters.  It's still a good year for me though! :p


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Now playing: Journey - Like A Sunshower
via FoxyTunes   

Here's a list of pricey collectable games. These games are all legendary and rare, very hard to find on today's market.

Here's instructions on how to make a hamburger that will give you an extra life.

So silver_b wrote a post in her own journal detailing the history of her various characters, and wanted me to write up a list of all of mine. While I can't really string up a timeline here like she did, I think I can give a run-down of all of my characters (or at least make an attempt to...I have a lot of them).

Note that not all of these characters have been roleplayed. Some of them are just characters in my comics who either have not appeared in any roleplaying games yet, or I can't figure out ways to make them work. If a character has (RP) by the name, I've used him or her in a game.


You know what? I think I'm done! If I find any more that I forgot, I'll add them later. I also have a few more that I'm leaving out, but most of those are one-shots and throwaway characters.

Most people have already had their Spring Breaks, but mine is just coming up. It will start at the end of this week.

April is going to be a busy month for me. Final projects for Java, graduation ceremonies with relatives coming down, among other things. Speaking of which, Java seems a lot easier now that we're working on applets as opposed to console programs. Since just about everything inherits, I'm getting a real grasp for instantiating class objects and working with constructors. It surprised me that I was able to breeze by the console portion of the midterm like it was nothing...I'm sure if I work diligently, the final project won't be much of a problem

Still have lots of work to do.

It's been getting harder to keep up with my online life with all the schoolwork. Trying not to fall behind in the Gaming Guardians forums, but I find myself doing it anyways. Need to get the Bachelor Auction thread over with. It's almost done. I also still need to talk to Lurdan about what is going on with the AMC, while the possibility to patch things up between the groups still exists.

Here's some random stuff for you people:

"Balloon Bowl", another of the YouTube awards winners.


Article about Godiva's all-chocolate hotel room. Personally, I think Willy Wonka did it better.

Prank calls target deaf communications. Want to learn some quick sign language? Turn up the volume and pay attention to this news woman. The video-phone shown is the one my roommate and I just got. They're pretty neat, but those crank calls are mean. I don't know if we've been hit already, but we have had problems with the thing dropping calls...

And in totally WEIRD news: Obama and Hillary might just be related. Six degrees of separation, my ass! Just another thing that shows we're really all part of the human family.

And why is it that almost all of the unhealthiest states in America are southern states?

So it seems like the text adventure experiment I made in my last post kind of fizzled out. I thought it might be fun to just do something silly with it. I was kind of inspired at the time by a prank a gaming forum/block played on game designers using a text adventure, but alas, I have lost the link.

Yesterday I went to order my cap and gown for graduation. Took no time at all. I really don't know what it is I'm going to be doing after school. I need to find somewhere that will hire me at an entry level. Preferrably, somewhere I can use my degree, though with the economy like it is, I'll take physical labor if that's the only thing I can get.

Things kind of came to a head yesterday in the Gaming Guardians chat, concerning the one person there who I genuinely dislike.  I know he can turn himself around, because I saw a bit of the old him there when we got him talking about his character. I didn't like having to call him out like that, but I really can't take his sniping of other channel goers any more, even if they do engage in logical fallacies. It's one thing to just point it out, and another to snark someone's logic full of holes like you got something to prove. And it really doesn't help that that's pretty much all he does in the channel. He used to rp, and be pretty good at it. It seems like he hardly interacts with anyone at all, except to argue them into a corner.

I know he's not like that in real life, but I haven't had the luxury of meeting him yet....though I daresay his persistance at being a jerk on the internet is going to end up coloring my perception of him.

As for today's random link:

I found this awesome new movie!

