I Was Doing Something Else Today

I was in the mood to talk about stuff on some other blog, so I did. I'm afraid that leaves me with insufficient time and energy to do much of anything here, so if you're not interested in the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game and in me rambling, you're a bit out of luck.

If you are interested in that, well, presumably you're in luck.

-Signing off.

IT LIVES

Probably.

Over at my long-neglected Power Rangers blog, I've finally done a new post after nearly a year of not posting anything at all. (I blame the fact that 2010 was kind of a bad year for the franchise.)

So I didn't really have time for much over here, but I'll leave you with a chuckle:

Debating on the Internet is like a fighting game where both players have infinite health-repetitive, meandering, ultimately rather pointless, and it can take forever.

(I see the above as a more socially acceptable alternative to a certain other saying about internet arguments.)

-Signing off.

Axe Cop and Cool Pictures

(For this week's post at the Writing Blog [goodness, been a while since I could type that], I have a brief but serious discussion of how Axe Cop's world is constructed. No, really. Stop laughing.)

I found a couple of great picture blogs today: concept ships and concept robots. (The lack of capitalization is intentional.) Tons of pictures of beautiful futuristic machinery.

Warning-the sites are some of the worst bandwidth/processing power hogs I've ever seen. The site uses embedded flash for headers, footers, and all of the artwork (presumably to discourage art theft, though I'll point out that "stealing" any image on your screen isn't that hard-print screen button, anyone?), and there are typically five to ten flash objects (not counting advertisements). If you have a relatively slow connection or computer, these sites may not be for you; if you're stuck with a 56k connection, your computer will probably explode. Fair warning.

-Signing off.

Commentary on a Good Book and a Link

(Ah, finally! A new post at the Writing Blog! It's short, but it's enough.)

I recently read The Domino Pattern, the latest novel in the Quadrail series, which I mentioned in this post back during the Alien Invasion theme week I did last July.

I'd do a more typical review of the subject, but reviewing something written by Timothy Zahn is hard. (I do so here, but, well, that's different.) This is mostly because it's hard to explain very much about his work (or any mystery-oriented work) without completely ruining it for any future would-be readers.

I will say I had a blast reading it-I finished it pretty quickly (I could easily have had it sent back to the library first thing the next morning, and I got it somewhat late in the afternoon). I will also add that the time estimates I gave in my previous commentary were greatly exaggerated, as the time they spend on a space train at one point is about a month and a half-but the time is still disproportionate, especially when one considers that they're talking about traveling to the opposite side of the galaxy.

Anyway, good stuff (as if I would say anything else about Zahn's work), and I recommend it.

-Signing off.

Short Book Review and Link

(Here's the Writing Blog post. I talk some about tone.)

As bad as you might think things are where you live, if you live in the United States, chances are you have things pretty good. Heck, if you're reading this, you've got things very good indeed.

Compared, at least, to people who live in the poorer parts of Africa.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is both a sober reminder of this fact and the autobiographical tale of how one young man managed to bring hope and light to his family and community during hard times, despite being forced to drop out of (the frankly already inadequate) school by financial woes, and using his own intelligence to do so.

Using nothing but his trial-and-error learning in electronics and a few science textbooks granted to a local library, William Kamkwamba was able to use junk, scavenged parts, and a few gifts from his friends to build a windmill, a device never before seen in his home country of Malawi, despite famine and hardship.

And he did this by the time he was twenty. (He's only in his early twenties today.)

So, if you want to learn about the harsh parts of Africa in the present, and an uplifting ending, this is a good book.

-Signing off.

Pixels and Stuff

Today's post at the Writing Blog is a short worldbuilding tip. On the one hand, I'm a bit frustrated that it's such a short post; on the other hand, at least it's something.

This video is awesome, and that's all you need to know.



-Signing off.

A Link And Some Small Musings

(Here's my post over at the Writing Blog.)

I've spent some time over the last few years observing and learning about the game Magic: The Gathering, mainly because I like understanding the minutiae of how its game mechanics work.

Something about its flavor, though, has always bugged me somewhat.

The players play lands, summon creatures, and play spells. Supposedly, they're magic-users called planewalkers or planeswalkers. While this isn't so problematic, the fact that players can summon "legendary" cards that represent historical figures starts to make it kind of weird.

Then there's the fact that it takes all the magical power of an entire "land"-a mountain, a plain, an island, a forest, or a swamp-to create a single creature or spell.

And these all-powerful planewalkers, who can draw power out of entire lands at a whim, are threatened-can even be harmed-by some itty-bitty little critter like a goblin or a bug?

If one imagines that these are ceremonial battles, it becomes slightly less strange... except that they're still essentially huge-scale wars.

Then there's the fact that the largest creatures in the game are only a small order of magnitude more powerful (in terms of stats) than the smallest-a Phyrexian Colossus, a war machine somewhat larger than a typical school building, is only "eight times bigger" than some lowly bug (it should be numerous orders of magnitude larger).

