Caught In The Whirlwind
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QotD: I Just Made That Up
Aug 25th 2006
Remember sniglets? Do you have any favorites? Have you ever made up your own word? (Now’s as good a time as any.)
I’ve never heard of a sniglet before this question was asked, so I had to go do some searching to find a few that I might actually use one day or that I find particularly interesting. So..here they are:
Essoasso – n. any person who drives through a corner gas station to avoid stopping at the intersection.
Famamage (fa mam’ aj) – v. To eliminate any annoying engine noise by simply turning up the volume of the radio.
Frust – n. The line of dust that accumulates when sweeping dust into a dust pan and frustratingly backs you up because you can never get it into the pan.
Furbling – v. Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank even when you are the only person in line.
Kedophobia (ked oh fo’ be uh) – n. The fear of having one’s sneakers eaten by the teeth on the escalator.
Famamage, specifically can be used in a wide variety of ways..not just in reference to the car radio and engine, although I suppose I could make up a new word whenever one is required for that.
Having never heard of the the term, I don’t have any of my own, at least that I can think of. I’ll throw them up here if I come across any,.
Black Holes and Revelations
Aug 24th 2006
Muse - Black Holes and Revalations
I just picked up Muse’s new album (well not really new at this point exactly) the other day and got a chance to listen to it a few times.
If you’re not familiar with Muse or how they sound, you’re probably going to want to click the image there over to the Amazon page and check out some samples, because I really can’t describe them. Not that I’m good at describing music anyway, but this is one of those times where that’s epically true. The word “Different” come to mind, really. Like Radiohead crossed with some Queen thrown in. Which is a really bad comparison, but it’s all I got. Listen for yourself!
Anyway, I got turned onto the band by the members of the mikeportnoy.com forums, with Absolution, so I’m not an old school fan by any means. This also usually isn’t the kind of stuff I generally listen to (things with a cleaner production, for example)
One of the main things that the band seemed to want to do with this album is to branch out and experiment with some different sounds. Heavier rock, lighter balads, a little electronica thrown in there with “Supermassive Black Hole”, etc.The last one is the only track where the influence is very obvious and somewhat overbearing. If you only hear “Supermassive Black Hole” before purchasing, know that the rest of the CD is more in the Muse style.
My initial impressions of this CD are very positive. I like all the different angles they take on their base sound and don’t seem afraid to branch out a bit into other genres. My only complaint, if you can call it that is that the vocals on a lot of the tracks seem to kinda run together. Matthew Bellamy‘s a very technical singer with a lot of inflection and pitch changes (and all that good stuff) in his vocals, but it seems he can get in a rut at times which makes the vocal lines on every song sound pretty similar. It’s just a minor criticism though and doesn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the album. Overall, I like it more than Absolution.
Favorite tracks include “Starlight” which is a more straight ahead pop type song and “Assassin” which is probably the heaviest song on the CD. “Knights of Cydonia” also rocks. Hard.
Is It A Bad Sign…
Aug 23rd 2006
Random thought of the moment: Is it a bad sign when you go home for lunch feeling as tired as you would at the end of the entire day?
Anyway, just so this isn’t a one sentence post, I saw some new info on one of the games coming out this fall that I’m eagerly awaiting, Guitar Hero 2. According to videogamesblogger.com, a whole bunch of cool new stuff is going into this edition, including a multiplayer mode where two players compete against each other playing the same notes, easier hammer-ons and pull-offs and three note chords.
Another song was also revealed. Freebird. Check out the Official Movie 2 for some footage. After seeing a little bit of the final solo, I think a friend of mine had the proper phrase: “holy mother of god”
It releases on the 24th of November…I’m counting down the days.
Morons And The Internet
Aug 22nd 2006
What is it about the Internet that brings out the worst in a lot of people? Is it really so hard to believe that behind the text you’re reading on the screen…there’s a real person sitting there typing?
Anonymity and the Internet is pretty well discussed. The prospect of Anonymity changes some people. They take it as an excuse to be, well…morons without having to deal with the consequences. Insult a guy online, you’re probably never going to see him again, right? No big deal! Of course you would never say the same thing to the persons face.
Maybe it’s that the individual has a problem even thinking of someone else they meet online as a person. It’s a fairly abstract concept, to be fair. Attaching just disembodied text to a real person might not be the most natural thing in the world. I would hope that people would realize how that text is getting there in the first place.
I dunno, maybe I’m holding humanity to too high of a standard. Luckily, some people still have common sense about this stuff. Perhaps the morons are just the vocal minority.
This whole rant was brought about by reading the PvP forums today on the official City of Heroes forums, something which I usually don’t do. For those not familiar with the area, it’s the cesspool of the forums, with flames and insults going back and forth at the drop of a hat. It just amazes me that people can behave that way towards one another.
Sorry about the rant. Slow day at work here.
One More Week Until Classes
Aug 21st 2006
Well, it just hit me today (and it’s a good thing it hit as well…) that classes start up for me on Monday. This will be my first class in over a year since I wasn’t able to actually sign up for anything I needed for the previous two semesters.
My situation is kinda odd. I work full time and go to school part time, which may not have been one of my brighter decisions…but it felt right at the time. Anyway, I’ve got about 3-4 classes, plus a large scale project that I need to do before I get my Computer Science degree. And I can only take classes at night or on weekends, which limits what I can take. Hence the year off.
But I’m back. I get to take American History (Colonies to the Reconstruction). Stuff I’ve already learned in high school, of course. But they like making you pay for classes, so they teach everything again. I’m not bitter. Nope.
