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.
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 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.
Continue reading The American Way of Death Revisited – Cannonball Read #10
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
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…
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
FyreHaar: I finished Team of Rivals!!!!!
SonicRob: good work!
FyreHaar: it was
FyreHaar: I cried at the end
FyreHaar: it was sad
SonicRob: well, you know what happens to some people
SonicRob: coughLincolndiescough
FyreHaar: well. I always cry when Lincoln dies
FyreHaar: he was truly an amazing dude
SonicRob: oh man, I wept like a baby at the end of Abe Lincoln vs the Zombies
FyreHaar: how was that?
FyreHaar: it’s by the guy who did P&P&Z
SonicRob: the dialogue was too modern in places
SonicRob: he didn’t really create a sense of place
SonicRob: but the action was good
SonicRob: and the characters were interesting
SonicRob: hehe
SonicRob: “Team of Rivals and Zombies”
FyreHaar: team of rival zombies?
FyreHaar: team of zombie rivals!
SonicRob: Survival Rivals
SonicRob: 2 kinds of predators!
SonicRob: ork weirdboyz!
SonicRob: ahhhhh!!!!
FyreHaar: yay!!
SonicRob: oh fuck
FyreHaar: ??
SonicRob: each chaos leader is devoted to a different god
SonicRob: just like we said!
FyreHaar: just like we said!!!
SonicRob: yay us!
FyreHaar: yay relic loves us!!!!!
SonicRob: they are on our wavelength
FyreHaar: I asked for chaos in our first podcast
FyreHaar: we talked about the different gods
SonicRob: new multi mode
SonicRob: no teams
FyreHaar: maybe they read our blog?
SonicRob: 6 individuals
FyreHaar: ffa???
SonicRob: ayup
FyreHaar: awesome sauceum
SonicRob: VPs count up instead of down
SonicRob: and you can destroy the VPs
FyreHaar: whoa!
SonicRob: there’s a fuck you
FyreHaar: for real
FyreHaar: can you fix it?
SonicRob: it costs, but yes
SonicRob: I still can’t believe it’s fucking Eliphas
FyreHaar: well in canon he survives Kaurava
FyreHaar: oh wait
FyreHaar: sorry that’s Firaveus
SonicRob: Kronos
SonicRob: he dies
FyreHaar: he really dies, bad
SonicRob: yeah
FyreHaar: like cast into the void
SonicRob: well, that’s chaos for ya
SonicRob: he was the only leader with a sense of humor
FyreHaar: yeah
FyreHaar: sexy voice, too
SonicRob: I wouldn’t know =P
I am right in the meat of Assassin’s Creed II right now and loving it. I adored the original and this has improved on the experience. It’s just super fun and I can’t wait for each new environment to play around in.
Ubisoft publishing Assassin’s Creed II Novel
I confess that I was, for an instant, totally into this.
More Ezio, more Assassin’s Creed, it’s a good thing, right? More explanation of his life, more revealed about Altair perhaps. More juicy, juicy plot! Romance, action, assassinations!
Shite.
I like running randomly over roofs, stealing every treasure I can find, making my horse gallop a lot and generally fucking around. I like jumping off of roofs without the leap of faith and seeing how far I can fall without dying. They will leave that out. Where in the novel will Ezio use all of his attacks and movements in the Animus loading screen to make a funky disco dance? Where!?
I don’t want to read their interpretation of how I should be playing the game and the adaptation of my playing style would be boring reading. Why don’t they just use the money they are spending on this to make more DLC?
[h/t to Destructiod]
SonicRob: man, that dictionary lady that Tycho linked is kinda hot
SonicRob: especially when she spells
FyreHaar: I think that is the idea
SonicRob: I bet she gets so much play now
SonicRob: M-W will be deluged with requests for her phone number
SonicRob: millions of fans for the dictionary redhead
FyreHaar: mmm, wordy girlz…….
SonicRob: fuck yeah wordy grrlz
SonicRob: If I were single I’d hit that like a pinata