Ah, yes. It's Valentine's Day again. Hope you all have a good one! ^_^

For me the day is kind of mixed. Everyone loves to take the time to acknowledge their loved ones and friends, and the rest of us are reminded just how lonely we are. Some people are quite bitter about it, but I'm not! I enjoy seeing Valentines' spirit in others, even if I myself am overlooked. Besides, it seems silly to get all strung out over a holiday. I'm going to treat myself out  to something and spend time with my internet friends later! <3

And yes kalifla, I am going to eat those conversation hearts, with all their chalky goodness. blaphsemy, but I love them.

You may have seen this already rhanlav, but Jalepino Ferret reminded me of you. Jalepino Ferret can't enjoy his Jalepinos...Pretty smart going for the glass of water though.

I need to set up the IC Charity Bachelor Auction for the GamingGuardians this year. I had forgotten that I had agreed to do it...or did I even agree to anything? It's fine though, I can run it this year! It's an excellent little diversion, especially since it allows for more character interaction in the forums. Most of the time the forums are just for missions. Not so!, says I.

Oh yeah, and before I forget, here's something really awesome I discovered that really displays the power of the interwebs.  Anonymous V.S. Scientology.  It's ftw. Thanks to fujikurosawafor putting up the original link, although the article itself is by a lj user named deathboy. This sounds like it was something to have seen.

Ugh....I totally crashed today. It was one of those days where if I wasn't asleep, I was getting there.  Slept in inadvertently when my alarm clock failed to get me up this afternoon, so no work today. Blah.

Oh my God...I can't beleive this. God must have an amazing sense of irony and humor, judging by the events of sheer coincidence that have been occuring. Interesting rumors lead to Great News, and 2008 is shaping up to be the best year yet!!

First, we have the return of the Gaming Guardians. graveyardgregmanaged to find a new artist! This artist, is none other than silver_b, who I met at last year's Gathering of the Gargoyles convention in a delightful twist of fate. If I'm able to go back and meet her in Chicago, I'll have to thank her for offering to carry the title, and see if I can get her to sign my print of Gaming Guardians edition one. There's no telling when her own run will be printed, as WebTroll still has about a book's worth of material left to him. I wonder how Greg'll handle that, though I hope things move forward soon! I'd like to support the comic by buying the dead tree version for posterity! :p

Second. The news that inspired me to post this right away! Those of you who read my journal probably know that Journey is far and wide, my favorite music group. I admit that I did not take their losing Steve Augeri to medical problems so well. The guy they got to carry their concerts, Jeff Scott Soto...well, I was skeptical about him at first, but listening to bootlegged concert footage made me begin to change my opinions about him...until he got canned by the group when the tour finished. It could only mean one thing: he couldn't measure up to performing new material. Before I say anything else, let me state that Jeff Scott Soto was known before Journey for his role in the movie "Rock Star", which detailed a story about a wannabe musician in a tribute band, who gets hired onto the group he's emulating to replace the guy he's emulating.

Fast forward about half a year, to today.

Journey has a new lead singer! Arnel Pineda, the lead of a Journey tribute band based in the Philippines was discovered on YouTube, of all places, by the legendary guitarist, Neil Schon. Pineda's group, called The Zoo, is known for it's Journey covers as well as original songs! Meaning, this guy can contribute to the writing process! It just gets better and better...ready? The four track demo tapes they made with this guy, to see if he can cut it? Journey liked the guy so much, they're expanding on it, and making it an all new album!  So! At this point, I'm just happy that Journey is going forward again.  Nevermind that the guy they picked up is an unknown.  Nevermind that he isn't even from the US.  Nevermind that I'll be possibly looking at a Journey with a completely different sound from what I'm used to.  I'll let the album do the talking.  Arnel Pineda, on the off-chance you read this; make it a good one.

So there you have it. 2008 seems all about making up for 2007. And it's an election year too, which means more good news; Bush is finally getting canned!  Holy Crap!  I sure hope I survive the year, because I can't wait to see what's in store! :)

Arrgh!

