Chat Box

March 12th, 2010

SonicRob: new space marine screens
FyreHaar: yay!
SonicRob: ultramarines vs.
SonicRob: goffs?
FyreHaar: sendy el linko
SonicRob: http://us.thq.com/us/game/screenshots/5286/1
SonicRob: I call bullshit
SonicRob: that is maya with photoshop on top of it
SonicRob: when you say you are posting “screens”
SonicRob: do not post concept art
SonicRob: this bodes ill
SonicRob: they are playing us false
SonicRob: these people ain’t got shit
FyreHaar: I’m with you
FyreHaar: there’s no way
FyreHaar: that is real time
FyreHaar: however,
FyreHaar: if it is this is the best looking game ever
SonicRob: that is why it is not
FyreHaar: here
FyreHaar: they could be screenshots from a cut scene
SonicRob: you wanna tell me that these jackoffs are the ones who finally figured out how to get a playstation to properly anti-alias?
FyreHaar: those are not screen shots from a PS3
FyreHaar: maybe from a godbox PC
SonicRob: CGI stills, maybe
SonicRob: I still think concept art
FyreHaar: it’s ad copy
SonicRob: they look too painterly
FyreHaar: very conmetaical
FyreHaar: cinematical
SonicRob: wow
FyreHaar: ?
SonicRob: does it possess the property of meta, en espanol?
SonicRob: con-meta-ical
FyreHaar: portugese, actually!

Chat Box

March 10th, 2010

SonicRob: you know how most people say “pew pew”?
SonicRob: Dethlok says “dük dük dük”
SonicRob: apparently his pew pew is very heavy

Chat Box

March 8th, 2010

FyreHaar: omg
SonicRob: ?
FyreHaar: god damnit I’m tired of this!!
FyreHaar: I’m tired of listening to a song and finding new meaning in it and realizing that my life before was sort of colourless without tragedy to inform it
SonicRob: wtf?
FyreHaar: I just get this feeling that everyone who has experienced trauma has a club that people who haven’t don’t get
SonicRob: I’d just as soon skip the trauma and not get it, thanks

Chat Box

March 6th, 2010

SonicRob: om nom nom
FyreHaar: Noms done!
FyreHaar: work time!
SonicRob: I mean nomming on work
FyreHaar: yes!
FyreHaar: Nom Nom Nom!!!
SonicRob: as though it were scenery and you are Al Pacino
FyreHaar: tasty works
FyreHaar: gnash, rawr, gnaw!!!!!!!!
SonicRob: hooah!

What’s my name?

March 5th, 2010

A new weekly feature on handles.  Name yourself carefully lest Sonic and I mock your handle mercilessly!

To start, observations on the nature of handles. A handle is about self definition, naming yourself for an entire segment of reality. Pretty heady stuff! People go for the unique, the funny, the intimidating. Here at fns.com we appreciate the multifaceted handle. The handle that can be read and interpreted in multitudinous ways.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chat Box

March 4th, 2010

SonicRob: Ridley Scott has a Robin Hood movie coming out with Russel Crowe
FyreHaar: Old news
SonicRob: looks ordinary
SonicRob: trailer is out
FyreHaar: Sienna miller had been cast as Marian, but they changed it cuz she was too young for Crowe
SonicRob: it’s Cate Blanchett
FyreHaar: fucking a right
SonicRob: still looks boring
FyreHaar: it’s Robin Hood
FyreHaar: Errol Flynn took it, beat it, sexed it and wrapped it in a bow
FyreHaar: nothing left to say
SonicRob: well this is another one where he’s all grim and revengey
SonicRob: being Robin Hood looks like no fun
SonicRob: you’re just dirty and angry and sometimes covered in blood
FyreHaar: and somehow getting your revenge makes you happy and fulfilled!!
FyreHaar: there’s no PTSD in medieval times!
FyreHaar: would you like a pepsi with that?

The American Way of Death Revisited – Cannonball Read #10

March 2nd, 2010

The American Way of Death Revisited by Jessica Mitford.  Gleefully sarcastic muckraking expose of the American funeral industrial complex.

I have read books that scared me, made me laugh or made me cry. This is the only book I have ever read that gave me a panic attack.

Read the rest of this entry »

Back on the horse

March 1st, 2010

After technical difficulties kept me away for several months I started playing Dawn of War II again this weekend.

The online multiplayer (not Last Stand, haven’t gone there yet) seems to be populated solely with noobs and douchebags. There were a couple of exceptions but the strongest trend I experienced this weekend was what I’m calling the “First Shot Concession.” This consisted of my side losing the first clash of forces, which usually comes in the first 30 seconds to a minute of the game, followed by one of my teammates wanting to concede. I did concede when the match was truly out of our hands but never in the first minute. Nothing has really happened by then.

I get the sense that this sort of player thinks that playing a losing match is a waste of time. At least one of the times I put the smack down on a first minute concession we kept a much superior opposing side on their game for at least ten more minutes, ending with a score of 0-124 . For the uninitiated, that’s pretty damn close considering we were getting our asses handed to us most of the time.

I’ve had a great time playing matches I eventually lost. There is a fantastic feeling to losing a match and coming to the scoring screen and finding out that your moderately experienced team held off a team composed entirely of maxed out, all the way leveled up “pro” players. That you made them work for the victory.

So for all the players out there here’s a point to remember. It’s about playing the game and having fun regardless of the outcome. If you don’t feel that way, go back to Modern Warfare where you belong.

-fyre

Chat Box

February 28th, 2010

SonicRob: does history have a “plot”?
FyreHaar: good books do
FyreHaar: Plot is just the story arc
FyreHaar: and the civil war is a pretty damn good one

SonicRob: plot is the imposition of illusory order upon the chaos of reality. it is the most fundamental way in which human beings fool themselves about the nature of existence
SonicRob: not that we have a choice
SonicRob: we turn everything into narrative
SonicRob: our minds just work that way

FyreHaar: are you saying that plot is an aspect of the gestalt mechanism of the human psyche?
SonicRob: like we are seeing bunnies in a cloud
FyreHaar: our inbuilt pattern recognition firmware
SonicRob: yes
FyreHaar: well, yeah
FyreHaar: ohh, I see a bunny in the sky…

Chat Box

February 27th, 2010

SonicRob: Shinji Mikami, Goichi Suda and Akira Yamaoka are making a game together
FyreHaar: what have they done before?
SonicRob: That is like me saying that Sam Raimi, Spike Jonze and Danny Elfman are making a movie
FyreHaar: whoa
FyreHaar: freaky

SonicRob: Mikami invented Resident Evil
SonicRob: Suda invented No More Heroes and Killer 7
SonicRob: Yamaoka did the soundtrack for all the Silent Hill games and the film

FyreHaar: so a sort of Shawn of the Dead kind of game
SonicRob: they are like a Japanese videogame version of the Traveling Wilburys
SonicRob: that’s the thing, they are innovators
SonicRob: so who the fuck knows what they’ll do when you put them together?
SonicRob: I desperately hope there are no zombies in the game

FyreHaar: could be awesome, could be horrific could be blah
FyreHaar: blah would be worst

SonicRob: but it is supposed to be “action-horror”
SonicRob: yeah
SonicRob: I’d prefer a spectacular failure