When you get down to it, though, the fact that the players rely on external sources for the energy necessary to use magic combined with taking alternate turns really takes the flavor out of it.

There are other ways to do it. I've seen one (the game Duel Masters, while clearly inspired by M:TG, has a distinct gameplay edge over the older game-never mind that it's from a rather kiddy anime series), and I have an idea for another that would be even more "flavor-correct" than that. (I'm not sharing here-I'm going to share once I've perfected the idea and have a chance to market it. It sounds fun in my head, if for no other reason than because it's just so different from most of what I've heard of on the market.)

In the meantime, well, I still enjoy Magic: The Gathering; I just think its flavor is off.

-Signing off.

Super Robots and Cthulhu

Over at my Writing Blog, I discuss how to put Cthulhu in a game under the player's control.

Here, I'll do something I haven't done in some time-embed some Super Robot Wars videos.

Here's one I posted ages ago with my favorite super robot style absurd attack ever in it (and also an absurd attack launched by Boss Borot).



Over the top? Sure. Hilariously over the top? Definitely.

In case you saw the first one before, here's one I didn't post ages ago.



Obviously, that wasn't a weak attack; after all, in the other video it killed the final boss's final form in one hit, but apparently its power isn't consistent, hm?

-Signing off.

Bleh...

Can't seem to find a good YouTube video (especially with it working as spottily as it has been), and wasn't up to a long post over at the other blog either.

There is a post there, though, and it's not recycled.

Enjoy, and see you Monday.

-Signing off.

Writing Blog Post Plus Pregnant Martial Artist

This week over at my Writing Blog, I've posted a revised version of one of the pieces I did over here that I liked pretty well. I think I've tightened it up a bit, and my conclusion is that the version over there is better.

As for the video embed of the week... Well, it becomes a bit less incredible once you consider that nunchaku are probably the only martial arts weapon that doesn't require much in the way of whole-body flexibility.

But it's still darned impressive to see a pregnant woman swinging the darned things around.



It sticks in my mind, anyway.

-Signing off.

A Link and 10,000... Watermelons.

Usually, I try to keep my Writing Blog posts neutral in tone, but this time, it just didn't work.

This week's random video is from some random RPG I've never played. Why would I put it up?

Because 10,000 watermelons falling from a great height is funny.



No, I don't know. It just is.

-Signing off.

Mecha and Lego Lightsabers

This week at my writing blog, I'm examining (combat) mecha in fiction. Particularly, I'm examining the roles that writers put them into.

And for the video, here's a slightly grim little video that's made with Legos and stop motion, which centers on a pretty cool lightsaber fight.



Kind of nasty, especially at the end there, but still pretty entertaining.

-Signing off.

Friday: Video and a Link

Here's the link. Today, I repeat myself again, but I'll be getting out new content sooner or later, I swear.

In the meantime, check out this video of a rocket destroying a sun dog.



Don't worry, no animals were harmed.

-Signing off.

Friday Post

Here's my other blog post.

And here's a video of a lot of people in a mall with lightsabers.



-Signing off.

Just A Link

Had an issue or two with things here at home, so I haven't found a video to embed this week.

There is still my other blog, though it's recycled content. Sigh.

-Signing off.

Friendly Reminder...

Feeling out of sorts-'fraid there'll be no proper blog today. Sorry.

But I will remind you that my sister has two webcomics.

Now, I know I've mentioned this several times in the past. (In fact, for a little while I was trying to regularly mention the fact; sadly, I tend to get distracted from that kind of thing.) But I thought it bore mentioning again, because not only has Alien Revenant passed its one year anniversary, but The Law of Purple is approaching its thousandth page.

I'll point out, very few webcomics ever hit one thousand pages. And she fully intends to just keep going when she gets there.

If you read her comics and don't comment, by the way: She likes encouragement, even if it's only sporadic.

-Signing off.

It's Friday...

...so here's a link and some videos.

This first video is from a game where you play the Hulk. The final boss is the Leader, a guy who has a large head. Spoiler: The Hulk kills him with one punch.



The second is a boss fight from a Spider-Man game against Mysterio. Keeping in mind that Mysterio is master of illusions and deception, it's interesting to note...



...his deception, the huge lifebar, is aimed at the player, not the player character.

See you next week.

-Signing off.

Ledge Fighters and Friday Link

As usual, I've got a column up over at the Writing Blog.

Today's random video is Ledge Fighters.

The description on YouTube is short and succint: "The only way out... is down."



This is accurate in context.

-Signing off.

Scary Video and Blog Link

Once again.

Today's utterly random video selection is terrifying. You may not want to watch right before bed.



-Signing off.

Ghost Post

When I post in my other blog and can't come up with something for this one, I try to post some video here. Hence, this post.

Enjoy.



-Signing off.