I just found out that graveyardgreg's new artist for Gaming Guardians has fallen through.  On the verge of a comeback, we are now without an artist again.  I hope Greg's fortitude save is higher than mine, because at this point I'm seriously starting to doubt Gaming Guardians will ever come back unless WebTroll finds the time to do it again.  I'll keep the faith though; it's been going for 7 years, and Greg still seems interested in doing more with it, it's just the artist thing that is holding him back.

In spite of there not being a comic, our community is still healthy there. Nobody wants to face cancellation though, as there is still a lot left unsaid. I have a hunch I know who the new artist was, and maybe a slim possibility as to why it didn't work out....If my theory is correct, there can be no hard feelings.




Also, I think I have this tendency to speak my mind on my livejournal, even if my mind is being unrealistically emo or cynical at the moment.  This is something I think I really need to stop doing, since these flashes of emotion are temporary, and do not reflect who I am much, if at all. It tends to make me say things that sound naieve or just stupid.

(also, livejournal...you need to fucking fix your tag system. At home every single letter that I type in that little form field causes an error. I'm getting sick of having to copy/paste into it.)

I love Halloween. The season of superstition and rise in the powers of the supernatural and occult make for an interesting holiday.  Of course, I know the holiday had much humbler origins, but it makes me curious how it turned out the way it did, with everyone indulging in amusingly macabre decorations and celebrating all things scary. Though who can resist an excuse to party?

Today the postsecondary students and I went on our annual trip to , one of the largest haunted trails in the upstate. It's a 30 minute outdoor walk through a stretch of woods at night, with haunted house constructs  built along the way for you to go through. It's a lot of fun. It's dark and disorienting and atomspheric. You never know when some creature is going to jump out at you. I think it was even more effective at freaking every one out than it was last year. All the guys seemed more perturbed than the girls this time around. XP
Got another long sleeved t-shirt to go with the hoody I bought last year. They tend to not stock the right sizes of shirts...I am most comfortable in Xtra Large, but they typically only have Large and under. The hoody was a little snug on me, but I could still wear it. This long sleeved shirt is much more comfortable, and It's always nice to have more winter clothes, since that's something I tend to be lacking.

It's looking like I might be able to go to a furmeet in Greenville this time around. I have a legitimate ride, and unless something comes up last-minute like everything should be good.  It'll be fun, I think. It will give me a chance to hang out with folks outside of this glowing screen and keyboard interface and meet some of the folks in the Carolina_Furs group. My expectations aren't high; I know this will be no con...and unlike the GamingGuardians, I don't  really know many of the people who will be there very well. Also, I suspect many people will be in fursuits, which will make interaction awkward, but hell...It's a good opportunity to get out of the house and network some.

Speaking of which, it seems graveyardgreghas a plan for his flagship comic. I'm feeling really excited about the prospect of it's return after so long of a hiatus. I have a good feeling too, about the potential artist (heard a rumor that Greg himself was gonna take a shot at it. I just think that's all kinds of awesome, and even if he isn't quite as good at first, it'll give him lots of practice and room to improve. Might even help with his storytelling some; though not that he needs much help in that regard. The man knows what he is doing. :) )

Not much to speak of other than that. Had another test and round of Javascript projects go by. I was a little more lax than I was last time (namely, I didn't fret myself sick over getting the code to work); I just took my time and did what I could.  I think I may have done a little better as a result.  I have, however, decided it best to eschew the concept of the external .js file. It seems to almost never work. Not in the exact way I want it to, anyways.  I've had better luck with embedded code, right in with the HTML.

So munch on your portion of the handouts for the treaters, play Rob Zombie on repeat, and hand Dracula his ass in CastleVania. Or go to a party with lots of friends, eat questionably palatable foods, and get varying degrees of drunk before the night is over. Or even stay at home and transform your abode into  a place the Addams Family would find a nice summer home. However you celebrate the holiday, have a good one; and don't forget to load up on discount sweets when it's over. ;)

So suddenly people are paying a lot more attention to this new strain of Staph that is medicine resistant since it killed a highschooler somewhere in the states.  Apparently, it's the epidemic that everyone was afraid would happen; despite the relative recentness of the outbreak. I heard that doctor's panels are already thinking that it is killing more people than AIDs in this country.  Which is kind of scary considering we haven't heard much about it since it was discovered infecting patients in a hospital somewhere (I want to say England, but I can't remember the specifics).