I picked this particular course since I think that one of my teachers from high school is teaching it. He was a really good teacher then and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn he’s moved up to teaching at a college level. Hopefully I’m right and this is the same person. Otherwise, I may be in for a bumpy ride.
I need to swing by the school tomorrow and pick up my parking permit and books. Books are going to run me about $94. Yay for the overpriced textbook market!
Willpower and Me
Aug 19th 2006
I have no willpower. Ask my friends. They’ll tell you about how I can rationalize anything. How I went from going to buy a MacBook Pro in “a few months” on Monday to being in the Apple Store on Saturday, $2000 poorer. My soft spot is mice or input devices. If it’s cool, I MUST have one. That’s the reason I just got a MX1000 to replace a perfectly good Logitech G7.
I have no willpower. I know when I start rationalizing things, and I know that I shouldn’t be buying some of the stuff I do. But I do it anyway. No idea why.
So the latest object of my desire is a digital camera. The Vox Hunt kinda pushed along my buying process a bit. I want a real camera, as I’m getting tired of having to take pictures with my phone. My phone could have a worse camera, I know…but it’s not really that good either. The reason I mention this is I went out this afternoon to the store to buy some breakfast cereal and almost came home with a digital camera. I say almost because good sense kicked in just at the last moment.
I figured it might be a good idea to do some research first instead of just grabbing one that looked nice. Also, I still owe my parents money from when they helped me pay for my car transmission breaking apart. So anyway, I’m looking around for a digital camera in the $100 to $150 on a digital camera. Nothing fancy, mind you…just something that’ll take pictures that look good. Working on OS X is a plus, although I guess they would all kinda work. I guess I’ll look around some.
But if I write in this blog that I bought a digital camera in the next week or so, somebody smack me please.
City Of Ice
Aug 18th 2006
I have a strange hobby: I enjoy helping people out who play MMOs. I don’t know what compels me to do so, but I just have to. I’ve spent stupid amounts of time writing a guide to my particular favorite class in City of heroes, the Ice Controller, and thankfully it was very well received by the community.
There’s been a call for an Ice Domination guide for City of Villains, and considering I’m half done with it already (a lot of the Ice Controller stuff is transferable to Ice Dominators), well…might as well make the leap and do it.
Hopefully it’ll be as well recieved as the Controller guide was.
About The Name
Aug 16th 2006
I finally think I settled on a name for my little slice of vox here. I’m really bad at naming things, as people who know what my characters are called in City of Heroes can tell you. So I spent some time thinking of it and came up with “Cultivated Nonsense”. I might still change it (I’m weird like that), but I think it’ll stay like this for a while.
Falling Into Infinity
It comes from a Dream Theater song (my favorite band, of course) called Trial of Tears from their album Falling Into Infinity (Linked off to the right there).
Still awake
I continue to move along
Cultivating my own nonsense
Welcome to the wasteland
Where you’ll find ashes, nothing but ashes
Ok, so it’s not the most cheerful lyric in the universe, but I feel it kinda fits what I’m doing here…just throwing random stuff out, whatever happens to interest me at the time.
QotD: Survey Says
Aug 16th 2006
When you were younger, were there any game shows that you religiously watched and wanted to be a contestant on?
The Price Is Right. No question. Didn’t even have to think. I used to watch that show every day while eating lunch when I wasn’t in school. I was pretty good at it too 
Watch it enough and you start really getting a feel for prices and what things are worth. I’m not sure if I’d do so well today since all of my pricing experience was mid 90s… It’s one of the few game shows where you can really play along at home. That makes it a lot more interesting to watch for me.
“Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego” on PBS was also one of my favorite game shows. Also another one that was pretty easy to play along with. I used to watch it every day after dinner. I had almost forgotten about this one until I read another post on vox here which mentioned it. It was a really high quality show.
American Gladiators was also a pretty fun show to watch, but I’m not sure if it qualifies under the classic definition of “game show” 
Aug 15th 2006
Katamari Damacy
I just finished Katamari Damacy for the Playstation 2 after buying it about 5 months ago. So I got sidetracked…so what? Anyway, it’s a very fun game. For anyone who hasn’t really played it, the object is to roll this sticky ball around the world and pick up objects that are laying around. The ball starts small and grows as you pick up bigger and bigger stuff. Like in the beginning, you might be able to only pick up thumbtacks and stuff. As it goes along, you can pick up kitchen utensils, pets, birds, people, cars, buildings, clouds, tornadoes…etc.
It’s a very Japanese game in the way it presents itself. A lot of the music is very upbeat Japanese music (with words in Japanese as well). The cut scenes are…odd. The story is that the stars have fallen from the sky, so it’s up to the prince (you) to recreate them by rolling up all sorts of stuff on earth. The cut scenes follow a group of kids and their mother as they try to go cross country to see their astronaut father blast off on a trip to the moon (which no longer exists). I’m not sure I can do justice to how weird of a game this is
The graphics are simple, but they work well with the way the game works. It’s impressive to note that the game engine needs to work well close up and far back since in the course of the game, your Katamari can grow from 10cm to 100+ meters in size. So it’s really impressive from that angle.
My only complaint is that the conrols can be a little hard to get used to in the beginning. It’s a very odd control scheme using both of the analog sticks at the same time to control direction.
Overall, an excellent game. And cheap too. If you haven’t played it yet, you should try to track down a copy.
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