Staph is a bacterial infection, meaning it's highly preventable with the proper hygiene. It's spread mostly through contact with open wounds or exchanges that commonly result in bacterial transfer. This makes it highly communicable in crowded settings, such as schools and hospitals, but simply washing your hands can go far in preventing the infection.  So please play it safe.

In other news, it seems what we've been dreading for a long time has come to pass: Webtroll's inability to continue doing the GamingGuardians comic. Nobody has any idea how long this is going to last, or wether or not he'll be leaving us indefinitely, but it's forcing graveyardgreg to make the difficult decision as to what to do next.  I would kind of like to see the comic and communitie's continued existance, myself. Webtroll's art defined the lifeblood of the comic, but I would definately rather see a new artist brought in than just watching it all die.  Webby's has been a good run though. He's probably accomplished more than any single artist Greg's ever picked up; so I can understand how the geekboy would be torn over this.  I don't expect things to happen immediately, but let it be known that whatever you decide, you've got my support graveyardgreg.

To aleviate feelings of doom and despair, lets have a link. The Last Witch In Europe. Then consider that today witchcraft and satanism are valid minority religions. At least here in the US. I don't know if they are more tolerant of it in Europe these days, but if it is, it's because of trickle down from our own religious freedoms.  Personally, I don't care what other people practice as long as they respect others doing it; it's their funeral after all. Though I do have a higher tolerance for druids/witches than I do satanists; probably because the only satanists I've met made me want to shoot them after discussing their religion for a few minutes.

I'm home this weekend. Spent a few enjoyable days swimming and hanging out with the folks.

We went to see Transformers last night. It was awesome indeed!  I recommend that you go see it; it's a quality action-adventure film even if you aren't familiar with the old Transformers cartoon and the canon involved. Though the movie was definitely geared towards those older fans, who are adults now....and it shows! The film didn't hold back anything.  I know some people were bumming about Micheal Bay, but I don't see why...he did a pretty good job with this one.  The only thing that's a little odd is that he leaves a few loose ends hanging here and there...The  main plot is engaged with and focused on throughout the movie, but there are still some things that they show and then don't account for at the end of the film.  Also, you can see the product placement; nothing clever there at all.  Still, if you want to see an action flick, you can do much worse than going to Transformers. It must be experienced in the theaters though, for the sound!

Not much else to post on really. Had our first action session last night in the Lylat rp.  Got shown the door in the GG Irc channel for my text formatting, which was required for Lylat. Rather than argue with them over something so stupid or spend the next few minutes trying to figure out how to get the code to only apply to one window, I decided to log out of the GG chat.  I was told that code works differently in different program windows, so I think that's what I'll try next time I want to be in both places at once.

I just woke up from a very curious dream. It's got me thinking...

So 

graveyardgreg is going through a bit of a tight spot now. I understand that.

Carpe Diem is over. Gaming Guardians and Guardians haven't updated for what feels like many months. I'm not sure exactly how long it's been. Longer for Guardians, I know that... When PowerGamers was ended, the community there just died. We lasted maybe a week without the comic to keep us going. Mind you, it was a split -off commune from Gaming Guardians, and never was very large to begin with, with many of it's members lagging in those final few days anyways.

Today I noticed that the community information was taken down from the forums.

If Greg decides to stop doing comics, I wonder what will happen to our community? Will it die too?

I'm beginning to feel like this is the end.

I hope it isn't. I'm not sure what I would do.

 Edit: (because this is so good, I absolutely have to post this)

Pornography on the Disney Channel.